The Hall of Howling Pillars

A short rest and the troupe continues their search. They come upon several strange doors but they ultimately choose to enter one embossed with tortured, screaming human faces. Beyond, Yshven leads the way into an irregular room with several strange pillars scattered throughout. These pillars are sculptured akin to the rooms remarkable door, appearing to be entwined limbs and faces of tortured souls. Upon sight of the adventurers, the pillars scream in an otherworldly moan grating upon the senses of those within earshot. Quorbin races past the dwarf finding the farthest room within the maze where he finds waiting a large apelike demon behind a bone altar. Suddenly, the bodies entwined within each pillar twist and turn revealing a portal where five ‘blood-demons’ emerge. They immediately attack, One engaging the dwarf, one moving toward the archer and two menacingly move toward the cut off mage Casval and Garrosh the cleric of Kord. The apelike demon moves swiftly to intercept the archer. But the elf, yielding ground, backpedals and avoids the attack temporarily.

Yshven assumes a defensive stance and starts to thrash his heavy dwarven hammer about. He engages one of the demons, while another pursues the archer in tandem with the apelike demon. The elf doesn’t stand up to the punishment and falls out of the fight. Meanwhile, the mage and the cleric try their best to stave off the attacking blood-demons. The cleric is swinging with his sword unable to push into the room for the fallen elf while the mage casts a stinking cloud at a chokepoint; but the moaning pillars do not make things easier on the adventurers and soon the cleric falls as well. The fighter moves in, trying to close the gap between himself and the mage, putting up a heroic effort of drawing-in multiple opponents but is suddenly caught by a pillar’s groping arm and flung into its gaping portal. He materializes far inside the room near the bone altar where he finds the bell. The mage is cut off and is relentlessly hounded but is able to evade the worst keeping his stinking cloud spell and a fiery-ball spell against the demons. With no one left to hold the line, the mage is brutalized and he crumples down hard.

Left alone, Yshven tries to move around the demons back to his fallen companions. Aware of the dwarf’s whereabouts, the demons quickly turn back to engage him. Soon enough, the demons are hot on the heels of the sole survivor. With a string of skill and good fortune, Yshven avoids the abyssal onslaught and manages to run back to his comrades. A quick prayer to Kord and a potion later, he brings the cleric and mage back into fighting form.

The three are finally able to dispatch the five demons and the apelike demon brute. Quorbin is recovered and revived. The adventurers, now in possession of all four items – the book, the knife, the bell and the mask, rest awhile a ways away from the strange-pillared room and contemplate the next step that they must take.

The Crimson Pools

They find the sound to be a lake of blood running the expanse of this hall from wall to wall. Stone platforms isolate the square of space immediately into the room where Yshven, Quorbin and Casval now stood and the other features they find inside. Pillars line opposite sides of the room in the form of stone minotaur statues. A stone walkway divided the room crosswise, starting midway from the left wall across to the other side. In the middle of each of the two formed rivers, and on stone-platforms themselves, stood two hulking, bronze minotaurs. Each of them holding a equally huge bronze flails, its chain and barbs presently coiled inert about them. On the far wall, just a little off the corners, two platforms each held pedestals. On one, the dagger they sought and on the other, its hilt.

Yshven scans the hall warily. The sanguine river is reflected upon everything in the room, painting it in a sinuous ever-moving blood-red pattern. The tinny smell of blood is pervasive but not intolerable. No ambushers appeared to be lurking. He takes a moment to decide and then bolts into a running jump across the platform gap toward the nearest bronze monstrosity. He lands safely across. There is a metallic clink of gears and suddenly the bronze statues’ torso whips around dragging the monstrous flail in a deadly arc about the room. All of them are raked and knocked prone except the elf but fortunately none are knocked into the lake. Quorbin fires in quick succession against the bronze machine. One finds a gap between its bronze shell into the moving gears but doesn’t lodge in to make a difference. The other bounces off its metallic hide. Casval retreats into the corridor with Garrosh who readies against any attacks that might rise to threaten them.

Yshven picks himself up and undettered, continues his leaping journey toward the prize. He lands just short of the walkway platform but finds he has landed on some steps rising from the river and onto the walkway surface. Nevertheless, he lands on the blood and its poison seeps in through his clothes and into his flesh. His amulet glows green signifying its poison-staving activation. Once again there is the clatter of winding gears and now both bronze statues rake around, spanning the room completely in their double arcs of grief. This time Quorbin is hit and he is knocked off his feet but not enough to fall overboard. Yshven suffers the same but owing to his greater stability, is not moved toward the edge. Again, twin arrows. Again, one finds its target. Casval steps up and hurls a fire spell at the same target, the armor shielding the gears start to melt. Garrosh guards the rear.

Yshven leaps a third time, realizing he isn’t going to make the longer distance and splashes midway into the sanguine depths. A faint glow marking the center of quickly fading concentric waves. There is movement in the murky liquid and he finds himself flanked by a pair of demons. They rake and bite, bubbles break the churning surface of the thick fluid.

Quorbin retreats into the corridor with the dragonborn cleric. The statues whip around, Casval is knocked down and slides shy of the edge, he escapes to the corridor. In the pool, the dwarf hears the heavy swish above his head, he has his own problems to worry about.

Yshven swims toward the nearest platform amidst the raking of his adversaries. He attempts to climb up the side but fails, The statues whirl. Quorbin steps out, fires an arrow which connects and steps back out. Casval steps up and casts, the heat takes out the plating this time and distorts the gears besides, the first statue grinds to a halt, its inner workings damaged.

Meanwhile, Yshven attempts to climb on the platform once more and this time succeeds. The submerged monsters do not follow and dive unseen beneath the red murk. Yshven drenched in blood, but as much his own as from the ‘water.’ Again he is hit by the whirling flail and with a splatter, he finds himself looking at the ceiling again. Quorbin lets fly against the automaton safely from the other side of the room, Casval covers the elf just in case any surprises erupt from the bloody depths in their immediate surround. Garrosh enters and jumps across the gap. He falls and is attacked but he ignores it and climbs up successfully.

Yshven recovers and leap to the blade pedestal platform, he makes it but is sorely hurt by the combined beating of the statues and the blood-demons. Again the minotaur whips around and again the dwarf is hit. This time he stays down, trusting in his martial training and racial constitution to let him recover. The elf continues raining arrows at his target which finally succumb.

Quorbin and Casval snag a rope onto the first minotaur statue and the door handle and swing across to the other side joining Garrosh. They tie two more rope pieces together which the archer launches across to the next minotaur statue to snag another line. With this, they swing across to the walkway. Meanwhile, having recovered enough, Yshven dives into the bloody river and this time confront the demon tandem beneath. This time, he is supported by archer fire. Finally the demons fall. Yshven recovers the hilt and all swing out toward the door, making sure to recover the rope as they leave the area.

One Leaves

Having recovered the mask–The Face Of Baphomet, and the book — The Book Of Wrath Unveiled, the five from Fallcrest take a short rest in the corridor outside the Hall Of Mirrors. Only the knife and the bell remain to be found. Kurgan leaves for town to recover from the cumulative effects of the wounds he took so far. The rest forage on in search of the remaining quest items.

They find two areas where human skeletons dangled, fastened to the walls by rusted iron manacles. The feeling of ages of neglect and dry decomposition hung throughout the complex. No sight or sound of anything living met them, only the lit torches on sconces all along the corridors and the magic glow globes illuminating the rooms hinted at habitation. One room held nothing but two sacrificial altars — the implements on it (daggers and torturers tools) rusted and deformed. Between the facing altars and spanning the rest of the room, a deep dark pit took up the whole space. The glow globes above gave not enough light to see its depth. They continued to search, walking corridor upon corridor, investigating room upon room.

They come upon a particular room where traces of old black blood streaked the floor — as if someone or something dragged a body through. The tracks point to a bone altar in one of the rooms. Behind it, a pair of imposing stone demon statues stood frozen in mid-roar. They find a circle of runes on the floor here, the runes the spirits spoke of where to place one of the items in when all are collected. An exit here opens into a corridor where strangely, a wave-like lapping can be heard. They follow the sound to another door down this passage. Yshven cautiously enter followed quickly by Quorbin, the rest ready out in the corridor.

Almost a Long Time to Reflect

Anyway, the group comes upon an entryway barred by curtains. Moving it aside, Yshven comes through seeing the room beyond, an L-shaped hall with mirrored pillars. Suddenly, as he casts his reflection on one, the image distorts curling into itself. Surprised, he pauses and suddenly vanishes into the mirror. He is transported into a separate smaller room divided by another set of obscuring black curtains. Going through them, he finds himself directly in front of an altar flanked on both sides by skeletal guardians and Minataur statues. He finds the mask there and swipes it as he closes with the skeleton on the left.

Meanwhile, Kurgan follows into the hall and is reflected on another pillar. The lizardkin finds himself alone as well, in another separate smaller room where he surprises a ragged-looking gnoll apparently chewing on his own leather armor. The starving gnoll attacks and the leader is forced to defend.

Quorbin is next in line and he runs up before the pillar that took Yshven. He finds himself transported to Yshvens locale and the archer engages with the other skeletal guardian.

After him comes Garrosh who takes the pillar where Yshven disappears. The three are reunited at the skeleton altar but finding the space cramped, Garrosh is left exposed in front of the sole pillar there and it takes him to the starving gnoll room with Kurgan. Together they flank the poor mongrel.

Meanwhile, back at the skeleton altar, Quorbin dispatches one of the skeletons which burst in painful boneshards. Yshven takes care of his as well with rhe same ‘bone-shattering’ results. With the guardians dead, the duo are transported to the point of origin in the L-shaped hall of mirrors. Quorbin attempts to break a mirror-pillar while Yshven tries to rush eyes-closed into the hall. He is taken and finds himself with Kurgan and Garrosh. Who together finally end the starving gnolls’ misery. Quorbin breaks one of the pillars but the next one takes him in with the rest. They look around, there are no exits from this place and no transporting mirrors. Realizing this, they coolly take stock of what food they have and prepare for the worst.

Casval moves and he is transported to the bone altar. No one is there with him save the bones left by the skeletons, two Minataur statues and the altar itself. He doesn’t know but the fate of the rest of the party is in his hands at this point. Investigating, he notices a slot on the altar in the form of a minataur hand. He notices that one of the statues’ hands are detachable. He places it on the slot and they find themselves all together again at last at the entrance to the hall. Hooray for Casval! He is surprised at the reception he receives.

Ghosts Old and New

The party navigates through more corridors and empty rooms. One, a mess hall where coin and bone dice and half-eaten food lay scattered on a table, the elf swipes the bone dice and the party collects ‘the pot’. They proceed. Finally, at the end of another corridor they come into a large empty hall with arcane symbols marking the floor in a circle. In the center, a macabre altar of human bones stood. On it rested a small black book which, on closer inspection, was found to be by cultists who worshipped Bafumet. No exits stemmed from this room and the group was about to turn back when suddenly, three ghostly entities appear. One was a big burly human, his belly slit open; A dwarf whose features where hidden by a helm bashed in from behind; and a female elf in robes carrying a staff, no evidence of the wound that felled her was apparent. Taken aback, the party braces for an attack but instead the human ghost intones “ We are fallen adventurers such as you seeking the selfsame quest you seek. What makes you think you stand worthy of success here where we three have fallen?” Reluctantly, all speak in his turn but after all the demonstrations of physical prowess and putting forth of arguments in the partys’ favor convinced the ethereal three. In the end, they grudgingly divulge what was needed to be found here: A knife, A mask, a bell and a book. They point the general directions where each is located and admonishes the party to take heed and place the objects on the proper runes at the same time. They vanish into the air as if they were never there.

Our heroes make camp and bed down for the night. Watches, as usual, were set. Yshven taking first accompanied by Khattal and Azchellac, Kurgan and Casval second, Quorbin third and Garrosh fourth. Everyone settle in as the first watchers stand guard. Well into the watch when everyone else was sleeping soundly, Azchellac breaks the silence “You know, Yshven…” he says. “Why should the both of us — Khattal and I, stand by, taking only a fraction of the loot when WE CAN MAKE OFF WITH ALL OF IT?” The two launch a treacherous attack against the lone dwarf.

In the morning, the party is surprised at the two corpses that appeared to be ‘murdered in their sleep.’ Confronted, the dwarf remains stoic about the whole affair and went about as if nothing of any import happened at all. The party leaves the two in their sleeping bags and forage on. Judging by the shapes, they appear to have been positioned in a very non-sibling-like manner but who was to say about the strange ways of tieflings.