05/04/2022 - A Concealed Corridor, Persistent Possessions, and a Draconic Disaster

## Statues and thrones

* We descend into a large cavern with two large dwarven statues, some thrones, and a large metal imbued carved piece of stone – shows an island with a volcano (this island) at top, beneath is a party of 10 dwarves in adventuring gear, beneath that is a metallic picture of a dragon emblazoned with flame and red ruby eyes embedded into the tapestry, beneath that is a depiction of the dwarves fighting the dragon, with the focus on one individual who seems to be doing something different to the others (isn’t attacking, but has their hand out towards the dragon), is this other dwarf capture the dragon?
* Everyone eyes Blagden, silently warning him against any attempts to steal the ruby.
* The dwarf doing the weird stuff is wearing the Mithspirit symbol – as are the dwarf statues around the room and the ones upstairs.
* We go to inspect the thrones – Ves casts find traps. Finds some. Blagden looks closely and sees pressure plates on the seats, the middle thrown is on some sort of axel. Blagden tries to disarm the traps using a rock and his tools. It works, he sits on the chair, it’s just a chair. Rocky tries to clothesline the rotating chair into movement – it seems to work. The chair descends slightly, causing the stone carving to lower by a level, revealing a red symbol (that we can’t read) glowing on the dragon’s mouth. The new section revealed at the top shows a dragon’s horde.
* Leo casts detect magic. The dwarven statues and middle throne give off abjuration magic and the gem symbol in dragons mouth gives off evocation.
* Blagden scuttles up the wall to look at the dragons horde section… looks like the materials are high quality metal, not stone. Bits of gold, silver, very intricately made. Several dwarven figures appear to be in the image dividing up the horde.
* Rocky finds a small hole behind the chair, that is projecting the red symbol glow that appeared on the dragon’s mouth.
* Ves inspects the chair, there is another gem in the chair, that the light is projecting the symbol through.
* We shout out the symbol to the dwarf, who tells us it means fire. Ves pokes the statue with a torch. As the flame touches the symbol, the metal starts to glow, and the image of the dragon gets redder. Rocky and Leo cast heat metal on the dragon, the stone around it crumbles away revealing a corridor!

## Ghostly possessions

* We go down the corridor, see green glowing light from an eternal flame.
* Find a faceless bust of a dwarven figure wearing armour with the Mithspirit symbol that is holding a diamond. Also in the room, scattered along the floor are gemstones. Blagden picks up a gemstone, it is a piece of garnet. On the rest of the floor are diamonds, sapphire, rubies, amber, quartz, citrine, onyx, jade, amethyst.
* 1\* quartz, 12\* rubies, 5\*garnets, 9\*amber, 8\*citrine, 14\*amethyst, 13\*sapphire, 18\*jade, 16\*onyx.
* Ves takes one of each, Blagden takes one of all but quartz.
* We walk through the next door, Ves hears words wailing in her head. The gems we took shattered, 9 spectre things attack us! Leo gets possessed. Blagden knocks Leo out with a critical hit. Blagden then gets possessed. After many other attempted possessions, Ves kills the final ghost in her tiger form.
* We put all the other gems down, and go through the door again. This time no spectres attack.

## Lava time

* In the room is a lava room, with bits of rock and metal suspended above the lava by chains in the ceiling. In the other side of the room is an open sided building, in which, slightly raised up is a plinth.
* Before trying to cross the room, we decide to short rest as Leo is very injured and everyone else is slightly injured.
* The metal bridges has been eroded to a lattice structure, looks in a fairly poor state. We try to dex it across. We all make it, but in a few places we seem to damage the bridge to the point it might not be so easy to make it back the other way…
* We reach the open sided building. On the plinth is an intricately carved mithril box – master level craftsman, with the symbol of the Mithspirit family. Behind the pillars of the building is another statue, similar to the previous ones, holding a spear made of a mithril substance. There is also a small library where the back wall of the building would have been. Several ornate, very well-kept scrolls.
* Most books in dwarven, but one that isn’t shows a genealogy tree of the 10 royal families.
* One book in elven – documents trade arrangements and locations of mithril mines owned by the Mythspirit family.
* Leo and Rocky try to get the Mithril spear off the statue.
* Several dwarven figures carved into the plinth, all have the mithspirit sigil and they are all likely past rulers of the Mithspirit family, about 20 in total.
* Blagden opens the box. Inside is a very beautifully decorated amulet, inside of which is a ruby carved into the shape of a dragon. It has enchantment magic. Leo goes to identify the amulet. As he touches it, he feels compelled to put on the amulet, his eyes turn red and possessed, and he suddenly turns into what appears to be an ancient red dragon!