Session 0020 - Bonfire

Roster

List of characters who's player was in attendance

Player characters who's player is attending the game start with 1 Hero Point, and can get more during the session.

Absent

List of characters who's player was absent

Player characters for missing players do not start the session with a hero point, and can not get any more during the session.

Session Log

After returning to the main rotator room, the party decide to explore the last blue key door accessible on the panel. This open the door to the north east leading to the hallway covered in ash.
Knowing that it is likely to be dangerous, the party prepare and then use the blue key. 008-Failin moves to a safe spot in the room while the party prepares.
They reflect on their recent encounter with the strange blob of rainbow light. Rocinante thinks that it may have been a living spell (making a critical success on a Recall Knowledge, Arcana check). He has heard of one strange effect from the catastrophe in the Mournlands where magic spells ended up getting frozen and never expiring, taking on a strange form of life that might have some form of sentience.
He guesses that this particular spell could have originated from something like a dizzying colors illusion spell.
As before, the previous door closes and the room rotates slowly for about a minute. Eventually the door to the north east appears and opens to reveal the long hallway sloping upwards.
The rotator room opens on a corridor that smells of burnt wood and charred flesh. Soot and ash coat the corridor and stick to the walls and ceiling. A metal door at the end of the hall appears to have melted into slag.
Beyond the melted door, they can see flickering light that looks like it could be coming from a burning flame such as a fireplace.
Rocinante also notices what looks to be human bones mixed in the ash that coats the hallway, which Sarroxtíoð also noted when they first viewed this hallway.
Everyone cautiously moves down the hallway trying to be stealthy. Despite their efforts, their hard boots crunch bone on the ash covered floor and the sound reverberates down the hallway. 008-Failin remains behind in the main rotator room out of site.
When the group are over half-way down the hall a rolling ball of fire moves from the far room into the doorway. It looks like a bonfire that reminds them of their recent vision, but smaller than those bonfires. There a mix of fire and debris swirling around in the fire.
Once it appears a ray of fire shoots out from it down the hallway, stopping just short of Alicia. Sarroxtíoð is in the lead, but he manages to quickly move out of the way as the fire hits Ferdinand standing right behind him. Fortunately the damage from the fire is not great.
006-Sarroxtíoð reacts by raising his shield and rushing in to attack with the enchanted longsword they found, but he misses. This is followed up by Ferdinand, who runs in and performs a perfect tumble through the doorway past the ball of fire. In a flourish, he spins around and stabs the fire with the enchanted rapier.
He hits the fire critically (delivering 29 hit points of damage), clearly hitting something solid and notices the fire flicker in response.
Eriana was next, running in and also tumbling through the doorway and past the ball of flame. She also swirls around and hits it with the enchanted shortsword, but with a less impressive hit.
Down the hallway, Rocinante tries to hit it with an electric arc cantrip which does seem to cause minor damage to the creature.
Saferous follows up by moving closer and tossing a volatile vial at it. He misses, and splashes a bit of poison on everyone surrounding the fire. It is not clear if it damaged the ball of fire or not.
Alicia is last, moving forward and shooting it with an arrow. She hits and clearly damages it, but the fire still rages.
The ball of fire then flares brightly, swirls around violently and flings shards of debris from it to everyone surrounding it. Ferdinand takes the blunt of the damage, but it is not too bad (4 hp of damage). Eriana dodges and avoids much of it, and Alicia reacts quickly and shields Sarroxtíoð from the blast.
As she shields Sarroxtíoð, Alicia unleashes another bolt from her crossbow into the fire and this last shot seems to destroy it. Like the strange blob of rainbow lights, this ball of fire collapses into a strange gooey mass of dying flames in the doorway.
This may have also been a strange living spell of some type.
After the combat everyone searches the room it came from. It was likely once the living quarters of people in this complex. There are melted metal bedframes here and the room is fully cakes in ash. The magic wall lights remain shedding dim light, though the fixtures are melted.
A branching doorway at the end of the hallway near the melted door leads to an area that is clear of ash. A 10-foot-long pool of cool, clear water occupies the first chamber, and a row of marble latrines is set against the walls in the far chamber. Rocinante looks through the area and discovers a partially charred human corpse in a robe propped against the wall next to one of the latrines.
Sarroxtíoð searches the body and finds a few coins (5cp and 3sp) along with a brown-tinted metal rod three inches long and tipped with a tigers eye stone. This looks like a brown key that the party had not yet discovered.
The water is clear and quite drinkable, and the latrines don't go down very far and look clean, though it may be over two decades since they have been used. It looks like some magic here may be keeping the water clean and also clean up the latrines.
Finding nothing else, the party return to the main rotator room with the idea of trying out the brown key. There are two brown enamel sockets in the main rotator room.
They try the first one leading to the north. 006-Sarroxtíoð uses the key and the room dutifully spins and the door to the north appears. It leads to a 25-foot long hallway that ends in another steel door.
Taking a closer look, this door is unlike the others they have found. It does not have an enamel socket like the others, but clearly sports a regular looking lock and handle.
With nobody in the party having the skill to pick locks, Eriana grabs her crowbar to try forcing the door open. The hinges are on the inside, and if this door is like the others it will be made with 3 inch thick steel.
On her first attempt Sarroxtíoð aids in the effort. Unfortunately, she ends up shifting the door and likely jamming the lock. This makes it more difficult to force open. The two make a couple of more attempts without budging the door.
Sarroxtíoð makes a few attempts on his own but eventually gives up. The door is not budging.
Instead, they return to the main rotator room and try the other brown key on the enamel socket in the panel. This opens a door on the opposite wall to the south. It opens to a mirror image of the last passage, revealing a hallway 25 feet long and ending in a steel door. The hallway is dimly lit by another magic light source.
Unlike the other hallway, the door at the end of this hallway has a brown enamel socket instead of a standard lock.
The new brown key is used in the socket and it opens the door. Four long tables are set up around the main
room, and an archway on the far wall leads into a large kitchen. Ten humans (seven men and three women) died in this hall. Alicia examines the bodies and notices these corpses are warm to the touch, and rigor mortis has not set in; they seem to be sleeping, but they can’t be awakened. None of them have a pulse and are presumed to be dead.
Eriana begins to decapitate each of the bodies, citing wanting to prevent any of them from reanimating. Alicia does not approve, but does not stop her.
Meanwhile, Sarroxtíoð goes through the archway to search what appears to be a kitchen. The kitchen contains a well filled with pure water, cabinets filled with pots and pans, a wine rack with an assortment of vintages, and various other cooking utensils. A large ebony cabinet with multiple drawers and complex mithral patterns inlaid on its surface rests against one wall.
As he searches the kitchen, most of the others search the bodies in the dining room. On the bodies they find 9 more blue keycharms, and 2 brown ones. They also find 20cp and 10sp.
Rocinante tries to detect magic and comes to the conclusion the dining room has no magic, but there is magic in the kitchen. They quickly learn that it is coming from magic on several of the drawers. When they are opened some drawers are clearly enchanted to make the contents very cold, and others are designed to keep the contents hot. There are others that have a nice fresh smell with fresh food still inside. In fact, Sarroxtíoð tries some of the food and discovers that it still tastes good.
As others continue their search, Sarroxtíoð secures a rope in the kitchen to climb down the well and search it. It goes down about 50 or so feet to end in clear water. There is nothing here or in the water, so he climbs back up.
After her gruesome task of chopping the heads off corpses, Eriana examines the wine rack and tries to pick out the oldest and finest looking vintages. There are just over three dozen bottles here that all look to be in good condition. She takes six of these.
Once the rooms have been thoroughly searched, the party discuss where to go next. They still do not have a yellow or purple key, but they do have a couple of red keys. The only socket left with the matching color is the red one, so it seems likely they will try that next.