Some important notes about Chapter Three: Antimony\u2019s Still.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DON\u2019T TOUCH<\/strong> powerful \u2018patalogical objects unless you know precisely what you are doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If an action reasonably begins with shouting, \u201cLeeroy Jenkins!\u201d DON\u2019T DO IT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You are in possession of an Egg that does something very important, but you haven\u2019t figured out exactly what the Egg is all about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Baron was at The Still to collect ink, but when?<\/p>\n\n\n\n What did the Baron need \u2018patalogical ink for, in the first place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ship you are on is a warship for transporting marines or mercenaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Also, you are about to battle a Roc on a warship\u2026 A WARSHIP\u2026 A W A R S H I P<\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n You don\u2019t know what the \u201clombards\u201d on the ship are, but they are clearly important. What else can you find on a W A R S H I P<\/strong> that might be useful when fighting a Roc at sea?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Antimony\u2019s Still is a powerful \u2018patalogical artifact. Where is it now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was a key on the altar just in front of the still. It was taken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were three doors you were unable to access in the service area of the Vat Room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You don\u2019t have enough ink. You don\u2019t have enough ink to do what<\/strong> exactly<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Traveller is a player in all of this, but what The Traveller wants, assuming the The Traveller wants anything at all, is as mysterious as everything else going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u2018pataphysical sorcerers had generals. Grimble and Collman were Pataphor\u2019s generals. The book Celaena took from the library identifies Antimony\u2019s generals as Droolian<\/strong> and Gogmagog<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a goblin<\/strong> with a duck emblazoned<\/strong> on his tabard who you\u2019ve lost track of. What was here there to do? What became of him?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The black dragon got away. It’s likely he’s not the forgiving or forgetting sort. Sure, but what the heck is a black dragon doing that far north? <\/p>\n\n\n\n You are still in possession of the thing that the Baron used to make celestial observations. What became of The Still?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many of you are starting to be troubled with dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Celaena dreamt about the Baron.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Kahseer hears weeping just before waking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Dani dreams of three frightening figures wearing exquisite facial hair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Brialle is, from time to time, lectured in her dreams by someone surly and impatient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Flex isn\u2019t even dreaming. The Traveller is coming to him directly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019ve learned that ooze is pain to fight. If you slash it or bash it, it sprays on you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019ve learned that it is very hard to die if you work <\/strong>together. In most cases, you have at least two turns<\/strong> solve the problem of a dying party member. Healing Word <\/strong>is a BONUS ACTION and doesn\u2019t require touch. Healing potions<\/strong> can be administered to unconscious players. Spare the Dying<\/strong> will stabilize a player, and it\u2019s a CANTRIP. Gentle Repose<\/strong> will prevent a player from decaying, and can be used to get that player to a temple where you can get rez (for a price, and probably more than one) from a Cleric there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Talk over your \u201cit\u2019s going very, very wrong\u201d strategies among yourselves, at some point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kahseer<\/strong> and Brialle<\/strong> may be the most powerful and important members of your party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And\u2026 this is the big thing that should be dawning on the party: Long rests aren\u2019t free<\/strong>. They\u2019re always a trade off, but you don\u2019t always know what you\u2019re trading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Cartographers will tell you that three-fifths of Ur is covered in water. If follows, thus, that the sea is three-fifths more dangerous, miserable, and deadly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just ask Flex Kavana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He can tell you all that you need to know about sea monsters, pirates, press-gangs, corrupt dock masters, extortionate harbor fees, and salted-everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But until today, he\u2019d never seen anything like Brunhilde Schlappinger, is tearing off chucks of the sea monster tentacle that has her wrapped up in its grip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s hard to feel sympathy for a sea monster, but there it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How Flex got here takes some explaining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n Celaena\u2019s dream is as good as any place to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our adventurers finding them in safer place than they have been in some time, so they collaps on the deck of the Carrick anchored in the harbor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During their sleep, Celaena had a dream within a dream. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The dream starts surrounded by ravens. In a circle facing outward, they were not threatening, but instead they are protecting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Watched over by a pair of red eyes, she lay down in the circle of ravens and went to sleep to dream a second dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Angelic Warrior Tadriel is observing a man dressed in a traveler\u2019s coat, a traveler\u2019s hat, traveler\u2019s boots, and a traveler\u2019s bag \u2014 items familiar to Celaena from Baron Saturday\u2019s study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Baron\u2019s fingers are smoking as he exits a cavern to a hallway of carefull worked stone. The hallway leads through a room with large vats raised on wooden trellises. Beyond it, a stair way decends to a long hallway with a mirrored room featuring a statue in the middle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Baron opens a dimension door to the other side of the hall, proceeds down another set of stairs to an enormous chamber with a three-tiered ziggurat at the center. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Climbing the ziggurat, the Baron approaches a stone alter at the top. On the alter there is a device with two vats connected by a coil of copper tubing. The Baron takes out a container. Carefully he opens a spigot at the base of one of the vats. A black, viscous liquid fills the container. He places a stopper on the container, and somewhat carelessly leaves a small amount of the liquid dripping from the spigot he failed to completely close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pro-longed time on the Craptopia has caused madness to overtake the party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Celaena awakens tired and surly, and mostly she is irritated that everyone is judging her. Celaena skulks off to a cabin to be alone with a book. The book is not judging her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dani has been acting peculiar for some time, finding extreme danger outrageously funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bruni felt the only person in the world she could trust is Dani, who she\u2019d only recently been dangling over the edge of a tower in a city in another plane of existence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kasheer, who seems to be the singular force of sensibility and kindness in the party, suddenly felt an enjoyment and satisfaction in killing others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maeglin felt that an unfair world was out to get him. No one really noticed the difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brialle was unaffected. A stern, impatient, and all-together school-masterly voice in her head exclaimed, \u201cIt\u2019s an illusion, you stupid girl! Shake it off!\u201d And, so, Brialle felt the madness of Craptopia leave, free to peruse her own particular form of madness unfettered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dani, amused, was the first to start sorting it all out, and after a long and somewhat meandering conversation with Brialle, they began to restore sanity to the party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To all of them, that is, except Maeglin who they hadn\u2019t noticed was mad, there being obvious difference in Maeglin before and after his time on Craptopia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the first matters the party had to attend to was dealing with the sole living inhabitant of the ship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A half-elf was chained up below decks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He introduced himself as Flex Kavana, the captain of the vessel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The crew rowed to Sea Side, leaving Flex guarded by two sailors. When the crew didn\u2019t return, one of his guards went to Sea Side to see what the matter was. When that sailor didn\u2019t return, his one remaining guard abandoned him and fled the harbor in a skiff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Flex, not in a position to be especially picky, welcomes his new crew with what appears to be a mix of enthusiasm and dread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n The party explored the ship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The vessel is a Carrick with four decks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The hold deck below the water line stores the cargo and some of the ships stores. What\u2019s in the hold, we\u2019ll get to that in a minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Above the hold deck, the ship rises in fore and aft structures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The crew deck fore structure is a store room that mostly holds ropes and sails. Tools and materials used in the operation and defense of the ship are found here. The aft structure is the crew cabin. This is a long room with a table in the center and kitchen in the rear. At night, the sailors sleep in this room in hammocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the officer\u2019s deck, above the store room is a strange room with a purpose that isn\u2019t immediately clear. It features forward portholes out of which extend two iron tubes, named \u201cLombards.\u201d What these tubes do and why is uncertain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The aft structure on the officer\u2019s deck is the officers\u2019 cabins. There is a narrow hall ending at the captain\u2019s cabins. Forward the captain\u2019s cabins port and starboard are the officer\u2019s cabins \u2014 typically reserved for the First Mate and the Ship\u2019s Druid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Below decks, the ship is quite well provisioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was clearly a war ship, not a cargo ship, transporting \u2014 it seemed \u2014 mercenaries or marines of some sort. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Last, they discovered seven coffins in the main hold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Exploring the coffins, they determined these were the remains of wealthier individuals, dead for undetermined reasons. They were quite well preserved in their coffins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maeglin took the opportunity to outfit himself in fine clothes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n Having explored the ship, they need a destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As it turns out, Flex has one in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is an island that turns out to be the one from Celaena\u2019s dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Flex warns them that to get there, first they had to undergo an arduous task. They needed to seek out a rare and difficult device with a name nobody wants to try to pronounce. With only few in existence, they might spend years seeking it. He described an egg that changed metallic colors\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026 Which the party was able to produce handily, having found one in the town of Sea Side on the Isle of Craptopia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Flex activated the egg with word nobody would ever want to try to pronounce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The egg changes from flashing random color changes to rapid, sequenced series of changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sailing north and east along the coast of Ithulvania, they approached an island well north of the Ithulvanian coastline. The island, not much more than a mile in diameter, appeared to be the base of a tower \u2014 not one of THE five towers, which stretched skyward for miles. Nevertheless, this was one helluva tower, judging by what was left of the base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They approached a narrow channel leading it a long harbor. To get into the harbor, Flex, with the help of Kahseer, managed to sail safely into the Bay of Clich\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the Bay of Clich\u00e9, The Anti-Saturday Squad is attacked by tentacled sea monsters \u2014 naturally \u2014 because it is the Bay of Clich\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They defeat the sea monsters in a fierce battle the reveals a lot about the adventures. Braille, as usual, rains down radiant murder on the beasts, which serves as a reminder that Brialle is as deadly as she is flighty (always a good combination). Flex uses Eldritch Blast (!!!) against the creatures. Bruni, grappled by a tentacle tears chunks out of the creature with her teeth, spitting out the carnage only to rip away another chuck \u2014 as any debutant might.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fight over, the Anti-Saturday squad hear\u2019s a voice say, \u201cYou could have just rung the bell. They\u2019re trained not to attack when you ring the bell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n LEEROY JENKINS!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or<\/p>\n\n\n\n extreme measure to cure oneself of a slaad egg <\/p>\n\n\n\n Meet Bendix, a goblin adorned with a Duck on his tabard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After defeating the giant octopi, the Anti-Saturday Squad encounters a goblin who points out the bell towers \u2014 one destroyed, on more or less in tact \u2014 are used to signal the sea monsters to not attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maeglin and the Goblin get into a disagreement, where the goblin proves to be both a formidable archer and has an unusual (unnatural) ability to swim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The goblin seems to know quite a bit about the island. Claiming he was ship wrecked and the only survivor, the goblin will trade knowledge for survival. The party forms a weary partnership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inside the cave entrance at the east end of the Bay of Clich\u00e9, the party encounters a magical barrier blocking the eastern passage. There are open passages to the north and south.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bruni attempts two empirical tests. One is the toss an object through the barrier, which seems to go okay. The other is to toss herself through the barrier, which doesn\u2019t go so well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bruni takes enough damage not only to be insta-deathed, but to be gooified. The party experiences its first death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through the mercy of the \u201cno one at or under 5th<\/sup> level perm-dies and a successful revivify spell, Bruni is re-incorporated \u2014 with an unhealthy dose of death sickness to recover from. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is revealed at this point, that Bruni had been infected with a Slaad egg when attacked in the Shadowfell. The egg was not revived when Bruni was revived. A strangely luck break, of sorts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyway\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n The passage to the south had been previously cleared. It seemed that there had been some sort of puzzle or trap that had been defeated by someone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To the north, the party investigated until they came to a room with an illusion trap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The party believed themselves to be back in the Vulgar Prawn in Ur-et-Scatia. Around a long table were a set of foes that seemed to be personalized to each of the players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although well equipped with arms and spells, in the illusion, the party found themselves unwilling or unable to use the. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Fistfight!<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a knockdown, drag-out brawl. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bruni ties a rope to a chair for an improvised weapon, and causes quite a stir. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Maeglin discovers a crowbar is not technically a weapon, but also that he is not proficient in \u201ccrowbar.\u201d Also, \u201ccrowbar\u201d is not a finesse weapon. Still, it\u2019s crowbar. It gets the job done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Celaena goes for the high ground, heading up the wall with spider climb. There is a chandelier hanging from the ceiling \u2014 because bar fight<\/em>. However, she doesn\u2019t get a change to use it to any great effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dani jumps on the back her foe, and basically rides the rest of the fight out like a rodeo start, wailing away with her free fists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kahseer discovers that transformation into wildshape isn\u2019t in and of itself offensive magic. Crowbars are good in a bar fight. Brown bears are better in a bar fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is useless in a bar fight? Flex. Flex is useless in a bar fight. Wisely, he runs for his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As they work their way through the fight, Meagan, Flex, and Celaena begin to look for a way out of the trap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They find and kill a modified intellect devourer (ick!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n With the intellect devourer dead, the illusion ends\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026 And the goblin is no where to be seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n With the intellect devourer dead, the illusion ends\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026 And the goblin is no where to be seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disabling the trap brings down the barrier to the eastern passage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The party makes their way down long, winding caverns until they come to an open room with a deep pool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like that\u2019s good news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the pool several Merrow spring out of the water and attack the party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Merrow are formidable, the party makes short work of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Proceeding through the pool, they encounter more Merrow, and again, they dispatch the Merrow handily, despite the number of enemies the eventually end up fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kahseer, in particular, takes on a number of Merrow at once in the form of a Giant Octopus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of the fight, Brialle\u2019s dog companion notices something the rest of the part did not: something moved into the water ahead of them, while the Merrow were fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At midnight, for the few minutes Sebastian can speak to Brialle without the aid of spells, Sebastian tells her, \u201cIt was the goblin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Through another pool and on to the other side, the party comes to a passage that Merrow have blocked with a barrier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through the barrier, the party espies a kind of scarecrow or wicker man. Being the Anti-Saturday Squad, they destroy it with fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This act is greeted with several screams from the cave in front of them to the east.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (One of these days, we\u2019ll have to talk about what all of that was about. Anyway\u2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n They have made three hags very, very angry with them and a fight is on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It should have gone very badly for the Anti-Saturday squad, but with the exception of an ideal line up for a lightening attack from the hags, the party manages to keep the three of them apart and takes them down one by one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A bias to action and an affinity for fire managed to abruptly terminate one sub-plot, but at least nobody had to make any big decisions involving body parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n East of the Hag\u2019s caves, the passage transitions from natural to worked stone. They are in a structure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A long passage took the party eastward to an antechamber before a vast room with a high vaulted ceiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Along the northern and southern walls, eight enormous vats sat on timbered trusses ten feet above the ground. Piping defended from the ceiling to each of the vats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Along the south wall, the third of the four vats was tipped and its contents emptied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (More on that another time)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Investigating the room, black ooze depended from the ceiling and attacked the party, which was split on the eastern and western corridors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Anti-Saturday Squad learned several important things about flighting oozes. First, oozes strike with pseudopods, and the first rule of Ur states quite clearly, nothing with a pseudopod friendly. The ooze does more acid damage than blunt force damage. Acid is bad, naturally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, when you slash an ooze or strike with with a blunt instrument, the ooze will splash on you. Acid is bad, naturally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Third, if you strike the ooze with certain magical attacks, the ooze will divide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last, ooze is somewhat intelligent. It can attack with tactics, like ambush; or, worse, it can get help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While some of the oozes kept the party busy in the fight, other oozes set about knocking over other vats. They managed to get more than half of the vats down, and the fight was getting extremely dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The party did an uncommonly sensible thing: they retreated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Maeglin dashed out the eastern exit, while the rest of the party retreated to the west back to the antechamber they originally entered from. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As Maeglin was exiting out, he witnesses an earthen golem melt out of the wall and begin taking long purposeful strides across the floor of the vat room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not long after the party safely exited the room, both entrances were blocked by earthen golems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Maeglin found himself in an small room leading into a circular room, featuring a statue in the center and mirrors aligned along the walls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Investigating the foyer, Maeglin discovered a secret door leading to a series of passages leading back to the west. These were clearly service corridors of one sort or another. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A door leading back into the vat room, Maeglin noticed several golems at work reassembling the vats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Proceeding west, he found a door that eventually opened up into the antechamber, reuniting the party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Investigating these operational rooms, the party discovered three locked doors. Despite Maeglin\u2019s best efforts, the party could not open the doors. They abandoned them to explore the hall and circular room with the statue and the mirrors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n The hall was curious, complex, and clearly designed to prevent passage across it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At either end of the hall, identical circular rooms with mirrors and a statue at the center capped a long hallway filled with lava. <\/p>\n\n\n\n (Lava: insta-death. Bad)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clearly there was a trick involved with the statues and mirrors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The statue was of a human, older, with a full beard, dressed in elaborate robes. His arms were folded across his chest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After testing several theories, the eventually tried rotating the statue at the base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The statue turned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After a minute, they realized that the statue in the other room turned also, to match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Soon, with trial and error, they realized that the reflection in one of the mirrors in the hall was different from the statue it self. When the statue faced that mirror, the hands, which were folded across the chest where now held out in front of him, with the hands cupped on other the other, palms slightly apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The statues would only face the mirror for a short time before resetting to face the entrance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While the statue faced the mirror with altered reflection, gravity in the hall way reversed allowing a person to traverse the hallway from the ceiling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Pit traps made rushing across the hall hard to hurry across before the statues reset. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The party was innovated to buy time by holding the statues firm while others crossed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All went swimmingly until flex fell into one of the pits. He managed to miss the spikes at the bottom, but he suddenly realized that gravity reversed back. He fell backwards toward the reversed gravity. And, back and forth, until he stabilized in the center. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kahseer wild shaped in to a giant spider, climbed across the ceiling, down the pit, webbed a totally-freaked out Flex, and pulled him to safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It all could have gone so much worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n So, here\u2019s another useful rule of survival in Ur: Powerful things attract powerful creatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The party descends a long, curving stairwell down to another vast chamber with a valued, arched ceiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The chamber is dark, damp, and musty. The air is warm and heavy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Odd, for it being so far north)<\/p>\n\n\n\n An object glows at the top of a structure at the center of the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The object appears to be a ziggurat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To the right, as they enter, there is a swampy area with reedy grass growing up damp floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Odd, it being a worked stone floor)<\/p>\n\n\n\n To the right, a rivulet of lava spills out of the wall, forming a small stream that pools before winding its way to the based of the ziggurat, where it seeps down through the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A voice in the darkness tells the party that they\u2019d done better than most to reach this room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bruni, assuming it is Baron Saturday, boldly enters the chamber seeking a signature that she is determined to secure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The party, wary of the presence in the room, carefully enters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The voice does not belong to the Baron, but rather to a Black Dragon, who seems to have decided to set up shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the ensuing fight, once again luck is very much on the side of the Anti-Saturday squad. The dragon is much slower on the draw than the party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dragon takes a wailing from the outset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does get one acid attack on the party, which knocking Dani unconscious, turning Brialle\u2019s dog into onyx, and seriously injuring Brialle herself. The room, now the dragon\u2019s lair, also unleashes darkness and a swarm of insects on the party. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While the dragon does get a second breath attack, the dragon seeing the fight going against him, flees by diving through a large pool at the north east corner of this room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The party, worn down from struggling through the hall and exhausted from the fight makes a critical decision: they return to the lava hall to take a long rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n When they proceed back to the room eight hours later, they begin their investigation of the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brialle, immediately goes to the swamp in the north west corner of the room to find a turtle. She does, indeed, find turtle tracks. She also finds footprints. The turtle escapes her, but Brialle and Dani follow the footprints to the Ziggurat, where they lose the trail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Later, more footprints are found leading the pool where the Black Dragon escaped through. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the top of the ziggurat, the party finds The Still. It is a contraption that distills the black ooze from the vat room into \u2018pataphysical ink. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The party managed to fill one ink pot with black ink. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They also manage to shut off the slight drip from the spigot that is burning down through the ziggurat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The altar The Still sit on is dusty, and there is the outline of a key on the stone surface, having recently been removed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The party finds a hidden door at the top of the ziggurat with a narrow, circular stair defending into its base. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The party decends the stairs (where they are not burned by dripping ink from the still, having secured the spigot earlier). At the base of the stairs they discover a room with a magical circle that fills the floor. It is similar to the circle found in Arthur\u2019s room at the Baron\u2019s Estate. The symbols, however, are completely different. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Celaena takes a moment to memorize the design of the circle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dragon\u2019s horde is looted. They get a good amount of cash, but they are disappointed by the lack of magical items. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The party makes their way through the pool the dragon escaped from. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They find themselves surfacing on the north east side fo the island. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With Kahseer\u2019s help, who shapes the path beneath them (and boy is she sick of that cantrip by the end of their walk), they find themselves back at the ship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They depart the island for the (safety?) of the seas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Burni encourages the party to remain at sea for six more days, when Brialle can summon Sebastian. Bruni is convinced the goblin is on the ship and doesn\u2019t want to make port without Sebastian searching the ship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Departing the island, The Traveller congratulates Flex on a job well done and tells him now they only need four more pots of ink if they are going to succeed at whatever it is they need the ink for in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If that isn\u2019t bad enough news, the ship is spotted by a Roc, who takes an interest in them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some important notes about Chapter Three: Antimony\u2019s Still. DON\u2019T TOUCH powerful \u2018patalogical objects unless you know precisely what you are doing. If an action reasonably begins with shouting, \u201cLeeroy Jenkins!\u201d DON\u2019T DO IT. You are in possession of an Egg … Continue reading