Session 64: Local Turtle Trolled by Inanimate Object

Cho kicks down the remaining door. In the room behind is a stone altar, a bunch of scientific equipment, and an undead tabaxi with a staff. The tabaxi promptly shoots Cho with two necrotic bolts. Mendu yells out that this is a death mage who prevents healing. Cho runs in and tackles the mage, but is pushed back by a dome-shaped forcefield. Grombrin can’t pass through the forcefield but shoots a sunbeam through it, blinding the tabaxi. Arran then teleports inside the forcefield and slashes the skeleton into pieces with his rapier. They inspect the equipment in the room, which Vojta recognises as alchemy tools. They find a healing potion, two unidentified potions, and a box with silvery powder inside.

Behind the next door is a path to the left and a short dead end hallway with four portcullises and a dead tabaxi behind them. Arran shoots the body with an arrow and it falls apart with a surprising wooden sound. Mendu says that the skeleton is of one of their scouts and that there used to be a door behind the portcullises, which is strangely gone. They pass it for now and take the other path, where they find a large room with beds, crates, and a desk with a lockbox. This room connects to the other side of Var’s door. Mendu says this used to be his people’s camp. He takes the lockbox but gives them permission to loot the rest. Cho finds some loose gold around the room while Vojta finds an ornate lute in one of the crates. Mendu says it belonged to the alchemist they fought in the gas room. He opens the lockbox, takes out a letter and a pearl, and gives the rest to Arran. It contains five more pearls and a magical emerald, which Mendu says was looted from Fayekro. Arran concedes his earlier refusal and gives Mendu the badge from the undead elf.

While they rest in this room, Cho offers Mendu refuge in his sanctuary, but Mendu is not yet sure what he wants to do. Grombrin inspects the magic items they found and identifies them as a potion of watchful rest, a potion of necrotic resistance, dust of invisibility, an emerald of water elemental summoning, and a lute capable of creating minor illusions. Arran inspects the map they found more closely and notes that one part is marked with “do not enter, creature roams here”. At the end of their rest, Cho says that he heard the demonic portal making a suspicious noise. They track back to the other side of the portal and run into a white dragonoid creature wielding a sword.

Arran asks if it is the one that came through the door and it says yes. Arran warns it to go back through the door. The demon agrees but walks in the opposite direction. Arran runs after it and strikes it with a thunderous attack, surrounding it with immobilizing energy. The demon bites and slashes him in return, then flies away at high speed, injuring itself as it breaks through the thunderous energy. Cho and Grombrin circle around to block its escape while Arran chases after the demon and slices it in half. They then message the coyote that they should try to close the portal before anything else comes through. The coyote comes to them and they discuss their options. He thinks it can be dispelled with great difficulty, though he doesn’t have the magic to do it. He could to seal it away in a demi-plane instead, but that will require some very expensive materials.

Vojta offers to try dispelling again. The others clear out while he gets as far from the portal as he can without breaking sight. He tries to dispel it, but the portal resists and creates another explosion, which fills the room but fails to hit Vojta in the connecting hallway. Grombrin magically enhances his mental fortitude and he tries again. The second time also fails, but the third succeeds. He summons a wave of animal spirits that devour the magical energy, causing the gate to crumble into sludge. A black humanoid appears from it and screams at him, piercing his mind with a mental attack, but he shakes it off. The humanoid then melts away as well. With the portal gone, the temperature in the dungeon rises to a more comfortable level and the nearby dragonborn corpses crumble away into dust. The coyote is impressed that a mortal was able to close the gate. He thanks them for their help and plane shifts back to Eximum.

The group returns to the tabaxi camp. Mendu is no longer shackled to the dungeon, able to leave or to die for good. Cho offers him a disguise amulet that he could use to integrate into the living world, but he turns it down. He hasn’t yet decided whether he wants to leave or kill himself when they’re done. They enter the remaining door and find a tall hexagonal room with a narrow stone bridge over a water basin. On the bridge is a skeletal tabaxi and in the water floats a horse-sized mosquito demon, both dead. Mendu collects the tabaxi’s badge. Next to the corpse is a barrel full of black powder. Grombrin can find no hidden door at the end of the bridge, so they return to the portcullises.

Cho finds that he can easily lift the first gate, which stays in place when pushed all the way up. When he opens the second, the first slams closed behind him. He passes through the others, which work the same way. The corpse on the other side has disintegrated. Grombrin tries to break the first portcullis with his hammer, but a magic barrier prevents an effective hit. Refusing to be beaten by architecture, he smashes the wall next to it instead, bypassing the gate entirely. The ceiling threatens to collapse, so he magically shapes some pillars to support it. He decides against trying to bypass the other gates. On the other side, Cho tries to break through the wooden wall. When he strikes it, a barrage of spears shoots out and injures him. He decides that this is probably nothing more than a trap and goes back through the gates.

They track back to where they found Dinoksu'um and enter another unexplored door. Beyond is an unfinished room full of rubble and building equipment. An opal is embedded in the wall, surrounded by engravings. Arran inspects it and almost becomes magically trapped inside the crystal. He warns the others not to look directly at it. The map they found indicates “creature roams here” behind one of the walls. Grombrin can tell the wall is thin, so he smashes through it. Beyond is a small cavern containing the bones of a very tall hunched humanoid with clawed hands embedded in the wall. They look like they were naturally fossilized and then excavated, but none of them recognise what it is. Feeling uneasy, they decide to have Grombrin reseal the wall. While he does, a voice in his head tells him to let the creature rest.

They return to Bormarech’s chamber. The two dragonborn have disintegrated but the axe remains, floating next to the throne. Hoping to commune with Mereteth, Cho sits down on the throne and grasps the axe. He freezes and starts mumbling incomprehensibly. Eventually, he releases the axe and it shatters on the ground. He then shakes an invisible hand before returning to consciousness. The blessed members recognise that he now has the aura of Mereteth. Cho laments that the axe broke, then explains what he saw. Mereteth told him about the history of nature and of the people who lived here. He then spoke to spectres of Thorim, Ahrm, Vica, and Joe. The apparition of Vica showed him some kind of demonic orgy and told him to warn the others. The group explains to Cho that Vica was the half-demon daughter of the demon lord Ti’ireth. He questions whether they’re mad for cooperating with her. When Grombrin explains that Ti’ireth is the lord of apostasy, Cho concludes that they’ve been making so much progress that Ti’ireth has taken notice and wants to stop them. Grombrin gives Cho the small statue of Mereteth he made back in the day, so he can use it to commune again later.

As they prepare to leave, Mendu declares that he will return to the surface world after all. He gives them each one of the badges that he collected as keepsakes. While they head outside, he wonders whether Oda-iger would be accessible to him. Grombrin sends a message to Arech, but the duke says that he swore an oath never to let any tabaxi into the city. Nan tells him that there are still many tabaxi in the valley, but he decides to head north to new lands instead. Grombrin says he wants to go to Moradhin to complete his hammer now that he has the adamantine, so he agrees to travel along with Mendu. Arran gives him his circlet, so he can finish that as well. To help them in his absence, Grombrin casts a revivify spell into Arran’s spell storing ring. Grombrin and Mendu then head north while the others head back to Hiru.

In town, they are greeted by the coyote. He says that while giving his report, an ally of his employer told him to deliver something. He gives Arran an aquamarine gem in the shape of an eagle skull, which will let them communicate with Lokreth again. They ask the coyote about the threat of Ti’ireth. He answers that his employer can’t help them with that, but that Ti’ireth rarely sticks to any project for long, so if they survive a few attacks he will probably lose interest.