Stepping on Angels

We cleared most of the third level of the library last session, leaving one final room to investigate. One player was out (Ray), so we played the PC as best we could. The advantage of Roll20 is that everyone’s character sheet is there, and you can click a button to get an easy list of spells with all the stats pre-figured.

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1st Gozren, Fireday (continued)…

The door opened and we were faced with four clockwork golems, each powered by a magic wand in their chest which shimmered with magical energy. They were clockwork magi, and as they started casting spells I remembered that we had been told that they were vulnerable to electricity, so yelled to Ray to hit them with that. Ray got off a lightning ball first, catching them all, just before they threw out a fireball at us.

Catiana ran in, just missing being hit by a stinking cloud that got the rest of us. Sheena was badly affected, puking all over the floor as she stumbled into the room mumbling something about an invisible thing outside in the fog. That took her out of the range of my haste spell, though I managed to place on everyone else. Catiana was now in the middle of them, and taking all the damage. So much so that she was taken down to near death and started pulling life energy from me in order to stay alive.

Ray was in the door way taking some of their magic attacks and hitting back at then, then Gregor stepped in after spending time praying for his enchantments, and finished off all four of the magi, who by that time were heavily damaged.

Looking around the room it was a library and seemed to be full of items that had been stashed away here, including a stuffed dodo balanced on top of a pair of magical walking boots, and a rather nice serpentine statue of a medusa that was eating rats (made of diamonds).

Also in the room was the last of the angel heads, and since we’d now found the portal down, we were able to twist the head to face the portal. Which meant that we now needed to try and re-locate the other angels and turn them to face in the right direction. As far as we could tell (it was difficult with the thick fog filling all the corridors to get a good sense of direction and location) two of the angels were in corners of the floor, so should just need to be turned 45° to face the centre where the portal was. The last was slightly off a convenient angle, so we we’d need a plan to align it correctly.

After we’d all recovered, Sheena, myself and Catiana went off looking for the other angels whilst the rest stayed by the portal. We found the first two without too much difficulty, aligning them in the direction that we thought was right, then made our way around to the other side of the library. As we carefully made our way down a fog filled corridor, a sudden gust of wind moved past us – at best it was visible as a faint ripple in the air – and then a heavy blast of air that knocked me back into Sheena, and onto the floor. Catiana tried to swing at whatever it was, but none of us could see it and it must have moved off.

After I picked myself up, we edged forward carefully, Catiana swinging her fists in front of her in case anything was there. We got to the last angel without finding anything, but then there were some shouts and cries from the others who had encountered the thing – whatever it was. They drove it off, and were able to shout instructions to us to turn the last angel head. When it finally clicked into place, the portal opened and we were able to make our way back to it.

The staircase down was… different. Not so much a staircase as a shaft surrounded with angel statues. On careful inspection, we realised that heads, wings and arms were positioned just right to make a passable staircase that twisted down the shaft. So Ray headed down, and when he shouted up that it was safe, we followed.

The room below was also different. It was not a library, but a largish room surrounded by angel statues. The walls were covered in base reliefs of angels, and there were angels pulling themselves half out of the walls, and there were statues arranged in front of the walls – layers and layers of them.

In the middle of the room there was a foot square iron box supported on stone hands that came up out of the floor. There were markings on the box – four concentric rings each of many symbols that looked like they could be turned into many different combinations. Or maybe it was permutations – I can never remember which is which.

Amongst the statues of angels is one which seems to have empty eye sockets. Sheena puts her fingers in them and resets the alarms and wards for the Mysterium. There is the sound of a distant gong, and the fog clears from the floor above.

Taking a look at the combination lock on the box, Ray figures out the correct combination by figuring out the mechanism rather than by being clever and solving the puzzle. The rings click into place and a platform rises up, with a black on black hole in the middle that looks to be a way down, but we can’t seen anything.

It could also be a method of annihilating anything that goes through it, or a gateway to a hostile dimension. Even if it was the way to go, there was probably a hostile Keeper on the other side – but it didn’t matter because Sheena simply gave a cry and jumped in, vanishing into the darkness.

Removed of our option to take a break and rest, we all followed.

We found ourselves in a large stone chamber lit with burning braziers. There are enormous books around the room, and hanging on chains from the ceiling. One of the set of ceiling hooks seems to end with a melted piece of metal – I wonder whether that was where the Necromonicon was stored.

We stand in a depression in the centre of the room, and in one corner stands an angel, his flesh heavily scared. He takes a look at us, and gives an agonised wail.