Session XI: Funhouse Edition
The cast:
- Finn McCarr, a Venturer
- Regular-Sized Rudy, a Dwarven Fury
- Pilo Filo, a Paladin
- Barborygmos (“Borb”), a Cleric of Ammonar, Pilo's brother
- Buddy, an Elven Ranger
- Linda, his henchman, an Elven Courtier
- Sammy Davis Jr. Jr., her familiar, a small dog
- Linda, his henchman, an Elven Courtier
- Robin, a Warlock
- Batmanuel, his bat familiar, soothsayer
In recent months, beastmen attacks have ravaged the fertile farms of the Borderlands. Lacking the manpower to stop them himself, the stern and proud Legate of the mighty fortress Türos Tem has put out a call for brave (or foolhardy) adventurers. They will risk their lives and stop the attacks for gold and glory (and XP, obviously). Seven such would-be heroes answer the call and make their way to Türos Tem to halt the beastman tide.
Türos Tem was clearly not doing well. Its eastern wall was heavily damaged and battered, as if great stones had been thrown at it. Its interior was littered with rubble. And at the foot of the hill upon which it stood, a small stone cube, a few feet across, floated a dozen feet up in the air. Floating cubes not exactly being a common sight, the party decided to investigate this structure. It was bereft of any markings or adornments, save for one: on one of its faces, there was an indentation about the size of a human hand.
One of the keep's legionaries noticed the adventurers looking at the cube, and went over to them. Apparently, the cube had appeared suddenly a few weeks ago. Another soldier had climbed up to it, put her hand of the indentation, and vanished without warning. No one had seen her since. The party also learned that the damage to Türos Tem had been sustained during an assault by a combined group of bugbears and ogres. It was suspected that these bugbears were the same group who had recently annihilated the entire garrison of the nearby Türos Aster.
The legionary left them with the advice to seek out the keep's priestess, Genelen. She apparently had recently had a vision that might be of some assistance in fighting off the beastmen threat. Speaking to Genelen, the adventurers learned that this was indeed the case. One night, while engaged in her meditations, the priestess' consciousness had been devoured by the eternal. When she regained her sense of self, she found that she had written an extensive set of notes detailing the effort of other adventurers in delving into a buried temple that lay hidden in the Viaspen Forest. Such knowledge would be invaluable to this new group. She offered it to them, under one condition. Her suspicion was that the floating cube's interior was larger than its small exterior might suggest. If this were the case, who could say what evils it might contain. The adventurers were asked to press their hands against the indentation and explore the cube.
The party debated amongst themselves as to whether this was an even remotely sane possibility. Feeling that it was not, they offered to make a substantial donation to the keep's temple in exchange for the notes. Genelen was unwilling at first, but Linda's silver tongue convinced her that the deal was palatable. The adventurers took the notes and prepared to venture into the Viaspen. Yet the seed had been sown. That night, Finn and Pilo ran into each other in the middle of the night. Both had been thinking about the cube. “I have a really good feeling about this”, Finn said. Pilo agreed.
The next morning, they communicated their wishes the to rest of the party. Robin was reluctant. He had Batmanuel enter one of its sooth-saying trances, and it asked of the outer powers, “Is it possible to escape the cube?” “No” came their response. Finn was not dissuaded: “They were probably lying.” After much wheedling and begging, the group agreed to enter the cube.
Borrowing a ladder from the legionaries, the group climbed up to the cube and in succession touched the indentation. One by one, they were pulled from their location and tossed through space. When they regained their senses, they found that they were on the floor of an offputtingly asymmetric hall, flanked on either side by balconies. Behind them was an old altar covered in ancient bloodstains that Robin recognized as being dedicated to Bel, the Most Violent of All Gods and Men.
Before much could be done, eight purple-skinned, three-eyed goblin-like creatures revealed themselves to have been hiding on the balconies, and began to fire down at the party. In the ensuing fight, Robin took a few bolts too many and hit his head on the ground as he fell, badly addling his brains. Other than that, the goblins fell with relative ease, and the adventurers moved to explore their new surroundings. Borb wondered if sacrificing something on the alter might be the key to escape, but Pilo Filo counseled against such a Chaotic deed.
The rooms they discovered were not constrained by traditional geometry. Some curved back onto themselves despite never changing direction. Others had upward and downward stairs that impossibly led to the same destination. Others still had bidirectional gravity. One could move around either on a floor or a ceiling in such an area. A selected list of their encounters:
- A library filled with nonsensical astronomy texts.
- A ballroom populated by seventeen humanoid and well-dressed automata. Four danced with halting, jerky movements, and the rest stood listlessly. Buddy saw that each automaton had a large chunk of mithril in its chest cavity, but none of the party dared approach.
- A blue vortex of arcane energy that whirled ominously. The adventurers decided that the vortex led back to Türos Tem. To test this theory they wrote a letter saying that the letter's finder should throw a leek into the cube. Although they repeatedly returned to the entrance room, no leeks were found. While walking past this vortex at a later point, Pilo Filo was sucked into it, and he vanished without a trace.
- A salon, the furniture of which was exclusively three-legged. Hidden in a secret compartment of this room, Linda found two bottles of wine. Robin drank from one, and his skin turned a rather appealingly lime shade of green.
- A small room with a tall pole in it. The pole had the phrase “this is a pole” inscribed repeatedly on its entire surface.
- Mirrors that did not reflect their surroundings.
- A bedroom lit by floating spheres of magenta. Rudy went to jump on the bed and was slammed against the wall with horrific force. Pilo Filo took a grievous wound while trying to save his friend and bit off his tongue as he fell to the ground.
- A crystal ball. After Pilo Filo's disappearance, Borb moved to it and requested that it show him his brother's location. The crystal ball was filled with a most distressing image: Their paladin friend, strapped to a bed of stone in a hellish location and being tormented by monstrous devils. Borb then asked to see the dungeon's exit, and it showed him the arcane vortex. He paused for a moment. “What about the other exit?” Again, he was shown the vortex.
- A “fishery” filled with dozens of giant stone fish. Every so often, an adventurer would notice that one of the fish had disappeared.
The adventurers had all the amusing and bizarre interactions with these wonders that one would expect adventurers to have with a bunch of weird objects. They also discovered that the goblins in the entrance chamber had the ability to regrow themselves. On several occasions the party returned to that area and had to cut apart half-formed goblin bodies. Yet nowhere did they find an exit. When they found themselves again traversing the vortex room, Rudy was the next one to be snatched by it. The remainder of the group looked at one another, and they ran in unison toward the vortex and jumped into the unknown.
Mortal Wounds Count:
- Robin, addled brain
- Pilo Filo, bit his own tongue off