Ep. 120 Stranded in the Maze Chapter Seven (C2)

## Listen

C2 Ep. 120 Stranded in the Maze Chapter Seven

—Hob

The group continues in Khyber. They come to a puzzle door with a hammer, an orb, and a cylindrical tube, and figure out it's a play on the creation myth with Khyber, Eberron, and Siberys. After solving the puzzle, they find a massive dragonshards—the thing Cassian is looking for. Milo hears the voice of Dyrrn in his head.

Groups of 3–5 aberrations enter the room; a mix of dolgrims, dolgaunts, and one dolgarr.

## Synopsis

The group recovers after the fight with the skittering horrors. Cassian gives Reynard a healing potion. They face the challenge of crossing a river of lava; Erys using her spider boots to walk across the walls, and sets a line up for everyone else to get over. Milo gets singed a little, and Hob has to save Reynard from falling in, but otherwise everyone makes it across safely.

Cassian leads them through the tunnels, and they come to a door with very old goblin iconography. Next to the door is a workbench. There's an elavated section. On the top shelf are three hammers, with heads made of dragonshards. On the workbench itself are three orbs, and on the ground are three, narrow tubes, shaped like they could fit a map. Each hammer, orb, and tube seems to be a set: Khyber on the left, Eberron in the middle, and Siberys on the right. Erys is enthralled.

Above the door, in stone relief, are three dragons chasing each other in a circular pattern with stars surrounding them, in a depiction of the creation myth. The three dragons created all the plantes, and due to infighting, Khyber betrayed and killed Siberys, scattering her body across the astral plane, making up the Ring of Siberys. Eberron, in an attempt contain Khyber, wrapped herself around the other dragon, containing him within her body. Dragonshards are their blood.

Milo hears a voice in his head, saying they're getting awfully close, touching his domain. It says Milo is using their power. Erys taps one of the hammers with her gauntlet; nothing noticeable happens. Cassian perks up at Milo's description of the voice; he says that's Dern, a resident of Xoriat, the Plane of Madness. He tells Milo to stop accessing his powers for now. Cassian says if they see a humanoid with purple skin and a high collar, they should run.

Erys picks and orb up with her gauntleted hand and holds it to the cylinders, and then the hammers. When the Siberys orb is close to the Eberron hammer, the light in it dims. The light in the Khyber hammers retreats when it nears the Eberron tube. Erys tries Khyber hammer, puts it in the Eberron cylinder, and sets the Siberys orb on the tube. Nothing happens. She sets the Siberys orb on the workbench, smashes it with the Khyber hammer, and drops the hammer down the Eberron tube and closes it. The stone rumbles as the door opens. Erys takes all three hammers, the orbs, and scrapes the broken shards in there, too.

The room is circular with a column in the center and a spiral staircase going down. Along the walls in a huge stone carving. It seems to have been a common area; furniture and hobgoblin skeletons are around the room. The carving portrays a massive battle; on one side, hobgoblins and orcs fight alongside dragons, against an army of various humanoids(elves, dwarves, humans, etc.) Whoever was living here was obviously killed by something. It seems to be around the time of the empire, and it's downfall due to the Xoriat invasion. Cassian seems marvelled by this. Erys takes bronze daggers off the skeletons. Looking at the skeletons, Milo can see they were defending themselves. On some of the bones are scratch marks, like they were killed by claws, not weapons. His guess is dolgaunts and dolgrims.

Before the go down the stairs, Cassian pulls his helmet off and puts his sending stone communicators back in his ears, then replaces his helmet.

As they go down, they see a faint glow of purple light. There's a massive column in the center of the room, a dragonshard bigger than Erys has ever seen. A handful of tunnels exit in various directions.

Erys takes out her tools and traces a ring on the ground around their group, with a bunch of Dhakaani rune markings. Milo casts Barrier on everyone. Erys goes back up the stairs and perches so she can keep watch on everything. Milo hears the voice again: *"So, you're at the heart. Well, can't have that now, can we?"* Screaming is heard from the tunnels, and Cassian sprints towards the shard.

From a tunnel to the left, three dolgrims and one dolgaunts come out. To the right, three dolgrims. Accross from them, a group of one dolgaunt and three dolgrims. On the far left side, there are three dolgrims, and a dolgarr.

## Spells

* **Erys**
	+ Augment with additional targets
* **Milo**
	+ Barrier over everyone

## Quotes

"Gentlemen, what happened last time?"
"Bugs."
"Per usual, our venture into Khyber has not started well."
*—Eric, Jeff, and Philip*

"It's a good fallback, when you all can't think of the word 'anchor' you can flip two story points, and…"
"Or we can think of \*better answers\* than anchor."
*—Eric and Jeff*

"We're not nice to our GM."
*—Philip*

"He says I'm using his power."
"Stop it!"
*—Milo and Erys*

"The skittering horrors were my best case scenario of what we were gonna encounter down here."
"Best? Did you just use the wrong word there?"
*—Cassian and Erys*

"I say we gave it our best shot; let's cheat."
*—Jeff*

## References and Footnotes

1. ↑ Instead, he should count prime numbers.