March 9th, 2025
Vita, Custodia 12th, 1194 (Continued)
The whole party visits Elder Thyrr about the rescue mission. We find out that we won’t be able to leave until we deactivate the defenses. In the Soul is an angel with empty eyes—this is where we must insert our fingers to reset the defenses. Tolm may still be in there, but it’s possible that he got out before everything went online.
The guardian is responsible for the defenses in this situation, where the Soul is breached, the most dangerous zone. One of the possible contingencies is for the guardian to destroy everything, as a final precaution. We don’t know if this was triggered. The guardian is an exscinder archon; they’re lawful good, have DR/evil and are close combatants. There are also the following defenses:
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- A mirror that will summon axiomites, lawful neutral outsiders that can summon zalakut inevitables.
- Soulbound shells, constructs that blend in as statues, cast spells, and have DR/adamant.
- Clockwork mages, constructs that cast spells from a pre-determined school of magic, with DR/adamant.
There will be angel statues on each floor; we have to swivel their heads in specific directions (towards the wall that they are facing away from) to go farther. This is like the note that we found in Tolm’s underdark manor.
She gives us a key to unlock the Mysterium and will alert the guards to our mission.
We take the rest of the day to prepare for our rescue mission and commission two Ildan swords from the Temple of Salvation.
Mare, Custodia 13th, 1194
We head into the Mysterium and find dead bodies strewn about. We trigger a haunt in a classroom; Elder Thyrr did warn that strange things happened the last time that the defenses were triggered about 100 years ago.
We encounter some hounds of tindalos, evil outsiders that hunt people who transgress against time and space. These should not be here, maybe they were tracking Tolm and got stuck.
We manipulate the angel heads as we were instructed to reveal a descending staircase.
Below we encounter some smaller shoggoths, oozes that spread a nasty parasite. These, too, should not be here.
We find some crazed guards that barricaded themselves in a room. Sigmund calms them down, but they won’t leave the room; which is probably for the best. We give them some water. One of them does recognize Tolm as visiting. They will stay here until we secure the area.
In another room, we find a spawn of the Dark Tapestry, like what we fought in Crestfall. We aren’t sure how this got here either. Did Tolm bring all of this with him somehow or summon it?