Session # 120
10 Phoenix (13:00)
After the attack on the 3 Banshees,
you enter the keep through a large hall filled with a green mist vapor.
Heimdall sends in Korben, and with a few seconds he takes too much breathing damage and vanishes.
With Jack using Wings Unfurled, creates enough air movement, and manage to decrease the effect of the mist. You make your way through the mist to the other side with minimal necrotic damage.
On the other side you activate a pressure plate on the floor that lowers about a half inch. The pressure plate sinks with a solid, muffled thump beneath your weight.
A CLANG erupts somewhere deep within the keep. a few seconds later, you hear metal grinds against stone, ending in a heavy boom that trembles through the keep.
Then it happens again. And again, 8 times in total. Each time the sound is farther away… more muffled… climbing somewhere above.
On the north wall is a large steel double door. Two roses are on each door, and a round polished brass cipher disk made of several concentric rotating rings, each engraved with different sequences of letters. The rings spin around a central pivot, allowing letters to align in changing combinations for encoding or decoding hidden messages. Its metallic finish and mechanical design give it the look of an old cryptographic device used to conceal secret words.
With some history background check, you discover that lord Soth was a Knight of Solamnia, a knight of the rose.
You enter the word ROSE on the cypher disk and it unlocks. You hear noises on the other side of the door and when opening it, you find 4 Sivak draconians waiting for you.
After the combat, you move through the hall to
another gate.
You enter a grand entry hall, a huge circular room. The burnt and twisted remains of a very large chandelier sit in the center of the room where it fell long ago from above. The ceiling is about 3 to 4 levels above. Circular stairways rise from each side of the wall, ascending to a landing on what looks like the third level, but the access seem to be blocked from above.
Black rubble is along the walls. Bones and skulls can be seen under the chandelier. Footprints are visible up and down the outside aisles.
Up several steps is a great black, bat-winged throne. Carved black skulls adorn the ends of each arm of the throne. The throne area is scrubbed clean. A clean purple velvet cushion on the seat. A strange shaped red stain draped across several steps.
You hear a door creak open and shut close near the south east side down the hall.
First room you investgate is a cloak room.
This room is full of coats, cloaks, robes, and other clothing.
Heavy dust has accumulated over the years.
A detect magic spell reveals one of the robes that glows magic.
You investigate the door that the noise came from.
There is a large bed, a chest, and a table in this room.
A human female is on the bed.
She is surprised to see you arrive, but not scared. When you enter she says, oh damn its only you, I though it was those damn Banshees that have been wailing all night. Her name Mara Mallon.
She only has access to this room and the kitchen. She never been in the rest of the keep or the other floors. Her husband is the cook and they have been kept here for about 3 months. They can’t leave.
She knows that the Lord came back a few days ago and he was in a very, very bad mood. He sent most of all the staff away.
After this, you head towards the kitchen, where the cook should be located…
10 Phoenix (15:00)
