Dramatis Personae

Previously . . .

The PCs just went through a portal in a mirror and are on a platform raised up, with crazy swirly stuff all around. Stairs going up. They’re supposed to find and kill the master of this place. (PCs: “Should be a cakewalk, right? RIGHT???”)

Inside The Tower of Ghanz, The Mirror Dimension

Fyadhiel, Gaffer, Galen Fallowhide, Ryeleah Lopek, and Waraxe Mandrake
Anner (Fourth Month), 3rd, 981 F.R., 9th Hour of the Sun (4:30 pm)
Taskar, Dancorra Bay, Abolethe (“The Span”)

The PCs climb to the next platform. There is a lot of alchemical gear, notes, bookcases, etc. Ryeleah goes a little bit nuts. Looking around, she thinks none of it makes sense; it’s all garbage. She recognizes the cover of one of the treatises, but the contents are obfuscated. When she moves the globe, a pedestal comes up near the table where the globe is. On it there is a bowl, with a emblem of nested triangles and dots and broken circles. Gaffer and Ryeleah recognize elemental symbols. Earth, air, and fire; in the middle is water; the symbols can be depressed, moved around, etc.

Ryeleah takes out the air one and blows on it. She sunbolts a piece of paper and puts it on the fire symbol. It starts glowing. Gaffer pulls some sand out of his pocket and puts it on the earth glyph, and Galen drips a few drops of water in the center. the PCs hear some sort of stone grinding in the distance. Ryeleah throws something off of the edge. The swirling mist around the edges flashes very bright, potentially blinding light. The PCs go up some stairs and around two landings coming to a platform; 10 feet above us there are spiral stairs going up. At Gaffer’s instruction, WMD tries to go get a table for us to stand on, but the table disappears and reappears back where it started. Ryeleah apports herself up; when she gets to the stairs, she starts to fall *up*. The direction of “down” is weird there.

Gaffer sets up some rope and the PCs climb, but gravity switches halfway up. Galen has a bit of trouble and falls – as does Max and Fyadhiel.  There are more (regular) stairs and bigger platform higher up. The next platform is a field of statues on a field of scree and sand. The PCs become very nervous suspecting they are paralyzed adventurers turned to stone. Or they might be attacked by them. Regardless, Ryeleah lazers one of them. The statue gets cut in half . . . it wasn’t all that powerful a beam. Seems to be a little hollow inside. Galen, looking at the sand floor, can tell that it’s very well taken care of; looks like a meditation sandpit. Ryeleah, looking at the statues, sees that they all look scared. (They were petrified before they got petrified) Fyadhiel tosses a shovel on to the sand. A shovel lands on the sand.

Fyadhiel gets bored and runs out into the big meditation garden. A snake-tailed medusa appears in front of him. In fact, three appear; they shoot up out of the sand like burrowing worms. Fyadhiel gets a face full of medusa glare. (He uses his Luck on a HT roll . . . twice. Best roll is 7 out 12. He’s OK . . . for now.) One of them fires an arrow at Ryeleah. She casts Return Missile. The medusa dodges and drops into the sand. A second arrow goes to Galen. The one in front of Fyadhiel tries to grapple him. Fyadhiel tries to swing at the medusa while looking away (at -10 penalty). He hits, and the medusa fails to Dodge. It’s not a very solid hit, but it does 5 impaling damage. Ryeleah casts Blur on herself. Waraxe advances. Galen activates his dancing shield and kneels. Gaffer hides behind his own shield.

A medusa pops out of the sand near Waraxe; Galen and Ryeleah also get a bit of an eyefull. Fortunately, they all make our HT rolls. Another medusa tunnels underground. The medusa on Fyadhiel slithered forward and looked at him, then starts to attack with a claw and four snaky hairs. He manages to get out of the snaky hairs way, but he gets clawed in the left arm; his armor sucks it up.

Fyadhiel slashes, averting his vision, but does not hit. Ryeleah casts Pain on a medusa. Waraxe steps and slices at a medusa, hitting it despite averting his vision, and doing substantial damage. It’s still alive, but unhappy. Galen moves forward and shield bashes the medusa that Waraxe sliced, and she fails to Dodge. Gaffer his hiding behind his shield and looking the other way, and using his tail to fire his crossbow. Randomly. Amazingly, he hits with one.

Two medusas disappear into the sand. Fyadhiel is grabbed from underneath, but he just manages to dodge. He moves away and gets out his bow; he and Waraxe both wait for something to appear. Ryeleah floats above the sand, and gaffer jumps up on his shield. Several seconds elapse. Ryeleah draws a Wand of Concussion. The sand starts to come up and swirl as a Sandstorm spell is cast. Waraxe runs to the other side. Ryeleah is high enough to avoid the sand, and isn’t blinded. Galen gets grabbed; Waraxe, who is next to him, blocks it with his shield.

Ryeleah tries to dispel the sandstorm, fails . . . uses a character point for reroll (she doesn’t have Luck), and dispels the Sandstorm spell. Fyadhiel shoots at the medusa that tried to grab Galen, hits her in the head; she dies. Waraxe gets ready to attack while Galen steps up the stairs behind him. Gaffer pulls out an agility potion and drinks it. Two medusas pop out of the sand on the side where Gaffer and Fyadhiel are. (Ryeheal is near; Waraxe and Galen are on the far side of the sand pit.) Fyadhiel turns to stone. Ryeleah tries to charge a laser and fails. Gaffer is huddling behind his shield. Both of the medusas comes down the stairs moving after Gaffer. Galen stays defensive, while Ryeleah charges a laser and Waraxe slowly runs across the sand to where he’s needed. Gaffer creates a Combustion Potion and tosses it in between the medusae; they can’t Retreat because they did Move and Attack maneuvers. They dive for cover off of the edge . . . and reappear on the sandly platform. Twerp (now controlled by Doug with Fyadhiel petrified) comes running forward. Waraxe uses two uses of Luck (his last two) on Will saves… the medusae try to dominate him. That would have been bad. Ryeleah lasers one of the medusae in the head, but does not penetrate armor. WMD, averting his vision, slices at the wounded medusa’s torso. She’s hurt badly, but does not die. Galen stays defensive on the far stairs. Gaffer fires off a wild barrage, but doesn’t hit. Twerp comes running in. “I got it ma!”

One of the medusae turns to look at Twerp. His sword flashes, casting reflect gaze…! Max hears a voice in his head. “You can do it, just run up and stab it like I showed you!” The medusa tries to attack WMD with a claw and head-snakes. He blocks the claw, and parries the snakes with Lydia . . . chopping them off and killing her in the process. Ryeleah is getting annoyed. She tries to bop the snake in front of her on her head, hard. Penetrates DR. She falls down, stunned. Waraxe steps up and rapid strikes, chopping twice to the neck and cutting the snake head off. All the statues start turning back to flesh; the hollow ones that have been feasted on are just bags of skin. The PCs realize that the sand was not sand, but was bits of people. It gets soft and squishy as the petrification ends. Some are grossed out. The PCs start searching for interesting things.

The PCs hear a feminine scream. There’s a woman dressed in armor trying to claw her way up. Waraxe goes to help and pulls the person up out of the really gross muck. He asks if she’s OK. She starts speaking elvish. She and Fyadhiel start to have a conversation. Gaffer finds … $$$something$$$ …. in the fleshy bits. Waraxe gets a disease from rooting around in the gross giblets; Galen diagnoses it as Sewer Rot, and provides Waraxe some relief. Fyadhiel tells us that the armored elf the PCs rescued from petrification is named “Amara Aratris.” Ryeleah can tell that the other elf is a mage, and a good one. Bright aura. The PCs go up to the next spiral staircase. From the platform, up some stairs to another room. Lots of lamps all over the place in here. Ryeleah can see that they all have a hint of magic on them.

When the PCs come into the room, words of fire appear in the air. “You have to choose one.” The PCs wander around. Based on Ryeleah’s skills with occultism and thaumatology, with some help from Galen, we’re able to narrow it down to three. One is a kudluk, one is a lantern, and the third is an Arabic oil lamp. Gaffer remembers that Twerp has the Diviner’s Coin, and asks him to flip it three times. He is convinced it’s the lantern. They light the lantern. The letters in the sky burn bright, and a lot of smoke starts to come out of it. A few seconds later the PCs see a genie. “Everyone, shut up,” Ryeleah says, whlie Gaffer runs to cover Fyadhiel’s mouth.

Ryeleah figures out that it’s a fire elemental spirit; it’ll do what it does. It looks really annoyed and says, “I’m not giving all of you three wishes.” Ryeleah starts to talk to it; it’s not convinced that they weren’t looking specifically for it. Ryeleah wished for a bigger spell library. Waraxe wishes for a decanter of endless ale; he gets a very large sized tankard. Gaffer wishes to use his wish at a more convenient time; that gets rejected. He wishes that after he finishes helping us, the genie can go home. Galen wishes for the tools and knowledge necessary to defeat the master they came here to destroy. Alas, the genie is not allowed to do that due to prior services and bonds. Instead he wishes to free all the captured spirits on this island. Fyadhiel wishes that his Impulsiveness and Overconfidence be tamed so that he could be a better tactical leader. Twerp whispers into the genie’s ear; it looks surprised for a moment and then nods. Twerp says that he asked if the genie would make Ryeleah a better wizard. “You’re already a really great mom, so, um…..” Amara wishes for something very complicated in the elven language, and the genie looks annoyed. The lamps are no longer magical after the genie is freed.

Aftermath

The PCs go up to the next platform. There are spider webs here fading in and out of reality. Ryeleah suggests that if they use Twerp’s coin, they may be able to go step by step through this place without triggering any webs. Ryeleah tries to use apportation to fly around the edge of the platform; when she gets to the other set of stairs, they are blocked.

After Action Report (GM)

The medusa fight brought up a LOT of questions I wasn’t really prepared to answer as a GM – so I did what I always do in those situations. I make sh*t up.

Footnotes

None.