"I will go down this hall to find the last angel. Does someone want to come with me?" Erevel said moving into the narrow hallway to the east.
"I am right on your back," Gavril replied.
About thirty feet in Erevel came upon the angel that was facing her. She turned the head to face the east where it stayed.
"Done here, are we ready for the last room?" Erevel stated with satisfaction.
Again Erevel and Gavril led the way down the foggy narrow hallway, suddenly the fog disappeared as the room opened up. The side room was probably similar to those in other parts of the Mysterium—clogged with high, sagging shelves brimming with books, relics, and other arcane curiosities. Now, the wooden shelves lay in jagged splinters, nearly all of the once-shelved books lay scattered across the floor in a haphazard mess.
To the west, south of the entry hall the room probably continued but was covered with fog. Gavril noted the presence of magic in the room, centered in the southeast corner. Ciprian hurried into the room at the mention of magic and began looking around and under the pile of books and shelves. Paullus and Armania also entered but Ursina stayed behind in the entry hall.
Ciprian noted the bloody cassock of a Steward elder poking out among a pile of destroyed books. On further exploration he found the mangled body of a female—battered to death by some unknown blunt force. He carefully pulled the body from out of the rubble and notes magic emanating from several items on the body. He also found a Holy Symbol of Nethys.
"I believe we may have found Elder Lythiin," he stated mournfully, "She has been cruelly and violently attacked."
"I could try and talk to her with the Plates of Confabulation," Gavril interjected sneeringly.
"I thought we found a scroll of Raise Dead somewhere," Ciprian responded. "She can probably tell us more alive than just asking questions."
Gavril stood still for a moment followed by Armania also waiting for something to happen as Ciprian suggested getting out of the room. As the Synctium started to move once again, Gavril attacked and took a five foot step back and Armania cast Dimension steps to take herself, Agna and Gavril to the hallway.
Gavril stood his ground as Armania began a spell. The ooze slid across the floor and squeezed into the hall and grappled Erevel. Ciprian moved up behind Erevel and started a second performance, Inspire Greatness to enhance Erevel's chances. Erevel, though grappled attacked and did some damage to the monster even as it healed previous damage. Agna and Ursina with no line of sight waited in the rear, Ursina with healing spells at the ready.
Gavril waited for Armania who's spell produced a Dire Tiger in the room behind the ooze. It attacked but failed to gain a grapple. She then took Gavril into the room next to the Tiger. She fired magic missiles at the ooze while Gavril attacked. The ooze which then continued its hold on Erevel with constrict damage. Ciprian again stopped and began his Inspire Greatness and Erevel once again attacked from her grappled pose. Agna and Ursina still stood in the hallway making sure the body of Elder Lythiin was not harmed.
Armania fired magic missiles, Gavril did a full attack and the Dire Tiger successfully grappled and clawed and raked. The Proto-Shoggoth dropped its grab on Erevel and attacked the Tiger and Erevel with its slam attacks. Ciprian again buffed Erevel who took a final mighty swing and the ooze spread as liquid across the floor.
Healing was needed by Erevel especially with Gavril and Ciprian needing less. Armania and Gavril began searching the last room for the angel head and gears.Ciprian moved the body to the broken angel room and then took up casting the scroll of Raise Dead on the Elder.
"Gaaasp. Who are you?" the body wheezed as it came back to life.
"I am Ciprian and these are my compatriots. Are you Elder Lythiin?"
"Yes, I am. I feel so weak, what happened?"
"We found you in the small chamber to the east, along with a Proto-Shoggoth Synctium. Is that what killed you?"
"Certainly it was. What of my other compatriots? Why are you here? I see that the wards have not been reset."
"We were hired by Elder Thyrr to reset the wards on the Mysterium and find yourself and others. We have cleared the otherworldly monsters from the levels above. We did find several bodies but there is a group that declared that they did not want our help. We are also looking for Count Haserton Lowls IV."
"Lowls!! Lowls and Miacknian Mun those turncoats. Paying us to study the Necronomicon and then essentially breaking into the Mysterium and setting off the wards. Have you found either of them?"
"We encountered Mun a floor above this one. He had apparently gone crazy with fear and loathing for Lowls who apparently left him there."
"Do you know if Lowls has breached the soul?"
"We haven't been below this floor yet. Do you think he might still be in the lower levels?"
"We did not see him leave after or before the wards were tripped."
The next several hours were spent helping Elder Lythiin recover somewhat from her ordeal. The levels could not be replaced but possibly the Elders above could manage this. Armania and Gavril returned with the angel head and gears found under the destroyed books. The group questioned Elder Lythiin about the next level and the Soul. What were they likely to meet? Was there a method for entering the Soul. Elder Thyrr had little information about those levels.
Elder Lythiin described the Door to the Soul level as a curious chamber a little over thirty feet to a side. Instead of normal walls, hundreds of statues of angelic beings, many bearing spears and other weapons and others wearing two-colored masks, make up the walls of the chamber. The uneven floor is formed from carved faces. At the heart of the room is a single object supported by a quartet of stone hands—a peculiar, slightly rusted iron cube about a foot square.
The iron box weighs nearly 500 pounds and contains the very heart of the Mysterium. The box is magically attached to its pedestal, and can be removed only by means that sever the magical effect, such as mage’s disjunction. The library unfolds only if this puzzle box is solved.
The puzzle box features symbols and images representing creation and destruction on its sides, and has a series of movable, concentric rings on the top bearing smaller symbols that correlate to the images on the sides. The symbols are sometimes sigils, sometimes words in different languages, and at other times simply images that represent things such as serpents, phoenixes, bolts of lightning, an infant, laborers building a structure, warfare, a flowing river, a scouring wind, a blazing fire, moldering fungi, and fruiting plants. To solve the puzzle box, the rings on the top must align to the correlating images of creation and destruction on opposite sides of the box. The solution changes each time it is solved. If the solution is incorrect Soulbound Shells will emerge from the walls and attack.
"Can you tell us about the Soulbound Shell?" Ciprian asked.
"Soulbound Shells are constructed white statues of a bald human is marbled with glowing green veins of energy. They are arcane spellcasters who are immune to mind-affects," Lythiin related.
"We heard of a statue with no eyes that is the key to resetting the wards. Can you help us with where it might be?"
"Yes indeed there is a statue without eyes but it is hard to see among all the other statues in the room. It moves around also so you have to investigate to find it. It should also be easier for you to solve the puzzle box since I have explained the reasoning. I wish you great luck in doing that."
"What can you tell us about the Keeper of the Soul of the Mysterium?" Ciprian continued.
"The Keeper is an Exscinder Archon. Exscinders are Heaven’s censors, scouring the planes for texts containing information too evil or dangerous to be allowed to exist. Exscinders care little for individual lives or everyday heresies, remaining staunchly focused on protecting mortalkind as a whole from corruption. The Keeper can discern lies and cast fireballs along with other arcane magic. Should Lowls have defeated the Keeper who knows what else he might be able to perform."
"I am getting very tired and wish to sleep, hopefully well. I am sure I will not be able to accompany you to the Soul," Lythiin remarked weakly.
"Certainly, we also need to recover spells and energy ourselves before venturing below," Ciprian responded.
The party and Elder Lythiin then spent a long rest although the Elder awoke screaming in the night and was fatigued without much recovery. The party awoke without any additional effects and then prepared their spells for the new day.
Gavril took the angel head and fitted it into the angel body in the room, meshing the gears and then turning the head to face the wall. The rest of the party was surrounding the Angel Gate, the heads of which looked ghastly. Their eyes are filled with lust, and long snaking tongues reach out, lolling on their cheeks.
As Gavril turned the last head, the mouths of the angels on the gate opened wide, accompanied by the unpleasant smell of rotting meat. Ciprian checked the southwest angel by sticking his arm down the gullet where he found a rough metal tongue. He tried to pull it up as they had done before but it did not move.
"How do we open this gate?" Ciprian inquired of Lythiin.
"You must use both the southwest and northeast angels tongues at once," she related.
Gavril moved to the northeast angel and felt the same rough metal tongue and he and Ciprian pulled at the same time. The valve slid to the side, revealing a shaft 30 feet deep, its walls carved with statues of angels wearing fixed, expressionless masks. Erevel began moving to the hole and saw no evident way down other than climbing but as he and Agna moved closer they noticed a worn pathway of sorts down
the shoulders and wings of these angels that allowed access without needing to attempt a climb.
The whole party began to look for the eyeless angel, Gavril, Ciprian and Agna saw the angel about ten feet above the floor, ten feet south of the northeast corner. Ciprian levitated up to face level with the angel, stuck two fingers into the empty eye sockets. At the back of each socket was a tiny brass lever. Ciprian pushed and held both levers down which was followed by a deep tolling bell then shook the ground for one minute. The group assumed that signal meant that the wards had been neutralized. Ciprian let go of the levers which did not move from the down position.
Armania and Gavril began studying the iron box with the symbols with intelligence skills and the ability to disable devices. At the end of a long study Gavril was sure he could solve the puzzle box and made his first attempt which appeared to succeed as the party was not attacked. The second and third attempts were just as successful as the first.
A strange grating sound echoed from within, and the box started to slowly expand outward with a low hum to form a 1-foot-tall, 10-foot-wide platform with a 5-foot-square entrance in the top surface. The entrance was totally dark, obscuring any sight into the extradimensional space within.
DM's Notes: The party earned 19,200 XP for the night and now have 213,154 XP. They now need only 6,846 more XP to reach 12th level.
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