Expedition 41: The Lion's Gift

Arha casts a locus into a glass lion, immediately transporting Delphi, Calliope, and herself into a glass dungeon, in which she breaks a seal. They then fight their way backwards out of the dungeon, finding themselves in Mae'ra's Conservatory.

### Detailed Writeup

Arha casts a locus into the lion’s statue in Delphi’s shop. She, Calliope and Delphi are plunged into darkness. Delphi feels something sharp as she starts to move, and as Calliope creates a globe of light they can see she has cut herself on a sharp glassy crystal. They are standing in a 10 ft clearing in a cave of glass shards

There are some narrow walkable passageways through the crystals, every sound echoes off the crystals. After Arha brings up the possibility of casting into the statue again, Calliope suggests they identify it first, and Delphi pulls out her pearl and begins to ritually cast Identify. Calliope suggests splitting the party three ways, and no one objects.

Arha squeezes through the twisting path through the glass, scraping against her armor. She comes across bits of broken bone, and a dwarven skull that is pierced by a shard of crystal. She deduces that the dwarf was praying with an amulet of Mae'ra around their neck, and the glass pierced into them from below.

She notices that there are decorative tiles on the ground that seem to have been spread out by crystals from below. She arrives at a small opening, and finds two more skeletons pierced by shards. In the center of the opening is a glowing glass hemisphere buried into the ground, that appears to the source of the growing glass.

“You have found it, the first of three. All must be broken, if I am to be free” Arha hears in her head. Arha pulls out her greatsword, and shatters the glass, setting off a chain reaction.

Calliope, going the other way, finding shards of furniture. She pockets a small piece and moves on, at one point cutting herself badly on a shard, she tries to break it off, but takes even more damage in the process.

In a next open space, she finds an ancient green carpet. The stones she was walking on become a set of stairs going to a pulpit. She makes her way up carefully, she finds 4 pages of arcane shapes. With a nat 20, she identifies it as an interface between arcana and religion, it is conjurational, and it is a large ritual. She is startled by the glass cracking, and they meet up in the center.

Delphi had finished identifying the spell, It transports living creatures within a radius to this location, which must be on the material plane. As Arha shattered the sphere, the lion shattered as well.

Calliope shows the arcane symbols to Delphi, they deduce it is stone tongue.

It is not about calling something forth, it is about empowering something powerful… empowering Mae’ra. Calliope conjectures Allocer is a part of Mae’ra, or vice versa. Arha grabs the dwarven skull and brings it back to the group. Arha reveals she has two more statues, and that each could lead to new locations.

Trying to find their way out, Calliope leads the way into a beautiful glass shard tunnel, there are pierced baubles of glass, 4 inches in radius, that are leaking a glowing red staining liquid. Calliope mage-hands her bandanna to check if the red fluid is still wet, it is. and she starts to collect some into a waterskin. Calliope marks down some of the patterns on the tiles onto Arha’s shield.

They wind down further into the tunnels, and come across a stone wall and shards of glass blocking their path, they break through into a wider chamber with a deep pit over 100 feet wide. There is an 8 inch wide piece of silk crossing the pit.

“Welcome to the inner sanctum of the Wild Mother” says an omni-lingual inscription above the doorway they leave. Calliope checks the depth of the pit with glowing ball bearings, and sees a water pit several hundred feet down. She casually states that falling wouldn’t be a problem. They discuss who should go first and how, and eventually determine Arha should go first with an extra rope in case the silk snaps.

When she is half way across, A large amorphous creature emerges. It has the head of a wolf, wings of a bat, 8 legs of a spider, a blast of steam from its nostrils

“300 years I wait, and the first to come across my rope is a coward” it says, and flies off, Arha relays this to the others.

Arha climbs on, and makes it to the other side, above the ledge on the other side, the creature watches. She tries to talk to it, it raises an eyebrow.

On the other side, Calliope and Delphi quickly argue about who should get the harness, before deciding Delphi should get it. They both make their way across safely.

Calliope wonders what it might be, a strange sphynx-chimera perhaps?

It begins to speak to her, posing a riddle.

*“Whether born of fire, stone, or rain,*

*I feel most comfortable at home on the planes.”*

“An Elmental” Arha replies

*“Iron roof, glass walls*

*Burns and burns*

*And never falls.*

*What am I?”*

“A Lantern” Arha says

*All about the house, with his lady he dances. Yet he always works, and never*

*romances. What is he?*

“A broom” Calliope whispers to Arha, before she calls it out to the creature. It chuckles and says “yes”

*Though you cut without mercy into my head*

*You'll certainly weep when I am dead.*

*What am I?*

“A brain surgeon” Calliope whispers, before Arha says "onion"

“How many do we have to answer?” Delphi asks

“... HAVE to answer?... I thought we were having fun.” it replies, taken aback.

Arha offers a riddle, Calliope asks who it is. They are simply the keeper of the third test. It asks them to call them Friend.

Calliope asks the creature about the ritual in the room behind them. “There was a ritual of great importance, the doors were sealed, the priests were there for three days when the glass shattered outward and blew open the doors. 3 emerged, 2 died from wounds, 1 died from the gas. I have slept since. ”

(Calliope knows the ritual would take 5-6 days, not three)

Calliope eventually works out it cannot leave and does not want to.

“Finally a test of balance” says the entrance, they are moving backward through a dungeon. The tunnel slopes down into a tight tunnel.

Second: A test of strength: They float across a raging river with levitate.

They come across a rope that is slowly falling upward, out of a large hole in the ground, and through a tiny hole in the ceiling.

Calliope goes first, sliding down the rope hundreds of feet, the tunnel opens into a vast cavern, A wide lake of glittering water is fed by a waterfall, with a winding staircase leading off into the distance.

“First, a test of endurance” says a sign.

They proceed along the stairs, coming across three humanoid bodies, turned to glass, blocking their path. Calliope wonders if they could be healed with greater restoration as with petrification, Delphi muses it may be possible. They carefully climb over. They go up vertically for 400 feet. Arha tries to teach them an orcish marching song, but it doesn’t seem to help

They arrive in Mae’ra’s conservatory, using Calliope’s shatter they break out. They move up the main entrance of the conservatory. They notice a swarm of Rustmosters blocking the way, and rush out.

Delphi and Calliope both fail miserably at navigating out of the forest, and are showered in sharp glass. Arha starts to lead them in the wrong direction, coming across a praying glass humanoid figure. A purple cloak remains on the creature’s back. Arha and Delphi get cut with glass again.

Arha sends Toufree, the wisest of them all, up to scout, as he does a hundred black magpies swarm him, and he uses his scratch to deafen and stun several before being overwhelmed.

With a 10 minute calm, he re-summons Toufree and he finally finds the right direction, but attracts the magpies again, and battered and bruised they make their way home. Delphi identifies the item as a Cloak of Vanishings, which can be used to cast Misty Step and Invisibility each once/wk. She puts it up for sale in her shop.