Entering the room, they spy a 12′ tall homunculus in the middle of a room that has been destroyed. ‘Say…aren’t those things usually quite a bit smaller?’. Oh well. the bigger they are, the harder they fall! Within the span of a few minutes, the thing is slain.
The party pokes around, noting the cleaning crew, the stained glass doors in most rooms and the well designed wooden doors in the rest of the areas. Barred windows of some sort of thick clear substance (glassee?) look onto a courtyard wherein stands a statue of a plump wizard, reading from a tome. The group then wanders around the interior, admiring things and breaking into various rooms.
They become the target of a prankster dragon who breathes a disorienting gas at them and later on dumps a bucket of whitewash (or is it dragon semen?) onto Goldpiece’s head. The dragon is spotted at one point and it is notable that it has a large pair of butterfly wings instead of the more traditional scaley appendages. At one point they reach a records room, full of a haphazard collection of files detailing various aspects of thousands of wizards covering the span of a millennium. Most are destroyed and/or illegible, but a handful of dossiers are labeled ‘Litch’ so the group scoops them up. Malchor needs a new mentor, baby! Well, maybe not…maybe it is purely for the knowledge. Yeah…that’s it…just for educational purposes.
There is one room where it is decided that they should not enter based on the threat assessment given to them by the demonbane sword. Apparently there are two large and angry demons imprisoned therein and the group decides against tangling with them. What about the experience? Tough to say.
Eventually they find their way to the ground floor and into a large study that has been absolutely demolished by the homunculus…yes, the homunculus is back. Or..maybe it is a twin or a second one. It seems intent on communicating its dislike for the dragon, for it keeps drawing pictures of the butterfly winged shape, then ripping it into confetti and glaring meaningfully at the party members. Might it be asking the party to slay the dragon? Tough to say.
In an adjoining room are a whole bunch of rods. staves and wands embedded in the plaster of the walls and a large magic mirror in the shape of a yawning homunculus head. The key from a nearby chest allows them to transform the mirror into a pool of liquid of some sort – perhaps mercury? Tough to say.
After scheming madly and expending much magic over the span of four days, the group suddenly packs up and departs. Flying off the castle room, they return to normal size after exiting the magic diminution bubble.
They make their way to the southeast and descend several hundred feet into a large swampy morass, lit by illusionary stars (reminiscent of the lair of the druidess through which they already traveled). As they traverse the skies above the marsh, Malchor is suddenly struck by a fragment of memory about ‘the slitherswamp’. Something was located here, or passed through here or *aha* – when they found a large stone key it was accompanied by a fragment of text that said to seek the twin in the slitherswamp.
But they are approaching a large structure runged by torches and guarded by frog-people. Might be time for parleying, or it might be time for raining destruction from on high…
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