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We're off to see the Wizard...Week 4, Exploring the Mage's Box |
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Allied Epochs |
When we left our heroes, we had just finished debating how to track down the Black Mage. We open our door and go through, closing it. We are now in the lab a while ago with his door. His door looks into a nice wood paneled room. Marsina's watch indicates the time in the lab is a few days ago, just before the Pantope crew tackled Gorlach. Chris Alag and Cantrel have a sort of funny feeling on the back of their necks from being 2 places at one time. We wait a few minutes until they don't feel so uneasy.
Taking a watch reading through his door indicates it is in a substantially different place. The omniport can analyze the numbers and says it's in the same family of continua, but not around here. We wait a few more minutes because Chris wants to wait until the Pantope crew has left 0000000000000 and is falling towards the Pacific Ocean. As we wait, the door vanishes. So we look around the lab, since we have the numbers and can go to where that door was. This lab isn't dusty so it appears to be before the folding of time. We open a window to where his door was and move it around a bit. It's a nice room, comfy furniture but empty. Time goes a bit different there, since it looks like a half hour has gone by there. Cantrel and Dafnord search the lab a bit. A free-standing wardrobe is there and it is smaller on the inside than the outside, rather different from the Black Mage's usual sort of box. Alag finds a secret compartment and the front half of the wardrobe swings out revealing a secret lab inside it. Ah, this is more like it, it's bigger on the inside than the outside. Alag makes a light and sends it into the other lab. It is a natural cave. There is a worktable, bed, another freestanding wardrobe. In one corner is a pedestal with a large statue of a griffin carved from a single jewel. Chris worries that the griffin is apt to be a guardian of some sort. Marsina puts her watch into the room in the wardrobe. These 11 numbers are very different and the omniport says that this is not a nearby continuum. Chris leaves a note in Elvish for the Black Mage in the main lab in this time, saying basically, "Hi, we're looking for you." Cantrel goes first into the cave in the wardrobe. there are two doors into sub caves. One subcave has a lot of building done in it, many rooms made out of wood and corridors. Nothing except one room looks used recently. The other room has a lot of stuff stored in boxes and a large fountain and pool in the center of it. We explore the main room and the sub caves. this looks like there is no way out except through the wardrobe. The caves have no entrance. Marsina finds another pedestal in one corner with a set of 7 figures on it. The figures are small and the impression they leave is that they are of small people, but we don't recognize any of them. (whew!) The freestanding wardrobe in this cave has only clothes in it. Chris leaves a note here also. We leave and go back into his main lab and then open a door into the paneled room. We all go in. Cantrel feels like we just missed something. This room has 2 doors, a pedestal table in the middle, another wardrobe and lots of comfy furniture. Alag can't second sight into the pedestal or table, but can into the wardrobe--lots of clothes and a closed leather book on the shelf. Alag second sights through one of the doors into this room and there is a room with 12 doors, 4 on each long side and 2 on each end. Through the other door is a nice one room apartment., small kitchen area, bed, library, all in one. Cantrel does a knock spell on the wardrobe and it opens, he tries to TK the book out. The door slams shut! He knocks again and the spell is obviously reflected, since all his buckles, strings, belts, etc. come undone. Alag TKs the cabinet under the table open. There is a nicely carved wooden box under it surrounded by a shimmering haze. Some of the folks recognize this box, it's the Black Mage's self containment box. Chris second sights into the box. It's really hard and seems far away and takes lots of points and time. Inside he sees a nice room used as a carpenter's shop. He looks through this rooms only door and sees the same(?) room with 12 doors as is through one door from here. We open the door into the 12 door room and he sees this. The room next to this one is the carpenter's shop his viewpoint is in. Self-containment, all right. We go out into the room with 12 doors and start exploring. One door appears different to Cantrel. It's got a faint line of soot around the edges. Chris can't second sight into this one, but can into the others. The 8 along the sides are all closets with minimal magical setups in them, we open the sooty one and find the same thing, but it's obviously been blasted by something. The 2 doors at the far end are warded and locked. We explore around the apartment more and decide to wait around a while, since this is about as soon as the Mage could possibly show up from 0000000000000. We realize there should be a 4th room in the quad with the apartment/carpenter's shop and paneled room and as we start looking for it, there is a loud crash form the 12 door room. We rush in and find the Black Mage laying on the pedestal table in the middle of it, looking as if he has fallen from a very high height. He has knocked the table top awry and there are mirrors or something inside. We all start healing him and we think he should have all his points back, but he doesn't wake. We levitate him into bed and Marsina looks for some tea or something in the kitchen. We discover the kitchen has a Lavalon (registered trademark) coldbox in it. Cantrel starts looking into the table in the 12 door room. It has 8 mirrors in it, some knocked loose. The table in the paneled room also has a top that shifts and it has 3 mirrors in it and a long box down along one side. Deering open this and finds brushes , pens, candles and ink. Created: 24-May-98 Copyright © 1998, Jim Burrows. All Rights Reserved. |