"If I had to guess, and it is just a guess, we might need to follow the path of our respective deities as Kahan seems to be suggesting.  Perhaps if true I might have actually survived." Leo ponders that a bit.

"We shouldn't be guessing and trying something unless we have a strong sense it will work." Tahldar says.

"Borimer, do you think you could lasso and retrieve each corpse?  And as much of their belongings as possible?  Especially the book the mage is holding.  I would really like to take a look at that."

"If we can get the bodies we might glean a clue that would help us.  Right now we don't know how this room is supposed to work.  The more we learn the better."

OOC:  I would like to retrieve as many of the bodies and their belongings as possible.  In some cases a lasso might work best.  In others you may need to drag them over.  I'm thinking a spear with two ropes tied on each end might work.  This way you could hook and drag.

Kahan grabs the Portable Hole out of his beltpouch and opens it up, fishing out two lengths of rope, one hempen and one silk, and then retrieves a grappling hook from his haversack. "This should help out," he suggests, tying the grappling hook to one of the ropes and handing it to someone else. "I'm in no shape to be doing feats of dexterity," he admits, continuing, "I can however help pull a body closer if someone ropes one." Once that was finished, perhaps they could figure out how to proceed...

Shae will assist Borimer in trying to lasso and retrieve the bodies without going onto the paths. They can go counterclockwise so that Tahldar gets his spellbook faster.

Shae also holds the colored gems from the last room. "I wonder if these colored gems are coordinated with this room."

Kahan casts cure critical wounds on Shapfren (+27 hp)

As he does so, the others try to go around collecting the corpses, starting with the mage. The bones fall apart but it appears to have been some kind of elf. He has been here for years, but you get his belongings:

MAGE:
1 staff
1 cloak
1 spellbook with following spells:
-copy
-chromatic orb
-detect disease
-choke
-ice knife
-delay death
-hovering skull
-invisible mail
-duplicate
-Otiluke's Dispelling Screen
-Wind breath
-Invulnerability to Normal Weapons
-Know Value
-Dead Man's Eyes
-Dragon scales
-Zombie double
Defensive Bracers
Boots
2 rings

The rest of his belongings have long since become tatters except for a writing at the end of the spellbook that is not a spell. Instead, it reads: "Zarahiah is contained."

You recover the body of the warrior, who has:
1 sword
1 shield
1 helm
1 set of ornate plate armor that is light as leather armor
1 ring

You next recover the body of the skeleton with the axe, which appears to have been a dwarf. He has:
1 chainmail armor, also light as leather armor
1 axe
1 helm
1 short bow
20 arrows
1 ring
1 set of gauntlets
1 horn

You then pull back the monk, who has:
1 staff ornately carved like a staff/spear combo
1 robe
1 rolled scroll
1 studded leather armor
2 rings
1 set of gloves

Finally, you retrieve the cleric, who is clutching a tattered vellum writing and a colorful stone tablet. He also has the following items:
1 tattered cloak
1 defensive bracers
1 set of boots
1 studded leather armor
20 blowgun needles (but the blowgun is old and deteriorated)
2 rings
1 bottle with a lead stopper
1 helm

You open the vellum writing. The writing is faded and looks like the scratches of someone working something out. It reads: "Zarahiah wished for this. He shall see the end and wish for more. The source of magic will be ours."

The stone tablet looks like this:


OOC: If your character worships any of the deities, they will have further information.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:52, Thu 30 Apr 2020.

Shae will cast detect magic. She will also dig deep in her memory for any other potential facts that might be helpful.

Kahan studies the paths, and the stone tablet curiously, deep in thought. "Tenvillah gave us a white rabbit to help us on our travels, to tell us when the cave would kill us. Maybe he was talking about this room?" he thought out loud as he unrolled the scroll the monk was holding carefully.

The white rabbit was left with Geebo and Fingas Hatt.

Shae casts detect magic. All of the items above radiate magic.

On the scroll are what appear to be the scratches of the monk, which read:


Oghma chose not to be aligned.
Bahamut was good and lawful.
Tiamat minded his own evil law.
Sylvanus remained neutral with the druids.
Lolth was an evil god who obeyed no laws.

Kahan will also open up the two scrolls he found at the bottom of the first pitfall room because he keeps forgetting they exist.

While Kahan works to read his scrolls, Tahldar takes the stones of varying colors from Shae.

"It was wise Shae to take these before we left.  I have an idea I want to try." he says as he looks them, and the stone tablet over.

Walking around the outside ring he puts the primary colored stones on the opposite side of the colors as defined in the tablet.  Careful to keep the stones in line with the theoretical arrow.

OOC: I am going to try an experiment.  I want to put the stones on the opposite side of each primary color according to the tablet.

1. Opposite black is an arrow with green and yellow.  I will put the Obsidian stone on that outer ring tile that would be the spot where the arrow head would be on the outer ring.
2. Opposite red is the yellow blue arrow.  I will put bloodstone on yellow/blue.  (Or the Rossmanite.  Whichever is the more red of the two)
3. Opposite green is blue black arrow.  I will put the peridot there.
4. Opposite white is black red arrow.  I will put the Ulexite there.
5. Opposite blue is green red arrow. I will put the Lapis Lazuli stone there.

EDIT: If the above doesn't work I'll to put the stones on their respective colors.
Obsidian between parasitism and amorality
Bloodstone between chaos and impulse
Peridot between instinct and interdependence
Ulexite between morality and order
Lapis Lazuli between logic and technology
This message was last edited by the player at 19:07, Thu 30 Apr 2020.

Shae says, "Let's try going down the path of alignment. I will volunteer to go first. Just wrap the rope around me and if I get frozen in place, pull me back before I get injured. Alignment seems to match up pretty much with the color tile and the color of the paths. Sound like a plan?"

Tahldar takes the stones and puts them on the opposite side of the colors in the tablet. Nothing happens. He then puts them on their respective colors. Again, nothing happens.

Kahan examines the two scrolls. The first is a bard scroll with the following spells:

Bard/Mage Scroll:
Bard Spells
-Sound Bubble
-Wall of Sound
-Silence 15' radius (as per the priest spell)
Mage/Bard Spells
-Identify magic item
-Copy
-Color Spray
-Alarm
-Armor
-Charm person
-Comprehend languages
-Darkness, 15' radius
-Stoneskin
-Wall of Fire
-Advanced Illusion
-Animate Dead
-Bigby's Interposing Hand
-Chaos
-Flame Arrow
-Fireball
-Blink

OOC: Note that this scroll and the one found by Tahldar both have "copy" in them, meaning that both Tahldar and Shapfren (once they get out of this) can copy spells directly into their spellbooks while it is active.
Copy enables the caster to make a perfect copy of a map, letter, or any other written or drawn document. The caster must have a blank parchment or a book with blank pages of sufficient size to hold the copy. The caster holds the blank object over the object to be copied, then casts the spell; the copy immediately appears on the formerly blank object. The copy is permanent and is a perfect duplicate of the original.

Copy can also be used to copy spells from a new spell book into the caster's spell book, assuming the caster's spell book is of sufficient size to contain the new spells. The caster must first roll to see if he can learn the new spells; if so, he can cast copy to instantly copy them into his spell book.

Note also that the spells in the new scroll for Tahldar and in the Bard scroll (for Shapfren) have spells coming directly from the Complete Wizard's Handbook and the Complete Bard's Handbook. If you don't have access to these spell descriptions, let me know.

The second scroll Kahan opens has a passage written on it:

Zuggtmoy, demoness of fungus, goddess of fungi, and Lady of Rot and Decay, and who is worshipped by the Cult of the Spore, gave Zarahiah a task then. Three limited wishes would be his if he completed this task. But Zarahiah hid himself up waiting until he could enthrall her with surprise in her lair. And this, he thought, would please her most.

For the usurpers of Time and Tienna, who destroyed balance, would be within his grasp, and the Source of Magic would be at his command. Those who destroyed his likeness on the other world, who frustrated his purpose, would be at his mercy. He would be avenged with those wishes, and they would be deprived of all. For he was once Tarimar on Tienna but was reborn Zarahiah on Allevia.

At the bottom of the words is drawn this picture:



Shae (who is lawful neutral) tentatively starts walking down Kelemvor's path. She makes it halfway and nothing happens.

Continue...?

Kahan watches with bated breath as Shae tries her path of choice, and heaves a sigh of relief as she isn't set upon by poisonous fungus spores or acid of some sort. Retrieving the portable hole again, Kahan begins placing all the magical items within. Once that is finished, he heads towards Bahamut's path and begins heading down it towards the center...

This is where I tell you that all my OOC comments were just to throw you off and that this is not about alignment after all and that Kahan walks to his own doom...

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
...or maybe not. I'm not that cruel.

---

Shae and Kahan make it safely to the center without incident. They find themselves at the center with the crystal encased goblet which sits on a stone pedestal. On the north side of the pedestal is a small trough. In it, there are numerous small tiles with letters on them.

On the side of the pedestal above the trough are eight slots which seem to be the same size as the small letter tiles.

About a foot above the slots are two small holes just below the crystalline case. They are like keyholes about 6 inches apart but unlike keyholes are just a thin slot in the side of the pedestal and do not have any round or peculiar cutouts.

Just in between the tile slots and the keyhole-like slots is engraved the following in the side of the stone pedestal:


Swords like pins ripped through their scales,
Tiny but effective;
And she cast out the five good dragons to their realms,
Helpless to her directives.


OOC: I don't want to give things away here, but you have not had time to carefully examine the pedestal yet. One step at a time.
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:43, Fri 01 May 2020.

Tahldar looks around to see if his stone idea bears any fruit, but alas it did not.

He sees Shae start to walk down Kelemvor's path and thinks to shout out an alarm, but is surprised to see her unharmed.

Then Kahan walks down Bahamut's path and he too is unharmed.

"Guess that's it then." he says to the relatively easy solution to this room.

Being of a similar bent as Kahan, Talhdar starts to walk down Bahamut's path as well.

OOC:  Talhdar is LG.

Tahldar makes it safely to the center of the room with Shae and Kahan.

Tahldar pensively walks down the Bahamut path.  He eyes the fungi and at every moment thinks they are about to spew death his way.  But they don't.

He arrives at the pedestal and gives it a good look over.  He also inspects the tiles to see if they bear any special engravings or marks.

The tiles of are letters of the alphabet with nothing special otherwise. Upon counting, Tahldar finds that there are two of each letter of the alphabet.

Tahldar looks the tiles over and says "It's two sets of the alphabet.  No numbers though."

He then looks the poem over.

"The only dragons I'm aware of are red, green, black, blue, white, and gold.  The only good dragon of the six is the gold, but maybe good here means healthy?  So maybe the poem is referencing red, green, black, blue, and white?  And this would correspond the colors on the tablet."

"Interesting, but I'm not sure what it means here."

"Whatever the poem refers to is an eight letter word. I do not know what the poem is looking for, though. It doesn't seem much like a riddle, more like a statement talking about a person," Kahan remarks as he looks the rest of the pedestal over.

Shae says, "The good dragons are the metallic dragons. It would be platinum, gold, silver, copper, bronze, brass, et cetera. I wonder why the word sword is in there. It seems out of place and must mean something."

Shae doesn't have any real answers, but she will closely examine the pedestal to see if she finds any other clues.

Shapfren observed everybody walk down the different paths. After considering the options, she stopped to consider which one would best fit her. "Eldath it is." She finally stood up and walked using that path.

Shapfren makes it safely to the center with the others.

Shae inspects the pedestal more closely. She has to brush away years of dirt but finds that the pedestal is inscribed with dragons all around. She also finds three additional small holes, one on each of the other sides of the pedestal (total of 5 holes). Each of the hole slots are about 1 inch long and about 1/4 inch wide. Even more interestingly, she finds that there is a square metallic plate about 3 inches square around each of the slots. Each metallic plate is of a different metal. She calls out what they each are: platinum, gold, silver, copper and bronze.

Tahldar inspects the tiles more closely. Each tile exactly matches one of the tile slots. They will not stick out when put in the slots.

HINT: Check the inventory of your portable hole.