Session 8: Escape from the Maze

Zhang immediately charged through the door of the chamber, smashing one of the hideous creatures in the face. It only laughed and lifted its scythe for a rejoinder. At that moment, delicate music filled the chamber, emanating from Mid’s lyre. The creatures stood as if stunned by the music. They took a step back and dropped their weapons to their sides. They still stared at the characters with menacing eyes but seemed to have no desire for hostilities. Mid calmly walked across the chamber to the other door and the rest of the party, somewhat confused by her use of bewitching music, carefully followed her with one eye on the creatures.

Having made it through this room and noting that it was similarly marked with runes, the party proceeded down the corridor. Zhang made out movement in the room ahead and called for the party to halt. Clancy cast an illusion of a gnome entering the room and the party watched as nightmarish insectoid creature with pincers and large mandibles pounced on it. The creature was initially confused by the illusion’s incorporeal nature but quickly recovered and retreated back out of sight.

After quick discussion, the party decided to set a trap with another illusion. Clancy and Terlis combined to create and even more realistic illusion of a gnome entering the chamber. When a creature once again appeared. Kiki and Zhang charged it, with the remainder of the party in support. Immediately, Kiki and Zhang noticed that four other creatures were lurking in the corners of the room. They were able to wound the creature but not take it down. Riya and PPP joined the fray as the other monsters closed in, while the rest of the party supported them with their arcane arts. As one of the monsters penetrated the armor of Kiki, she felt a cold chill on her muscles and bones and could not move. After dispatching the first creature, Zhang was also paralyzed in this way. A stunning strike to one of the other creatures by Riya helped keep the paralyzed Zhang safe from harm, while Kiki’s heavy armor protected her. Meanwhile, the other party members could not help feelings of dread arising whenever one of these creatures was near. The party was hard-put, but eventually their swords and spells won the day and the two last creatures fell to Kiki’s sword and Mid’s rapier.

The party found itself in a large room with exits on each side. A set of double doors to the north attracted the most attention. Opening these doors revealed a long hallway at least a 100 feet in length with a single corridor exiting to the north at the end. Terlis sent Fatbat to scout ahead. Fatbat had flown no more than 10 feet when large scything blades came out of the walls on either side and nearly cut him in two. He quickly flew back.

As the party contemplated how to deal with this impediment, Alson called their attention to something he had noticed in the room. The runes written over each entrance had dots on either side and these dots seemed to have some patterns. Some had two dots on the left and one on the right and others had two dots on the right and one on the left. Alston thought this probably meant something important but couldn’t work it out.

Puzzling over this, the party decided to push forward. After some investigation, they discovered that the blade trap was set off by anything blocking a series of light ray at increments in the hallway. They also discovered that they could nullify this effect with a light spell at the proper brightness. With care and a little trepidation, PPP cast a light spell on himself and the entire party made its way safely from one side of the hallway to the other. At the other end, they found the same arrangement of dots. Now suspecting a pattern, they sent fatbat ahead along this corridor and back to the one with the two creatures they had seen earlier. With all the data, they surmised that they should have taken the western corridor rather than the northern corridor earlier because it seemed that one dot on the right indicated the correct route.

Backtracking the party entered the western corridor. They had gone no further than 20 feet when there was a loud flash and bang. When they could see again, it appeared that Mid, PPP, and Kiki had been paralyzed by the trap. Furthermore, the entrance back into the chamber they had just come from had been closed by some immovable stone.

As they contemplated what to do, they remaining party members each heard a squishing sound of something approaching. Rushing up the hallway, they could see a large gelatinous cube of goo filling the hallway and slowly approaching them. Realizing that if it reached them, it would spell their sure doom, the party bolted into action, but tried to stay clear of the thing, hitting it with ranged weapons and spells. Terlis cast a freezing spell that also slowed it down, giving the party enough time to cut it to pieces with their weapons and spells. Shortly afterwards, the remaining party members were freed from their paralyzation.

Proceeding past the remnants of this goo, the party came into a large cavern of natural rock that was unlike the hewn dungeon they had so far seen. They saw two tunnels leading off to the north and south. Following the north tunnel, they came to a circular portal whose center was pure black but glowed somehow. Before they could investigate, three zombies emerged from the tunnel and attacked the party. Although initially surprised, the party made short work of them, hackikng them to pieces in an inglorious slaughter. Then Mid stepped forward and used her knowledge of arcana to investigate the portal. Pushing a few buttons here and there, she managed to turn it off.

The party then headed south. They had not gone very far when they came upon the grisly remains of a humanoid caught in a spike trap thad had extended from the wall. On its body they found a note that read:

Mad Mage’s Notes

I pushed in the wrong sequence again today. I really must be more careful! At least the beasties won’t regenerate for me. I just have to be careful to remember where all of the traps are located. I have designed myself a riddle to help remember the right sequence for the future.

• R is not next to G
• Y comes directly before G
• B must come after R and not next to it

From this note, the PCs suspected that they had found the unforunate inventor of this maze and the device and they now had a clue as to how to operate the device correctly. Mid, with the help of others, was able to solve the riddle and determined that the correct sequence must be Red, Yellow, Green, Blue.

Proceeding forward, the party came into another large cavern, roughly triangular in shape. At the far wide end were five portals. The central portal was empty. On either side of this portal, the remaining portals were the dim colors of red, yellow, green, and blue. In the center of the room stood a large clay statue of roughly humanoid appearance.

Terlis sent Fatbat forward to investigate. When Fatbat was within fourty feet of the statue, its eyes suddenly opened and it moved. Clearly they had disturbed the guardian of the chamber. Terlis and Clancy backed up to the tunnel entrance and fired arcane energies at the golem, while Riya and Fatbat tried to distract it. Meanwhile, the remaining party members ran toward the four colored portals and pushed them in the correct sequence. They lit up one by one and when the final one was lit up, the central portal lit up as well with a bright light. While Riya got the golem’s attention and ran the other way, the other party members one by one leaped through the portal, including Alston. Riya then turned and charged directly at the golem. Just as she neared its reach, she suddently ducked into a sommersault and rolled through its legs, then hopped up and ran to the portal before jumping through.

On the other side of the portal, the PCs found themselves in a large room with another lit portal at one end. At the other end were two treasure chests. Zhang barged over and opened them before checking for traps, but luckily they were not trapped. Inside one was a fortune in gold pieces. Inside the other were seven magic items, each coincidentally fitting for one of the PCs.

After identifying the items, the party decided to take a long rest and then after the long rest was over jumped through the lit portal.

Surprisingly, the party did not find themselves back in Alston’s workship as they might have expected. Instead they found themselves in the dark hold of a ship, having burst open a container of straw when they appeared. The mysterious device lay rolling around on the floor at their feet. Ahead they saw a pirate holding a crate he had been planning to store, with a very surprised look on his face….