DIDx5

TL;DR

After tackling the first two trials of the gauntlet:

• The group had to quietly creep around a library with an old woman wraith with glowing eyes that shot beams of concentrated light out of her eyes whenever the party made any noise. They eventually solved the puzzle involving forming shapes on a lattice shown on an identical pedestal across the room, letting them into the final room.
• The group found a Hacralla Deck as their reward, which Toban explained would give a boon to anyone that drew a card; but drawing more than one card in a day would give you a chance at greater rewards at the risk of a severe bane.
• After finding a wall of bonfires blocking their passage, the group came across an auction where mercenaries were selling the possessions of Delvers they had killed.
• After killing the mercenaries, they learned that this group was responsible for the attacks and was planning another attack in Panbrenthen Crevice with another group.
• The Deepfolk rescued from the mercenaries were named Juntol, Grelmar, Enthir, and Radek.
• One of the Delver tags found in the auctioneer's pouch was for a cleric named Nera, who was one of Toban's party members.
• After returning to Nylin, the group decided to pursue the mercenaries planning to ambush a party in Panbrenthen Crevice, but they would first stop in Dolenna to resupply and rest.

Full Summary

As the strange wraith-like woman begins to float through the stacks of books aimlessly, Scarf decided to be proactive and surveyed the room, noting a number of stacks of books that looked to be on the verge of collapsing. Taking her chances, she moved to step over a precariously positioned stack to the center of the room. She nearly lost her balance and fell over, but used her inner Flow to hold up her foot for leverage, hopping over the stack. While Zero opened his chest cavity to gather Flow from the atmosphere around him to repair himself, Scarf took note of a pedestal in the center of the room with some strange luminous sticks overlapping, connecting to ball joints allowing them to be pivoted and slid along tracks. Next to Zero, Rainer became frustrated, being the only one unable to see, and whispered to Zero, asking what was going on. The moment he began to whisper, the old woman wraith snapped her head in Rainer's direction, and her glowing eyes lit up with furious intensity before launching a beam of concentrated light directly at him, knocking him to the ground, unconscious. Zero, frantic, tried to think of a spell to heal him, but realized that all of his healing spells would require verbal components. He opted to take out a medicine kit to stabilize Rainer before he bled out. Meanwhile, a curious Scarf moved to the opposite end of the row she was in, cautiously moving past stacks of books, to find another pedestal on the other side that was blank save for a button and three glowing dots. She decided to push the button, and when she did, a glowing triangle appeared on the surface of the pedestal. Having an idea, she quickly made her way back to the other pedestal and maneuvered the glowing sticks to form the shape of a triangle. Once she did, a glowing dot appeared on the pedestal along with a line of light that began to slowly shrink to the left, giving Scarf the impression that she was on a time limit here. Zero and Shein moved to investigate some of the long columns of bookshelves, finding a cloud of dust kicked up from the ancient tomes that had settled thick in the air. Though this would not affect Zero, Shein figured it may cause him to sneeze and decided to take another path, while Zero moved back to tend to Rainer. Shein decided to climb on top of the bookshelves to get a better look at the area, and upon examining the books on the shelves below him, spotted a book that looked less worn than the others. Fishing it out carefully, he flipped through the pages, seeing mostly nonsense, before coming across a single page halfway through that seemed to show some kind of lattice and instructions on how to form a square and a triangle using this lattice. Zero found a similar book on the opposite side of the room, as did Scarf in the center. Scarf decided to climb on top of the bookshelves to rendezvous with Shein, and not making the connection based on what happened to Rainer, went to whisper something to Shein to tell him what she had learned. Fortunately, Scarf was much more agile than Rainer, and when the wraith turned her eyes toward Scarf and let loose another radiant blast, she managed to jump out of the way just in time to see the beam blacken the wall next to her. Counting her blessings, Scarf moved back down to where the pedestals were located and moved to the one with the button, while Shein found the one with the lattice and decided to start trying shapes randomly, to no avail. Scarf had an idea, however, and pressed the button on the opposing pedestal, causing a square to appear. Scarf quickly signed the shape to Zero, who then relayed this to Shein. Trying the square on the lattice, a dot lit up, along with a slowly shrinking line. The three scrambled to input all three shapes in time by coordinating communication through Zero, until all three dots were lit. At that time, the wraith reappeared in the center, gesturing toward the far wall, moving toward it. The group cautiously moved over to her after helping Rainer to his feet, and the woman caused a door to materialize on the wall, opening it, and then disappearing. They cautiously approached the door, wondering if they could talk yet, with Zero breaking the silence to test it, and finding that they could speak again. Zero quickly healed Rainer and the group moved into the following room.

In the next room, they found only a small pedestal with what appeared to be a deck of cards sitting on top of it, with another door on the opposite side of the room. Rainer panicked, thinking about everything that could go wrong, with Toban trying to explain that the cards were harmless, and were their reward for completing the gauntlet, but Rainer wouldn't hear it and insisted that they rest before proceeding, with Shein readying himself to tackle Toban if he made a move to take the cards. After taking a rest, Toban explained that the cards on the pedestal were a Hacralla Deck, a rare gift from Umos for completing a gauntlet which, when drawn from, would bestow a boon upon the one drawing the card. He explained that it was advisable to only draw one card per day, lest they risk being inflicted with a bane for their greed, as the more cards they drew, the greater the reward; but there would be an equal chance of a bane. Zero decided to place the deck inside of his bag for now. As the party moved to open the final door, the gauntlet began to dissolve into wisps of smoke around them, revealing the pass between the twin plateaus ahead that the gauntlet had previously been blocking. Cautious, but wanting to get this over with, they proceeded down the pass, which narrowed considerably before opening back up to another wide area with other plateaus in the distance, with several possible routes. However, they noticed something immediately off to the west -- a series of bonfires, strewn across the entrance to a pass into another area. Toban remarked that this was very strange, and seemed deliberate, with Rainer speculating it was possibly a way for someone to keep them out of there, and Toban agreeing that it appeared to be a deterrent. They approached the fires, with Shein misremembering what Toban had told him about light in Obscurus, believing only magical light would harm him, and getting too close, burning himself. Scarf suggested trying to dig a hole underneath the fires, and began digging, to the bafflement of the rest of the group. Zero noticed that the gap between fires was wide enough to walk through, and had the brilliant idea to cover himself in his bedroll like a sack before proceeding between the fires. He had the group call out to guide him to ensure he did not walk into them, eventually making it safely to the other side. The rest followed suit, gathering Scarf, reaching the other side safely. Up ahead, as they approached a corner, they could hear some distant voices. Peeking around the corner, they could see a building up against a plateau with a dais in front of it with a man pointing to several members of a crowd sitting in front of him, with several guards leaning up against the building.

They moved forward to hide behind some rocks, keeping their distance, with Scarf getting close enough to hear the conversation. What she heard appeared to be some sort of auction, with the auctioneer selling a pair of gloves he claimed could extinguish distant flames. After selling that, he brought out the final item of the night -- a Deepfolk Runescribe named Enthir. Junyall nearly charged forward right then, eager to rescue her compatriot, but the group stalled her, while the auctioneer sold Enthir off for 2,000 darr. The auctioneer dismissed the crowd, calling forth the winning bidders to collect their prizes. As the rest of the bidders moved in the direction of the party to leave, they tried to squeeze behind the rocks to ensure they wouldn't be detected. Fearing they would not be able to hide, they decided to draw from the Hacralla Deck, with Rainer and Zero drawing cards. Rainer's vision became enhanced, allowing him to see things around corners that would normally be out of sight, while Zero felt a wave of pure luck wash over him. They managed to hide effectively from the crowd, and as the auctioneer moved into the building with Enthir and the buyer, Scarf decided to throw one of her Flow daggers through the air toward one of the guards leaning against the building. Her aim was true, and the guard suddenly had an aneurysm, collapsing to the ground. The other two guards called out to someone named "Connar" inside, and the auctioneer came running out along with several more guards. The group moved swiftly, taking down multiple guards in quick succession before focusing on the auctioneer, who seemed a bit more resilient, but who was vastly outnumbered. After being skewered by some kind of steam powered harpoon that Toban had taken out and burned by a Moonbeam produced by Zero, Connar ran back inside the building and grabbed Enthir, dragging him out into the light, burning him and putting his sword to his throat, threatening to kill him if the party didn't drop their weapons. Scarf, feeling confident, ignored the command and sent two Flow daggers through the air in quick succession, causing the man to have an aneurysm and collapse. Junyall rushed forward to help Enthir while the group moved to command the buyer to exit the building. They briefly interrogated him, but upon realizing he wasn't a part of this, they decided to let him go, reminding him not to tell anyone of what he had seen. As he fled, Scarf stealthily relieved the buyer of some of his coin, while Rainer searched Connar's pockets. Inside his pockets, he found some money, as well as a note which seemed to detail an upcoming ambush in a place called Panebrenthen Crevice, specifically instructing them to rendezvous with another group before "killing the Delvers" and "leaving the usual evidence", and to leave no witnesses. This alarmed Rainer, who surmised that they had found the ones responsible for the attacks on Dolenna's Delvers. Finally, he found a pouch full of Delver tags. As Zero freed two other Deepfolk in the building, one of them named Juntol informed Junyall that the group were mercenaries who had caught them off-guard in the Deephollow, stabbing the one called Grelmar in the gut before taking them hostage and dragging them through Obscurus to where they are now. They also noticed the body of a fourth Deepfolk whom they said had been executed for being uncooperative and trying to escape. Toban asked Rainer about his findings, and upon seeing the tags, took them, fishing through them frantically. He stopped when he came across a tag with the name "Nera". He cursed, telling the group that Nera was his party's cleric, and that this auctioneer must have been involved in her death. Toban repeatedly kicked the body, before picking up his harpoon and repeatedly reloading it and unloading it into the auctioneer's corpse.

The group finished up with the bodies before Junyall produced a talisman given to her by Nylin, asking if they were ready to go. The group felt a sharp jolt as they were pulled into a tunnel in a flash of light that stretched on into infinity, with rings racing past them like flying down a tunnel, until they eventually snapped back into place, reappearing in Rikhevlovir. Scarf immediately puked, and Zero oddly enough "puked" up some oil. As the Deepfolk helped Enthir into Nylin's house and called out to her, they told her about their ordeal, and once being told about the auction, Nylin angrily asked the group if they knew anything about it. The group explained the concept, but said they had no involvement, though Toban remarked hearing some rumors about auctions in the seedier parts of Dolenna. The Deepfolk confirmed that the items being sold appeared to be from the mercenary group's victims. Nylin thanked the group for their help in recovering her stalkers, and when asked, said that the group was welcome to rest in Rikhevlovir when next they passed through as thanks for rescuing them. After conferring with Toban, the group decided to pursue the other group of mercenaries aiming to ambush a group in Panebrenthen Crevice, but first they would need to return to Dolenna to resupply and rest.