Umbral Gaze 5: The Deathrun
Clementine, Carmal, Gottlob, Louisa, and Almuth find themselves again in the sheltered forecourt of the Open Lord’s official mansion as evening dews gather on waxy leaves of the garden from which afternoon’s tepid luminance has fled. The mistress of the house stands framed in the way of a flung-open door, her figure a silhouette as eyes try to adjust to the spill of light that issues from bracketed lamps in the foyer. She rests one hand on her hip and thrusts the other outward in accusation; she grips a fine chain at the end of which a thurible1 bounces with her gesture. Swirls of stormy reproach and half-mitigated aggression color the Open Lord’s expression, and our brave heroes feel a tickle of apprehension creep up the backs of their necks as Laeral delivers a beating, smooth and measured as always.
Lord Silverhand accuses the party members of willful defiance, but more than that, she charges them with reckless endangerment of her people and of all the Sword Coast’s inhabitants beyond. Their failure to satisfactorily subdue the extraplanar threats, as she has been specifically paying them to do, is unacceptable. Rankled by their patron’s indictments, Almuth takes up his party’s defense— perhaps the beholders aren’t dead as tacitly expected, but they are no longer threats to the people of the Sword Coast, and the adventurers’ obligations are fulfilled to the letter, if perhaps not in spirit. Tasha and the Goddess Eldath herself recommend the specific course of action that party has followed thus far, and with that justification, it must be said that they have made the right decisions where it matters. The Open Lord is not convinced, but agrees nonetheless to overlook past transgressions in return for reaffirmation of the party’s loyalty and a renewed commitment to more conformant behavior in the future. So that she may be sure of their attitudes, Lord Silverhand also demands proof of death for the next beholder vanquished, the Deathrun— she wants its corpse in a basket.
As she sends the party away, Laeral offers the censer that confines the air elemental, Cogyth’s emissary and bearer of well-wishes. Gottlob takes it from her, and party members try to make out words in the whooshes and whispers they hear within, but communication is impossible— they don’t know the language. Still, they are grateful to have possession of the censer and for Laeral’s clemency in allowing the elemental— who committed no transgression, really— to go free.
The party returns to the rooms the city has provisioned for them since the beginning of their quest, affording Gottlob the opportunity to find a secluded corner away from eyes that might wonder at a wind spirit’s release. He opens the censer; a semi-corporeal body of gas hisses through the mesh to take the form of a craggy-faced tornado about the height of a man. It hisses some more— perhaps in thanks— and a glow suffuses its body like the moment of a lightning strike stretched thin over seconds. A pale blue stone bearing an indeterminable rune materializes, floating at eye level before Gottlob and catching reflections from the strange electric luminance and gas lamps of the inn in its polished surface. The paladin snatches the offering from the air, and at this, Cogyth’s messenger flies away into the night, its body flowing freely through half-open windows to mix with the muddy haze of the street below.
The next morning, encroaching light and the sounds of the city stirring him awake, Almuth gets out of bed to find a note lying in front of his door where a messenger pushed it in the night. Scooping the folded scrap of paper from the floorboards, he reads a message in Tasha’s handwriting: the witch admonishes Almuth that through him, Laeral learned her plans for the party to peacefully subdue the beholders— Laeral must have complained to Tasha about the evening’s interaction— but she doesn’t seem truly upset; it was inevitable that the Lady Mage would discover their collaboration eventually. Post-script is captioned a passage written in the common alphabet, with undecipherable spellings.
A deal is a deal. Read the rest of this message out-loud.
Almuth is skeptical, as he often is, and the cleric refrains from following the given instructions just yet, for he means to know the effects of Tasha’s direction before blindly rattling off an arcane invocation in a populated area. With this in mind, he dresses and sets out into the city in search of someone with the expertise to decipher his note. The cleric finds a wizened, wizardly gnome in a cramped corner shop, who is happy to help for a pittance. Forking over some silver, Almuth presents the note, and the old man regards it quizzically for a moment before declaring it to be a summoning spell, simple and of only slightly unusual wording. Inquiring further, Almuth determines that the magic could only conjure something inanimate, probably no larger than a shoe, and, feeling confident enough to try casting it somewhere relatively secluded, leaves the gnome— with words of gratitude— to find a suitable nook amid Waterdeep’s morning bustle.
Having located an abandoned alley, far enough from streets that a small explosion would pose pedestrians no mortal danger, Almuth holds the note up to the sun and chants aloud. A pendant no lager than a coin drops from a pin-point portal that forms above the note as he finishes speaking, and he catches it as it falls toward the dirt. The Cleric recognizes this artifact; it is an item his order has sought for a long time: an amulet of the planes! So this is what Tasha meant by “a deal is a deal”. Overjoyed, he heads back toward the inn where the party made plans to breakfast before striking out this morning out to Mithril hall, from where they aim to collect the long-missing harengon Warren before journeying to the lair of the Deathrun in Silverymoon2.
During breakfast, Gottlob chews pensively at the crusts of his bread and Louisa wonders if her human form is doing alright by itself; Almuth shares his discovery. None of the party are surprised at Tasha’s chagrin, but they’ve done they best they can, and any guilt turns to interest as a the cleric produces his prize. Those with arcane aptitude can tell at once that the artifact is powerful, and gears turn in their heads as to how the item might be put to future use. Gottlob, too, shows the elemental’s runic stone; Louisa identifies it, to similar— if less piquant— effect. For now, though, they must focus; an encounter with the Deathrun is close at hand.
In Mithril Hall, finished with the business3 that kept him in the city so long after defeating the Witness, Warren waits outside the arched concourse where the party agreed to meet him when arriving, via portal. Materializing one after the other, the adventurers greet their cleric friend and share stories of their latest exploits— Warren reciprocates. When all are caught up, and with their goal set firmly in their minds, our heroes are briefed by an underling of Lord Silverhand, a dwarf, who conveys that safe passage in Mithril Hall and the greater North is guaranteed by none other than the lady Alustriel Silverhand, Laeral’s sister and leader of many northern cities under the confederation of Luruar4.
Our adventurers go on foot deeper into Alustriel’s domain, pausing for rest when needed, and as they journey, Almuth puts forth an idea that’s been nagging him since his confrontation with Laeral the night before. The power of Eldath may enable him to force5 their troublesome patron to support the party’s non-lethal inclination, as directed by Tasha, if only the party will wait a day, but the cleric forgets that he is not in disinterested company. Clementine is a loyal and high-ranking member of Waterdeep’s city guard, and she responds forcefully. The ranger will not allow him to attempt the idea, and he would be wise not to let it sully his thoughts further. Gottlob speaks with just as much passion; the satyr will not be made to leave another home in disgrace for aiding such heinous treason. Rebuked, the cleric acquiesces— his idea was foolhardy— but the party is unsure whether they can take him at his word.
Haltingly, conversation turns to other things. The adventurers soon wind up among a jumble of structures along the south bank of a river too wide to shout across— pale stone walls and sturdy wooden rooves6 hug the water-line as though piled against it. An old man waits at the shore, leaning on a sturdy, silver-inlaid staff that he holds with both hands, a cape of rich blue hanging draped over one sloped shoulder, his clear eyes meeting our heroes’ with confidence. The man greets the party amiably, and Gottlob asks if he knows where the river is most easily crossed, but the man just laughs— there is only one good way to cross the Rauvin: the famed Moonbridge7. Respectfully, he asks the party their business; their dress and manner give him cause to believe it may be they for whom he is waiting. When Gottlob affirms his suspicion, the man raises his staff toward the water and begins to chant. Louisa recognizes the pull of powerful magic upon the weave as his words wrench an opalescent bridge into visibility, a dozen feet wide and several hundred long. It arcs gently across the river like the rim of some great pearly wheel protruding edge-on from the earth, surface shivering in the mid-morning air and swimming with spools of the moon’s captured light.
As the party crosses, the old man introduces himself. His name is Taern Hornblade8, and he has been expecting them. The High Mage Methrammar Aerasumé9— High Marshal of the Agent Legion, Alustriel’s son, and Laeral’s nephew— sent him to receive the visitors and to convey to them the details of the Deathrun’s activities. He fulfills his duty with exactitude, making a point of pointing out signs around the city that bear crude10 advertisements beckoning adventurers to brave the beholder’s lair. Such signs reappear faster than watchmen can take them down. A strange and mild aura impinges upon our heroes arcane sense as they move closer to the center of the city and, aware of their confusion, Taern explains: to protect the people of Silverymoon from the rash experiments of its outsized population of mages as well as from hostile forces, ruling officials placed a ward upon the city. It prevents the casting of certain kinds of magic without special license; teleportation, summoning, and flight are unavailable here. The party has never heard of such a wide-reaching and granular anti-magic effect, and they find it clear that such spellcraft could only be a concerted effort by very powerful wizards— best to respect it, then.
At last, they arrive in a keep at the heart of the city. Guided up winding flights of stairs through a maze of ancient and expert masonry, the party is shown to the chamber of the High Marshal Aerasumé. In the corner, a wastebasket is piled high with the shredded remains of more advertisement posters, and the marshal has a weary, harried look about him the suggests he’s grown altogether tired of dealing with the things. He looks the party up and down, half listening and half appraising for himself as Taern makes their introductions.
Methrammar explains the situation in some detail. The “beholder” the party seeks is probably just a gazer11, though a devilishly smart one to be fair; several scholars knowledgeable in such matters saw the monster make its arrival to the keep. The creature found its way to the basements of the Library of the Sages, cutting off library custodians from their work and blocking access to a great number of artifacts stored therein. The party must evict the aberration from its no-doubt trap-riddled lair and restore access to the occluded archives and their contents.
Confident in their ability to defeat a little gazer, having victories over far more formidable foes under their belts, the party starts downward past oblivious scholars who study in dim corners and a concentration of advertisements that grows ever denser as they descend. From the final landing, our heroes carry on into a small, rectangular room, more of a partitioned hallway than it is an actual chamber, where on the far wall a button sits recessed in a slab of sandstone. Warren presses it immediately, heedless of the warnings of his comrades. Rasps of grating stone occur in synchronicity as the door ahead grinds open and the one behind slams closed. A crazed voice emanates immediately from every direction, projected and amplified by spellcraft to rattle the brains of all who listen.
Greetings, adventurers; I’ll be your killer tonight. My name is Cisconian, but you can call me “Death”!
The party members move into the room that Warren revealed to them. Six passages extend radially from the edges of the circular chamber like eyestalks from the body of a beholder.
Cisconian declares that his subjects shall play a game— hopefully they perform better than the pathetic excuses for adventurers that have shown up thus far. He explains: in each of the rooms is an artifact, a part of a whole, hte bringing together of which constitutes the win condition for his contest. If the party can retrieve six items from six rooms in sixty seconds, they win! The artifacts shall be theirs! If not, they die like those who came before, like the stupid animals that they are. The catch? Each room harbors a trap of some sort, a lethal puzzle— solving them in time will not be easy. The gazer allows his playthings a moment to consider the rooms and their traps as well as they can from a distance before his voice ceases and the game is afoot.
12
One room contains a pit filled with a mass of cuboid slimes that reaches from wall to wall; they leave only a narrow platform at the far end upon which an adventurer might stand.
An adjacent room is preceded by a hallway that winds away in kinks and corners too extreme to peer around. As far as anyone can tell, it’s a normal— circuitous— passage.
In the next chamber, a score of meter-long purple worms writhe beneath a rickety rope bridge that creaks under its own weight as though it could snap any any moment. Splintering planks lashed together with fraying cables make a tenuous platform over the throng.
Carrying on counter-clockwise, a small chamber holds a wire cage in which are arranged nine latched chests in a square grid, each encased in its own block of ice. A panel on the wall outside the cage houses small, circular buttons in the same configuration; the party supposes that one grid corresponds to the other.
The doorway of the fifth room is a precipice giving way to a pit of molasses reaching deeper than the eye can discern, its sweet aroma almost sickening in such concentration and quantity. On the chamber’s hadalpelagic floor— it can only be assumed— rests another artifact.
Finally, a veil of impenetrable black obscures anything beyond the threshold of the last room; even those of the party blessed with darkvision make out no forms or figures in that inky dark. Gottlob is reminded of the obscured squid creatures the party fight on their way to the witness— this must be magical darkness before them now, too.
With a flurry of short words informing a hastily agreed upon strategy, party members spring into action. Each moves to their designated chamber as Cisconian’s silent countdown begins.
Warren makes a running leap in the room containing the rope bridge, the harengon’s powerful legs carrying him— not without some luck— clean over the bridge and safely to the other side. The toothed worms leap and snap at him as he flies, but they fail to hit him, instead making contact with the bridge which crumbles away like dust— it seems forgoing those weathered planks altogether was the right move. Having landed safely, Warren picks up a small black box that rests in a shallow alcove and nestles it tight under his arm. It surely contains the artifact he seeks.
As Clementine enters her room, the gazer’s voice describes its challenge: four invisible bridges span the jelly-filled chasm before her; three, the beholderkin has enchanted— each will vanish underfoot at the most troublesome moment of one’s crossing. Her task is to determine which is the lone reliable platform. The centaur moves about, prodding with her hooves over the apparent ledge in search of solid ground that might support her weight. Thinking to narrow the scope of her quandary, she dispels the magic maintaining the phantasm of the leftmost bridge. It shatters along with the spell that made it real; falling chunks meet a soundless demise above softly squelching slimes.
Gottlob tries to dispel the darkness of his room with the blinding luminance of “daylight”, but the darkness is powerful magic indeed, and his spell can only push it back for a moment. Through the gap, he sees a throng of beetles cloaked like the squid creatures that ambushed the party en route to the Witness, deeper underground then than even here in this basement. The paladin thinks for moment— if just light failed to lift the darkness, perhaps light and heat will do the trick! Insects often fear the flame. Gottlob sends a telepathic message to the party— “Anyone got a match?”— and Carmal responds. The paladin can borrow his oil lamp, if that will do. It will, and Gottlob hurries over to retrieve his comrade’s offering.
Almuth, ever cautious, scans his room of boxes and buttons for anomalies. The cleric casts “detect traps” to discover that eight of the ice-encased chests he sees are really ice-encased mimics, perfidious beasts that would shred him in an instant.
Carmal dashes around the corners of his winding passage until a blockage of half-crumbled pillars arrests his progress. Cisconian’s voice echoes strangely in the hall’s twisting geometry.
Oh my, that won’t do; so sorry. Be a dear and knock out those pillars for me, will you? We can’t let silly things like them stop you from finding your prize.
Realizing that his current, human form affords him little ability to destroy chunks of stone, he casts “polymorph” to become a muscle-bound ape.
Louisa opts for a direct approach: the pendant around her neck produces a steady gush of acid that burns a hole in the sticky mire clean to the bottom. It will be a squeeze, but she figures she can fit through.
Artifact in hand, Warren spins on his heels and tries to repeat the jump that saw him safely across the chasm of worms just moments before, but this time he falters. As the cleric plummets toward the ravenous multitude below, he throws the box and the artifact therein toward the center of the room— this may be the end for him, but the party needs the item he retrieved and by Moradin they shall have it! Landing with a meaty thwack as attacking worms crash against armored leporine flesh, Warren’s leg is enveloped by a needled maw that finds lucky purchase in the gaps of his sparse lower plates. Pain seems to flay the cleric’s senses for a moment, the twisting, crushing, ripping force of the worm’s abrasive insides doing evil work on his captured appendage.
With no way to know which bridge is reliably solid, and of a mind to use no more of her magic than necessary, Clementine makes a guess. With a few steps back, making a running start, she goes to take a flying leap— to duplicate Warren’s earlier success— but before she can set herself soaring, the bridge she chose for the attempt dissolves beneath her and she tumbles with a start into the soup of sizzling slime below.
Taking the lantern from Carmal and setting it alight, Gottlob returns to the chamber of beetles. He tests his theory carefully, cautiously, gauging the beetles’ response to heat as he extends his hand over the threshold. Darkness recoils, and when he turns the dial to raise the wick, recoils farther still. As a quick precaution before rushing in, he “blesses” himself and Louisa, who stands at the entrance to her own puzzle nearby.
Almuth tries “detecting magic”— he aims to discover what chest is real by direct discernment of its enchanted contents. His spell takes a moment to take effect.
Carmal, his new ape form netting him a substantial boost in strength, punches through the cracked and crumbling pillars with ease, but his effort has a predictable effect; the room around him starts to crumble. He vaults over the smashed rubble before him to scoop yet a third black box from the floor at the end of the passage as a clang and clatter of metal on stone alerts him to a flood of falling weapons dropping from the ceiling above where he just stood. Plainly, Cisconian means to crush or impale the bard before he can escape. A few blades land at odd angles that send them bouncing, and one nicks his calf as he considers strategies to effect his escape.
With a narrow path now cleared through the molasses, Louisa’s line of sight ends on a little black box that rest at the bottom of the pool still half embedded in syrup. Acting quickly before the tunnel can collapse, the wizard fires a cone of ice and frigid air that chills the molasses brittle. Thusly freed from worries of drowning in sugary flows, Louisa hops into the passage, riding its interior like a tube slide straight to the chamber floor.
Warren musters every shed of power he has to “inflict wounds” on the worm whose thousands of barb-teeth tear at his skin and armor and threaten to rip his leg from its socket. The villainous creature has no defense against such a concentrated surge of divine power; half its body disintegrates entirely; the rest falls away in utter ruin. Once again with control of all his limbs, Warren crouches low in preparation for a mighty vertical leap, his powerful legs like coiled steel. A momentary release of energy and the harengon is up, away from the worms, and landing safely next to the artifact he threw. His rapidity surprises even him.
As Clementine struggles to orient herself in the viscous discharges of the slimes, a torturous, chemical inferno sears the centaur’s lower half. The quickness of Cisconian’s bridge to disappear meant the ranger fell happily close to the edge from which she jumped, and some unexpected solidity of the slime creatures’s bodies provides just enough leverage for her to scramble back to safety, another choice eliminated.
Emboldened by the beetles’ reactions, Gottlob rushes as fast as his hooves can carry him into the room. He crouches a bit to ensure no part of his body extends too far from the source of the lantern’s protection from what would no doubt be a ravaging swarm if the it were to be extinguished. Finding the back wall just fifty feet within, he picks up a black box— identical to the one Warren recovered moments ago— and steels himself for a rapid return.
Almuth’s spell has taken effect; it affords him a keen sight of arcane energies that pervade the space, but as he peers at the nine chests, hoping to discern the aura of the artifact he seeks in one, dismay fills his heart— magic saturates the frozen blocks in which the containers are embedded; squint and strain as he might, Almuth glimpses no hint of the artifact’s aura through the interference of the enveloping ice. The cleric stops to consider his options, sending a request for input across the telepathic bonds Tasha forged between him and his comrades in the Witness’ vanquishment.
Gottlob responds with a thought: the paladin has prepared the spell “locate object”, which should allow him to pinpoint one real chest— one real object— among a crowd of mimics. Almuth likes the plan, and the two agree to execute it as soon as Gottlob breaks free of the darkness of his own task.
Carmal, seeing weapons accumulate faster and faster, and knowing that they will surely kill him if he tries to wade through without precaution, casts “polymorph”, that most flexible of spells, to take the form of a spider— a tiny target and one he hopes can make the mad dash to safety. The bard skitters through the tumbling and shifting maelstrom, dodging sword-points and spear-tips clattering around him as he goes.
Safely at the bottom of her acid-cut hole, shivering slightly from the lingering chill of her magic imparted back to her by frozen sugar as she slid, Louisa levers the artifact from its tacky lodgement. Taking it between her teeth, the llama makes as though to ascend, but her hooves can only scrabble at the tunnel walls, fumbling ineffectually as they fail to find purchase. She makes it only halfway to the up before slipping and sliding back down.
Finished with the challenge of his room— the first to find success— Warren bounds over to Clementine where the centaur still struggles to secure passage across a pool of roiling slime. Coming alongside, he heals the centaur with a word, to mitigate the acid burns splotched and specked across her flanks. He suggests that the pair divide and conquer: he will take one bridge; she will take the other; one of them will probably succeed.
Clementine, for her part, has another idea. Rifling through her pack for a moment, she produces a length of fine, strong rope and, tying it to an arrow she nocks in turn, lets fly a shot toward the artifact box. The box sits unsecured on a narrow plinth that rises from the floor in continuous protrusion of the gray brick underfoot, and her arrow finds it easily, embedding in the side and knocking it from its place. Jubilant, the centaur goes to pull the box to safety, but she’s misjudged her own position and reels her prize over the edge of the far platform to fall open on the slime horde below. As the box breaks apart and begins to dissolve in acrid plumes of smoke, a short green cloak spills out. It too begins to sizzle, but slowly— a chemist or skilled magician must have fortified its wanly shimmering weave. Dismayed, Clementine tries another bridge, and this time her guess is correct; stooping with staff in hand, she fishes the cloak free from the ooze and does her best to wipe it clean.
Since Gottlob rushed into the teeming midnight of pointed protrusions and faintly buzzing wings, the insects have grown bolder, and they grow bolder still. Several venture close enough to bite and slash at his exposed face in the course of the satyr’s wild dash back to the light and safety of Cisconian’s central chamber. The satyr’s efforts prevent all but one of the bugs from finding its mark, which leaves a shallow puncture in his cheek as a token of his failure.
Noticing his comrade’s wound, Almuth “aids” Gottlob with a spell; he contemplates the panel of buttons and the cage surrounding the chests, passing moments in thought before Gottlob’s arrival brings the power to execute their plan.
Carmal’s spider form is deft and agile— he weaves with little effort through a matrix of blades that continues to grow ever denser— but a sudden shift in the structure, unforeseeable from such low vantage, conveys the rusted point of a sword through his abdomen. The arachnid’s injuries restore Carmal instantly to human form, but he’s nearly broken free now; with a final twisting leap, ribbons of blood streaming behind him from sword-rent flesh, the bard and his artifact tumble to the circular chamber’s stony floor. Clashing blades sing a lingering falsetto in his ears.
In a bout of super-llama agility, Louisa digs her hooves into molasses tunnel walls. She carves notched depressions by the force of her steps, depressions that hold the wizard’s weight with ease. In a moment, Louisa is the fourth of her party to complete a challenge.
Hearing Carmal’s scream and seeing his companion tumble to the floor, Warren rushes to help. He casts “cure wounds”, and the bard can once again think straight.
Artifact in hand, Clementine dashes back across the bridge she now knows to be safe— her conclusion remains correct— and out to join the others. Thereupon, she looks about, gaze searching for any unfinished tasks or wounded party members to whom she might be of assistance, but only Almuth’s room remains, and Gottlob is on his way.
The satyr goes to Almuth and— taking in the room and its features with a quick glance— enacts the strategy discussed. A tug at his mind shows him the way to the real chest as he works his magic, and presses the appropriate button with haste as the time limit grows near. Ice that encases their objective becomes a ball of water, which slops messily to the floor, splashing the surrounding chests— Gottlob opens the cage door with a gesture that says to his comrade, “it’s all yours”.
Almuth’s robes flap as the cleric slips past the satyr and among the grid of chests, eight still sealed under arcane frost. He reaches his target and, finding it unlocked, flips the lid before tucking its contents under one arm. Turning on his heel, the cleric discovers a strange activity: the rest of the chests are thawing before his eyes. Cisconian’s voice booms, pitched with the ire of a child about to loose a toy, startling all who listen.
No fair. If you’re not going to play fun, I guess I’ll have to do it for you!
Almuth and Gottlob lock eyes, actions coordinated unconsciously. The cleric’s feet fall irregularly in a flurry of evasive manoeuvres; he twists at the waist, this way and that, a desperate flailing dance by which he manages to evade the lashing tongues and gnashing teeth ravening all around him.
Almuth hurtles by, artifact under arm, and Gottlob slams the cage’s door with enough force to batter back the monsters that try to tailgate his companion through. He latches the door as mimics leap and snarl hopelessly on the other side. Victorious, the pair return to their waiting companions in the middle of the main chamber.
For long moments, Cisconian’s voice does not intrude, and the party takes the opportunity to examine the items they recovered. Discarding the little boxes, a menagerie of odd but related items is revealed.
Clementine’s green cloak is among the most obvious, but who knows what its purpose could be?
Carmal’s box contains the horn of a unicorn, an item of clear and present worth.
Warren recovered a clasp— perhaps for the cloak— in the shape of a unicorn’s head, wrought in filaments of finest silver.
Almuth’s prize is a bunch of coiled fiber, stacked loops of thorny vines all twisted together like the tail of a whip.
Louisa holds a broken arrow, a remarkably unremarkable reward, for all the party can tell.
Gottlob’s mad dash netted him a crystal bottle containing liquid of unknown nature. It swirls with tiny, silver rivers and glittering vortices as he turns it over in his hands. Louisa, thankfully, recognizes the substance. It is not— as several of the party guessed— unicorn snot, but a vial of highly-concentrated ink, the sort Louisa uses in making additions to her spellbook.
The presence of all six artifacts together in the central chamber satisfies the conditions of Cisconian’s challenge. The slabs of stone that sealed the entrance upon Warren’s button press retract on unseen tracks with a grinding sound that sets hairs on end, but rather than a clear path to freedom, the party finds the gazer, in the flesh. The dungeon’s master floats forward; rage wars with a veneer of civility in the alien contortions of his face. When he speaks, the words are strained but smooth; a lilting, comical quality puts the party on wrong feet.
My deepest congratulations on your success! You’ve proved much more competent than the others; I’m almost impressed. But now, you win the ultimate prize… How would you like to live forever?
At those words, a scattered rank of statues— detail breathtakingly fine, expressions achingly realistic— rise from mechanized alcoves in the floor. Gears whir and bricks grind to bring the pieces fully into view.
The threat is clear, but our heroes will brook no further interference— nothing stands between the gazer and their swords. At Gottlob’s behest, Almuth takes his monocle in hand; he sneaks a peek when their foe looks away for a moment in gloating revery and relays the creature’s alignment across their psychic link: evil. At this, Gottlob strikes. The length of his sword glows with the fury of his lost home and the commitment to defend the one he’s found. The inhumanity, alien capriciousness and cruel disregard for mortal life are loathsome to the satyr, and that loathing guides his blade to its mark. Cisconian is silent in an instant13. Gottlob lifts the corpse and sword above his head in triumph before letting it drop like an overripe fruit to the floor of its own former lair.
The party is not too bothered by the gruesome display, happy just to have won the day, and the beholderkin finds its way into a sack before the adventurers depart. Winding back up mountains of stairs to the room in which Taern and the High Marshal Methrammar briefed the party less than half an hour earlier, they see that the latter has departed, though the former remains.
A look of surprise gives way to a smile of relief when Taern notices their presence. The arch mage expresses his thanks alongside those of Silverymoon and of the Library of Sages. Considering the vast knowledge housed here and the eminent reputation of the party’s interlocutor, Almuth speaks up with a question: might he be able to lend some insight into the curse that troubles their llama friend? Louisa provides all the details, but the library’s information extends only as far as that already gathered elsewhere. Taern mentions something about a vampire, and suggests that Louisa and her human body look together into a mirror; by that, she may uncover the next piece of her life’s puzzle.
With thanks and farewells and the usual trivialities exchanged between a party and their hosts, our heroes begin the journey back to base, back to Waterdeep, for once happily unburdened of the need to fabricate Lord Silverhand a story. They did well today, and quickly too; the sun hangs high in the sky as our heroes quit cramped keep for city streets! If the party makes haste, they can spend the night in familiar beds.