Episode 14: It's a puzzling world

Let's see, last we saw this group they had decided where they were going next and settled in for a long rest at the druid's grove. They sent Paul the Hawk to the refugees from Warwick to give them the latest updates and had a bit of a debate over good and evil. Again this is going to be a bit more of a catch-up episode than a detailed episode as I'm dreadfully behind on this game. Hopefully once I catch up I'll keep up this time! That's the plan anyway.

So the next morning the party heads out to find the nearest rift and see what information we can gather about what is going on. And shut it down. After travelling through the woods for awhile we came across a shrine area that led to a cave, so we cautiously approached and went in.

After a short hall it opened into a room with no other exits, but it did have a puzzle to be solved. It involved 9 playing cards and a riddle. After much contemplation, our party brain (Malek) figured it out, opening a secret door.

Beyond the door we found ourselves in apparently drow territory. This is a bit concerning to Meghan, as she is 1/2 drow. She doesn't really know much about the drow or their opinions about 1/2 drow. And it's not like she can hide the fact she's a 1/2 drow, it's rather distinctive features. So when we encountered a drow standing at a door muttering and waving a wand about, she was part fascinated part terrified.

Her and Malek, the sneaky ones, went in to confront the drow. Malek went invisible for a bit but Meghan went in as herself to provide redirect. The drow was highly confused as to what was going on, so we wound up just knocking him out. It turns out he was a teenage boy, and we have no idea what he was supposed to be doing, but he had a teen romance book with him and that wand. So while the rest of the party figured out how to use the wand to open the door (it was a puzzle with colors), Meghan took some time to study the features of the drow boy. Like any scientist studying a specimen. She did not harm the boy.

We continued on exploring for awhile, doing the Malek/Meghan in front with the rest of the party a little behind, and Paul hangs out on Lutor's horn so we can roughly communicate. Eventually we came to a clearly stone-worked hall filled with a mist.

It is a decently long hall filled with mist and what appeared to be some sort of vents in the ceiling. Also there was a lone torch at the opposite end of the hall. After a bit of contemplation and discussion, Malek stepped in to look up one of the vents ... and that's when we realized the mist wasn't water. It was poison, and he took damage. So he quickly stepped back out.

A bit more contemplation and we discovered that the fire from the torch would keep the mist at bay temporarily, so somehow we rigged up a way to grab the torch at the other end of the hall and get it to our end of the hall. The torch is a magical in some fashion. Also, we tend to just saunter about with Fizzledorp's helmet lit with the Light cantrip. We then successfully navigated to the other end of the hall without further damage.

Continuing along our journey we eventually come to a room with a stone with a small hand print in it, some sort of large dog sized. Small enough only Vohn's hand fits really, but nothing happens when he put his hand in it. Turns out there's two side rooms that we then spend some time exploring.

One room has a large vat of some sort with a lid on it, and Lutor/Thonk combined can't lift it. It was another riddle, one that I can not remember now, but the solve was Vohn pierced is own hand for blood to activate something, that then activated something called shadow blood. Vohn then stuck his finger in the blood, and it started to feel weird. So he walked over to the rock with the his-size paw print and stuck that hand into the paw print. At that point the shadowy flames grow to a much higher intensity, the paw print magically shapes itself to Vohn's small hand, and the door ahead opens.

Vohn then jumps up and down shouting "I DID IT!!!!!!"

Meghan just kind of blinks at him and responds with "Yes, draki, you did it."

I think I'll leave this novel here for now and continue on the next episode.