MAL Ep. 11

Believe it or not, almost all that chunky glitter poured right back into the bottle. REUSABLE rising tide of glittery death. Awesome. ;-)

The party covered a lot of ground today:

1) Heading down the water chute, the PCs became separated and landed in three different rooms: a bathing room, a hydromancy (water magician's study), and the social hall Red found last session. Khirg, remaining behind in the social hall with Jon and Seela, figured out how to use the scrying pool to view the other rooms, though it required him to stick his head underwater and take drowning damage.

2) Zadkiel explored the bathing room, finding a magic mirror and an urn with magical powder residue in it that later turned out to be a water purifer. The mirror seemed to show slightly distorted reflections of the world around it, showing Zadkiel bathed in white light with the outline of angel's wings, the water as pure and blue when in fact it was greenish and acidic, and, later, Aler as exceedingly handsome and heroic. Zadkiel did not notice the water level in the pool starting to rise, and it then overflowed. Zadkiel cast a protection from acid spell on himself, but wasn't able to figure out how to cause the pool to drain or open the exit tube.

3) Meanwhile, Aler and Bay explored the hydromancy, finding some Aquan books, some potions, and a music box shaped like a carousel with some silver letters printed around its canopy. Once the music box started playing, the room began flooding with water. Bay revealed to Aler that she was the source of the energy that kept making small things around them fall apart, and directed it at the chute cover causing it to unhinge and fall off, allowing Aler to use his owl armor to fly back up the glass tube with her.

4) While that was happening, Red and Adriel explored the social hall, managing to open the stuck wooden door revealing a small kitchen. The mephit in the room started jabbering at them, eventually flying at Adriel waving his hands, causing Red to use her python staff to pin him. Red then began suffering wisdom drains.

5) Looking through the scrying pool, Khirg witnessed a creepy worm-creature with many faces stalking Red around the social hall, biting at her aura. Red and Adriel seemed unaware of its presence, though the mephit had apparently seen it and had been trying to warn them. Khirg shouted a warning to Red, aspirating liquid mana in the process and choking. Red and Adriel tried to fight the invisible worm, quickly realizing it was a haunt and couldn't be damaged. They retreated into the kitchen and barricaded themselves inside.

6) When Khirg informed him of this development, Jon went down the chute to help Red and Adriel, while Aler and Bay reached the bathing room and pulled Zadkiel up into the tube with them.

7) Adriel activated a haunt on a kitchen knife that caused her to try and slit her own throat. Red stopped her from killing herself by immobilizing her with the python, but the worm monster managed to break through the door while she was thus occupied. Jon, arriving on the scene, tried to sing a song to demoralize the worm only to realize that haunts aren't sentient and can't be affected by such things. Seela said he should use the piano, which Khirg relayed to him at further cost to his own lungs. Jon ran over to the piano and began playing a song to calm the haunt, causing it to drop Red and run over to assault him instead. Jon made a rather boss concentration check and kept playing.

8) Zadkiel, Aler and Bay finally arrived, and Zadkiel used his turning power to neutralize the weakened worm haunt and the suicidal knife. Aler warned that the neutralized haunts would likely manifest again at some point. The party decided to leave the room sooner than later.

9) But first, of course, they searched the room. Aler found two scrolls in a hidden niche behind the triskele artwork, as well as a shelf that appeared to have once held several more scrolls and a silver bracket that appeared to have once held a powerful magical artifact. Jon, who speaks Aquan, questioned  the mephit, who gave his name as Willy. Willy said that he'd never seen the worm haunt before, but that the whole temple had been haunted since the murders. He also said that Jendarion's water powers were given to him by the river Sendor, Mrs. Jendarion's father, and that Mrs. Jendarion would always play the recessional music on the piano before the worshippers would leave the hall.

10) Jon found the recessional music in the piano bench and played it, causing another transport tube to open up in the ground. Red tried spider climbing down it, but half-way down suffered from vertigo and fell. She landed in the sanctuary again, the Escher-like tube having somehow flowed downwards and ended up at a higher level anyway. Khirg informed the rest of the party the tube was safe and they followed her back to the sanctuary, where the recessional music had also caused the stone door to open.

11) Proceeding through the stone door, the reunited party found a twisty hallway leading to a room with mirrors on the walls and a sacred pool in it, which was currently murky, roiling, and disturbed by a thrashing tentacle. The party decided to try to sneak past the tentacle, sending Aler invisibly ahead. He successfully sneaked across it to the other side. The group used Jon's invisibility wand on the rest of themselves and followed suit, but Red noticed that their reflections were still showing in the mirrors despite their invisibility. Between that  and the other PCs being less stealthy than Aler, several of them were attacked and dragged underwater by the tentacles. The party managed to fend off the tentacles, free their trapped companions, and retreat to the other side of the room.

12) The last section of the dungeon had clearly been built more recently than the rest of it. Passing down stairs, they came upon a mausoleum with black marble floors and shallow flowing water diverted from the river. The party examined the room cautiously. Aler opened a chest to the side of the sarcophagus, only to find that it was also in fact a coffin and contained the well-preserved boy of a three-year-old girl.

13) The daimon of the river Sendor appeared in bull form and charged the party, doing a solid amount of damage in the first round, but after a combination of Red's diplomacy, Jon's use of a song to improve his mood, and Zadkiel's mass healing of both his own party's injuries and the river spirit's, he backed off and summoned the ghost of the naiad Essily to speak with you.

14) The anguished wails of the naiad's ghosts caused most of the party to become shaken, frightened, or even (in Adriel's case) eventually panicked, but after being told that Jendarion was being misled by a demon, she entreated the party to find Quenzil, the only one she's sure Jendarion will listen to. After leaving a few offerings, the party followed Adriel out of the temple.

15) Outside the temple, the water panther remarked that the party had "got the tap back on," pointing to the magic circle Aler had discovered last session, which was now flowing with water. Zadkiel asked the panther about the names of Jendarion's children, to which it answered that it was Aquan tradition for no one but family members to speak the names of dead children aloud. Zadkiel spelled out the name he had surmised from the music box, L-I-S-A-N-D-R-A, and the water panther agreed that this was the daughter's name. The son's name was not learned. The water panther said Quenzil was an Auran windwalker who lived in the forest north of the river somewhere, and that one of the forest's wildlife could lead you there.

16) Character interlude as Adriel, even with her magical panic now dispelled by Zadkiel, refused to travel any further in this forest, insisting that "her dragon" would never have committed these atrocities and continuing further on here was pointless. The party united to convince her that solving the problem with the Elemental Druids was critical to weakening Chavalk, whose defeat was more important than whatever was or wasn't going on with the dragon.

17) Barken the necromancer returned with a message for Khirg, who had apparently paid him to ask his ghost friends about the woman he had come here to seek, learning that she was "in Jendarion's basement, or at least she was when my friend saw her." Barken additionally weighed in on Piper's situation, suggesting that it WOULD be possible to return her to mortal life necromantically, but only by getting her soul to pass through the Veil first and then bringing her back... and that in order to do that, you'd basically need to exchange her soul for someone else's.

18) After consulting with a local squirrel, the party proceeded to Quenzil's house, in a burned-out and slowly recovering area of the forest. His house was also badly damaged by fire, with carbonized trees standing just outside, and nearly empty, with only an Auran magic circle and obelisk still standing inside.

19) The group encountered Sahree the circus acrobat, who explained that her circus accident had been a "message" from her sylph clan's elders to force her to return home. Sahree presents herself as a free-spirited teenager who just wants to see the world, but Jendarion and her people consider it too dangerous and that they all must stay and stand together against their enemies. Sahree also confirmed that her family has told her the same thing Liria did, that "the fey guy turned out to be a demon." The sylphs are apparently not happy about this, but can't think of a way to eject the demons from the forest without ejecting all outsiders, which would include themselves, or overthrowing Jendarion, which none of the other druids are willing or able to do.

20) Sahree was able to manipulate the Auran runestone to allow the party to use their Speak With Dead scroll to contact Quenzil, who said “Great danger is upon you now. The dragon was but a single monster, and in the end it could slay but a few of us. The alliance I now see rising from the shadows threatens this entire realm. Shyra must be removed as counsel to the Elemental Druids, if it is not already too late.” Asked about Jendarion's power, he confirmed that it was given to him by the River Sendor, and that since the daimon of the river currently lies dormant, the talisman could safely be destroyed if you reach it before he manifests again. However, the talisman is kept in Jendarion's house, and Quenzil warned that it was unlikely the party would be able to break in there without interference from Jendarion. He suggested Jendarion would need to be drawn away from the house and kept busy somehow while the river's talisman was found, and that he did not believe Jendarion could be reasoned with until his elemental power had subsided. The party considered splitting up next session, with one group challenging Jendarion in the grove while the other broke into his house to shut off the water.

And there we broke for the day! If someone has further questions for Quenzil, we can lead off next session with them.

Onward!