Kiss My Knits!

When last we left our intrepid adventurers, they had come to the realization that their little friend, Flambe the bat, wanted them to go through a passage which was 30 feet underwater.

Palin: crap.

Our chainmail and platemail were hindrances during the Great Rustmonster Debacle and they’re hindrances now. If we try to go in there, we’ll sink like two flaming, poisoned, unlucky stones.

But lo! It turns out Torkal is carrying several potions of water breathing. He just hadn’t written down that he was carrying them. Yay!

GM Vaschon: The water appears to be about 30′ in depth leading to a grated passage, from what you can see in your position.
Torkal: “This looks like our best bet. If the bat’s telling us anything.”
Palin: Grated?
GM Vaschon: There is a grate on it.
Val: …with parmesan?
Aleanghi: LOL
Palin: Someone could sink down, tie a rope to it, then pull themselves back up so we can pull the grate off before we go down.
Torkal: Torkal takes off his armor.
Torkal: Torkal busts out his rope.
Torkal: The next thing should be “Torkal gets it on.”
Torkal: But we’ll say he hands one end of the rope to Palin.

Torkal, still cranky from his poisoning, swims down and discovers a lever near the grate.

Torkal: Aha. Torkal pulls lever thx.
Torkal: If you say it’s a push lever I’ll find you and shave your f****** housepets.
GM Vaschon: No, but if you had lasso’d the lever back in the other room, — it went the other way.
Torkal: I’m gonna cut you.

Hee hee! When Torkal pulls the lever, the grate opens, then closes roughly 20 seconds later. Torkal swims back up and reports his find. There follow ten minutes of “we can tie the rope to the lever” Rube Goldberg-style antics while we try to figure out what to do. The lever isn’t close enough to pull from the other side, so what we decide to do is drink our potions, go down and send one person through while the other waits on the first side and pulls the lever to let them BACK through in case something goes wrong.

Palin: We’re going to get to the other side and there’ll be 50 frogman bugbears.

I drink my potion, swim down, pull the lever, and go through the grate. On the other side is… another grate! And no lever. So when the grate slams shut 20 seconds later, I’m trapped. Torkal, meanwhile, hasn’t quite arrived yet. I tell the GM that as soon as he arrives, I want him to see me miming pulling the lever and shaking my head and trying to get him to not go through.

GM Vaschon: Torkal drinks his potion and swims down to the grate. He sees Palin on the other side doing a mime act
Palin: thaaaanks.
Torkal: Torkal pauses.
Palin: Palin is attempting to pantomime pulling the lever. She is also shaking her head. And jerking her thumb over her shoulder.
Torkal: Torkal stays on this side of the grate and waves to Palin in a bored manner.
Palin: Wait, can I talk underwater if I can breathe underwater?
GM Vaschon: You can.
Palin: Palin rolls her eyes.

Duh. Things go much more smoothly once we realize we can actually talk to each other.

We establish that I cannot pry the grate open. The grate is made of heavy iron and therefore cannot be hacked at. There is no hinge to unscrew. It is set into hard rock which we cannot remove. The only way to open the gate is to pull the lever on Torkal’s side of the grate.

Veracity: This is one wicked mine level!

We continue to experiment. When Torkal pulls his lever, the second grate opens and closes just like the first grate does. So he pulls the lever and Palin swims through. Once again, she is between two grates with no lever. Torkal pulls the lever again and Palin swims back to report her findings. We decide that Torkal will just keep pulling the lever every time it closes, and Palin will keep swimming through. Eventually (hopefully) it’s gotta come out somewhere. And that’s what we do!

Palin finally comes through five sets of identical grates. There is a lever on her side. She pulls it and the grate locks into the open position. Success!

Note that since this puzzle depended on teamwork between two people, there was no chance of success if there were only one of us left alive. It’s a good thing the bugbears didn’t kill us earlier.

GM Vaschon: Torkal swims through the open passage and sees Palin at a lever.
Palin: Palin waves.
Torkal: “This was a lot of fun. Let’s never do this again.”

There is a ladder nearby which we climb.

GM Vaschon: Your party slowly climbs the ladder and observes a series of stone tables with familiar looking figures on them. They appear non-moving.

We move forward to examine the nearest figure. It’s Veracity!

Palin: Palin resists the urge to loot the body.
Val: please remove the feeding tube.
Palin: She’s not a greasy smear on the wall, so that’s progress anyway.

She’s alive, and breathing shallowly. Yay! In fact, all our friends are here, and they all seem to be alive. They have no visible injuries and aren’t tied down, they’re just rather gaunt and inert. They don’t have their possessions, which is unfortunate since we can’t use their potions to heal them, or at least try to.

Suddenly, a whirlpool forms in the water. It grows to about 30 feet in diameter. We freak out and hide, but It doesn’t seem to do anything, just kind of… whirls. We decide not to mess with it. Instead, we examine the room for other exits.

The room is a chamber roughly 40′ x 20′ with a small alcove along the north wall. The five stone tables are lined against that north wall.

Torkal: ALCOVE!
Palin: Okay, anything in the alcove?
GM Vaschon: You’ll have to go there and see!
Palin: Oy.
Torkal: >go alcove goddamnit
GM Vaschon: You round the corner to the alcove and see a decayed wooden door.
Veracity: Kick it down!
Torkal: Torkal opens the door.
GM Vaschon: Torkal opens the door and sees a long stone chamber. At the end of the chamber is a figure sitting at what appears to be a table covered with alchemical supplies. Along the walls are what appears to be fleshy statues.
Palin: What. The. Hell.
Torkal: What the f***.
Palin: That too.
GM Vaschon: The figure’s back is to you.
Veracity: This fills me with the gravest of misgivings.
Veracity: Call me a pessimist.
GM Vaschon: grin
Torkal: Torkal glances at Palin. His “molestation of this dude is happening soon” face is on.
Palin: If we kill him, I don’t know how to undo what he did, do you?
Torkal: Molestation, not killing.
Val: did Torkal just enter the world of Slaughterhouse 2?
Torkal: No killing yet.
Palin: Do these statues resemble our friends?

Yes. Yes they do. And there are a few others as well.

And that’s where we stopped for the night. There’s no D&D this week, so you’ll have to wait a while to see what happens. Talk about a cliffhanger!

Tune in next time to see WHAT IN BLUE BLAZES IS GOING ON!