Shae raises her hand and utters the recall word for her spear. Once it has returned to her, she will race around to help Borimer fight the tentacles.

Borimer strikes at the tentacles, trying to sever them. As a swordmaster, he gets three swings with Godslayer.

ROUND 2

Shae rushes around the room to help Borimer. Meanwhile...

Borimer manages to hack off two of the tentacles, but the rest swing down at him. One of them slaps him sharply in the leg, knocking him off balance, while another wraps around and starts to constrict him. (26 dmg total; critical hit) The others miss.

Borimer is now constricted by one of the stone tentacles. (He will have to roll higher than 1/2 strength -3 to get out or continue to be constricted (1d8 per round). His arms are bound by the constriction and he cannot attack until freed.)

Shae will reach Borimer after one more round. Everyone else is about 40 feet away. Much of Borimer's details are hidden by the green mist that is still settled about the room.

Shap aimed at the tentacles, hoping to distract them long enough for Borimer to get out.

22:12, Today: Shapfren Diditlew rolled 3 using 1d6.

22:12, Today: Shapfren Diditlew rolled 16 using 1d20.  Shoot tentacles (Thaco 13).

Borimer struggles to get free of constriction. If he succeeds, he will continue attacking the tentacles with Godslayer.

Tahdar sees Borimer struggle in the clutches of one of the tentacles and begins to cast.

OOC:  Cast magic missile on the tentacle grasping Borimer.  16pts
20:59, Today: Tahldar of Tyrannia rolled 16 using 5d4+5 ((1,3,2,2,3)).

Leo moves to slash at one of the tentacles if he can get there and reach it.

Kahan... can't really do much from here so he waited to see what happened, unfortunately.

As Shae approaches, she begins casting. Shae will cast transmute rock to mud on the tentacle wrapping Borimer.

ROUND THREE

In a feat of strength that will be sung by bards, Borimer cries out and not only breaks the grip of the tentacles, but actually breaks the stone tentacles into pieces, freeing himself. (Critical hit.)

The remaining tentacles attack...

Three hit him, but his stoneskin breaks the damage. Unfortunately, one of those tentacles also constricts him, so he finds himself back in the same dilemma, enwrapped by a stone tentacle.

Shae is within reach and redirects her spell onto the new tentacle, turning it to mud. It sloshes away from Borimer, freeing him once more. After Shae had called out the recall word for her spear, it now flies up out of the pit and into her awaiting hand.

Tahldar redirects his magic missiles onto another tentacle, hitting it solidly and damaging it. (8 hp remaining)

Kahan appears lost in mid-thought...

Leo, the most adroit of the bunch, runs counterclockwise, the closest path to Borimer. Instead of leaping over the 16 foot false floor, he launches himself at the skeleton filled wall, finds a foothold, and by all appearances seems to be running on the side of the wall, jumping off at the far side of the illusory floor and attacking the tentacles. His attack takes out the last of the tentacle damaged by Tahldar.

3 tentacles remaining.

ROUND FOUR

Borimer, now drenched around the waist in mud, swings with a cry at the tentacles. He knocks one of them to pieces with two swipes of his sword but misses on the third swing.

Leo strikes out and hits a second tentacle, which Shae then finishes off with her ancestral spear.

The remaining tentacle attacks but misses, and the three of them together hack it into shards of stone.

Taking a breath after that battle, Borimer retrieves the two stones. When he does so, as with the other octopoid, the central Yin/Yang stones separate, and another orb rolls out. Borimer catches it in his hand, and as he does so, the entire room is momentarily struck with crescent light and each of you is struck with a vision...


You hear a man's deep voice whisper in your head, "Beware the man with the white hair." And then you feel instantly transported to an underground cavern with a river of lava and a bulbous red wall that pulses like a heart with red and purple tributaries flowing around like veins throughout the cavern. The voice says, "Find the source of magic to undo the chaos started by the Anvil of Time in the Time Ark. Restore the World of Lesser Magic."

In your head, you see the image of a familiar room:

It then repeats, with slightly different wordage, "Beware the thing with the white hair. With three wishes, your life he may doom. Ashe needs your help. We all need your help. Tarimar lives on in this cursed world."
His voice continues, "You must end what you started."



The vision then fades. For a moment, you are dazed. Then you recognize the voice. It is the voice of Brand, the apprentice of the Wizard Ashe--a drow you have never met but who spoke to you once not long ago. (See message #1 here: link to a message in this game )

After that, the party has no problems retrieving all of the remaining gems without incident. You realize that the only tentacles that came to life were the ones with two gems. The ones with only one gem, or with none, were dormant.

Borimer wipes the mud from his body and says casually, as if this were a normal thing, "I remember just before Shapfren came back, I was escaping the tentacles and was thinking how good it would be to have her skills and song to give us strength. And then I touched that little orb, and now here she is. Then I was thinking about the vision I saw in the cave during my last brush with death with the dragon, and I touched the orb and it repeated. What does this mean?" Not the smartest man of the group by far, Borimer turns to all of you for explanations.
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:36, Thu 23 Apr 2020.

Shae says, "I think this is all connected. I don't know how yet, but I think we are about to find out. You remember that guy we saved from the dragon. He had long white hair. I remember that was his biggest feature. Is there something about him we should be wary of? Maybe next time we see him, that should be something to look into."

She turns to the door with the riddle. "I guess our next step is putting in these gems and seeing what happens. Are you all ready? Do we need to make any preparations?"

Moving this along...

OCTOPOID:


You put the gems in to spell "RUBY" and "OPAL" as you had already guessed. Upon doing so, the tentacles retract into the wall and the octopoid irises open to form a circular doorway leading into a small 8x8 chamber.


On the stone floor of the 8x8 chamber is the same symbol as in the other stone floor of the previous room.


Shapfren recognizes it from bardic lore. It is the symbol of Chaos.

But the small chamber itself seems harmless. You test the floor. Everything is real. No illusions. It seems to be an entryway to another door. This one is a circular wooden door, shut at the far end of the 8x8 chamber. It appears that this is like an antechamber leading to somewhere else. You just need to figure out how to open the far door.

This message was last edited by the GM at 04:14, Fri 24 Apr 2020.

Tahldar thinks on what Borimer has said happened.  "Maybe these little orbs have similar power to the orb we saw in the vision?  The ability to make any whim or wish to happen upon merely thinking it?  If so the larger orb we saw must be very powerful, but also very dangerous.  Only the most disciplined would have any chance to not do harm with it I would think."

Tahldar follows along until they reach the door without a handle.  He begins to cast.

OOC: Thaldar will cast a knock on the door.  I am assuming knock works by auto opening doors, but if it doesn't I'll cast the 1st level spell reduce on the door which should make it easy to swing open manually.

"The orb, do you still have it, Borimer, or did it disappear after giving us the vision?" the priest asks as he puts the stones into their slots and watches as the door opens... to another door. "I was wondering about that old man. He seems to be mad, but it might all be an act. When we get back to the gnomish village, we need to investigate him further," he nods as he watches Tahldar attempt to open the door. Meanwhile he looks around the room for any clues as to what may open the door if the spell fails.

Shap was happy to be alive, somehow. One of the first things she did was to ask about her spellbook, as it hadn't returned with her.

Now with this room, she had an idea. She approached Tahldar "Maybe it won't be enough to use a spell. The symbol means chaos, so opening the door will have something to do with it." She looked around to see if there were other features of notice.

Tahldar gives Shapfren her spellbook back:
Shapfren's Spellbook:
(1:19, 2:6, 3:1 )
LEVEL SPELL NAME
1       Read Magic
1       Detect Magic
1       Spook
1       Magic Missile
1       Hypnotism
1       Grease
1       Audible Glamer
1       Unseen Servant
2       Knock
2       Invisibility
2       Improved Phantasmal Force
3       Fireball
3       Fly spell
4       Shadow Monsters


Tahldar also casts knock. Although it seems to unlock the door, the door does not open. There appears to be a mechanism for making sure the door opens. (The chamber is like an airlock, though your characters don't know what that is exactly.)

Tahldar looks at the door with consternation.  He casts another spell.

OOC:  I will cast the inverse of the 1st level spell enlarge, reduce, on the door.

Is there anything else in the room whatsoever?

No. This is literally just a room to get you from Room A to Room B and separate the toxins from the last room, as well as to act as part of the gear for the rotating rooms.

Kahan will try to see if the arrow symbol in the floor can spin.

It does not spin.

Shae says, "Let's grab all these gems off the door in case we need them." She will remove the gems from the outside door and see what happens.

Shap told to Thaldar "Maybe we could paint the symbol outside on the door?"

Shapfren, I'm still waiting to see what happens if I reduce the door.

While Tahldar begins casting, Shae goes out to get the gems off the outside door. As she pries the eight gems loose, the large outside door begins closing again. She quickly pockets the eight gems and everyone slips into the 8x8 chamber before being locked in the octopoid room.

Tahldar finishes his spell, and the door shrinks to tiny portion of its size, allowing you to look into the far room...

[MOVING TO NEW THREAD]