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"Whatever" pouts Wulfhart. "We'd probably just run away from whatever else is in those other rooms anyway" he adds gruffly.

Inferno wrote:Sleestak, lizardman shaman:

The otherworldly voyager allowed these alien sensations to wash over him as he unflinchingly explored this strange uncharted realm in search of answers left behind by its blasphemous creator whether inadvertently or intentionally.

He searched at the closest range possible, walking inside the obscene landscape, hunting for hidden secret meaning that might explain who was behind this vulgar cult, where they kept the child captives, how he might vanquish the evil here, and more.

He knew of their obsession with fearful symmetry; perhaps that was the key? Sleestak opened his lizard eyes wide and let everything enter his mind's eye.

...He's trying to DaVinci Code the hell out of this painting.
He'll attempt to look behind objects, and also move objects, in his search.
Thanks.

Sleestak is subsumed



He steps among satanic fractals



That echo the past and pattern the future

Sleestak, lizardman shaman:
The transcendental vison-questor journeyed on, beyond and betwixt the dimensions he knew, discovering and absorbing the surreal, horrific beauty and elegant, blasphemous designs of the mystifying chroma-cosm.

Overwhelmed and humbled by it all, the seeker's questioning eyes involuntarily shed tears at the impossible, staggering scale and implication of this unexpected and wondrous universe. Sleestak traveled onward, through it, within it and within himself, in search of the answers to his questions.

The inner-dimensional shaman consumed one of the mushrooms from his medicine pouch to discover whether further expanding his consciousness could aid him in this quest.

Groyn

Me hopes them nasty shrooms helps the Shaman there figure out stuff....When I was a young'n tried some-a dos funguses...next day me Dad found me in with the ponies!!! Never tried'em again...the funguses that is.

The adventurers walk back through the great hall with its blasphemously decorated walls. Amid scenes of depraved fornication and debauchery they see Sleestak the lizardman shaman. He is part of the wall murals, his form the same stylized painting as that around him. He walks through the scenes, which remain immobile. He seems oblivious to his passing comrades.

Swilbosh the lizardman fighter voices concern about the direction the party is headed, but the others seem unconcerned. Niles/Asherrion together in symbiotic inkegration are able to move. As they see the two-dimensional Sleestak in the walls, perhaps they wonder at what else may be possible for themselves.

The Borderland adventurers cross over the pit bridge and into the entry chamber with its hollow-skulled statue.

Map Meanwhile, Sleestak continues his mind-expanding inner journey betwixt dimensions. Primordial algebras are stumbling huge and blind within...

Sleestak, lizardman shaman:
The alter-dimensional explorer unhesitatingly continued his mind-bending trip throughout, across and within the illuminated manu-scape in his phantasmagorical pilgrimage for unknowable knowledge and enlightenment. Upon achieving geographic center of the mural universe, he sat cross-legged in the lotus position.

Willfully drinking deep of this bizarre abstract domain, his serpentine psychotropic sentience focused and then relinquished all control, completely opening his mind like a symmetrical flower of kaleidoscopic petals of line, color, form, design, pattern, symbols, representation, imagination, intent and meaning; radiating ever-outward and welcoming ever-inward, simultaneous and infinite.

Sleestak's mind and this world were one and the same.

It could hold no secrets from him now.

Gagel walks along the others humming a song to himself.

Wulfhart guards the rear, looking back over the pit. He is half hoping that something attacks so he can bash something.

While the others try their different experiments, Fingal will look around some more to see if there were any missed secret doors or others good things to still find.

Easy there big fella, he says to Wulfie, who seems to be experiencing battle withdrawals.

Wrenly the Brown, MU

"Ponies...?" thinks Wrenly momentarily, then shrugs off the scenarios that suggest themselves to his mind, "I must say that while the use of a living brain in the statue experiment strikes me as a tad vulgar, I am fascinated to discover what effect, if any, will result from the insertion of this... discarded one." He looks up again at the murals as they pass by on the way to the statue. "Doesn't that meditating figure just remind you of our lizard shaman friend? The likeness is incredible..."

As they walk to the statue room the adventurers look over the catacomb loot:

- An exotic bottle that looks to be wine, about three-quarters filled.
- A stoppered silver vase shaped like a pair of bountiful human female breasts.
- A pouch of six dessicated eye balls, each from a different species of some unidentifiable non-human. Wrenly is please with his Identification spell on this eyes.
- A preserved brain.
- A sealed skull whose eye sockets, nose, jaw and bottom are filled with wax. Something rattles within.

The adventurers then stand before the hollow-skulled statue. Inquisitive Wrenly takes the brain and examines the skull. As was seen earlier by one of the thieves, Wrenly sees the skull has been hollowed out with a cavity in the rear and holes leading out through the eye sockets. At the bottom of the cavity is dried...oil, or blood, or...? He is not sure.

Wrenly stuffs the brain into the skull. Nothing happens.

Meanwhile, amongst the murals in intertextual space, Sleestak experiences epiphanies...

Sleestak, lizardman shaman:
The lizard priest’s will was like unto an open Keep comprised Of consciousness itself that dwelled at The unearthly Borderlands between:
art and substance,

• perception and fact,
  • imagination and reality,
    • the mind and the flesh,
      • the seen and the unseen,
        • the abstract and the concrete,
          • the material and the immaterial,
            • all of awareness and all of existence.

At these hinterland crossroads of the weird, the shaman realized vision and insight.

Gagel takes the bottle of wine and take a huge swig, "Ahhhh, how I missed you old friend! So? Brain in hole? Like a kid's puzzle huh?"

Porphyry pokes at the preserved brain as it lies, useless in the statue's cavity. He is already miffed that the rest of the party is pawing through the catacomb loot, which he considers to be his. And now, this. It was so elegant! Find a brain-shaped cavity, find a brain, bring them together. Reality so rarely lives up to elegance, however.

As Gagel takes a swig from the bottle, Porphyry's interest perks up again. Perhaps Gagel will undergo a thrilling mutation? That would be diverting. Or could the "wine" replenish the desiccated tissues of the preserved brain? "Pass my bottle over, will you?" he says, eyes trained on Gagel for any sign of change.

Fingal keeps his distance and stares at Gagel, waiting for him to turn undead or something.

Dang! Ye must be pretty thirsty eh?

Groyn snaps out of his funk...Did you's say wine??? I'll take a swig, I mean ale's better than any monk wine!!! But if that's all we's got, then that'll do...

Bene the wolfhound excitedly walks next to Wulfhart.

Gagel takes a swig of the liquid in the exotic bottle. It tastes like fruity wine. The thief feels his mind expanding...
The bottle is handed over to Porphyry the satyr, who watches Gagel for any changes.

Then Groyn the dwarf takes a swig and vomits - savagely, uncontrolably, like never before.
The preserved brain seems to have no effect on the statue. Gagel has a sudden, uncharacterisitic idea based on a previous clue...

Wulfhart continues to guard their rear, shaking his head. He reflects on the days of Boddin and Brother Bayard (many years ago now) and how these careful companions have been replaced by a more reckless lot. Perhaps it's all to the good.

Fingal laughs at Groyn and grabs the bottle as he heaves into his beard.

Whats wrong? You a lightweight er somthin? Gimme that thing!

I'll show you how we used to drink dandylion wine back on the old farm!

The OT* takes a big swig from the wine bottle.