AD&D Session 87 - Chains and Moons
22nd of Duscar, 835 PD
Fresh from forcing their way into what looked like an intact treasury deep beneath Caes Mosor, the group chose caution over curiosity: whatever valuables they’d uncovered were left largely unexamined, with Whisper simply pocketing what she could for the moment, on the understanding that proper inspection would wait for somewhere safer than a living maze under a cursed city.
Pushing on from the vault chambers, Whisper scouted ahead and found a dead-end room crowded with mirrors and no obvious exit. As Enikas leaned in to examine the glass more closely, the reflections turned predatory—his mirror-self stepped out and seized him. The party quickly realised these mirror-things were perilous to fight directly, their harm echoing back onto the originals under shifting conditions. It took a measured, careful approach to destroy them without worsening their own injuries. Once the last threats were dealt with, the group smashed the mirrors to prevent any repeat performance, and in doing so revealed a concealed way out—only to find it connected back into corridors they had already mapped.
With that loop closed, they returned to one of the few routes they’d deliberately avoided: a chamber filled with an unfamiliar green gas. Judging it survivable so long as they didn’t inhale, they pressed through, holding their breath, and reached yet another occupied room. There, they encountered a strange humanoid figure—red-skinned, with a long chain fused into its body—an unsettling presence that didn’t immediately attack. While the party weighed whether to retreat, parley, or prepare for violence, Bibi spoke up with a new certainty: Ruidus had whispered to her, insisting the chained being would not harm her.
On that reassurance alone, Bibi went forward by herself to speak with it. When she returned, she reported she had obtained the magical stone Ruidus had sent her to retrieve—despite admitting she hadn’t wanted this task in the first place. Worse, in the tension of the moment she hadn’t even thought to ask the obvious question of whether the party could simply pass through the room and continue exploring.