"If somebody else that join us wants a split of the money, they can have mine. I don't do this for money."
Fast forward to morning on the following day. Assume you just rested for the night unless you have a desire to do something else.
When Sunday morning arrives, the Acadamae wakes to a single sharp ringing of the campus bells at the break of dawn. The Breaching Festival officially begins an hour after dawn, but eager spectators begin gathering on the surrounding walls and the campus’s southern quad even before sunrise. Hundreds of common folk sit or stand atop the Acadamae’s southern walls, while vendors of refreshments and souvenirs wander nosily and often through the mass. Important observers, such as aristocrats and other prominent locals and nobles, are allowed to gather at ground level among several large and colorful tents and pavilions erected overnight in the quad just south of the Hall of Summoning. It is in this area that the PCs and other contestants are expected to gather, waiting for Toff to begin the competition with his opening speech at precisely 7:00 a.m.
At 15 minutes before, a large group of nobles arrives to excessive fanfare—this is none other than Queen Ileosa and several royal attendants. The queen has no true interest in the Breaching’s contestants—she’s making an appearance out of tradition, and fully expects this year’s festival to have the same result every year has, with another batch of hopeful adventurers vanishing and being forgotten by month’s end. Certainly, her guards won’t let the PCs approach.
At 7:00, the bells toll the hour and Headmaster Toff Ornelos arrives in a blast of multicolored smoke, teleporting into the staging area from his office. He lifts his hand to signal silence, and after the crowd quiets, he speaks aloud to the crowd, but especially to the contestants.
“Welcome one and all to this year’s Breaching Festival! I know the contestants are eager to begin, so I shall keep this introduction short. This year, as every year, one must enter the Hall of Wards via its eastern entrance after solving several minor conundrums our professors and spellcasters have set up at the other seven halls that surround us. The first contestant to emerge from these doors—” here Toff pauses to indicate the large doors in the Hall of Wards’ western facade, facing the quad—“shall be declared the winner of the Breaching Festival. If no winner emerges by dusk, there can be no winner for this year’s festival. Yet should one of these brave contestants accomplish what no one has accomplished in over 150 years, that person will walk away with more than 150,000 gold sails!”
Here, the crowd erupts into cheers for several seconds. When the roar dies down, Toff places his hands inside the front of his robe and withdraws a glowing, fist-sized sphere of shimmering light that he holds aloft. The sphere dances and bobs an inch above his upturned palm.
“These glowing spheres are the keys to your fate and fortune, worthy contestants. This is a key-light—there are seven of them hidden among the seven other Halls on the grounds. Each contestant needs his or her own key-light to get into the Hall of Wards. So find yourself a key-light, use it to enter the Hall of Wards, and you will have your chance to enter history!”
BTW there are three other individual contestants also present for the event, a human male, a human female, and a dwarf (who you have met). You would guess from their accoutrements that they are wizard, rogue, and fighter respectively. At the signal to start they rush off immediately to find the key lights.
Raphael shows accompanied by his Angelic Eidolon.
"I think is better if we go together to find the lights, even if it takes us longer."
Raphael's large Eidolon stands just behind him, her white feathery wings almost embracing him.
The non party competitors ignore Raphael and dash off to different buildings.
"Agreed. Let's try one of the Hall's the others did not. How about that one." He then points to the first to the right, not entered by someone else.
Hopefully we can get in there before the grumpy dwarf.
Tamm eyes Ralph's large angelic protector.
"Fascinating ...." he mutters to himself.
"I agree." he says to Laurel. "That hall looks just as good as any of the others as a place to start."
He checks the wands in each of the spring-loaded wrist sheaths on his arms, settles his long leather coat on his shoulders, and begins to head towards the indicated building with a purposeful stride.
You head to the nearest building on the right. This is the hall of induction. You'd guess that means a evocation school. The building is basically a massive iron cube.
You go inside and it definitely seems to be a practice center for blasting, with scarred metal walls.
In a northern classroom you find:
The air in this room smells acrid, making the eyes water—the source is a large brazier of burning incense in the corner and a curious set of glass pipes connecting two vats of bubbling liquid (one green, one red). The key-light in this room is traveling back and forth inside of the glass tube—although the light itself is yellow in color, it appears variously green or red as it swims through the fluid, looking yellow in the middle.
Sazzat is able to recognize that this is a trap
"I almost feel at home in here. Almost." With that said, Laurel then makes a few gestures and says a few words and throws a ray of frost at one of the walls, leaving a large frost covered circle, one larger than a cantrip should. "Ah, that's better. Get the old arcane energies flowing. So what do we make of the glass contraption." He looks around the room to search for magical emanations.
It radiates very strong evocation magic.
"I'll take this one ... you can get the next one." Tamm says to Lucian.
He crouches, withdraws a fancy set of tools from his haversack and sets to work disarming the trap.
You succeed in disarming the trap and getting the light key.
"150 years ....huh, doesn't seem that difficult so far." Tamm muses to the others.
"He did say these were the easier challenges though."
"Off to the next hall! Death-defying and harrowing challenges await us I'm sure."
Tamm turns to exit the hall.
"Well done Master Tamm! Let's get the next key."
You are not yet in the actual challenge, this is just in the intro.
"Let's be methodical about this ... on to the second unoccupied building from the right .... unless there are objections?"
Raphael floats in the angelic embrace of his protector angel.
"Please lead on."
Next building is the Hall of Seeing.
You head in the main doors and things seem to be pretty simple in here. You head for a major intersection of halls and the challenge is right there.
The two long hallways meet in a 15-foot-diameter circular room with a domed ceiling above. The walls of this room between the four hallways are decorated with several tall mirrors—the orange key-light appears to float 4 feet off the ground in the center of the room, but only in the reflections in the mirrors, not in the room itself.
Again Sazzat decides it to be a trap.
Disable Device
and he disarms it, then grabs the light key
I handwaved this section for the other group because their trap guy had enough bonus to auto disable the stuff. Personally I find this part trivial at best, so I can just handwave you all into the Hall of Wards if you like.
"Forward to the hall of wards!" Tamm exclaims
"Thanks the goddess we manage the key lights without incidents."
You collect all the light keys your need and head for the hall of wards.
Placing the key-light on the eastern entrance to the hall causes the door to creak ominously open, revealing roiling darkness.
You step into the darkness and fall through blackness for what seems like only a moment, When your senses are restored, you find yourselves in a small room, with little indication of where you truly are.
This stone room is nearly empty, save a sourceless, orange ambient light and a small table full of empty, stoppered crystal vials with peeling, faded labels. The outline of a door can be faintly seen in the north wall, though the wall is solid and seamless. A heavy iron door to the south looms ominously; a man’s horribly mutilated body lies in a patch of dried blood on the ground before this exit.
You all feel a bit funny now.
You are now on a demiplane with the following characteristics.
Divinely Morphic:
Strongly Law-Aligned and Strongly Evil-Aligned
flowing Time
Altered Magic:
Locked Plane:
Laurel examines the body to determine if it is one of the other contestants. "This is a grizzly entrance. It looks like the door to the south got him."
It looks just like the wizard you saw start in the contest this morning. Guess he didn't fare so well.
Raphael quickly moves to check on the corpse. If it has died within 1 round he will try to cast Breath of Life on it.
He seems to have died some hours ago. That does seem a touch odd since the contest didn't start hours ago.
Also strange is that while the body is quite mangled, that appears to have occurred post mortem.
Raphael makes a quick prayer on the body, together with Mu'aqquibat The Protector.
"Might he find solace on the other side. Let's get this breaching over before more lives are wasted on it."
Laurel carefully scans the body and room for magic. He then approaches the corpse and searches it.
Anyone see any traps on the doors?" he asks as his hands rummage through the wizard pockets.
Tamm surveys the room, carefully checking for traps.
"Somebody check those vials on the table, there might be something of value or a clue there." he says over his shoulder
No traps in the room (or the door for that matter).
You don't find anything on the corpse.
"The room looks safe enough." Tamm says to the rest of the group.
"Except for the dead contestant." Darryl replies, deadpan.
Raphael needs for Sazzat to repeat his request to catch him fully (as he wasn't fully able to read his lips the first time), but moves to check the vials.
With a grimace, Lucian appears back into existence from his invisibility. He gives a look at the aasimar who banished the outsider. "Nice one. Suppose we should know what each other are capable of if we're going to be fighting alongside each other."
Lucian scowls at the back and forth between the student and headmaster. Bloody fool. Serves him right, could have gotten a lot of people killed. He's perfectly happy to let the headmaster kick the student out. The burn mark on his side throbbed in agreement. But as the others intervene he just keeps his silence. At the end of the day, he really didn't care about the fate of the girl.
When the drinking dwarf is encountered, Lucian gives a lopsided grin and happily joins him. "My kind of man. So an axe user, eh? Wasn't ever terribly fond of them myself, I like something that can cut more." He spends a bit of time talking about fighting and weapons and footing, not even asking the dwarf's name. Then he leaves with the others.
In the morning Lucian wakes early, going through a routine to keep his limps in fighting shape. Stretches, a run, a brief workout, and some time practicing with his whip swords. Once his body is covered in sweat and he is ready for the day, he cleans himself off and eats a hearty breakfast before joining the others.
Lucian leans against a wall, casually scanning the crowd and all the nobility coming in. Hmm. Might get some contacts as well. Always pays to know people who will pay for good work. He has a fleeting though to try to subtly approach the queen and mention he's for hire, but her stern-faced guards make him decide to leave it alone. Prolly better to wait anyhow. She'll take me more seriously if I beat this thing.
When Headmaster Toff Ornelos appears and speaks, Lucian pays rapt attention to him. He knows his life may depend on this information, as well as his pay. Hmm, a one day thing. Quick and dirty. He narrows his eyes at the magical "key-light". Damn. What happens when this group doesn't find enough for everybody? Things will get heated. I'm not losing.
"For now, I agree Raphael. Cautious first, we can always change tactics later. I'll scout ahead and let you guys know what's up there. Anybody else among you quiet?"
"Hmm, one key down. Not bad Sazzat." It can't all be that easy. That was child's play. But then the next one is just as easy and Lucian starts to get suspicious. Yet it all goes well and they move onto the next portion.
Lucian grimaces at the bloody scene and the odd feeling. He too, scans for traps.
As a precaution, Lucian slips his ring of invisibility on. Never hurts to be too careful. He waits for the magically inclined individuals to scan the room before doing anything.
The vials on the table are all empty, and their lead stoppers are still tightly sealed. Each has a discolored piece of parchment peeling from its side; most are completely
illegible. Those that can be read all contain a single name.
You find one with your name on the label.
"That looks ominous. I wander what kind of magic was used for this? Did anyone see any glass shards in the room or around the body?"
Perhaps I'm paranoid but I wonder if the vial had something to do with his death.
Nope, no glass shards around the body. The damage would appear to have been done by claws.
"Judging from what Ralph thinks, that means that he died trying to get through that door, and then something clawed him up." Tamm muses.
To Lucian he asks "Do all of us have a bottle, or is it just you? Might make a nice souvenir, assuming we get out of here alive."
"Maybe the stone outline is a door that will require a key we find somewhere in this place. For now, I'm thinking that we should see what's on the other side of the iron door."
If each person searches, they can find a bottle with their name on it. However, nobody is able to find a bottle with another party member's name on it.
"It's probably some sort of mind game, but I'm hanging on to this ...
He walks over to the iron door, stepping over their fallen competitor, and takes a listen.
You hear nothing from the other side of the door.
Raphael grabs his vial, stands some distance away from the others (30') and opens it, trying to catch any smell inside.
No, the eidolon is not given the attention.
The liquid inside appears to be plain water as best you can determine.
"I don't hear anything on the other side of the door .... everybody ready to take a peek?" Sazzat Tamm asks the party.
Raphael let the others know.
"Seems like ordinary water. I would recommend you all keep yours. Mu'aqquibat The Protector has no vial, so maybe only the contestants have a vial assigned. I wouldn't know what the other vials are for."
Thinking about it, Raphael grabs a couple other vials, and store them in his Bag of Holding.
"We can let Mu'aqquibat The Protector open the door, just in case."
I'll just assume you let the Eidolon open the door.
It leads into a hallway. It runs west for a good distance. There are six other doors in the hallway (besides the one you just entered through).
Map is updated.