The next week passes in a seemingly endless loop of exploration, doors (with and without traps), signs of past battles, strange noises, random bodies and the odd moments of excitement as Digin gets to cleave things. What Digin cannot cleave, the group manages to kill with fireballs, though there are encounters with magic resistant things that annoy the wizard.
Along the way, the group discovers three of the four staves they’ve been sent to retrieve and have encountered strange shape-shifting demonwolves – or goblinwolves – or demongoblins. They’ve found evidence of traps triggered and have triggered some on their own. They’ve dispatched a number of shadows and have looted the remnants of the odd workshop, laboratory or bedroom. Pickings are slim. While the experience they are gaining is welcome, the lack of loot weighs heavily on their minds.
They return to deliver the trio they’ve found and set out in one last long loop to try and recover the fourth and final staff that will release them from their geas and allow them to flee elsewhere and seek a route out of this place. Conversations with the celestial guards indicated that the “All-Door” is likely to be in a place they’ve already approached, so finding their way back isn’t much trouble – now that they know about the repeatedly exploding fireball trap.
They hack and slash their way through a series of encounters with the aforementioned demons and find their way to the last staff. They are offered a bargain with one of the competing demon packs, and although Bayga is interested the rest of the group wants to put distance between themselves and this corner of the complex. On the way to return the staff, they stop by and plunder the All-Door from its location and return that as well.
True to their word, the leonids release the group from their geas, reward them for locating the door with a collection of magical items and spell components. In an interesting twist, the Celestial guards then give the party a four hour head start, after which they will be hunted and slain. Woah. Rude.
The group skedaddles and looks for a passage to the east, for apparently it is to the east that an exit awaits. Sure, the exit is guarded by a titan…but it is an exit and right now anywhere else seems to be better than here. So it is that they retrace some their previous steps and enter into an area where they previously encountered trap-building bugbears – which are a much lesser threat than the holy lions of the prison. Thus encouraged, they restart the process of finding out how to exit this massive underground complex.
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