The Gaming Den

For reasons not sufficiently explained, you all choose to adventure together, probably after meeting in Cabe's town. Since then you have made your way to the base of the tower you have heard so much about. Before you stands a giant pillar, probably more than a few miles high. Even the base of this very thin object is wide enough to be bigger than some towns.

You see the surface of the building in front of you, a perfect cone going straight up. The walls look to be made of obsidian, but strangely smooth all over.

Cabe walks up and traces his hand on the wall, walking around its base. Are there any imperfections, writing, or markings on the wall? Can I see any entrances?

To his companions Cabe says "I hope to discover a way in, any ideas are welcome. If we find nothing I can try to teleport in and search for a way out but I'm wary to do so alone."

(Cabe casts "Locate Object" with the target of "A door" or "An Obsidian Door")

Gertrude resumes human form, having previously turned into a hawk for the trip. "Well, I suppose I could try consulting the bones. Or, as I offered before, I could turn you all into birds and we could fly up. Hmm, but that would leave your equipment here. Ahah! An Oil of Dimensonal Doors, that's the ticket. Lubricate us and slip right through the wall. Unless someone spies a real door?"

(Gertrude gets out her cauldron and gets ready to start brewing if nobody finds the door within a minute of searching or so)

OOC

I think you may be confused about the size, because as I said, the base is about as big as some towns. So like, no one is going to find one in a minute, and if they do, you will probably not see them when they do.

You detect no doors with the spell. Or Obsidian ones. If you continue to travel all the way around after a number of minutes between 5 and 30 but not particularly mattering (or faster if you teleport around) you find an perfectly square whole in the entrance, next to that hole there is some writing.

Read the writing via my armor's translation effect, what language is it in?

Dean:

You failed some saves. Overlapping effects in this case don't really matter. At least one snake jumps out of the writing and traps you in an Amber Force Field. Sepia Snake Sigil. Also you get a suggestion effect encouraging you to explore the big tower in front of you.

The writing said in common, "Lots of good magical items inside. You should really come in here and take a look around." Repeated over and over.

Kaelik:

Hey, he can teleport. I figure he can search pretty fast.

Gertrude goes ahead with the brewing, on the basis that even if we don't need them going in, they'll probably be useful going out.

((Direction for Dimension Door potions is 800' forward.))

"Wonder how secure this thing is from underneath?"

Cole summons a Dire Badger every six seconds and asks them to dig.

(I'm assuming we can't see Cabe's current predicament, though we'll probably wonder what happened a minute or two from now, or should we have been following him on Phantom Steeds (800 ft per round running)?)

Dig what?

(The ground next to the tower. See how far down it goes.)

So um, I have no idea how to calculate the dig speed of a 20% real badger, but however long it digs for it's duration, it comes up with more obsidian getting progressively wider under you.

"This doesn't seem like a promising route. Perhaps we should check on Cabe. He's been gone for a while."

Cole summons a Shadow Phantom Steed for each ally (in case more get retconned in later), casts Invisibility Sphere and Major Image. He concentrates on keeping the major image up.

Rad

You find him trapped in an amber globe. You also find a square hole in the wall, and writing next to it.

"Brewing! Be along promptly once it's done. And no, the badgers don't seem to be doing anything. Do let me know if you figure out where Cabe got off to!"

Cole summons a Coure Eladrin and asks it to read the sigil to verify the situation. He summons a phantom steed and tries to tie Cabe to its saddle (with the help of a Shadow Fiendish Ape as his Strength score as pathetic). He then leads it back towards Gertrude and the others with Cabe.

I read him as being trapped in an extremely oblong smooth oval thing, so you should probably just have your ape roll him back, since strapping probably won't work. Meanwhile, your Coule gets trapped in another Amber field.

(Yeah, that's funnier so let's go with that. Also, he'll try to dimiss the Coure first, if possible)

Once Cole gets back with Cabe, Gertrude sighs and asks what happened before passing Cole her Ladle of Dispelling. "Hit him with this a few times, it should free him."

"Sepia Snake Sigil. He's lucky nothing else got to him first. He found an entrance though. Anyway, let's stick together from now on."

Cole takes the Ladle and pokes Cabe with it.

"Excellent idea."

After you poke a couple times, he is no longer in an amber ball.

Megasoma figures some badgers can be sent into the hole first.

[how large is the hole?]

OgreBattle wrote:Megasoma figures some badgers can be sent into the hole first.

[how large is the hole?]

Whole is ten feet by ten feet. What do you want the bagers to do?

(Can we see anything in there? I recommend sending a Coure Eladrin with Continual Flame cast on it (would its Magic Circle against Evil remove Cabe's suggestion?) inside and asking it to explore. Cabe could keep in touch with it telepathically.)

Cabe comes free of his amber prison. Thanking Gertrude for her magical assistance he dusts himself off.

"My. Well we're dealing with some impressive magical defenses I'll tell you that much. They're layered on thick as horse-hide back there. That's noteworthy. If they'd wanted to use magical defenses that thick to kill me instead of imprison me they could easily have done so. The writing also suggests we enter. So whoever made this doesn't want us dead but does want us captured. If someone can summon a minion that can read without using undue resources I would like to leave that summon here imprisoned in amber. My assumption is that someone will come to take the imprisoned creature here and that could give me a good target to scry on to learn more about what we're dealing with."

Cabe will head back to the entrance. If we want to set off traps he'll summon a Skeleton which is a bit more human sized and walk it 30 feet in front of the group. I like the idea of the Eladrin 60ft in front of us as a telepathically connected alarm, a skeleton 30ft in front of us as a trap disarming system, then our party.

OOC: If we require a marching order may I suggest Megasoma, Cabe, Cole, Gertrude? Possibly Eladrin, Skeleton, Megasoma, Cabe, Cole, Gertrude?