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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cafu" data-source="post: 6540227" data-attributes="member: 6692807">We looked at each other and then Longhelim signaled to us to get to one of the doors; we decided that we would try to open the single door to our left as we first entered the room. So, flying over to it, we waited until John had finished using his strange chime. I could hear him muttering as he took out the item: “Everything in this place is locked of course!”Still, whatever magic he had in the chime worked and he moved aside so that Victor could open the door. The warrior did so and we all peered into the newly revealed room. It was quite ordinary, relatively speaking of course; three large tables surrounded a fire pit in its center. There were several large windows looking out over the ocean while a set of stairs led to another balcony and another door leading out of the center of the left wall as we entered. The other interior walls were covered with tapestries showing differing races of the world. Cautiously, Victor moved in; as soon as he did so, there was a shout from Felix: “A golden triangle has lit up on the curtain here!”Curiously, I peered back into the room with the fountains and saw that indeed the priest was correct; a newly revealed triangle had begun glowing on the curtain. Longhelim quickly thought out loud: “So, as soon as we enter into a new room, another triangle appears? So, how many do we need to light up, do we think? And why? And what happens when a sufficient number shine?”His thinking was interrupted by suddenly another box enveloping Victor who had come too close to the floor as he flew through the door. Unfortunately, it looked as if that was going to happen to everyone as there was no other way of entering into the room. John had been looking through the door and he alerted us to other concurrent events: “Something’s happening! Ah, Freedom’s turned up again through that other door! Oh,  and there are people walking out of the tapestries! Really big people!”It sounded like he was spouting nonsense so I quickly went to see what was going on; Victor was smashing his way through the ceiling of the box and beginning to get out; and John had been right; five beings had appeared; they looked like giant versions of a dwarf, an orc, a human, an elf and a gnome. They were armed, armoured and converging on the doorway; Freedom also seemed to be getting ready for something, if quite nonchalantly. Nothing loth, Victor immediately stepped towards the giant dwarf…..and that was the last that I saw since when I moved through the door, I had to stoop quite low and suddenly I found myself inside a box. I had to turn into a terran worm again and burrow my way through the stone. When I poked my head out, I saw that Victor was already managing to contain the dwarf while the others were still approaching. Drudge was looking disgusted and muttering: “Not one hit! I can’t believe how fast she is!”I changed back to being dwarf and flew up into the air again. I could see that the creatures all moved towards Felix and several of them struck him. He was reeling and in trouble so I cast my last powerful offensive spell.  I didn’t have the range to affect all of the enemy so I concentrated on two of them and Freedom. The spell worked, weakening them all but unfortunately, it didn’t stop Freedom from sprinting forward with feral grace and slicing her dagger deeply into Felix. The wound was peculiar, driven by her power and speed and far more powerful than a dagger should normally be; it was almost as if she drove her dagger and arm straight through his torso. The priest staggered and dropped to the ground; another stone box immediately enveloped him; ironically, that helped enormously as it stopped Freedom from coming back and attacking the priest again; instead she sprang towards Drudge with those bounding jumps and sliced the ranger instead. Again, the wound was deep but not nearly as powerful as the one dealt to Felix. Victor took the opportunity to step forward and in one of his complicated combinations of blows, dodges and steps, managed to slice his way through two of the giants, the elf and the human; Drudge shot the gnome leaving only the orc. Unfortunately, then he was trapped into another stone box and irritatingly, he had no way of getting out. I turned into the worm shaped earth elemental and put a hole into one of the walls. Victor stepped up and dealt with the giant orc who had also just been hit by one of Drudge’s volleys. I was about to fly up when I realised with a shock that Freedom was next to me! Her arm swept up and her dagger went deeply into my side with such strength that I only felt a thump in my side when everything went black…….When I opened my eyes, I was inside a stone box again; this one had a hole in its roof though. John was in the same box and he had just tapped me with his wand. Quickly, he whispered: “She’s still about. Drudge managed to get two arrows into her and she hit Victor badly. Watch yourself! You’re still very weak!”Carefully, I floated up and saw her near the door through which we had come. I drew out my wand of lightning bolts and fired one off at her; she dodged it contemptuously and then grinned at me, as if inviting another. Then Victor literally leaped as gracefully as he could with half his armour falling around him and hit her with a precise, powerful blow which even drew a frown from her. She withdrew, running through the door at a speed that none of us could match. We all flew up into the air and various healing wands were produced. As Felix, Longhelim and John were using them, we all held a hurried conversation. First, Longhelim spoke: “As I said previously, I think that as we enter each room, a triangle will light up. How many we have to enter and what happens at the end is anyone’s guess. The first room contained the hydras and this room had the giants. I suspect that each room will have some sort of guardian or obstacle; as well as Freedom stalking us of course.”Drudge was taking some more arrows out of various magical containers and replenishing his assortment of quivers:“This building is almost alive; all the doors are locked to us but not to her; and as soon as we get near the floor or walls, they reach out and put us in boxes, so we have to make sure we stay away from them; some of us have ways of getting out of them but others don’t and they are annoying.”John in the meantime was nonchalantly flicking something up in the air and catching it again. The motion drew everyone’s attention and I asked: “John, what’s that?”He flicked it up again and then caught it: “It’s one of Freedom’s keys. I snatched it off her as she stabbed Faden. It could be why she can just casually go through the locked doors of this place without a care in the world.”I remembered the three keys which we saw upon Freedom when she first introduced herself; they were in her hair, her belt and on her ankle. Considering how fast she moved, snatching it from her was no mean feat. John grinned: “Now, I’ll just have to get the other two from her and maybe she’ll bounce!”By this point, we had all healed so Longhelim asked: “Is everyone ready? We need to go through this new door!”We all nodded and after John performed his trick with the chime, we opened it.It revealed a room which was obviously a kitchen. It was split into two levels, the lower of which had several tables which were used for food preparation; a set of stairs led up a large balcony which had a door opposite to this one and another door on the wall to the right. There was another curtain on the left. There was no sign of anyone. We flew in, making sure to be as far as possible from the floor and the walls. We gathered near the door to the right and began to get ready to open it. Suddenly, a group of elaborately dressed individuals appeared out of thin air; from a quick glance, they looked like kitchen staff; a cook with his distinctive hat, a scullion in a short sleeved shirt, a maid in uniform, a housekeeper of some sort in a long dress. However, normal kitchen staff didn’t appear out of thin air and this group immediately began to attempt to grab the magical stones floating above our heads. They didn’t shout or speak, they just stretched their hands and tried to snatch the stones. The silence was most eerie. Longhelim was the first to react as he pummeled one to the side. Then one maid actually managed to snatch one of Felix’s stones; she tried to run away but at this point Drudge shot her. Thankfully, I was too far away from them to try to steal from me but that didn’t stop them from continuing to try and then Freedom appeared through the other door and sprang forward again, attacking Victor this time. She obviously realised the danger he represented after his last blow. The warrior staggered but stayed upright.  Having struck, she ran through the door below. By this stage, we were all fighting the kitchen staff or whatever they were; it was obvious that Freedom was using them as a distraction. This, in combination with their obsessive attempts to take from us, made them too dangerous to spare or ignore and Longhelim, Victor and Drudge began to dispose of them. Freedom appeared again and again sped towards Victor with her unearthly speed but this time, the warrior seemed to wait carefully and swayed at the last moment, timing it to perfection and allowing her dagger to pass harmlessly past his side. Even with most of his armour falling off him, Victor was capable of using his skills at avoiding weapons. For the first time, I heard a sound of frustration from Freedom as she swept through the door opposite. In the meantime, Longhelim and Victor had managed to finish or drive away the rest of the kitchen staff and Drudge shot the maid who had stolen Felix’s stone. We quickly opened the door near which we had congregated, with both Longhelim and Victor keeping a careful lookout for Freedom. The door revealed nothing but a storeroom and we did not have the time to examine it properly. The key thing was that when John stepped into it, a triangle did not appear on the curtain. That left the other door in the room, through which Freedom had disappeared.  Again we congregated around the door and, using our usual precautions, we opened it to reveal a garden. The first thing I noticed were thousands upon thousands of trillith hovering in the air and watching us, silently. Once I had recovered from seeing them, I saw that the garden had three trees in it as well as another exit in the middle of the left wall. John whispered: “Those trees are going to animate; just like they did in the Haunted Forest of Ycengled. We all know it’s going to happen; ordinary trees? In this place? Not a chance!”Longhelim just nodded and then flew into the room. We all followed him. As soon as the last person of our group, namely Drudge, flew over the threshold, the doors behind us slammed shut and a mass of brambles and thorns appeared, trapping us. I gritted my teeth; this was the very annoying spell which had been used against us very recently. The thorns and brambles got everywhere and scratched in places most painful. It helped if one was wearing armour of course but even so, these brambles just trapped everyone. Last time, Victor and Longhelim were subject to a powerful magic which allowed them to move through the brambles without any hindrance, but sadly, that spell had finished. Felix of course did not have any problem with this; Farlaghn gave his priests specific powers to cope with situations of this type and I could just change into something so tiny that I would not be affected by the thorns, but the others were in trouble; especially, as the slightest of movements drew blood and then Victor shouted: “The trees are moving!”That had also been expected and I waited for them to begin to attempting to strike us. Then Drudge shouted: “They can’t get into the brambles! They can’t get at us!”Well, that was unexpected. I was thinking I would have to employ my transformation magic to turn into something so small they would not be able to see me but since they couldn’t actually reach me, it would not be problem.Then Freedom opened the door behind us and saw the situation; immediately, she turned transparent and stepped into the room, gently floating upwards; curious, I watched her latest deviltry. Abruptly, she became solid and fell past John, slashing him with her dagger as the dropped, before becoming insubstantial as she reached the ground. John groaned and writhed; he had obviously been hurt quite badly. This was also a tactic that we were unable to prevent as we were all held fast with the exception of Felix and myself as I mentioned previously. Seeing this, Felix shouted, as he positioned himself in the centre of our grouping: “Everyone get ready!”And then we were suddenly in another room. This space seemed to be completely empty with the exception of the curtain to the left of us and a door facing us in the opposite wall; by this point, we had little interest in exploration; our main aim was to go through each room and light up the triangles. We were getting very low on healing and Freedom’s persistent attacks were wearing us down. So, we flew across and opened the door. This time, as we flew in, the room proved to be far more interesting. Potentially far more dangerous but certainly more interesting. It was lined with a multitude of shelves which held a whole collection of crystal spheres. It was impossible to see what was inside the spheres but from my own experience, these normally held precious gases or liquids; more often than not, dangerous dangerous substances. I spoke quietly to the others: “This could be something alchemical. Let’s go quickly and quietly. I have a horrible feeling that if one of these shatters, it could set off a chain reaction.”There were other floors in this room but there was also a door leading south or to our left. No doubt there may have been other interesting things on those two upper floors but mindful of our state, we flew straight south. Again, we opened the door with little difficulty and revealed another large room. The walls of this room were covered with tapestries depicting maps. My attention was riveted to them. I recognised many of these. One of them purported to show the way to the location of the Ring of Gax; another showed the route to a cave which contained the Hand of Vecna; yet another showed a large Temple which apparently had a secret room which contained the Cudgel of St. Cuthbert. Of course we were flying through the room as I was seeing these and I whispered urgently: “Look…….,” as I veered to the left to another tapestry only to be caught by Drudge who shook his head and motioned me urgently towards the door directly to the south of us. This room was on a split level as usual, with us beginning our flight on a balcony which the dropped a little distance. Just as we cleared the edge of the balcony, a pile of gold coins suddenly appeared behind us; we all heard them and looked at this new development with suspicion as gold coins don’t usually just appear out of nowhere; not only did it just appear it suddenly began to move and attain a shape; a dragon shape and it breathed fire just like a dragon as well; as we found out a moment later. Thankfully, Victor, John and I still had our scaly skin which protected us against fire but the others did suffer slightly despite their magical protection against fire. Victor hit it very hard; it recoiled from his blow, which meant that it did react like a creature. I shook my head; a golden dragon? Made out of gold coins? Trilla’s dreams really were getting stranger and stranger, I thought as I changed into an enormous frost worm and breathed over the dragon, causing it to rear back. The door behind us opened and Freedom sped through, striking Victor on the way past. The warrior staggered and his side quickly turned red. Looking around, she was gone through another door. A weakened Victor was left in front of the dragon, who hit him with everything it had; it bit him, clawed him, a golden tail smashed against the warrior and he was pummeled with a pair of wings. Victor could not withstand that and fell to the ground, burning. A box of stone immediately enveloped him. However, this did leave the dragon open to a volley from Drudge, followed by a series of mighty strikes from Longhelim; this left it staggering and so I struck the final blow as a huge worm. That was the final blow and it dissipated into a pile of coins which then disappeared into the ground.</blockquote>

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