Session 22 — 28 June 2026
The group suddenly finds itself halfway down a staircase, stopped by brackish water. The water is crystal clear, but the cavern around it is pitch black.
Ruben looks around in amazement. “Would it be interesting to fly up and see if there's anything written at the ceiling?” But Daiki is already on his way upward. “Up, up, up!”
Daiki searches the ceiling and finds nothing remarkable. There is only the support for the entryway, with the spiral staircase descending around the sides of the cavern.
“I see nothing. There is nothing,” Daiki says.
Kroak looks down into the water. “Yeah, you can take a look. It's really clear water, right? It's crystal clear.”
Lana points out the obvious problem. “But it's also pitch black, right?”
The darkness makes it impossible to see far into the water. Ruben suggests sending Daiki's lights down, while Kroak jokes that they are not particularly eager to dive into a potentially inhabited underwater cavern.
Ruben inspects the surroundings while Kroak prepares to dive and Daiki uses his lights to illuminate the area. Ruben wonders whether there might be evidence of lightning in the room. He reasons that if the acid in the earlier well has left remnants behind, perhaps the salty water here has some connection to lightning as well. He considers whether the water might have been affected by it.
His inspection reveals no indication of lightning. There are signs of algae along the parts of the cavern that are no longer covered by water, suggesting that the water may once have been higher. Despite being slightly salty, the water is remarkably clear. Whatever process brought the water here seems to have filtered out much of what would normally be present in seawater while retaining a small amount of its saltiness.
Daiki turns to Kroak. “Do you want me to join you, or are you able to go down by yourself? Or don't you want to go in the salty water?”
Kroak realizes that the main problem is simply the darkness. Daiki offers to send down some light.
“Yeah, yeah. If you could send it down, just because you know it's very clear, so we can see really far.”
“Okay, I can do that.”
Daiki decides to make the descent a little more interesting. Since they are now in a salty underwater environment, he creates four squids. They swim through the water, glowing with shifting, camouflaging strokes of light. Four luminous squids circle through the cavern, illuminating the depths as Daiki directs them.
Kroak considers how to descend. They first want to determine how far the cavern continues and whether there is a bottom or merely an endless shaft.
Daiki sends the squids farther and farther down. After roughly ninety feet, the lights reveal plants growing along the sides. Most of them are almost perfectly still, though some wave ever so slightly, with a few seeming to react to the light. The squids continue downward until their glow reaches the bottom.
At the very bottom of the cavern, about ninety feet below the staircase, there is a floor. On the right side of the cavern stands a door. Kroak relays this to the party when they come up again.
Kroak looks toward it. “Do I check it out? You know, last time I went by myself in a room and didn't go super well.”
Ruben encourages them. “Well, this is a well, right? So it can only go well. And the last time in water it went well. So I think everything directs that it goes well.”
“Well, I guess there's only one way to find out.”
Lana cannot follow Kroak directly because Kroak is the only one who can breathe underwater indefinitely. Daiki explains that he cannot breathe underwater either, but he can swim down, return to the surface when necessary, breathe, and descend again.
Kroak decides to leave their belongings with Lana before going down. They hand over their backpack and the bag of holding, warning Lana that it contains all kinds of special ingredients and that she needs to be careful with them.
Then Kroak steps off the staircase and sinks directly into the middle of the well.
Before descending, they ask about the plants. They want to know how the plants react to the light and whether they appear hostile. The plants are not attacking the lights. They only move slightly.
Kroak confirms the plan. There is a staircase around the outside of the well, but they simply step off the edge in the middle and sink toward the bottom.
Daiki has another idea. He takes a waterskin, empties the water from it, fills it with air, and considers using it as a makeshift air sack.
“I have no idea. I've never done that.”
The improvised air sack provides some buoyancy and makes Daiki's descent more difficult, but it also gives him a little extra breathing room. Kroak descends quickly, while Daiki follows more slowly, fighting against the buoyancy of the air-filled waterskin.
As they descend, both notice that the water gradually becomes warmer. The deeper they go, the more noticeable the warmth becomes.
Eventually Kroak reaches the bottom. They immediately begin looking for blackwater moss, keeping an eye out for the special ingredients they have encountered before. They soon realize that they are unlikely to find it here. Kroak looks around anyway. There are some plants and some growth, but not much. More noticeably, the bottom of the cavern is littered with broken, rotten pieces of wood. They appear to be remnants of furniture that once stood here.
There is also a very large wooden door, directly ahead as Kroak descends.
It is a massive wooden door, though it has survived remarkably well despite being exposed to time and brackish water.
Kroak decides to push it from the side, hoping that if it opens, they will not immediately be sucked through the doorway.
The door resists.
By now Daiki has descended close to Kroak. His air sack hangs awkwardly around his back, constantly pulling him upward while he fights against it to stay underwater.
Kroak sends Daiki a message.
“The door is closed and I can't seem to get it pushed open.”
Daiki replies, “No, the way is shut.”
They gesture toward Daiki and suggest that they push together.
The two work against the door. Kroak presses themselves against the wall, using one hand to keep from being pulled away by the water. Unfortunately, that position leaves them with almost no leverage.
Daiki, on the other hand, throws himself into the effort. He uses his tail and wings to push through the water and force himself against the door. He feels the door give slightly. It almost opens, but then something pushes it shut again.
Daiki takes another breath from his air sack, which makes things somewhat easier.
They try again.
Daiki creates a minor illusion without verbal components, waving to communicate his idea. Kroak gives him a thumbs-up and prepares to try again, this time with more leverage.
The door moves slightly.
Kroak immediately feels what is happening. As soon as the door opens even a little, a current begins to flow through the gap. The moment they release their force, the door slams shut again. There is clearly water pressure or movement coming from the hallway beyond.
Kroak grabs the wall and climbs back toward the surface.
Daiki searches upward as well, using the remaining air in his waterskin. From above, the others see him moving through the water like a little dolphin.
When Kroak reaches the others, they explain the situation.
“Yeah. So the door—there's a door. You can push it open for a little bit, but then it gets pushed back. I think there's, you know, like water flow behind it that pushes it closed again, or maybe we're just not strong enough.”
Ruben asks whether Daiki can squeeze through when the door opens.
Daiki cannot remember whether there is enough space. He was too busy pushing the first time.
The gap is extremely narrow. They can open the door only a centimeter or two before the water pressure forces it shut again. If they could open it far enough for Daiki to pass through, it would likely give way further, but they cannot reach that point through brute force alone.
Kroak considers the condition of the door. It looks old and fragile, but it is still remarkably sturdy. Time and brackish water have eaten away at it, but it remains capable of resisting them.
Kroak decides to use a crowbar.
They rummage through their belongings and produce one.
“But have you seen where it leads, that door? Will it just drain the whole thing?” Lana asks.
Kroak points out that the other side of the door is at least somewhere they can potentially reach. If the water drains, it may actually make things easier for them.
Lana considers her options. The cavern is ninety feet deep, and she has a potion of flying. She could use it to get down instead of swimming.
Kroak reminds her that there are stairs.
“I have no dark vision. How do you expect me to see that?” Lana asks dryly.
Kroak points out that Daiki's lights can illuminate the way.
Daiki focuses on the actual problem. “I think the problem is that the water current is pushing the doors closed. So we need to reverse the water current. Don't you think so?”
“Yes, that's a smart idea,” Lana agrees.
“Maybe. How do you do that?”
Daiki thinks aloud. “I don't know. Maybe we can create a whirlpool in this water, like swimming around very, very, very, very, very hard, and then the water will push the door open. I don't know.”
Kroak proposes a simpler solution. They can pry the door open with the crowbar and then wedge something into the gap so the water can drain.
“Okay.”
“Is that not good enough?”
Ruben and Lana agree that they should try it first and think of something else if necessary.
Kroak asks what they can use to wedge the door open.
“Your crowbar,” Ruben suggests.
Kroak points out that the crowbar is useful for prying the door open, but someone has to hold it there. Lana mentions an iron tool she has, but worries it could break.
Kroak reassures her. They rummage through their magical tools again and somehow produce iron spikes.
“All right, all right, all right. Don't worry about it. I'll—”
They prepare to pry the door open and put the iron spikes between the door and its frame.
Ruben realizes that the situation may simply come down to physics. If they can pry the door open far enough, perhaps the pressure will take over and open it the rest of the way.
He decides to calculate exactly how far they need to open it. He gets some paper, places it on top of his spellbook, takes out a pen, and starts considering the size of the door, the surface area, and the forces acting from either side.
Sszethik contributes to the discussion. The two of them have studied together, and Ruben finds that Sszethik's input helps him work through the problem.
The conclusion becomes clear: if the door can be opened to roughly twenty degrees, enough water will flow through to make the door give way. The water level does not appear to be rising, which suggests that there is another drainage route connected to this area. The pressure is not increasing; it is simply holding the door shut. Opening it far enough will allow the water to take over.
Ruben happily shares the conclusion and gives Sszethik a high five.
“First twenty degrees. Let's take this—this much. I can do that,” Kroak says.
Lana considers joining them. She has been hesitant to dive down because she cannot breathe underwater indefinitely, but seeing Daiki make the descent gives her more confidence.
“Kroak, do you need more strength? I was hesitant to dive down because I don't share the same lack of breath you need like you do, but seeing Daiki go, maybe I should dive too and help.”
Kroak admits that the crowbar will help, but additional assistance would still be useful.
“All right. Yeah. If you don't mind getting wet, I think this is for your—”
“No, if you could dry me up maybe, Daiki, after then it would be nice,” Lana replies.
Daiki offers a practical solution. His glowing squids can guide Lana down.
“You will have some squids guiding you, so you can go and swim and just follow the squids.”
Lana prepares to descend. She leaves their belongings behind as well because they do not want them getting wet.
Ruben, thinking ahead, asks Lana about her chainmail.
“Lana, I just wanted to make sure. Does your chainmail—can it survive the salty water, or do you want to take it off? Or do you need it to get down? I just want you to make sure that it doesn't rust afterwards.”
Lana appreciates the concern.
“That is very considerate, Ruben. Thank you.”
Daiki proposes an even simpler solution: put everything in the bag of holding before they descend so nobody has to make another trip.
Kroak wonders whether the bag of holding will keep everything dry underwater.
“I know, but does it get wet? I've never used it underwater.”
Lana and Kroak descend toward the door. Once they reach it, they work together to pry it open. Lana puts her strength into the effort while Kroak helps.
The door finally gives.
Beyond it is a hallway filled with murky water.
A distinct boundary separates the clear water of the cavern from the murky water of the hallway. As Lana and Kroak move through the doorway, they can feel a current pushing against them. Yet the murky water remains contained within the hallway instead of mixing into the clear water behind them.
“Great,” Kroak says dryly.
They look upward toward the blue drift globe and try to make it move forward.
The globe does not respond.
Kroak realizes that they cannot simply will it toward them.
“You can command it to emanate light,” Lana points out.
The globe can respond to commands concerning its light and its movement through its normal floating behavior, but it cannot simply be willed through the water toward Kroak.
Kroak stares at it.
“Oh, I see. I see. Yeah. It's like a fucking useless, useless thing.”
They make an obscene gesture toward the globe and continue into the hallway.
The hallway reaches a T-junction.
One direction leads left, into a long hallway whose end cannot be seen. The other goes around a corner.
Kroak peeks around the corner.
There is another room, with stairs leading upward.
Daiki calls after them, making sure that Kroak and Lana are not simply wandering off without the others. Kroak explains that they are only checking the two hallways.
Lana follows.
They are still underwater, and Lana becomes increasingly concerned about how long the water will continue. She needs to know that she will eventually have access to air.
Kroak and Lana discuss the room with the stairs. The drift globe provides some additional light, and the squids continue to help illuminate the way.
Lana decides that she does not want to continue blindly down the long hallways. Instead, she and Kroak head toward the room with the stairs.
Kroak asks whether Lana wants to investigate it.
Lana agrees to check it out.
“If we don't see surface in that room, I will go back.”
The stairs continue upward through the water.
Kroak keeps going until, after roughly ninety feet, the water finally breaks. They can lift their head out of the water and see more stairs continuing upward. About thirty feet higher there appears to be a plateau, perhaps the end of the tower, with an area that can be walked through.
Lana follows Kroak out of the water.
“Kroak, can you go get the others and my stuff, please?”
“Yeah. It will get wet, but that's okay, right?”
Lana reminds them that they can put everything in the Bag of Holding.
“True. I'll try that. I'll go back.”
Kroak looks around before leaving Lana behind. The area seems quiet and does not appear immediately suspicious.
Kroak decides to investigate a little farther along the hallway before returning. They move until the next crossing.
There, they find a door on the left. To the right is another hallway that simply continues onward, disappearing beyond what they can see.
Kroak confirms that it is not another staircase. The hallway simply continues.
Meanwhile, Ruben, Daiki, and Sszethik remain near the stairs. Ruben considers how long he can hold his breath and prepares for the descent.
Daiki, meanwhile, has another idea for Sszethik.
He flies over and uses his magic to warm Sszethik's clothing. Since he can warm a small amount of nonliving material for an hour, he decides to use the ability to make Sszethik more comfortable in the cold water.
The first target is Sszethik's underwear.
Daiki focuses on warming him by rubbing his hands over his scales, while the others comment on the absurdity of the situation.
“Don't get them too hot, though,” Lana warns. “Just like you don't—don't wear boxers all the time, you know. Seed goes bad. Don't make them warm too much.”
Daiki continues warming the clothing.
When Kroak returns, they find Daiki making gestures while Sszethik has some of his clothing exposed so Daiki can reach it with his magic.
Kroak looks at the scene.
“Should I come back later?”
Daiki insists that sharing is caring.
Sszethik appreciates the warmth.
“It is much warmer,” Sszethik says. “It will help a bunch.”
Daiki realizes that he can maintain several instantaneous effects at once. Instead of warming only one piece of clothing, he decides to warm three pieces for Sszethik.
He warms Sszethik's shirt as well and considers a third piece of clothing.
“Do you want your pants as well? So I didn't have to do the speedos.”
Sszethik agrees.
Ruben:
“Oh, Daiki, this would have been extremely comfortable in our trip to Lana's home, to be honest. I don't know why I didn't think about that.”
Lana tries to get them to focus.
“Guys, guys. Use yourself, please.”
Ruben determines that he can remain underwater for roughly three minutes. Sszethik expects to manage about two minutes.
Kroak offers to bring Sszethik down with them.
“I can just bring Sszethik. He can hold on to me and I'll just use the wall to go fast.”
Before they descend, Kroak puts all their belongings and Lana's belongings into the Bag of Holding.
Ruben decides to go last. He prepares himself by flying up and diving in heads forward toward the center of the well.
The group begins the descent.
Daiki's squids announce their arrival as they emerge.
Once everyone is out of the water, Daiki stops warming Sszethik's clothing.
Everyone gets out and dries off.
Kroak checks their armor, remembering Ruben's warning about rust and damage from the salty water. They inspect it carefully, but there is no visible degradation. The armor has not suffered any immediate damage.
Ruben looks toward the way ahead and wonders aloud whether they are going to walk upward or discover whatever lies beyond the corridor.
“Are we walking up or are we discovering that corridor?”
Kroak considers the question. Lana is quick to point out the obvious goal: they want to get out, and going up seems like the best solution.
“Up it is,” Kroak decides.
Ruben, however, is curious. Rather than immediately heading upward, he suggests swimming toward one of the doors to see whether there is any magic behind it. If there is, they might want to investigate further; if there is not, they can simply return and go up.
“Sure. You need me to break down the door?” Lana asks.
Only if there is magic, Ruben explains. He will come back otherwise.
“Into the unknown,” Kroak says.
Ruben reaches one of the doors and checks for magic.
“Oh, there’s the magic in thirty feet of me.”
There is no magic around the door.
“Well then we go back.”
Kroak examines the door before they leave. It is similar to the door in the other room, but this one has a keyhole and is locked. Lana remembers that she still has the rusty iron key they found earlier.
“I have still an iron key. Is this also comically large for this door, or can I try it?”
The key is, once again, comically large for the door.
Kroak points out that they may already have found the door that key belongs to—the first locked door they encountered. Lana knows that is probably true, but she still does not want to admit it.
They conclude that they will probably need to pick the lock instead. Ruben, having found no magic, turns back and swims toward the others. Daiki helps him out of the water.
“Thank you, Daiki.”
The group crawls along the wall again and begins making their way upward. Eventually they reach the plateau above.
Kroak suggests that Lana put her chain vest back on.
At the next door, Lana
finds no obvious trap, although part of the side of the door is obscured, making it impossible to tell whether it is locked. Rather than spend more time on it, Lana tries the handle.
The slightest pressure is enough. The door is not locked at all and swings open easily.
“Okay, great.”
Daiki is delighted.
“Yay. So where are we going now?”
Beyond the doorway is a bedroom. In the middle stands an elaborate bed with four posts, looking luxurious and imposing. In front of it are several cushioned seats covered in red velvet. On the opposite side of the room, beside the wall they have just entered through, hangs a large oil painting.
The painting is almost entirely black.
Two glowing red eyes stare out from the darkness.
A rug lies in the middle of the floor.
“The red eyes were also from the poem, right?” Ruben asks.
Daiki studies the painting more carefully, comparing the eyes in the painting with the eyes Ruben once made for Sszethik’s mother.
The painting is much darker and more depressing, with large red eyes staring out of an almost completely black background, although the style is similar.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that looks okay.”
Ruben turns his attention toward the room and detects magic. The rug is magical.
Kroak immediately wonders whether it might be a flying carpet.
“Well, what type of magic does the spell give off?”
The magic has an abjuration quality.
Daiki asks what abjuration means again, and Ruben explains that it is associated with things such as shields and protective magic.
That makes the rug even more suspicious.
“What kind of magical artifact could it be?”
“I don’t know. I think we have to be careful.”
“Of course we need to be careful,” Lana agrees.
Daiki suggests that they simply avoid stepping on the carpet. They can fly over it or walk around it. Meanwhile, he wants to inspect the painting.
He moves from side to side, watching the red eyes.
Daiki pokes one of the painted eyes.
It does not blink.
“Thank you.”
Lana begins wondering whether the magic might actually be underneath the carpet rather than in the carpet itself.
Kroak agrees that it could be the floor or something else beneath it.
Lana suggests using something that is not physically one of them to move it. Ruben could use a mage hand to tug at the carpet.
Ruben agrees.
He pulls the carpet aside.
Beneath it is a glowing arrangement of circles, crosses, runes, and other markings. The magic is clearly active, and the entire thing radiates abjuration magic.
Lana looks pleased.
“Cool.”
Ruben acknowledges that Lana was right.
“There was indeed something underneath.”
Lana points out that she was the one who suggested it, but immediately adds that it does not really matter who was right. What matters is whether someone can read the markings, because she cannot interpret them.
Kroak examines the magical design.
The markings form a glyph, and Kroak recognizes it as most likely a glyph of warding. It is some kind of protective measure, apparently left behind by an extremely paranoid mage. The paranoia seems almost written into the markings themselves.
Kroak cannot determine exactly what the glyph will do, yet is seems likt a mousetrap.
Touch it, and it triggers.
Kroak understands.
“I see.”
It can be very harmful.
“Yeah, wonderful. So yeah. This is like a warding. It’s easy to disarm if you know how to cast a dispel magic.”
Daiki cannot cast the spell.
“Well, I can’t do that, but perhaps I can work a different way.”
He explains that he has a special ability through his Spellfire Spark. He can absorb magic. Normally, when he is hit by a spell or magical effect, he can reduce the damage he takes. He wonders whether he could use that ability against the glyph.
“Maybe I can try that to absorb the magic.”
Lana immediately questions the idea.
“But Daiki, are you very sure? And if you absorb it, how does it work? Don’t you need to let it out at some point?”
Daiki admits that he does not entirely know.
“I don’t know. I can just absorb magic and make it less hurtful.”
He reasons that if the glyph is going to trigger anyway, he might be able to absorb some of its power. They do not have another obvious way to dispel it, and he wants to know what it does.
Kroak suggests another possibility. With magical runes and circles, sometimes it is possible to scratch away an important part of the design and disrupt the magic. The problem is that it is tricky, and sometimes the glyph goes off.
“So maybe you can do it, and if it goes off, he can absorb the magic.”
Ruben is not entirely convinced.
“I don’t follow the rationale of Daiki, to be honest, but since it’s a curiosity that you need satisfied, I think you should proceed.”
Lana is still wary.
“Let’s then take cover or something, because if this shit goes haywire, then we have a problem. I’m not sure why you would want to absorb this magic. I don’t understand why we would make the glyph go off. We don’t know what it will bring us, so aren’t we getting ourselves into more trouble than we need?”
Daiki is simply curious.
“I’m just curious. I want to try things.”
“It seems to be a very obvious clue or something in this room. I mean, why else would it be here? Someone did it because someone… perhaps…”
Maybe it is the work of whoever created the Endless Maze. Maybe that person was paranoid and frightened of something, and this glyph is the only way out.
Kroak offers a safer alternative.
“I mean, we could just all hide, and we could throw something on it and see.”
Lana decides that is good enough.
“Okay, okay, sure, sure, sure.”
She moves farther away and gives Daiki more space, glancing toward Ruben with an expression that clearly says she has no idea what they are doing.
Daiki prepares to absorb the magic.
He reiterates that there is no other obvious way to dispel the glyph, and that his Spellfire Spark gives him at least a chance of surviving whatever happens.
Everyone makes sure they are out of the immediate danger zone.
Daiki does not approach cautiously.
“I don’t think I do it carefully. I think I’m just—everyone is safe, yeah?”
He jumps onto the glyph.
The instant his feet touch the ground, Daiki disappears.
“Fuck.”
Lana immediately looks at Kroak, Ruben, and Sszethik.
“This doesn’t sound too healthy. Maybe it’s just a blink spell and it will come back after one minute.” Ruben says.
Lana considers another possibility.
“What if it is the way out?”
Ruben agrees that it is possible.
They look toward the painting. The red eyes do not appear to change.
Ruben wonders whether there might be something behind the painting.
He moves toward it and asks Lana to help him move it away from the wall.
“Can you maybe help me to move the painting from the wall?”
“Yes, of course I can.”
Lana helps.
“Why are we doing this? You want to see what’s behind it?”
“Well, yeah. To get more information.”
Kroak realizes that the glyph appears to have transported Daiki somewhere on the same plane, although they cannot determine exactly where.
Meanwhile, Lana and Ruben remove the painting.
As soon as they pull it away from the wall, they discover a thread attached to it.
The painting swings forward.
Jets of flame shoot out from both sides.
Lana swears.
“Fuck… Oh my god. First time I didn’t check for traps and now this happens.”
The fire scorches her badly, filling the room with the smell of burnt hair. Ruben is also burned, although not nearly as badly.
Ruben is immediately apologetic.
“Well, it definitely was something, right? I’m so sorry.”
Behind the painting is exactly what they had hoped to find: a safe.
Nothing else is hidden there.
“Oh my God. We don’t have time to open it.”
They rush toward it.
Daiki has landed underwater.
The water around him is murky, and he finds himself surrounded by iron bars. He is inside a cage with only a few feet of space around him.
He looks down.
Bones lie at the bottom of the cage.
They appear to be the remains of humanoids.
Daiki thinks quickly.
He gathers the bones and tries to use them to create enough space between the bars for him to escape. The bars are heavily rusted from being underwater for so long, but they do not immediately budge.
Then he notices the lock.
There is a door built into the cage, complete with a lock, but no key is visible.
Daiki realizes how little time he has.
“Yeah, great. Let me see.”
He considers using magic, but realizes that one of the spells he might normally rely on requires a verbal component.
Instead, panic takes over.
He sees the rusted lock and decides to attack it with his claws.
He strikes the lock.
The rusted mechanism gives slightly.
Daiki hits it again.
The lock is close to breaking.
He makes one final effort.
The lock finally gives way with a loud crash.
He has spent precious time getting out, and his breath is running short.
As he looks around, he realizes that he is in a larger chamber. A familiar statue stands in front of him.
Baphomet.
Daiki approaches a wooden door to the right and examines the surroundings. The door looks brittle but locked, with a visible keyway.
He quickly searches the room for a key.
There is none.
Daiki can feel the carbon dioxide building up inside him.
He is running out of time.
He decides that subtlety is no longer an option.
Daiki swims away from the door, gathers as much momentum as he can, and uses his tail to slam into it.
The door immediately gives way.
The wood is so badly rotted that it disintegrates under the impact.
Daiki stares at the remains.
“Crap.”
He regrets spending time looking for a key.
Beyond the doorway is the hallway he recognizes. It is the same area where the others have been, on the other side of the door where Kroak has previously been.
Daiki knows the way back.
He starts swimming.
Underwater, his movement is limited, and he knows he does not have much time left. He pushes himself as far as he can toward the others.
Then he remembers the air sack.
He has used the water sack before, filling it with air so that it can pull him upward.
Daiki gets rid of as much carbon dioxide as he can, fills the sack with air, and allows it to pull him toward the surface as it expands and displaces the surrounding water.
As he feels himself beginning to black out, he finally breaks through the surface.
Back in the bedroom, Lana, Ruben, Kroak, and Sszethik hear a loud splash from beyond the door.
Then they hear frantic movement.
Daiki emerges from the water, floating on the air sack.
Lana has been standing near the safe. Her hair is scorched and damaged from the flames. Some of it is still smoking.
She looks toward the water.
“What the fuck happened?”
Then she runs toward Daiki.
“Oh my God, Daiki, are you okay?”
She grabs him and helps pull him out of the water.
Daiki is not unconscious, but he is exhausted and
eventually manages to speak.
“Oh, it was all a dream. Oh, Lana, you’ve got a bad hair day today.”
Lana stares at him.
Daiki looks around.
“What? Where are we?”
Lana looks at him.
“What happened to you, Daiki?”
Daiki seems genuinely confused.
“Are we back in our dorm? Why are we so wet?”
Then he explains that he has had a horrible dream.
“I had this horrible dream. Like we were stuck in this temple with—I don’t know. In my dream Sszethik and Ruben were dating, you know, and I don’t know, there were weird things, and we got locked in this temple.”
Through the mind link, Lana tells him the truth.
“It is all true.”
Daiki realizes they are still in the temple.
“Oh, are we still in this temple?”
“Yes.”
Lana reminds him that Ruben stopped them from immediately following him.
Daiki looks at Lana's scorched hair.
“But what did happen to you? Why are you so thin? Shit.”
He quickly realizes that the comment is not helping.
“Let me clean that up a little bit.”
Lana thanks him.
With her hair and head still dripping from the water, Lana helps get Daiki properly out of the water.
Daiki recovers enough to move under his own power again.
“I can fly again, I think.”
He takes to the air and goes to find the others.
Ruben hears the commotion and peeks out.
“Oh, great to hear you’re okay.”
Then he turns back toward the safe and resumes trying to open it with a crowbar.
Lana follows him and helps with the safe.
Daiki immediately warns them.
“Well, don’t step on the glyph.”
Kroak turns toward him.
“Why did you go? Where did you go?”
Daiki explains.
“Well, what happens is you get back in the water and then you get locked up in a cell with no way out. I had to hold my breath for—I was about to pass out—and then I got breathing again.”
“It was not funny.”
There were a lot of dead people at the bottom of the cage, he tells them, and another statue.
Kroak asks whether Daiki saw any people who might still be alive.
Daiki says he looked around for keys, but everything had withered away. He did not find anything useful.
“I was focused on getting out and not dying.”
Then, with the casual optimism that has somehow survived the entire ordeal, he suggests they should perhaps put Kroak in the circle next time so they can breathe endlessly.
“You should be our next test subject.”
Kroak points out that this would only work if they were sent into water.
Daiki concedes the point.
“Yeah, that’s true. Anyway, what did you figure out?”
Kroak jokes that perhaps next time Daiki will be sent to the Fey Realm instead.
Daiki embraces the idea.
“Maybe I can go to the Fey Realm next time.”
Then he asks again what happened while he was gone.
“You got fire?”
Kroak looks at Lana.
“Lana tried a new haircut.”
Lana laughs.
She explains what happened.
“There were jets of fire behind it, so Ruben and I got scorched.”
She points toward the safe.
“But Ruben has a safe, so let’s see what’s in there.”
Kroak jokes that it would be funny if the safe also had a little thread behind it and they got scorched again.
Daiki offers to help.
He claims he is actually quite good at lockpicking and could perhaps try to cut the safe open.
“I don’t have teeth, but I am very good with sleight of hand.”
He carefully works his nail around the keyway.
It does not work.
Kroak watches him.
“Are you—is it working, or should I try with my Thief’s Tools?”
Daiki agrees that Kroak can try.
Lana starts laughing.
Kroak has Thief’s Tools and is known for being able to pick locks, yet Daiki has just been attempting to open a secure safe with his nail.
Kroak takes out the tools and begins working on the lock.
The safe is extremely secure. Kroak tries the usual techniques, manipulating the mechanism and attempting to maintain tension, but the lock is old and stubborn.
It does not open.
Kroak suddenly has another idea.
“I know exactly how to get the safe open.”
They retrieve one of the acidic substances they have from their potion-making supplies.
They carefully angle it and begin dripping it into the mechanism, taking care not to damage whatever might be inside.
The acid begins eating through the metal.
A pungent smell fills the air while
the mechanism slowly starts to weaken.
Lana is still visibly burned from the trap. Her hair is scorched, her skin is burned, and she is badly hurt.
Kroak uses one of the iron spikes they created earlier. They place it into the weakened mechanism and hammer it into the edge, using it as a wedge.
Finally, the safe gives way.
It swings open.
The contents inside are unharmed.
“Nice.”
Inside is a greater healing potion, a small pouch, and a spell scroll.
Kroak takes the healing potion, while passing the spell scroll to Ruben for investigation.
Before he can examine it, he asks Lana whether she can heal him as
he still feels the effects of the fire.
Lana has her own injuries as well, but she agrees to help him.
Daiki offers to help too, although he warns that doing so may leave him without much energy.
Kroak, however, has already begun healing Lana because she looks particularly bad.
Lana protests that Ruben is also injured.
“It’s fine. Just heal Ruben.”
Kroak points out that they healed Lana because she looked terrible.
Lana
turns toward Ruben.
“I still got some energy left, but I also do have my other source of energy to pull from.”
She looks at him.
“With your consent, I will place my hand on your chest. Is that okay?”
Ruben agrees.
“Yeah, thank you. It would be appreciated.”
Lana places a hand on his chest.
Her eyes light up, and a goldish-white radiant energy flows through her arms and into him.
The wounds on him begin to improve. Some scratches and bruises from the black tentacles remain visible, but he is clearly feeling better.
He thanks Lana, particularly for asking permission before healing him.
Ruben then turns his attention to the spell scroll.
After examining it, he identifies it as a spell scroll of Fly.
Sszethik has never flown before and finds the idea intriguing.
“I’ve never flown. That sssounds interesting.”
Ruben likes the idea as well.
Then Kroak remembers the pouch.
They open it.
Inside are gems.
Quite a few of them.
Lana gasps.
The contents are worth roughly 120 gold pieces in assorted gems.
Among the gems is something particularly familiar: an exact replica of the pearl-like object they found earlier and used for the ritual.
Kroak notices it.
“There seems to be an exact copy of that image as well.”
Ruben thinks it would be useful to add it to the group's inventory, as promised earlier.
Kroak agrees and puts it into the party inventory.
There are also documents in the safe.
Kroak turns toward them and
wonders whether these might be the missing material from the letter they found earlier—the attachments that were supposed to accompany it.
They pick up the documents.
Kroak sets to work investigating the mysterious letters and various nodes, with Ruben helping them. Together, they discover that part of what they are examining is a broken book, which explains why there are so many separate pieces and notes. The book is called The Demon Rises, or at least that is what they can make out from what remains of the title. It is extremely worn, with much of the writing having disappeared.
Still, the book is interesting enough that Kroak thinks it is worth reading more thoroughly at some point. Among the remaining symbols are references to rituals and to the way various spellcasters once worked together to unleash a much greater amount of magic onto this plane. Their purpose appears to have been to keep something bound, or anchored, to the Material Plane for much longer than it ordinarily would have remained.
Other notes concern rituals and summoning, including the attachments Kroak has been looking for. Unfortunately, the interesting parts have been stripped away, scratched out, or simply disappeared long ago. Whatever information they once contained is gone.
Finally, they find a piece of parchment covered in scribblings. It looks almost like a treasure map, although it seems to be some sort of map rather than a conventional treasure map.
The discovery does not immediately answer the more pressing question: how they are supposed to get out.
Ruben looks over the parchment and suggests that the markings might be a three-digit code. He thinks he can make out something like 253, then changes his mind and considers whether the final mark could be a two instead. Kroak wonders if one of the symbols could be an eight. Daiki is less convinced that the markings are numbers at all.
“Do they look like the part of the maze that we saw on the wall decorations?” Daiki asks. “Like, I don't know.”
The markings do not resemble any of the mazes they have encountered. Those mazes have generally been rounder and mixed with different shapes, whereas this map is distinctly square.
They seem to have reached a dead end.
Lana is not convinced they have exhausted their options. If this is a bedroom or something similar, perhaps there is a secret latch, door, or another hidden way out.
Daiki agrees. “I think I agree with Lana. I think it is a route.”
Lana searches the room for anything concealed that might indicate another way forward. Apart from the safe, however, there is nothing hidden. The walls reveal no secret doors or additional exits. The only unexplored area is the hallway leading away through the door.
“All right,” Lana says. “Well, let's go back there then.”
Before they leave, Ruben asks Daiki whether the room Daiki was previously in resembles anything shown on the map. It does not.
“But I think this map is showing us exactly how we should move to avoid traps and take us to get to the other side,” Daiki says. “Don't you think?”
Ruben thinks they should take the lower route depicted on the map. The upper route looks as though it triggers something that might eat them. If they are trying to find the exit to the south, he suggests exploring the murky water instead.
Kroak agrees that the map's X marks the spot, which could mean that is where they are supposed to go. Ruben still recommends approaching it by the southern route.
“All right,” Kroak says. “Yeah. We can go down in the water again.”
The group heads back down the stairs and plunges once more into the abyss of murky water. Lana joins them as they follow the hallway deeper and deeper. They have to swim for quite some time before reaching another set of stairs. For those who need to breathe, the journey is long enough to make the route increasingly uncomfortable. The hallway seems to stretch on and on, but eventually it ends.
They emerge from the water at the stairs and begin climbing. Water flows down from above until, at one point, it abruptly stops. Along the side is a tiny gap through which all the water appears to be draining. It is very small, but apparently large enough to allow a great deal of water through.
It is an uncanny realization. They have found a room that looks just like the map they discovered.
“Yeah. Exactly. So we follow the red line, I guess.”
Daiki asks to see the map again so that he can make sure they are following it correctly.
Lana carefully crosses the room according to the route. Every tile is decorated with images of mazes, with each large slab carrying another intricate maze. The ceiling is low enough that flying is difficult.
Daiki does not trust flying in here. Instead, he and Kroak walk, following Lana exactly along the designated route.
“There should be something here,” Lana says.
She looks around while Daiki helps her search.
As they inspect the maze decorations, they discover a very small lever hidden among the pictures.
Lana pulls it.
Ruben immediately decides that entering the room is a terrible idea and stays behind with Sszethik. Daiki positions himself behind Lana, following the arrangement indicated by the map.
As Lana pulls the lever, Daiki immediately feels the floor plate beneath him sink slightly into the ground. There is a sharp snap, like flint striking steel, and flames begin rising from below.
Daiki reacts quickly, flying upward. The plate rises again beneath him and steadies itself while he hovers above it. The flames would have burned him, but he gets out of the way in time.
“Follow the map. Follow the positions on the map,” Daiki says.
Lana checks that Daiki is all right. Everything has sunk strangely, and they consider whether to continue along the route or pull the lever again if something goes wrong.
Kroak notices that the lever is still down.
“All right. I'll flip it back up.”
They start to raise it again, but Lana is already halfway through the room. Kroak explains that they are trying to reset the mechanism so the rest of the party can get through.
Lana realizes that the pressure plate has been triggered.
“I think this is activating the second part,” she says.
Kroak pulls the lever back down.
A click sounds. The pressure plate drops again beneath Lana.
“Fuck me. Oh no.”
The flames erupt from below once more, burning Lana. Daiki flies around Lana and attempts to absorb the magical fire, finally getting a chance to use the ability as intended. He manages to absorb most of the damage, leaving Lana only lightly burned.
“Yeah, thank you,” Lana says.
Lana steps off the pressure plate onto the solid part of the route. Daiki can still fly over the other raised plates, so he crosses to the other side rather than risk walking across them.
“I’m going to fly to the other side,” Daiki says. He is not enjoying the situation after absorbing all that energy.
Lana, meanwhile, is frustrated.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you, Kroak. What the fuck?”
Kroak apologizes. Lana realizes that she now has to repeat part of the route.
“Now I have to do this whole thing over again. Fuck.”
Kroak suggests that the rest of the party join them so that they can all get across together without flipping the switch halfway through. Lana points out that they cannot all stand on the same plate at once.
They begin working out another solution. Daiki can hover next to the lever, so perhaps he can operate it while the others move. Ruben and Sszethik consider jumping from the current position onto the new path. Kroak points out that the ceiling is too low for them to fly, unlike Daiki.
Eventually they settle on a coordinated jump. Kroak will operate the lever at the right moment while Ruben, Sszethik, and Lana move onto the new path.
“If you're going to pull the lever down, three, two, one, pull it on zero,” Ruben says. “Sszethik and I will jump forward.”
Kroak waits until everyone is ready.
“Okay, I'll just wait until you're in the air.”
Lana counts them down.
“Three, two, one, zero, go!”
Everyone moves together. The mechanism shifts beneath them, but they manage to make the jump across. Lana is not spared entirely; the pressure plate catches her as the system changes over, and the flames burn her again. Even so, she knows the route now and makes it safely onto the regular path.
“Okay, great.”
Kroak tries to lighten the mood by joking about Lana's hair and legs, while Ruben admits that the whole thing is quite scary.
Lana immediately tells Ruben to keep moving.
“Okay. Yeah. Now go, go right, Ruben. Yes.”
Once everyone has made it across, Daiki takes a moment to look ahead rather than waiting for everyone else to start investigating the same thing.
He finds himself looking into a huge dining room.
The room is lined with numerous tapestries. A thick red carpet lies beneath a long dining table in the center. Everything is tarnished and worn with age. Silver plates and silver goblets remain on the table, along with what appears to be the dusty remains of food that has completely rotted away.
There are thirteen chairs around the table.
At the far side of the room stands a white arch, unlike the other hallways they have encountered. It is decorated with more maze motifs. A smaller archway is positioned to the right as they enter.
Daiki starts to inspect the room while the others enter.
Every seat at the table is occupied.
Each chair contains a slumped figure dressed in a red hooded cloak.
“Oh boy,” Daiki says.
He approaches one of the seated figures while the others catch up.
The figures do not move. Their faces cannot be seen beneath the hoods; there is only darkness inside the cloaks.
Ruben asks Daiki to detect magic. Nothing magical is detected in the room, and the arches do not give off magical energy either.
On closer inspection, despite their appearance, they are not Red Wizards of Thay.
Kroak walks to the figure at the head of the table and pulls back the hood.
The figure beneath it is a withered humanoid skeleton. Its skull is deformed, with a slight snout and unusually thick canines. Its face is stretched in a way that makes the creature look distinctly inhuman.
The skeleton is still clutching the goblet in front of it.
There is a small amount of liquid remaining inside.
Kroak studies the body.
The bodies appear to have been poisoned. The way they are slumped, with some still clutching their goblets, suggests they died suddenly. There are no obvious cut wounds or other signs of physical violence.
Kroak notices that there is still liquid in the goblet and wonders whether they can identify the poison by smelling it.
They lean closer.
The reaction is immediate.
Kroak suddenly collapses, and the goblet clatters to the floor.
The substance is an extremely strong poison. Even its fumes have an effect similar to chloroform, while ingesting it would almost certainly be fatal. Kroak lies dazed on the floor for a moment, partially paralyzed, before gradually feeling their extremities again.
“But I'm still alive,” Kroak says.
Ruben looks at the goblet warily.
“It's strong stuff, right? Well, maybe not drink the potions as a way of going through an archway and activating something.”
He suggests that they collect some of the poison. Kroak assures him that they are all right.
“No, I'm okay. I think this is what they call Fisherman's Friends. It's strong stuff.”
Kroak carefully collects what remains of the liquid into a vial. The substance is syrupy because much of the liquid has evaporated, making what remains even more concentrated.
They manage to collect roughly one vial.
Ruben also suggests taking the silver goblets from the table.
The plates are silver as well, although extremely tarnished, and there is also silver cutlery.
Kroak decides to take the silverware.
and dump it in the bag of holding.
Ruben then suggests that Kroak collect more of the strange liquid from another room if they can.
Daiki has already started looking into that room.
Inside, he finds something considerably more disturbing.
Four figures are chained to the wall with their hands held above them. They are human bodies that have completely dried out. They have not turned to dust, but their bodies have dehydrated until they appear extremely fragile.
“Oh, this room doesn't seem too nice,” Daiki says. “There are four people sitting in here. I don't know.”
Ruben agrees that it is creepy and enters to investigate.
In the center of the room is an obsidian pit lined with red crystals. A dark red liquid coats part of the obsidian, and the room has a strong, strange smell. There is a magical aura emanating from the pit.
Ruben returns to tell Kroak what he has found.
Kroak returns to the pit. They do not need to breathe, so they can safely enter without inhaling the fumes.
The dark red liquid is similar to the poison, but it is not the same substance.
Kroak uses a ladle to carefully scoop the remaining liquid into containers.
As they lean over the pit, they notice something strange. Their own blood seems to feel additional pressure around an old wound, as though it wants to escape their body and flow toward the basin.
The liquid in the pit is thus obviously blood.
The four dried-out bodies on the other side of the wall have been held there and cut at various places beneath their arms and around their necks so that their blood could drain into the pit.
Kroak wonders whether the blood is ordinary blood or whether it has somehow been transformed into part of a potion.
They cannot determine exactly what has happened.
The obsidian pit glows with magical energy, surrounded by red gems. Kroak jokingly compares it to something a vampire might use as a personal blood-pulling machine.
Ruben asks Kroak whether they can break off some of the crystals as well.
Kroak was already planning to do exactly that.
They begin carefully removing the gems using their tools. They chip and pry carefully around the places where the gems have been fitted into the obsidian.
The obsidian itself is remarkably sturdy. It does not break easily, and the gems are not simply embedded loosely inside it. Instead, they have been deliberately slotted into the stone.
While they work, Daiki decides to investigate the white arch. Ruben and Lana join him.
Daiki thinks Ruben should investigate because Ruben seems smarter.
“I think you should investigate, Ruben. You seem smarter.”
Ruben agrees and examines the archway.
Beyond it appears to be the beginning of a path toward an important room. The exits of the mazes all lead into the hallway beyond the arch, with each path feeding into an exit. The hallway itself is beautifully arranged, with a thick pitch-black carpet running along the floor. The carpet looks luxurious and muffles their footsteps.
Ruben calls out to Kroak.
“Kroak, I think we found the exit. Sszethik, are you coming? Or how much time will this take?”
Kroak is still working on the gems.
“I gotta get these gems for Ruben. He asked me to get them. I think he needs them for a spell.”
The group waits while Kroak continues.
While working inside the pit, Kroak deciphers that
the gems appear to be tied to the magical effect, but once removed they seem to become ordinary gems. Some remnant of magic may have once been bound to them, but they no longer appear to contain anything extraordinary.
The markings suggest something ritualistic and sacrificial. Pain and suffering are part of the mechanism.
There is no sacrifice taking place at the moment, but the pit itself seems to have a hunger for one.
The obsidian appears to have been marked at some point, but layers of blood have covered the markings so thoroughly that they are impossible to make out. The pit itself seems to possess a craving that goes beyond ordinary magical effects.
Kroak wonders whether removing the surrounding stone changes it.
The stone is far harder and more durable than expected.
While everyone waits, Ruben returns to the dining table.
Using Mage Hand, he carefully pulls back the sleeves and cloaks of the dead figures to search for rings, jewelry, or anything else valuable.
Apart from the silverware already taken from the table, there is nothing else of value in the room.
Eventually, Kroak removes the final gem.
In total, they have collected eight red gems.
With the gems finally removed, the group prepares to move through the arch.
They enter the hallway with the black carpet. Their footsteps become muffled as they walk. The corridor leads to a set of stairs that rise upward. At the top, the path turns sharply right and then left before ending at a door.
The door is beautiful.
White circles and sigils are carefully worked into its surface. Leaf gold decorates the sides, and several gems are set into the door.
“That’s a nice door,” Lana says.
Ruben examines it more carefully, wondering whether there is anything depicted on it that might reveal its purpose.
There is nothing particularly meaningful. The door is decorated with beautiful symbols and arrangements of objects, but none of them seem to tell a specific story.
Ruben turns to Lana.
“Do you want to check for traps? Or do we think we should just open it, as it's the final door?”
Lana immediately agrees with the idea of checking for traps.
She examines the door, but finds nothing that gives her confidence that it is trapped.
Ruben decides they can simply open it.
“So then we can open it.”
“Yeah, why not,” Lana says.
They open the door.
Beyond it, on the ground directly in front of them, a cloaked and hooded figure kneels before a massive statue on the other side of the room.
The walls are carved with life-sized figures of different creatures: imps, beasts with claws, and other monstrous forms. The creatures appear to be fleeing from humans. The carvings are less beautiful than the elaborate door, but they possess their own unsettling impressiveness.
The kneeling figure is facing the enormous statue.
Above the statue hangs an intensely intimidating black cloud. Smoke or darkness swirls across the top of the room, gathering around the area where the statue's eyes are located.
Everything is silent.
Everything is still.
The only movement is the dark cloud.
Daiki watches the kneeling figure.
“The person before doesn't move or doesn't seem alive.”
The figure does not react to them. They remain kneeling and staring forward, cloaked in purple. Despite the doors opening loudly, the figure does not acknowledge the group.
Neither does the dark cloud.
For a moment, the party simply stands there, looking into the silent room.