17 December 2022
After a looooooooooooooooooot of discussion, a method of getting everyone up the waterfall and back to the other part of the castle is figured out and executed. Make our way back towards the magic golden door. Suddenly realize we’ve been tracked by a Leonin. He explains that he’s been on an adventure and most of his party was killed. We decide to go together. Put all the orbs in the door and it slides away. A wave of cold water washes over us. We swim in and encounter a large room with ice in it. Water visibility clears slightly.
Find a room full of ice. A piece of ice has a strange eel trapped inside it. Combat. The ice that was encasing it shatters, revealing that the eel is in fact an eel hydra. [[Jaezred]] uses his staff of thunder and lightning; the eel hydra is immune to lightning damage. Crazy combo: Magic Missile from [[Camden]] + Bleeding Hex from Tal. Kill the hydra.
Check out one of the ice pillars and find an elf frozen inside. Break it out (it’s dead) and loot some gold off it. Hear a rumbling around the room.
Find a door hidden in a wall. [[Gammy]] casts knock on the door, causing it to open…falling like a drawbridge on the party. Start going down the revealed tunnel. The Elf we’ve seen on the tapestries appears, warns us that we’re approaching the artifact and only the wisest among us may find it. And if we do find it, we will be hunted by an unfathomable evil. At the bottom of the tunnel is a hallway with a sandy bottom. [[Ishtar]] steps onto the sand and is paralyzed. [[Jaezred]] steps onto the sand and is paralyzed, and the elf maiden’s voice scolds him for bringing evil into the sanctuary. The demon erupts from [[Jaezred]] and flees down the tunnel laughing. The demon possesses [[Pip]], then gets ejected. It tries to possess [[Jaezred]] but fails. [[Ishtar]] swims up to the demon, smacks it with the tentacle rod, and channels a powerful smite into it, causing it to explode! Tal swims over to the skeleton of the elf maiden holding the trident. the spirit of the elf maiden smiles and nods at him and he retrieves the trident. When he does, she says, “two have not been purged yet. two must finalize their purge before this can leave. help them.” She’s probably referring to the two party members who are trapped in hallucinations. They get rescued and everyone gets out of the room. Level up!
Elf maiden appears, lets us know that we’re now the guardians of the trident and the wards of the castle fade. Apparently the aboleth used to be one of her friends. She met him during her travels across the planes, but eventually revealed his true intentions and tried to dominate the people of Vecrum. [[Domidan]] was the first of his slaves. She tells us to go back to the lobby, off of which is the map room (which we found earlier). Apparently we can touch the map and teleport. She answers some more question. She remarks on how the desecration of the statue room disappoints her, so tal dispells it. This makes her happy, and she explains to Tal that the trident is literally the essense of Poseidon. The elf maiden brought it here, because poseidon wanted it kept in a watery place near merkeve. the aboleth wants the trident because it can be used to drown the world. the trident can counter and dispell any watery effect, once the wielder becomes used to it. When the questions are finished, she fades, telling everyone that they should find time to return eventually.
Party rushes back to the map room. Sit aroud trying to figure out where to teleport to. Tal does some healing. Decide to teleport to the field roughly 1 days walk from the cave where the final gate is. However, the trident holds Tal behind in the castle. Tal swims up to the surface and steps out onto land. Discovers that while he has skin contact with the trident, he can breath water and has a swim speed, but cannot breathe air. Sent a message to [[Jaezred]], updating him on the situation. Received a reply saying that [[Ishtar]] would meet Tal in the waterfall area of the castle, so Tal dives back down.
sending: “sooooo….i guess i’m still in the cavern. can you come back? or should I try to come to you? I’ll probably have to walk…”