Kay’s Journal, 6/24
Gooseneck’s left arm is in the rock lizard mouth. He’s not hurt, but he can’t get his arm out without hurting himself.
We all feel a vibration in the rock below us. Some heavy mechanism is at work. A door slides open, and we see a dark passage beyond it.
Fathom goes into the passage to look for something that might release Gooseneck. She finds a stone handle that could be twisted right or left. I look, I see the walls have divots, like maybe they were dug into recently.
CornCob takes a look at the stonework. He doesn’t think it’s supposed to be a deadly trap. He also doesn’t think it can close any further than it already has.
Abran turns the handle. The stone jaws open and release Gooseneck. Gooseneck pulls the key out. There’s another lever that will close the door.
Abran casts a spell on Gooseneck to give him dark vision. I put on the goggles so I can also see in the dark. So, we don’t need torches as we head in to the cavern. The path slopes slightly downward. CornCob thinks it follows a natural vein of something through the stone. He thinks both the gate and tunnel are both very old, at least a couple hundred years.
We walk for 30-40 minutes, heading downward. There are no side passages. The size of the passage varies as we go along. CornCob spots some quarts fragments in the walls. Morgot thinks we’re beneath the surface and heading toward the center of the mountain. I look at the map, it seems to match where we are, but the scale is off. The map shows a long, straight area opening into a room. One of the symbols is at an opening at the end of a passage, right before a color change on the map. There are no lizardfolk markings here, but there are some sconces for torches on the wall.
We get to where the tunnel opens up. I see two carved gargoyles crouching up on the walls. There’s a beat-up gate in front of us. With the goggles, they don’t look magical, but they seem very lifelike. Pujol plays his harp soothingly.
The gate is old and decrepit. There’s no recent damage, and it looks functional. There is some debris under one of the carved statues. The gate swings into the next room to open. The gargoyles are looking down; their sight lines would cross about 4’ up in the corridor.
We debate what to do. Fathom uses a spell to open the gate. It blows open. The gargoyles start to move. Gooseneck jumps up and swings at one, misses. They jump down to the floor, and one swings at Gooseneck and misses. The other swings at Abran and hits him. I jump behind it, try to stab it, and miss. CornCob casts a spell at it, and finally manages to damage it. Pujol shoots his crossbow at it, hits.
The gargoyles look like Chibi Gooseneck.
Fathom casts a spell at one, hits it, and does a bunch of damage. One of them crumbles away, having taken enough damage to be destroyed.
Gooseneck shows the key to the remaining one. It focuses on the key. It stops attacking, puts its hand over the key, and then goes back to its spot on the wall. It looked like it was trying to figure out if the key was the right shape.
We go on. The gate opens in to a much larger room. It feels like we’re not alone in here. There was a brief sound of movement, like stone on stone. There was a symbol on the map that correlated to the gargoyle room; there is a different symbol here. I look around with the goggles while Gooseneck announces to anyone who might be listening that we have the key.
There is an area on the far side of the room where crystals are glowing. After Gooseneck says he has the key, a gravelly voice responds, telling him to come forth with the key. He does. It looks like a large gargoyle. There’s a stone door behind him.
We gather up. Gooseneck shows the key, and asks to pass. The big gargoyle isn’t convinced, but doesn’t attack us, either. It says that half the whole is not enough. Fathom shows him the map. She thinks maybe the symbols form a word, but she doesn’t know what it is. Gooseneck says we have the whole, and we should be able to pass.
Fathom draws the symbol for the room in the air. That doesn’t appear to be what the gargoyle wants. He says he’s waiting. Gooseneck offers the key. He seems hesitant to agree. He says we are not of the tribe, we don’t know the words, and should leave.
Pujol tries to charm it, and succeeds. It makes a placating gesture and a bunch of small gargoyles come out of hiding. They do not attack. Pujol asks what the magic word is – it’s OBSIDIAN. Then it lets us pass. Fathom looks at the crystals. Pujol asks about the crystals and asks for translations of the symbols on the map. He gives us some names. Gooseneck recognizes them as dialects of primordial languages – earth, air, water, fire – Aquan, Ignan, Oran, Terran.
Fathom looks at the crystals. The gargoyle says they are remnants left unmined. He doesn’t know why they were left behind. CornCob looks at them; they look amethyst in color, rather than clear and colorless.
Pujol asks about the slaad brothers. They were disciples of earth. The came through ‘not long ago’. They knew the word, and passed through. Fathom shows him the slaad crystal, and he says it wasn’t mined here.
We move on. The key goes in the door, and opens it. It opens into another cave. We hear water dripping as well as a trickle of running water ahead. This corresponds to another color change on the map.
