Kay's Journal - 7/22 - Reaper Errant

Kay’s Journal, 7/22

After getting past the gargoyles, we rest briefly in the corridor before continuing on. As we go down the corridor, the air gets warmer and more humid. It’s very hot by the time we see an orange glow in front of us. Fire is next, apparently.

We hear a bubbling sound up ahead, and smell sulfur. Fathom takes the lead since she’s comfortable with heat.

The hallway opens up into a room. Yup…it’s lava. There’s a big pool of it, mostly filling the room. There’s a solid island in the middle of the big pool of lava, which is piled with coins, gems, swords, shields, chests…all kinds of treasure. There’s a narrow pathway around the edge of the room; on one end of the room it’s broken by the river of lava running through. On the other end of the room there’s a bridge over the lava river. There’s a door on the far side of the room, opposite from where we entered.

I see some fiends on the far side, in front of the door, though they look like they are trying to hide. Fathom greets them, taking them by surprise since they thought they were hiding successfully (that’s so cute). She tells them we have the key and would like to pass through. She’s speaking to them in Infernal. The lead fiend, a female who is directly in front of the door, says that they are observers, and it’s not for them to let us through or not. Fathom asks who we need to talk to, then. She thinks they might be trying to trick us, but the fiend says it’s the watcher in the center that we have to talk to, of course. She also notes that people travelling through here usually know what they are doing.

I look at the island and the pile of treasure with the goggles. There’s definitely magic there – looks like it might be some kind of alarm, maybe. Also, it looks like the bridge over the lava at the end of the room will collapse if we try to cross it.

We debate. What if the pile of treasure is previous offerings, and this is a ‘bribe the guards’ type of situation? We try offering 10gp each. Pujol summons an Unseen Servant and has it carry the 60gp over to the island. I see the magic on the island coalesce a little. Fathom watches the fiends; one of them is smiling a big stupid happy grin. Otherwise, they don’t react.

The coins start to shake as if the platform is vibrating. Fathom asks the fiends if that was a sufficient offering. The female fiend continues to be vague about it, but they do step back. That seems like a bad sign.

Screw it, we jump across the lava to the island. We feel the tremor…and the coins rise up into a vaguely humanoid-shaped golem. Great. It points at Pujol and says something in Ignan. Does anybody speak the elemental language of fire? No, of course not. Fathom casts Tongues on herself and asks the golem to repeat what it said, pretty please. It’s asking for the words of passage, and asking this of Pujol.

We debate on the words. We know, thanks to Pujol’s friend the gargoyle, that the first word is ‘obsidian’. What could the second be? Obsidian is earth that came from fire…a mix of the element of the last section and the element of the next section on the map. Maybe this would be something similar. We check the map…the next section is Air. So, what’s fire + air? Pujol follows ‘obsidian’ with ‘smoke’.

That seems to be it. Yay! We do not die. The golem reaches into a chest and pulls out a gem and offers it to Pujol. It’s a big gem, a good 4” across. Pujol takes the gem, and the golem dissipates. The fiends draw their weapons.

I am an arrow at the lead fiend and tell her to cut the crap; we satisfied the guardian. She says that now that we have recovered the jewel, she can take it from us. So, I shoot her in the face.

The other fiends turn into misty liquid and flow around her, giving her more armor. Abran shoots her twice. She flies across to the island and attacks Abran. She hits him once, and it turns out her sword is poison. Great! The poison is way worse than the sword wound itself.

CornCob tries to banish her, but fails. Gooseneck attacks her, hits once. She’s clearly a highly skilled fighter. Pujol tucks the gem into his shirt and books it back to the entrance; then casts an illusory duplicate of the key, sets it on the ground, and runs. The fiend smiles at him knowingly – I think she’s not buying it. Fathom casts a bolt at her, hits her, and asks why she needs the key. The fiend says it’s a gift.

Abran swings at her, but she parries. He hits her with his second swing, then he backs up. She follows him, giving Gooseneck an opportunity to hit her while she’s moving, but he misses. She swings at Abran and hits him three times. He goes down.

CornCob casts a spell at her and Gooseneck attacks her again. Pujol runs back into the room and turns invisible. Fathom casts a psychic lance at her, and that does it. As she fades out, she telepathically tells us all that we won’t succeed, others worse than her search for the keys. Gooseneck grabs her bow as she dissipates.

As he hands the bow to Abran, Gooseneck feels a twinge of regret at giving it up. The twinge is mildly unnatural. Fathom identifies the bow – it’s a +2 bow that does 3d8 poison damage. Abran thinks the bow is almost alive, but he attunes with it anyway. It tells him they will do wonderful things together. He asks its name, and it tells him it is called Ahtar Paire. This is fine. It’s totally fine.

We rest on the island. CornCob heals Abran.

The key gem is probably worth 500gp, just as a gem. It’s a sapphire. We stick it in the door; the door glows along the seams. The doorway is extra-planar. We are going somewhere else. The doorway is a permanent gate to a different plane.