Expedition 60: Delphi Ex Machina

### Summary

We defeat the succubus in its lair, rescuing our friends with the help of Delphi.

### Detailed Writeup

At dawn, Uzmir and Clarity tell the others about the lair and they head out to kill the fiend.

The entrance is boarded up with a sign that reads *Lumin's Iron Mine: Condemned, Flooded, Do not Enter.* Uzmir warns the party about the axe trap at the entrance, which Arha easily triggers with Feng's 8-foot (now 7-foot) pole, seeing a handle inside. She tries again to trigger it (now the pole is 6 feet) and open the handle, but the handle seems false in some manner. Nexrin and Arha plan on breaking the door down with axes, but Clarity notices a gunpowder trap just in time. They explode the door down by throwing a handaxe at it.

They decide to head towards the "Imp Rookery" and take out the imps first. Arha boosts Marzipan up, who enters the room filled with nooks filled with various objects, as well as many, many bats. He walks into the center of the room and uses Channel Divinity to clear out 3/4 of the imp bats. Clarity translates for the others, who are saying "Fuck! Shit!" over and over again. The others clambor up the steep slope, while Clarity bounds up on Shabeel.

A large, fleshy, spiderlike creature without eyes crests over the top of the room and messages everyone telepathically in a distant, soft voice, "*Who hurts my children? What did they do to you?*" Clarity tries to reason and talk with this creature in infernal. "*What can I do for you? I would like you to stop killing my children*." She tries to get information from it, asking if it is the ally of the fiend, and it replies, "*I am the ally of anyone who seeks me.*" The creature offers to lead the group to the fiend in exchange for "*... a secret, a thought, a treasure...*" The voice changes to become more human, and it adopts the voice of each of their mothers.

Nexrin looses an arrow at the creature, and the creature pops like a balloon, filling the room with a cloud of green poisonous gas, heavily damaging Arha and Clarity. The creature seemingly defeated, Nexrin and Uzmir examine the great ritual circle, and determine that it was used to summon many imps as well as cast Alarm.

The group heads down the other passageway, squeezing through into the next room which is has four statues of cloaked figures holding candles, and the head is also a collection of candles. On each forehead is written a word in Infernal: *Pain, Sorrow, Disdain, Violence*. The other door is open, but text reads above it (in common), *By wax contained, by wick freed, what am I?* On the floor is a horizontal band of energized hexagonal floor tiles.

Clarity thinks she understands the puzzle, so she goes up to the statue that says Pain and pricks her finger, rubs the blood on the statue, and lights a candle. The other candles on this statue magically light, and the party thinks they've done something clever until both of the doors slam shut, and red light emanates from this statue, lighting the floor tiles, and the statue animates and draws its sword.

Our adventurers fight the statue, but the room begins to glow red with heat, growing ever stronger. 'Killing' the statue does not stop the effect. Uzmir and Nexrin cross the room, and Nexrin tries to open the door, but the handle is glowing red. It injures him, and he pulls the handle off of the door. The other three statues come alive. The heroes fight a tough fight, as the floor tiles continue to heat the room like an oven, dealing exponential heat damage each round. Even after killing the four statues, the room kept heating and they manage to escape when Nexrin breaks down the door. The group decides to sit down and heal.

We break to Trina. She escapes her shackles and sees a tentacled monster rising from a ritual circle. Torregen is nowhere to be seen. She readies to defend herself.

We break to Torregen. He looks up to see Candelsar taking keys and unlocking his manacles, and tells Torregen to follow him in a furtive manner. *Quick, I stole the keys.* He gives Torregen a potion. Candelsar goes down to the bottom of a 60-foot pit via a rope, and Torregen follows. They approach a locked door, and as Candelsar fumbles with the keys, he asks Torregen to defend them, as devils may be coming.

The adventuring group heads in the direction to rescue the prisoners. After floating down a drop, Nexrin sees three human figures with glowing red eyes, charging towards him. He recognizes them as the missing brothers. Arha instructs Tofree to bring the others down, starting with herself. Uzmir realizes that the brothers are charmed, and they likely cannot see our true forms. Nexrin, Arha, and Uzmir with his sling take down the brothers using nonlethal damage.

They reach the place where the town prisoners were being held, but Lin'dsey's sons are nowhere to be seen. They can hear whispering from the end of the tunnel, where there is a large, circular pit. They open the door to the room which held our prisoner friends, and find Tolyr and Yugmela chained to the wall, sleeping. Both have burned wounds, and white powder on their face. Nexrin takes Tolyr's wand away, which had been in his hand. Uzmir detects two powerful enchantment auras on each of them, as well as a necromancy aura on Tolyr. Marzipan masterfully casts detect magic, and dispels all three effects on Tolyr, and both effects on Yugmela. The two awaken, and there is a lovely reunion.

Tolyr has no memories since he was last in his tower. He does recall, that when he channeled last, there was a figure forcing him to channel, though he had control over the decisions. Yugmela says that Candelsar and Tolyr came into her room, and Candelsar opened a large chest. Tolyr walked into the chest, and Yugmela was forced into the chest.

Yugmela offers to stay with the unconscious brothers, and Tolyr joins the group to go rescue Calliope.

They approach the pit, and Uzmir detects a transmutation aura, and they notice some lines on the ceiling. They hear the movement of something large from the bottom of the pit. Clarity sends Shabeel to the edge of the pit, and sees Calliope in the center and Candelsar working some keys. Candelsar makes a movement, and a wall of stone starts to descend, threatening to cut off Shabeel from the rest of the group. The whole group rushes forward to join Shabeel, as the stone walls fall in such a way that the group is forced to go into the pit.

Meanwhile, Torregen sees a group of red-eyed demons appearing at the edge of the pit. He is joined by two stone gargoyles.

Nexrin slams a piton into the wall, falling, as Tolyr casts featherfall on him. Marzipan tries to dispel magic on Calliope, but one of the gargoyles counterspells. The group bumbles down the rope, and Arha casts Moonbeam. Torregen casts hypnotic pattern, incapacitating Clarity, Nexrin, and Marzipan. Marzipan is shaken awake by Uzmir.

A shade-like figure shifts through the door behind Candelsar, and slits his throat. It's Delphi Adon. Torregen takes the potion. It's a potion of everglow. Six white wings erupt from Calliope's body, and her fists glow with energy.

Tolyr tries to polymorph Calliope, but the spell-eaters keep dispelling every spell the heroes cast, seemingly able to do this an infinite number of times. Candel'sar tries to cast a spell on Delphi, but she stabs him in the eye with the spell-cutting knife. Delphi says "No more stealing faces!" and shoves a mask on his face. After the spell-eaters have used their counterspells per round, Tolyr casts Wall of Force and imprisons Calliope. Arha would be downed, but accepts Allocer's blessing and is turned to glass.

The succubus's arises from Candel'sar's form, tall, and complete with black horns, and it attacks Delphi. Arha destroys a spell-eater, and Calliope tries to shatter a group, but it turns out Arha is immune to damage. Candel'sar escapes through the illusory doorway. Uzmir dimension doors him and Nexrin after the fiend.

Clarity, back up again, casts Blight on the remaining spell-eater, and Tolyr destroys it with a fireball. The fiend tries to charm Nexrin, but Delphi's mask renders her unable to do so. The fiend climbs the steep tunnel, Uzmir in hot pursuit.

Clarity casts dispel magic on Calliope, dispelling the necromantic effect affecting her soul, but failing to dispel the charm effect. Arha then dispels the charm effect, returning Calliope to normal - save for the six wings erupting from her small body. Calliope shatters the ground, creating a tunnel below the wall of force preventing our heroes from following the demon, which Tolyr clears out with Bigby's magic hand.

After scrambling up the vertical tunnel, Uzmir screams and throws two Eldritch Blasts at the fiend, killing the fiend, as it dissolves into nothingness.

Calliope insists that we must kill her to negate the everglow, but Delphi has an antidote - demon blood and the demon tendons - and shoves it into Calliope's mouth. Calliope's wings start to dissolve, and her friends tear her wings off as the glow fades.

Delphi says we ought to go find the others and provides directions to a cave, but she isn't bleeding blood, she's bleeding water. She collapses into a puddle.

Our heroes enter into a vast chasm, with various caves on the sides. Shabeel carries the group along the walls, to the room with a chest and a large silver bowl. Uzmir recognizes Candel'sar's chest, which can grow and shrink. Opening the chest, there is a staircase, at the end of which is a chamber containing Triumph, Delphi, Neoll, and presumably the real Candel'sar. Everyone hugs Delphi, and they free the prisoners.

The group notes that there is a lot more unexplored dungeon... perhaps for a later day.