Our stalwart adventurers resumed their exploration of Fistandia’s mansion, leaving the basement to finish the search of the main floor. They headed over to the next room down the hall, door slightly ajar. After entering, they could see it was a grand dining room. One wall was entirely formed of large windows, looking out on three planted beds filled with vegetation. A crystal chandelier hung above a table made of dark wood, dressed with silverware. Six matching wooden chairs with scarlet cushions surrounded the table, and a seventh chair sat alone in the far corner. Everyone was curious about the chair sitting by itself, and Draksis decided to investigate. As he walked by the table and the chairs, one of them grabbed him! He found himself held fast to the chair, which now more resembled an amorphous blob. After a few feisty rounds of combat, Akoko managed to skewer the thing, which turned out to be a mimic, already a little worse for wear after playing too hard with the cats and the pseudodragons. The mimic, playing a little prank, took the place of one of the dining chairs at the table, pushing the normal one into the far corner of the room.
After combat, the team gave the room a proper look. Malkath noticed the sivlerware on the table- it looked like service for 6, and would be worth something. Seeing no other takers, he stuffed it in to his backpack. Looking out the window, he said, “Are those driftglobes?”
Sure enough, there were two driftglobes hanging over the planters. Ezra realized this must be the arboretum that the homunculi had mentioned, which meant the fairie dragons would be near by. He wanted to examine further and take a closer look at the driftglobes. Thinking quickly, he pulled out his pipes and began to play as he approached. Dancing lights appeared, moving to the rhythm of his song, and he felt the passage of air around him, as if something invisible was flying by, back and forth. A little giggle sounded in his ear, and Ezra had to work to keep his focus on the song. As he played he worked his way around the arboretum, trying to figure out how to get to the driftglobes.
Meanwhile, Malkath and Marianis both made their way over to the arboretum as well. As they walked around, Malkath attempting to look for any useful plants, they felt a rush of air smelling of bubblegum. Though they felt a little dizzy for a moment, they shook their heads and snapped out of it. Malkath realized the plants were all decorative, save for some culinary herbs, and gave up in disgust.
Ezra continued playing, eyeing the driftglobes, but then realized that they were positioned to provide light to allow the plants to grow- and he could not bring himself to take them. He decided to ask the fairie dragons about the clue books instead, and spoke to them in sylvan. He heard a voice passing by his ear, closer than he expected: “We don’t know about any books… we just want to plaaaaaay…. Won’t you stay and play?”
“I can stay for one more song,” said Ezra, “What would you like me to play?”
“The Fairie Dragon anthem!!!”
Ezra thought for a moment, and began to play a song suspiciously like “The Sound of Silence.” As he played, he worked his way back towards the door to the hall. He felt the wind as the fairie dragons danced invisibly around him, and saw the dancing lights still moving to the rhythm of his song.
Making their escape, the party ventured back down the hall, as the only part of the mansion that remained unexplored was up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs, they found a suit of decorative armor holding a sword pointing downwards and a trap door overhead. Despite spending quite some time poking, prodding, moving parts, detecting magic, and shooting stones at the armor and the trapdoor, they found there was special about either of them. Feeling foolish, the party moved on to the next room, and found it to be some sort of physical laboratory.
Most of the room was taken up by wooden tables, covered with glass vessels and books. Cabinets with glass doors lined the walls, containing bones, rocks, dried plants, specimens and skulls. Below the ceiling, in the middle of the room, colorful globes circled each other, and the far wall was covered by a large mural map of the night sky, with a golden sunburst above a closed door in the center of the wall.
The books on the walls appeared to mostly cover the sciences, with some asstrology and natural philosophy books thrown in. Complex charts and mathematical formulas were drawn and scrolls and a mobile blackboard.
Malkath searched the room for the clue book, completely uninterested in anything else. He found one on a table, with the letter “T” on the spine, and then waited impatiently for the rest of the party, bored and longing to leave this place.
Draksis, on the other hand, began to wander and examine the contents of the room in earnest, at first looking for cookbooks. Finding that search futile, he became especially intrigued by the star map, which depicted the same, familiar night sky that was overhead in Faerun; however, five stars were rendered far brighter than the others, out of all proportion and not following any pattern that he could discern. Draksis called for Ezra to come in and detect magic, and Marinara, seeing Ezra being called for, he follows.
Unfortunately, nothing magical stood out… and it was decided that they should go through the sunburst door in the wall with the star map. Akoko took the lead, opening the door and heading through.
Inside, they were shocked to see they were standing on a grassy meadow, and above, the night sky was filled with stars. It was a jarring effect, and they knew it must be a trick. Moving further inside, they could feel the walls of the room, and could see that in the distance the grass faded… but it was amazing to fell the springy turf underfoot, and smell fresh air, and gaze up at the stars. There were two other things of note in the room, but they paled in comparison to the illusion: the clear, crystal sphere sitting on a brass stand in the center, and the telescopes. There were five of them, all facing a different direction.
“Five!” said Draksis, excitedly. “There were five stars painted brighter than the others on the star map above the door to this room!” He ran back over to the lab, looking up at the map. Sure enough, the night sky matched the sky in the planetarium room, and he ran back and forth, arranging each telescope so that it pointed to one of the stars from the map.
When he was done, a shaft of light from each telescope hit the crystal sphere in the center of the room, and where they were focused into a single beam that illuminated a secret door in the far wall. Elated, Draksis whooped! And then turned to Akoko, and asked him to go first.
Akoko opened the door, and stepped through, the party following. This room was bare, save for a bookshelf, covered in chains against one wall, a plain wooden bench, and a reading desk built into the shelves. A book sat on the desk.
The three shelves were filled with books bound in iron, secured to to the library with chains.
Marianis’ eyes lit up at the sight of the book on the desk, and he couldn’t bring himself to wait. He ran up and grabbed the book- only to be clobbered on the head by an iron-bound tome from the shelves above. Gasping and almost knocked out, he cried for help, realizing the chained library was hostile and terribly dangerous. Akoko waded in, using Lay on Hands to restore Marinara, and one by one, each adventurer struck valiantly back at the library. In the end, it was Ezra’s massive Toll of the Dead spell which vanquished it, and shuddering, the library visibly sagged, almost spitting up a chained book, which landed on the floor several yards away, no longer attached to a shelf.
The party was visibly battered, some wounded to a point where they could barely hold themselves upright, and they had used most of their mightiest spells. Marianis finally looked down at the book that had started it all, still clutched in his hands. It had the letter “L” on its spine. Malkath took note of it, thinking he knew what word would open the portal- but there were still two clue books left to be found.
Akoko reached out for the chained book, and with Ezra’s help, found it to be a +1 flail. The book on the end was titled, “Martial Attack Techniques.” Sighing, he equipped it.
They decided they needed to take a rest, and the planetarium was a lovely room in which to take it. Spreading out on the grass, they spent a quiet, restorative night, with the elves trading watch.
After their well-deserved and uneventful rest, they marshalled on, as there was still a door they had yet to look behind. Heading back towards the stairs, they opened that door, and found themselves inside a warm, cheery room with the illusion of a fire in the fireplace, and trophies of animal heads decorating the walls. An inviting scarlet cushioned armchair sat in each corner of the pleasant parlor. In the center, a reading table was covered in books. A pair of swords sat in a rack above the fireplace.
For Akoko, the cheeriness gave way to horror as he realized that there was a dragon head among the trophies. “Brother!” he cried, falling to his knees, tears streaming down his scaly face. He began to sing a low dirge in a deep, gravelly bass.
Ezra walked in, using his ritual Detect Magic, and saw that the swords over the mantle were magical. As they came closer, examining, the swords reared up and began to attack. They were no match for Akoko with his chained book flailing about in righteous fury, or for Marianis, who froze them dead with his chilled touch. After they fell to the floor, Ezra oberved that the swords were silvered and picked them up, thinking they might come in handy later.
Searching the books on the reading table, they found the penultimate clue book: “Y.”
“I think I know this word,” thought Malkath. But he said nothing.
One last room remained. The door to the bedroom was slightly ajar, and a fluffy black cat cat lay curled up on the canopied bed. The room was open and airy, in contrast to the rich scarlet curtains around the bed. A jug and washbasin stood on top of the chest of drawers, which was next to a scarlet easy chair. One wall was covered with a large painting of a gold dragon perched heroically on a mountaintop.
Seeing this painting eased some of Akoko’s pain.
The cat jumped down from the bed and began following Draksis around, purring.
Searching the room, Malkath found elegant, well-made cothes, and the very last clue book sitting on top of the chest of drawers. This one had the letter “E” on the spine.
“I knew it!” crowed Malkath.
The rest of the party had wandered to the balcony, which was lined with slate flagstones and protected by a wrought iron guard rail. It looked out on the arboretum below. Malkath joined them there and said, “I know the portal word, it’s LIBERTY!” He looked around expectantly, surprised when nothing happened. “LIBERTY!!!” He shouted once again.
Again, nothing of note happened.
“Perhaps we need to go back to the front doors?” Someone suggested.
As one, they made a bee-line for the front door and foyer, getting caught in the narrow doors as they all tried to crowd through at once.
At the front door, Malkath tried again: “LIBERTY,” he said, in a clear, loud voice.
And the double doors swung open, the swirls of the portal visible beyond.
Not wanting anyone else to be trapped, Malkath lay the clue books against the wall in order, and then turned to follow Akoko, looking forward to being gone from this place of attacking furniture and household objects.
Akoko knew he had to go first through the door. They had all seen the blood come through the portal when they were first trapped here, and heard Matreous cry out. He strode through the portal, only to trip and barely catch himself on the other side. Looking down, he saw what had made him stumble – Matreous’ corpse. As the others flowed in behind him, something came flying at Akoko, teeth first. It looked to be the imp that had once been a statue under Matreus’ arm! Leaving the mansion must have broken the enchantment that kept him frozen. The imp was clearly still experiencing some leftover effects from the spell, as it was so clumsy it ended up biting itself, instead of Akoko, who clocked him one with his flail. Draksis, using an impressive spell, pulled the imp towards him with what looked like lightning. Akoko seizing the opportunity, struck again with his flail, and the imp fell to the ground, dead.
Searching Matreous’ body, they found another book, entitled Mazfroth’s Mighty Digressions. The book seemed to be all about magic, the weave, and lycanthropes. Ezra’s ears perked up as Draksis read aloud from the book- the section about the weave mentioned blight…. Ezra grabbed the book, reading on about how damage to the weave could result in a blight in the real world, but just as his eyes hungrily read over the script, the words began to melt. At first, he blinked his eyes, thinking a bead of sweat was making the words blur, but no- the book was getting heavier, and the pages were melting as well, until this amorphous thing hung in front of him. His head rang with the words, “HUNGRY….. FEEEEED ME….”
They had thought they were safe, but combat began anew, and the party fought for their lives. Draksis’ lightning lure proved once again to be a winner, as pulling the evil thing to him, each other party member got in a swing, and though it was a tough battle, the thing died as Akoko once again swung his chained book at it.
The door to the study banged open, and a robed figure stood there breathing hard, looking at the party in bewilderment, and then at the thing on the floor. “Another one??”
