Session 22: The Maze of Mirrors
5th of Richfest (continued). While Alees continued to search the doppelganger rooms, the rest of the party explored the unopened doors along the rest of the corridor. After discovering a latrine, they opened the double doors at the far end of the corridor. These opened into a large conference room filled with maps, books, and papers. Alexander attempted to open the other double doors on the far side of the pit trap. He discovered that those doors are false. The party began looking for a secret passage that would lead deeper into the doppelganger lair. Alexander flew down into the pit trap looking for secret doors. Tarric, Killick, and Thorash took closer looks at the map room. However, it is Alees's voice that called out with news of discovery. She showed the party that there was an illusory wall in the last doppelganger room. The party passed through that wall and found a closed iron door with a faint light coming through the crack at the bottom. The party opened the door, finding an octagonal room with reflective polished metal walls. In this room, the party saw... THEMSELVES - all 6 of the party members - dressed in rags and chained to chairs in the middle of the room. As soon as these captives saw their counterparts walk through the door, they began calling out for the party to free them and insisting that their counterpart within the party is false and should not be trusted.
Thorash walked menacingly toward his double. Alexander advised caution. Instead of destroying his double, Thorash dragged him and his chair out into the hallway for interrogation. Alexander instructed Alees to watch the rest of the doubles until the interrogation of the Thorash-double was completed. Tarric and Killick also stayed behind to keep an eye on the chained up doubles. Katawan joined Alexander and Thorash in the bedroom where the interrogation was taking place. The Thorash-double pleaded with Alexander to set him free. He insisted that he had been replaced by a doppelganger. Alexander asked him some questions about the party's recent exploits. Although his answer is halting at first, he was able to produce the correct answers. Thorash decided to leave the room and asked to consult with a suspicious Alexander in private. While in private they shared the suspicion that the doppelganger may be able to read minds. They decided to ask the Thorash-double a question to which even Alexander does not know the answer. Thorash would write the answer on a piece of paper in dwarvish, and Alexander would read it only after the Thorash-double had already answered.
Alexander returned to the sleeping chamber with the folded paper in hand. He asked the Thorash-double how Thorash obtained his new spikey armor. The Thorash-double insisted that he had never owned spikey armor and that it must belong to the doppelganger who took his place. He asked Alexander if it didn't seem odd how Thorash was late meeting up with the party and suddenly showed up wearing unfamiliar armor. These responses gave Alexander some pause. He began to wonder if Thorash might not be a doppelganger after all. But then he asked the Thorash-double to read the paper that Thorash had written on. The Thorash-double insisted that the writing was gibberish. However, Alexander read the paper, and he found the following sentence written in dwarvish, "I commissioned the armor from craftsmen in my home village of Dumadan in the Abbor Alz mountains." This finally convinced Alexander that the double was the imposter. He took out a bottle of ink, and placed a dot on the Thorash-double's forehead.
When the Thorash-double was convinced that the jig was up, he called out loudly that Alexander was making a terrible mistake and that he was the real Thorash. As Thorash and those around him considered what to do with the imposter, Alees walked through the illusory wall and cold-bloodedly stabbed at an unsuspecting Alexander. Her first thrust missed him, but the second one struck true, causing Alexander grievous damage. Alexander was so rattled by the attack that he turned and fled, but Alees struck him down before he was able to leave the room. Alexander collapsed unconscious. In the mean time, all of the doubles in the octagonal room slipped their shackles - except for Alees. Tarric stood in the doorway to block their escape. They took turns attacking him. Killick entered the room with the Thorash-double and started attacking it, eventually killing it with a rain of blows from his quarterstaff. As it died, it returned to its true form - the tall and gangly dark-gray-skinned form of a doppelganger. Alees walked through the illusory wall and took up a flanking position behind Tarric. Tarric, having heard that Alees was false, turned to face her and dealt her a hefty blow. She withdrew back through the illusory wall to quaff a healing potion. Despite being unable to see her, Katawan punched Alees through the illusory wall.
In the mean time, Thorash had revived Alexander with the last remnants of the Wand of Cure Light Wounds. Alexander drew his Wand of Magic Missiles and leveled it at Alees. She was overcome by the barrage of missiles and fell unconscious. Moments later she died and also reverted to her true doppelganger form. At about the same time, Tarric dispatched the Killick-double, the Alexander-double, and the Katawan-double with a single slice of his bastard sword. He then entered the room to face his own double. He dispatched it with another single sword stroke. (However, after doing so, he felt slightly disoriented. But the strange feeling passed quickly, and no one else noticed.)
The party freed Alees who had remained chained to her chair throughout the entire fight. She explained that she had been led out of the Crooked House by a false note late in the evening during the previous night. There she had been overcome and kidnapped by one of the doppelgangers. She had been stripped of her clothes and belongings and placed in this room. Throughout the morning each of the other party members had joined her in the room, similarly stripped of belongings. Alees had assumed that the doppelgangers had successfully captured the entire party, one by one. She had no idea that everyone else in the room was a doppelganger. She was very grateful for her rescue and was eager to suit up and wreak vengeance upon her captors. She quickly found a secret door leading out of the octagonal room.
This secret door led to a mirrored maze. As she stepped in to investigate, she was quickly cut off from the rest of the party by a section of wall that slid down behind her. The rest of the party moved into the maze to find Alees. Killick encountered a fighter who attacked him. The fighter was quickly trapped and flanked by Alees. Soon Katawan and Tarric were also nearby waiting for opportunities to attack. Meanwhile, in another part of the maze, Alexander encountered someone who looked very much like Tarric. He even had the same ink marks on his face that the party had drawn on themselves in an attempt to distinguish themselves from doppelgangers. However, Alexander noticed that this Tarric was not wearing the right armor. Alexander fired magic missiles at the imposter. The imposter closed with Alexander and dealt the mage serious damage. Katawan followed the sounds of battle and found the mage cornered. Unable to break away without offering an attack of opportunity, Alexander decided to go down swinging. He fired another volley of magic missiles before succumbing to the power of the false-Tarric's longsword. Katawan and Thorash pinned the false Tarric on one side while Alees and Tarric keep it from escaping on the other side of the hallway. False-Tarric called out to someone for assistance, and Killick who was out in the hallway noticed a face glancing down the hallway at him. As he moved to investigate, he turned a corner and saw himself.
Killick begins fighting his counterpart and called out to warn his comrades. But as soon as he landed a blow against his imposter, he felt disoriented. Hearing Killick call out that he was fighting himself, Tarric came to investigate. Killick dropped out of the fight and instructed Tarric to take up his spot. (It wasn't difficult for Tarric to realize who the imposter was, because the imposter was wielding a longsword - something that Killick was sworn never to do.) The 2 fighters battled each other to a stalemate. Just as Tarric was resigned to his fate, his opponent withdrew deeper into the maze, dropping sections of wall behind him to cover his escape. On the other side of the battlefield, Katawan had taken so much damage that he could no longer stand toe-to-toe with the Tarric-double. He resorted to his Spring Attack maneuver. Thorash cast Shield on himself, attacked on the defensive, and took up a position on the front line. Meanwhile, Alees attacked it from the flank position. The Tarric-double focused on dropping Alees. When she was badly wounded, she tried tumbling away, but the fighter got in an attack of opportunity and knocked her unconscious. Killick, having left the fight against his double, stabilized Alees and kept the Tarric-double from escaping. Finally, Thorash dropped it with a successful casting of Inflict Moderate Wounds. With a terrifying glint in his eye, Thorash reached out to empower himself with the doppelganger's soul, but Thorash's quarry was elusive and it escaped to its eternal reward.
When the Killick-double retreated, the party decided that it was in no shape to pursue. The party collected the 2 doppelganger corpses and retired to the octagonal room. They decided to hole up and wait for dusk so that Thorash could rememorize heal spells. However, about an hour later, Katawan heard someone trying to open the secret door leading from the maze into the octagonal room. When the person or persons discovered that the door had been barred, it/they did not continue trying to open the door. About half and hour later, Katawan - who had taken up a watch position just beyond the illusory wall - barely heard the sound of glass breaking far away in the distance. About half an hour after that, the conscious members of the party heard a loud boom. Katawan poked his head out to see down the hallway. He saw the map room at the far end of the corridor in flames and he spied two figures in the hallway - one that looked like Tarric and one that looked like Eligos, the mage that they met with only yesterday in the Garden District! (Was it really him or just a doppelganger trick?)
Katawan retreated quickly to the octagonal room and reported what he saw. The conscious party members prepared as best they could for a final assault. In desperation, Killick gave the two unknown potions recovered from the Tarric-imposter in the bar fight earlier that day to Alexander and Alees. Alexander turned invisible, but Alees woke up. However, the final assault that the party was anticipating never came. Apparently the remaining residents of the doppelganger lair decided that discretion was the better part of valor. They were gone.
At long last, dusk came and Thorash prayed for spells. He healed the party as best he could. Now that Alexander was conscious again, he began resting his mind in preparation for rememorizing spells in 8 hours. The party decided not to strike out again until after Alees and Killick had an opportunity to pray for spells at dawn (and Alexander had a chance to rememorize spells).
5th of Richfest (continued). While Alees continued to search the doppelganger rooms, the rest of the party explored the unopened doors along the rest of the corridor. After discovering a latrine, they opened the double doors at the far end of the corridor. These opened into a large conference room filled with maps, books, and papers. Alexander attempted to open the other double doors on the far side of the pit trap. He discovered that those doors are false. The party began looking for a secret passage that would lead deeper into the doppelganger lair. Alexander flew down into the pit trap looking for secret doors. Tarric, Killick, and Thorash took closer looks at the map room. However, it is Alees's voice that called out with news of discovery. She showed the party that there was an illusory wall in the last doppelganger room. The party passed through that wall and found a closed iron door with a faint light coming through the crack at the bottom. The party opened the door, finding an octagonal room with reflective polished metal walls. In this room, the party saw... THEMSELVES - all 6 of the party members - dressed in rags and chained to chairs in the middle of the room. As soon as these captives saw their counterparts walk through the door, they began calling out for the party to free them and insisting that their counterpart within the party is false and should not be trusted.
Thorash walked menacingly toward his double. Alexander advised caution. Instead of destroying his double, Thorash dragged him and his chair out into the hallway for interrogation. Alexander instructed Alees to watch the rest of the doubles until the interrogation of the Thorash-double was completed. Tarric and Killick also stayed behind to keep an eye on the chained up doubles. Katawan joined Alexander and Thorash in the bedroom where the interrogation was taking place. The Thorash-double pleaded with Alexander to set him free. He insisted that he had been replaced by a doppelganger. Alexander asked him some questions about the party's recent exploits. Although his answer is halting at first, he was able to produce the correct answers. Thorash decided to leave the room and asked to consult with a suspicious Alexander in private. While in private they shared the suspicion that the doppelganger may be able to read minds. They decided to ask the Thorash-double a question to which even Alexander does not know the answer. Thorash would write the answer on a piece of paper in dwarvish, and Alexander would read it only after the Thorash-double had already answered.
Alexander returned to the sleeping chamber with the folded paper in hand. He asked the Thorash-double how Thorash obtained his new spikey armor. The Thorash-double insisted that he had never owned spikey armor and that it must belong to the doppelganger who took his place. He asked Alexander if it didn't seem odd how Thorash was late meeting up with the party and suddenly showed up wearing unfamiliar armor. These responses gave Alexander some pause. He began to wonder if Thorash might not be a doppelganger after all. But then he asked the Thorash-double to read the paper that Thorash had written on. The Thorash-double insisted that the writing was gibberish. However, Alexander read the paper, and he found the following sentence written in dwarvish, "I commissioned the armor from craftsmen in my home village of Dumadan in the Abbor Alz mountains." This finally convinced Alexander that the double was the imposter. He took out a bottle of ink, and placed a dot on the Thorash-double's forehead.
When the Thorash-double was convinced that the jig was up, he called out loudly that Alexander was making a terrible mistake and that he was the real Thorash. As Thorash and those around him considered what to do with the imposter, Alees walked through the illusory wall and cold-bloodedly stabbed at an unsuspecting Alexander. Her first thrust missed him, but the second one struck true, causing Alexander grievous damage. Alexander was so rattled by the attack that he turned and fled, but Alees struck him down before he was able to leave the room. Alexander collapsed unconscious. In the mean time, all of the doubles in the octagonal room slipped their shackles - except for Alees. Tarric stood in the doorway to block their escape. They took turns attacking him. Killick entered the room with the Thorash-double and started attacking it, eventually killing it with a rain of blows from his quarterstaff. As it died, it returned to its true form - the tall and gangly dark-gray-skinned form of a doppelganger. Alees walked through the illusory wall and took up a flanking position behind Tarric. Tarric, having heard that Alees was false, turned to face her and dealt her a hefty blow. She withdrew back through the illusory wall to quaff a healing potion. Despite being unable to see her, Katawan punched Alees through the illusory wall.
In the mean time, Thorash had revived Alexander with the last remnants of the Wand of Cure Light Wounds. Alexander drew his Wand of Magic Missiles and leveled it at Alees. She was overcome by the barrage of missiles and fell unconscious. Moments later she died and also reverted to her true doppelganger form. At about the same time, Tarric dispatched the Killick-double, the Alexander-double, and the Katawan-double with a single slice of his bastard sword. He then entered the room to face his own double. He dispatched it with another single sword stroke. (However, after doing so, he felt slightly disoriented. But the strange feeling passed quickly, and no one else noticed.)
The party freed Alees who had remained chained to her chair throughout the entire fight. She explained that she had been led out of the Crooked House by a false note late in the evening during the previous night. There she had been overcome and kidnapped by one of the doppelgangers. She had been stripped of her clothes and belongings and placed in this room. Throughout the morning each of the other party members had joined her in the room, similarly stripped of belongings. Alees had assumed that the doppelgangers had successfully captured the entire party, one by one. She had no idea that everyone else in the room was a doppelganger. She was very grateful for her rescue and was eager to suit up and wreak vengeance upon her captors. She quickly found a secret door leading out of the octagonal room.
This secret door led to a mirrored maze. As she stepped in to investigate, she was quickly cut off from the rest of the party by a section of wall that slid down behind her. The rest of the party moved into the maze to find Alees. Killick encountered a fighter who attacked him. The fighter was quickly trapped and flanked by Alees. Soon Katawan and Tarric were also nearby waiting for opportunities to attack. Meanwhile, in another part of the maze, Alexander encountered someone who looked very much like Tarric. He even had the same ink marks on his face that the party had drawn on themselves in an attempt to distinguish themselves from doppelgangers. However, Alexander noticed that this Tarric was not wearing the right armor. Alexander fired magic missiles at the imposter. The imposter closed with Alexander and dealt the mage serious damage. Katawan followed the sounds of battle and found the mage cornered. Unable to break away without offering an attack of opportunity, Alexander decided to go down swinging. He fired another volley of magic missiles before succumbing to the power of the false-Tarric's longsword. Katawan and Thorash pinned the false Tarric on one side while Alees and Tarric keep it from escaping on the other side of the hallway. False-Tarric called out to someone for assistance, and Killick who was out in the hallway noticed a face glancing down the hallway at him. As he moved to investigate, he turned a corner and saw himself.
Killick begins fighting his counterpart and called out to warn his comrades. But as soon as he landed a blow against his imposter, he felt disoriented. Hearing Killick call out that he was fighting himself, Tarric came to investigate. Killick dropped out of the fight and instructed Tarric to take up his spot. (It wasn't difficult for Tarric to realize who the imposter was, because the imposter was wielding a longsword - something that Killick was sworn never to do.) The 2 fighters battled each other to a stalemate. Just as Tarric was resigned to his fate, his opponent withdrew deeper into the maze, dropping sections of wall behind him to cover his escape. On the other side of the battlefield, Katawan had taken so much damage that he could no longer stand toe-to-toe with the Tarric-double. He resorted to his Spring Attack maneuver. Thorash cast Shield on himself, attacked on the defensive, and took up a position on the front line. Meanwhile, Alees attacked it from the flank position. The Tarric-double focused on dropping Alees. When she was badly wounded, she tried tumbling away, but the fighter got in an attack of opportunity and knocked her unconscious. Killick, having left the fight against his double, stabilized Alees and kept the Tarric-double from escaping. Finally, Thorash dropped it with a successful casting of Inflict Moderate Wounds. With a terrifying glint in his eye, Thorash reached out to empower himself with the doppelganger's soul, but Thorash's quarry was elusive and it escaped to its eternal reward.
When the Killick-double retreated, the party decided that it was in no shape to pursue. The party collected the 2 doppelganger corpses and retired to the octagonal room. They decided to hole up and wait for dusk so that Thorash could rememorize heal spells. However, about an hour later, Katawan heard someone trying to open the secret door leading from the maze into the octagonal room. When the person or persons discovered that the door had been barred, it/they did not continue trying to open the door. About half and hour later, Katawan - who had taken up a watch position just beyond the illusory wall - barely heard the sound of glass breaking far away in the distance. About half an hour after that, the conscious members of the party heard a loud boom. Katawan poked his head out to see down the hallway. He saw the map room at the far end of the corridor in flames and he spied two figures in the hallway - one that looked like Tarric and one that looked like Eligos, the mage that they met with only yesterday in the Garden District! (Was it really him or just a doppelganger trick?)
Katawan retreated quickly to the octagonal room and reported what he saw. The conscious party members prepared as best they could for a final assault. In desperation, Killick gave the two unknown potions recovered from the Tarric-imposter in the bar fight earlier that day to Alexander and Alees. Alexander turned invisible, but Alees woke up. However, the final assault that the party was anticipating never came. Apparently the remaining residents of the doppelganger lair decided that discretion was the better part of valor. They were gone.
At long last, dusk came and Thorash prayed for spells. He healed the party as best he could. Now that Alexander was conscious again, he began resting his mind in preparation for rememorizing spells in 8 hours. The party decided not to strike out again until after Alees and Killick had an opportunity to pray for spells at dawn (and Alexander had a chance to rememorize spells).