Chapter 12: Stares

January 5

The group considers what to do next. Neeia tries to examine if there are enemies in the statues but notes that there aren’t any there, but in that area she didn’t examine, there are probably enemies. Neeia investigates more and notices that behind the wall in the room, there are enemies. Neeia tries to call her invisible imaginary friend ghost, but the friend is busy. Next, Neeia summons a demon, which she sends around the corner to see if there are enemies, and if there are easy enemies, he can kill them; otherwise, he can return to tell about it.

The demon goes around the corner, and battle sounds begin to be heard from the room, so Ra starts slowly sneaking in that direction. Kieron starts sneakily running at high speed in that direction, and Neeia follows. When they reach the door of the room, they see that in the room is Neeia’s demon fighting with a headless dwarf ghost. The demon is in trouble. Kieron and Ra join the fight, and after that, the demon disappears. They fight with the ghost, and Neeia and Jaysek also join the fight. Jaysek shoots the ghost with a fire bolt, and after that, it disappears. The group begins to examine the room.

Jaysek discovers from the texts on those pillars that there has been some evil mage Tar-Baphon who has taken control of this area, and these pillars tell his history. Tar-Baphon apparently followed a philosophy called the Whispering Way. The story tells that an entity named the Shining Crusade then killed this Tar-Baphon, but this powerful mage was already a lich at this point, so three days later, Tar-Baphon would return and kill off the Shining Crusade and begin to hunt them. During his hunt, Tar-Baphon destroyed several neighboring states, and after that, other neighbors allied and together attacked him. They got Tar-Baphon trapped in a created dimension, and after that, they made two seals, one of which is here and the other somewhere else. Apparently, now someone has come here and broken that seal.

The group continues the journey. They come to a room with rotating wooden walls. Ra sneaks ahead, and suddenly six of the same type of undead dogs as before attack the group. Two of them go after Ra, and the remaining four come after the others. They manage to cut up the dogs, but after that, part of the group is in poor condition. The group heads back up.

They rest and heal themselves for about an hour and a half and then go back down. They examine the room where the dogs attacked. There is a large wheel on the floor and two doors. They try to rotate the wheel but don’t succeed. Jaysek notices that it’s locked. Both doors lead to quite small, oddly shaped rooms. They also notice that apparently the large wheel to which these doors lead probably also rotates.

Jaysek picks the lock open, and after that, they notice that they can rotate that wheel, but it’s quite heavy. When you rotate it, that big wheel rotates quite slowly. They argue for a moment who stays in the room to rotate the wheel and who goes into the rooms. Finally, Ra and Neeia go into the room, and Jaysek and Kieron start rotating the wheel. First, Jaysek tries to cheat by pretending to push, but Kieron notices this. After that, they continue together for a while, but then Kieron notices that this isn’t difficult, so “you go there too; I’ll continue rotating.”