Suddenly, a nimbus of purple-black light appears above the head of the large statue of the Wailing Prince. It orbits the head like a halo just once, then strikes out suddenly at Finding!
Finding's danger sense goes off, and she immediately dodges, ducks and rolls out of the way of the nimbus of light streaking towards her at deathly speed. The nimbus hits the wall instead, and instantly dissolves a man-sized chunk of stone instead. Finding breathes a sigh of relief; had this hit her, it would have been instant death.Tech: Rolled +3 vs Reflex. A hit would have been instant death by acid dissolving. I eagerly rolled my black d20... but it came up with a natural 3. Alas, my instant death fix will have to wait. However, even on miss, you take 8 damage and are down to 20 hp.
Further Detect Magic and aura analysis is performed by the party, and it's clear that the wrong slot was chosen. The door will no longer respond to further attempts, and it's time for thievery and brute force to get through the doors. However, not all is bad news. The deadfall trap blocking your path west suddenly raises upward and retracts into the ceiling. Your way back west is open again, and you can see from your vantage point that the acid pool has drained fully.
Even after the brief rest, some of you feel odd, perhaps agitated. You're not as calm as you should be. Those affected are Joryn and Lohmi. Is this normal?
OOC: You each lose one healing surge for having to use brute force to get through the doors. However, on the bright side, you have finished Chamber 1!
Well done, dungeoneers! Nobody died!
XP and Treasure
You each gain 120 xp, and I assume you take the treasure from the southern cache. Although nobody said they were going to! What, silver and gems not good enough for you? Well, you each receive 172 silver coins, and the two gems (100 gp each) I'll divide up now for ease of tracking... giving you another 29 gp each.
Extended Resting
In the scoring below, you've earned enough points to take an extended rest if you so wish. It will cost you 5 points to do so. I will not allow you to take extended rests if you lack the points to spend on it, so keep on your toes and solve those objectives! If the majority of you vote to do the extended rest, you will all do so.
Scoring Breakdown
Primary Objective:
Solve the door puzzle (0 out of 5 points)
Secondary Objective:
Retrieve the everburning torch (3 points)
Minor Objectives (1 point each):
- Decipher the inscription on the statue and stop the flow of acidic tears
- Find the treasure at the bottom of the pool
- Decipher the clue in druidic contained within the scroll tube
- Destroy each skeleton
- Discover the treasure cache behind the southern door
Performance:
Having no dungeoneers fall unconscious (0 out of 2 points)
Having only one dungeoneer fall unconscious (1 point)
Total points scored: 9 out of possible 15
Puzzle Spoiler
If you are curious about the solution to the northern door puzzle, see below. I have set the color of the text to white, so you will have to highlight the area below to reveal the solution.
SOLVING THE PUZZLE
To open the exit, the dungeoneers must take the two stones from the statues and fit them into the Wailing Prince’s eyes after the acid has been shut off. Then, they must take the stone from acid pool and fit it into the center of the 16-pointed star.
This challenge is a kind of black magic puzzle. The stars etched into the base of statues #1 and #4 are the only two to have a number of sides that have an integer square root (2 and 3, respectively). The 16-pointed star (square root of 4) completes this pattern.
FAILING THE PUZZLE
The dungeoneers fail the puzzle if:
- They fit the stone from the pool into the wrong slot.
- They fit the stone from the pool into the door before fitting the stones from the statues into the Wailing Prince.
- A statue collapses with a stone still inside of it.
If any of these happen, a nimbus of light appears around the Wailing Prince’s head. An arrow of magical acid fires at a random dungeoneer within line of sight (+3 vs. Reflex, target is dissolved on a hit, miss 2d6 acid damage).
In addition, failing the puzzle means the dungeoneers must take the time to force their way through the mundane and magical locks on the exit during their short rest; a taxing endeavor which drains a healing surge from each party member.
End of Puzzle Spoiler
Oops, meant to have that publish at Noon! Oh well, I didn't see any opposing suggestions anyway.
ReplyDeleteTo reiterate, what you need to do is to decide if you want to spend 5 of your hard earned points to do an extended rest, or to push on to the next chamber. Vote by comment, and after that is worked out I'll post the next Chamber 2!
OOC: And if you do take an extended rest, you've basically gone back to your town and can do some shopping and spend your hard-earned coin at the shops. Or on whiskey. Mmmm.... black label.
ReplyDeleteTharl stands and says "Lets continue. This feels like a poor place to stop."
ReplyDeleteOOC: I vote for no extended rest at this point. Lets save the remaining healing infusion for a crisis. I'll concentrate on healing in the next chamber.
Tech: I will use enough surges to return to full health.
Lohmi nods. "Let's continue."
ReplyDeleteOOC: My vote is to continue as well. We still have quite a few healing surges between all of us (I think).
Galad nods agreement.
ReplyDeleteOCC: Yes, let's continue on.
Vondal nods and agrees with the others ... "I also vote to continue onward, no other action makes sense."
ReplyDeleteWell, that's a majority vote to keep going... Posting Chamber 2-1 in a moment!
ReplyDelete