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The Worst Party, still in shock from Makalbly Jane’s near-death (actually, well into death) experience, was only mildly surprised to see a ghostly form with a blank cube for a face approach them. Awnzo engaged the cube-wraith in conversation for a while, though no one else could hear him speaking. It seemed to be related to the little box of soul-trapping that Awnzo carries around now. Probably nothing to worry about!
The cube-guy did do the party a solid by opening the small obsidian door of necromantic consequences. Inside was a long corridor, sort of indistinctly gray, without any visible end. It did not seem like a great place to sleep (or only for permanent sleep), but the party still considered sleeping there.
Instead, they went with the room with the rainbow tent, except for Awnzo, who decided to sleep in some brackish water in the next room over. But before sacking out, he found an actual sack that contained: a bone, a bugle, a scroll case, and a bag of seeds. After distributing the loot, everyone else slept on the floor, classic style. Except Oika, who stayed up all night (?) to keep watch, also classic style.
Miraculously, Nothing Happened. This may have been a WP first. Everyone who got to sleep woke up feeling slightly refreshed, and Makalbly Jane, despite not remembering most of the party, doled out healing to all.
In another WP first, the party found a locked cabinet and actually had the key that opened it. Inside, they found: an eight-pointed metal star, a red-orange potion, dark purple chain mail, and a seemingly ordinary mushroom. After distributing the loot, the party proceeded to a room containing a box with a lever and some instructions that read: Push Lever to Dispense Communication Growth Cream.
Oika, thrilled by the chance to rub mystery goo on her face, rubbed mystery goo on her face. An enormous, slightly wiggly pimple erupted from her cheek, and she found that through it she could communicate with the carpet.
The carpet explained that the doors lining the room all connected to pocket dimensions, but didn’t know much about them beyond that. All the carpet (which was named something like Muuugh??) knew was that a guy called Albert regularly went in and out of one particular door. When pressed further, Muuugh explained that Albert “looks like you, but with less skin” and also sometimes disappeared for years at a time.
Undeterred by this information, Eunice began checking all the doors. They led to dimensions such as: fire, smoke, mud, void, void, void, void with a D20 in it, void with a D12 in it, etc. There was also one with an unfamiliar green and blue orb floating in space. Boring!
Oika conveyed all this information to Muuugh so he could better carry out his duties as the keeper of the Dimensional Research Vault. Then Awnzo sucked Muuugh’s soul out into his little box of danger, so he could never carry out his duties again. (Also, he almost sucked the souls of his fellow party members into the box. Maybe it should have a warning label or something.) Turned out the carpet was evil.
The party opted for the Albert Door, since it was the only one that looked like a stone corridor and not a trippy instant death. Around a bend they found a room shaped like a plus, where each segment of the plus was a different door. Door Opening Bonanza!
The doors led, variously, to corridors to more plus-rooms; some orbs, both black and white (the party avoided these after recent traumatic events – at least initially); books (ranging from a nice story about a pig to an evil tome that did fourteen damage to Beffa when she tried to read it (so she burnt it, that’s the paladin way)); some liquids in bottles (got); some spell scrolls (got); a sarcophagus with a button to open it (NOT pushed); and a bedroom where the presumed Albert was napping (tiptoed out real quiet-like).
Using the Read Magic scroll, Awnzo was able to decipher the instructions for the orbs: White orbs allow you to go to another plane; Black orbs allow you to change yourself in terms of wisdom, strength, etc.
AW YEAH Beffa and Oika immediately attempted a wisdom transfer, based on Oika’s earlier impulsive promise to give Beffa one of her wisdom points. It kinda worked! Beffa ended up moderately wiser and moderately less dexterous, while Oika ended up a little less wise and a little more dexterous.
As Oika and Beffa congratulated themselves on their personal growth, the party proceeded into another plus-room, where they found more orbs/scrolls/halls plus an egg, which hatched into a dragon, and a large toad. Awnzo sucked both dragon and toad into his soul-box, which was starting to seem pretty handy, provided you kept out of range.
Then, inevitably, Albert awoke and – was enormous? A huge skeletal hand lifted the ceiling off the whole interlinked series of rooms and the party fled in terror, narrowly avoiding getting grabbed. Oika was briefly grabbed, but managed to gnome her way out from the bony fingers and escape. Everyone made it back to the Research Vault room, where Makalbly Jane, ironically, deeply regretted not touching an orb.
