4.22.23 - The Magician's Manor

## Captain’s Log

The golems collapsed in piles on the floor while we finished searching this room for anything valuable or any clues that could give us more information about the rainbow mage. Outside this room was the dining room where there were piles of vomit before Lilioyasa cleaned them up with her magic. The room had been completely turned over by thieves only leaving a silver statue of a dragon behind in one of the alcoves along the edge of the room. When I went to investigate this artifact it released a foul gas that permitted the entire room and caused a few of the others to lose their meals. This passed in just a few moments after Daggii went and explored the kitchen looking for a way to disperse the horrid stench.

The next door over, and the room we had initially meant to enter, had a bloody handprint on the handle. When we opened the door we could see this was the room with the unbroken window and inside there were bookshelves lined with crystals and other shiny knick knacks. There were also two wooden golems just waiting for us to go inside so I lit them on fire from the doorway while the others took a moment to rest in the sitting room. Once they were dealt with, I went in only for colorful lights to appear on the ceiling that were disturbed when Oz pulled me out of the office leaving me with a massive headache in the absence of the colors.

Daggii entered the room after Oz covered the prisms on the bookshelves, but he emerged with Oz’s help a few moments later covered in burn marks and rubbing his eyes. He did reveal that he had found a collection of spell scrolls and gems that we divided amongst ourselves once Daggii could see again.

We then decided to follow the winding staircase upwards, but as we climbed we saw there was soot leading up to the next doorway. Daggii stopped us short of where the door began in order to take a closer look which revealed that the door was indeed trapped by some sort of incineration spell. He managed to disable it before we got close enough to set it off. With the trap disabled we made our way into a room that appeared to be empty at a glance; however, because of the trap that was on the stairs I decided to be better safe than sorry and to use some of the soot and my mayonnaise to scatter it around the room looking for other possible traps. Sure enough there was furniture stacked in the middle of the room which seemed to be a storage space for the wizard. Out of sight out of mind I guess.

Lilioyasa led us up the next flight of stairs which were armed with a spell to dispense oil if people tried to climb them. Together we dispelled the trap to lead us to a room where there was a mirror topped table and colorful runes scrawled across the wall. She immediately entered the room and covered the table saying something about it possibly leading to one of the hells as she went. We took some time looking around this room before we discovered that she was not entirely unfounded in her concerns as it was a portal but it would take you somewhere random instead of like the one on the wall which was anchored to one location.

Up the next flight of stairs we found yet another trap we were able to disable which led to a room with silver bowls filled with water set for a scrying and a crystal ball in the center of the room. At the far side there were papers and maps scattered about that detailed the mage’s plans for taking over the surrounding countryside and eventually even nations. We took everything we thought might be useful to prove the rainbow mage's intentions and the last of his valuables before descending the stairs back to the main level.

We took another short rest back on the main level before following the stairs further into the depths of the manor. At the bottom of the stairs we found ourselves in a roughly hewn tunnel leading further underground. Daggii led the way but he forgot to look for traps and stepped on a pressure plate that caused the entire tunnel ahead of us to ignite with flames. Oz pulled him off and shoved a piton under the trapped step so that it could not be depressed to set off the trap again. The tunnel led us to a fork where we could sense a magical barricade ahead on one side and a clear path on the other so we followed the open path.

The further we wandered down the path the cooler it got until we reached an open cavern with a large pool of water within. In that water there was a glint of treasure, but we were warned by some light moment beneath the surface that there was a creature waiting in the depths below. We carefully followed the path to the other side of the chamber to continue following the path which led to a chamber filled with crystals of various colors and sizes. There seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary within, but about halfway through the cavern some of the crystals started to move, revealing that they were living forms made of the material that exploded upon their demise. We followed the path to another large cavern with a pool of liquid, but as we moved around the cavern the liquid began to move and track our movements. Oz identified it as an ooze, so we ran. All the way back to the chamber with the large pool of water where the creature from the depths was waiting for us and almost made us its next meal.

We barely made it past the aberration and to the next door that was blocked by the magical barricade. Behind it there was a lush jungle and large tyrannosaurus-rex. Oz subdued it with her magnificent wrestling skills before pointing out the hidden door out of the chamber. We decided to take a short rest before continuing on our way.