Enola Yarn – blogpost 26

We land on the altar. In front of us are the banshees praying. Do they know we’re here? It doesn’t seem like it at first glance. Before I can sigh of relief, spiders crawl from the altar and cover us completely. The eyes of the banshees go up to the spiders. That must be a really weird thing to lay eyes on: a couple of completely invisible creatures, only visible because spiders are crawling over them and covering them from head to toe. The heap of spiders is very large, and their bites hurt like sh*t. I curse in infernal – out loud.

Valentine shoots a fireball to the banshees, and me on ourselves – making sure we’re all unaffected of course. All spiders fall from everyone that was standing on the altar (Zeph was flying), except for me. Of course. Perfect. Because Valentine and I attacked, our invisibility wore off. The banshees’ eyes meet ours, I am really scared of them when they respond with a scream. The first scream is a horrible, nasty, loud sound that is an attack on my ears. The second scream that follows, makes me faint.

I gasp to life. I can see the banshees, but for some reason, my fear for them is gone. One banshee is near me, the other one is standing in front of Valentine a little bit further. Zeph yells: “I’ll help you in a sec, Enola! Just kill them!” I take that to heart and kill the two banshees with my magic missiles. The enemies are gone. I look around and see the space we’re in. Many pillars are supporting the high ceiling and the altar I’m now sitting on is covered with stone spiderwebs. A statue of a drow is on the other end of the room. Valentine and Farryn are investigating the corners, while I’m getting healed by Zeph. I still feel loopy, but I eat a quick snack and feel better – for now. “There are three dead bodies here! All dwarfs.” Calls Farryn. “Two dwarfs and one tiefling here.” Says Valentine.

We decide to leave the room through the big doors opposite the altar. As we open the door, I hear a voice whispering: “Patrol 6, report to captain Zress for further orders.” It is in Elvish, so only Zeph and I can understand the whisper. Because of this, and the drow-statue, Farryn places a drow spider sigil around his neck. He got it from Borac, at the time they defeated the spider priestess. We step into a new room: it is an alchemist lab. Farryn lets out a scream of delight. He knows this room! This was the room he saw from the portal near Skella on the level with duergarr. However, his delight doesn’t last long: the stench is wretched around here. It is coming from the piles of dead bodies scattered around the room. It is unbearable and I almost vomit. Zeph tries to take away the smell, but his spell fails. I really want to leave the room, because I’ve hurled twice now but kept it in my mouth and swallowed it. The piles start moving: ghools. We walk away to the door and quickly make a plan. Zeph will lure them to the door, and we all go outside but leave the door ajar for Zeph to exit quickly. Then, we’ll close the door and I’ll cast sickening radiance to kill them. A couple of minutes later, the plan is deemed successful.

We open the door with thaumaturgy – Valentine and I cast the cantrip at the same time. Forcefully, the door flies open and crushes the bodies, just like with the zombie in Nylas’ room. The whole room is covered in flesh and blood. We find a letter to Muriel in a letter tube we recognize from the Wizard Academy. It asks for a guest lecture from Muriel. Zeph is really enthusiastic while reading, he REALLY wants to meet this guy. We search for Muriel, but we cannot find him near the lab. We decide to rest up for a bit. Farryn doesn’t want to, so he investigates the walls, searching for a secret passage.

During our short rest, I think about my goals in life. I wanted to go to the Wizard Academy so badly, but it turned out to be a total fluke. I wanted to learn from the best and improve my skills. I did the latter: I found a lot of spellbooks and learned a couple of powerful spells, but did not learn from the best. I thought I met Hallaster, but he turned out to be fake – a stupid Arcanaloth took his place. Hm, I think I need to meet Hallaster for real then, and ask for his wisdom. Yes, THAT will be my new objective. I’ll take Valentine with me because she needs to know where magic with good intentions and INTEGRITY comes from. Learn it, not get it from someone and do what you want with it.

“Guys, guys! I’ve found a secret passage!” Farryn runs towards us. We follow him back. There are a lot of broken mirrors with shards scattered on the floor. However, one mirror is still intact. I inspect it and ask how this came to be. Apparently, Farryn mended it while we were resting. Valentine looks in the mirror and I see Zeph creating an illusion on it. Valentine is totally convinced the mirror is magic and takes it with her – although we know it is not. Around the corner, we see a skeleton. Immediately it is attacked by the party. It had a wand of the War Mage on itself, which I get. On the other side of the hallway, we find a dining hall. Valentine finds some black cutlery but deems it valuable – it is aged silver and pretty easy to clean. After a quick investigation, we see a big door. Farryn listens but doesn’t hear anything behind it, so he opens the door. Again, I hear a whisper: “Minarra, report at the temple immediately.”

We walk into the kitchen: it has a fireplace and a well. I investigate the latter, followed by Zeph and Valentine. Farryn walks off on his own. I hear a stream of water. Maybe there’s a river below? Zeph flies down to investigate if it is just a stream or river, or a new level where we can get to quickly. Farryn shouts he found a chest. I reply that we’re busy at the moment and are waiting for Zeph to return. When Zeph resurfaces, he brings the disappointing news that the water is really just a small creek in the rocks.

We walk back to the mirrored hallway. As I walk past, I see myself, but suddenly, I see Hallaster. It is very creepy but doesn’t make me regret my new study goal. We find another hallway. The whisper comes again: “Go here, go here!” Zeph really wants to follow the whisper so we try to find a door. Farryn casually pushes against a wall and we find a statue of a female drow. Her voice is like an echo from another reality: “Hey, you there,” she says in elvish. “Can you send a message to my loved one Dran’l? You can teleport to him through touching me.” I have the feeling this isn’t a trap and she’s telling the truth. Zeph yells: “My gut feeling is that I should do this!!” He touches the statue and transports it. “What?” The drow says. “I did not even tell him the message that he’s supposed to convey! What a stupid fairy. The message is ‘I love him and I will find a way to get to him.” I use the sending stone to ping Zeph and tell him the message. The statue woman tells me she and her Dran’l are cursed. POP! Zeph’s back, with a message from Dran’l: he still loves her too. These messages go on for quite a while. I feel for the woman and man that are separated for some reason, but man, they are whiny… The woman is going on and on and on about her love for Dran’l when Zeph poofs away. I slowly take off my helmet of comprehend languages, so I don’t have to understand everything she is saying.

I take some time to think about this problem. I can try to remove the curse with my magic, but I have a feeling this loving couple is not frozen or petrified. I think their souls are trapped inside the stone, so if I remove the curse, the soul is free, but they cannot meet here. I think about animating the object to get the statues to meet. However, Valentine needs to take one of the statues to the other by performing her dimension door. Another complexity is that the statue is way too big, so Farryn and Zeph help to shrink it. The dimension door works and we get the statues in the same room. However, they cannot see each other. This isn’t helping at all. The couple is still in pain because they cannot hear or see each other. I perform remove curse, it is not the best option, but the only one I can think of right now to reunite them. After I cast my spell, it is silent. The souls are freed and can meet each other in the Abyss.

We walk further and see a stone spider hanging from the ceiling. The area is surrounded by warrior drow statues. This room has a space in front of it, covered with skulls. I make my way through the skulls, but Valentine is quicker. She investigates the statues. We choose to go through the door in the south and call Valentine. We hear a scared voice in the back: “I cannot get through!” Valentine is trapped by a wall of force. Luckily, she can get away by using dimension door again. Pfff that is a relief… If she was there longer, I’m afraid she would’ve set off a trap of some sort…

Through a passage, we find a big ballroom: a big open area with pillars supporting a high ceiling. Around the corner, we can see a mutated huge drow. It is kicking a stone and walking around. Farryn walks a bit further, but the drow noticed his movement. It is preparing to throw a stone at Farryn – a stone that is WAY bigger than the small gnome he is.