2025/07/25: Animus Hunt in Northern Alvidar Part 3

Buzz, Kelsey, Knight, Nimbus, Everett, Othar, Union   Some theories were passed around. Perhaps it wasn't Knight's shapeshifting that was getting turned off by the antimagic effect: It was his mask. Other polymorph effects seem to be unaffected. Polymorphing into small animals or liquids may be viable options for the other adventurers.   To try to determine what sensory thing was preventing people in the town from seeing the Ragnarok, Everett went for the simple test: walking off down the road to the south. Kelsey went with him, as his safety buddy. A little past 300 yards, they disappeared. Comms didn't work and there were multiple miscommunications when it came to waving, so Othar went out to retrieve them, accompanied by Knight (or possibly Nimbus). Fortunately, this went without incident. Apparently there was some sort of visual cloak up, but it wasn't harmful.   Attempts to detect the cloak were unsuccessful. Attempts to detect magic didn't even detect the items of the other party members. Returning to the town was uneventful. As they were talking, Everett detected a wave of the detection working passing through the area, and then it was off again.   Knight's lantern of magic detection was seeing similar effects.   Killgleam knows Red and Brogan, and said he might be able to polymorph the party members into something similar.   The players were reminded that they still needed to decide on what to do with the cat statue. Last time it was trying to make a deal with them, offering information in exchange for souls. This time, Othar proposed a counteroffer: information in exchange for putting it back where they found it. Votes were counted. Final result: Kill it. It cursed and screamed its head off as Kelsey carried it to the temple, but it came to naught, and the result was a dramatic exorcism by the local high priests. (Dispel evil, a few other things including Zone of Truth, a custom Ranthael smite, and then chasing it around and smacking it with hammers as it skittered around and screeched. Eventually all the purple flames went out and it was gone.   The party filled the marshal in on the things they're recently found.   Nimbus volunteered to be the test case for polymorphing. With time counting down, the group opted to go for the vent in the fort rather than visiting the pipes first. She was polymorphed into a Slithering Tracker by Killgleam. She headed into the hole. (Knight briefly stuck his hand into the part of her still in the room to keep her company. He managed to resist the paralysis effect, fortunately.) Nimbus's polymorph wasn't disabled when she entered the hole, and she was able to get to the 200-foot drop. She informed the party that it was working, and the rest of the group prepped for the dive.   Buzz was next. He "enjoyed" getting some first-hand engineering experience as the liquid in a pipe. He tried to calculate his own viscosity, but discovered that he could alter his own viscosity depending on how hard he was trying to move.   Everett left behind a potion of dispel magic and went next. Kelsey was the last to go, leaving Killgleam with Knight.   Down below, Nimbus extruded out of a ceiling into a smallish round chamber. Everything was a medium grey color. The walls were curved. There were three tunnels leading away, two at right angles to each other and a third pointing directly in the opposite direction. One northwest, one northeast, one south. A dull, sourceless radiance pervaded the area. There was a slight tinkling noise in the distance, like wind chimes or water, but odd.   As they reached the bottom, several of the adventurers realized that magic was not operating. They were still slithering trackers, but now nonmagical ones. ("In a dungeon. You are now a random encounter!")   Without warning, a young woman with no shoes sprinted through at full speed, heading to the northeast. She was in the tatters of clothes. Othar started heading back for the near-invisible air hole in the roof. Nimbus headed after the kid, and the rest of the group followed her.   The next room turned out to be a perfect cube. It was covered in rainbow crystal geometry stuff. Spheres and cones and more, all swirling all over the place. The colors were constantly shifting. This was likely where some of the tinkling was coming from. There was only one other exit, leading further directly to the northeast. The party took that path.   The next room was identical to the first they'd seen, but they found they'd entered from a different direction. Was this the same room? It was impossible to say. They could hear noises from the southwest, like the sound of several sets of booted feet jogging. It was accompanied by muttered cursing.   At about the same time, Othar was extruding himself from the fresco in the fort.   The pursuers appeared to be two humanoids wearing black capes and some finery that looked way out of date. They were also sickly, grey looking, and looked very veiny. The party opted to ambush them. Fortunately, the vampires (or possibly vampire spawn) were used to having supernatural senses, and were completely surprised. They promptly got tripped, clotheslined, grappled, and more. One ended up unconscious almost immediately thanks to Everett and Nimbus. The other got dogpiled in the next few seconds. (Kelsey tried to wrap his feet. Buzz went for morale damage via... "rear entry".) The second got paralyzed thoroughly. Buzz kept going in an attempt to "pilot him like an undead mech suit", but was told it took more pressure than he could exert.   Nimbus detected that whatever these things were, they were breathing. Not quite vampires, perhaps. She immediately opted to smother one. Watching the horrors Buzz was perpetrating, they smothered the second one too as a method of mercy.   Looting offered clothes, jewelry, and a gemmed fang, but nothing else of note. It seems vampires aren't so tough when they don't have magic.   Meanwhile, Othar filled Knight and Killgleam in on what happened below. He requested a more combat-effective form before heading back down. He left Saveon with Knight: Apparently she'd been completely unconscious for the whole time she was polymorphed as part of Othar, which was a very strange experience for her. Knight asked Othar if she was dangerous to hold; he said he didn't think so. Knight took her, and she discovered that Knight was completely immune to her telepathy.   Some discussion of whether Knight counted as a darkness elemental, or a Void elemental, or an undead, humanoid, what. Probably would sort of count as a Void elemental? Killgleam had Knight and Othar take him outside, then summoned an air elemental and sent it down to check whether air elementals could survive the antimagic. It did not return.   Next room down below was big and had nine pools of liquid around the edge of the room. All were different bright colors. ROYGBIV plus solid black and white. Buzz's tracking suggested the girl had come this way and passed straight on through to the east. The pursuit continued. The trail took them to the northeast again at the next intersection. The next room was trapezoidal and had a divot in the middle, with a coiled stone thing lying in it. Tracking told the party that the human girl was hiding behind the stone thing.   The oozes couldn't talk, so Buzz opted for the next best thing: Writing on the wall with the blood and gore he'd absorbed from the vampire. "Hello. We want to help. Adventurers." With an arrow pointing to where Buzz was "standing" next to it.   Buzz did eventually get the girl's attention by slapping the wall, but she was not prepared to stay and chat. She looked at the message, looked at Buzz, took a step back, and ran. The party members noticed that the clothes she was wearing appeared to have been stolen from the kind of guys they'd seen earlier. Buzz also realized that the girl's eyes hadn't been tracking the writing correctly: She might not be able to read. He formed a face just to smack it into the wall.   The adventurers were losing morale at this point. Being oozes was increasingly frustrating. Before they left, they checked what the coiled thing was. It turned out to be a crude snake golem of some kind, like a snake icon thing, and it activated and started swirling around the room. It splattered Kelsey (to little lasting harm), then returned to the center of the room, where it took a protective stance. It seemed to be guarding a trapdoor in the center of the floor.   The group decided they needed some other form down here. This was going nowhere, with them being practically unable to attack and communicate. They passed the dead vampires on the way; they had turned to ash, but there was less than there should have been, like they'd been partly absorbed by the floor.   Discussion. Next stop, the well. Talking to Hubert, it turned out there was only one well. It was under his house. It went about 300 feet down. It was another very narrow pipe that would be difficult to fit down. They would supposedly have to break something to go down there. The other place to investigate was the reservoir, a building nearby in the town. Kelsey led the investigation there, with Hubert escorting.   The reservoir building had a bunch of pipes, tanks, etc. It was all nicely labeled. Apparently the silo also houses grain above the piping layer, and then water is stored above it. Kelsey searched for secret doors and found some, all of which were just storing more of Hubert's tools. They even had little outlines for the tools that should go there! Knight investigated in shade form: Found a small broken vial inside one of the bottom floor tanks, found more of the folded clothes on the grain floor, and found a warm, flashing light fluttering around in the main water tank. The light was angry at Knight and tried to touch them. Knight popped out the side of the tank and informed the party of what they'd found.   Hubert, and then Everett, did testing on the broken vial. Someone had tried to introduce something to the water supply. The filtration system appeared to have been up to the task. The potion appeared to have been primarily blood. Vampire blood. Hubert said this might have overloaded that local filter, and they must have introduced this at the bottom.   Nimbus, overwhelmed with concern for the little girl's life, grabbed Buzz and headed back to the fort. Buzz cast Temporal Reinstatement on the fancy pillars in the armory. It worked; they now identified as oak. Nimbus started punching the hole wider. It worked; at least now there was a larger way in. Othar whistled to bring the others. (Everett briefly tried to find the criminal who had defaced the wall.)   The group (except Knight, again) polymorphed into fairies and headed down. Everett, who was rememorizing, stayed behind with Knight for 20 minutes. Inside the tube, the fairies felt cold and then felt their wings fail as magic went away. 200 feet down, they found themselves very glad that their current body weight meant the impact was basically nothing.   The party found the clothes from the dead vampires, but they noticed that some of the pieces of clothing were missing. Tracking suggested the girl had passed through twice in two different directions; no indication of which was current. Union tried to use Anchored Navigation to ensure they knew where they started from, and discovered the flaw that would have made his Dimension Door fail: All the places he could see were the same place. It was a geometric prism expansion on space. The whole thing is essentially a giant space crystal. It's great for various ritual magics, since you can do a bunch of rituals in different spots and they're all counted as being in the same point. The place is also perfectly geometrical, which has interesting effects on ritual work.   Othar's arcane knowledge suggested that if they disrupted the rituals in the wrong order, it could be like Mount Vesuvius going off. Indications are that this place is the result of some higher-dimension being interacting with the prime plane, rather than some wizard building it. This crystal most lines up with alteration magic.  

"Welcome to the Chambers of Change."

  The party headed northwest. This led to another circular room, but a different one this time. Dark, ominous, vaguely smoke-covered pools of liquid. Investigation suggested the pools all had things that would enhance the ability to change things. It was best not to touch them; it was unclear what they'd do, and it might be permanent.   Another vampire guy, hairless and very paranoid, crept into the room. Not quietly enough, unfortunately for him; the party had heard him coming and hid. He was muttering something about "last one left, last one left" as he rapidly looked at corners and around the room. He appeared to be trying to track the girl by scent. "She runs everywhere." The party followed him to the south into one of the most ominous rooms seen yet: A room like the rainbow crystal room, but instead holding obelisks that made it look like a graveyard.   The vampire didn't seem willing to move on, so Nimbus picked up Kelsey, parkoured up the man's clothes, and delivered her and her vampire-fang knife to the man's neck. Union also stabbed him. That finished him.   The notetaker left the session at about this point. After this, the party managed to kill the snake golem, flag down the little girl, use telepathy to speak with her, and get her and themselves down the trap door in that room before the snake could reform. The passage beneath the trapdoor led towards the mountains and the caves that had been mentioned therein.