Through the Looking Glass

When Myntilly woke up this morning, she came over to me with a smile on her face.
“I had a dream last night. Pelor came to me and told me that he has a special task for me! I feel warm inside, like I am a favored soul.”
I gave her a hug and we looked through my spell books because now that she”s accepted Pelor into her life, some of these divine spells make sense to her. No more just an arcane spell caster, she is touched by the divine light of Pelor. I am honored to bear witness to it.



We were talking about healing spells and the use of fear. When we realized that the others were awake and talking beside the purple fountain.
It makes sense now, thinking back to Alek”s antics with his friends at the Lucky Monkey — lifting one friend on each arm and bending bars of metal like they were twigs. He must have taken a drink from this fountain of strength. It”s tempting — who wouldn”t want to be stronger? But what if his derangement is also a result of that purple drink?
Because, to my mind, there is no doubt, Alek is crazy. Deluded with visions of heroism. He was fooled by the hags disguised as angels. Not even Ragnara would have been fooled by those “angels.” I just don”t see why Jenya wastes her time with him. I”m sure he means well, but she spends her time worrying about him.

Sadi was tempted by the strength potion. I gave her my empty flask so she could take some with her. I didn”t even want to touch the liquid. She summoned a rat and asked the rat to drink from the fountain. We then watched the rat jump six feet straight up on to a ledge. Impressive. But I”m still not going to drink.

The rat was pretty energetic, so he stuck around, walking with Cinder down the corridors. We came to a room with a raised platform. The rat went up the platform and the first set of doors opened up! I guess he”s a smart rat, since the doors are keyed to open when an intelligent creature gets close enough. He told Sadi that he saw a hallway. She asked him to go to the other door. The doors opened and he said “Beds! You want me to go in?”

And then nothing. Myntilly messaged him. “Are you OK?” She asked.
“Big creatures. Bony. Tall.”
“Hide!”

Myntilly turned to us –“There are creatures in the bedroom!” It was nice to have a moment to plan strategy and cast a few spells. I offered to stand by the door and keep it open so that others could use ranged weapons. I should have remembered to cast fire shield on myself before I opened the door.

I assumed the rat was describing undead creatures but we were not sure. I stepped to the door and as they opened, two six-armed creatures attacked me. Undead spellweavers! Lucky for me, their attacks were pretty weak. Their bony hands flailed at me without doing much damage. The others were able to fire arrow after arrow at the four creatures. And Myntilly fired several spells at them, doing serious damage to them. I tried to turn them, but I was not successful. Their eye sockets glowed a bit, but they did not try to run away. We realized that the best attack is a bludgeon, so I moved into the room with Acgar and we began to hit at them.

Myntilly messaged the rat that he should run out of the room and to her. As he was leaving the bed, one of the creatures stepped on him. He was not badly hurt and Myntilly was able to practice her healing spell on him.

After the last creature had crumbled to bones and dust, we had a moment to look around the room. This was what the prophecy spoke of! Somewhere nearby was Alakast, the famed quarterstaff! Cinder had no trouble finding the hidden drawer. She pulled out a staff wrapped in cloth. I cast detect magic to see if it was Alakast. Before I had spoken the final words, the power of the staff knocked me back on to one of the beds. The smell of hags quickly brought me to my feet. The bed clothes were none too fresh.

We journeyed on, looking for the silver mirror and Alek. We found him, sort of. We entered a room with a design on the floor and a silver mirror on the wall. We could see Alek sitting in a gray room. He looked exhausted. Myntilly got close to the mirror and called his name. He perked up and began rambling on about colored rooms and how he couldn”t get out. He and Myntilly, Cinder and Acgar talked for awhile about the colored rooms and the gray room. Then they decided to step through the mirror. Sadi and I stayed behind. Soon, we could see all four of them in the gray room. Acgar knelt beside Alek and gave him food and water.

Sadi and I were unsure what to do. I decided to try something I”d only read about — I decided to try to commune with Pelor. If I was successful, I would be able to speak with Him and ask a few questions. I quickly jotted questions on a piece of paper. “Should we go through the mirror?” “Can we open the gray door?” “Should we help Alek?”
The answers were “Yes.” “Yes.” And “Yes.”
It was the greatest act of faith for me to step through that mirror. May Pelor guide my steps.

Beth

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