"I don't need any of that stuff. I must admit, I wasn't so sure I'd be able to command that woman - but it worked, eh?"
Harsk chuckles softly to himself and hangs his warhammer back on his belt.
"We may as head down to the basement. Didn't what's-his-face say that's how to get to Szangi?"
A flight of stairs descends to a cellar room with alcove-lined walls. Each alcove hosts a statue of an athletic man or woman with a long braid, and each figure is in different pose of martial performance.
Harsk's bushy eyebrows furrow close together as he considers what he sees in the room.
"Well, the layout of this room is a common one in places sacred to Irori—this room is the start of the Aspirant’s Path, a series of challenges that form a sort of obstacle course meant to train worshipers in the various physical traits and skills Irori demands on the road to self-perfection. the first task is always one of observation. The actual entrance to the path is invariably a secret door the aspirant must locate in order to even begin the trial."
Sure enough, Alice locates a secret door that leads further into the dungeon!
This room has a fifteen-foot-high domed ceiling and no floor except a two-inch-wide ledge that skirts the edges of the room around a deep pit that drops away into darkness.
The pit is 40 feet deep.
"Who needs a piggy-back ride?" Kurth says, before ferrying the group around the pit using his slippers of spider climbing.
Kurth leads the party across the pit and further on down a passage beyond. Sixteen five-foot-wide alcoves, each containing the crumpled remains of a sparring dummy, filling the room.
Hmm, interesting. As Harsk could likely tell you, the aspirants were likely blindfolded to simulate the lightless conditions of the darkness between the stars, and then challenged to move quickly through this chamber and topple the 16 separate dummies from their stands as quickly as possible. Nothing more of interest here. Milloy still continues to scry for magic auras, however.
"Milloy's got the right of it, yeah." Harsk nods as he does his best to help Alice take a look around.
"Running around in the dark knocking over mannequins - these monks don't seem all that in-lightninged to me," Kurth says, helping Alice search and make sure all the dummies are knocked over.
The party finds the secret door and is able to navigate through the corridor beyond to a large stone door.
Beyond that door, three fifteen-foot-diameter platforms lie in the room, each rising three feet high. In the center of each platform, a globe-shaped container of murky liquid sits in the embrace of an octopus-shaped brass cradle. Each globe is about two feet across-the two westernmost globes are intact, and a dark indistinct mass floats in the center of each. The eastern globe has been shattered, and a large stain has spread out around it on the floor. Along the wall near the eastern door sits a tiny wooden cabinet with a message scribbled on its front that is hard to read from far away. A similar one sits beside the western door.
As you enter the chamber, the organ-like creature in the central globe begins to move!
"By the looks of things, this room was likely designed to teach the aspirants focus - making them endure the psychic noise emanating from whatever creatures are in those globes as we cross. Stay sharp!"
Harsk starts to move across the room, keeping himself as far from the globes as possible.
Inside the globe is a brain ooze. They let off a small aura of psychic noise, likely amplified by the container it is in.
This is not good.
Milloy casts Scorching Ray, hoping to defeat the ooze before it can cause harm!
for 27 points of damage (using the metamagic rod for this one).
"That don't look healthy," Kurth says, advancing along with Harsk so he can get a closer look at the brain thing and the globe it is in.
The western cabinet reads, Return what is no longer needed here, lest it weight you down. Nothing remains in the cabinet.
Harsk moves into the room as Milloy shoots at the brain with a scorching ray! The ray shatters the globe, releasing the brain but missing the evasive ooze!
Maffei moves further into the room as the brain ooze lets out a blast of psychic noise as it approaches Harsk!
It then reaches out to hit Harsk with a tentacle!
Milloy now elects to use
Harsk stands motionless.
While standing still in an apparent stupor, Harsk thinks to himself We just had to walk through, why'd that blasted wizard attack the thing?
"No time to slouch, Harsk - this thing looks hungry!" Kurth yells as the dazed dwarf stands slack-jawed.
Whipping his flaming sword from its scabbard, Kurth charges the brain!
Milloy hits the brain with a jolt of electricity! Alice puts an arrow into it and Kurth rushes in, dealing it a nasty blow.
The brain tries to go for Kurth this time!
Maffei hits the brain with a shadowy missile!
51 dmg
"I don't think you'd like the way I taste, anyway, brain!" Kurth says as he hacks away at the ooze.
Harsk circles around the brain and draws out his warhammer, "What do ya think o' this!?"
With an arrow from Alice and a powerful hit from Kurth the brain turns into a puddle of goo on the floor!
The message on the cabinet by the eastern door reads, in Common: “Herein lies safety—but know that to rely on such crutches is to fall from the Path.” In the western cabinet, three beads of force sit on a set of cushions.
Those would have been useful a moment ago. Alice, perhaps you would be best at tossing these. Milloy will explain what they are to Alice if needed.
Heading through the door at the end of the room, you find an empty chamber.
"Well, I'd say you have the best arm of is, Alice. I don't think I would do much with one of them."
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"I don't see nuthin', neither. Maybe you oughta give it a once over real good, Alice. Them monks seem pretty sneaky, even if they do spend all their time posing and reading books."
Milloy will scan for magic as usual, if he hadn't already.
Milloy doesn't detect any magic but Alice does find the secret door!
Following it around, you find a long chamber taken up by a large, deep pool of calm water, irregularly shaped ledges and an artificial island of stone rising from the waters.
"Whoah everyone! Careful not to disturb the water. This room looks like it was meant to test the aspirant's skill at navigatin' obstacles - kind of like that pit you carried us across with such skill, Kurth." Harsk gives the fighter a hearty slap on the back.
"However, this pond woulda been stocked with some right bastard creatures that would be alerted to attack anything that touched the surface of the water."
Harsk looks across the pond to the far end, "Thank Alice for findin' all them secret doors. Otherwise, we'd a had to deal with whatever foul things are in there." He gives Alice a wink.
When the group is ready, Harsk will open the door to the east.
"Yeah, I don't fancy finding out what's under that water. Good to skip it and head to the east. Lead on, dwarf, less you want to let Alice have a look at the door first," Kurth says.
A tiled pool dominates this chamber, which has a fifteen-foot-high barrel-vault ceiling. The waters are clear and three feet deep. Three marble platforms featuring the same mosaic design found in the monastery above rise along the pool’s center, protruding six inches above the water’s surface. Four octagonal, domed alcoves in the corners each hold a marble pillar. Near the southeast alcove, a large hole has been dug in the wall.
There’s a strange serenity in this room, and the sound of the pool’s water gently lapping against stone echoes rhythmically. Tiles of blue and gold on the north wall form the message: “In the Midst of Chaos, a Disciplined Mind Imposes Order.” The pillars in the alcoves are etched with the names of those who triumphed on the Aspirant’s Path.
A pair of grioth priests have been posted here to watch over the underground entrance to Aeteperax’s lair. Upon noticing intruders, one of the clerics immediately takes wing down the tunnel, hoping to reach the dragon to warn him of the intruders while the remaining grioth turns to attack you!
Milloy flicks his wrist and retrieves his wand of Web and tries to snare the two enemies!
Harsk steps forward, drawing his crossbow. But instead of firing it, he holds his right hand forward, shouting, "By the light of Torag's flames!" He then points his open palm at priest that remains. A searing light blasts forth.
Kurth chugs a potion of expeditious retreat and starts running around the pool.
Milloy catches the two grioth in his web! Milloy puts an arrow into the nearest one but Harsk's spell is off-target. Kurth gulps a potion of move really fast and runs around the pool! Maffei follows in his wake.
The red one tries to break from the web to warn Aeteperax but can't break free! The other one tries to cast a spell but the web prevents it from performing the movements properly.
red: grappled by web
blue: 22 dmg, grappled by web
Milloy uses his wand of on the injured one!
Kurth will keep running around the pool, drawing his sword as he approaches the trapped grioth.
Harsk loads his crossbow and lets a bolt fly.
Milloy and Kurth injure the trapped grioth and Kurth moves in for the kill!
red: grappled by web
blue: 28 dmg, grappled by web
Alice finishes off the injured grioth as Maffei makes her way around the pool. The cleric captured in the web calls out, "Nyarlathotep! Bring your chaos down upon them!"
A blast of negative energy washes over Kurth.
red: grappled by web