Home > Campaigns > Book 6, Chapter 5 - A Blazing Good Time
A Blazing Good Time
Elated by our loot, we practically bounced back to the wheel and chain room. We couldn't get it to budge, so chose to descend the stairs. They were slippery. The water at the bottom was about eight inches deep, so slow to walk in. Drips and splashing in the distance made us jump occasionally. Beneath the location of the trap door was a barred cell with a pile of bones in it.
Just around the corner, there were three jail cells. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning hit Lagasse. The rest of us felt a faint current through the water. From behind us, three magic missiles hit Lyra. Both in front and behind us were twelve-foot long nagas. They were purple and black, with crested heads and black fangs and spikes at the ends of their tails. These looked much worse than the other ones.
We dove to an alcove to hide. Mical cast 'prayer,' while Lyra summoned a water elemental and sent it to attack one of the nagas. She then 'stoneshaped' the other corridor closed. Lagasse read the 'protection from magic' scroll, then drank one of his warrior potions. A bright flash nearly blinded us, and we knew that the elemental was gone.
The men charged around the corner, then stopped. There was no sign of the snake-like creature. Lyra and I joined them, then waited as they again charged around the next corner. They saw the nagas at the end of the hall. Magic missiles flew toward Mical, but were deflected by Lagasse's anti-magic globe. Without thinking, I tried to cast my own magic missiles, but they were also blocked by the protection spell.
As Mical and Lagasse ran toward them, the nagas slipped around the last corner of the square hallway. Lyra and I followed. The nagas were encased in a large dome of water, like a shield. Lagasse and Mical paused, then charged in. It seemed that it was difficult to move through, but once in, they fought as usual.
Mical was stung by a tail, then bitten. He seemed a little sleepy. He hit one of them, then fell to the floor. Both turned on Lagasse, who almost slipped twice. Lyra ran through the dome to drag Mical back through the wall of water. Lagasse was bitten, then stung, then bitten twice more. He looked a little tired, but more angry than anything. He flew into a rage, butchering both creatures in moments. The dome of water dropped with an impressive splash, drenching him completely. He shook off his head, then grinned. "Now my head is as wet as my feet!"
Mical soon recovered, and we began to search the area. There was an obvious trap on one wall that the nagas had not ventured past, and a statue on a pedestal stood near it. We weren't up to traps quite yet, so went back to the stairs. A door nearby was locked, so I picked it. The diamond staff began to glow and tingle. Three tables loaded with large bones and papers and an empty chest were in the room. One of the papers said, "Dracolis magnolis-No anomalies found on new specimens." We gathered the dragon bones and placed them in the bag of holding.
We still hadn't figured out all of the riddles, so we went to the first prison cell. (The others were between Lyra's new stone wall and the trap.) I failed at picking the lock, so we returned to the trap and statue. The statue was a gargoyle with empty eyesockets and was made of black stone. It was not flush with the wall, so Lagasse moved it, then put it back.
We could see that there were two plates in the floor. One was in front of a metal-shod door and the other was before a big spiked thing that looked like it shot out of the wall to smash people. It was bloodstained and had a skeleton stuck to it. I shuddered. The lock to the door was trapped, and I could not disarm it.
I drank a potion of gaseous form. I felt a chill go through my body, then was an invisible gas. Something blocked me from going past both the door and the trap. I floated down the hall to look at the other two jail cells past the trap. The second was empty, but the first was filled with treasure. I went all the way around to check the first one and found it to be truly empty. I materialized before my friends and reported my findings.
Next, Mical and I decided to put different runestones in the gargoyle's eyes. We had solved all of the riddles, although we were a bit unsure of some answers. The answers we had were: wind, nothing, darkness, and the letter M. So first we tried the stones that looked like 'M' and 'nothing (the only blank stone).' Nothing happened. Next, we tried 'earth' and 'wind.' A column of dust shot out of the gargoyle's mouth! It stung like fire ant bites and knocked us over.
We were encouraged. After turning the statue toward the metal spikes and standing behind it, we tried other combinations. 'Water & nothing,' earth & nothing,' and 'fire & nothing' all had no effect. Next, Mical reached around from behind the gargoyle and placed the stones for 'water' and 'earth' into the eyesockets. Mud burst from its mouth in a wide stream, covering the spikes.
We were laughing at how clever our new toy was. Lyra and Lagasse had been standing around the corner the whole time, convinced we were crazy. We had been shouting the results of each experiment to them. We hollered that we were going to try 'fire' and 'wind,' to which they responded that they weren't coming out until we were done.
We each placed one of the stones into an eyesocket. A blast of fire shot out, struck the trap and wall, and bloomed outward and back. We must have made some noise, because we opened our eyes to see Lyra and Lagasse standing over us. I turned my head and saw that Mical was burnt badly, and had no eyebrows or eyelashes. His skin was blackened in places, and blistered everywhere else. He saw much the same thing when he looked at me, although I hadn't been wearing a helm, so had less hair left on top of my head. The whole front of my body felt like the nerves were exposed and burning.
Mical struggled to sit up, wincing. He was less burnt than I was, so healed me before looking after himself. It is amazing how a priest's spells can make burns and scars disappear, but it would take a while before our hair grew back. Lyra healed Mical, scolding both of us the whole time. Lagasse just kept shaking his head. I was embarrassed, and I wished that I knew the cantrip for growing hair. As we went to sleep, Mical and I determined that we are idiots.
