Bone devil — no problem.
Horrific aberrations from the Underdark — handled.
But that damnedable door — it just won’t open.
***
On the desk there is a journal, and in that journal there is an entry:
“Haha, 7, -417
We have been mediating on the nature of pain and the problem of the alleviation of it. We start with the simple premise that life is suffering. It follows then that non-life is non-suffering. It does not follow that death is non-life. Death is death, a state that is not life but that is not not life. Nor, therefore is undeath non-life, as undeath is non-death. There is a being that is being without living that this non-life. This state is, therefore, being without suffering.
It is the quest for being without suffering that compels Us.
As Clineman taught Us, it is the simplest possible change to produce the greatest possible difference ought We seek in answer to that quest.
And, so we begin with Blank, who seeks a life without suffering.”
“As, 13, -415
Yolanda appeals to Us again.
Again, it is the smallest possible change to create the greatest possible difference that she does not see: it is the great sailing ships of Merdreterre recovered and making the voyages between Newur and the Fractured Continent. The limited capacity of long ships forced them to Sea Side for resupply. There they traded in goods for hospitality. The great sailing ships have no such limitation. The town starves.
They seek subsidies. Subsides are but a temporary and ineffectual remedy to what is the permanent condition of existence.
They require relief from suffering.
What could be done on occasion, with great energy, and only with the willing and aware, may be popularly achievable as the revelations of Our study into the ontological mysteries of Ubu and his pattern reveal to Us truths once obscured in Our igorance. These answers are one and the same, and knowing this the punch line to the joke that illuminates the void. While the pattern eludes Us as it does the others racing for the answer, the means to knowing the pattern are the means to ending suffering. I am certain of it now.
I will begin as all great things must begin — with small changes.”
“Sable. 3, -415
Ogg has been by to pester Blank for Our audience. He has noticed the little shifts and is concerned. Blank reports that he suspects the ‘patalogical radiation is the cause, and deduces from this error that the protections We bestow on the Island are faltering. Of course, this is nonsense.
We cannot, however, explain all of the observations We are making in the behavior of the townspeople.
It is a curiosity, but one that will have to wait.
The unwilling are being saved from suffering, and this work must continue to iompletion before turning to incidental in inconsequential matters.”
“Tatane, 27, -415
“Yolanda and Ogg, again. Our patience is expired.
Perhaps due to a lack of preparation, but more likely due to the complexity of the undertaking, there have been unexpected and disappointing results from small changes We am undertaking to author.
We have concluded in Yolanda’s case, it was an amulet We would have accounted for had We granted them an audience. It was, clearly, a Death Ward, which worked to complicate the completion of the removal of life without the imposition of death on the subject. The spirit that remains is, I suppose, the word would be, “vengeful.” It is of no consequence. We have had Arthur stuff both parts in the attic. We will see to them later.
Similarly, Ogg was in some way warded, but mistaking the redoing of the done with a spell, he —We believe — attempted to counter it with arcana. Truly, who would have thought the old man so formidable? Perhaps We should have invested more time getting to know him, but We find the worshipers of Brigantia to be tedious, muddy, and foul smelling on a good day. It is too bad, however, as come to think of it, as he might have been an ideal candidate to root that squirrel out of the attic. Perhaps when We find him, Ogg, that is, I have him deal with it, the squirrel, that is.
Oh, and, on that subject, Arthur has not located the banshee, yet. The damnable thing will simply not shut up.”
Phalle, 15, -415
“We are irritated. Grimble has resurfaced, after all this time. We observed the damn fool summoning meteors down on his own little piece of what is left of Pataphoria. We wonder if he ins’t trying to finish the job of obliterating the place from Ur once and for all.”
Phalle, 18, -415
“We are amused. Goblins have landed on the island. Yolanda was quite correct to point out that there have been unintended side effects. This would be amusing if there were time to enjoy it.
However, We are increasingly certain that there is some matter afoot. Grimble is not to be ignored. Even We must take note. This takes Us from Our research, when We are — We feel certain — so close to finding all that there is that balances.
We will spend another day in observations.
We have made the decision to remain in my office until I have sorted out the meaning of this danger.”
Phalle, 19, -415
“I am worried. This can’t be right.”
Fale, 28, Minus Four Hundred Fifteen
“We are a right stupid git who lykes to smell Our Own Farte and be contented in the aroma thereof! What’s this! What’s this!? We are in Trouble Deepe. Foes smarter and handsomer than We do Our royal person Wenap! Oh! Oh no! ARRRRRRAGH!!!
Fin.”
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26 Phalle -415
Sir instructed him that Sir was expecting visitors.
Blank was not expecting these visitors to be a company of curious ruffians.
Dirty, disheveled, bedraggled, and bad mannered, these “house guests” included, among other things, two half-elves. Both had the gall to use the front entrance.
After all that he had endured in life, Blank was most grateful in his current state that he could no longer smell.
These vermin were a pestilence of chaos. There was food hoarding. They ransacked the office. They gathered objects d’art from the wall into a large pile. They murdered Weakchin, mucked about with the house imps, and afterwards the hot water was at best tepid and the lights were petulantly dim. They looted the attics, raided the gallery, burned Sir’s art in a pile.
They had, as yet, failed to enter Sir’s office, but it was not for a lack of trying. They banged on the door, the frame, and the walls. They waved things in front of it. They bickered, plotted, and schemed. All of this to no avail. They had even taken to…
… to …
… to *miming*. The dimwits gathered in the abused gallery posturing themselves in odd stances with strange gestures.
It was all so very bizarre.
This was third night on the island. One way or the other, he wouldn’t be putting up with them much longer.
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15 Phalle
Goblins attempted to steal a chicken. It didn’t go well for the Goblins.
Devils tried to steal the Chicken from the Goblins. It didn’t go well for the Devils, either.
What either wanted with a chicken, and why they were vying with each other for this chicken, well, that was a question that deserved an answer.
Only, Grimble didn’t have one. Or, more to the point, he had many. It was vexing.
He needed more information. And, so, his thoughts turned to the Baron, with his studies, observations, and experiments. The Baron would know something he, Grimble, didn’t.
He resolved to send a party to Baron Saturday with instructions, finding an opportunity to solve a number of problems at one time.
Brielle would be the key to enlisting Old Ogg. Someone else would need to enlist Yolanda: he would have to enlist the Blightwalkers.
And, each of them would need projection. For that, he would need a lawyer from Platinum, Silver, Copper, Bronze, and Iron, Esq(s).
As for the other two, perhaps the Baron would have the means to do what he could not. Without divination to guide him, he was going to do what everyone else had to do in occasions like this. He was going to have to make a guess and hope for the best.
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14 Phalle to 23 Phalle
The Baron watched the sky open over The Many Miserable Islands. Through the portal, meteors streamed from the heavens directly on to Grimble’s Island. It was all a bother, as he was making arrangements with the Amalgamated Substrates of Ur for several casks of Clinamen’s reserve whisky, recently recovered from Abandon City. The Many Miserable Isles were directly between the Whisky and his Estate.
He would not put off the delivery, but he would see if it were to have the Whisky delivered directly from Ur-et-Scatia, or whether it was better to have the shipment sent inland to the western coast and have it shipped across the Sea of Bad Decision Making.
He passed instructions to Blank to have Arthur arrange for the delivery of the whisky, shut and sealed the door, and took himself up the stairs to see.
Moments later he returned to the desk. He was shaken, but comforted that he would remain safe as long as he remained in his office.
It could not be true.
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27 Phalle -415
All of this is to explain how two different parties set out for Craptopia. The first from Grimble’s Dojo in the Many Miserable Isles, with two letters and special instructions to find Yolanda and Ogg, to get their assistance convincing the Baron to cooperate. The second followed a little later from kitchen of the “Vulgar Prawn” in Ur-et-Scatia, with three casks of whisky and special instructions to get a very large sum of money and the Baron’s signature on an invoice. Culminating, eventually, into a vexing, frustrating, and enduring battle with a ridiculously stubborn door.
—————————————
27 Phalle -415
So far, the door had the upper hand.
Not nagical, mechanical, nor theatrical trick yielded an answer.
The party needed to make a decision: leave the island without answers — and without payment and a signature for the whisky — or continue on to finding someway to get through that damnable door.
Maeglin Eölsson made A BIG DECISION.
He had not revealed the token or its properties to the party, but now it was time to employ it. Nothing else had worked.
He explained that he had a plan to try to get into the office using a planar shift. Suspicious, and rightly so, of Unauthorized Patalogical Artifacts, Danelia Gentilbries stayed behind (with Muffins, who was, if it must be said, sulking).
With a flash of blue-black energy, Maeglin, Celaena Marin, Brunhilde Schlappinger, Cessair, and Brialle found themselves in a macabre setting. It was the Estate, and not it was not the Estate at the same time. That is, it seemed they were in the same hallway, only where there had been wainscoting there were long, dry bones affixed to the walls. Where there had been ancient weapons, armor, and paintings on the wall, now there were torture implements and skulls. The floor was bare, and in patches, the rotten wood showed gaps to the floor below.
Maeglin said, “Welcome to the Shadowfell.”
And, one of the first things that greeted the party was a raven. Most of the people in the party heard a raven cawing, but Maeglin heard it say, “You’re an idiot.”
There was a brief discussion about ravens, conversations with said ravens, and Maeglin’s overall irritation with fucking ravens, in general.
With that, they set about exploring the eerie place. The Gallery seemed much the same, only where there had been armor, now there were scarecrows. There were paintings, too, but the occupants were skeletal. There was no book, however. That was conspicuously absent.
Two other notable differences: the first was that the door to the office was decorated with what seemed to be a human form, carved in wood, as if a person were embedded in the door. A left leg, a left arm, some the shoulder, and the left side of a head were visible — as if a body had been embedded in timbers that had been assembled into the door. In the ear of the man, there was a key hole. The other notable difference was a shining, silver key hanging from Maeglin’s neck.
They used the key to enter the office. Like the rest of the house, the office was dimly lit, faintly illuminating a desiccated, grey interior. There were worm-eaten books, with brittle pages falling from loose bindings. There were tall candle stands made of bone, covered in the melted black wax of the black candles they held. There was a scarred and gnarled desk, with taloned feet standing on the bare wooden floor,
And, on that desk there was a strangely colorful man greeting them.
He wore yellow shoes, blue velvet trousers, a paisley shirt, and turquoise waistcoat. His haircut was especially bad. He held a black watch in his hand, with a black watch face. Celaena and Maeglin recognized him immediately as someone who introduced himself merely as “Veggie.”
Veggie, in addition to being surprisingly colorful in a place without color, was also surprisingly cheerful in a place without cheer. He chitchatted for a second about nothing in particular, before asking, “Did you find the egg?” Then, he remarked at their courage to coming to a place as astonishingly dangerous as the Shadowfell, which was filled with all sorts of horrible things, like creature coming up behind them on the staircase.
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27 Phalle -415
Dani, remaining on the Material, continued her efforts to get into the office.
She had a general outline of a two prong approach [1] a Plumbing Imp and [2] a Singing Sword.
In the first thrust of the plan, she and Muffins made their way down to the Utility Room to have a word with the Plumbing nee Lighting Imp. Unaware that the others in the party had already asked the Plumbing nee Lighting Imp the third question owned in the deal to get a promotion, they were disappointed with the Imps refusal.
This ties in, somewhat with the second main thrust of Dani’s strategy: sharing the gift of the Sing Sword with others.
Dani released the Singing Sword from the Portable Hole.
It immediately attacked, but rather than fighting it, Dani made a grab for it. Although this was a winning strategy for dealing with the Singing Sword, it was surprisingly hard to get a hold of. It darted and attacked with slashing swipes. After a couple of strikes, it fell to the floor with a clatter. It lay there for a second, but before she could retrieve it, the sword rose into the air and soared back into the Gallery. Once there, it took its place on the wall. Immediately thereafter, the sword rocketed out of the Gallery and resumed its mindless, indefatigable, and melodic attacks.
More grappling, more swiping, and soon the Sword was on the ground again.
Grit and repetition make success. Dani got hold of the aggravating thing. She dragged flicking and swinging down to the utility room, kicked the door open, and made a gift of the Singing Sword to the Imps inside.
Calling through the door, Dani let them know that they were going to have to enjoy the company of the sword until they told him something useful.
He and Muffins set themselves on the floor for a long rest while the Imps considered their options.
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27 Phalle -415
The thing creeping up the stairs was a red, tall, frog-like horror walking on two legs. It had alarmingly sharp teeth and claws.
Bruni, Cessair, and Brialle stood in the melee. The thing was ridiculously fast, attacking them with claws and bite. It managed to get two good strikes in: one on Cessair and two on Bruni. But, out-numbered — and frankly, out-smarted — they dispatched the thing.
Like most things in the Shadowfell, the whole undertaking was unpleasant. Even as a corpse, the thing was gooey, slimy, and foul smelling.
And, still, that was less unsettlingly than the thing they ran into next.
In one of the attics, the discovered a small creature — roughly the size of a small dog — only, it wasn’t a dog. It was, as best they could tell, a scurrying brain on four legs. It didn’t attack them with teeth and claws, like the other thing. This creature tried to get into their head with psychic attacks probing their thoughts and will.
On the whole, razor-sharp teeth are preferable.
Fortunately, they managed to discover and defeat the creature before it could do much harm.
The party was left with the impression that these creatures were ambushers — living traps of sorts, and that much of the Shadowfell would behave this way.
The dangers settled, the party returned to the office, discovering nothing especially useful. Still, Maeglin’s plan wasn’t to use anything they found there. His plan was to get into the office, and return to the material from inside it.
That’s when Maeglin released the rub to his plan was that he could only travel into OR out of the Shadowfell once a day.
They were about to spend a long, creepy, but fortunately uneventful night in a place few want to sleep.
The next morning, when they returned to the Material, fully expecting to be inside the office — they found themselves frustratingly back to the beginning again.
They were back outside the door.
(See the note 1 at the end)
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28 Phalle -415 (New Year’s Eve)
Dani woke up to the sound of the Singing Sword banging against the door to the Utility Room. She found herself thinking about the strangely animated, seemingly unstoppable, and relentlessly dangerous object… and she started to laugh. It was simply the funniest thing she had ever encountered.
Muffins, for his part, had settled into an even deeper funk than his normal sulking. He couldn’t be bothered to get up off the floor.
Dani heard the party arrive back from the Shadowfell, and shortly afterwards, she heard the sound of fighting. Deadly combat and lethal spells were being exchanged in the house. And, at the thought of it, Dani couldn’t stop laughing. Now, *that* was funny!
Muffins didn’t care.
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28 Phalle -415 (New Year’s Eve)
The party outside the door began a — vigorous — discussion?
The party was about as fed up with that door as Maeglin was with ravens. When going over everything that happened to them, all that they knew and experienced, in an attempt to sort through the clues, Maeglin stumbled over the phrase, “Take the steps, the steps to see.”
The door opened.
The Baron was not in the room. Instead they found Arthur, the Night Butler.
He was pouring through the papers on the desk, which they had seen a version of in the Shadowfell.
A fight ensued. Arthur called to his patron, “Shub-Niggurath, come to my aid!” He invoked a spell, drawing the moisture out of the room, condensing the little dampness that could be found in the air, which crystalized as ice around his body.
Maeglin, quick on his feet rushed in and took up position waiting for the others to attack Arthur before he would strike. Bruni, on the other hand, was caught flat footed and off balance. Maeglin would have to wait.
In the meantime, Cessair, Brielle, and Celaena unleashed their magic. Celaena struck Arthur with an ice knife that savagely pierced his icy armor — before it exploded, injuring both Arthur and Maeglin, who was now standing next to Arthur. Then, Brialle blinded him.
Last into the fight, Bruni stormed into the room in a rage (as she is likely to greet most situations) and clobbered Arthur with her tankard. The blow hurt Arthur, but it ended up hurting Bruni much more. Arthur’s strange armor struck back with burning cold in retaliation. And, then, Maeglin struck. It was a devastating sneak attack, dealing serious injury to the Arthur — and serious injury to Maeglin in return as Arthur’s frozen armor struck back.
Maeglin struck again, and this time, the armor was expended, There was no more harm it could cause.
Arthur, looking especially rough, blinded, and vastly outnumbered had to make a decision to stay or go. He went with “go.” His form flickered and suddenly vanished into a shadowy mist.
The party stood in the office, finally, victorious.
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Note 1:
Let me explain how you ended up outside the office and not in it.
It was the end of the night, and I wanted to see if I could get you into the office by the end of the game: it good plot point to close the chapter and set up the next game. So, to speed things up, I cut a bit out of the adventure.
What WOULD have happened had it been about an hour earlier or so was…
You would have found yourself in an empty room in the Estate on the Material Plane. It would be dusty, vacant of furnishing or artwork, with peeling wall paper and water stains on the ceiling. The door would have been an ordinary door. When you opened the door, it would have opened to the hall.
If one of you exited the room and closed the door, you would be faced with the door that could not be opened. Everyone in the room would be looking an ordinary door.
If the people in the room opened the door, they would see the other party member standing in the hall. The party member would not see into the room. They would still see the mysterious door. If someone exited the empty room inside, it would appear to the person in the hall as if someone were walking through the mysterious door. And, then, all they would see looking back would be the mysterious door.
If someone in the room, with the door open, were looking at the rest of the party, heard someone say, “Take the steps, the steps to see,” then the people in the room would see (first a look of astonishment) and then the strange sight of someone walking into the room — but not actually ever stepping into the room they were standing in. The people walking forward would just disappear.
These details are helpful.
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Note 2
This is such an extraordinary moment of sheer dumb luck I have to let you know what happened, or what’s called an “unzip.”
Arthur’s armor should have torn you apart. It did not because of your extraordinary luck.
(1) Bruni rolled a four on initiative
(2) Maeglin rolled in the mid-20s, but he chose to hold his action rather than using his ability to disengage without drawing an attack of opportunity.
(3) Ice Knife is a Ranged Attack
The armor deals a very high amount of damage to any melee attack. If either Bruni or Maeglin had chosen to strike with both main and offhand attacks while that armor was up, it would have likely killed the attacker in that round. It was well within reason that Cessair, Brialle, and Celaena would have finished the fight successfully, but only after the either Bruni or Maeglin was down to zero hit points.
Only, Maeglin held the action, Ice Knife knocked down Arthur’s hit points signficantly, and by the time Maeglin was able to really sock it to Arthur, the armor was down.
And, because Arthur was blind, he couldn’t use other spells in his arsenal without likely killing himself in the process. The next thing that would have unleashed would likely have reduced two or more in the party to zero hit points. As it was, it would have been more likely to reduce Arthur to zero, also. He had escape options, so he used them.
Had Bruni gone before Celaena and Brialle, that would have been a very, very different experience.
A four wasn’t nearly the worst initiative Bruni could have rolled. It was quite close the the absolutely best initiative she could have rolled.