Two of my players in Slumbering Tsar have been removed from the world by a piece of non-magical stone artwork touched by Orcus. The book says they can only be rescued by wish or miracle, but I think a well-designed rescue mission is far more interesting than that. I've got some ideas on how I want this to go, but I'm stumped for specifics.
Background: The party is 11th level. The two captured members are a human wizard and goblin alchemist. The party rescuing them will consist of a human bard, human cleric, and dwarf samurai (and possibly one other character, not sure yet).
The basic idea I have is for the two captured members are going to be in a 20' spherical room made of some incredibly hard stone. There's a permanent anti-magic field within the stone, and the characters are essentially trapped in limbo - they do not need to eat, drink, or sleep. If they do sleep, they are plagued by nightmares that prevent any sort of healing. They have their gear, but nothing else. There is no light. Due to intense sensory-deprivation, they will have to make a Will save every day or take 1d6 Wisdom damage. Basically, until the rest of the party intervenes, they're stuck permanently.
The rescuers will need to attack the piece of artwork, which will act in some ways as an animated object. Once they destroy it, they too are sucked into the room, with no save. At the same time, a 3' long, 1" wide crack appears in the perfect sphere walls. This is the key for the players to escape, but they must act quickly, because the power of Orcus's touch will cause the crack to mend itself after X amount of time (not sure how long - very much dependent on what kind of solutions there are to get out).
So, the whole party is together again, but in the spherical room with a mending crack that cannot be squeezed through. I know one of the first things the samurai will try is to bash the walls in with his adamantine flail - this is a boring solution, so I don't think it should work. I want them to have to think about things. My problem is that I'm not coming up with much in the way of good solutions to the problem.
I think one thing that might work is to pour holy water on the crack. Each flask could widen it by a foot or so - pushing back the power of Orcus. That's only one solution, though, and I want multiple possibilities to escape.
The main requirement is that I don't want the solutions to be a puzzle - this room was designed to never be escaped, so an elaborate puzzle to find an escape doesn't make sense. Rather, it's a flaw in the design of the trap itself that is allowing the possibility for escape.
Anybody have any ideas?
Hmm...one thing that might be a good idea is to allow the crack to also "damage" the antimagic field, so anybody who wants to use magic could make a caster level check to see if it works. This room is not meant to be the end of the rescue attempt, but merely the beginning, so I don't want it to be frustrating. I just want the players to have to think creatively.
The room is definitely in a demiplane that is similar to the Abyss. Once they escape the room, they'll have to navigate a short dungeon of some sort, fighting hybrids of demons, undead, and constructs, before getting out. The entire dungeon will have a permanent dimensional lock on it. Once they're free of the dungeon, they can easily plane shift away, rescue complete.