A sweet odour begins to fill the room...

If we will remember, as we paused last week’s game, Ooma was jumping down from the podium after knocking the golden tablet to the floor, and they are faced with six creatures appearing to be nothing more than animated bones of Obsidian glass emerging from a sliding door in the north wall. Pinpoints of red glow in their eye sockets. The door behind the skeletons slides silently closed as the final one exits. They advance toward the party, their ‘bones’ jingling musically. Heard, echoing in the stone and glass cave, a gleeful laugh and a familiar chant in a raspy voice intones:

             

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum;

Slice these flesh-bags, make them run!

             

The coarse laughter grows and, of note, all of the skeleton’s jaws have animated and are jiggling up and down, the slight ‘tinkling’ of their delicate structures continues.

             

The golden glow above the podium grows in both size and wattage, burning very intensely – it almost seems to be sizzling...

             

The bright light reveals the entire sixty-to-seventy foot squarish room to the heroes, however they cannot take advantage of the view right now; right now they need to roll initiative... errr, deal with the glass skeletons.

Our group is staggered.

             

As they break their statue-like stances, before a skirmish begins, a blast of cool, fresh air whooshes in. A door in the west wall slides open and a large, armoured figure walks through.

At this same moment, the flapping of a long black-cloak hanging on the wall next to the door draws our group’s eyes when it catches the breeze, unfolding, its ray-like form evolving to dark wings and a bony, whip-like tail. As it animates, its glowing red-eyes demoralize those caught in its stare, a toothy mouth opens, a loud wail assails our team, weakening them, forcing them to clasp their ears.

An alert Ichabod leaps, placing herself between the strange newcomer and the gargantuan bat-like creature, becoming the prey as its wings envelop her. At the same time, the first skeleton, nearest a Ooma lunges their body forward, spikes of Obsidian teeth clashing...

Unable to follow Ichabod, our heroes turn their attention to the immediate danger to their health...

Tumbling, swinging, launching arrows and battling leaves our party tired and frustrated. They are relatively unimpressed with this shiny-plated soldier as repeatedly, his attempts to turn the creatures, fail. Their own attempts barely scratching the brittle bones. 

The tide finally begins to turn when the newcomer, at long last, pulls forth a spell, “By the power of Pelor!” and our party watches three of the six beasts disappear.

Continuing to battle they ultimately make glass dust of the final skeletons, a whirlwind of glass shards slicing bared skin as the skeleton falls the other two adding their residue to the whirls.

As soon as the last skeleton is crushed, the golden tablet that fell to the floor ‘liquefies’ into a puddle of molten gold; the globe’s light diminishes and a new tablet materialises on the podium.

Wik moves to take a look at the podium.

Morgan moves toward the Cloaker’s (the bat-like creature) exit, the west door, exiting through.

Ooma asks the newcomer, “Did you see where that thing took our friend?”

“Down the hall,” his deep voice rumbles as he turns and follows Morgan. Ooma follows him, in the hopes of saving Ichabod. A cave in, about thirty feet down the hall, frustrates this attempt. A mountain of rock and debris clogs the corridor.

Meanwhile, back in the other room, Wik stares, puzzled at the new tablet. The language an enigma to him.

In the hall, as they ponder their next move, his light bathing the area brightly, the newcomer notices the severe injuries to the party, and utters, “By the grace of Pelor.”

Both Ooma and Morgan notice their injuries disappear. “Thanks!” “Oh, wow, thank you!” they both utter, surprised and grateful for this kindness.

Morgan half-heartedly pokes at the pile of tumbled rock with Ichabod’s staff, then plants the staff in a crack, as a tribute to her, while Ooma wonders if they should go after her.

The newcomer looks at her, his face a big question. “Go through solid rock? I can’t see how.”

They nod, turn and return to the room they started in, Morgan taking one step before returning for the staff, the glow as he grabs it, pulling it from the crevice, missed by all. He shrugs, following the others, “Well, we did everything we could.”

Arriving in the room, Ooma, seeing the cooling gold, decides to gold-plate her mace, dipping it into the still liquid puddle, adding a unknown plating-strength to her future swings. She looks to the new comer, finally having time. “Hi, I’m Ooma. You are?”

The tall newcomer, not removing his armour replies, “Hello, I am Martonis of Pelor.” He adds confusedly, “And I don’t have any idea where I am. I entered a tavern, used the privy and here I am.”

The snickers are soon joined by a chorus of, “Welcome to the club.”

Morgan ventures, “I don’t suppose you have any flasks of ale or drink?”

Martonis smiles, “I have rum.”

Morgan wraps his arm around Martonis’s shoulder, stuttering, “My new best friend.”

Martonis searches his bag, handing a bottle of the fine liquid refreshment to Morgan, whose eyes light up. “Enjoy.”

“I will. Thanks! And thanks for the heals!”

Wik eyes the contents eagerly. “And you, young man,” Martonis intones icily, “if I catch your paw in my belongings, I shall not hesitate to lop it off.” His eyes cold as he stares through the visor of his helmet.

Wik laughs the warning off, his eyes eagerly dancing over the newcomer’s belongings. "By the way, thanks for healing me."

The party chooses to take a few minutes and drink some of this fine rum. Wik reminds them about the new tablet on the podium. Ooma is looking around the room, Martonis following as she searches; Morgan collecting some of the glass shards.

Martonis locates a lever on the north wall; next to the sliding door the skeletons exited, or entered, from, and calls everyone over. Wik, hearing ‘lever’ looks up from the tablet, “Can someone read this?” he asks, as he hustles over to the lever to look for traps. In the meanwhile, Morgan moves to the tablet, scratching his head, unable to decipher it.

Morgan reaches forward and starts to turn the tablet upside down. As soon as his fingers touch it, an audible click sounds, and the door next to the lever Martonis is standing beside slides back and three Obsidian skeletons march out, their eyes glowing embers of red.

Morgan, though startled, resets the tablet and dashes through the door, only to become lodged in the sliding mechanism, the pressure nearly slicing him in two before he is able to extract himself falling back into the room with his companions (tearing his pant leg in the process), but not before getting an ominous view of the interior of the room: row upon row upon row upon row of Obsidian skeletons, their eyes black lumps of charcoal.

The heroes plunge into attack mode, Father Martonis turning two of the skeletons, making them easy fodder for our hero’s weapons and attacks. And, easy pickings they are. Quickly our group drop the animated glass cages, the whirling vortex of glass angrily spinning before petering out and dropping shards of glistening glass back onto the stone and sand surface.

Ooma, breathing hard, turns and looks at the tablet, giddy as she discovers it written in Dwarf! Wik moves about the room, his powers of observation enhanced by the near death experiences!

Ooma’s voice booms, speaking aloud the words written on the tablet:

             

            The larger I grow

            The less that you see.

            Squint all you wish,

            When surrounded by me.

            I am what?

Silence descends as the party pauses, puzzling.

Wik turns back to the stone walls, walking slowly.

Ooma breaks the silence and confers with the group about the answer to the riddle as Wik moves around. They ponder and rack their minds. "Sun?" "Sandstorm?"

Wik pauses before a panel in the south stone wall, near the west corner. Tilting his head he touches the raised panel and it slides sideways revealing a series of neon-glowing keys. The colours, aligned from left to right: green, red, blue, yellow, black and white. He mumbles that he's, "found something here."

Wik looks for tricks, traps, or instructions. Nothing appears. Without hesitation, or conferring with the others, he reaches forward and turns the key corresponding to his favourite colour; red.

Ooma calls, “Hey, hey, one riddle at a time here!”

“Too late,” Wik glances over his shoulder. A click from the key brings forward a red ooze slithering in through a tiny crevice between the floor and the stone wall. The party groans in horror, as the puddle, about a foot in diameter shimmers on the ground.

Ooma, still over at the podium shouts out the answer to the puzzle. “Darkness! I think the answer is darkness. Final answer. Darkness.”

As the word ‘darkness’ leaves Ooma’s lips, all light sources (candles; torches; lanterns; light spells) snuff out; the only illumination are the eerie radiant red lumps of skeleton eyes.

A sweet odour begins to fill the room...

Will our party be here next week? Will they be suffering some gaseous malady? The ooze? The radiant skeletal eyes? Maybe, next time, discussion before action...? Or not... :0)

o0o

XP: 2100 XP each. EXTRA-XP for those who write a story (with the Tavern at its centre...); journal entry (of usefulness); or an insight into their character’s back story... 50xp x character level, for one entry per week...

(without artistic liscense, (you know, the way things REALLY went down): https://youtu.be/FsNumpA5dzw)

  

o0o

thinking about glow-in-the-dark moss...

fledgling Dungeon Mistress,

khrys...

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