DnD 5e Interlude: White Plume Mountain 9

Character Recap:
Jhuni Blackfire (she/her) - enthusiastically pyromaniacal Sorcerer/Wizard
Thelmor Irdro (he/him) - Blood Hunter of the Lycan persuasion
Nil (they/them) - badass Cleric
Snow (she/her) - Swashbuckler and Gloomstalker Ranger
Sunrise (she/her) - Lore Bard - and Honey (she/her) her homunculus familiar
Perfect (he/him) - Battlemaster fighter
Grey (he/him) - Assassin/Illusionist

Nil has claimed Whelm temporarily; we've taken a long rest; and the next step is to return to Sir Bluto. We've kind of lost track of how long we've been in this dungeon, but we're feeling a bit better. Whelm tugs at Nil's mind: "I see secret!"

Nil: "What's a secret?"

Whelm: "There's a secret in here!"

They play a bit of Hot or Cold, moving away from the door; apparently there's a secret door in here. Once she's been pointed the right way, Nil has no trouble finding the door: there's a slight outline in the stone, and something like handles towards the bottom. Grey tries to listen at the door, but it's very thick stone; there doesn't seem to be anything making noise behind it.

We run a rope through the handles and let Thelmor give it a tug. Perfect leans in to help, but his hand slips and he gets rope burn and yanks his hands back off. Thelmor pulls again, and the door swings open.

We're running entirely on darkvision, so we can see pretty easily. The room beyond is small, a kind of closet; there's writing in several languages on the stone is "Door Operation Lever" and there is, of course, a lever beside it. It's obviously very old.

Whelm doesn't find any secret doors. Also, Whelm thinks the lever could look better; it's got scratches.

Thelmor investigates it; the scratches seem to be in a particular area, mainly on the handle. Probably iron gloves or rings; it would be consistent with the heavy armor the dwarf was wearing, but they're in different places and probably came from a lot of different people. There's no good way to tell how recently it was last used.

Jhuni and Grey coordinate mage hands, and pull it down from a safe distance. Something whirs loudly behind the lever; a lot of little movements, rather than one heavy movement. After a moment the noise stops.

Nothing seems to have changed in this room, so we head back through the geyser room. We had west, now armed with all three weapons. The disks have moved aside; now a shimmering rainbow bridge connects the two platforms. Nil checks it with their staff, but the bridge is absolutely solid. Jhuni starts across. There's a sort of crunch when she steps, and every time her foot comes down little ripples of light flare through the bridge. The footing is firm, and even the eruption of a geyser doesn't touch her.

Nil follows. Perfect steps onto the bridge and holds out a hand to Nil; they cross the bridge together.

Thelmor, to Wave: "You see this shit? Look at this. You see this, right? Can you sing a song that goes along with this?"

Wave starts singing to Thelmor. It's mind to mind, so none of the rest of us can hear it. It's something the Nordic tempest clerics would sing. Thelmor attempts to sing along, and Wave adds feedback; he's surprisingly good at it. The bard and the cleric both recognize the song; they've heard it before, though it's more familiar to Nil.

We cross the bridge, while Nil considers the possibilities of visitation rights for sentient magical artifacts. We make our way back, avoiding the pits and whatnot, and find our way back to the canoe room. Sunrise uses the Message cantrip again to contact Sir Bluto. He's surprised: "You're the tiefling, are you not?"

Sunrise: "How many people do you have whispering sweet nothing into your ear down here?"

Bluto: "Not enough."

Sunrise: "We're coming through."

We climb into the canoes and go through again, they help us out on the far side. Sunrise: "Let me guess, you didn't think we were coming back."

Bluto: "No."

Nil: "Look! Look what we found!"

Bluto regards the three artifacts. "...You have all three."

Nil: "That was the plan."

Bluto: "I didn't think you would do it. But very well, my word is my oath." He still looks surprised.

Nine, by the way, is still with us; we stopped by the ziggurat room and send Nine down a tier or two so Sunrise could put her stormcloud in the middle of the room. Sunrise gave him a firm command to tell us if this hurt him; then she zapped him with lightning. He shivered a little. "FEEL BETTER! DO AGAIN!"

He jolted, and calls for more. We spent the next ten minutes throwing a lightning party for the flesh golem.

Nil noted that all the glass in the room was gone. So were the corpses. The room was empty and clean, except for a couple of puddles at the bottom. "Huh," observered Sunrise. "Housekeeping."

The door on the lowest tier is open; as we watched, a small clockwork beasty came scuttling out. Nine saw it, yelped, and climbed back up to us. "No-no."

It found a chunk of Nine that had fallen off, and disentigrated it. It started trying to scuttle up the wall.

Sunrise: "Lightning!" She blasted it, and it exploded. We left.

Now, Sir Bluto regards the flesh golem and looks nervous. So do his men. Us: "We made a friend!"

Bluto: "What do you mean by 'made'?"

Thelmor: "Found. Found a friend."

They settle, since the thing clearly isn't hostile.

Sunrise: "You said to get the weapons, so we got the weapons."

Bluto: "Usually people die trying to do that."

Sunrise: "That didn't seem like a good idea, so we didn't."

Bluto: "Well, I can take you where you need to go. I can't go past a certain point, and you'll have to defeat some bugbears. If I'm seen where I'm not allowed, I might perish."

Sunrise: "Like, Keraptis would try to kill you? Or like, you'd just magically die."

Bluto: "I might just die; there's a spell, and if I cross its boundaries it damages me."

Sunrise: "Could you do something to lure Keraptis out?"

Grey, Thelmor, and Nil consider this. It's a geas, and the only way we know to remove it would be Greater Restoration or Remove Curse, or Wish. Nil has remove curse, but Bluto suggests we save our spells; he believes we're stronger than him by a substantial margin. We decide to come back and clean up here *after* we've defeated Keraptis.

Still, he can point the way and he can tell us what to expect. He guides us past the doors, where Whelm whispers about all the secret doors as we pass through them. We ask him about any other prisoners; he isn't aware of any. He says most of Keraptis' servitors are goblinoids of some order. Nil asks about the people beyond the spinning tunnel; Burkett and Snarla, it turns out, are known to Bluto and his men. Apparently they drop by to visit sometimes, when Snarla's been cooking. Their situation is complicated, but he thinks they're fairly content working here. Also: don't let Snarla bite you.

One of the men: "I got bit by her, and now I'm a werewolf."

Thelmor: "Well, that's okay then. And if we get you out of here, I can take you back to my order and they can teach you how to control it."

He's totally game for this.

We return to the middle passage of the initial split, and to the point where the water control wheel was. Whelm identifies a secret down in the pit, where Bluto is currently climbing. He seems to grab something that isn't there and pulls it open; there's a an invisible trap door with ladder leading down beneath it.

We go down. Bluto and his men follow. The cave here is dark, but lit by glowing crystals of varying sizes that sprout from the floors and ceiling. This seems like the same general look and feel as the cavern from our vision of the ancient battle. The lighting isn't bright here, but it's no longer dark. Jhuni looks around for loose chunks of crystal, and finds a football-sized crystal that she can slide out of its growth. She puts it in her pack.

Bluto and co extinguish their torches, falling back on the light from the crystals, and we all head down.

As we go forward, we begin to see stonework instead of rough cavern. There's a brick arch, which marks the edge of the area that Bluto can safely travel. We take our leave of him. Bluto: "Be careful. I know that you are facing something terrible. Give it an extra smack for me."

Sunrise: "Bugbears?"

Bluto: "Usually at this arch, but I don't see them. This isn't my usual time, so perhaps they're asleep, or changing shifts, or somesuch."

Nil drops an Arcane Eye. There are more arches ahead as the passage descends. It emerges into a larger chamber, where the crystal clutters are gone and masonry walls have covered the rough stone. There's some sort of weird rainbow light coming through one wall. The room opens into a hallway with a high ceiling, all done in delicate stonework. Not quite high enough for Call Lightning, though. The pillars are carved with dragons wrapping around them. There are three doors on either side, and a passage continuing on ahead. Each of the doors has two suits of armor next to it. There are candelabras shaped vaguely like people in the center of the room. The faint line of light encircles the room here as well, and the doors appear to be swollen shut; none of them have keyholes. Each seems to be carved in its own dragon pattern.

The floor slopes down, and the masonry seems even more ornate; the crystals seem to be growing out of the lines of light taking over the cave again. The hallway starts to widen into a huge chamber (this one definitely high enough for Call Lightning). There seems to be a very ornate statue of a dragon's skeleton, positioned in mid-roar and clutching at the ground around it. There are indentions in the statue which might fit the three weapons. The material is gray, probably stone, but polished. There don't seem to be any exits from the cavern; but the cavern itself is familiar. This is the very like the cave where the three weapons came together to seal away Keraptis' evil power.

We transfer Whelm over to Sunrise, and stop to rest again. Once we're back up to full strength, we continue on and come into the hallway.

It really does look like someone has built these rooms to conceal the fact that they're inside a cavern. The candles really are disturbingly human-shaped, and there are about thirty of them. That doesn't really seem to match the number of former adventurers, despite Grey's rather creepy opinion of them. The suits of armor beside each door are small; halfling-sized, maybe.

Magic is strong here; it's all through the stone of this place. Everything here was built to assist with magic and magic-users; it feels like a magic school, or some similar setting. The residue is so strong that it's hard to tell if the armor is enchanted or not. There's more than one school of magic worked through here; but conjuration is the strongest. Aside from Grey muttering about his findings, it's quiet here.

Jhuni floats one of the candles over to Nil, who looks it over more closely. Thelmor comes over to help them. She uses a knife to shave off a bit; and it seems to be wax all the way through; the candle wick doesn't go down the middle, but follows a line down the back. The fingers and thumbs are distinct. Racking our brains, we come up with the fact that these are some sort of magical artifact which is activated by being lit. Jhuni has them associated with some sort of explodery. Sunrise remembers finally: they're living wicks, which can be brought to life by their enchanted wicks. As they burn down, they lose some of their human appearance. They're generally used to short-term servitors, household servitors, and the like. They're obedient to whoever lights the candle, so they can sold, bartered, or like that. If the master demands it, they can consume their entire wick at once to create an explosion.

Grey lights one, and it relaxes into mobility. He pulls it down from the candelabra. "Walk in a circle around me." It does. "See if you can get into one of those suits of armor." It goes and starts disassembling the armor.

Nil asks the candle if it's capable of speech. It turns out that it can speak telepathically to Grey, but that's it. Its memory extends to the moment it was lit; nothing earlier. How long might it live? "I feel like I could last for a fortnight?"

It is filling the room with candlelight, not bright; but just an ordinary candle. Nil and Sunrise each light a candle of their own. We start sending them over to disassemble the rest of the suits of armor. Grey's puts the pieces laid out in a little row; Nil's just dumps them in piles, and Sunrise's just lets the pieces fall where they may. Sunrise claims a candle to study later, then moves around and starts listening at doors. She hears something behind the southeastern door, the northeast door, and the southwest door. There's something moving behind the southwest door, a slow tapping on the stone. The northeast door might have voices. The southeast there's a faint whirring, and perhaps the sound of paper rustling.

We open the northeast door; the voices are now less muffled, but they aren't close. There seem to be two feminine voices speaking common; they don't sound like they're plotting, they sound like they're reminiscing about home. They sound like captives, not bugbears. Snow sneaks ahead, following the hall; that horizontal light is still here, but as long as she stays clear of it she's fine. There's a room with small stone cells on the far side, closed in by steel bars. Three of the rooms are occupied:
-A very tall orc, leaning against the wall; he looks sad.
-An empty cell
-A woman, dark of skin and hair, dressed in simple clothing. She's pacing and talking, and looks antsy.
-An older woman, short and stout, built like a dwarf; she's lying on her bed, fingers laced behind her head. She's trying to sooth the other woman.

None of them have weapons or armor; they don't even have boots. Snow moves in and inspects the locks on the doors; they're about what you'd expect from a prison cell, heavy and thick. Snow reports back, and we decide to get them out. We ask Perfect about them; do they sound familiar?

Perfect: "There are so many... the Orc sounds familiar. The human could be anyone. But yes, they could be captured adventurers. The older dwarf woman definitely rings a bell."

We proceed into the jail room.

Nil: "Do not be afraid..."

The dark-skinned woman in the middle: "Oh my gosh. Get us out. I'd love it you could get us out."

Nil talks while Grey launches into Detect Magic.

The human woman is Gussalen. She's been here... "Too long." She takes a deep breath, trying to calm down. "A day or two? More?" She gives us a date, and it was about five days before we arrived. A bit over a wekk, then.

The orc is Tulgan. He's been here maybe a fortnight. Got separated from his party; doesn't know where they are. Then the bugbears captured him and put him the cell. He saw a knight, but no wizards. "The canoes, right? Told everyone not to go on those things."

Sunrise: "See, this is why you scout ahead."

Tulgan seems pretty chill.

The dwarf woman has a chain around her neck, with a small hammer sigil on it. She it Turi, a paladin of Thor. She's been here the longest; she's not sure how long it's been. Months, she thinks. Have they seen anyone else? "The people who leave these cells don't come back."

Grey finishes his Detect Magic, but pretty much nothing in the room is magic. The stone itself is still swimming with magic.

Snow and Grey fall to, and Turi and Gussalen emerge. Turi is calm and dignified as she thanks Grey; Gussalen throws herself into her rescuer's arms. Grey moves on and releases Tulgan.

Sunrise asks if Tulgan has any hard feelings about Sir Bluto. He doesn't. Gossalen is stroking Snow's fur in a self-calming sort of way. Snow, unsurprisingly, permits the beautiful woman to stroke her.

Nil: "So... we're about to face off with the wizard who runs this place. Would you like to help? Or just get out of here."

Tulgan: "Gonna go return to my career as a sailor."

Nil: "Be sure to check back with your employers."

Turi: "I'd like to find my stuff; I can watch over the others as they go out the door."

Sunrise: "If you don't want to fight, it might be better for you to stay with Sir Bluto and his friends."

Gussalen: "Our armor has to be pretty close."

Sunrise: "I could maybe locate it, if you can tell me what you're seeking."

Turi had a very distinctive greatsword with a bronze inlay and the symbol of Thor on the hilt. Once Sunrise has a really good idea of what she's looking for, she casts Locate Object; it's off to the west.

The prisoners decide to stay here while we go get their equipment. Tulgan has a sailing pin, basically a club; Snow hands Gossalen a pair of daggers; Grey hands another pair to Turi. Sunrise leaves Honey, her familiar, with Tulgan; Tulgan is very sweet to her. Thelmor offers his greataxe to Turi; she takes it and lays it over one shoulder, and smiles.

We head over to retrieve the armor.

The hall is still empty; we check the door, then pull it open as quietly as we can. Snow moves ahead again, sneaking. There's a large room at the end of the hall, occupying at least as much space as the jail and the cells within. It's piled with captured equipment: a pile of leather armor, a pile of wooden weapons, a pile of metal armor, a pile of swords, and like that. Along the walls, there seems to a lot of clockwork scraps: tiny gears, little levers, and the like. Just before she leaves, Snow sees one of the piles move. It stayed still when she went to investigate it. Snow goes back to report.

Nil suggests giving each of the prisoners a candle, and letting them use the candles to retrieve their stuff. Snow heads back to stand at the door, prepared to retreat immediately if anything moves. Sunrise sends the message, and we equip the prisoners with candles. As the candles approach the room, Snow watches the piles of stuff. Their light makes her briefly visible, but Jhuni is positioned to guard her back.

As the candles work, one of the piles moves. From ten feet away, a mechanical crab-claw shoots out and slams into her by surprise. Snow immediately books it back out of the room. The claw takes the opportunity to attack again as she flees, but it misses. Something like a mechanical hand comes out of another pile as well, but she's gone. Jhuni, who was ready for something like this, responds with a firebolt. There appear to be large constructs hiding in the piles of scrap.

We stop there.