Our Heroes:
- The Mighty Xyzzifax played by Alex
- Minion Samson played by William
- Minion Jaric played by Dave
- Minion Lantor played by Brandon
- Sir Kentor (Human Paladin) played by Paladin Steve
- Malice (Human Bard) played by Grognard Mike
The party is level 5 at this point. We begin on Day 62 of the campaign.
At the appointed time, Xyzzifax opens the portal to Verbobonc, and Malice and Sir Kentor step through to Hommlet. The duo are are ready to tell the story of all of the different steaks they had tried, and the new recipes that Sir Kentor has learned. The rest of the party’s story of defeating a pair of juvenile green dragons, admittedly, is much better. Malice agrees, she would have loved to have been able to kill a dragon. Given the option of a long trek back to the Temple itself, we can instead use the Mirror itself to step right through…. tomorrow. We do feed upon the dragons that were slain first. Over dinner, we have a conversation about planar travel. On our way back into through the temple on our way to the water temple, the Arcane lock is still holding.
Bubo is sent to confirm what we know about the level of the water temple, and rather than going directly there, we head first to the great hall, which has much aged and hacked apart furniture, many skeletons, and ruined equipment. Xyzzifax takes the time to animate dead, and now how a skeleton minion. He has the skeleton don black robes. Then, he does this three more times. And, he makes a strong speech about using these skeletons against the temple to Jaric and Sir Kentor, with Malice taking his side. Samson finds this all intriguing! Sir Lantor is concerned that, even though they’re all wearing uniform back robes, that he may confuse them for enemies in the heat of battle. Sir Kentor finally decides that this is too far, and that the skeletons must be destroyed. Xyzzifax argues that these are all skeletons of former cultists, and that it is poetic justice that they will now rise to fight on the side of righteousness. And finally, Sir Kentor relents, for now.
Xyzzifax posts up Bubo in the great hall, and the Valiant Swords re-enter the water temple, curious about what we will find. The door is still off of its hinges. The room looks much the way we left it, but there is a lot of water on the floor now. The fountain on the far wall is still gurgling, but somebody has damaged it, and it is spilling out onto the floor. Shapes begin to rise up our of the water as we begin to cross the room. Four water elementals form in the corners of the room, advancing with hostile intent.
There was a swirling combat of melee and magic! Sir Lantor was able to bring into action before they were able to attack. It turns out metal beats water, at least when the metal is enchanted sufficiently. Xyzzifax’s Wand of Fireballs, however, is less impressive than normal. Sir Lantor lands the final blow on the first of the elementals to fall. One of the water elementals almost dropped Malice, flinging shards of ice. But she and Jaric worked together to keep her standing. But, that same elemental closed, engulfed Jaric, and is doing its level best to to kill him. They’re also proven to be resistant to the Wand of Binding. Perhaps its just wands. With Samson’s help, Jaric emerges from the water elemental like a flully grown, armor clad baby. A second fireball is sufficient to destroy the second, already seriously wounded water elemental. Jaric and the staff of striking are able to team with Sir Kentor and Verminax, and between the two of them slay a barely damaged one. The last Water Elemental manages to drop Sir Lantor into unconsciousness with a pair of terrible blows. Sir Kentor saves Sir Lantor on his way to defend Malice from the last of them, and then Sir Jaric disincorporates it with a Guilding Bolt.
After the excitement, it becomes clear that the three clerics we killed are no longer living. We press on, venturing behind the curtain to the two doors we know are there, and the double doors that we don’t know where they are. We take a moment, and bandage the wounds on Sir Lantor before we venture into areas of the dungeons that we don’t know. Samson reveals that his goggles now have many new powers, and he is able to see through the door – and into the room in darkness beyond.
The mechanist class in ToV gets some interesting abilities to build or enhance objects. The goggles-of-ruining-the-DM's-surprises are one of these.
Sir Kentor opens the door, revealing a richly furnished bedroom. A greenish light flickers into existence as the door opens. Jaric casts the light spell, so that we can more clearly read any parchment on the desk. The party goes into the room, and begins searching. The table service is fashioned from fine malachite, worth 2000 gp. We carefully load it into the bag of holding. Xyzzifax magic senses, and only finds the multitude of items that the party is carrying themselves. Malice takes the blank writing paper. Behind a curtain, we find a hidden door to a much lesser bedroom, likely for the underpriests. There are a pair of chests, both of which Samson is able to clear of traps and unlock. The first contains clothing, 4 texts on the Elemental Evil of Water – they may have some value. A sack with 87 gold, a bronze mace – which is given to the first skeleton , and a gold ring with a green pearl worth 555 gold. The second chest has more books on the nature of evil water, 21 platinum, and a potion.
We withdraw to the area behind the curtain, and Samson looks through the door, and he can see that it is a salon. We move into the room, and search the room to see what we can find. A green silk robe encrusted with gems, worth 6400 gp. 200 gold worth of incense. A suit of plate armor worth 1500 gp. An ivory tray is worth 50 gold, and notable table services worth 24 gold.
We find a private domicile behind a hidden door, and it too is laden with treasure. The volume on the writing desc deals with the rituals of evil water. The 32 gold dishes are worth 1900 gold for the set. A coral box worth 100 gold, with 1000 gold worth of pearls inside. And, a fish smelling cloak is a cloak of the Manta Ray. The trident… is cursed. And Samson gets the urge to immerse himself in as great a depth as possible. Being a halfling, he hurries to the fountain in the next room, and dives in. Jaric reveals that he will need to pray and rest to be able to remove the curse, so with Samson being hostile about staying submersed in the fountain.
The mechanist also has the annoying ability to identify magic items by touch. The occasional cursed item keeps this interesting. He had an item that let him breathe under water so it was not fatal, just annoying to the party - for a change.
Xyzzifax puts arcane locks on the four different doorways that we know of to get into the temple. So, it looks like we’re staying here for 8 hours. Malice begins wearing the Cloak of the Manta Ray that we took from the water temple. Over the course of the night, Bubo sees a group of bugbears that are on patrol – but that is one patrol over the course of eight hours, so this is not a lot of activity. Jaric finally removes the curse, Samson is able to let go and jump out of the fountain, leaving the Trident behind.
Finally, it is time to examine the double doors past the curtain. It is neither trapped nor locked, so Mer-Samson can use his goggles to peer through it. A blue green light illuminates what is beyond. There is a pool in the center of the room. We open the door, ready for more water elementals. There is a humanoid chained at the bottom of the pool. It makes mental contact with all of us, begging for it to be freed before the kraken depicted on the wall materializes and attacks. Sir Kentor senses evil within the pool, but still, he is sworn to try to help – even if he is certain this is a trap. Xyzzifax says wait, and sends in one of the skeletons to try to free merman. The skeleton jumps into the water, and quickly dissolves. Sir Kentor reconsiders his distaste of the skeletons. Xyzzifax gets a stronger mental push of Please, Jump Into The Pool And Save Me.
Yes, this is a illusion and a trap. Yes they were properly suspicious. They still desperately wanted to figure it out. Especially after failing some Will saves.
And Xyzzifax jumps in. Samson is fast on the reaction, though, and grabs Xyzzifax before he even fully submerges. The anklets of alacrity he was wearing are dissolved by the evil water, along with his shoes. Malice is quick to shout “Everybody out!”, and as we’re retreating the thing in the pool attempts to compel Jaric to jump in, but the Cleric’s will is too strong. We discuss a plan, and send Xyzzifax back in, anchored with a rope, being held by Sir Lantor and the skeletons. Samson, Jaric, Sir Kentor, and Malice are ready to react to strange, evil, supernatural effects. Magic Missiles fly forth, but dissipate as soon as they hit the water, though some pass clear throuogh the chained merman, leaving him unharmed. Xyzzifax senses magic, and can see that the pool itself is magical, and so too is the merperson and the chains. Xyzzifax tries fireballing it, but the pool and merman beneath does not seem to care about the fireball. Then, he attempts a dispel magic, but that does not work. The merman continues is pleading via telepathy. The merman says that the barrier can’t be hurt, you have to jump in and free him with his own hand. Xyzzifax sends in a Mage Hand down to the bottom. Then, he has it try to poke the Merman in the eye, but the mage hand sort of blends with it, it does not feel anything solid there. The Merman says that you can’t free him with spells, you have to jump in and use your own hands.
Malice grumbles that we may need to wait until we’re high enough level to just disintegrate the pool. We discuss a bit more, and swap out Xyzzifax with Jaric, who tries various radiant damage spells. The spiritual fire doesn’t do anything to the water, nor does spiritual hammer. As the water doesn’t seem to be effected, and neither does smashing up the mural of the kraken. Sending the spiritual weapon into the water, it looks like it phases clearly through the merman and the chains holding him. We all suspect an illusion, or something like it.
We pull back, closing the door, and finally leaving the temple once more.
They were pretty frustrated with this one. Not complaining, just puzzled. It stuck in their heads to the point I was still hearing about it months later. I need to keep these oddball illusion things in mind for the future because it was a lot of fun watching them exploring the situation.
