Barrowmaze IV: Delving for Power and Glory

[Rex]

Orgoth

"Can you set it to today's date somehow?"

[OGRE MAGE]

On a hunch, Sven adjusts the brightly glowing wheels to align with a total solar eclipse.

[Spearmint]

The Sunstone Room

Working by the radiance of a Light spell, cast not randomly to light the room but specifically upon the Sunstone table, the group twist and turn dials to line up with a Solar Eclipse. It might have been an obvious guess over the many dates selected earlier, but this time the effect is triumphant and a wave of unseen pressure washes through the room suddenly more brilliantly lit as the light spell effect pulsates brightly. The injured are healed of scrapes and bruises. People feel refreshed and rested. Smokie howls from the sudden flash, Harkazz glows. Even the creepy shadows of Gnimish & Isvand shiver in the sudden eruption.

As quickly as it happened, it fades.

everyone could you roll me a [1d100] please.

[Rex]

Orgoth

"Wow!"

[1d100]=69

[OGRE MAGE]

Sven tugs at his cursed mask when the room lights up, hoping it will come off magically. He looks around, wondering if anything else happened in the flash of light.

"Is everyone okay?"

Random Percentile Roll [1d100]=59

[redwarrior]

Isvand does as he is instructed, and notices how his shadow was affected by to bloom of light.


Totally safe roll [1d100]=14

[sastaz]

Okay, so double post now. First rewind a bit to the augury, which Gerdal shared before entering the sunstone room, second her reaction to the latest turn of events in the forementioned room

Augury

Gerdal

"The faceless elf. Something horrible happened to him, in that room. But it's not the archways, they're not evil, it's....something else in there. Something we could not see, but was there with us all along. Not a thing, something. We should be weary of the contents of that coffer. But I also see...how it could strengthen us? It's all hazy. Like so many other things in these halls, there seems to be a promise of an ability that might come with a cost.

Regarding the sunstone, it's the same. The leaves show both blessings and curses, like the sun and the moon. I really hope they don't come in pairs. But it seems like....our actions dictate the outcome."

[sastaz]

Sunstone room

Gerdal covers her eyes with her hand.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing now Sven? That this is a blessing and not a curse?"

Sunstone d100 roll: [1d100]=72

[OGRE MAGE]

Sven decides not to answer from behind his cursed face mask, hoping for any kind of answers they can eventually get.

[Spearmint]

The Sunstone Room.

Listening to Gerdals wisdom, found at the bottom of some herbal teal leaves and piecing together the astrological data from the borrowed book, Sven and Gnimish turn the Sunstone dials to reflect a Solar Eclipse.

Wether the casting if a Light spell is an unseen trigger, they don't know but what they do know are some immediate physical and mental effects.

After the wave of pressure washes through the room, folk pad themselves down, checking all their bits and pieces are still there.

"Oh. I seem to have found these in my pockets." the gnome looked surprise holding the thorny rose designed necklace and a block of Amber. He has no recollection of stealing them. (Kleptomania complusion lifted).

Orgoth too has a veil lifted, the ongoing charm influence cast to halt him murdering Knievel releases from his mind.

A third veil, made of Mithril alloy and carved into the grinning face of an Efreeti comes free of the sweaty fevered brow of Sven.

Everyone else feels blessed. Having been around the clerics who cast such divine named spells, you feel the same focus of heart and mind. (Gerdal, Isvand, Amos, Trey & Truro each receive the Bless spell conditions for the next hour).

Any other Sunstone manipulation? Lunar eclipse, Darkness spell?

actions please

[Rex]

Orgoth

"I feel freer somehow, it feels good."

[OGRE MAGE]

Nice!!!

Sven is delighted to take his cursed mask off for the first time, storing it away in his pack for later examinations.

"I suddenly feel free as well without that damn mask on. Does my face still look the same?"

Not really wishing to press their luck any further, Sven suggests they expeditiously make their way to the room with the bricked up wall next.

"We should take advantage of this good fortune and not waste the opportunity to strike quickly."

If everyone agrees to tackle the iron cobras next, Sven ushers the group in that direction, suggesting the bricks be removed as quickly as possible to reveal a hole large enough to crawl through, but leaving enough remaining to prevent the snakes from escaping.

[Spearmint]

with your left behind equipment eaten by the rust monster and the pick from Big Bad John being taken by Drew and ending up in the zombie pit, you only have the two smaller picks, the combo military pick/crossbows used by the gnomes.

They will still function but take a turn or two longer to break through.

Exploring the Corridors

After receiving a blessing from the Sunstone, the group make their way cautiously to the corridor by the Bacchus Ale Pools and decide to break through the bricked up wall to gain entrance to the room beyond.

While the gnomes heave-ho, chipping away at the construction, Truro plays rear guard watch by the often shrunk door to the fire-beetle hallway. Amos checks out the southern door, viewing beyond into the hallway seen previously. The area charred by the oil fire that ignited the oil covered bars of the portcullis and undead knight. No rats scuttle about, no undead warrior comes to clatter his sword upon the bars.

That leaves the quartet of characters to investigate or help out where you see fit. Checking the strange room of fountains, it is empty.

The gnomes work, it is noisy work but for now, except for any creature in the room beyond, no one else seems alerted to your presence.

it will take three turns to breakthrough, so I am giving you that as an option to search the Bacchus Ale Pools while they work or you can just wait and advance in once a suitable breach in the wall is made.

[OGRE MAGE]

Sven makes sure the line of communication between the lookouts and the gnomes is wide open before moving into the Bacchus room.

There he smells each pool of water, looking them over carefully again now that they have the time to do so willingly. He takes a closer look at the decorative heads the water pours from as well, in case any clues have yet to be found. If there is no sign of what the waters might be used for, he takes a sample from each pool, labeling each specimen jar carefully before storing them away again.

"If we survive the next room, maybe one of us would like to try a sample of these waters before we leave the dungeon again? Any volunteers?"

[Rex]

Orgoth

Orgoth will follow Sven into the room.

"Maybe, seems dangerous but in this place who knows what does what."

[redwarrior]

Isvand speaks up I'll be happy to take a drink! I'm feeling lucky. Assuming we still have some healing left.... He follows Sven and Orgoth into the room, ready to throw his boomerang.

[sastaz]

Gerdal happily waits with the rest of the crew in the Bacchus chamber.

"This room really is something special."

She pets Harkazz while the others are working on the brick wall.

[Spearmint]

I had to scrawl the archives of past adventures to find descriptions and pics, I just kept rereading the previous antics and challenges.

(83) You are in an upside down L- shaped corridor. It runs 40'ft e-w and 40'ft n-s. A bricked up wall blocks egress beyond the western end of the corridor. Another closed down in the south. Almost opposite you is another door. This one is stone arched with a leering but cheerful not scary face on the keystone. A sound of water trickling, like an open tap and a faint whiff of hops or barley emanate from within.

Beyond is a small porch and some steps which lead into large room. On each of the adjacent walls and the one opposite, large leery faces, perhaps styled on the demi-god Bacchus, pour out streams of alcoholic smelling liquid. Each stream fills an individual pool. The pools do not overflow however though no drainage or plug is noted in the pools basins. There are no apparent pipes or funnels which feeds the pouring faces.

The liquids are liquorice black, plum purple and blood red but the smell is definitely of hops and barley.

Sven, Orgoth Isvand & Gerdal plus familiars enter the room.

You give it a casual inspection, checking the fountain faces, the alcoves with sitting benches, the flagstones. The room, unlike many others is clean, vandalism free. You can take a flask of each individual pool. You have your own tankards, I think you might still have the fancy goblet too.

So do any of you drink from a pool, taking a draught of ale or perhaps pick and mix the liquids to create a cocktail of unknown taste or potency?

[OGRE MAGE]

I think we should address the room we are breaking into first before we try drinking any of this water, but that’s just me.

[Rex]

Sounds like a a good plan.