Craving rest and healing, the PCs deliberated as to the next
course of action: break through the thin wall of stone and attempt to conceal
themselves there or seek safety elsewhere. Irakas only one partial solution but
preferred to save it for another time when the party was deeper in the dungeons
of Glyphstone: she possessed a small glass sphere which could replicate the Leomund’s Tiny Hut spell. While it could
ensure the safety of nine individuals (there were 11 total), the extradimensional dome it would conjure
would not necessarily be concealed. It could be discovered.
Irakas was most worried that the group would be discovered
if they didn’t find shelter soon: it had only been a short while since they
slew the guardians at the entrance and their enemies would discover this.
Dar used her druidic magic to change into the shape of a
small spider. She crawled through the hole in the stone wall to examine the
space beyond. Another door lay behind it, and beyond that a circular,
mostly-featureless chamber that contained only nine round depressions in the
floor. When she entered the room in her human form, she felt a strange humming
energy in the air. It was ultimately decided that this chamber wasn’t worth the
risk entering.
A new plan was hatched. Dar once again used her druidic
magic to bestow great stealth upon all of her allies, so long as they remained
close to her (30 feet). Meanwhile, Aleae used a spell of invisibility to run
reconnaissance alone. Given that a nearby room was occupied by undead creatures
(according to Clarion), the PCs finally decided to seek safety somewhere beyond
the vast central chamber lit by the fountain and chalice.
So Aleae went out into the dark, quieted and concealed with
the assistance of an infusion placed on her garments by Cypher. Despite their
earlier “disagreement,” the eladrin and the warforged still had a common goal
of survival, perhaps even triumph.
Aleae explored the vast hall, discovering strange features
and a large number of doors along its perimeter. She also discovered that a
second, possibly even larger room lay further to the south beyond a great
curtain—a throne room, occupied only by a towering statue of bronze-colored
metal carved to resemble a Dhakaani hobgoblin warrior.
She also discovered what at present was patrolling these
chambers: a decrepit beholder (larger than the previous one) trailed by three
shambling human corpses. She evaded it for a time, but the beholder caught her
scene and began to glide after her. The other PCs were closer now and detected
the threat. Lit only by the dim glow of the color-shifting chalice at the
center of the Chamber of Offering, a battle ensued.
Aleae blasted the floating abomination with powerful winds
from her Wand of Wonder, while arrows and javelins were hefted at the enemy.
The beholder, once illuminated by magical light (in the form of Rungo, bespelled
with Cypher’s magic), turned out to be dead: or undead, as it were. Its large
central eye was all but gone, ruined and withered, while most of its eyestalks
were broken or shorn away. Yet the creature had some vestige of its power in
life, and used a few remaining eyestalks to lay enemies low with deadly rays. Magnus
was stricken by magical fear, while paralysis took hold of Cypher. Dar was narrowly
avoid a ray of disintegration.
The zombies proved tougher than they looked, absorbing blow
after blow and arrow after arrow. Clarion and Kard put their holy water to good
use—the zombies were burned like acid by its touch. Despite his fear of the
undead beholder, Magnus managed to lob a few javelins into its dead eye. Kard
boldly ran up to it, flinging his holy water into the ruined orifice and
creating a virtual cloud of foul evaporating dead flesh.
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