We have the key...

As we should recall our party was immersed in darkness when we left last week, the lights being extinguished as the puzzle was correctly answered...

“Oh shit!” The battle cry emerges as the lights wink out and our party is plunged into inky-blackness, the dark so deep it takes even Ooma a moment to adjust her keen eyesight!

The golden glow above the podium is no longer glowing. Wik dropping to his knees, fills his lantern, strikes his flint and steel sparking the wick, bringing a small amount of light to the room again.

The light reveals a light haze, or fog, puffing out from under the dais, its odour a pleasant, sweet smell. The red ooze, released when the glowing red key was turned sits slightly over ten-foot from Wik, sparkling on the floor, about a cubic-foot, or a large pumpkin-size, puddle. Martonis manages to elude the penalty of the sleeping gas; our other team members already entertain immunity to its consequences.

• DM SHTUFFS: A discussion ensued, clearing up a minor rule function. Ie: Up to level FOUR, you may receive your character’s FULL hit-die points, beyond level four you must ROLL to see how many more hit points you add. A roll of ‘one’ is a ‘botch’ and you can roll again.
• When you (the party) takes a full, eight hour, (Elves, four) rest, you recover 1-point, per (your) level PLUS your constitution modifier.

Wik finally shows his party members the keys he’s found. 

Martonis is indignant. “You found keys? And didn’t tell anyone? You just turned them? I know I’m the new guy, but, really?”

Wik describes his discovery behind the sliding panel, to the group.

A series of six glowing coloured keys set in keyholes in a horizontal row behind a sliding panel of stone. From left to right the keys are Green, Red, Blue, Yellow, White and Black. They are unmarked in any other way.

Ooma returns to the podium, rechecking to see if a new riddle has been written. She is disappointed.

A deep sigh and Ooma looks around.

The door on the west wall, with a cave-in a few metres down the corridor; a lever on the north wall, next to a faintly discernible rectangle, which the skeletons appear with far too much regularity; the Obsidian glass wall being the whole eastern wall of this sinister room. A panel of keys on the south wall, near the western door, and the podium, sitting on the dais, with the gold plaque atop it, in the centre of the room.

She looks up and down a slight puzzled look creasing her brow. The walls are solid black rock, jagged in places, smooth in others, the ceiling, or what she can see of it, appears to be the same material.

Wik strolls close to the Obsidian wall, attempting to peer through the opaque, polished glass-like rock, noticing the absence of a glowing sconce that lit the entry into this “tomb.”

Martonis repeatedly asks if anyone has a torch, to which Wik replies, “I’ve just lit a lantern.”

Martonis acknowledges this but has a different use in mind as he again asks for a torch.

Ooma and Wik return to examine the ooze intently. Ooma kneels next to the puddle, peering closely, waving her hand, attempting to have catch a whiff of the ooze’s aroma. Although her hand brings nothing of note to her nostrils, she does feel a cold wetness slithering about her chainmail armour-clad knees and calves, creeping along her armour.

As Ooma attempts to stand she discovers her legs glued to the floor. She tries to hit the red glob, bringing her mace down on the sticky substance coating her calves. Pieces chip off the main body, but as a whole, it appears unfazed.

Wik calls everyone over and instructs them to pull. As they lift Ooma from the floor, the substance forces her legs to remain in their bent, kneeling position. Morgan attempts to use his crowbar to pry the stuff loose from her legs as they lift her.

They set Ooma down again, all chip in and help untying her leggings, dropping them to the floor. Martonis again asks someone for a torch, explaining that the heat may burn away the glue.

Morgan lights a torch and fires the armour, watching as the heat melts the red substance, and, getting a little too close with the flame, Morgan touches the newly liquefied ooze, and it explodes the jelly-like substance, which separates the mass into particles about two-to-five centimetres diameter. Deftly our group manages to duck, dodge and evade the projectiles, which affix themselves all over the room, harmless now. A small scream assails their ears as this happens.

Ooma puts her armour back on after examining and discovering no harm has come to it through the ooze. While Ooma redresses, Wik takes a moment to discuss the panel of keys.

Martonis’s request that they take an eight-hour rest is heeded and they bed down for the night, Wik massaging the crème he has into his skin to try to return his natural colour. The pink is fading from his hair, and if you look closely you can see the yellow skin slowly easing to a pink-flesh tone, but only on close examination, from afar, these slight changes are hardly noticeable.

Their sleep goes uninterrupted and they awaken refreshed. The corner of the tunnel, near the cave-in is beginning to have a privy-kind of smell, if you catch its drift. Immediately upon waking, they resume tackling the keys, discussing the ramifications of turning them. Wik relights the lantern during his watch, so it still burns brightly.

“Alright, there’s six keys. We’ve turned one, the red one, there’s green, blue, yellow, black and white left,” Wik informs the party.

Ooma, after pondering for a few moments, “I recommend we don’t turn the black one, black signifies something bad; even worse than red.”

Wik pipes in, “So, you guys want to turn white then?”

The discussion ensuing results in the white key being turned by Wik while everyone else stands near the podium, about thirty-foot back, Martonis moves a few feet further. Wik turns it, then turns it back, hearing a click both ways. Confused, he tries again, leaving the key turned for a few seconds before turning it back.

Floating down from the ceiling come big, white fluffy flakes of snow! It lands on our party, melting and dripping to the floor. The room also seems to drop a degree or two in temperature.

A sigh and they turn back to the keys, Morgan commenting, “I’m worried about turning that yellow key, I just have this feeling it’s going to be urine; a stream of urine!” (After much giggles...)

“The green one could be acid,” Wik reflects. The discussion continues until a consensus is reached.

“Green? Okay.” Wik turns the green key and the faraway tinkling sounds of a musical tune fills the room, and he switches the key off. Looking around they see nothing of note.

Twisting the yellow key, Ooma holds her shield above her head, but instead of the expected deluge of urine, a panel slides smoothly open at the opposite end of the wall, closer to the Obsidian partition.

Ooma runs over to the alcove, a stone niche of about two-foot wide, high and deep, finding a clear glass vase about eighteen inches in height, and about ten inches in girth. The vase is filled with gold coins, glittering gems, gold chains, silver bars, rings, and such. Ooma looks for any kind of pressure plate before she grabs the vase speedily backing away hurriedly. The vase is surprisingly heavy, and Ooma instantly feels a drain on her energy. She sets the vase down on the floor.

She tries to reach in to extract a coin, finding a glass cover on the top of the vase, impeding her fingers. “Hey guys, look at this,” she calls to the others, Wik’s eyes bulging as he moves swiftly to the riches-filled glass container.

They all approach, and Ooma waves her hands telling them what she’s found. Martonis suggests breaking it. Wik examines it closely, his eyes glittering as his mind whirls at the riches inside. He sees a crystal clear vase, or urn with wealth nearly spilling out. Ooma suggests turning the green key to see if the music will crack the glass and Wik, greedily enthralled with the vase nods, “Go ahead, I’m not setting this down.”

Ooma tells Wik to bring the vase over and set it next to the keys. He turns the green key, starting the pleasant musical tune, which they leave playing for over a minute, watching the vase intently to see if any changes occur and are disappointed. Nothing appears to happen.

Wik lifts the vase above his head and, in a moment of misplaced frustration, drops it hard, to the stone floor and is not only surprised, but stupefied when the vase does not shatter. Wik grabs it, examining it closely, not ascertaining the deception, and so, determinedly tries to place it in his backpack.

Ooma objects, her mind starting to wrap around the clues they are discovering and trying to make sense of them. “So we have snow, we’ve got this red ooze that likes to envelop things, and we’ve got this music, and I’m wondering if we put this out, and the red ooze envelops it, let it snow and then the music comes on... and...,” she pauses, “let’s find out what the other keys do! ‘Cause there might be like a sequence of events here.”

Wik agrees to this suggestion, yet still puts the vase in his backpack before turning the blue key.

As the key turns a sudden snapping, crackling sound comes from over head and shooting out from the southeast corner of the soaring ceiling, comes a jagged lightning bolt, it’s blue flame-like sizzle rapidly bouncing off the hard surfaces of the room hungrily until it finds its point, zapping Martonis’s plate-mail suit, stumbling him backward as it dissipates. Martonis feels the heat and is very grateful for the suit which protects him from serious damage.

Morgan, spying the smoke wafting from Martonis’s face shield, knocks on his armour, “You okay in there?” he laughs faintly.

“Yeh, I’m alive,” Martonis barks, trying to clear his head. “Wow! That was better than a fifth of...” his voice trails off.

Wik immediately turns back to the key bank, “Only black to go! Shall we spread out a little bit?”

As the group returns to their positions near the podium, Morgan holding his breath and closing his eyes, peeking from under his lashes as Wik turns the black key.

Martonis prays, “I may see you soon Lawrd,” he half-jokes. Leaving the key turned for a few seconds before turning it back, they look about the room, trying to determine what, if anything, has happened. They hear something flowing; gushing and Martonis finally notices a thick black trickle slowly oozing down the north wall, a couple of gallons or so spills forth before the key is turned back.

Martonis comments, “Uh-oh, we’ve got problems.”

Morgan relights a torch and sets it against the substance, hesitatingly. It seems to make the substance liquidier, and grows darker in colour. The smell reminds our party of ...clovers?

As Morgan finishes flaming the sticky, clover-smelling substance, Wik determinedly moves to examine the lever, sensing that it has a trap attached to it, but is unable to discover the purpose. He does discover that it will open, or close, a door, but not which door.

Wik shrugs, “It’s the only thing we haven’t tried.”

They discussed the purposes, as Morgan puzzles over what made the skeleton door open, if they haven’t yet pulled the lever? Wik astutely tells him that moving the gold tablet caused the door to open.

“The lever is the last thing we can try. Shall I pull it?” Wik queries the party. “Just make sure we’re all prepared for a fight.” He looks to each.

“Ahh, sure,” Morgan shrugs.

“Yeh, I guess,” Ooma decides, unenthusiastically.

“Martonis? You’re the one that’s probably going to get the heaviest workout,” Wik reminds him.

“Probably,” Martonis nods. “Go ahead.”

Wik pulls the lever and the party hears a large stone scraping along other stones and it rumbles in the room; a slight shaking and small dust particles floating downward. The noise seems to come from beyond the Obsidian wall. It rumbles for about ten to thirty seconds before ceasing.

Morgan exits and looks down the tunnel where the collapse, or cave-in, happened. He sees nothing that sets off alarm bells and decides to stroll the length, to the rubble, turning and retreating back to the room when there appears to be no changes to the corridor.

Wik, in the meantime, peers at the glass wall carefully, attempting to see if there is anything they may have missed.

He sees very little in the cavern beyond the wall, the dark purplish-smoky colour of the Obsidian making clear visibility difficult. He does note that the sconce, that burned on the wall next to the lever that released the door’s catch allowing them to enter the room, has burned out.

The wall is set into a groove in the floor and along the ceiling, and pushes tightly into slots at the north and south ends of the mostly square room. He is unable to determine how deep the glass sinks into the groove or how far it is inset into the stone slots.

Martonis tilts his head. Walking up to the wall, he knocks on it with his fist. “Open up,” he commands. He is not truly surprised when nothing happens. He next swings his morning star at the wall, Wik moving swiftly away to avoid being hit by the weapon and the flying chips of glass that are sure to fly about.

The wall resists his efforts.

Ooma shakes her head, “I still think it has something to do with these coloured keys.”

“Oh, probably,” Martonis sighs.

Wik suggests they turn the non-damaging keys. The yellow and green and leave the others unturned.

Ooma stands next to Wik and suggests the others stand in the doorway to the tunnel on the west wall. “Let’s do the red one again, plus then make it snow.”

Wik pipes up, “Were not doing the red one again! We’ll do the yellow white and,” he pauses, thinking, “and green one.”

Omma reminds him that, “The red was non-damaging; it just stuck to my armour.”

Martonis agrees, “It was just glue.”

Ooma continues, “So, I don’t know, like, maybe you should put the red ooze, make it snow, play the music, I don’t know, a combination of these things. Lightning; I dunno – it’s weird. Could these be like elementals?” she ponders.

Before any of that can happen, Morgan determinedly moves to the podium and touches the tablet. Ooma sees him, “Oh, gawd damn it!”

His finger resting on the tablet, he stares at the skeleton’s entry door. When nothing occurs, he picks the tablet up, dropping it back into place immediately, but, the damage is done, from the north wall, a door slides open and three obsidian skeletons with glowing red-eyes march out, going to the podium.

Morgan looks past the marching glass-undead into the room they have emerged from, attempting to discover if anything looks different from his earlier glimpse. From his vantage point he sees nothing that causes him to think the lever pulled moved anything in that room. He then scoops up a few of the glowing eyes strewn about the floor and throws them at the marching skeletons, before running to the tunnel in the west wall.

Martonis casts a spell, his arms raising and in a very deep voice, he intones, “By the glory and reign of Pelor, be gone!!” And, by the glory of Pelor, the Obsidian bones of the skeleton’s dissolves to fine particles and disappears!

Morgan looks at him and grins, “You’re getting better at this.”

Ooma smiles and shouts, “Nice one, Holy man!”

Wik turns immediately back to the keys. “Okay, I’m turning on the snow and the music and what was the other one?”

Ooma suggest the yellow one, “To see if another panel opens up.”

Wik turns the keys. As the white one is left turn, large fluffy flakes drift downward and the room’s temperature drops noticeably. As the green key is left turned, the music plays, echoing off the hard surfaces, its sound pleasant. When the yellow key is turned, the panel the vase was in formerly, rises again, revealing an empty niche.

Wik begins to feel very tired, quickly discovering the vase to be the cause and sets the vase on the ground. “Okay, anyone want to try to smash that?”

Morgan steps up and deftly brings Ichabod’s staff down hard on the glass. Wik raises an eyebrow, “You know if you shatter that she’s going to kill you, right?”

“She has to unkill herself first.” He laughs, the stick hitting the vase, the reverberations tingling up his arms from the ineffective strike.

Wik instructs Ooma and Martonis to try. Ooma shakes her head, “Sweetie, let’s work on getting out of here first, then we’ll look at the vase. One problem at a time.”

Wik looks at her, “Okay, whose going to carry it, and feel exhausted?”

Martonis, thinking, asks, “Are there any other keys you might have found?”

A short discussion and the answer appears to be an abrupt, “No, we didn’t find nothing. What you see is what we’ve found.”

The snow is piling up, about two-feet deep, before Wik re-turns the keys, shutting them off.

Ooma has an idea, warning everyone to get into the hall where the cave-in occurred. “I want to try something. Set the vase in the centre of the room first, Wik.” When everyone is safely peeking around the stone door of the corridor, she turns the blue key, emitting the lightning shaped blast that bounces around the room, unfortunately it chooses to dispel on Ooma’s scale armour, missing as Ooma lifts her wooden shield feeling the shudder of the blast, pushing her against the wall solidly, a second blast of lightning pops out just before Ooma can switch the key off, bouncing around the room in unleashed glory, dissipating against the wall.

“Well, that didn’t work.” Ooma walks forward and smashes the vase with her gold-plated mace, which recoils so violently in her hand it almost pulls it from her grip. Yet the vase remains, unbroken.

Martonis also decides to smash it, swinging his morning star soundly against the side, knocking it over and causing it to roll about five-foot.

Wik tries the simple route, walking over to where it stops and commanding, “Open.” He shrugs a sheepish grin on his face. While Ooma ambles over and proceeds to rub it with her new gloves, succeeding in obtaining a classic shine, but zilch-else transpires.

“Okay, this thing is – I mean, let’s just figure this out later; let’s just try and get out of here first,” Ooma comments, proceeding to question Morgan about the skeletons, learning that the skeletons in the room seemed to be immobile. She once again requests everyone to get back in the corridor. She wants to turn all the keys.

Martonis seems a little worried about this decision, but, as he has just joined this group, he bends to their choices, his unholy-like remarks filtering under his breath.

When they are all in the corridor, Ooma begins turning keys. Black, then red, then white, green, yellow and lastly blue. She crouches down and holds her shield above her head.

As the keys are turned, the familiar patterns appear. Black key: a brownish-black liquid seeps between the stones and down the north wall; the red key brings forth about a cubic foot of red ooze from a crack in the south wall, quite close to Ooma. The white key has snow falling at a steady pace. Turning the green key brings the sound of music to the room and the yellow one lifts and lowers the niche panel. The blue key sends forth its frightening bolt of electricity, which eventually ploughs into Ooma’s shield, scorching the wood nearly through. A second bolt flashes out, and every six-to-eight seconds a new bolt flashes forth.

After the second bolt flashes, Ooma jumps and switches them off, starting with the blue key.

The party returns to the room, deflated. “There has to be a way out!”

Wik asks, “Shall we go clear that cave-in?”

Ooma has another suggestion, “Why don’t we pry open that skeleton door and see if we can make our way through without disturbing them?”

Morgan warms to this, “Why don’t we try to kill them with the lightning?”

Ooma points out, “I don’t know. They’re made of glass not metal.”

Morgan asks if the keys are removable, and Wik reassures him, “Nope, they’re fixed.”

Pondering their options, Wik again suggests they try clearing out the hallway.

“Wait,” Morgan pipes up. “Did we try moving the podium?” He walks up to it and lifts it, taking a half-step before the door slides open and three more skeletons enter the room, going toward the podium and taking up their stances. Morgan, ignoring the skeletons, continues his examination of the wooden podium, peering at the bottom, hoping for a trigger; trip wires or a pressure plate, and discovering a solid surface. He then runs to the corridor door with the podium. As he tilts the podium the tablet falls onto the ground.

Martonis, ready, his arms held thusly, his holy symbol raised, commands in an authoritative voice, “By divine radiance, I command thee, be gone!” His efforts are two-thirds successful as two of the skeletons turn and walk away from Martonis, bumping the Obsidian wall, their mindlessness causing them to continue to try to walk through the wall.

The party then joins the fight, their weapons flying. Ooma, an idea forming, turns the green key, causing the music to play and the skeleton’s legs to imitate dancing. (The Undead Boogie or the Monster Mash.)

The party continues their battle until the last skeleton drops and a vortex of glass shards spins the glass shards slicing our heroes, as it whirls and disappears. (DM Note: The DM’s count of the death, or, ‘re-death’ order of the skeleton’s WAS correct; C, (Ooma) then A, (Morgan) then, finally, B, (Morgan).)

As the vortex begins, the gold tablet on the ground melts into a puddle of molten gold, a slight steam rising as the snow around it melts. The glass vase, filled with treasures, sits on the dais where it was placed many minutes before. The podium lays forgotten on its side on the ground, a snow drift piled against it...

The party decides to take a long rest, recovering their powers and healing their bodies... puzzling over the way to leave this room. The DM will trust they set up their tents or at least wrap in their winter blankets. The room is much colder and the snow is icing over...

o0o

XP: 1375 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 (your) character level, for one entry per week...

( the verbal recount... )

o0o

so close... so darn close...

fledgling Dungeon Mistress,

khrys...

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