Labyrinth of Mirrors¶

2022-Sep-18

• Lavender places laurels on the heads of the podium finishers and gives Rowan a peck on his cheek, but she recognizes Kleb and Rowan and is on guard
  • The victims of her thievery subtly confront her on the podium, but notice that she seems to be under duress of some sort of magical influence. She agrees to accompany them to the afterparty
• Rowan tries to heal Kleb a bit, which does in fact suceed, but not entirely to the degree Rowan intended. He has a connection with Tymora again, but he’s a little rusty
• Lavender takes them to a doorway labeled “Hall of Mirrors” and walks through it, but instead of coming out the other side, she vanishes. Rowan follows her and disappears as well
  • Kleb and Rulkorf are more suspicious, but their quick investigation of the door yields nothing, so they head through the portal
  • They find themselves surrounded by a set of 8-foot-tall mirrors that spiral off an unknown distance and see a starry black sky above
    • Rulkorf, using his compass, innate senses, and knowledge of the stars, notices that they are far more south and east than before, and seem to have changed heading (north is a different orientation)
    • As the dwarf mutters to himself and rechecks his calculation, Rowan sets off to retrieve his stuff and Kleb follows closely behind, spattering ink on some of the mirrors as he passes
• There is no moon overhead, but the mirrors themselves emit enough light to see the hallways in front of the group
  • Rowan says he never saw Lavender in the maze, and speculates that the portal took her to a different part of the maze
• The party dutifully attempts to perform a depth-first search of left turns, but after three lefts find themselves back at an inked mirror. It seems like they must have walked through where a mirror used to be, but didn’t notice
  • Confused, they retrace their steps and try a different path
  • As Kleb walks along, flicking ink at the mirrors on his left, he notices that his reflection…isn’t looking at him! When Rowan and Rulkorf rush back to respond to his shouting, they find Kleb standing in front of a perfectly normal mirror
• After a few more minutes of fruitless exploring, Kleb remembers he has his magical broom, and levitates himself up above the top of the mirrors. He sees that the maze is expansive but bounded, and the border is visible. There are flashes coming from distant sections
  • He relays this to the others, and rises up again, but this time with Rowan holding a rope that is tied to the broom. It can’t bear the weight of more than one person, but it keeps him tethered
  • Kleb realizes that sections of the maze are shifting around, blurring and reappearing elsewhere, and that other people seem to be in distress and trapped in other sections
  • The group make a plan to reach the edge, involving the broom, grappling hooks, and running along the mirror frames
• In an effort to exhaust the alternatives, Rulkorf swipes at mirror with a claw, but is surprised to feel it give way and he falls through. The dwarf finds himself alone in a mirrored version of the maze and can’t return. The stars have disappeared
  • Rulkorf gets an uneasy feeling when he reaches for the mirror again, and feels thumping steps shaking the floorboards
  • As Kleb reaches for the mirror, it disappears at his touch. Realizing that he can hear his companions shouting again, Rulkorf runs back to the others through the space where the pane was
• Rowan sends out a pulse of his divine senses, and feels a celestial presence that is growing in strength
• Stomping and sliding into view, across the gap, is a 8 foot tall humanoid creature with with two stump-like protrusions on its back. It stops in front of the open mirror frame, looks at the trio menacingly, and charges