The Assembly spent a 10-hour span doing the typical 2-hour watch shifts so that everyone could get a long rest and be ready for what might happen next. As they started on their way, they realized there was more water in the room than when they began their rest.
When looking at the map, the party realized there was a square room that had not been visited yet. As they approached the room, Burton and Shadowsilver went to scout ahead and everyone was forced to remember that Tyrone warned them that this would have consequences as everyone felt their energy wane, especially Burton and Shadowsilver. Quickly, The Assembly was re-assembled and they continued on their way.
As they approached the room depicted on the map, they were surprised to see that the map had it wrong. This was an octagonal room with a stone cylindrical pedestal directly in the center. The floor was sand as the rest of the labyrinth, but there were some old dead vines lying on the floor, all withered and not useful as rope.
They determined that the pedestal was not magically enchanted, but it was interactive. The pedestal was a weight-driven mechanism that seemed to react by spinning a random number of times, always with the same rotational speed, regardless of the amount of weight placed on it. It seemed that heavier items were prone to being thrown off and lighter items were able to stay on.
Qhortho jumped on and the pedestal fell to the floor, then rotated and threw him off, smacking him into a wall.
Through trial and error, they found that the weight needed to get the pedestal just to the floor would be about 50 pounds.
Burton then jumped on the pedestal, himself plus his gear weighing about 100 pounds, and the pedestal sank to the floor.
However, instead of being thrown off, the rest of The Assembly circled around the pedestal and kept pushing him, bopping him back into the center, and he remained on top for its entire ride.
As soon as the pedestal stopped spinning, it began to rise slowly. Simultaneously, one of the walls in the room slid into the floor revealing a dug-out alcove.
Inside was a perfect white sphere. Its finish makes it look extremely delicate, but it feels quite strong. Tholannan was able to determine that it has some connection to magic and later, found that it is hollow.
As the party approached the sphere, the pedestal continued to rise, and another slab of stone was heard; another wall of the octagon had slid into the floor revealing live vines growing from a corner.
As they continued discussing the situation, 2 more slabs of stone were heard as two more walls slid into the floor, allowing the room to appear as it did on the map, and revealing living vines behind each of the walls that slid out of view.
The vines then began entangling the party and they realized they needed to fight their way out. Qarzdaq was knocked unconscious during the battle.
As the battle drew on, the vines themselves seemed to speak with a human female voice and even shrieked as they were felled.
Following the vine ordeal, and after Tholannan revived the team, they headed back to where they took their long rest and bashed their way through an iron door, revealing a homunculus, which was dispatched with ease by way of Max’s sword.
This room had a tapestry of torture devices, shattered flasks and broken shelving on the floor. Upon further exploration, a room was found containing those actual torture devices – along with a final piece of the map! As they placed the pieces of the map together, they fused in a flash of light and all of the gaps between the pieces of map were now visible. As the explored a small hallway in the back of this room, they found a stash of gems shoved into a fissure in the wall.
As this room had no outlet, the group backtracked and followed a new path that lead them through some long hallways and ultimately, to a dead-end. This dead end was different though. An upright sarcophagus stood against the wall and, with some slam-dunk investigation, a door was found disguised as part of the wall.
The group entered into a new chamber thick with the smell of burnt fur. In the room was a wall of fire, two dragon head statues on the walls facing each other, and an exhausted, singed, yet still aggressive gnoll. On the ground read the words “Two Flames, To Release, Too Quick”.
The gnoll was captured but later dispatched and sent to R’hllor as a gift.
The party found that the dragon heads contained lock-pick-style triggers to disable the flames, but that the flames were rekindled soon after. Burton and Shadowsilver took down the flames, revealing a small weapons and armor pile against the wall. While the flames were down, Qarzdaq and Tholannan snatched the gear and brought them back to the party. Of course, this didn’t go as smoothly as all that, but in the end, the result was the same: the party had a new set of weapons and armor.
There were a few javelins and arrows that had a smooth bluish-gray finish to them. There seems to be some interaction with the water magic, but it is mostly conjecture at this point.
The group decided that in order to go to the unexplored areas of the map, they would need to backtrack even more. They proceeded cautiously, realizing with every step they took in areas where they had been, the water was deeper, though still only about ankle-deep at its deepest. And as Qarzdaq traversed the water, steam was rising all around him.
The group arrived at a stone door, and they realized that this was the stuck door from a room where they had already been. Tholannan pushed on the door and found his way back into the room containing the pool of quicksilver, this time with thigh-deep water. Once he was through, he tried pushing the door to return to the other side, but it was no use; this clearly was a one-way path.
Everyone else decided to follow Tholannan because they did not want to risk him running back through the labyrinth alone and allowing the bracelets to drain his energy… and theirs.
As they waded through the water, they notice that
Once they made their way back, the continued on and found a room with swarms of bats. The bats were killed easily enough and there was a small treasure reward of gems waiting for them.
Amongst the gems were some broken glass, a bunch of grasshoppers jumping all over the place and two scrolls:
| Help Another be Better; GUIDE Them to SucceedYield Your Gift; Oh Jumping Creatures of Small, I Shall Scribe with Thine Legs And Be Wary of the Fall |  |
Qarzdaq scooped up all the grasshoppers and put them in his component pouch, unsure of what use they would be.
Not sure what to make of these, the party continued to the next room on their path, where they discovered a room with a rope hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room. And rather than a sandy floor, this floor was tiled with large, perfect hexagonal stones. Upon gazing up the rope, they noticed it was attached to a wooden platform that hung from the ceiling about 40-50 feet up. They then noticed that the ceiling also had these same hexagonal tiles, but the ones nearest to the platform had symbols on them.
The rope hanging to the floor looked in bad shape, which was confirmed by putting some weight on it; it snapped almost immediately.
Equipped with Shadowsilver’s grappling hook and some rope, Burton used his and Shadowsilver’s pitons to scale one of the walls and throw the grappling hook onto the platform. It took good hold and provided a new way up.
Qhortho, with Tholannan’s charcoal and parchment, then climbed that rope and wrote a copy of the tiles he saw on the wall.
As this was going on, Qarzdaq and Tholannan began discussing what those newly-found scrolls could mean. Qarzdaq discovered that these do have some sort of arcane meaning, but the exact meaning was still unknown. Still, after some thought, they decided it was likely that these were magical scrolls: the first, for Guidance; the second, for Jump.
As The Assembly continued down a few more corridors, they happened upon another stone door. Shadowsilver, leading the pack, discovered and successfully disarmed a trap on this door and they pushed the door open. Qhortho pushed his way to the front and made his way into the room, with the rest of the party at his sides.
Once inside, they see a golden scaly mound. As a head rises and turns toward them, it’s clear to all that this is a young gold dragon lying on the ground, its eyes glaring. An instant later, a second head rises and turns to look directly at the group.
The beast jumps to its feet and spreads its 10ft wings, letting out a singular roar that sounds like 2 huge dragons roaring in unison.
It takes off and flies directly at the crew and as it gets close, it rebounds to the back of the room. A thick black chain is tightly wrapped around its body and attached to two substantial iron rings embedded in the floor.
Noticing it can’t quite reach the group, their eyes scan the room. The chains are covered in moss and vines as if they hadn’t been disturbed in quite some time. A circular hole is in the ceiling allowing a clear view to the open sky for the first time since entering this labyrinth.
Bones are scattered across the area closest to the dragon and blood has been spilled all over the floor. There is a door in the back of the room behind the dragon.
A faint sound of flowing water is heard in the distance and water begins trickling in from the doorway behind them … as the water enters the room, it seems to stop in its path as if hitting some sort of invisible barrier.
Through this entire session, each member of the party has earned 110 XP, bringing your new totals to 585XP each.