Episode 1707: Its a group effort to make this much of a mess of things

When we last left this party, Magnus had had a nightmare and we were doing some traveling and information gathering. There is definitely something afoot around here, but we do not know what as of yet. Other than the evil necromancer may actually be a mind-flayer lich in possession of the eye of Vecna. What could go wrong there? As a reminder this party consists of:

Tsedek, our charming Tiefling Rogue

Itanis, a devious High Elf Wizard, fond of controlling any situation we may find ourselves in

Leoven, our quiet but effective Wood Elf Ranger

Magnus, the Human Paladin of Heironious, he has followed a vengeance path

Elle, the small but sparky High Elf Wizard, fond of blowing things up with lots of fire

So we start in on the trail to the pass through the mountain range in front of us, and proceed to quietly ride along and totally not bicker while our ranger Leoven reads invisible signs for danger ahead and Itanis controls the terrain to keep us moving at a good clip without tiring the horses too badly.

Don't worry, Elle and Magnus were totally bickering.

But we're making good time and after another day or so of travel Leoven is seeing more signs of creatures around that shouldn't be around. Mostly orcs it seems, though he's pretty sure he's seeing signs of "intellect devourers". Elle may or may not have muttered something about starving if they tried devouring Magnus' intellect.

A bit further along the trail Leoven finds a basically invisible crack in the stone around us and announces the orcs went this way. Well, alrighty then!

Tsedek takes over at this point and goes invisible, silent, and sneaks his way down the crack in the stone to see what's on the other side. He then messages Itanis what he finds.

The crack goes along for 15' or so then gets super small so one has to crawl, but then opens up into a room. In the room is a pedestal with a message written on it in a language he does not know. There is also a large set of doors. But there doesn't appear to be any other occupants of the room so he indicates to Itanis we should come in.

Leoven had the foresight to go ahead and cast "pass without trace" on us, which is good, as Magnus does nothing quietly. And fitting a large plate armored man into this crack is going to be challenging.

But we manage to all get into this room and scope things out. Thankfully Leoven recognized the language on the pedestal and translated what it said for us. It was written in under-common. Makes me wonder what our ranger has been up to to know under-common.

At that point a voice comes out of nowhere and presents us with an "Answer these questions 3!" as the number 30 appears above the doors, and starts ticking down. Also a glowing red dot appears over the pedestal.

First question the pedestal presents us with : "Who is that with a neck and no head, two arms and no hands? What is it?" We all puzzle it over for a bit when Itanis states "A shirt".

The timer keeps ticking down.

Second question the pedestal presents us with: "What is it that given one, you'll have either two or none?" Puzzling through that one everyone, including Magnus, is surprised when he states "a choice".

The timer keeps ticking down.

Third question the pedestal presents us with: " Only one color, but not one size, Stuck at the bottom, yet easily flies. Present in sun, but not in rain, Doing no harm, and feeling no pain. What is it?" Itanis offers up light, but all that happens is the glowing red dot gets a little bigger and the timer keeps ticking down. Another guess is offered up, but the glowing red dot just gets a little bit bigger and the timer keeps ticking down.

After a little more thought Elle goes "I do believe it's a shadow".

And that's when the timer above the door stops ticking down and the doors slide open. And then start sliding back shut, so we all scampered through the doors as fast as possible. Much to our trap checking friend's dismay.

Once on the other side of the doors we take stock of our surroundings to find ourselves in a tunnel. As Tsedek was preparing himself to scout ahead we hear a loud KABOOM from behind the doors. Apparently the glowing red thing exploded.

Leoven decides to take a moment to sense for enemies about, apparently there are some. While that is going on Magnus pulls out his spell book and then goes "accept these blessings from Heironious" and casts death ward on Elle, who looks at him and goes "what am I, fragile?" He then turns and does the same to Leoven. "Itanis, he, he's just Itanis he always comes through unscathed. Tsedek I can protect as he's up in combat with me. You two I can not protect."

At this point Tsedek has gotten down the hallway some just as the next layer of fun happens. Apparently there was a trap and a magic mouth starts announcing "Hey! Someone answered the questions!" down the hall. It kept popping up every so many feet down the hall, far too fast to catch. Or so we thought, because one about 120' in front of us popped up but sounded rather quite muffled as it tried stating its message. Apparently Tsedek tried putting his invisible hands over the mouth.

Around then Magnus lost his patience. And took off running down the hall, Elle on his tail muttering something about "not again" and several cuss words under her breath. At the other end to find another set of doors. "Tsedek! Open these!"

And that's where we'll leave this story for now! :)