The King's Labyrinth
| The King's Labyrinth | |
|---|---|
| Date | 06/28/24 |
| Storyteller | Dag |
| Tier | Legendary |
| Player Characters | Zeal, Grist Vanafeld, Shadefrost, Kali, Clam |
| Rewards | 275 xp, 46k |
| Result | Success |
| Author | Zeal |
| Downtime | 8 |
Log
Not long before arriving at the Labyrinth, we discovered Clam had been stowed away in our travel wagon this whole time. Grist said they were a capable fighter, so with everyone else's agreement I accepted their help here. Let this be a note however, my tolerance for stowaways is low. If Clam had not been a proper fighter, only there to take credit for our work and a steal of the rewards, I would have handled that appropriately. Next time, just sign on for the job like a normal person.
Getting to the Labyrinth proper, we headed inside to meet a minotaur calling himself "The King". He explains that the maze he discovered was overrun by aberrations spawning from a portal at the center of the maze. Eight pedestals were placed around the maze, and it was our job to take the colored gems and put them in the properly colored slots to close the portal. The King could give us green, purple, lavender and red. These went to Clam, Kali, Grist and me respectively. Outside of a warning about a smooth sloth, we had nothing to go on and simply headed in to get the job done. With a left and right path Shadefrost headed left first and found a pink-lit pedestal as well as a smooth sloth-looking aberration, which I found very little issue in killing as it hung from the ceiling. Grist moved past while I dealt with it, coming across a creature covered in parasite-infested eggs. It seemed particularly weak to his newly made Frost rune (good timing on his and Kali's part, I suppose) and the group kills it rather quickly. We also end up near a massive pit into the center of the maze, where the portal lay. From there two large, multi-limbed, faceless gray creatures and a large acidic bug emerged. The bug glowed with light, telling us it held one of the four gems we were missing out of the eight needed. The bug could web us to walls with acidic webs, and its bites were particularly powerful from the one time I faced its jaws. The faceless creatures were particularly adept with spells, able to target three of us with spells I'd normally see someone like Kali or Grist cast one at a time. Especially emotional effects, which while debilitating, my training mostly protected me from. Others were less lucky, especially with the spell that forces you to cry.
While we fought those three, Grist also encountered another of both the sloth and the infestation creature, facing them mostly on his own until Shadefrost diverted attention over to help him. We managed to kill all the creatures and get the blue gem from the bug, though not without Clam coming precariously close to dying. The spells continued to affect us afterwards, too. Moving forward I found an entity made entirely out of worms, not unlike a creature Kali and I faced over three years ago. It was especially disgusting to face, doing its best to envelop us in its form. We killed its base form without too much issue, though we had to burn me and the surrounding area repeatedly to kill all the worms, lest the creature be allowed to regenerate from even a single surviving vessel. For our efforts we obtained the yellow gem from it.
After the battle we retreated to the entrance to heal up for an hour, returning to the maze mostly recovered. Heading left, we passed by some of the pedestals we had gems for and placed them, until Clam and Grist came across a woman in the maze. She kept asking people if she was pretty, and after getting a positive answer she revealed her scarred mouth, asking once more. After another positive response from Grist, she decided to try and carve his mouth as well? Deceptive in looks, but an aberration to be certain, we killed it quickly. Grist got the orange gem from her body, and we passed by a treasure room to look for the last gem. I found some large, muscular tree-person who seemed keen on picking up I or Grist and throwing us about. We killed it with little issue otherwise and I grabbed the pink gem off it, but its fighting style was extremely insulting to say the least.
Going around the maze once more we placed all the gems, closing the portal before heading to the treasure room. There we met up with The King, who let us have the treasures present as thanks. Afterwards Kali teleported us home, saving us a trip back.
He apparently plans to rebuild the maze and put puzzles about it. I'm not sure what all that will entail, but it's something to be careful of should we hear the name come up again.