PDA

View Full Version : Dungeon Journal: Infection in the Mage's Guild



Sipex
2011-04-04, 12:26 PM
For the past two sessions the wizard in my group has volunteered to DM his own dungeon. I'm usually the DM playing a simple 'heal bot' DMPC to aid the players so this is a nice change for me, I get to play my guy to his full potential. It's also an amazing dungeon and I want to share it with you guys.

Overview: We play a D&D 4th Edition game. This isn't posted in the 4th edition forum though because it's only mildly relevant and it's more about the actual campaign than the rules.

Party just hit Level 11 and in 4th edition terms this means we're paragon. We have paragon paths which grant us extra powers depending on what path we chose.

R'tas - Male, Half-elf Rogue (Will be referred to as The Rogue for most of the story since that's easy to remember for you guys).
R'tas is a bit of a trouble maker who enjoys a challenge. He's the main front of our damage in battle wielding a Double Sword which has a switchblade sort of mechanism to it (allowing him to conceal the sword much more easily). The sword is his brother's old sword (who he killed in an epic battle) forged with his father's sword (who abandoned him).
R'tas also enjoys being incredibly sneaky and loves to bluff his enemies into believing anything. As a side hobby he takes up thievery and lockpicking.

Caelynna - Female, Eladrin Fighter (The Fighter)
Caelynna is a young Eladrin woman (approx 100 years old) who had a bit of a falling out with her family about an arranged marriage which kicked off her adventuring career. She returned years later (in game) after being abducted by her father and met her fiance again (who, at this time, was a lamia disguised as her fiance). After defeating the lamia (with lots of mystery on top) her father was released from a spell which had been controlling him and they made up. As a bonus, her father re-incarnated her fiance into the body of a Fey Horse. She can telepathically communicate with this horse and is looking for a way to turn him Eladrin again now that she realises they have a lot in common.

Siarae - Female, Tiefling Warlock (The Warlock)
Siarae is a mystery, even to herself. She has a heavy case of amnesia which she has been unable to lift and after getting it decided to take up mercenary work to see if she could figure out anything about herself on the way. During her travels she was sought out by an imp who, over several encounters, explained that she made a pact with a demon named Torog for her powers. She sought out guidance from Avandra after Torog went too far and ordered her to kill someone she didn't want to. Avandra now protects her and she serves Avandra as an infernal warlock, seeking to free those from Torog's rule.

Harrow - Male, Dwarven Cleric (Me)
Harrow was originally made as the heal bot of the group because they needed one and the players voted that I play him. Since then he's actually evolved as a character and is now one of the party. Harrow knew R'tas when he was a boy and also knew R'tas' father. When R'tas' father left he asked Harrow to keep an eye on his son. R'tas ran away after being abandoned and ever since Harrow has been tracking him down. They now adventure together but R'tas knows nothing about Harrow's promise...yet. Harrow is prone to drinking under stress and is lawful good, not lawful nice.

Thel - Male, Half-elf Wizard (The Wizard or Thel)
Thel is mentioned last because he's not with us right now, his player is running the dungeon. Thel is a bit of a goof, known for his famous 'never hit' Eyebite spell. He just recently finished his final exams (paragon) and broke up with his changling girlfriend who left in the night after we saved the continent from being destroyed. The last time we saw him he was in his dorm room preparing for his exams.

It's in three parts, parts one and two are done and will be posted after this. Part three has yet to come.

Sipex
2011-04-04, 12:28 PM
Session #1


We start off after hitting paragon tier, our adventuring guild has been approached by the city and asked to look into 'a happening' at the mage academy in town where our party wizard was last seen. Our DM (the Wizard's player) starts up some music to pump us up as he reads the letter to us which states that the academy has been overtaken by an unknown force which is slowly infecting the area around the school. It's like a murky red cloud and it seems to be messing with people's heads.

We head over after getting our **** together and are greeted by elite city guards who report they've already lost several men inside. Our fighter and warlock argue our case when we're denied access and finally the guards reluctantly give in and tell us it's our funeral.

They take down the barracade to the main doors just long enough to emit us and immediately slam the door behind us. We can hear them rebuilding the barracade as mildly creepy music sets in.

We're in the front hall and we take a look around trying to assess the situation. We find a map of the academy which is enchanted to update when new additions are built onto the academy. We notice that the school is slowly moving and shifting unnaturally as the map self-refreshes. Through a series of checks we find that this sort of thing has only been featured in tabloids before and not actually thought to be real.

We pass the entrance hall and enter the main foyer, our rogue spazzes out and has a vision of a young half-elven boy who's learning magic. He does well in school and is a very happy boy. At the end of the vision our rogue reports the boy was being picked on somewhat. I check him over for any other damage and nothing seems out of sorts.

The warlock, fighter and myself start feeling uneasy and sick but are unable to tell what's wrong. We press on in search of our wizard friend who was in this place last we saw him. His room is on the second floor dormitory so we resolve to head to the nearest staircase first which is just beyond a door at the end of the foyer.

We charge forward (searching for traps) and enter the stairwell only...it seems we've appeared in the foyer again like some demented loop.

Confused we decide to check some of the rooms adjacent to the foyer, creepy music still present. We check the registrars office and find several magically enhanced posters which seem to pop out of the wall. We haven't found any sign of life since we entered the academy. There are some pamphlets strewn around but no sign of anything else. In the office there's a door to the gift shop so we head that way next and find ourselves back in the lobby. Our warlock swears in frustration.

We recently bought a pair of sending stones (basically walkie talkies with unlimited range). For this mission we left one at the guild for outside contact and decide to take this opportunity to call it. The person on the other end of the line claims to be Blythe, an accomplice of ours, but we all feel off about it. She's not acting normal. We decide the stones might not be a good idea.

The gift shop has a door which can be accessed from the foyer so we try that one next after tieing ourselves to each other just in case. It works and we're standing in the gift shop which has a large assortment of academia themed objects. We take a look around and find nothing has price tags. Shirts bear several different funny logos which you expect to see and we all pick out items we like. I, a LG cleric, insist that everyone pay. Not everyone does however. In the gift shop there's a door to the bursar's office, we try that next but before going in we take a plush dragon from one of the shelves and toss it through. The dragon dissapears.

Suddenly our rogue hears something from behind us and we're all on edge, we listen intently, weapons out and nothing happens. We head out to the foyer to investigate.

It's the plush dragon, sitting on the floor.

We cross that door off the list and try a door which goes from the foyer to the bursar's office. We have a bag of chickens (it spawns a chicken every 5 minutes) so we figure we'll throw chickens in to try things out. Chickens make a lot of noise after all. We toss one in and we see a chicken clucking around in the office.

Inside the office we come across a young woman on the ground, a successful heal check shows that she's dead, from blunt trauma...fists? Our rogue spots something on her and we check her over. She has lesions (sp?) all over her, on her neck it seems like one is moving and has teeth. We all back away and are acutely aware of the mildly creepy music once again. A door from the bursar's office goes into the head office behind it, it's slightly ajar.

Our fighter pushes it open with her long spear and tosses our chicken in who's caught in mid air. Two Githzerai monks reveal themselves from the room and are rather unfriendly. They don't seem to speak common very well but from what we glean they're here to 'cleanse the infection' and state 'nobody leaves, not even we do'. Negotiating doesn't seem to work as they're committed to their cause even though we're on the same side. We attempt to leave and they spring into action.

Unfortunately 2 vs 4 isn't a fair fight and we take them down fairly quickly. We make sure to do non-lethal damage but one actually coup de graces the other before he falls, killing his friend. We tie him up after he falls unconscious. We find orders on him in true script (read in your most fluent language) which read 'Tarrow Mages Guild, Corrupt, Cleanse Everything'.

We cross the foyer after our encounter, chicken in hand, and toss him into the student help office. He clucks away absent mindedly in the office and we head in. We find a couple motivational posters on the wall which are parodies of normal ones and a door to the cafeteria. Chicken testing the door here leads to a confused chicken in the foyer.

Every room here has a door accessible from the foyer though so we chicken test the door from foyer to cafeteria and find it safe. Our chicken is growing irate and flees from us this time, running through a door from the cafeteria to the book store. We hear it back in the foyer. The magical energy of this place is starting to make it sentient and we swear it calls us 'bastards'.

The cafeteria is interesting, instead of making food it's simply summoned. You choose an item from a book at the counter and select a table and *poof* instant food. Our warlock does this but neglects to select a table. Suddenly everything is covered in fries and gravy as every table explodes with them. I pay our rogue 50 gold to eat some and it upsets his stomach. A check on the fries shows they're just really greasy, the aura in this place doesn't have anything to do with it.

Suddenly, our fighter realises why she feels ill. She's Eladrin and cannot connect to the fey from here, she's lost her fey step ability and can't trance. The warlock realises she can no longer contact her respective diety and I can no longer contact bahamut meaning our powers won't recharge. Our rogue laughs at us, being a martial class with no magical hoodoo connections.

We enter the bookstore from the foyer and find that the shelves are mostly empty with books and school supplies littering the floor instead. We look around but none of us are students or staff here so we don't know much about what we're looking at. In the back of the store we find a chest which has been blown open and emptied. Diagrams and warnings show us that the chest was heavily trapped but still someone managed to get it's contents. We can't figure out what was inside.

We also find what we coined a 'computer book' which was open on the counter. It had a command prompt where we could ask it things using a magic quill. Unfortunately we didn't seem to have access so when we requested all the security records from the past couple days it locked up. We packed it away just in case.

We try the final two doors from the book store to what looks to be the loading dock. Two chickens later it seems both doors lead to the foyer as well. We've run out of options.

In desparation one of us heads back to the entrance from the foyer. Suddenly we're in the stairwell. Everyone facepalms.

Then we're all hit by psychic imagery. We see the little half elf boy again but he's getting picked on by bullies. He screams at them to stop and accidentally casts burning spray in his panic, lighting one on fire. They panic and immediately back away from the elf boy while trying to put their friend out. Fast forward, the boy is confused why his headmaster and parents are yelling at him. He insists it was an accident but **** has hit the fan. Someone mentions medication and he's scared.

Back to reality we find we all had the same vision. Not dwelling on it we check the stairwell out. We have stairs going up and stairs going down. Downward seems to have some sort of 'black water' after a flight and a half of stairs. We throw a chicken in the water and it harmlessly bounces around as the 'water' rejects it. It eventually 'lands' on the water, putting all it's weight on two feet and starts sinking. We feel horrible as it sinks out of sight, unable to escape the grasp of the black sludge. Upstairs it is.

We start heading upstairs and the music gets creepier. Hearing sounds we try to sneak up but my armor rattles loudly and we hear someone go "More of them! Run!" before feet can be heard running away. Our warlock detects a teleportation spell going off before we can yell out.

We then realise something, our rogue is missing when he suddenly bursts from the shadows which seem to be grasping at him. Stealth is a bad idea.

We reach the dormitry floor where our wizard's room is and things are really creepy now. We're seeing shadows on the edge of our vision and proportion is all messed up. Our warlock makes an arcana check and is assaulted by visions and screaming voices, she cuts the connection but something keeps a thread of it open, whispering 'sweet nothings' to her. Arcana is a bad idea.

We start down the hall and catch a glimpse of soldiers fleeing from something. Our rogue notices a stream of blood going up one of the walls as heads peek out from hiding spots and immediately duck back in. Creepy music keeps chipping away at our sanity.

Upon closer inspection the stream of blood is actually a stream of ants which are made of blood and seeping into the ceiling. We make jokes about it to make ourselves feel better while tiny voice whisper half truths to our minds.

It's here when we spot our comrade's room, we check the door over and head in, shouting his name. The room turns up no sign of him but is full of study materials and his equipment. We pack it up just in case.

Touching his belongings triggers another vision but this time it's first person. We're a young half-elf man who's a mix/match of confused emotions as several different relationships end before our eyes. We desperately want to be normal but we can't and anything we try to say is taken in the worst way possible.

Back to reality we discuss what we saw but are unsure what it means. Looking out the window from our mate's bedroom shows the city is burning. Why is the city burning? How long have we been here?

Sipex
2011-04-04, 12:29 PM
Session #2


Creepy music emenates from a pair of speakers...

When we last left off we were in our party member's dorm room with no sign of him except his belongings and study notes. We then looked out the window to see the city in flames.

Immediately starting the session we decide to use my sending stone again, choosing to keep information to a minimum to see if we can glean anything. As before we're greeted by Blythe, our associate on the outside. She's panicked and says we need to finish soon, the guards look like they're ready to take the mage academy out in an attempt to stop the infection. Prodding her a bit more about how things are on the outside (without saying anything about what we see) she confirms that the city is in flame and Illithids are apparently attacking. We're all a bit uneasy but we still don't trust the voice on the other end of the stone.

We check around our party member's room once more, seeing if we can find anything of interest before heading back into the creepy hallway. Blood ants continue to crawl up the opposite wall, seeping into the ceiling, and we've noticed that the stream has gotten thicker. A couple other streams have started up as well in other places on the wall, these ones thinner.

We continue down the hall way, making our way to the student lounge at the end where we saw a couple faces peer at us before ducking into cover. The door is ajar and we cautiously head in, our fighter at the head of the party.

Inside we see people, mildly incorporeal, all gathered around a table; a professor of some sort, a merchant and a couple students all gathered around someone who seems to be hurt. They look like they're trying to help him. There are blood stains and burn marks all around the room like we just missed a fight of some sort. We call out to the people but they don't respond, our Rogue lights up a torch to see if they cast proper shadows and they do.

Eventually they give up, the man on the table has died and they all wander off. There's a large window here which still shows the city burning.

Our fighter and myself go to investigate a guard and a student talking but we can't make out what they're saying, the warlock checks out the guy on the table. There seem to be sharp, wooden bones growing out of the table which have pierced the guy in several places, including through his mouth. He's also been disemboweled.

The music changes, we all get goosebumps as it screeches.

Suddenly we feel as though these...people (?) weren't helping him.

The student we're watching goes and lies down on a table and we watch in horror as the table warps and bubbles, growing spine like pieces of wood which pierce her skin at the ankles, wrists and through the back of her head into her mouth. The guard takes out a knife and starts to cut her across her stomach.

The man on the other table has no eyes.

Unable to watch anymore the fighter and I jump into action, I strike the table with my hammer, a heavy blow. Voices enter my head and laugh at the futility.

The fighter tries to pry the girl from the table but her flesh has gone soft and mushy and she splits apart without any resistance. The guard continues his work, oblivious to our actions.

Desperate the fighter runs the guard through with her spear, it slides through with disturbing little effort and he looks nonplussed about it.

Suddenly a gurgling moan comes from the table in the center of the room where the first man died, he is raising his head off the spike and staring at us with his empty eye sockets. He hisses and screams horrible horrible sounds at us. The guard which is currently impaled turns his attention to us and he is missing his eyes as well.

We notice that several of the people here have odd marks on their bodies, the guard has a cut on his cheek which is pulsing and moving, it has teeth. The merchant, a dwarf, has a bald spot on his head which has an extra deformed mouth on it, the professor has a mouth on his arm which has chewed through his sleeve. All the mouths open in unison and scream at us.

We retaliate before this gets bad, the fighter lets go of her spear and with her quick draw feat, draws her sword and slices the guard's head off in one fluid motion. He seems unconcerned about this and starts heading towards us.

Our warlock sends a beam of searing light at the man on the table who's screaming at us and his head explodes, causing his body to go limp. Our rogue takes off the professor's head with a fury of blade work.

I smash the guard's body in a downward motion, turning his torso to paste. He proceeds to tumble over (what's left of him) and stops moving.

The professor stumbles forward a few steps, clawing at the rogue before dying and the screaming man quiets down. The merchant has his head blown off by the warlock at the start of the next round and dies instantly.

Our warlock suddenly feels very weak and wants to lie down. Seeing what the furniture here does to people I decide to escort her back to our friend's dorm room while the Rogue and Fighter finish checking out the lounge and take care of the oddly rotting corpses.

At this time we've been untied from one another obviously.

Every few minutes I yell down to the Rogue and Fighter to let them know we're still alive, every time I yell we hear scratching from the dorm rooms nearby. Meanwhile the Rogue and Fighter decide to take apart the lounge room couch and spread the fluff and feathers around before setting the entire room on fire. It spreads quick, burning the entire lounge but seems to be contained within the room. A history check lets us know that this is normal, the academy is built with wards so if one part of the school catches fire it can't spread easily. The rogue closes the doors to the lounge and the doors bubble and warp but don't catch fire.

After a few minutes (and the secret password 'chocolate') we meet up again at our wizard's dorm room and reassess our options and goals. We decide that investigating this floor anymore is fruitless as we believe that Thel, our wizard, would've ducked into the library when **** hit the fan. Our maps we took from the welcome office last session say the library is on the other side of the school (both sides aren't connected, you have to go out or under and both are blocked). We decide to head up so we can get above the second half of the school and rappel out the window to the other side. We also pick up Thel's old library card and student pass, just in case we can use them.

As we head back to the stairwell to head up to the third floor the Warlock notices a couple of blood ants drop from the ceiling and start following her. The fighter and myself watch an Eladrin business man, not infected in any way, leave a nearby dorm room and head for the stairwell. We call out but he just looks at us and says "It's too late" before walking away.

Our warlock, not detecting hostility from the ants picks the two which are following her up, despite our pleas not too. The ants turn to blood and absorb into her skin and the voices which were harrassing her go quiet. We run extensive checks on the blood stain on her arm and can't find anything wrong with it but she resolves to keep a close eye on it, just in case.

In a supposed strike of genius (or stupidity) the warlock tries to get MORE ants, suspecting that we're supposed to be afraid of them so what happens if we're not? The ants hop off her though and head back up the wall, hissing "Not yours...not yours."

We reach the stairwell and a halfling student, also uninfected, passes by us and heads into a dorm room on the other half of the floor. Determined to get some information from him we follow him and knock on his door. No response.

We knock a few more times and shout through the door but get no response from his room, the dorm rooms nearby eminate scratching noises.

I decide to try something out and knock on one of the other dorm rooms where we heard the scratching from, the scratching still happens and we hear nothing from the halfling's room.

Our rogue, an expert lock picker, tries to open the door but cannot. His roll is high enough but there seems to be a magic shield on the lock. A knowledge check lets us know that all the locks have a redundant system on them, one layer of magical protection and one of physical (the lock). The idea is that you'd need both a lock picker and a mage to break into any room and the mage academy isn't exactly swarming with thievery types. We would need our Wizard to do this so we decide to try plan C.

But before we try plan C the fighter gets out her pet teacup Rust Monster. A monster which dissolves metal with a spray and eats it. She tries it on the lock. The rust monster sniffs the lock and seems disinterested. A dungeoneering check reveals that the metal is a non-ferrous metal (doesn't rust) and we go back to plan C (or maybe plan D now).

Plan C is the Fighter and I shoulder charging the door with a strength check. We roll and immediately realise we should've tied ourselves to someone or something first. We break the door down and the DM asks for balance checks. I pass and the fighter fails, nearly falling in. The DM makes a roll and asks for my reflex (18), he rules that I manage to catch the fighter and stop her from falling in.

The room is black, not just dark, black. It's empty, there is nothing, it goes no where.

Determined to figure something out we pull out chicken #3 and get ready to tie a rope to it and throw it in. As we're getting ready a gust starts to pick up, starting out mild but quickly picking up and pulling towards the door. We panic "CLOSE IT CLOSE IT CLOSE IT CLOSE IT CLOSE IT CLOSE IT CLOSE IT!" as the Rogue grabs the door and pulls it shut with a strength check. We take the rope we were originally going to use on the chicken and tie the broken door to a door across the hall to keep it closed (thanks to the fighter for this good idea) and head away.

Unfortunately this place doesn't leave anything simple, we're only 5 steps away when the rope starts to boil. We all grab onto the nearest object (other doors, pillars, etc) and the rope breaks, causing a huge wave of suction to overcome us. The fighter loses her grip on the chicken and it gets sucked away with, as the DM quotes "BA-GAWWWwwwwwwk...."

The door slams shut behind the chicken and the fighter hazards a peek to see only continuing darkness (no suction though).

We finally head back into the stairwell and find the upper half the corpse of an elf on the landing which wasn't here before. Our rogue checks around for traps (just in case) but being a school which is meant to be traversed freely, there are none. We agree to cast 'Speak with the Dead' on the corpse to gain some info from it and together, manage to score a total of 2 questions out of it.

His corpse comes to life, confused and scared. We ask him if a being had killed him. He gives us a big story about how **** went down and they all got ready to fight whatever it was. He then got separated from his friends and slowly lost his memory from there.

We then ask him if we can get to the library from going up and over to the second half of the school, he tries to say something but is overcome by some force and starts to spew nonsense before coughing and dying...again.

Deciding that leaving any corpse around isn't a good idea, the Fighter and I drag his body downstairs and toss it into the black water from session 1. Mid-air the water sprouts several tendrils which grab his corpse and take it in, we waste no time and run up stairs shouting in panicked voices.

We have a visitor though, a tendril follows us up the stairs and we blast it with magic, it recoils and we're all suddenly hit with a vision.

A half elf boy is lying in bed, falling asleep. Next to him is an empty potion bottle and the odd colour from his eyes is fading. After he falls asleep his parents pick him up and take him to a group of robed individuals (history reveals they're the healers guild approximately 10 or 20 years ago). The healers assure them that the boy will be fine and that this is the best thing they can do for him.

At this point our warlock breaks free of the vision. She sees the tendril extending beams of some sort of energy towards the rest of us.

Those of us still entranced see a couple days later. The half elf boy is playing happily in what looks like a day care. His parents are talking to a healer nearby and the boy now has normal eyes. The parents and the healer talk about enrolling the boy in a wizard's school so he can gain control over his unique condition.

At that point we all snap out of it and the tendril severs it's connections and falls to the floor, fading away to smoke.

We relay everything to each other and determine that heading upstairs is the best idea, away from the black water.

The music changes as we reach floor 3, less creepy, more active. There's some diablo in there.

Upstairs we find the classrooms, there are 6 of them in a semi circle with another set of stairs heading upwards. In the center of the circle is a study area which says "Quiet! Students are studying!". In the study area we see the furniture bubbling and pools of blood seem to be running up it. Our little blood ant friends are leaking up from below and climbing the furniture, evaporating as they reach the top of it and heading up as steam.

We also see a pale blue Tiefling who looks a bit ill, she is completely zoned out and is wandering around here. A couple others head up the far stairs while she heads towards us.

We try to get her attention but she simply looks at us and doesn't respond. She enters the study area and we try again, she doesn't even look. I enter the study area and try something, I shout to my comrades then leave the study area and ask them what I said. They say they couldn't hear me. Makes sense the study area here is silenced.

We start making checks around the place to learn more and we learn a bit but are also overcome with an odd sensation. Whenever we roll low (even on a success) we hear someone go "WRONG. TRY AGAIN." in our heads and take psychic damage. Our fighter and tiefling both take quite a bit of damage this way over the next couple hours.

Blue Tiefling wanders over to class room 1 and opens the door, not responding to us, before sitting on a couch swarming with ants. Some of the ants pay attention to her, crawling on her skin and absorbing into it, others ignore her completely.

Being a curious group our Fighter and Rogue head into the classroom and the door shuts itself. The warlock and myself don't notice that this is unnatural and I go try to liesurely open the door. I can't.

Perplexed, I try to listen, I can't hear anything.

Just as I try to bash it down it opens, the Fighter and Rogue both look incredibly freaked out and dash out of the room, the door shutting behind them.

They explain that they kept seeing horrible visions, the fighter saw a vision of her fiance being devoured by a Lamia (this actually happened) while the Rogue was a child again, being castised for being a half-elf when he lived in an elven town. Faces protruded from the wall, screaming at them and only when the fighter believed she could open the door did it open.

Blue tiefling opens the second classroom. Our warlock has been busy squishing blood ants but it's futile it seems. As soon as she ignores them, they reform and swarm Blue tiefling again. She is beginning to look even worse and is developing rashes where the ants are soaking in. Our warlock checks her arm. Still fine.

Our fighter and rogue investigate the second room and we see the rogue push the fighter in before stumbling in himself. In an attempt to aid I rush in after them and the door shuts behind us.

I try to help the Fighter up and she shrugs me off. I ask her what's the matter and she replies "I don't think I'm going to make it..."

Confused, I ask our Rogue a question. He flips me off.

I ask him another question, our new password. "Stop."

He kisses me and we all have a good laugh at the table.

Knowing that something is wrong I go try to find some chalk (as we're in a classroom) as I get close the chalk comes to life and starts writing insulting words on the blackboard. I look to our Rogue who looks happy as a pig and is making 'smile' gestures at me.

I smile and take a drink from my flask then begin to sing a happy tune. The rogue joins in and pulls out a bottle of wine he keeps in his pack. I ask him what he's drinking and he actually replies with something that makes sense "Elven wine." The fighter starts singing too and we march out of the room together.

While we were in there we couldn't seem to open the door unless we were friendly towards one another it seems. Also, it seems anything beyond overly friendly remarks would get misconstrued. The Rogue kissed me to try and relay this.

Our warlock is kind of bored now, having to sit out here for two rooms and she immediately heads for room three behind Blue Tiefling who seems to hold the mystical power of opening classrooms. I enter with her while the Rogue and Fighter take a break.

We come upon a barrier made of chairs and desks, looks like a battle happened here but everyone is gone now. There are weapons and various other equipment strewn about everywhere. We find four magic items here as well and decide to take them with us. A +3 short sword, a +3 holy symbol to bahamut (yay), a pair of gauntlets and a fey ring.

We leave without hassle and I'm a bit weirded out but we ignore it, handing the rogue and fighter and equal share of the equipment. The rogue gives the fighter the short sword we picked up since his weapon is much better (A magical, switchblade double sword (think darth maul) which is a combination of his father's sword and his brother's. It's a story thing).

Our fighter wears the ring to the fey as it seems to restore her connection to it (she's Eladrin) and the Warlock and I feel really good about our new stuff.

Blue tiefling is looking worse for wear, she has cuts and holes in her skin now and is beginning to look gaunt but we realise there's nothing we can do.

We head towards door #4 as blue tiefling opens it, we all go this time and those of us carrying the new found magical equipment are hit with another vision. A red shard of some sort. Our fighter recognises this as one we already own but different as it looks like a different cut. The last shard we came across drove the leader of the hobgoblins into a war frenzy then tried to posess a white dragon. Our warlock saved the dragon by making a pact with her demon (whole other story, long) and now they're on neutral terms. Our party likes to befriend dragons rather than kill them usually.

Anywho, a quick check and it seems we still have that shard on us, tucked away, by itself, in a separate bag of holding (we know it's dangerous after all and the bag seems to be able to contain whatever it is).

We now realise we're in classroom #4, there are two magic sigils on the floor and a big stone slab. Within the magic sigils are two of our friends, a changling wizard who Thel was dating for a while IC and Thel, as a girl. He seems to have put on the cursed belt of gender changing that a dragon tricked him into wearing a long while ago and took him a while to finally get off.

Our warlock recognises that both of them are surrounded by magical containment fields and as she does this we see that they are slowly filling up with water.

The music changes to a panic "RUSH RUSH RUSH" type of thing and the DM pulls out a timer and smiles.

We leap into action, trying the stone slab on the wall as our friends try to shout to us. The slab comes to life and has runes all over it, it also presents us with some information. We're looking at some sort of matter transporter which is currently open to the Plane of Water (we use separate planes in this campaign). We try to shut it off but we can't because there's 'foreign matter detected in sigils'.

Trying something else we find another prompt which has the containment fields. We try shutting one off (the one with Thel in it) and are told 'Importing matter...unable to shut off field'.

The water is halfway full.

We try to stop the matter from importing with a control we don't really understand but are presented with a security prompt (hand print) and moving ID. A pale blue tiefling. Our warlock grabs her (she doesn't resist) and brings her into the room. We get her to give our security clearance and are presented with the option of draining field B. We choose yes and the water is drained from field B and FILLS FIELD A. This means field B is now full of water.

Thel is freaking out (he dated the girl in the other tube only broke up with her recently so he still loves her), he asks why we chose him and we slap some sense into him. We tell him to cast "Disenchant Magic" on the other field to free our friend. He tries but is unable to beat the DC needed. We start trying everything on the machine and are unable to break the field.

Sad music chimes in (Aeris's theme actually), our DM had this planned perfectly. He describes as our friend slowly goes limp and floats there in place. Thel breaks down into tears and demands to be let out as he can't watch this.

The fighter and I try to futilely wail on the command stone to no avail, it eventually locks up and blue tiefling leaves the room. We escort a distraugh Thel out and the room closes behind us.

Re-queue creepy music.

Outside Blue Tiefling has opened classroom #6. I elect to stay back and watch Thel while the other three explore the new room. Blue tiefling now has exposed bones and we can see ants crawling inside her body. I try not to focus on it.

I end up waiting outside this room for TWELVE hours, Thel slowly dissapears on the spot and Blue Tiefling just gets worse and worse. I bash on classroom #6 and hear no response. Suddenly, at the 12 hour mark, our Warlock burst out of the room, panicked. She explains what happened to me.

They all entered the room and came across what looked like the staff lounge. Several teachers and students were sitting around, reading papers, resting, drinking. Nobody seemed at all concerned about what was happening. Outside the city is perfectly fine.

Upon asking these people "What the hell is wrong with you?" the party finds out that apparently the infection is gone. Yeah. Apparently this intrepid group of elite adventurers arrived on the scene and kicked total ass. They describe the adventurers, each of us, in turn. The party begins to think they've entered the future.

Suddenly, the story ends, but not how they expected. This group of adventurers emerged victorious but they weren't us, they were another group and they killed us.

Put off the group tries to leave, they can't though, they WANT to stay. Their bodies won't move. The clock on the wall is moving quickly, hours pass within a few minutes. The fighter falls asleep and the warlock resists. She finally manages to break free and rush out the door, 12 hours later.

We are forced to wait, unable to do much more, 3 hours later the Rogue emerges, carrying a sleeping fighter, we explain everything to him. He explains how he had to listen to 3 more hours of story before breaking free.

Blue Tiefling, now covered in gaping holes with a face much like two face (from Dark Night) opens classroom 5, the final room.

We enter as a group, now that Thel has randomly dissapeared (we suspect he wasn't real by this point). As we enter we're all drawn towards the window, we see the land fall away, leaving just the city standing. We see panick in the streets, moving very quickly like time is on fast forward. We try to communicate with each other but can't. Our fellow party members get older in front of our eyes. We see the city die and become a ruin, it begins to erode and day and night flicker past. We try the door but can't, nothing works.

Our warlock, deciding that this is the end, pulls out a fattie (seriously, her character always had weed on her because it's a good bargaining chip and she's at that stage in life where she wants to rebel) and smokes it. We pass it around, thinking 'might as well'. We then watch in mild amusement as time slowly ends then we leave the room, high as kites.

It's only a minute since we entered, no one is old...we're all kind of high though.

And that's how weed solved the final room for us.

We start to notice odd things about our equipment, the fighter keeps fazing out of reality and my holy symbol has deformed itself into a red crystal. The warlock's hands are burning under her new gauntlets. We panic, trying to pull it all off but are unable when the blue tiefling opens the door to room 3, where we originally got this stuff.

We rush in and take it off successfully then leave it all in the room, no cursed equipment for me thanks. I get a cut on my hand (which I bandage) and the warlock's hands have caught fire (but she has fire resist and simply puts it out). Our eladrin has a burn mark where her ring used to be.

Blue Tiefling suddenly regains consciousness and panicks, brushing the ants off her. She starts blasting them with spells and we rush to aid her but the study area is blocked off now. She looks at us and mouths "Thanks" before unleashing a hellish fire storm which burns the entire study area, including her. Nothing is left after.

Upstairs is the only place to go.

We arrive at the ampitheatre, it a huge room with two levels of seating except there's no seating (the wizards simply conjure their own seats). There's a large stage on the far end and a large pillar right in the middle of the room which you think would block the performance but since these are wizards they just make it transparent when need be. This pillar is the magical core of the school and seperates the two halves. Looks like we can get down to the second half from here.

Suddenly, a bird covered in black gunk ejects itself from a pile of discarded scaffolding, clucking irately and mildly demonically. A spray of fire chases it, blasting it full force. It sees us and charges us only to get blasted a second time. It "BAGAWK"s and dies.

A little half-elven boy emerges from the pile, it's a boy we all know as Jonah, and we saved him from a dragon. We brought him to this school when Thel recognised his magical talents and were wondering if he was still alive.

He's scared of us though. We wonder why when we look at each other. We've all got rashes. Me, on my hand, the warlock on her arm (blood ant) and her hands, the fighter on her ring finger and the rogue has one on his leg (to which we're unsure where it came from). We're infected.

The rogue manages to calm Jonah down though as they're both half-elves (from the same town even) and Jonah explains how he's been hiding here for the past couple of days. We offer him rations but he refuses them. I don't blame him, after this place I'd refuse them too.

Jonah suddenly perks up and rushes for the doors which burst open. Several guards burst in and Jonah manages to dash by them before they know what's happening. We notice that these are the guards we had to argue with to let us in and they're all infected. They seem conscious enough to speak to us though and they welcome us.

That's not all though! Remember those Githzerai from before? How we knocked one out and tied him up? Yeah, he's back, pissed and infected as well. He leaps down from the scaffolding and confronts us.

Next session we finish.

Oh, I forgot to add.

Blythe called US twice during this time.

The first time whe we reached the third floor, she said the following:

"Okay guys, it's done. Just put your dice and sheets away. This is just a game. *click*"

second time was when we realised we were infected, I don't remember the exact text but it was along the lines of "The <plant> is known for causing irritation and rashes. Please wash your hands after handling it."

Sipex
2011-04-04, 12:32 PM
Final session to go here. Coming in 2 weeks.