Gameplay

You find yourselves roused suddenly from uneasy slumber, and dragged roughly from your place of confinement, a large wooden cage that stinks of excrement and animal musk. Surrounding you are surrounded by a band of savage baboon-men, who shriek and jabber excitedly as they seize you, and begin to carry you off in an uncertain direction. It's pitch-black, but you know you're in an underground tunnel by the feeling of rough stone under your bare feet, and by the echo of the baboon-men's screeches against the tunnel walls. Being captured by baboon-men is a fate not unheard of for those who dare venture into the rocky foothills that surround the region's civilised lands, so the individual details of how exactly you ended up in captivity aren't important for the time being.

Far up ahead, you can see the white glow of daylight from around a bend in the tunnel, and as you move closer, the light becomes increasingly painful to your eyes, unaccustomed as they are to sunlight after your prolonged subterranean confinement. As you round the corner, and are exposed to full daylight, you're forced to squeeze your eyes shut, but even with your eyes closed, the cool breeze on your skin tells you that you're leaving the cave, and entering into the outside world. The baboon-men press close around you, and as your eyes gradually adjust to the light, you're able to see that you're being led up a narrow hillside track by your captors. At the top of the hill, you see what appears to be some kind of temple, made out of stone.

The temple appears to have been built without a roof, and the exterior wall is topped with columns, with large open spaces between them. After ascending the hill, you're brought into the temple through a large square archway on the east side. Once inside, the first thing you notice is that there is an open circular pit in the centre of the temple floor, about 20 feet across. Standing on the other side of the pit, you see a number of particularly fierce-looking baboon-men, wearing armour scavenged from the civilised lands, and wielding the weapons of men. These armoured baboon-men quickly surround you, and begin herding you towards the open pit at the point of their spears. Though the press of simian bodies, you see a white-furred albino baboon-man lurking towards the rear of the temple. As you watch, he starts up a barking, whooping incantation, throwing up his arms as if invoking strange gods. You don't have much time to give this matter further consideration, however, as you now find yourselves forced right to the edge of the circular pit by the baboon-men's spears.

Looking down, you see a stone shaft that drops into total darkness. The depth cannot be discerned, and the smooth sides of the shaft appear to be impossible to climb. As you teeter on the edge of the pit, we come to the first decision point of the PBP. Do you take your chances, and jump? Or are you pushed?

Alright, I'm back. Let's continue:

For all of those who jumped willingly:

There's a sickening lurch in your stomach as you leap from the edge of the pit, and plunge down into the darkness below. There's a terrifying moment of freefall which seems to last an eternity, before you find yourselves suddenly splashing down into a pool of ice-cold water.

As you instinctively struggle to the surface, you find yourself in a circular chamber with smooth stone walls, with a deep pool of water in the centre. The pool of water is about 20 feet in diameter, and the chamber itself is about 40 feet in diameter.

The room is illuminated by a dim blue glow, which appears to be coming from the east. Immediately to the east of you, there's an open archway, flanked on either side by a head-high stone pillar. At the top of each stone pillar, there's a stone bowl, in which flickers a crackling cyan-coloured fire, seemingly magical in nature. Beyond the archway, there is a short corridor, which terminates at a large silver door.

There is another open archway at the south end of the room, where the start of a flight of stone stairs are visible, leading downwards. You see an iron lever set into the wall at the top of the stairs. The lever is in the "down" position.

Finally, there is an large alcove in the wall on the western side of the room. In the alcove, there is a statue of a life-size skeleton, positioned as if lounging back lazily against the rear wall. Tucked under the skeleton's right arm is a stone amphora, the sort that would commonly be filled with wine. The open mouth of the amphora faces downwards, as if the skeleton is about to pour out some wine. The skeleton's left arm is propped casually on the partially-open lid of a stone treasure chest. The semi-open chest is visibly full of treasure.

You will have to approach closer in order to see further details.

For Thunderhead:

You rush towards the nearest baboon-man, catching him off-guard. A hard blow from you sends him sprawling senseless to the floor, but before you can strike down your next adversary, you are quickly surrounded by the screeching man-beasts, and promptly cut to pieces. You have been slain.

For Asa:

As you pause at the precipice, evaluating your chances of climbing down using your spider-climb ability, someone kicks you hard in the back, sending you tumbling headlong into the pit. Refer to the top post for details as to what you see when you hit the bottom.

For Jaws:

As you see the Goliath getting swarmed by a teeming throng of baboon-men, you come to understand that jumping into the pit presents your only hope of survival at the present time, and so you follow the others into the abyss. Refer to the top post for details as to what you see when you hit the bottom.

For everyone:

What do you want to do from here?

For those inspecting the statue:

You see that the treasure isn't part of the statue, it's real silver and gold treasure, that have evidently been placed inside the chest. You see all manner of jewellery inside. One piece of treasure stands out in particular, especially to the "Fighting-Men" in the party. Visible near the top of the piled treasure, there is an ornate dagger in a gem-encrusted sheath. The dagger's handle appears to be made of bone, or maybe the fang of a huge monster. Seemingly separate from the treasure in the stone chest, there are several silver goblets and chalices, scattered carelessly around the floor of the alcove.

There is a engraved stone plaque above the statue in the alcove, with an inscription in Common. It reads:

Before you delve, and claim your score,
With flashing spell, or gleaming sword,
First pay tribute, to the Labyrinth Lord,

Fill your cup, drink long and deep,
Woe to ye, who tries to cheat,
And damned be thieves, to eternal sleep.

Looking into the statue's upended amphora, you see that it appears to be empty. There is a sweet, alcoholic smell coming from the amphora. Any further investigation (throwing stones, looking for traps, seeing if any part of the statue or amphora can be turned or twisted, etc) turns up nothing.

For those inspecting the stairs:

You see a wide flight of stone stairs leading down into darkness. At the very bottom of the stairs, you see a heavy iron portcullis, that blocks off the passageway beyond. The bottom of the portcullis is covered with a thick layer of spiderweb, which also covers the surrounding walls. In the midst of the webbing, you see two human-sized cocoons. Somewhere in the darkness beyond, you hear a scuttling, skittering sound.

What do you want to do?

The pool we fell into.

For those by the statue:

Himo splashes water into the amphora. It runs out immediately, and nothing else happens.

Holg grabs the dagger from the treasure chest. Immediately, there's a rumbling from the stone amphora the statue carries. A moment later, a dark red liquid begins flowing from the mouth of the amphora. Alba and Raphael are able to thrust their silver goblets under the mouth of the amphora. In a moment, their cups is filled to the brim with sweet-smelling dark red liquid. Just as their cups is filled, the flow of liquid stops.

As you inspect the liquid closely, it appears to be sweet-smelling wine of some kind. There is nothing visibly out of the ordinary with the wine.

Other than the dagger that's now been picked up, there are no other potential weapons available (rocks, bones, wood, etc).

For Holg:

On closer inspection, the dagger's blade appears to be made of fine silver. This ornate dagger looks very valuable, and could be sold for a high price, should you escape this dungeon.

For everyone:

What do you want to do from here?

Alba quaffs their goblet of wine.
Himo takes a few sips of wine.
There isn't any other goblets of wine left for Raphael to drink, so I'll assume that they take Himo's wine, and drink the remainder.

Nothing happens for a minute, then Alba, Himo, and Raphael fall to the floor, writhe in agony for a moment, and subsequently lie still. On further inspection, it is clear that they are all dead.

For Keeper:

When you approach the cocoons, you see movement in the darkness beyond the portcullis. A giant spider, about the size of a large dog, emerges from the shadows, and watches you hungrily from the other side of the portcullis. You see venom dripping from the creature's dagger-like fangs.

For everyone else:

What do you want to do now?

Raphael would not have taken the goblet from Hiro.

For Osstaer:

You listen at the doors. You hear nothing, and after inspecting the door carefully, you see no sign of traps or other dangers. With this considered, I'll assume you want to open the door. Upon opening the door, you see a rectangular room on the other side, that has the look of a wizard's study or workshop. The room is illuminated by another pair of stone braziers, with cyan-coloured flames. One is in the north-west corner of the room, and the other is in the south-east corner.

On the east side of the room, you see a large wooden table, cluttered with alchemist's equipment, such as beakers, flasks, alembics, spirit lamps, a mortar and pestle, and so on.

On the north wall, you see two large wooden shelves, containing a huge array of dried herbs, seeds, salts, spices, resins, unguents, ointments, tonics, tinctures, pills, powders, potions, and other things of that nature. Between the two shelves, there is a wooden door on the north wall.

At the south end of the room, you see a plush divan with an ornate brass hookah in front of it. Behind the divan, there is a wooden door on the south wall.

The silver door you have entered from is on the west side of the room.

For Sardis:

Since you said that Raphael wanted to imbibe the goblet's contents, that's what I've put through. I won't be doing any retcons, but if you'd like to roll up two more prisoners to replace the dead characters, you may do so. If anyone else who has already lost a character would like to roll up a replacement, then they may do so as well.

For everyone:

What do you want to do from here?

For Asa:

You recognise that the shelves are full of alchemical reagents, and that it is likely that several of the bottles and jars on the shelf will likely contain magical potions of some kind. However, you have no way of figuring out what any of the potions do, unless test them somehow. You also find an athame in one of the desk drawers. This will function identically to a normal dagger.

For Jaws:

You're unfamiliar with any anti-spider remedies.

For Yvandra:

You test the lever. You think it will move, if some effort is applied.

For Alvin:

The spirit lamps aren't lit. You find a metal tinderbox and some tall candles in one of the desk drawers. You could light the spirit lamps with this if you wish.

For Greyward:

Excellent map, except the stairs and portcullis is on the south side. In my games, I leave it to the players to map their surroundings, if they wish to do so.

For Keeper:

The flickering stone bowl is fixed to the ground, and cannot be removed. You notice that there is no heat emitted from the cyan-coloured flames, it is a strange kind of magical "cold fire". You also see that there is no burning material or embers in the stone bowl itself, the fire is appearing as if from nothing.

For everyone:

From behind the southern door of this room, you hear a scratchy voice. It says:

"Is someone there? Is that you, Janar? Have you returned?"

What do you want to do from here, players?

For Sylvana:

The name "Janar" doesn't ring any bells.

For everyone:

The voice replies to your questions by saying "please, let me out, I've been stuck in here for ages!"

I'll assume that you'll want to open the door at some point, so I'll give you a description of the room beyond. I'll assume that you're acting with a high degree of caution, on alert for any trick or ambush.

Opening the door reveals a mid-size rectangular room. The east wall is occupied entirely by a huge floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, full of ancient-looking tomes. There is a small ladder on the south side of the bookshelf.

Built into the west wall is what appears to be a large ornate fireplace. The fireplace is not lit. In front of the fireplace, there is a comfortable-looking armchair, and a rectangular wooden table. At the centre of the wooden table, there is a transparent crystal orb, mounted on a small golden stand. There is a skeleton sitting in the armchair, wearing dusty blue robes. The skeleton appears to be inert and unmoving.

There's an iron chest pushed up against the south wall of the room. Near the chest, in the south-west corner of the room, there is a chest-high stone pedestal, with a large golden cage sitting on top of it. The cage resembles a particularly sturdy-looking birdcage. The cage currently contains a small imp-like creature, roughly humanoid in shape, but bearing the wings of a bat, the tail of a scorpion, and the warty green-black skin of a toad.

The imp hisses "get me out of here! I've been trapped since the old bastard dropped dead!"

What do you want to do?

For Holg:

The imp replies that if you let him out, you can have any of the wizard's treasures. He's not sure what will happen if you touch it, he claims that he's "not a wizard, so how should I know".

For Jaws:

You shake the skeleton out of the chair. It falls to the ground, as you might expect. As you pick through the bones, you note that most of them are too dry and brittle to be much use, but the femurs could serve as a pair of daggers, if properly sharpened and worked. I'll assume that you want to get started on this process. As you search, you also uncover a keyring with three keys on it, and a pouch of fragrant dried herbs.

For Osstaer:

Looking through this room and the previous room, you see what was described previously. Inspecting the potion shelf more closely, a few of the bottles, jars and small items catch your eye. You see the following:

- A glass jar full of purple-blue spores, and what looks like cut-off pieces of some kind of fungus.
- A glass jar full of orange-red powder, mixed with some bits of what looks like insect shell of the same colour.
- A glass jar full of dark liquid, with wisps of thick black smoke coiling around inside the sealed jar.
- A glass jar full of some kind of preserving fluid, with a few fat maggot-like creatures floating around in the liquid.
- A glass marble, with wispy white smoke inside. .
- A small, stubby candle, made of purplish-black wax.
- A jar of greasy white ointment.
- A large preserved birds wing, with golden feathers.

What do you want to do, players?

For Jaws:

You begin work on the bones.

For Hiro:

I forgot to mention this in the previous post, but when you put the goblet down under the amphora, and took the coins out of the stone treasure chest, the statue gave another rumble, and more red wine began pouring out of the amphora. It overflowed the goblet you placed down, and splashed onto the floor in front of the statue. The goblet is sitting there, full of red wine.

For Asha:

The magician's bag is just full of dried fragrant herbs. As for keyholes, you see a one on the golden cage containing the imp, and one on the iron chest at the south end of the room. Both of these containers appear to be locked, and have a matching key on the keyring.

For Alvin:

You take the tinderbox and candles, and light two of the spirit lamps, putting one near Keeper. The new room doesn't seem to have any traps that you've noticed.

For Yvandra:

You listen at the northern door. You hear no sound on the other side, and there is no sign of traps. With this considered, I'll assume you want to open the door, revealing the room beyond.

For Keeper:

After searching, you find no hidden doors, just those previously described.

For Hiro:

You'd have to carry the cage in both hands, holding it close to your chest for leverage. It has a ring handle on top, but with the imp inside, it'd be too heavy to carry in this way.

For everyone:

The northern door is opened. Inside, is a rectangular room. There's a blacksmith's work station built near the far north wall. A variety of blacksmith's tools (hammers, tongs, chisels, etc.) hang on the north wall, and built into the north wall itself, there is a small furnace with a connected chimney. In front of the furnace, there is a wooden anvil stand, with a well-worn anvil sitting on top.

On the eastern wall of the room, there is a dusty weapon rack, covered with cobwebs. The weapon rack contains mundane-looking melee weapons (spears, maces, axes, swords, daggers, etc). You don't see any ranged weapons. There is another weapon rack on the north wall of the room, to the left of the forge. It looks much the same as the first one. There's an iron quenching trough towards the south-east quadrant of the room. The quenching trough is full of stagnant water.

There's a full suit of plate armour in the south-west corner of the room. It is standing in place, likely mounted on a stand of some kind. The armour is dusty and covered in cobwebs, like it hasn't been moved or worked on in years. There's a closed wooden door on the west wall of the room.

What do you want to do?

For Yvandra:

You move to inspect the dusty plate armour. As you approach, your attention is caught by a sudden metallic rattling sound from the north wall. Glancing in that direction, you see a heavy blacksmith's hammer suddenly lift from its hanging-place on the wall, and then launch itself across the room, aiming right at your head! You are barely able to duck out of the way in time, and you hear the hammer crash loudly into the wall behind you. As you watch, the remaining tools on the wall also begin to rise up, as if lifted by an invisible hand.

For Davril:

By the time the metallic rattling starts, you've moved into the northern room, over by one of the weapon's racks. As the hammer flies towards Yvandra, the heavy wooden shelf that you're standing in front of jolts unexpectedly, and tips over towards you. You try to leap out of the way, but you are unsuccessful. There's an enormous crash as the shelf smashes into the ground, crushing you underneath it.

For Hiro:

As you're looking for armour, a pair of heavy iron tongs are hurled in your direction. They score a glancing blow across the side of your head, gashing your scalp. You feel dazed and dizzy, but keep your feet.

For Keeper:

As you're searching the quenching trough, a thrown blacksmith hammer hits you square in the back, sending you sprawling over the trough. The trough overturns, sending stagnant water spilling everywhere. There is nothing else in the trough, which is not on its side. You have been knocked over, and are now lying next to the trough.

For Holg and Alvin:

As soon as the imp is released, it hops down onto the floor, and stretches its wings. Suddenly, it makes a desperate dash towards the heavy silver door, which swings open seemingly on its own as the imp scurries across the floor towards it. The imp doesn't give you an answer to either of your questions.

For Asa:

Asa moves over the chest. After a thorough inspection, no traps are detected. After unlocking the chest, you move to the side and carefully open it. It appears the chest is not trapped. Inside the chest is a spare set of blue robes, a pointed wizard's hat (also blue), a leather satchel, a large leather-bound book, and a thin length of polished dark wood, which appears to be a magic wand of some kind.

For Osstaer:

You take the the glass jar full of orange-red powder, the smoky glass marble, and the preserved birds wing. None of these things seem to restore your druidic powers, but you get the sense that each of the items are somehow magical.

What do you want to do from here, players?

For Keeper:

As you make your way over to the west door, a hand-axe comes spinning across the room towards you! You twist aside, and the axe misses you, thudding heavily into the wooden door you were heading towards. Reaching the door, you wrench it open, revealing a small room containing a waist-high stone pedestal, with a life-size statue of a beautiful woman standing on it. The woman is sculpted to look like she's crying. There is a skeleton on the ground in front of the statue, which appears to be a Dwarf skeleton. The skeleton is holding a chisel. There doesn't appear to be any doors or passageways in this room, other than the one you've just opened. There is a stone workbench over on the south side of the room, covered in masonry tools. There are some small glass bottles on the table, full of murky liquid.

The rest of this room is covered by odd-looking stone rubble. You see stone limbs in the rubble, stone heads, sculpted pieces of masonry that look like cloth, and so on. It is as if there were originally a bunch of statues in this room, that have been smashed up into featureless wrecks.

For Davril:

The searing pain in your chest assures you're not dead, at least not yet. However, you're caught underneath the heavy cabinet, and are pinned to the ground. As you try to struggle out, you see the anvil lift up from the anvil stand, and begin to slowly make its way towards you from across the room.

For Hiro:

You take cover behind the rack. Objects continue to fly around the room in all directions. You see a chisel deflect off of the trough, and clatter off into the far corner.

For Holg:

The loot in the room is as follows:

- A glass jar full of purple-blue spores, and what looks like cut-off pieces of some kind of fungus.
- A glass jar full of dark liquid, with wisps of thick black smoke coiling around inside the sealed jar.
- A glass jar full of some kind of preserving fluid, with a few fat maggot-like creatures floating around in the liquid.
- A small, stubby candle, made of purplish-black wax.
- A jar of greasy white ointment.

For Yvandra:

As you reach for the armour's helmet, it suddenly lurches to life with the creak and squeal of metal. Before you can react, the armour bats your reaching hands away, and then lunges forward, its own metal hands seeking your throat! The armour is successful in this endeavor, and as you feel the armour's gauntlets fastening tightly around your neck, you realise that it's going to try to choke the life from you!

For Asa:

You are able to dress in the wizard's clothing. There's nothing in the chest other than what's been described. Looking into the room beyond, you see the pandemonium that has previously been described. All the shelves have been knocked over, and there's weapons and equipment scattered everywhere. As you watch, a heavy wooden chest is lifted, and then is thrown into the ceiling! As the chest falls to the ground, the lid breaks open, scattering the contents everywhere. You see torches, rope, iron spikes, and other adventuring mainstays spill out of the chest, and add to the mess on the floor.

What do you want to do from here, players?

For Yvandra:

You are unable to escape the armour's grasp. It continues to mercilessly crush the life from you. You feel that if you don't escape in the next round, you will be slain.

For Alvin:

You follow the imp, slipping through the open silver door. You see the imp ahead of you, perched on the edge of the pool of water that you fell into previously. You see the imp flexing its wings, it looks like it's preparing to take off, and fly away up the pit shaft. The imp isn't looking your way, so you think you could sneak up and grab it if you're fast. However, you note that the imp has a menacing-looking scorpion tail, which may give you second thoughts about attempting to take hold of this creature.

For everyone:

I'll put in another update early tomorrow morning, make sure you've put your actions in, so I can put them through.

What do you want to do?

For Osstaer and Davril:

You rush over to Davril, and are able to lift the shelf just enough to allow his escape. Your assistance comes not a moment too soon, for in the same instant that Davril scrambles out from under the fallen shelf, the anvil raises itself up into the air, and smashes down hard against the ground, right where his head had been a moment before. If you hadn't lifted the shelf, Davril's skull would have been pulverised. Both Osstaer and Davril are now back on their feet, and are able to move. Davril appears to be quite injured.

For Hiro and Holg:

You exchange the silver dagger. Hiro is now carrying it.

For Keeper:

You charge into the animated armour with all your might! As you collide with the armour, is is knocked off-balance, and Yvandra is able to use the momentary opening to tear herself free from its grasp. Yvandra falls away from the armour, gasping and fighting to regain her balance, dark purple bruises visible on her throat. As you continue to strike at the armour, you land a hard kick to the knee joint, and the armour falls, clattering to the ground noisily.

For Asa:

Just as Keeper knocks the armour down, you are able to to rush over, and seize the armour's gauntlet. With a twist, and all the effort you can muster, you are able to detach the gauntlet. Stumbling back as the gauntlet detaches and comes free, you see that there is nothing inside the gauntlet, and seemingly nothing inside the armour either. There is only a dark void inside the armour. As you watch, the armour begins to right itself, and rise back into a standing position. It appears undamaged, except for the missing gauntlet.

For Jaws:

You haven't made much progress on the bone daggers, it's only been about ten minutes in-game since you started working on them.

For Yvandra:

Your head is swimming, but is gradually returning to normal. You will be able to act normally next round.

For Alvin:

You sneak up behind the imp, and just as he goes to take up, you lunge forward and take hold of him! You're able to grab his stinger-tipped tail with one hand, while pulling him into your chest with the other arm, pinning his wings. He fights like a wild animal, biting, clawing, spitting, twisting, turning, whatever you can imagine. However, you are able to keep a grip on him, for the moment.

For everyone:

As you fight with the animated armour, you hear the sound of scraping stone. Looking into the western room, you see that the statue on the pedestal has turned its head to look at you. As you watch, you see the statue slowly step down off the pedestal, and stiffly begin making its way towards you.

What do you want to do next?

For Keeper:

You move closer to the statue. In response to your query, it merely raises a hand, and makes a beckoning motion towards you, even as it slowly advances towards you. As you try to puzzle out what that means, something hits you hard in the back, causing you to stumble forward. Looking down, you see eight inches of a shortsword's blade protruding from the centre of your chest, as a dark patch of blood rapidly spreads across the front of your ragged prisoner's tunic. As you look back up, you note that the walking statue has come within an arm's length of you now, and as it closes in, it reaches out a stony hand and catches you by your upper arm. As the statue's fingers sink into your arm with bone-crushing force, its other hand swings up and around, smashing you on the top of the head with the force of a battering ram. As you might imagine, this is more than enough to kill you instantly. Your companions watch as the statue casts your limp body to the side, what's left of your head reduced to a ragged red ruin. The statue marches onwards, approaching the open doorway where the rest of your companions are.

For Sylana:

You try to summon up your Eldritch Blast, but no spell materialises. Very unusual.

For Osstaer:

You throw the glass marble at the feet of the oncoming statue. Immediately, a gravelly voice emanates from the broken marble, as the white wispy smoke contained inside dissipates into the surrounding air. It's hard to tell exactly what the voice is saying, since there's so much clattering and banging and stone scraping going on, but you catch some phrases about "another failed experiment" and "needs more newtseye next time" and "will have to double-distill the next batch" and so on. Seems like an audio recording of some unknown type of experiment, but hard to tell for sure.

For Davril:

You try to drink the orange-red powder, but you immediately start coughing violently before you can get any down. It tastes strongly metallic. You're reduced to coughing and spitting for the remainder of the round.

For Korrin:

You move to the west door, and slam it closed.

For Holg, Hiro, and Yvandra:

The three of you quickly begin barricading the door with whatever you can find. The trough and the anvil stand are pushed against the door, but just as they are shoved into place, the door explodes outwards with incredible force. All three of you are pushed back as the walking statue strides mechanically through the opening, covered in Keeper's blood. It seems that your barricade was no match for the statue's unnatural strength.

For Asha:

While the commotion with the statue has been occurring on the other end of the room, you have been getting "walked down" by the suit of armour. It momentarily paused to pick an axe of the floor, and now it's coming towards you, weapon poised. You are still holding the armour's separated hand. You feel your back foot hit the wall behind you, and just as you realise you're cornered, the armour lurches forward, jerkily swinging its axe. You are able to scurry to the side, but you receive a glancing blow to the upper arm as you do so. As you stumble away, the armour turns to follow. You're hurt and bleeding freely, and you don't think you'd be able to survive another blow.

For Alvin:

The imp fights you every step of the way as you drag it back towards the blacksmith's room. In response to your query, it spits out "you'd need to cast either Dispel Magic or something similar to stop everything from animating, but you'd need a Bless spell to quieten the poltergeist for good".

For everyone:

You've got an animated statue, and a set of animated armour loose in the room with you just now. Both of these creatures seem intent on killing all of you. What do you want to do from here?

For Asa:

As you back away, the suit of armour follows relentlessly, cornering you in the narrow confines of the room. As you crouch down to snatch up a spear, the armour lumbers forward with a creak of metal, and brings its axe down on the back of your head as you start to rise. You fall to the ground, dead. The suit of armour pauses over your body, and retrieves its separated hand, taking a moment to lock it back into place before continuing its advance towards the rest of the party.

For Alvin:

The imp replies "I don't know why you can't cast spells, I'm just a summoned familiar. The wizard could cast spells just fine, maybe it's a problem on your end? Anyway, there's enough magic potions and items lying around in the study anyway, so you should be able to figure it out.

For everyone:

The statue and the suit of armour follow you steadily as you retreat from the room. You are all now in the previous room, the wizard's study. It seems like they will continue to pursue. If you want to remain out of their reach, you will have to give ground and retreat further.

So, what's it going to be from here players?

Davril and Osstaer see the monsters aren't following them. In desperation, they both go back to the potions and each choose a potion at complete random and each drink one, knowing it is this or death anyways.

For Davril:

You open the jar full of purple-blue spores. As soon as you inhale the first of the spores, you immediately begin shrinking. Everything around you seems to tower over you now, you are about 6 inches tall.

For Osstaer:

You open the jar full of dark liquid, and immediately the room is filled with thick grey smoke, that comes billowing out of the jar. Everyone's vision is completely obscured, as the torrent of grey smoke continues to emanate from the jar.

For Alvin:

The imp flies away when you release them, disappearing up the shaft you fell into to enter the dungeon. As it leaves, it says "you should run away while you still can", and points to the iron portcullis. You light the small purple candle. The flame is violet in colour, but nothing else seems to happen.

For Yvandra:

You pull a few books off the shelf, but nothing seems to happen.

For Holg:

You try to barricade the door, but it is quickly splintered open by the stone statue's incredible strength. As the statue strides through the shattered aperture, it "locks on" to Holg, turning in his direction and moving towards him with murderous intent. The statue swings a stony fist through the air, there's a sickening crunch, and down goes Holg with a shattered skull. The statue turns to Hiro, the next target. The animated armour follows close behind.

For Jaws:

You continue to work on your bone daggers, while listening in on the commotion. It's only been about 20 minutes since you started working on them, so they're not done yet.

Alright everyone, what do you want to do?

Will update tomorrow, got caught up with work tonight.

Was going to update today, got caught up with various bits and pieces. Should be able to get it out tomorrow evening, I finish work a bit earlier, so I’ll have time to sit down and write.

Alright, we're back in business. Now, where were we?

For Osstaer:

Peering through the thick smoke, you see the huddled form of Davril on the ground. To your eyes, he is normal-size, his physical form is unchanged, he is simply lying immobile on the ground. You surmise that he may be under the effects of some mind-altering magic, where he believes himself to be in a different state than what he is in the physical world. As you step closer to intervene, the statue appears out of the smoky haze like a rising titan, right next to Davril. As you watch, the statue lifts its foot high, and stomps on the unmoving Davril's head, splattering his brains across the floor. The blood-soaked statue turns to face you. You've lost sight of the animated armour in the billowing smoke.

For everyone else:

It seems like you're all moving away from the hostile constructs, backing out of the smoke-filled room and returning to the entrance chamber, where you see everything is as you left it. Alvin moves to the lever, and pushes it to the "up" position. With a grinding sound, the heavy portcullis begins to creak open. You can now make your way down the stairs, and enter into the dungeon proper. In regards to any of the distraction tactics employed against the statue as you make your escape, you note that they seem to be of little effect.

For Jaws:

You hear the sound of battle continuing in the other room, but you are focused on your weapon-crafting. You hear the sound of the portcullis grinding open. It's up to you whether you go with the others, or continue your crafting here. You haven't yet finished your first dagger, that will take one hour, and you've been working on it for just over 20 minutes now.

For those who've lost their characters:

If you've had your characters get killed, feel free to roll up a new batch, and we can have them join the party before you push down the stairs into the dungeon proper.

What do you want to do from here, players?

For everyone:

You run down the stairs, passing under the portcullis. Beyond the portcullis, a long corridor leads away to the south. As you follow it, the sounds of fighting recede into the distance behind you. You're not sure exactly who made it out in your chaotic flight, you'll need to take a moment to conduct a "head-count" when you get a chance.

As you continue south, you eventually come to a T-junction, with one pass leading north, and the other leading south. As you stand in the middle of the junction and listen, you hear the sound of crashing water coming from the south, as if there's a waterfall in that direction. From the north, you hear the sound of a roaring, crackling fire.

What do you want to do?

It looks like some of you are wanting to travel towards the sound of the fire, so I'll give you that info. You travel north down a stone corridor. Eventually, you see an orange glow from up ahead, as the sound of the fire gets louder. You come to an open archway, and looking into the room beyond, you see an an enormous column of flickering, twisting orange flame. It is quite entrancing to look at, and it illuminates much of the room. Behind the flame column, you see a set of stone double doors on the back wall of the room.

Looking at the floor of the room, you see it is covered with arcane glyphs and sigils, which seem to all be inlaid into the floor itself, with the grooves filled with silver. Where the silver lines come together in interconnected junctions, coin-sized rubies have been embedded into the floor, they're not just sitting on top of the stonework, they're set into the floor itself. There's a bowl-like depression in the centre of the floor, amidst the sigils, and the column of orange flame is emerging from that divot. There's no burning wood, coals, or other fuel source visible in the divot, so you expect the fire is magical in some way. You reckon you could get the rubies out, but it'd take time to chisel them out.

What do you want to do, everyone?

From what you can see, the stone doors don't have any obvious lock. There's enough space to walk around the perimeter of the room without touching the sigils, so you could get to the door if you wanted to. In regards to the sigils themselves, they all look different, with some repeating patterns. You haven't seen these exact sort of sigils before, but the magically-learned among you might be able to recognise that this is some kind of magic barrier spell. You don't see any tripwires, pressure plates, or any obvious mechanisms.

What do you want to do?

For Yvandra:

You rush around the perimeter of the room, and shoulder open the stone door on the far side. Nothing happens in the fire room, the fire doesn't appear to move or react in any way. In regards to what you see beyond the stone doors, you find yourself in a rectangular room, where the walls, ceiling, and floor are made of smooth white marble tiles.

There is a bas-relief on the north wall of the room, which depicts lines of Elven hoplites engaged in warfare with horde of pig-faced Orc barbarians. There is a ornate marble sarcophagus in the center of the room. There is an open archway to the north, and another one to the south. From this angle, you can't see anything further.

For Skywise:

If you tried to walk across the floor while sticking to one set of sigils, you'd narrowly pass within the bounds of the large circle, closer to the column of flame. It would be possible though.

For Alvin:

You head back the way you came. The sound of falling water continues to get louder, until you eventually come to an open archway. The open archway leads into what appears to be a large open chamber, with cold water cascading from the ceiling, like an enormous indoor shower. There are iron grates in the floor near the door, where the water is draining into.

Squinting through the falling water, you can see some sort of white stone pedestal or altar, at the centre of the room. You see that there is a large rectangular glass box sitting on the pedestal. Inside the sealed glass box, there is a two-handed sword, the blade of which appears to be made of silvery-white metal. The sword otherwise appears to be unornamented, but looks like a high-quality fighting implement. There doesn't seem to be a mechanism to open the glass box, it's properly sealed shut, but the entire box can be picked up, it's not fixed to the pedestal.

Looking down, you see that there are iron drainage grates all around the perimeter of the room, but seemingly no other entrances and exits. As you turn back towards the pedestal, he suddenly catches a strong smell of ammonia in the air, and you catches a quick glimpse of a greyish, slimy-looking, roughly man-sized humanoid figure crouched down underneath the iron grates, looking up at you with inhuman yellow eyes that catch the light. Before he can react, the weird creature moves backwards, and disappears from view. It's impossible to see down into the space beneath the iron grates with your current level of light, and the water pouring down makes it even harder to make anything out, it's like staring down into your shower drain.

What do you want to do?

As soon as Skywise and Morgan tread within the bounds of the circle, two huge tendrils of flame suddenly erupt from the central column of fire, and incinerate both of them on the spot. From within the column of fire, cruel laughter can be heard.

What do you want to do next, players?

That was quick hahahaha