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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 1330984" data-attributes="member: 1210">Trap inside a TrapAzekia the solar gives a terrible scream as green slime falls atop her from the tips of her mighty wings to the tops of her sandaled feet.  For a moment the party can only gape in horrified fascination.  A struggling mass, rapidly transmuting to slime, sinks to one knee-Patyn springs into the room, ignoring the danger as it starts to agitate, and reaches out to the slime-encrusted angel.  Laying his hand upon her wing, the hunter of the dead utters a silent prayer to Galador and removes disease.In a flash of positive energy, the slime burns away.  Patyn quickly stumbles from the room, dragging Azekia with him, and the angel quickly returns the favor, destroying the slime starting to feed on the man’s flesh.  The two agents of the Light exchange a thankful glance. “Well,” Drelvin says wryly, “I know how to handle this!”  There’s the rasp of Shastruth, the archer’s sorcerous sword being drawn from his scabbard, and Drelvin cries, “How about a fireball, Shastruth?”“YES!” shouts the sword, and the sound of spellcasting fills the hall just outside the agitated room for a few seconds- then a ball of angry orange fire blossoms like a rose to fill the agitated chamber, burning the remaining slime away-Or not.Because instead, as the fireball detonates with a loud roar, the slime changes instantly into brown mold.  The flame and heat only feed it, and in less than a second the mold more than doubles in size.  Our heroes can feel heat leeching from them.  With shouts of dismay, they fall back away from the mold.“That sucks!” Thrush exclaims.“No kidding,” Rex grumps.  “You can’t even exploit its weaknesses, it changes to something else!”Scowling, Patyn asks, “Does anyone know much about this stuff?”“It sucks heat,” Ulla says.  “It’s a deadly dungeon mold, usually called brown mold.  I think our best bet to kill will be with cold.”“If that doesn’t just make it worse,” Horbin mutters.  “Well, Shastruth,” Drelvin sighs, “what have we got?”***Far away, in a darkling realm unlit by any sun, Acererak dwells beneath death.  If death is to sleep as sleep is to waking, the demilich is in the dreams of a state four times deeper still.  Here the vibrations of the Void, paradoxically still and quiet, sooth him like music would a mortal heart.For Acererak burns inside himself at the presumption of the interloper.He has laid his own wards, taken advantage of the gauntlet that the demilich laid down in ages past.  He has secreted his phylactery there, among the icy dead of Moil, where only Acererak has earned the right to tread!  And somehow- somehow- the interloper has managed to tame the Vestige!  Acererak seeths.  Around him the void roils in turmoil, like an inky fluid stirred by the passage of some terrible shark.After his apotheosis, Acererak the demilich knows, it will not be merely the void around him.  The void everywhere will move to his whim, and the entire universe will shake.  Even the gods will tremble before him.  The interloper is nothing- a temporary irritant, nothing more.  The adventurers will doubtless deal with him; he fears them, plainly.  And then, Acererak thinks, they will follow the clues to the Fortress of Conclusion.  After all, they are adventurers.  And to come so far as they have following the interloper’s clumsy trail- why, they might just be worthy fodder for the apotheosis.  And certainly, if they aren’t now, they will be by the time they reach the Fortress.***It takes just about everything cold they have, but the party finally manages to destroy every last vestige of the mold.  Gratified for that much, at least, they note a passage that had been hidden by one of the tapestries-slimes-molds.  Hurriedly, the group passes through the chamber (“Damn, it still agitates!” Thrush complains) and finds another downward staircase.“Deep,” comments Thrush quietly.Patyn grimaces.  “Let’s find whatever we’re looking for and kill this lich of yours,” he grunts.  The group heads down the stairs.  In the lead, Thrush ponders, What the hell are we looking for anyway?  Yeah, yeah, Felenga’s phylactery- but where?  What’s the clue they’re looking for here?  And the riddle-The face of the fiend does more than devour,With the least of my form ‘tis the gap to power-what does that mean??The stairs bottom out in a passage that leads 30’ to a four-way intersection.  Moving carefully, the group discovers a pit trap at the intersection.  Smiling smugly, Drelvin comments, “I knew there’d be another trap!”  Moving carefully, the group follows the passage straight ahead.  Again they manage to find a pit before anyone falls in, this one about 30’ beyond the intersection and directly before the hall’s end in a door. “I bet the door’s trapped too,” Thrush says.Azekia grunts and opens the door, which, to everyone’s surprise, is not trapped.  Another hall leads away, turning to the right after some distance.  Following this, our heroes remain wary.  Suddenly, with a frown, Rex holds up a hand.“Do you hear something?” he asks.The group pauses in silence for a moment.  A sound is coming from around the corner- a beautiful melody sung in a sweet feminine voice like honey wine on a winter afternoon.As one, the party readies their weapons, and they advance around the corner.Next Time: Our heroes have an unfortunate issue with drooling idiocy!</blockquote>

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