Session 33, 10/1/22: How a single CR 2 creature can chase off a 19th level party

The party explores further, having not made any knowledge checks to identify their foes. They proceed down a twisting but clearly artificial corridor, and find a very large (>100’) oval room. There’s one other tunnel leading out of it. They check over the room and find what they identify as a Teleportation Circle (for the 5th level spell), but it’s written in a language they can’t identify.

DM Note: Qualith, the Illithid language. History DC 20, nobody made the check.

Proceeding up the other tunnel, Saqwam, near the rear, notices a tiny (1’ wide) crevasse that seems to go somewhere. Teador the paladin (INT 8) sticks his head in. There’s an Intellect Devourer inside. INT save, with disadvantage because he failed his save against the psychic aura last session. 6. Roll 3d6, 16. Teador is now Stunned and his intelligence is 0. Troudar moves the drooling paladin-vegetable away while Ratel sets up with a readied attack and flattens the Intellect Devourer.
Saqwam identifies it, and the connection to mindflayers. After a brief discussion, the party decides to execute a planned retrograde exfiltration of the area.

There’s some discussion, including “If you could read his mind, you’d just hear the sound of static.”

They tie Teador to his griffon (outside) and continue exploring. It will take 2 more days for the Anyspell Tome to recharge, allowing them to cast Greater Restoration. The only random encounter during this time is a few manticores, not worth rolling out. The book recharges, and Saqwam restores Teador’s brain. After re-orienting him, and giving him several different explanations for what happened, the group moves on.

They find a carved opening in a mountainside, and explore it. Inside is a large, clearly artificial room containing nothing but a single stone humanoid figure. It’s features are stylized and blurred so that there’s no clear species model, but it’s continually moving through an extremely long pattern of katas and martial arts forms with perfect precision and placement at every point.

Studying and mimicking its form and precision can lead to a greater understanding of how to make unarmed strikes. Anyone who follows its lead for 8 hours gains a permanent +2 to damage with unarmed strikes. This is physically taxing however, requiring a Strength save at the end of each hour. On a failed save, the character gains one level of exhaustion. The DC is equal to 14 minus the would-be martial artist’s proficiency bonus.

Everyone except Saqwam participates, and thanks partly to the Paladin’s +5 aura (you can do it!) they all pass the series of saves and now punch and kick more precisely than before.

The next hex south contains a pack of Winter Wolves, who follow the party for a while. There’s a brief conversation, but they don’t have anything to give the wolves (the Aaracokra bodies they carry around will still have decomposed some in the Bags of Holding), and don’t think they need the services of the wolves for anything either.

Continuing on, they find a path above a cliff. A rope is tied nearby, going down the cliff face to a small, square opening. Entering, they find a small room with a scorched and blackened Goliath body in the middle. Teador walks across the room and sets off an Immolation trap, getting lit on fire (8d6) and taking a round or two of continuing damage before using Dispel to end the spell on himself.

Detect Magic and Thieves Tools are used to find and disable the trap, and the Detect Magic also reveals an illusion containing a door on the other side of the room. The door is locked, so Troudar kicks it down. The hallway beyond is full of completely opaque fog. Teador uses Gust of Wind from his ring twice to clear fog, but runs out of charges before they hit the next bend and the 3rd (longest) stretch of fogged corridor. This fog is all from the Guards and Wards spell.

Moving down the corridor, Teador trips a pressure plate, and everybody except Ratel gets zapped by a lightning bolt (disadvantage on saves because they can’t see it coming). After this, they all fly (brooms and Ring of Air Elemental Command floating). At one point, Teador fights off a Suggestion to explore openings to the left and the right. He warns the rest of the party, so they get advantage on their save versus Suggestion. At the end of the hall, they find a rotating color wheel they can’t really figure out, and another locked door behind an illusion. They break the door, and go into another fogged corridor. Ratel picks the lock at the end of this one.

They enter a large room that is mostly a living area, but contains some statues of elven wizards in heroic poses. Immediately, a gem on the ceiling lights up with Sickening Radiance. They destroy it before it does much damage. A few seconds later, one of the statues points at Troudar and does something, but misses. Teador rolls higher in initiative and destroys the statue after it misses him in turn.

The party spreads out to explore the room, and after about 2 more rounds of time, four Helmed Horrors under the effects of permanent Improved Invisibility attack the party. Saqwam the warlock is closest, so he gets two of them on him, and loses about 2/3 of his hit points. Teador gets Ssword to give him See Invisibility. Everyone else spends the whole fight rolling at disadvantage.

We stopped here due to time.

DM Note: This is a wizard’s study home away from home, and when you’re an elven wizard, you have a LOT of time to make it hard to get into. Everything the party runs into here is on the Wizard list or associated with spellcasters. I don’t usually use traps, but this place absolutely calls for it… and they are, I think, pretty well telegraphed. The Suggestion pointed either to a room with several Symbol:Deaths in it, or to a fall into a room with an Illusory Dragon in it.
One player made a comment about hoping there’s good loot. We’ll see if they can get it. They already missed the illusion-covered door to the room that the wizard used to arrive via Teleport Circle.
Nobody in my party has the spell, but I have left a number of Teleport Circles scattered around the map, including one sealed up in the basement of Huitzopochitl’s high temple.