Session 124

As several forms darted out of the dark side passages of the crypt, Dain rushed forward to engage them. With the narrow, cramped hallways, the majority were forced to sit back and use ranged spells, with Summer using her bow. However, the lack of visibility due to so many people and the downward slope of the stairs made it difficult to see; and many repeatedly botched their spells in their attempts to support Dain and Skinner. Then, two bald figures darted out at extremely high speed and began furiously punching Dain, ganging up on him, directing glowing energy that Dain could feel was some kind of charged Flow; into their attacks. Nashar lobbed a powerful spell he later identified as Caltor's Magic Lane at the bald figures, causing some severe wounds, and Sindri and Tyllaetha lobbed some devastating spells at them, knocking them back. Skinner beckoned the spirit of his sister, Flaya, using her to hold the attention of the Enthralled surrounding Dain. Dain managed to get off a Slow spell, arresting the movement and attack speed of their enemies. However, he was overwhelmed and eventually beaten unconscious. Merrick was quick to respond, reviving him, and Tyllaetha managed to hit one of the Enthralled with a blast so devastating, their head exploded, and Merrick quickly followed, taking down one of the fast-paced bald Enthralled with his Eldritch Bolt. Vargas managed to crush the head of another Enthralled with a well-placed boulder. However, the Enthralled here seemed to have similar abilities to those the party had encountered before, and was quickly sapping their energy, making it difficult to go on. The party eventually finished off the remaining Enthralled, but most of them were exhausted, with Skinner getting the worst of it, struggling to stand. As the party sat against the walls to rest for a time, Tyllaetha lamented that if this is what they had to worry about just from Andozar's minions, they may be in trouble. While the party slept, Quinn noticed mushrooms growing from the walls around them, glowing pink and giving off little puffs of spores. He noted that he believed he recognized them as Ply Agaric, a species thought to have been hunted to extinction over 1,000 years ago by the Letheni of Arak. Mahani seemed to know a bit about these mushrooms, saying that those who breathed in their spores became incredibly open to suggestion, easily manipulated. Concerned, Dain took a small sample of the mushrooms to a side passage and lit them on fire, trying to see if they could simply destroy them; and to his relief, they went up in smoke, with no adverse side effects. After finishing their rest, the party continued along the stairs downward, coming to a room with marks and footprints on the grounds, looking as if something had been moved out of the room and through a large hole in the wall leading to a tunnel snaking downward. They decided to proceed...

As the party traversed the twisting tunnel downwards, they began to hear the sound of running water, and emerged into a large cavern with a ravine running through it filled with running water. Spanning the gap was a bridge, with Ply Agaric mushrooms growing along it and the cavern walls. Across the bridge were two statues flanking a passage leading to a large set of doors.

Skinner realized this was where he had nearly died; and where his entire tribe hadn't been so lucky and had met their end. He warned the party to be cautious of the statues, though he did not know exactly how they worked, noting only that a bright light had flashed and turned some of his family members against them. Dain and Merrick moved across the bridge to get a better look at the passage beyond, but as Merrick stepped off the bridge, the spheres on the statues gave off a bright prismatic flash of lights. Most of the party managed to get their arms up in time to shield their eyes, or staved off the effects, but Merrick, Dain, and Skinner weren't so fortunate, and were briefly stunned by the lights. However, they felt otherwise fine. But as Dain had just moments before cast Detect Magic, he suddenly noticed that the three of them were emitting an aura of Enchantment magic. Concerned, Skinner began to walk back the way they came, saying he didn't want to be a liability -- however, Dain asked him to just hang back, and then began trying to dispel the magic on them, worrying what it might mean for the future since they felt otherwise unaffected. He struggled to break the enchantment on Merrick after breaking it on himself, so Tyllaetha stepped in, and then Sindri broke the enchantment on Skinner. Skinner, not wanting to take chances with the spheres again, beckoned his younger brother, Asher, and send him and his sister forward to attack the statues; and they did so, smashing the crystalline orbs after some effort. He cautioned the party, saying that just beyond the statues was where his family had perished. Seeing the Kevite crystals on the walls ahead that Skinner spoke of, Dain decided to simply toss a Fireball into the passage, which shattered the fragile crystals. As the party proceeded to the end of the passage, they came to a set of imposing metal doors, locked -- but not well enough to deter Summer and Dain. As they moved past the doors, they followed another set of tunnels to the next area...

They emerged into a very large cavern where they could see a number of platforms of various elevations scattered over a large gorge, which Merrick confirmed was probably 80-100 ft. deep. The rocky platforms had bridges running between them, and one platform in particular had a red haze hanging about it, though Merrick could not see the source of the haze. There were also a number of strange blue glowing tendrils hanging from the ceiling blocking their view of things beyond. Curious, Merrick reached out with Mage Hand to touch one, causing it to jiggle. Curious, he used his Mage Hand to grab one and cut it with his knife, causing it to stop glowing. Examining it, the inside was a blue jelly-like consistency, and Skinner, curious about its properties, rubbed a small amount on his wrist, cursing when it began to sizzle and melt away his skin. After neutralizing it, they decided to give the tendrils a wide berth and proceeded along the narrow shelf running along the cavern walls. However, as Merrick, who was taking the lead due to his superior vision, walked past a large stalagmite obscuring view of a small alcove, he was taken by surprise by a Glyph of Warding on the wall which triggered a gust of wind which blew him off the cavern ledge and into the chasm below. Falling and hitting the ground hard, he looked around, seeing nothing but an open gorge. Looking above seeing his party scrambling about to try to help him, he caught a glimpse of something staring at him from around the corner of one of the pillars leading up to the platforms above -- some kind of mushroom with arms and legs. Startled, he cast Scatter to send them to the other end of the cavern, giving him just enough time to get to the edge where Dain and Skinner attempted to pull him up with an extra long rope. However, due to the exhaustion of their previous fight, they couldn't hold on to him, and he fell again. However, Vargas came to the rescue, using Vortex Warp to teleport Merrick to the top of the chasm ledge. Merrick caught his breath and they proceeded forward where they saw a passage leading to another tunnel -- though this one didn't go very far, and they could see that at the end, there was a glowing barrier spanning the width and height of the passage. Deciding they could not proceed this way, they began traversing the bridges across the platforms. Upon reaching the platform with the red haze, Merrick noticed a number of near-black mushrooms with red edges emitting red spores. Not wanting to take their chances after their encounters with the other mushrooms before, they took another path up to yet another passage. Deciding this was their path forward, they followed through another set of tunnels...

As the party emerged into the largest cavern yet, they saw a small ravine separating them from an imposing large sandstone structure, with a large wall of bones blocking view of the structure behind the main entrance. The structure seemed to be very tall, with a portion of it sitting on a shelf higher up in the rear of the cavern. There were two platforms between the two sides of the ravine with bridges spanning them. Summer and Skinner decided to take the left path, crossing the bridge together. However, as Summer crossed over the bridge and felt it creaking beneath her, she looked and noticed too late that the boards were severely rotted, and began to give out beneath them. The two barely managed to jump to the platform before falling the 100 ft. drop to the ravine below. As they crossed over to the main entrance of the structure, the others took the right platform, which was far more intact. Finding the door leading into the structure locked, they quickly picked it and opened the door, where they found a hallway flanked by garden beds containing a number of glowing blue mushrooms with yellow on the top. Getting tired of this, Merrick used a Fire Bolt to destroy one of the mushrooms, which caused it to burst, sending yellow liquid everywhere, which hit the stone and began to sizzle, eating away at it, and causing a chain reaction causing the rest to burst as well, coating half of the hallway with acid. Skinner had an idea to send his spirits across the hallway to see if the mushrooms would react, but nothing happened, so Skinner tried to cross the hallway. However, the mushrooms reacted much more violently to Skinner's presence, bursting and sending yellow acid all over him, burning him badly. With acid now coating the entire hallway, the party debated how to cross. Nashar, annoyed, simply flew across, carrying the lighter members of the party with him. However, for the heavier members, Vargas had to use his advanced teleportation abilities to move them all across the gap into the room beyond. They came into a square room with a hallway on the other side beyond a walled area in the center, which Skinner noted had stairs on the opposite side leading to the upper floor. There were also a number of doors leading off to different rooms. Checking the room to the right, Merrick was startled by the sight of two sleeping Enthralled, sleeping on beds of hay. Carefully closing the door, he informed the others, and they decided to take the opposite door.

Proceeding through the opposite door, Dain found a small room with two beds that had straps on them and dried blood, and a table similarly covered in blood with various torture implements on top, including a whip of some sort, and two vials of pink liquid. Off to the other end of the room he could see two makeshift jail cells, and noted curiously that one of the hay beds in one of the cells was occupied, with someone sleeping inside, though he could not see who it was. He decided to spend a bit of time identifying the items on the bench, discovering that the potions had the ability to make someone severely susceptible to enchantment and suggestion, and could make domination magic nearly unbreakable. His soft chanting, however, awoke the sleeping person in the cell, who stood at the bars looking over at Dain. Dain turned and saw with horror, that the occupant was none other than Sabine -- with glowing pink eyes.