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The Kordovian Adventurers Guild
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6951127" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 26: THIS IS JUST A TEST</strong></p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 19 November 2016</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>Finoula, having taken the last guard shift, watched the morning sun's rays rise over the peaks of the Clatspur Range and finished her final excursion around the circumference of the camp. As she approached Binkadink, snuggled against the warm fur of his jackalope mount and still snoring softly, something seemed wrong. It took her a moment to realize that Obvious's fur was now the pure white of a snow hare. She strained her ears to try to pick up the sound of fairy wings - or fairy laughter - but heard only the normal noises of the mountain forest around her. Waking everyone up, she added some fuel to the campfire and started getting the breakfast meal ready. Binkadink yawned and stretched, then jumped to his feet in shock once he saw the color of his mount's fur.</p><p></p><p>"When did this happen?" he asked. Finoula just shrugged; she hadn't been paying particular attention to the color of the jackalope's fur with every pass she made during her guard shift. But Obvious didn't seem particularly fazed by it, nor did he once it returned to its normal earthy brown shortly after the group got back on the road.</p><p></p><p>"Stupid fairies," grumbled Gilbert.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the day's northerly journey was relatively uneventful. Binkadink was fairly certain there should only be a day or two left in their trek before they exited the Clatspur Range, and hopefully met up with the wizards and weaponsmiths said to have set up shop thereabouts. He daydreamed happily about magical gnomish glaives while Obvious hippity-hopped along with the rest of the group.</p><p></p><p>"We'd best be findin' a place fer th' evenin'," suggested Ingebold from the driver's seat of the mule wagon. "It'll be gettin' dark soon." Indeed, twilight was fast approaching.</p><p></p><p>"There's a fire up ahead," advised Castillan from his perch on the top of the Vistani wagon. Sure enough, just ahead to the right was the flickering light of a campfire, in a wide clearing large enough to hold both wagons and make for a comfortable evening, surrounded on three edges by the cliffsides of the forested mountains. However, the space was already occupied by a pair of female centaurs, one of them blonde, the other a brunette. Upon the arrival of the adventurers, they looked up from their cook fire preparations and smiled in greeting.</p><p></p><p>"Hello," said the blond centaur. "My name is <strong>Starflower</strong>, and this is <strong>Dawnsong</strong>. Do you wish to join us for the evening?"</p><p></p><p>Dawnsong looked up at the new arrivals and her mouth hung open in shock. "I'm sorry," she said, smiling shyly, "but you wouldn't happen to be the Kordovian Band, would you?"</p><p></p><p>"'The Kordovian Band'?" repeated Finoula. "How did you know we were from Kordovia?"</p><p></p><p>"We shared a campfire with an elven bard a few nights ago," the centaur admitted. "One of the songs he sang was 'The Kordovian Band' - and it described each of you. There probably aren't a lot of gnomes who ride jackalopes. You must be...Dinkabink?"</p><p></p><p>"Binkadink," corrected the little gnome with a friendly smile, dismounting from Obvious's back.</p><p></p><p>"Binkadink! Yes!" said Starflower, clapping her hands. "And you must be Finoula! And Ingebold! And Derry...?" she added, clearly trying to scrounge up the half-elf ranger's name from memory. Darrien supplied it to her, and introductions were made all around. Gilbert stepped aside as Mudpie rose up from the ground where he'd been standing. "Oh!" exclaimed the centaurs. "I don't think he was in the song!"</p><p></p><p>"He new addition to group," exclaimed Gilbert, giving the centaur women a wide smile. The fact that neither wore any clothing might have had some small bearing on his general level of friendliness to two strangers he'd just met - the wizard usually trusted nobody until he'd had time to study them for some time.</p><p></p><p>"Will you join us in honeywine porridge?" asked Dawnsong, adding several more handfuls of grain into the cook pot over the fire.</p><p></p><p>"Gladly!" replied Castillan, leaping down from the wagon and approaching the bare-chested centaurs. Finoula gave a slight sniff of irritation at the fact that the men of her group all seemed to be ogling the centaurs, who seemed indifferent to their nakedness. At least Aithanar wasn't paying them any attention; as usual, he was attending to the horses and mules, and as usual, he was giving Finoula's pony Daisy special attention. The elven ranger smiled at him, and he returned her smile wholeheartedly.</p><p></p><p>After a nice meal - the honeywine porridge was actually very good, and the adventurers offered up some of their own food stores in return, which the centaurs accepted with great relish - and as the sun went down, Starflower turned to the group and asked, "So what brings you here to the mountains? Are you here about the dragon?"</p><p></p><p>"Dragon?" repeated Binkadink, suddenly all ears. He'd love to test his mettle against a dragon - although, on second thought, he'd actually kind of rather his first dragon encounter happened <em>after</em> he procured a magical glaive.</p><p></p><p>"A red dragon, yes," affirmed Dawnsong. "They say he's twice the size of a horse, and he's been shaking down the villages in the area, seeking tribute in exchange for not burning their homes to the ground."</p><p></p><p>"You see this dragon yourself?" Gilbert asked.</p><p></p><p>"No," admitted Dawnsong, "But we heard about it from the bard, and from another traveler on the road just the other day."</p><p></p><p>"And why are you here?" asked Finoula.</p><p></p><p>"Oh, we're nomads," replied Starflower. "Druids, actually - we explore the vastness of <strong>Skerrit</strong>'s bounty, living off the land and helping those we meet on the way."</p><p></p><p>"Who Skerrit?" asked Gilbert Fung. "I thought druids worship <strong>Ehlonna</strong>, or maybe <strong>Obad-hai</strong>."</p><p></p><p>"Oh, we honor both of them as well," admitted Dawnsong. "But Skerrit is the God of the Centaurs, and as such deserves our primary reverence." Then she suddenly flinched. "Did you hear that?" she asked.</p><p></p><p>Everyone strained their ears, trying to hear whatever it was the centaur had picked up. There were the normal sounds of the forest around them - chirping crickets, the quiet susurration of the wind through the leaves - and the crackling of the campfire before them, but both Castillan and Darrien could also make out the droning of insect wings growing louder, occasionally sprinkled with the sounds of muffled laughter. </p><p></p><p>Suddenly, Starflower's blond hair changed hue to a bright magenta. "What's going on?" she cried.</p><p></p><p>"It the fairies again!" yelled Gilbert, looking up at the air above him but seeing nothing - not that they'd ever actually seen the fairies that had been plaguing them for months. Binkadink's eyes bulged wide as he stared at Starflower's reddish-purple hair as if he couldn't believe what was happening - which was absolutely true, for he was the only one in the group (besides Obvious, who couldn't speak to anyone but the gnome) who knew that <em>he'd</em> been the one responsible for the sudden hair discoloration effects over the past few months. After all, what was the point of a prank-loving gnome being able to activate daily <em>prestidigitation</em> and <em>ghost sound</em> effects if they weren't put to good use?</p><p></p><p>Dawnsong spoke the words to a quick spell, causing her eyes to glow a bright blue, and looked about her. "It's a band of fairies," she announced. "Invisible, as I suspected. And-–what's this? Their heads! They look like, like some sort of insect! Look out!"</p><p></p><p>The centaur pushed Finoula back, stepping forward as if to protect her. "Everyone down!" she cried. "They're firing some sort of rays!"</p><p></p><p>Chaos exploded around the campfire. Those heroes of a martial bent grabbed up their weapons, while Ingebold cast a quick <em>magic circle against evil</em> spell and Gilbert caught all of his group's members in a <em>haste</em> spell. But sporadically, each could feel the invisible rays striking at them, making them feel weaker in some hard-to-define way. Dawnsong, the only one in the group capable of seeing where the attacks were coming from, did her best to describe to the others when to duck, occasionally trying to pull them out of the way or shield them with her own body. Starflower looked up to the air above them and lamented that she'd not prepared any spells useful for this unseen attack.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink had no spells to cast but he had a glaive, and while he couldn't see any enemies, he figured he could put his weapon to better use than swinging it wildly around above him and hoping he hit something. Instead, he stabbed into the campfire, tossing ashes and embers directly above the flames. "Kick up dirt!" he called to Obvious in the burrowing-mammal language they shared. The jackalope started scuffing his back legs, kicking up a cloud of dirt behind him. The air above them exploded with the irritated shrieks of the unseen insect-fairies, who must have thereafter dodged around the clouds that might have exposed their whereabouts.</p><p></p><p>Darrien was the first to realize that having everybody standing around the campfire in one big clump might not be the best tactical position. Hoping to draw some off from the rest of the group, he sprinted around the campfire and headed for the Vistani wagon. Gilbert saw this and apparently gave it his blessing, for he started to follow. "C'mon, Mudpie, we get to safety!" he called - before jumping from a sudden jolt and falling face-first to the ground. Mudpie, sensing his master was unconscious through the empathic link they shared, did his best to follow his master's last instructions. Sinking down below the ground with one hand still raised above it, he earth-glided through the dirt, his one hand sticking up like a shark's fin through the water. The bulky hand grabbed Gilbert by the collar of his robes as it passed, and the heavyset wizard's body was dragged face-down through the dirt on the way to the Vistani wagon - where Darrien, to his dismay, found the back door was locked! Cursing in frustration, he was struck by an unseen foe and collapsed, unconscious, to the ground.</p><p></p><p>Over by the campfire, things weren't much better. Finoula, Aithanar, Binkadink, and Ingebold had likewise been rendered unconscious by their invisible foes, and, eyes rolling up into her head, Starflower soon followed suit. Castillan just barely dodged out of the way of the falling centaur before he, too, was overcome by whatever had been striking the group. Wrath and Obvious fell next, followed by Dawnsong, the only member of the group capable of actually seeing their foes. Mudpie was the last to fall, standing protectively over the unconscious body of his master; his last conscious act was ensuring his rocky body fell away from, rather than atop, Gilbert Fung when he collapsed.</p><p></p><p>Silence reigned around the campsite, the only noises now the crackling of the flames and the returning chirps of the crickets in the surrounding forest.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>Binkadink fluttered his eyelids, wondering where he was. He was lying on his back, staring up at a stone ceiling; the flickering light told him there were torches nearby. He sat up, and discovered two things immediately: first, he had been stripped of his armor and weapons and was now wearing only a pair of his traveling clothes; and second, there was a manacle around his left wrist.</p><p></p><p>Looking down, he saw the manacle was connected to a short length of chain which went through a triangular hole at the top of a metal spike sticking up from the stone floor and connected to another manacle around Obvious's right front paw. The two were in a small, square room, 15 feet to a side, with a single door flanked by <em>everburning torches</em> and with a glowing rune of some sort directly above it. To the wall at right of the door was a box with a hinged top lid; just before it, the handaxe the heroes used to cut firewood was lying on the floor, just out of reach. It looked like there was a small piece of paper underneath it.</p><p></p><p>As Obvious began to stir, a small figure stepped into view from the back of the room. It was the size of a child's doll, made from carved wood, with a painted face that included spiraling designs on each cheek. "Hello, Binkadink," it said in the Common tongue. "I want to play a game. You are known for your loyalty to your friends and family. But how long will that loyalty last under stress? Underneath the handaxe is a card that will let you know what you need to do to escape this room safely. But you should know that your chains are adamantine, and escape likely won't be as easy – or as bloodless – as you'd wish."</p><p></p><p>With a feeling of dread, Binkadink stretched out as far as he could towards the handaxe - and came up several inches too short. Asking Obvious - who, oblivious to the Common tongue, had understood nothing of what the animated doll had said - to move as close as possible to the spike in the floor between them, the gnome managed to grab the handle of the handaxe and drag it and the paper on which it rested over to him. The paper was a rectangle folded over once to form a square, and was inscribed with Binkadink's name. Opening it, the gnome read to himself:Binkadink looked down at the handaxe, then over to his faithful steed and trusty companion, and felt a sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>Gilbert Fung rubbed his eyes and sat up, grumpily. He still wore his traveling robe but had none of his adventuring gear with him – his backpack, wands, potions, scrolls, the <em>Omnibook</em> – all of it was gone. Likewise, Mudpie was not in evidence, and with a shock the wizard realized he couldn't even feel his familiar's mental presence through the empathic link they normally shared.</p><p></p><p>Getting up and looking around, Gilbert found himself in a small room illuminated by a pair of <em>everburning torches</em> on either side of a wooden door. Above the door was engraved an arcane rune of some type. On the floor by the door was a folded piece of paper with Gilbert's name on it.</p><p></p><p>As Gilbert bent over to pick up the note, a small figure stepped forward from the shadows along the back of the room: a child's doll, it looked like.</p><p></p><p>"Hello, Gilbert," it said. "I want to play a game. You are separated from your friends, in a room with only one visible way out. You often talk as if you know more than your companions. Here is where you can prove your mental superiority. The card will tell you what you need to do to exit this room safely."</p><p></p><p>Gilbert opened the card and read:"I not happy about any of this!" Gilbert announced loudly to the room at large. The doll said nothing, merely stared up at the portly wizard as if curious as to what he would do next.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>Finoula woke up on the cold stone floor of a small room with a single door flanked by <em>everburning torches</em>. Above the door was an arcane rune.</p><p></p><p>Sitting up, the ranger saw a three-foot-tall stone urn in the middle of the room, on the other side of which she could hear Ingebold stirring. The urn's top was covered by means of a stone lid with two handles sticking out of the sides. The urn looked to be about two feet wide.</p><p></p><p>As the women rose to their feet, they realized they were both wearing their travel garb but their armor, weapons, and associated adventuring gear – including even Ingebold’s holy symbol of Moradin – was missing. The dwarven cleric's hand went instinctively to her neck, where her holy symbol would normally have been.</p><p></p><p>A small figure approached from behind the urn, the size of a child's doll. "Hello, Finoula. Hello, Ingebold," it said. "I want to play a game. You two are the only female members of your adventuring group. As such, some might think you were therefore the weakest members of the group as well. Here you will have an opportunity to dispel those notions – or reinforce them. There is a card by the door that explains what you need to do to escape this room unscathed."</p><p></p><p>With a snarl, Ingebold grabbed up the doll by its neck and started to shake it, then realized how silly it was to try to frighten what was obviously an animated object, no doubt speaking pre-programmed words via a <em>magic mouth</em> spell or similar magic. She tossed the thing into a corner, slightly unnerved to see it right itself and stand there, looking at the two. "What's th' card say?" Ingebold asked.</p><p></p><p>Finoula read aloud:Examining the urn, the women saw it was carved directly from the room, as it and the floor all seemed to be of the same unbroken construction - so there was no way to tip it over.</p><p></p><p>"I wonder what else's in th' urn," Ingebold muttered to herself. Finoula frowned her agreement.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>Darrien woke up on a cold, hard, stone floor. He was wearing a travel outfit, but his armor, weapons, and other adventuring gear were all missing. Looking about, he saw he was in a small room carved from solid stone with a single door as the only way out. Flanking the door were two <em>everburning torches</em>, and there was a strange rune overhead. On a ledge along the wall to the right of the door were five straight-edged shapes.</p><p></p><p>"Hello, Darrien," said a voice behind the ranger. "I want to play a game." Looking around, Darrien saw a child's doll stepping forth from the shadows at the rear of the chamber. "You're the quiet one," it continued, "Often full of good ideas, but not always presenting them to the group at large. Now, you'll have to count on your own wits to get you out of the predicament you now find yourself in. There's a card on the floor which explains what you need to do to exit this room."</p><p></p><p>Darrien picked up the card and read: Looking at the door, he could see a diamond-shaped indentation. And sure enough, the small ledge to the right contained five keys, each the same except for the geometric shape at the end you'd hold to use the key. One looked kind of like a simple house, one looked like an elongated "V" or "L" - but all had straight lines along their outer edges, and either right angles or angles looking half that wide.</p><p></p><p>Darrien picked up the first two keys and positioned them inside the diamond, trying different configurations.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>Castillan came to sitting upright on a cold stone floor. His arms were bound at his sides from shoulder to elbow by strong ropes and after a moment he realized he was bound back-to-back with his brother Aithanar. Both were wearing their travel clothes but seemed to be missing all of their armor, weapons, and equipment – with the sole exception of both of Castillan's <em>gloves of storing</em>.</p><p></p><p>Looking around, the bounder could see he was in a small room with a single door, upon which was inscribed a strange design of overlapping straight lines. A pair of <em>everburning torches</em> provided the only light in the room, but above the door the bounder could see some sort of arcane glyph.</p><p></p><p>Just as the elf was about to snap his weapons into his hands and try to cut the ropes binding him to his brother, a small figure stepped forward from the shadows of the back part of the room, no larger than a child's doll. "Hello, Castillan. Hello, Aithanar," it said. "I want to play a game. You are the eldest of the Ivenheart siblings, Castillan, but did you rescue your brother out of responsibility for his well-being, or simply to annoy your father? You may have noticed you are still wearing your gloves. However, they no longer hold your weapons; one now holds the key to allow you to exit this room safely, and the other holds a particular menace that, if released, will spell almost certain doom for Aithanar. You could easily activate both gloves and guarantee your freedom, but at the cost of your brother's life. There is a card by the door which explains what you need to do."</p><p></p><p>"Squimba shondookie?" asked Aithanar, with not a little fear in his voice.</p><p></p><p>"I don't know," Castillan answered. "See if we can scoot over to reach the card."</p><p></p><p>Working together, the two elves scooted along the floor until the elder brother could scoop up the card. Dexterously opening it one-handed, he pulled it close to his face and read it aloud to his brother:"Stand up," commanded Castillan. Pushing against each others' backs, they struggled to a standing position. Then Castillan circled around until he faced the door and could get a good look at the design carved into it. There was a square, with a great number of intersecting lines going across it in various directions.</p><p></p><p>"This is going to suck," complained Castillan, starting a mental tally of how many different triangles he could put together in the carving.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>Binkadink realized there was no way he was going to do the obvious to Obvious and cut off his right front paw. "See if you can reach the box by the door," he advised his jackalope, moving his chained left wrist as close to the spike as it would go, to give Obvious the longest stretch of chain he could provide. It wasn't enough; the jackalope couldn't reach the box with his antlers, let along one of his paws.</p><p></p><p>"There's got to be another way," mused Binkadink. Then, in sudden inspiration, he placed the handle of the handaxe through the triangular hole at the top of the spike; it just barely fit. "Help me push," he told Obvious. Together, after straining to get it started, they felt the spike turn a bit counterclockwise. Then it was easy work to unscrew it, although bound by the chain as they were they had to reposition themselves as they moved counterclockwise in tempo with the unscrewing of the spike into the stone. But at last the spike was free of the stone floor, and the two companions were that little bit more free themselves - they could move about the whole room, even if they were still bound together by the adamantine chain, now with a spike dangling from it.</p><p></p><p>Moving by the door, Binkadink opened the top of the box and told Obvious to put his right front paw into it. Thinking this was some kind of a game, the jackalope happily complied - and the rune above the door stopped glowing. "That should do it!" exclaimed the gnome, opening the door and seeing what lay beyond.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>Gilbert studied the glyph above the door. He was fairly sure it was one of the various <em>symbol</em> spells; which one, he couldn't be absolutely certain, as two wizards could each scribe a <em>symbol of death</em>, say, without them necessarily looking anything alike. He'd love to examine it under the effects of a <em>read magic</em> spell, but he knew such a spell required a small glass prism - which was wherever his pouch of spell components currently resided. After giving the rest of the room a cursory inspection and finding no secret doors out of the room - and glaring at the now-silent animated doll following his every move with its glass eyes - he reread the contents of the note.</p><p></p><p>"State," stated Gilbert in a loud, commanding voice, then looked up expectantly at the glyph. Its glow continued unabated. "Hmmph!" sniffed the wizard - he had hoped "State the command word" might have been patterned after the way he himself chose to speak, but that apparently wasn't it.</p><p></p><p>"I suppose my fifteen seconds long since up," he muttered to himself, then looked back down at the card. A sudden smile broke across his face. "You think you too clever for Gilbert Fung," he announced aloud to the air around him, "but Gilbert Fung too clever for you! Throofoxathanie!"</p><p></p><p>At the spoken command word - formed by stringing together the second letter of each word on Gilbert's instruction card - the magical rune's glow ceased. "Ha!" chortled Gilbert in glee, opening the door and exiting the room.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>"One, two, three -- heave!" called Finoula, and the two women strained to lift the heavy stone lid off the urn. This, their third attempt, proved to be the one that did it; they carefully maneuvered it to the floor lest it land on one of their feet. "Phew!" whooshed Ingebold, wiping her brow.</p><p></p><p>Finoula peered inside the urn. The walls of the stone structure were a solid two inches thick, leaving about a 16-inch diameter opening in the middle of the urn, which was filled almost to the top with brackish water.</p><p></p><p>"Th' key's in there?" asked Ingebold, looking at the narrowness of the urn's interior. "I dinnae think I'll fit inside it, Finoula."</p><p></p><p>The ranger looked skeptically at her stout companion's broad shoulders and wider hips, and came to the same conclusion. "That's all right," she said, "I think I'll be able to fit." Just to make sure she wasn't about to dive into an urn of acid, she plucked a silver hair from her head and dropped it into the water, letting its end float for a minute before plucking it back out from the end she'd never released. Examining it closely, it was perfectly fine: wet, but not eaten away.</p><p></p><p>With a sigh of resignation, Finoula pulled off her boots and socks, then boosted herself up to the top of the urn and straddled it.</p><p></p><p>"Yer goin' in feet first?" asked Ingebold.</p><p></p><p>"It's safer that way," remarked Finoula. "Head-first, I'd have to hold my breath. It might take me a bit longer to grab up the key in my toes, but at least I'll be able to breathe normally while I do so."</p><p></p><p>"Aye," agreed Ingebold, "but I dinnae think ye'll be able to bend yer knees much in that wee hole. Ye'll have t' use yer feet, like ye said."</p><p></p><p>"Well, here goes nothing," the ranger said, and dropped into the urn. Water splashed out over the top, displaced by Finoula's body. She immediately realized there were two surprises in store for her. First of all, despite the urn standing a mere three feet tall, the interior went at least four feet deep; Finoula sunk down to where the water level was above her clavicles. Her arms grabbed the urn's top in surprise, as she hadn't expected to sink down that deep, but her feet touched bottom and after a few moments her toes bumped into something metal.</p><p></p><p>That wasn't all she brushed up against, however. She felt, at various points along her body, small objects that had been floating in the water bumping into her. Her first thought was admittedly ridiculous: that she'd jumped into not an urn of water but one of soup, and was bumping up against carrots. But then, with a wave of disgust, the ranger realized those weren't carrots, and a startled scream escaped from her lips.</p><p></p><p>"Are ye okay?" asked Ingebold, worry creasing her brow. Her battle-sister's face had turned pale, and she could see Finoula was clamping down on an even louder scream struggling to get out.</p><p></p><p>"Can't--grab--key--with--toes," hissed the ranger, sweat now pouring from her face.</p><p></p><p>"Try holding it between both feet," suggested the cleric. Finoula concentrated, then started pulling herself up out of the urn. "Did it!" she said, sitting on the edge of the urn and leaning backwards, allowing Ingebold to help lift her to the floor while she concentrated on keeping the metal key pinned between her feet. Once safely on the stone floor, dripping wet in a pool of filthy water, the ranger silently passed the key to Ingebold. "Here," she said through clenched teeth.</p><p></p><p>"D'ye want me to--?" began Ingebold, but Finoula shooed her way. "You get the door open," she commanded. "I'll...get...these." And with a look of abject horror on her delicate elven features, Finoula began pulling off the leeches that were clinging all over her body and flinging them across the room.</p><p></p><p>Ingebold turned the key in the door, and the glyph's faint illumination ceased. She turned the knob, and the door opened easily. Then she helped pick off the rest of the leeches, and the two staggered over to the door to see what was in the room beyond.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>Darrien was having a difficult time getting four of the puzzle-piece keys to form a diamond. Deciding he had a 20% chance of guessing correctly whichever piece he chose, he placed the house-shaped key into the keyhole of the door, turned it to the right - and was shocked, quite literally, to find out he had guessed incorrectly. The electricity sent him staggering across the room, dropping the key to the floor in the process. He failed to notice that during his attempt the glyph above the door flashed brighter, it having been triggered by his incorrect choice. Fortunately for him, he was able to subconsciously shrug off the intended effects without even being aware his mind had been under attack.</p><p></p><p>Giving himself a moment to recover, he picked up the fallen key and returned it to its place on the shelf. However, he found he had no desire at all to try a second key; maybe he'd best figure out the damn diamond puzzle after all!</p><p></p><p>Each of the puzzle pieces had lines of some sort drawn across their top faces, the side that would be visible when forming the diamond. Darrien had been using these lines as guides, thinking that lining them up might help him figure out which pieces went where. But then he decided that might just be what they <em>wanted</em> him to think, so he studiously ignored them. And sure enough, after a few different combinations, he finally found one that worked, where the square piece had been placed oriented like a square, instead of like the diamond shape the guide-lines had suggested it must be. With four keys forming the diamond, Darrien placed the fifth into the keyhole and turned it. He held his breath when doing so, half expecting another shock, but the key turned without incident, the glyph's light diminished above the door, and the door opened into another room. Smiling happily at himself for having solved the puzzle on his own, Darrien stepped into the next room.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>"Okay, I have my answer," said Castillan. "Now let's turn around so you can look at it, and you see how many triangles you can find. Okay?"</p><p></p><p>"Bastooka," replied Aithanar, shuffling around. After a few minutes, he replied, "Penta bandoogle."</p><p></p><p>"You've got a number?" asked his older brother. "Then start tapping your foot the number you came up with, and I'll keep track." Painstakingly, Aithanar started stomping his foot. "One, two, three, four..." counted Castillan, until Aithanar's foot-stomping stopped after 32 taps on the floor.</p><p></p><p>"You counted 32?" asked Castillan, turning his head to see his brother nod. "That's what I came up with, too! So that means the key's in my right glove!" He snapped the fingers of his right hand, expecting a key to appear there.</p><p></p><p>It didn't. What appeared instead was a metallic snake - an animated automaton in the shape of a cobra. Castillan made a grab for the thing, but it slid out of his grasp and landed on the stone floor with a <em>thunk!</em> before wriggling to Aithanar and sinking its needle-sharp fangs into the fighter's side, internal mechanisms injecting the first of three doses of poison into Aithanar's body. He screamed in surprise and pain, and thrashed about, trying to get free.</p><p></p><p>Castillan realized they must have both miscounted the triangles, and snapped the fingers of his left hand now that there was no longer any reason not to. A key appeared in it, and he spun the bound pair around so he could try to get it into the keyhole of the door. However, this proved to be a rather difficult task to accomplish while tied to his brother, who was avidly ducking and weaving in an attempt to avoid being struck again by the miniature iron cobra. No such luck. The mechanical construct got another bite in and more venom was pumped into Aithanar's system. Already the fighter felt the strength flowing out of his muscles, and it was almost all he could do to stay on his feet.</p><p></p><p>"Here! Take the key!" commanded Castillan, bringing his left hand down by his side and passing it into Aithanar's right hand. Then he swung the pair around again, holding as still as possible so Aithanar could maneuver the key into the keyhole while he tried to grab at the iron cobra as it struck past the bounder in an attempt to home in on the younger Ivenheart brother. Castillan's fingertips brushed the iron body but he was unable to get a good grasp on the thing. It was successful in biting Aithanar a third time - but too late, for the weakening fighter managed to get the key into the keyhole and had just enough strength to turn it.</p><p></p><p>Looking over his shoulder, Castillan saw the glyph above the door darken. "It's safe!" he cried. "I'll kick the snake, you open the door, and run through! I'll pull the door shut once we're past!" But this was too much for the greatly weakened fighter, with three doses of strength-draining venom coursing through his veins. So once again they swapped spots, Aithanar kicking feebly at the iron cobra (and missing), while Castillan opened the door, leaned forward so his brother was perched on his back, and ran through the doorway. He spun around, slamming the door shut just in time - the iron cobra's striking body hit the door instead of the elf it had been targeting.</p><p></p><p>"We're safe!" announced Castillan.</p><p></p><p>Aithanar, looking up at the jagged ceiling 20 feet above him in this new room, saw exactly how wrong his brother was and screamed out a warning - "Pondookle!" - before the piercer came plummeting down to stab the fighter deep in his shoulder.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>Binkadink and Obvious looked through the doorway to the chamber beyond: a rectangular stretch of cavern, some 15 feet wide and twice that long. The floor was covered with numerous puddles and the sound of dripping water echoed throughout the chamber. At the far end stood a closed door.</p><p></p><p>"I don't trust those puddles," Binkadink said. He and his trusty steed walked up to the closest one and lowered the chain, dangling the hanging spike into it. Ripples covered the puddle's top at the intrusion - and then a thick pseudopod struck out at the jackalope from the puddle. Binkadink chopped at the gray ooze as it launched an attack at Obvious, the blade of the handaxe cutting through the protoplasm as the ooze slid like a wave to cover the side of the jackalope's furry side. Obvious couldn't reach the ooze with his antlers, and Binkadink feared using his handaxe against it while it covered his mount - so he used the adamantine chain to try to scrape it off his friend. While it didn't have the intended effect, the ooze's caustic properties ate through the chain and the gnome and his mount were no longer chained together.</p><p></p><p>However, the gray ooze was still eating away at Obvious with its acidic body. Shrieking in pain, Obvious shook his body back and forth and managed to dislodge the gray ooze. It splatted to the floor and Binkadink chopped at it again with his handaxe. Obvious gored it with his antlers - perhaps instinctively using the one part of his body that would grow back each year - and together, they slew the protoplasmic beast.</p><p></p><p>Then, bound by friendship if no longer by chains, they carefully made their way along the length of the rest of the corridor, avoiding all puddles. Fortunately, there had only been the one gray ooze in the room, and the door at the other end was unlocked.</p><p></p><p>Best of all, the room just beyond held the group's mule wagon, Franco and Tantrum, Daisy and Wrath, and the rest of everybody's gear. Binkadink ran over to the piles of equipment and started strapping on his armor.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>Gilbert stared in disbelief at the room beyond the door. It was an open area about 15 feet wide and 30 feet long. There was a door at the opposite end, but unfortunately the only way to get there was along a narrow balance beam that bisected the room at the level the wizard was standing on. And there looked to be about a 20-foot plummet on either side of the balance beam should he fall.</p><p></p><p>...And that wasn't even taking into account the half dozen bladed pendulums swinging side to side just above the beam as Gilbert stood there getting his bearings.</p><p></p><p>"This crazy!" snorted Gilbert. He couldn't see much about the floor in the other room, as the only light sources were back in the room in which he'd woken up. But that was easily remedied: the <em>everburning torches</em> were easily removed from their sconces, so he picked one up and hurled it as far as he could into the balance beam chamber. It hit a pendulum and fell to the floor, landing near a spider larger than even the portly wizard.</p><p></p><p>"Oh no, you don't!" he announced to the spider. Whoever had kidnapped him and placed him in this facility had taken away his spell component pouch, but there had been no way for them to remove the spells Gilbert had already prepared in his head the previous morning. And one of those spells was a <em>scorching ray</em> spell, which could be activated solely with the proper magic words and the pointing of a finger. Gilbert cast the spell, sending a pair of flaming blasts of fire streaking down at the spider. Both struck unerringly, and the arachnid horror crumpled up into a ball of flame and twitching legs.</p><p></p><p>"And now I have new light source," chuckled Gilbert to himself before turning his attention to the swinging pendulums.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert didn't like the thought of having to balance along a thin beam, dodging slicing blades and possibly falling down 20 feet to a hard stone floor. So, hitching up the pants he wore beneath his robes, he chose a different approach. Removing his belt, he wrapped one end around his meaty left hand. Then he lowered himself down one side of the balance beam, hanging on by his right arm. He swung his belt beneath the beam, so the buckle end flipped over it. This end he grabbed with his right hand, then wrapped it around his right wrist, so he was now hanging below the beam by his belt. Then he reached up, grabbed the beam, and pulled himself forward. With his belt around his wrists, he had a contingency plan in place if he couldn't support his weight for the full trip across the beam - which turned out to be a wise move, as he lost his grip twice during the perilous trip. But having seen that the blades crossed several inches above the beam, he had decided it would be safer to not have to worry about them at all.</p><p></p><p>Once at the far end, Gilbert hung by one arm long enough to free one wrist and get both arms on the same side of the balance beam, then pulled himself up to the top with the last of his flagging strength. Covered in a pool of sweat by this time, he stood up, leaning against the door and supporting himself with a hand on the door handle, before catching his breath and finally opening the door.</p><p></p><p>"Oh, hey, hi," said Binkadink, strapping on his armor. "Your stuff's over there."</p><p></p><p>Gilbert stumbled over to his backpack and verified that the <em>Omnibook</em> was still there. He strapped on his spell component pouch, still worried about the lack of mental contact with his familiar. "You no see Mudpie, Bink?" he asked the gnome.</p><p></p><p>"Mudpie? No," admitted the gnome. "But Wrath's tied by a rope around his collar in the back of the mule wagon, Franco and Tantrum are right there, and Daisy's tied there too. Castor and Pollux and the Vistani wagon are missing, though - apparently there was no room for them in here. I assume they're all out there somewhere, and Mudpie's probably with them." Binkadink pointed to a pair of large doors along the largest wall. "They're locked - I checked. But I'll bet the key's inside this puzzle box." Sure enough, sitting with the group's piles of equipment was a wooden puzzle box they'd never seen before.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert stroked his beard as he thought. "If he out there, I feel him in my mind," he muttered. "Aha! Where Ingebold's pack?" The wizard started sorting through the group's backpacks until he found the one belonging to the dwarven cleric. Untying the fasteners, he pulled out the rolled-up <em>portable hole</em> she carried for the group. Spreading it open on the floor, Gilbert laid down next to it and stuck his head into the opening. "Mudpie?" he called. "You in there?"</p><p></p><p>"I here, Master," came a gravelly voice.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>The corridor stretching before Finoula and Ingebold was about 30 feet long but only five feet wide, with a tiny ledge along both sides a scant hand's-width wide. At the far side of the corridor stood a closed door. Unfortunately, the floor was about 20 feet lower than the room in which they had awakened some minutes before. Straining her elven vision in the dim light from the room behind them, Finoula saw the floor below was spotted with various puddles.</p><p></p><p>"I don't like the look of that," she muttered, looking back into their starting room for something to toss down there. She grinned evilly when spotting the animated doll. Grabbing it up, she brought it to the door and tossed it to the lower floor in the corridor. It said nothing as it fell, its only means of verbal communication the <em>magic mouth</em> spell that had been triggered when both victims had awakened. The doll landed with a splash, then got back to its feet and looked up at them, as if waiting to see what they'd do. It looked like a leech or two was now climbing up its wooden body.</p><p></p><p>"It's a bit of a drop," commented Finoula.</p><p></p><p>"We c'n give th' ledges a try," pointed out Ingebold.</p><p></p><p>"We could, but if we fall off we're in for a world of pain. I think I'd rather get down there at my own decision." The ranger lowered herself feet-first over the edge of the doorway, then dangled from her fingertips. "Here goes," she said, and let go. She fell, landed on her feet, and stepped backwards to prevent herself from falling prone. She was glad to have her boots back on, for she now stood in a puddle and sure enough, there were leeches crawling on her boots.</p><p></p><p>"You next!" Finoula called up to her battle-sister. Ingebold followed suit, and Finoula's attempt to catch her as she fell sent the two of them sprawling on the wet, stone floor, with leeches eagerly seeking any exposed skin. They took a moment to clear themselves of the blood-sucking beasts, then made their way down the corridor, avoiding the worst of the puddles. At the far end, the door stood closed some 20 feet above them.</p><p></p><p>"That looks a lot higher from down here," remarked Finoula. "I don't think even if you stood on my shoulders...." She didn't bother finishing her thought - that definitely wouldn't work. Turning to her battle-sister, she asked, "Spells?"</p><p></p><p>Ingebold did a quick mental inventory, determining what she had available that didn't require any spell components or her holy symbol of Moradin. She shook her head sadly.</p><p></p><p>"Well then, there's one thing we could try," suggested Finoula, then cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted up at the door, "HEY! GUYS! WE'RE DOWN HERE!"</p><p></p><p>After a brief moment, the door opened up and light spilled down from the doorway. Gilbert Fung looked down at them. "We toss you down rope!" he promised.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>The <em>Arachnibow</em> lay at Darrien's feet, one arrow lying beside it. He, too, faced a 15-foot-wide, 30-foot-long corridor, but his had a floor the same level as that of his starting room - for the first five feet. The other 25 feet of the corridor was 20 feet below him, and the door at the other end was thus 20 feet above floor level although at the same level as where Darrien currently stood.</p><p></p><p>The ranger picked up and strung his magic bow and scooped up the arrow. He could try shooting a web-line across the room, maybe tying it to the door here...or maybe lower himself to the bottom of the pit, traverse its length, and then use a web-line to climb back up to the door level. He briefly thought about shooting a web-line at the middle of the ceiling and trying to swing across to the door at the other side, but he quickly gave up on that idea - it didn't look like there was a ledge at the other side, so if he missed he'd have wasted his one arrow.</p><p></p><p>Wearing the <em>Arachnibow</em> over his shoulder and clamping the arrow between his teeth, Darrien lowered himself over the edge and dropped to the floor. <em>So far, so good</em>, he thought. He had a plan, and there didn't seem like there were any major complications in his way....</p><p></p><p>Halfway down the corridor, Darrien ran - quite literally - into a major complication.</p><p></p><p>He'd been walking down the length of the corridor, his half-elven heritage allowing him to see in the gloomy light spilling down from the room above, when he bumped into something that wasn't there. Well, that wasn't really true: it was obviously <em>there</em>, it just wasn't visible. The ranger's first thought was that he'd bumped into an invisible <em>wall of force</em>, but that supposition was quickly proven false when the invisible thing bit him on the shoulder.</p><p></p><p>Darrien leapt back, bow in one hand and arrow in the other. He had just the one arrow, so if he shot it at the invisible monster he'd have to make it count - and then he might not have it available to form a web-line out of the pit. Making a rapid combat decision, he held the <em>Arachnibow</em> by one end and swung it like a club at his unseen foe. It struck, but the ranger had no idea how much he had hurt the creature, not being able to see it wince in pain or anything. And so far it had remained completely silent; Darrien couldn't even hear any breathing. Bow at the ready, he strained to hear it - and was bitten again. He swung, struck, and backed further down the corridor, flailing wildly in an attempt to fend it off. At this rate, he realized, he'd never make it to the far end of the corridor and what he hoped would be freedom!</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>Binkadink opened a door at random. He had come through one, Gilbert through another, and now Ingebold and Finoula were climbing up Gilbert's rope through yet another. Hopefully, that meant Castillan, Aithanar, and Darrien were behind these other two.</p><p></p><p>The room beyond was a corridor, 30 feet long, and about 7 feet wide at Binkadink's end and 15 feet wide at the far end; it angled into its narrower width about halfway down its length. The stone floor was strewn with gravel and variously-shaped rocks, and at the far end was a rather unusual spectacle: Castillan and Aithanar, tied back-to-back, with Castillan hunched over such that his little brother's feet didn't touch the ground at all. Aithanar was screaming in pain; while he couldn't make coherent sense while trying to talk, he communicated just fine when using the universal sounds of agony. There seemed to be something sticking out of his torso, a sort of inverted cone; as Binkadink rushed into the room to help, it dropped off to the side as Castillan staggered forward.</p><p></p><p>"I'm coming!" Binkadink yelled to the group and stepped into the corridor - only to receive an attack of his own as a piercer dropped down from the ceiling just above him. It struck, but it struck the metal of Binkadink's gnomish plate mail armor, and bounced harmlessly to the side of the gnome. As did the next three that dropped down on the gnome; Aithanar cried out in pain again as another struck him. Castillan cried out as well, but in frustration rather than pain: his brother was too weak to support him, so he had no choice but to run as fast as he could through the gravel-filled room, leaving his brother a helpless victim to the piercer's attacks. But fortunately there were only half a dozen in the chamber and Binkadink's sudden presence had attracted four of them to attack him; even more fortunate, once having dropped from the ceiling it took a piercer quite some time to regain its lofty perch, moving along at snail-like speeds. The trio had no further trouble form them as they exited the room and Binkadink severed the ropes binding the two brothers together. By then, Aithanar was unconscious and bleeding out, but Ingebold was now free from her pit as well and tended immediately to the elven fighter's wounds.</p><p></p><p>Looking around, Castillan grabbed up his blades and noticed Darrien was still missing and there was one closed door among the five that arced along one side of the six-sided room with all of the heroes' adventuring gear. Opening it, Castillan saw the half-elf ranger swinging at an unseen foe with his <em>Arachnibow</em>. "It's big, and it's invisible!" called Darrien, seeing Castillan standing in the doorway at the end of the corridor.</p><p></p><p>The bounder backed up and took a running leap through the doorway at an angle, running along a side corridor wall before landing on something hard just in front of Darrien. Castillan landed in a crouch, with both of his blades stabbing down into the unseen creature's upper surface. From the feel of it, Castillan imagined an invisible crab, with a hardened, curving carapace being the surface upon which he had landed. He wasn't far off with his assumption, for once he and Darrien had slain it, its slowly started fading into visibility, and it proved to be a fungal creature with four wide, broad legs. "Phantom fungus," Gilbert identified as he looked into the room after having dropped the same rope with which he'd rescued Finoula and Ingebold down for Castillan and Darrien.</p><p></p><p>Once everyone had retrieved their equipment and Binkadink voiced his guess that the key to allow the group to exit this testing facility was inside the wooden puzzle box, Finoula was all for having Ingebold smash it with her hammer and be done with it. But Binkadink argued against such action; it could damage the key and the gnome had a use for the box once the key had been retrieved.</p><p></p><p>"Hand it over, gnome," said Gilbert. "I figure this out." But after several fruitless minutes, Castillan snagged it. "It's probably more suited to my expertise," he said - and sure enough, in a few moments he had figured out the opening mechanism and retrieved a key. Expertly checking the twin doors for traps and finding none, he put the key into the doors and unlocked them. They swung open like a pair of barn doors, and Ingebold led the mule wagon outside into the fresh air - where, not unexpectedly, Castor and Pollux stood in place before their Vistani wagon. The sun was not yet at its zenith; it was apparently at least the next morning after their abduction, but they had no way of knowing how many days they might have been unconscious.</p><p></p><p>"Wait a minute, what about Starflower and Dawnsong?" Finoula asked. "Where were they taken?"</p><p></p><p>"Maybe the tests were only designed for victims with humanoid form," suggested Darrien. "I can't imagine a centaur moving across a balance beam or climbing down into a pit."</p><p></p><p>"I starting to wonder about those two," replied Gilbert. "Kind of funny, we attacked by invisible fairies only they see."</p><p></p><p>"Well, we've been bothered by those fairies for months," pointed out Finoula.</p><p></p><p>"Um, well..." began Binkadink. "No we haven't. All those other times...that was, um...that was me."</p><p></p><p>"WHAT?" exploded Gilbert. "You play tricks on us, gnome? Think it funny?"</p><p></p><p>"Well, yeah," admitted Binkadink. "That's kind of the whole point of playing tricks on people: it's funny."</p><p></p><p>"Let's deal with this later," snarled Finoula. "Right now, I say we get out of here."</p><p></p><p>"But what about th' folks who captured us?" asked Ingebold. "If they captured us, they've likely captured others. Should we let a threat like that go unpunished? Could be that others've been killed."</p><p></p><p>"Yeah, and maybe they leave treasure behind," pointed out Gilbert. "What happen to all our stuff if we fail our puzzles?"</p><p></p><p>"An excellent point!" agreed Castillan, in much better spirits now that he was back in his combat leathers and his brother had been restored to full health. "Rangers, look around! Maybe those centaurs left some tracks!" They didn't, but Darrien did find a few tracks looking like they had been made by a large feline - a lion, maybe, or a tiger. They were about a hundred feet off the mountain path leading to the testing facility, so the group searched around that area before Darrien found a section of mountainside he could put his hand through. "Illusion!" he called out triumphantly.</p><p></p><p>The heroes immediately regrouped into combat formation: Obvious and Wrath stayed with Aithanar at the wagons, while the six adventurers and Mudpie - now <em>polymorphed</em> into a much larger size - entered through the <em>permanent illusion</em>. The corridor they entered had been carved directly into the stone of the mountain, and it was about 20 feet wide. A set of steps led further down into the facility, but each step was twice as big as those that would have been made for something human-sized.</p><p></p><p>Directly ahead, the group found the leader of the testing facility in a room that smelled like a lion's den. She sat regally on the stone floor before an elaborate curtain, her front paws crossed over each other while her humanoid upper torso stood upright as if at attention. Her black wings were tucked in at her sides, her black hair cascading behind her bare human shoulders. She smiled down at the heroes and then <strong>Spiral</strong> the gynosphinx said, "Well, I see you all survived your tests. Well done! But you have no business back here – you’d best be on your way, or I'll have no choice but to slay you for your trespass."</p><p></p><p>"Where the centaurs?" demanded Gilbert. He was still suspicious that they had been in cahoots with the gynosphinx, but there was always the possibility that they'd been charmed against their will.</p><p></p><p>"Where indeed?" purred Spiral. "<strong>Arabessa</strong>! <strong>Myndavia</strong>! We have visitors!"</p><p></p><p>Binkadink didn't need any further proof that the centaurs had been working for Spiral than the fact they had used false names. He elevated his gnomish stilt-boots and charged Spiral, his glaive stabbing into her side. Spiral roared in pain, the vocalization sounding more leonine than human, as she raked at him in return with claws from all four of her paws.</p><p></p><p>Finoula, finding a face behind the leech traps she'd had to endure, activated the <em>lightning amulet</em> she once again wore at her throat. Her body instantly converted to a bolt of electricity, she raced through Spiral's body - careful to avoid Binkadink, who was now standing before her - and resuming her form just in front of the curtain. After the gash in her side from Binkadink's glaive, the blast of electricity was all it took for Spiral to collapse to the stone floor, dead. Finoula grinned triumphantly.</p><p></p><p>Two familiar shapes approached from a side corridor. "What are you guys doing here?" asked Starflower.</p><p></p><p>"Dealing with you!" responded Darrien, sending a series of arrows showering into the blond centaur's body. She snarled a rather lionlike roar of pain as well, and then Dawnsong said, "I guess we no longer need to wear these shapes, then, do we?" Instantly, the two centaurs transformed into their true shapes: where once their lower halves were patterned after horses, they now had the appearance of lionesses.</p><p></p><p>"Lamias!" announced Gilbert, although he mispronounced the word - you could always tell who had gained their knowledge from a book instead of having heard the word spoken aloud.</p><p></p><p>"Lamias!" corrected Myndavia, her guise as Dawnsong the centaur no longer needed. She leapt forward, claws at the ready, only to have Castillan beat her to the punch. He mirrored the same run-along-the-wall trick he'd done when leaping onto the phantom fungus, only this time he merely took a stab at the lamia in passing; his main goal was to get behind her to set her up for being flanked by another combatant.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert cast an attack spell onto Mudpie, then sent him underneath the stone floor to pop up and deliver it to one of the lamias. Mudpie popped up beside Arabessa - now no longer wearing Starflower's form - and tapped her with a misshapen fist, activating the <em>shocking grasp</em> spell the portly wizard had loaded onto his familiar. The lamia made to attack, but her claws raked fruitlessly against his stony exterior, whereas his stone-hard fist blasted painfully into her face, the breaking of bones clearly audible over the sounds of combat.</p><p></p><p>Ingebold cast a <em>spiritual weapon</em>, shaped like a hammer of Moradin, which crashed down upon the two lamias. Binkadink switched targets from the now-dead gynosphinx and his glaive cut deep gashes into the group's only remaining foes. Before long, the lamias joined their leader in death.</p><p></p><p>Behind Spiral's curtain were her treasures, and there were more in the den the lamias had shared between them, but before gathering up their loot Gilbert wanted to make sure there was nothing else out there waiting to attack them. Exploring the rest of the testing facility, the group found a long, curving corridor that flanked the rooms they'd each awakened in; each had a large, heavy section of stone that could be pulled back to gain access to the starting rooms. From inside the rooms, these sliding doors comprised the entire back walls, explaining why those who had searched for secret doors had been unable to find any.</p><p></p><p>However, at the back of the facility the group found four more workers. These were all human, one of them a sorcerer and the rest mere laborers. They'd been used basically as slave labor, crafting the dolls that Spiral then granted a semblance of life in a ritual that made them her unliving homunculi; she'd been able to see through their eyes and keep up with the group's progress in that fashion. But now, no longer charmed into servitude by the slain gynosphinx, the humans were allowed to go free.</p><p></p><p>"Let's get back to those treasuries," exclaimed Castillan after they saw the workers out of the facility, to make their ways back to their individual homes. "I saw what looked like some pretty good stuff."</p><p></p><p>"Yeah, and the extra money will come in handy once we find those weaponsmiths!" exclaimed Binkadink, still dreaming about a magical gnomish glaive.</p><p></p><p>"We see about that," retorted Gilbert. "We might have to lower your share, charge you a 'mess with hair color' fee."</p><p></p><p>"Aw, c'mon guys!" whined Binkadink. "It was just a joke! Okay, a continued series of jokes, but c'mon -- it was pretty funny, you have to admit!" Binkadink looked around him and saw only a ring of frowning faces looking down at him - for he'd lowered his stilt-boots after combat had ended.</p><p></p><p>"Guys?" he wheedled.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>T-Shirt Worn: The T-shirt idea this time was partially a brainstorm of my son Logan's. He decided that no matter what shirt I ended up wearing, he would wear his <em>X-Files</em> T-shirt, specifically because it has the phrase "TRUST NO ONE" in large print on the back. He thought it would be cool if, just this once, the "adventure clue" was on his shirt instead of mine. (The "adventure clue" he focused on was that it had been Binkadink all along responsible for the changes in hair - and fur - color over the past several months, courtesy of his once-a-day <em>prestidigitation</em> spell-like ability, sometimes mirrored up with his once-a-day <em>ghost sound</em> spell-like ability to make the "giggling fey" noises that occasionally accompanied the prank.) I opted to wear one of my dragon shirts, this one a stylish blue-scaled Eastern dragon, as a red herring lining up with the tale the centaurs told of a red dragon menacing the local area. But was it, as the players mused at the end of this session, merely a ruse to distract them from the lamias' true plans, or was that part true? After all, if Spiral and the lamias had been spying on them, they knew Ingebold occasionally cast the <em>zone of truth</em> spell on people they suspected of lying to them. And I did have those red dragon minis Logan had painted.... </p><p></p><p>Oh well. No doubt time will tell if there are any red dragons in the PCs' immediate futures.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6951127, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 26: THIS IS JUST A TEST[/b] Game Session Date: 19 November 2016 - - - Finoula, having taken the last guard shift, watched the morning sun's rays rise over the peaks of the Clatspur Range and finished her final excursion around the circumference of the camp. As she approached Binkadink, snuggled against the warm fur of his jackalope mount and still snoring softly, something seemed wrong. It took her a moment to realize that Obvious's fur was now the pure white of a snow hare. She strained her ears to try to pick up the sound of fairy wings - or fairy laughter - but heard only the normal noises of the mountain forest around her. Waking everyone up, she added some fuel to the campfire and started getting the breakfast meal ready. Binkadink yawned and stretched, then jumped to his feet in shock once he saw the color of his mount's fur. "When did this happen?" he asked. Finoula just shrugged; she hadn't been paying particular attention to the color of the jackalope's fur with every pass she made during her guard shift. But Obvious didn't seem particularly fazed by it, nor did he once it returned to its normal earthy brown shortly after the group got back on the road. "Stupid fairies," grumbled Gilbert. The rest of the day's northerly journey was relatively uneventful. Binkadink was fairly certain there should only be a day or two left in their trek before they exited the Clatspur Range, and hopefully met up with the wizards and weaponsmiths said to have set up shop thereabouts. He daydreamed happily about magical gnomish glaives while Obvious hippity-hopped along with the rest of the group. "We'd best be findin' a place fer th' evenin'," suggested Ingebold from the driver's seat of the mule wagon. "It'll be gettin' dark soon." Indeed, twilight was fast approaching. "There's a fire up ahead," advised Castillan from his perch on the top of the Vistani wagon. Sure enough, just ahead to the right was the flickering light of a campfire, in a wide clearing large enough to hold both wagons and make for a comfortable evening, surrounded on three edges by the cliffsides of the forested mountains. However, the space was already occupied by a pair of female centaurs, one of them blonde, the other a brunette. Upon the arrival of the adventurers, they looked up from their cook fire preparations and smiled in greeting. "Hello," said the blond centaur. "My name is [b]Starflower[/b], and this is [b]Dawnsong[/b]. Do you wish to join us for the evening?" Dawnsong looked up at the new arrivals and her mouth hung open in shock. "I'm sorry," she said, smiling shyly, "but you wouldn't happen to be the Kordovian Band, would you?" "'The Kordovian Band'?" repeated Finoula. "How did you know we were from Kordovia?" "We shared a campfire with an elven bard a few nights ago," the centaur admitted. "One of the songs he sang was 'The Kordovian Band' - and it described each of you. There probably aren't a lot of gnomes who ride jackalopes. You must be...Dinkabink?" "Binkadink," corrected the little gnome with a friendly smile, dismounting from Obvious's back. "Binkadink! Yes!" said Starflower, clapping her hands. "And you must be Finoula! And Ingebold! And Derry...?" she added, clearly trying to scrounge up the half-elf ranger's name from memory. Darrien supplied it to her, and introductions were made all around. Gilbert stepped aside as Mudpie rose up from the ground where he'd been standing. "Oh!" exclaimed the centaurs. "I don't think he was in the song!" "He new addition to group," exclaimed Gilbert, giving the centaur women a wide smile. The fact that neither wore any clothing might have had some small bearing on his general level of friendliness to two strangers he'd just met - the wizard usually trusted nobody until he'd had time to study them for some time. "Will you join us in honeywine porridge?" asked Dawnsong, adding several more handfuls of grain into the cook pot over the fire. "Gladly!" replied Castillan, leaping down from the wagon and approaching the bare-chested centaurs. Finoula gave a slight sniff of irritation at the fact that the men of her group all seemed to be ogling the centaurs, who seemed indifferent to their nakedness. At least Aithanar wasn't paying them any attention; as usual, he was attending to the horses and mules, and as usual, he was giving Finoula's pony Daisy special attention. The elven ranger smiled at him, and he returned her smile wholeheartedly. After a nice meal - the honeywine porridge was actually very good, and the adventurers offered up some of their own food stores in return, which the centaurs accepted with great relish - and as the sun went down, Starflower turned to the group and asked, "So what brings you here to the mountains? Are you here about the dragon?" "Dragon?" repeated Binkadink, suddenly all ears. He'd love to test his mettle against a dragon - although, on second thought, he'd actually kind of rather his first dragon encounter happened [i]after[/i] he procured a magical glaive. "A red dragon, yes," affirmed Dawnsong. "They say he's twice the size of a horse, and he's been shaking down the villages in the area, seeking tribute in exchange for not burning their homes to the ground." "You see this dragon yourself?" Gilbert asked. "No," admitted Dawnsong, "But we heard about it from the bard, and from another traveler on the road just the other day." "And why are you here?" asked Finoula. "Oh, we're nomads," replied Starflower. "Druids, actually - we explore the vastness of [b]Skerrit[/b]'s bounty, living off the land and helping those we meet on the way." "Who Skerrit?" asked Gilbert Fung. "I thought druids worship [b]Ehlonna[/b], or maybe [b]Obad-hai[/b]." "Oh, we honor both of them as well," admitted Dawnsong. "But Skerrit is the God of the Centaurs, and as such deserves our primary reverence." Then she suddenly flinched. "Did you hear that?" she asked. Everyone strained their ears, trying to hear whatever it was the centaur had picked up. There were the normal sounds of the forest around them - chirping crickets, the quiet susurration of the wind through the leaves - and the crackling of the campfire before them, but both Castillan and Darrien could also make out the droning of insect wings growing louder, occasionally sprinkled with the sounds of muffled laughter. Suddenly, Starflower's blond hair changed hue to a bright magenta. "What's going on?" she cried. "It the fairies again!" yelled Gilbert, looking up at the air above him but seeing nothing - not that they'd ever actually seen the fairies that had been plaguing them for months. Binkadink's eyes bulged wide as he stared at Starflower's reddish-purple hair as if he couldn't believe what was happening - which was absolutely true, for he was the only one in the group (besides Obvious, who couldn't speak to anyone but the gnome) who knew that [i]he'd[/i] been the one responsible for the sudden hair discoloration effects over the past few months. After all, what was the point of a prank-loving gnome being able to activate daily [i]prestidigitation[/i] and [i]ghost sound[/i] effects if they weren't put to good use? Dawnsong spoke the words to a quick spell, causing her eyes to glow a bright blue, and looked about her. "It's a band of fairies," she announced. "Invisible, as I suspected. And-–what's this? Their heads! They look like, like some sort of insect! Look out!" The centaur pushed Finoula back, stepping forward as if to protect her. "Everyone down!" she cried. "They're firing some sort of rays!" Chaos exploded around the campfire. Those heroes of a martial bent grabbed up their weapons, while Ingebold cast a quick [i]magic circle against evil[/i] spell and Gilbert caught all of his group's members in a [i]haste[/i] spell. But sporadically, each could feel the invisible rays striking at them, making them feel weaker in some hard-to-define way. Dawnsong, the only one in the group capable of seeing where the attacks were coming from, did her best to describe to the others when to duck, occasionally trying to pull them out of the way or shield them with her own body. Starflower looked up to the air above them and lamented that she'd not prepared any spells useful for this unseen attack. Binkadink had no spells to cast but he had a glaive, and while he couldn't see any enemies, he figured he could put his weapon to better use than swinging it wildly around above him and hoping he hit something. Instead, he stabbed into the campfire, tossing ashes and embers directly above the flames. "Kick up dirt!" he called to Obvious in the burrowing-mammal language they shared. The jackalope started scuffing his back legs, kicking up a cloud of dirt behind him. The air above them exploded with the irritated shrieks of the unseen insect-fairies, who must have thereafter dodged around the clouds that might have exposed their whereabouts. Darrien was the first to realize that having everybody standing around the campfire in one big clump might not be the best tactical position. Hoping to draw some off from the rest of the group, he sprinted around the campfire and headed for the Vistani wagon. Gilbert saw this and apparently gave it his blessing, for he started to follow. "C'mon, Mudpie, we get to safety!" he called - before jumping from a sudden jolt and falling face-first to the ground. Mudpie, sensing his master was unconscious through the empathic link they shared, did his best to follow his master's last instructions. Sinking down below the ground with one hand still raised above it, he earth-glided through the dirt, his one hand sticking up like a shark's fin through the water. The bulky hand grabbed Gilbert by the collar of his robes as it passed, and the heavyset wizard's body was dragged face-down through the dirt on the way to the Vistani wagon - where Darrien, to his dismay, found the back door was locked! Cursing in frustration, he was struck by an unseen foe and collapsed, unconscious, to the ground. Over by the campfire, things weren't much better. Finoula, Aithanar, Binkadink, and Ingebold had likewise been rendered unconscious by their invisible foes, and, eyes rolling up into her head, Starflower soon followed suit. Castillan just barely dodged out of the way of the falling centaur before he, too, was overcome by whatever had been striking the group. Wrath and Obvious fell next, followed by Dawnsong, the only member of the group capable of actually seeing their foes. Mudpie was the last to fall, standing protectively over the unconscious body of his master; his last conscious act was ensuring his rocky body fell away from, rather than atop, Gilbert Fung when he collapsed. Silence reigned around the campsite, the only noises now the crackling of the flames and the returning chirps of the crickets in the surrounding forest. - - - Binkadink fluttered his eyelids, wondering where he was. He was lying on his back, staring up at a stone ceiling; the flickering light told him there were torches nearby. He sat up, and discovered two things immediately: first, he had been stripped of his armor and weapons and was now wearing only a pair of his traveling clothes; and second, there was a manacle around his left wrist. Looking down, he saw the manacle was connected to a short length of chain which went through a triangular hole at the top of a metal spike sticking up from the stone floor and connected to another manacle around Obvious's right front paw. The two were in a small, square room, 15 feet to a side, with a single door flanked by [i]everburning torches[/i] and with a glowing rune of some sort directly above it. To the wall at right of the door was a box with a hinged top lid; just before it, the handaxe the heroes used to cut firewood was lying on the floor, just out of reach. It looked like there was a small piece of paper underneath it. As Obvious began to stir, a small figure stepped into view from the back of the room. It was the size of a child's doll, made from carved wood, with a painted face that included spiraling designs on each cheek. "Hello, Binkadink," it said in the Common tongue. "I want to play a game. You are known for your loyalty to your friends and family. But how long will that loyalty last under stress? Underneath the handaxe is a card that will let you know what you need to do to escape this room safely. But you should know that your chains are adamantine, and escape likely won't be as easy – or as bloodless – as you'd wish." With a feeling of dread, Binkadink stretched out as far as he could towards the handaxe - and came up several inches too short. Asking Obvious - who, oblivious to the Common tongue, had understood nothing of what the animated doll had said - to move as close as possible to the spike in the floor between them, the gnome managed to grab the handle of the handaxe and drag it and the paper on which it rested over to him. The paper was a rectangle folded over once to form a square, and was inscribed with Binkadink's name. Opening it, the gnome read to himself:Binkadink looked down at the handaxe, then over to his faithful steed and trusty companion, and felt a sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach. - - - Gilbert Fung rubbed his eyes and sat up, grumpily. He still wore his traveling robe but had none of his adventuring gear with him – his backpack, wands, potions, scrolls, the [i]Omnibook[/i] – all of it was gone. Likewise, Mudpie was not in evidence, and with a shock the wizard realized he couldn't even feel his familiar's mental presence through the empathic link they normally shared. Getting up and looking around, Gilbert found himself in a small room illuminated by a pair of [i]everburning torches[/i] on either side of a wooden door. Above the door was engraved an arcane rune of some type. On the floor by the door was a folded piece of paper with Gilbert's name on it. As Gilbert bent over to pick up the note, a small figure stepped forward from the shadows along the back of the room: a child's doll, it looked like. "Hello, Gilbert," it said. "I want to play a game. You are separated from your friends, in a room with only one visible way out. You often talk as if you know more than your companions. Here is where you can prove your mental superiority. The card will tell you what you need to do to exit this room safely." Gilbert opened the card and read:"I not happy about any of this!" Gilbert announced loudly to the room at large. The doll said nothing, merely stared up at the portly wizard as if curious as to what he would do next. - - - Finoula woke up on the cold stone floor of a small room with a single door flanked by [i]everburning torches[/i]. Above the door was an arcane rune. Sitting up, the ranger saw a three-foot-tall stone urn in the middle of the room, on the other side of which she could hear Ingebold stirring. The urn's top was covered by means of a stone lid with two handles sticking out of the sides. The urn looked to be about two feet wide. As the women rose to their feet, they realized they were both wearing their travel garb but their armor, weapons, and associated adventuring gear – including even Ingebold’s holy symbol of Moradin – was missing. The dwarven cleric's hand went instinctively to her neck, where her holy symbol would normally have been. A small figure approached from behind the urn, the size of a child's doll. "Hello, Finoula. Hello, Ingebold," it said. "I want to play a game. You two are the only female members of your adventuring group. As such, some might think you were therefore the weakest members of the group as well. Here you will have an opportunity to dispel those notions – or reinforce them. There is a card by the door that explains what you need to do to escape this room unscathed." With a snarl, Ingebold grabbed up the doll by its neck and started to shake it, then realized how silly it was to try to frighten what was obviously an animated object, no doubt speaking pre-programmed words via a [i]magic mouth[/i] spell or similar magic. She tossed the thing into a corner, slightly unnerved to see it right itself and stand there, looking at the two. "What's th' card say?" Ingebold asked. Finoula read aloud:Examining the urn, the women saw it was carved directly from the room, as it and the floor all seemed to be of the same unbroken construction - so there was no way to tip it over. "I wonder what else's in th' urn," Ingebold muttered to herself. Finoula frowned her agreement. - - - Darrien woke up on a cold, hard, stone floor. He was wearing a travel outfit, but his armor, weapons, and other adventuring gear were all missing. Looking about, he saw he was in a small room carved from solid stone with a single door as the only way out. Flanking the door were two [i]everburning torches[/i], and there was a strange rune overhead. On a ledge along the wall to the right of the door were five straight-edged shapes. "Hello, Darrien," said a voice behind the ranger. "I want to play a game." Looking around, Darrien saw a child's doll stepping forth from the shadows at the rear of the chamber. "You're the quiet one," it continued, "Often full of good ideas, but not always presenting them to the group at large. Now, you'll have to count on your own wits to get you out of the predicament you now find yourself in. There's a card on the floor which explains what you need to do to exit this room." Darrien picked up the card and read: Looking at the door, he could see a diamond-shaped indentation. And sure enough, the small ledge to the right contained five keys, each the same except for the geometric shape at the end you'd hold to use the key. One looked kind of like a simple house, one looked like an elongated "V" or "L" - but all had straight lines along their outer edges, and either right angles or angles looking half that wide. Darrien picked up the first two keys and positioned them inside the diamond, trying different configurations. - - - Castillan came to sitting upright on a cold stone floor. His arms were bound at his sides from shoulder to elbow by strong ropes and after a moment he realized he was bound back-to-back with his brother Aithanar. Both were wearing their travel clothes but seemed to be missing all of their armor, weapons, and equipment – with the sole exception of both of Castillan's [i]gloves of storing[/i]. Looking around, the bounder could see he was in a small room with a single door, upon which was inscribed a strange design of overlapping straight lines. A pair of [i]everburning torches[/i] provided the only light in the room, but above the door the bounder could see some sort of arcane glyph. Just as the elf was about to snap his weapons into his hands and try to cut the ropes binding him to his brother, a small figure stepped forward from the shadows of the back part of the room, no larger than a child's doll. "Hello, Castillan. Hello, Aithanar," it said. "I want to play a game. You are the eldest of the Ivenheart siblings, Castillan, but did you rescue your brother out of responsibility for his well-being, or simply to annoy your father? You may have noticed you are still wearing your gloves. However, they no longer hold your weapons; one now holds the key to allow you to exit this room safely, and the other holds a particular menace that, if released, will spell almost certain doom for Aithanar. You could easily activate both gloves and guarantee your freedom, but at the cost of your brother's life. There is a card by the door which explains what you need to do." "Squimba shondookie?" asked Aithanar, with not a little fear in his voice. "I don't know," Castillan answered. "See if we can scoot over to reach the card." Working together, the two elves scooted along the floor until the elder brother could scoop up the card. Dexterously opening it one-handed, he pulled it close to his face and read it aloud to his brother:"Stand up," commanded Castillan. Pushing against each others' backs, they struggled to a standing position. Then Castillan circled around until he faced the door and could get a good look at the design carved into it. There was a square, with a great number of intersecting lines going across it in various directions. "This is going to suck," complained Castillan, starting a mental tally of how many different triangles he could put together in the carving. - - - Binkadink realized there was no way he was going to do the obvious to Obvious and cut off his right front paw. "See if you can reach the box by the door," he advised his jackalope, moving his chained left wrist as close to the spike as it would go, to give Obvious the longest stretch of chain he could provide. It wasn't enough; the jackalope couldn't reach the box with his antlers, let along one of his paws. "There's got to be another way," mused Binkadink. Then, in sudden inspiration, he placed the handle of the handaxe through the triangular hole at the top of the spike; it just barely fit. "Help me push," he told Obvious. Together, after straining to get it started, they felt the spike turn a bit counterclockwise. Then it was easy work to unscrew it, although bound by the chain as they were they had to reposition themselves as they moved counterclockwise in tempo with the unscrewing of the spike into the stone. But at last the spike was free of the stone floor, and the two companions were that little bit more free themselves - they could move about the whole room, even if they were still bound together by the adamantine chain, now with a spike dangling from it. Moving by the door, Binkadink opened the top of the box and told Obvious to put his right front paw into it. Thinking this was some kind of a game, the jackalope happily complied - and the rune above the door stopped glowing. "That should do it!" exclaimed the gnome, opening the door and seeing what lay beyond. - - - Gilbert studied the glyph above the door. He was fairly sure it was one of the various [i]symbol[/i] spells; which one, he couldn't be absolutely certain, as two wizards could each scribe a [i]symbol of death[/i], say, without them necessarily looking anything alike. He'd love to examine it under the effects of a [i]read magic[/i] spell, but he knew such a spell required a small glass prism - which was wherever his pouch of spell components currently resided. After giving the rest of the room a cursory inspection and finding no secret doors out of the room - and glaring at the now-silent animated doll following his every move with its glass eyes - he reread the contents of the note. "State," stated Gilbert in a loud, commanding voice, then looked up expectantly at the glyph. Its glow continued unabated. "Hmmph!" sniffed the wizard - he had hoped "State the command word" might have been patterned after the way he himself chose to speak, but that apparently wasn't it. "I suppose my fifteen seconds long since up," he muttered to himself, then looked back down at the card. A sudden smile broke across his face. "You think you too clever for Gilbert Fung," he announced aloud to the air around him, "but Gilbert Fung too clever for you! Throofoxathanie!" At the spoken command word - formed by stringing together the second letter of each word on Gilbert's instruction card - the magical rune's glow ceased. "Ha!" chortled Gilbert in glee, opening the door and exiting the room. - - - "One, two, three -- heave!" called Finoula, and the two women strained to lift the heavy stone lid off the urn. This, their third attempt, proved to be the one that did it; they carefully maneuvered it to the floor lest it land on one of their feet. "Phew!" whooshed Ingebold, wiping her brow. Finoula peered inside the urn. The walls of the stone structure were a solid two inches thick, leaving about a 16-inch diameter opening in the middle of the urn, which was filled almost to the top with brackish water. "Th' key's in there?" asked Ingebold, looking at the narrowness of the urn's interior. "I dinnae think I'll fit inside it, Finoula." The ranger looked skeptically at her stout companion's broad shoulders and wider hips, and came to the same conclusion. "That's all right," she said, "I think I'll be able to fit." Just to make sure she wasn't about to dive into an urn of acid, she plucked a silver hair from her head and dropped it into the water, letting its end float for a minute before plucking it back out from the end she'd never released. Examining it closely, it was perfectly fine: wet, but not eaten away. With a sigh of resignation, Finoula pulled off her boots and socks, then boosted herself up to the top of the urn and straddled it. "Yer goin' in feet first?" asked Ingebold. "It's safer that way," remarked Finoula. "Head-first, I'd have to hold my breath. It might take me a bit longer to grab up the key in my toes, but at least I'll be able to breathe normally while I do so." "Aye," agreed Ingebold, "but I dinnae think ye'll be able to bend yer knees much in that wee hole. Ye'll have t' use yer feet, like ye said." "Well, here goes nothing," the ranger said, and dropped into the urn. Water splashed out over the top, displaced by Finoula's body. She immediately realized there were two surprises in store for her. First of all, despite the urn standing a mere three feet tall, the interior went at least four feet deep; Finoula sunk down to where the water level was above her clavicles. Her arms grabbed the urn's top in surprise, as she hadn't expected to sink down that deep, but her feet touched bottom and after a few moments her toes bumped into something metal. That wasn't all she brushed up against, however. She felt, at various points along her body, small objects that had been floating in the water bumping into her. Her first thought was admittedly ridiculous: that she'd jumped into not an urn of water but one of soup, and was bumping up against carrots. But then, with a wave of disgust, the ranger realized those weren't carrots, and a startled scream escaped from her lips. "Are ye okay?" asked Ingebold, worry creasing her brow. Her battle-sister's face had turned pale, and she could see Finoula was clamping down on an even louder scream struggling to get out. "Can't--grab--key--with--toes," hissed the ranger, sweat now pouring from her face. "Try holding it between both feet," suggested the cleric. Finoula concentrated, then started pulling herself up out of the urn. "Did it!" she said, sitting on the edge of the urn and leaning backwards, allowing Ingebold to help lift her to the floor while she concentrated on keeping the metal key pinned between her feet. Once safely on the stone floor, dripping wet in a pool of filthy water, the ranger silently passed the key to Ingebold. "Here," she said through clenched teeth. "D'ye want me to--?" began Ingebold, but Finoula shooed her way. "You get the door open," she commanded. "I'll...get...these." And with a look of abject horror on her delicate elven features, Finoula began pulling off the leeches that were clinging all over her body and flinging them across the room. Ingebold turned the key in the door, and the glyph's faint illumination ceased. She turned the knob, and the door opened easily. Then she helped pick off the rest of the leeches, and the two staggered over to the door to see what was in the room beyond. - - - Darrien was having a difficult time getting four of the puzzle-piece keys to form a diamond. Deciding he had a 20% chance of guessing correctly whichever piece he chose, he placed the house-shaped key into the keyhole of the door, turned it to the right - and was shocked, quite literally, to find out he had guessed incorrectly. The electricity sent him staggering across the room, dropping the key to the floor in the process. He failed to notice that during his attempt the glyph above the door flashed brighter, it having been triggered by his incorrect choice. Fortunately for him, he was able to subconsciously shrug off the intended effects without even being aware his mind had been under attack. Giving himself a moment to recover, he picked up the fallen key and returned it to its place on the shelf. However, he found he had no desire at all to try a second key; maybe he'd best figure out the damn diamond puzzle after all! Each of the puzzle pieces had lines of some sort drawn across their top faces, the side that would be visible when forming the diamond. Darrien had been using these lines as guides, thinking that lining them up might help him figure out which pieces went where. But then he decided that might just be what they [i]wanted[/i] him to think, so he studiously ignored them. And sure enough, after a few different combinations, he finally found one that worked, where the square piece had been placed oriented like a square, instead of like the diamond shape the guide-lines had suggested it must be. With four keys forming the diamond, Darrien placed the fifth into the keyhole and turned it. He held his breath when doing so, half expecting another shock, but the key turned without incident, the glyph's light diminished above the door, and the door opened into another room. Smiling happily at himself for having solved the puzzle on his own, Darrien stepped into the next room. - - - "Okay, I have my answer," said Castillan. "Now let's turn around so you can look at it, and you see how many triangles you can find. Okay?" "Bastooka," replied Aithanar, shuffling around. After a few minutes, he replied, "Penta bandoogle." "You've got a number?" asked his older brother. "Then start tapping your foot the number you came up with, and I'll keep track." Painstakingly, Aithanar started stomping his foot. "One, two, three, four..." counted Castillan, until Aithanar's foot-stomping stopped after 32 taps on the floor. "You counted 32?" asked Castillan, turning his head to see his brother nod. "That's what I came up with, too! So that means the key's in my right glove!" He snapped the fingers of his right hand, expecting a key to appear there. It didn't. What appeared instead was a metallic snake - an animated automaton in the shape of a cobra. Castillan made a grab for the thing, but it slid out of his grasp and landed on the stone floor with a [i]thunk![/i] before wriggling to Aithanar and sinking its needle-sharp fangs into the fighter's side, internal mechanisms injecting the first of three doses of poison into Aithanar's body. He screamed in surprise and pain, and thrashed about, trying to get free. Castillan realized they must have both miscounted the triangles, and snapped the fingers of his left hand now that there was no longer any reason not to. A key appeared in it, and he spun the bound pair around so he could try to get it into the keyhole of the door. However, this proved to be a rather difficult task to accomplish while tied to his brother, who was avidly ducking and weaving in an attempt to avoid being struck again by the miniature iron cobra. No such luck. The mechanical construct got another bite in and more venom was pumped into Aithanar's system. Already the fighter felt the strength flowing out of his muscles, and it was almost all he could do to stay on his feet. "Here! Take the key!" commanded Castillan, bringing his left hand down by his side and passing it into Aithanar's right hand. Then he swung the pair around again, holding as still as possible so Aithanar could maneuver the key into the keyhole while he tried to grab at the iron cobra as it struck past the bounder in an attempt to home in on the younger Ivenheart brother. Castillan's fingertips brushed the iron body but he was unable to get a good grasp on the thing. It was successful in biting Aithanar a third time - but too late, for the weakening fighter managed to get the key into the keyhole and had just enough strength to turn it. Looking over his shoulder, Castillan saw the glyph above the door darken. "It's safe!" he cried. "I'll kick the snake, you open the door, and run through! I'll pull the door shut once we're past!" But this was too much for the greatly weakened fighter, with three doses of strength-draining venom coursing through his veins. So once again they swapped spots, Aithanar kicking feebly at the iron cobra (and missing), while Castillan opened the door, leaned forward so his brother was perched on his back, and ran through the doorway. He spun around, slamming the door shut just in time - the iron cobra's striking body hit the door instead of the elf it had been targeting. "We're safe!" announced Castillan. Aithanar, looking up at the jagged ceiling 20 feet above him in this new room, saw exactly how wrong his brother was and screamed out a warning - "Pondookle!" - before the piercer came plummeting down to stab the fighter deep in his shoulder. - - - Binkadink and Obvious looked through the doorway to the chamber beyond: a rectangular stretch of cavern, some 15 feet wide and twice that long. The floor was covered with numerous puddles and the sound of dripping water echoed throughout the chamber. At the far end stood a closed door. "I don't trust those puddles," Binkadink said. He and his trusty steed walked up to the closest one and lowered the chain, dangling the hanging spike into it. Ripples covered the puddle's top at the intrusion - and then a thick pseudopod struck out at the jackalope from the puddle. Binkadink chopped at the gray ooze as it launched an attack at Obvious, the blade of the handaxe cutting through the protoplasm as the ooze slid like a wave to cover the side of the jackalope's furry side. Obvious couldn't reach the ooze with his antlers, and Binkadink feared using his handaxe against it while it covered his mount - so he used the adamantine chain to try to scrape it off his friend. While it didn't have the intended effect, the ooze's caustic properties ate through the chain and the gnome and his mount were no longer chained together. However, the gray ooze was still eating away at Obvious with its acidic body. Shrieking in pain, Obvious shook his body back and forth and managed to dislodge the gray ooze. It splatted to the floor and Binkadink chopped at it again with his handaxe. Obvious gored it with his antlers - perhaps instinctively using the one part of his body that would grow back each year - and together, they slew the protoplasmic beast. Then, bound by friendship if no longer by chains, they carefully made their way along the length of the rest of the corridor, avoiding all puddles. Fortunately, there had only been the one gray ooze in the room, and the door at the other end was unlocked. Best of all, the room just beyond held the group's mule wagon, Franco and Tantrum, Daisy and Wrath, and the rest of everybody's gear. Binkadink ran over to the piles of equipment and started strapping on his armor. - - - Gilbert stared in disbelief at the room beyond the door. It was an open area about 15 feet wide and 30 feet long. There was a door at the opposite end, but unfortunately the only way to get there was along a narrow balance beam that bisected the room at the level the wizard was standing on. And there looked to be about a 20-foot plummet on either side of the balance beam should he fall. ...And that wasn't even taking into account the half dozen bladed pendulums swinging side to side just above the beam as Gilbert stood there getting his bearings. "This crazy!" snorted Gilbert. He couldn't see much about the floor in the other room, as the only light sources were back in the room in which he'd woken up. But that was easily remedied: the [i]everburning torches[/i] were easily removed from their sconces, so he picked one up and hurled it as far as he could into the balance beam chamber. It hit a pendulum and fell to the floor, landing near a spider larger than even the portly wizard. "Oh no, you don't!" he announced to the spider. Whoever had kidnapped him and placed him in this facility had taken away his spell component pouch, but there had been no way for them to remove the spells Gilbert had already prepared in his head the previous morning. And one of those spells was a [i]scorching ray[/i] spell, which could be activated solely with the proper magic words and the pointing of a finger. Gilbert cast the spell, sending a pair of flaming blasts of fire streaking down at the spider. Both struck unerringly, and the arachnid horror crumpled up into a ball of flame and twitching legs. "And now I have new light source," chuckled Gilbert to himself before turning his attention to the swinging pendulums. Gilbert didn't like the thought of having to balance along a thin beam, dodging slicing blades and possibly falling down 20 feet to a hard stone floor. So, hitching up the pants he wore beneath his robes, he chose a different approach. Removing his belt, he wrapped one end around his meaty left hand. Then he lowered himself down one side of the balance beam, hanging on by his right arm. He swung his belt beneath the beam, so the buckle end flipped over it. This end he grabbed with his right hand, then wrapped it around his right wrist, so he was now hanging below the beam by his belt. Then he reached up, grabbed the beam, and pulled himself forward. With his belt around his wrists, he had a contingency plan in place if he couldn't support his weight for the full trip across the beam - which turned out to be a wise move, as he lost his grip twice during the perilous trip. But having seen that the blades crossed several inches above the beam, he had decided it would be safer to not have to worry about them at all. Once at the far end, Gilbert hung by one arm long enough to free one wrist and get both arms on the same side of the balance beam, then pulled himself up to the top with the last of his flagging strength. Covered in a pool of sweat by this time, he stood up, leaning against the door and supporting himself with a hand on the door handle, before catching his breath and finally opening the door. "Oh, hey, hi," said Binkadink, strapping on his armor. "Your stuff's over there." Gilbert stumbled over to his backpack and verified that the [i]Omnibook[/i] was still there. He strapped on his spell component pouch, still worried about the lack of mental contact with his familiar. "You no see Mudpie, Bink?" he asked the gnome. "Mudpie? No," admitted the gnome. "But Wrath's tied by a rope around his collar in the back of the mule wagon, Franco and Tantrum are right there, and Daisy's tied there too. Castor and Pollux and the Vistani wagon are missing, though - apparently there was no room for them in here. I assume they're all out there somewhere, and Mudpie's probably with them." Binkadink pointed to a pair of large doors along the largest wall. "They're locked - I checked. But I'll bet the key's inside this puzzle box." Sure enough, sitting with the group's piles of equipment was a wooden puzzle box they'd never seen before. Gilbert stroked his beard as he thought. "If he out there, I feel him in my mind," he muttered. "Aha! Where Ingebold's pack?" The wizard started sorting through the group's backpacks until he found the one belonging to the dwarven cleric. Untying the fasteners, he pulled out the rolled-up [i]portable hole[/i] she carried for the group. Spreading it open on the floor, Gilbert laid down next to it and stuck his head into the opening. "Mudpie?" he called. "You in there?" "I here, Master," came a gravelly voice. - - - The corridor stretching before Finoula and Ingebold was about 30 feet long but only five feet wide, with a tiny ledge along both sides a scant hand's-width wide. At the far side of the corridor stood a closed door. Unfortunately, the floor was about 20 feet lower than the room in which they had awakened some minutes before. Straining her elven vision in the dim light from the room behind them, Finoula saw the floor below was spotted with various puddles. "I don't like the look of that," she muttered, looking back into their starting room for something to toss down there. She grinned evilly when spotting the animated doll. Grabbing it up, she brought it to the door and tossed it to the lower floor in the corridor. It said nothing as it fell, its only means of verbal communication the [i]magic mouth[/i] spell that had been triggered when both victims had awakened. The doll landed with a splash, then got back to its feet and looked up at them, as if waiting to see what they'd do. It looked like a leech or two was now climbing up its wooden body. "It's a bit of a drop," commented Finoula. "We c'n give th' ledges a try," pointed out Ingebold. "We could, but if we fall off we're in for a world of pain. I think I'd rather get down there at my own decision." The ranger lowered herself feet-first over the edge of the doorway, then dangled from her fingertips. "Here goes," she said, and let go. She fell, landed on her feet, and stepped backwards to prevent herself from falling prone. She was glad to have her boots back on, for she now stood in a puddle and sure enough, there were leeches crawling on her boots. "You next!" Finoula called up to her battle-sister. Ingebold followed suit, and Finoula's attempt to catch her as she fell sent the two of them sprawling on the wet, stone floor, with leeches eagerly seeking any exposed skin. They took a moment to clear themselves of the blood-sucking beasts, then made their way down the corridor, avoiding the worst of the puddles. At the far end, the door stood closed some 20 feet above them. "That looks a lot higher from down here," remarked Finoula. "I don't think even if you stood on my shoulders...." She didn't bother finishing her thought - that definitely wouldn't work. Turning to her battle-sister, she asked, "Spells?" Ingebold did a quick mental inventory, determining what she had available that didn't require any spell components or her holy symbol of Moradin. She shook her head sadly. "Well then, there's one thing we could try," suggested Finoula, then cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted up at the door, "HEY! GUYS! WE'RE DOWN HERE!" After a brief moment, the door opened up and light spilled down from the doorway. Gilbert Fung looked down at them. "We toss you down rope!" he promised. - - - The [i]Arachnibow[/i] lay at Darrien's feet, one arrow lying beside it. He, too, faced a 15-foot-wide, 30-foot-long corridor, but his had a floor the same level as that of his starting room - for the first five feet. The other 25 feet of the corridor was 20 feet below him, and the door at the other end was thus 20 feet above floor level although at the same level as where Darrien currently stood. The ranger picked up and strung his magic bow and scooped up the arrow. He could try shooting a web-line across the room, maybe tying it to the door here...or maybe lower himself to the bottom of the pit, traverse its length, and then use a web-line to climb back up to the door level. He briefly thought about shooting a web-line at the middle of the ceiling and trying to swing across to the door at the other side, but he quickly gave up on that idea - it didn't look like there was a ledge at the other side, so if he missed he'd have wasted his one arrow. Wearing the [i]Arachnibow[/i] over his shoulder and clamping the arrow between his teeth, Darrien lowered himself over the edge and dropped to the floor. [i]So far, so good[/i], he thought. He had a plan, and there didn't seem like there were any major complications in his way.... Halfway down the corridor, Darrien ran - quite literally - into a major complication. He'd been walking down the length of the corridor, his half-elven heritage allowing him to see in the gloomy light spilling down from the room above, when he bumped into something that wasn't there. Well, that wasn't really true: it was obviously [i]there[/i], it just wasn't visible. The ranger's first thought was that he'd bumped into an invisible [i]wall of force[/i], but that supposition was quickly proven false when the invisible thing bit him on the shoulder. Darrien leapt back, bow in one hand and arrow in the other. He had just the one arrow, so if he shot it at the invisible monster he'd have to make it count - and then he might not have it available to form a web-line out of the pit. Making a rapid combat decision, he held the [i]Arachnibow[/i] by one end and swung it like a club at his unseen foe. It struck, but the ranger had no idea how much he had hurt the creature, not being able to see it wince in pain or anything. And so far it had remained completely silent; Darrien couldn't even hear any breathing. Bow at the ready, he strained to hear it - and was bitten again. He swung, struck, and backed further down the corridor, flailing wildly in an attempt to fend it off. At this rate, he realized, he'd never make it to the far end of the corridor and what he hoped would be freedom! - - - Binkadink opened a door at random. He had come through one, Gilbert through another, and now Ingebold and Finoula were climbing up Gilbert's rope through yet another. Hopefully, that meant Castillan, Aithanar, and Darrien were behind these other two. The room beyond was a corridor, 30 feet long, and about 7 feet wide at Binkadink's end and 15 feet wide at the far end; it angled into its narrower width about halfway down its length. The stone floor was strewn with gravel and variously-shaped rocks, and at the far end was a rather unusual spectacle: Castillan and Aithanar, tied back-to-back, with Castillan hunched over such that his little brother's feet didn't touch the ground at all. Aithanar was screaming in pain; while he couldn't make coherent sense while trying to talk, he communicated just fine when using the universal sounds of agony. There seemed to be something sticking out of his torso, a sort of inverted cone; as Binkadink rushed into the room to help, it dropped off to the side as Castillan staggered forward. "I'm coming!" Binkadink yelled to the group and stepped into the corridor - only to receive an attack of his own as a piercer dropped down from the ceiling just above him. It struck, but it struck the metal of Binkadink's gnomish plate mail armor, and bounced harmlessly to the side of the gnome. As did the next three that dropped down on the gnome; Aithanar cried out in pain again as another struck him. Castillan cried out as well, but in frustration rather than pain: his brother was too weak to support him, so he had no choice but to run as fast as he could through the gravel-filled room, leaving his brother a helpless victim to the piercer's attacks. But fortunately there were only half a dozen in the chamber and Binkadink's sudden presence had attracted four of them to attack him; even more fortunate, once having dropped from the ceiling it took a piercer quite some time to regain its lofty perch, moving along at snail-like speeds. The trio had no further trouble form them as they exited the room and Binkadink severed the ropes binding the two brothers together. By then, Aithanar was unconscious and bleeding out, but Ingebold was now free from her pit as well and tended immediately to the elven fighter's wounds. Looking around, Castillan grabbed up his blades and noticed Darrien was still missing and there was one closed door among the five that arced along one side of the six-sided room with all of the heroes' adventuring gear. Opening it, Castillan saw the half-elf ranger swinging at an unseen foe with his [i]Arachnibow[/i]. "It's big, and it's invisible!" called Darrien, seeing Castillan standing in the doorway at the end of the corridor. The bounder backed up and took a running leap through the doorway at an angle, running along a side corridor wall before landing on something hard just in front of Darrien. Castillan landed in a crouch, with both of his blades stabbing down into the unseen creature's upper surface. From the feel of it, Castillan imagined an invisible crab, with a hardened, curving carapace being the surface upon which he had landed. He wasn't far off with his assumption, for once he and Darrien had slain it, its slowly started fading into visibility, and it proved to be a fungal creature with four wide, broad legs. "Phantom fungus," Gilbert identified as he looked into the room after having dropped the same rope with which he'd rescued Finoula and Ingebold down for Castillan and Darrien. Once everyone had retrieved their equipment and Binkadink voiced his guess that the key to allow the group to exit this testing facility was inside the wooden puzzle box, Finoula was all for having Ingebold smash it with her hammer and be done with it. But Binkadink argued against such action; it could damage the key and the gnome had a use for the box once the key had been retrieved. "Hand it over, gnome," said Gilbert. "I figure this out." But after several fruitless minutes, Castillan snagged it. "It's probably more suited to my expertise," he said - and sure enough, in a few moments he had figured out the opening mechanism and retrieved a key. Expertly checking the twin doors for traps and finding none, he put the key into the doors and unlocked them. They swung open like a pair of barn doors, and Ingebold led the mule wagon outside into the fresh air - where, not unexpectedly, Castor and Pollux stood in place before their Vistani wagon. The sun was not yet at its zenith; it was apparently at least the next morning after their abduction, but they had no way of knowing how many days they might have been unconscious. "Wait a minute, what about Starflower and Dawnsong?" Finoula asked. "Where were they taken?" "Maybe the tests were only designed for victims with humanoid form," suggested Darrien. "I can't imagine a centaur moving across a balance beam or climbing down into a pit." "I starting to wonder about those two," replied Gilbert. "Kind of funny, we attacked by invisible fairies only they see." "Well, we've been bothered by those fairies for months," pointed out Finoula. "Um, well..." began Binkadink. "No we haven't. All those other times...that was, um...that was me." "WHAT?" exploded Gilbert. "You play tricks on us, gnome? Think it funny?" "Well, yeah," admitted Binkadink. "That's kind of the whole point of playing tricks on people: it's funny." "Let's deal with this later," snarled Finoula. "Right now, I say we get out of here." "But what about th' folks who captured us?" asked Ingebold. "If they captured us, they've likely captured others. Should we let a threat like that go unpunished? Could be that others've been killed." "Yeah, and maybe they leave treasure behind," pointed out Gilbert. "What happen to all our stuff if we fail our puzzles?" "An excellent point!" agreed Castillan, in much better spirits now that he was back in his combat leathers and his brother had been restored to full health. "Rangers, look around! Maybe those centaurs left some tracks!" They didn't, but Darrien did find a few tracks looking like they had been made by a large feline - a lion, maybe, or a tiger. They were about a hundred feet off the mountain path leading to the testing facility, so the group searched around that area before Darrien found a section of mountainside he could put his hand through. "Illusion!" he called out triumphantly. The heroes immediately regrouped into combat formation: Obvious and Wrath stayed with Aithanar at the wagons, while the six adventurers and Mudpie - now [i]polymorphed[/i] into a much larger size - entered through the [i]permanent illusion[/i]. The corridor they entered had been carved directly into the stone of the mountain, and it was about 20 feet wide. A set of steps led further down into the facility, but each step was twice as big as those that would have been made for something human-sized. Directly ahead, the group found the leader of the testing facility in a room that smelled like a lion's den. She sat regally on the stone floor before an elaborate curtain, her front paws crossed over each other while her humanoid upper torso stood upright as if at attention. Her black wings were tucked in at her sides, her black hair cascading behind her bare human shoulders. She smiled down at the heroes and then [b]Spiral[/b] the gynosphinx said, "Well, I see you all survived your tests. Well done! But you have no business back here – you’d best be on your way, or I'll have no choice but to slay you for your trespass." "Where the centaurs?" demanded Gilbert. He was still suspicious that they had been in cahoots with the gynosphinx, but there was always the possibility that they'd been charmed against their will. "Where indeed?" purred Spiral. "[b]Arabessa[/b]! [b]Myndavia[/b]! We have visitors!" Binkadink didn't need any further proof that the centaurs had been working for Spiral than the fact they had used false names. He elevated his gnomish stilt-boots and charged Spiral, his glaive stabbing into her side. Spiral roared in pain, the vocalization sounding more leonine than human, as she raked at him in return with claws from all four of her paws. Finoula, finding a face behind the leech traps she'd had to endure, activated the [i]lightning amulet[/i] she once again wore at her throat. Her body instantly converted to a bolt of electricity, she raced through Spiral's body - careful to avoid Binkadink, who was now standing before her - and resuming her form just in front of the curtain. After the gash in her side from Binkadink's glaive, the blast of electricity was all it took for Spiral to collapse to the stone floor, dead. Finoula grinned triumphantly. Two familiar shapes approached from a side corridor. "What are you guys doing here?" asked Starflower. "Dealing with you!" responded Darrien, sending a series of arrows showering into the blond centaur's body. She snarled a rather lionlike roar of pain as well, and then Dawnsong said, "I guess we no longer need to wear these shapes, then, do we?" Instantly, the two centaurs transformed into their true shapes: where once their lower halves were patterned after horses, they now had the appearance of lionesses. "Lamias!" announced Gilbert, although he mispronounced the word - you could always tell who had gained their knowledge from a book instead of having heard the word spoken aloud. "Lamias!" corrected Myndavia, her guise as Dawnsong the centaur no longer needed. She leapt forward, claws at the ready, only to have Castillan beat her to the punch. He mirrored the same run-along-the-wall trick he'd done when leaping onto the phantom fungus, only this time he merely took a stab at the lamia in passing; his main goal was to get behind her to set her up for being flanked by another combatant. Gilbert cast an attack spell onto Mudpie, then sent him underneath the stone floor to pop up and deliver it to one of the lamias. Mudpie popped up beside Arabessa - now no longer wearing Starflower's form - and tapped her with a misshapen fist, activating the [i]shocking grasp[/i] spell the portly wizard had loaded onto his familiar. The lamia made to attack, but her claws raked fruitlessly against his stony exterior, whereas his stone-hard fist blasted painfully into her face, the breaking of bones clearly audible over the sounds of combat. Ingebold cast a [i]spiritual weapon[/i], shaped like a hammer of Moradin, which crashed down upon the two lamias. Binkadink switched targets from the now-dead gynosphinx and his glaive cut deep gashes into the group's only remaining foes. Before long, the lamias joined their leader in death. Behind Spiral's curtain were her treasures, and there were more in the den the lamias had shared between them, but before gathering up their loot Gilbert wanted to make sure there was nothing else out there waiting to attack them. Exploring the rest of the testing facility, the group found a long, curving corridor that flanked the rooms they'd each awakened in; each had a large, heavy section of stone that could be pulled back to gain access to the starting rooms. From inside the rooms, these sliding doors comprised the entire back walls, explaining why those who had searched for secret doors had been unable to find any. However, at the back of the facility the group found four more workers. These were all human, one of them a sorcerer and the rest mere laborers. They'd been used basically as slave labor, crafting the dolls that Spiral then granted a semblance of life in a ritual that made them her unliving homunculi; she'd been able to see through their eyes and keep up with the group's progress in that fashion. But now, no longer charmed into servitude by the slain gynosphinx, the humans were allowed to go free. "Let's get back to those treasuries," exclaimed Castillan after they saw the workers out of the facility, to make their ways back to their individual homes. "I saw what looked like some pretty good stuff." "Yeah, and the extra money will come in handy once we find those weaponsmiths!" exclaimed Binkadink, still dreaming about a magical gnomish glaive. "We see about that," retorted Gilbert. "We might have to lower your share, charge you a 'mess with hair color' fee." "Aw, c'mon guys!" whined Binkadink. "It was just a joke! Okay, a continued series of jokes, but c'mon -- it was pretty funny, you have to admit!" Binkadink looked around him and saw only a ring of frowning faces looking down at him - for he'd lowered his stilt-boots after combat had ended. "Guys?" he wheedled. - - - T-Shirt Worn: The T-shirt idea this time was partially a brainstorm of my son Logan's. He decided that no matter what shirt I ended up wearing, he would wear his [i]X-Files[/i] T-shirt, specifically because it has the phrase "TRUST NO ONE" in large print on the back. He thought it would be cool if, just this once, the "adventure clue" was on his shirt instead of mine. (The "adventure clue" he focused on was that it had been Binkadink all along responsible for the changes in hair - and fur - color over the past several months, courtesy of his once-a-day [i]prestidigitation[/i] spell-like ability, sometimes mirrored up with his once-a-day [i]ghost sound[/i] spell-like ability to make the "giggling fey" noises that occasionally accompanied the prank.) I opted to wear one of my dragon shirts, this one a stylish blue-scaled Eastern dragon, as a red herring lining up with the tale the centaurs told of a red dragon menacing the local area. But was it, as the players mused at the end of this session, merely a ruse to distract them from the lamias' true plans, or was that part true? After all, if Spiral and the lamias had been spying on them, they knew Ingebold occasionally cast the [i]zone of truth[/i] spell on people they suspected of lying to them. And I did have those red dragon minis Logan had painted.... Oh well. No doubt time will tell if there are any red dragons in the PCs' immediate futures. [/QUOTE]
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