"Zanzibar, tell your cougar girlfriend to go through," Warchief Dur-Dur-Dur shouts at Zanzibar.
"Wait, which one of us is technically oldest?" Zanzibar says. "I'm only 24. I just look very old. She's centuries old, but..."
"Distance makes the heart grow fonder!" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
Zanzibar turns to Lukanu and speaks in Draconic, "My friend suggests you go first."
"I do not fear this abomination," Lukanu says—whether she’s referring to the tomb or Dur-Dur-Dur is up for interpretation.
"Good! Because we are very successful cowards!" Zanzibar says.
"The warchief commands this!" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
Lukanu goes forward into the hallway ad reaches a corner. She turns and shouts back, "I need light."
"OH! This is where I am a viking!" Zanzibar says, then casts light on a coin and tosses it to her.
She steps down the corner and shines the coin with the light around.
Lukanu shouts back what she’s seeing. "Lots of tarnished metal and scrap metal all over the floor down these stairs!"
Seeing that their sacrificial NPC isn’t dead, the rest of the party shimmies up to where she’s standing and they see a set of stairs leading down to a hallway. The hallway is scattered with busted axe heads, rusty sword bits, tattered leather, and all around rotten and spoiled gear. At the end of the hallway is an archway leading to a room with crackling lightning and massive chains shuffling up and down.
Crackling lightning? Massive chains?
Zanzibar recalls that time he was being a huge nerd in Grandfather Zitembe’s place, he came across a nerdy book called Clocks? which spoke outer planes—specifically the plane of Mechanus, which is a clockwork, steampunky world of gears and electricity.
"Oh, this is an arcane power source!” Zanzibar says, suddenly remembering that Mechanus is a massive source of power, and that the powerful Mechanus chains function like leylines of raw energy—possible strong enough to power the whole dungeon.
“And we should smash it!" Zanzibar says, but then realizes that also in his stupid clock book, breaking a Mechanus chain would require casting three wish spells… "We probably can't smash it."
"Do you know how else to turn it off?" 🌱 says. "There might be a button! Who knows—if we found this Withers guy, he might know."
Chumbawumba decides to investigate this chain place but doesn’t want to enter the hallway with all the broken shit because it feels like a warning, so he sends Drip-Drip-Drip down there to investigate. It uses drippy morse code to communicate what it sees.
Drip-Drip-Drip notices a set of stairs leading southward from the hallway, but the archway leading to the chain room has a bull’s skull with an ivory ring in its mouth mounted in the keystone. The Mechanus room itself has two platforms on either side, but two portals of vortex annihilation that the chains enter in and out of, as well as a gear that they’re churning around. It’s terribly described in the campaign book and really needs a graphic.
YOU HEAR ME CHRIS PERKINS AND ADVENTURE TIME GUY?
IT NEEDS A GRAPHIC!
EVERYTHING ON FLOOR 5 NEEDS A VERTICAL GRAPHIC!
"Yep… yep... yep... I don't know what the fuck he's saying," Chumbawumba says, gathering the information from his homunculus.
"I have an idea. If we can't destroy the chains, can we destroy the gear?" Valour says.
"That seems a bad idea to me!" Zanzibar says, also recalling that the gears are tough too.
"What if we had a bunch of icky goo or mayonnaise or honey," Valour says.
"That thing is powered by an extra planar plane," Zanzibar says.
"Yeah but do they have honey?" Valour says.
"We should actually probably short rest," Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"I would be okay with a short rest if we need it," Valour says.
"We can do that and think about what we want to do here," Dur-Dur-Dur says.
The party camps out at the top of the stairs and plots some plots. Drip-Drip-Drip scrapes some of the scrap metal in the hallway towards the PC's at the top of the stairs so that they can investigate the stuff. Chumbawumba checks it out and sees that it's very rotten.
"Is this the same kind of effect we saw on metal with Valour's armor earlier?" Zanzibar says.
"This is some wild place that we're in," Valour says. "Do we think that these are possibly... what could this scrap mean? I don't like the image of a bull."
"The last time we saw an image of a bull, Dur-Dur-Dur turned into a bull monster and attacked us," Zanzibar says.
Dur-Dur-Dur goes back to the pentagon place with the wardrobes and gets some studded leather armor from the dead orcs. He gives it to Dragonbait.
"All right, what are we doing? The warchief demands a plan!" Dur-Dur-Dur demands.
Valour turns invisible and tiptoes down the stairs. He walks cautiously one step at a time. While taking a step near the bottom of the stairs, the leather of his shoe rots away. He runs like hell up the stairs to the rest of the party.
"Zanzibar, those stairs were like a ghost that magically aged my shoewear!" Valour says.
"I wouldn't know anything about that magic!" Zanzibar LIES!
"You get naked, then go scout!" Dur-Dur-Dur tells somebody. Probably Zanzibar.
"Wait, you stick to walls AND you get naked a lot! You go scout! This is a warchief's honor!" Valour tells the orc.
"I accept! Hand me your other shoe!" Dur-Dur-Dur removes all of his clothes and takes Valour’s other shoe. He walks across the ceiling with the shoe and feels it deteriorate to mush as he enters the hallway’s threshold. He throws the mushy shoe at Valour.
Valour gives the trash to 🌱. "Put this with the goblin food," he says.
"Hey there's stairs here!" Dur-Dur-Dur says, as he peers down the steps leading southward from the hallway. "Hey, hand me a magical weapon we don't care about!"
"Do we have any +1 yklwa's?" Zanzibar says.
"We've been carrying one since Port Nyanzaru!" Valour says, producing one.
Dur-Dur-Dur grabs the magic weapon and brings it with him. It doesn't decay. He goes back and gets Durminator, and it also doesn't decay as he crosses the threshold with it.
"So magic items are okay, but mundane ones don't fall apart,” Zanzibar says.
Dur-Dur-Dur goes back and gets his ring of jumping and his circlet of intelligence. They also don't deteriorate. He puts his hat on and feels nineteen intelligence rush into his brain like a neural steroid.
"Hello gentlemen, we have some stairs down here—And lady! If that is your real gender," Dur-Dur-Dur declares.
The naked orc goes down the stairs and enters a bizarre room filled with green vapors. A bubbling cauldron in the center is the source of the vapors, and the orc manages to see several workbenches, three rocking chairs, a gallery above him, and… something’s coming out of the fog!
Three little dolls, one made of straw, the other made of clay, and the other being a monkey on a unicycle creep out of the fog towards him. The little one made of straw chatters in a panicked, little girl voice, “The Sewn Sisters will return! You must leave!”
"Come with me!" Dur-Dur-Dur tells the dolls.
The dolls look among each other and panic, shivering at the thought of angering these “Sewn Sisters” who they’re referring to.
"We'll get in trouble!" the straw doll says.
Dur-Dur-Dur convinces the toy dolls to come with him up the stairs, and he runs up with them to the rest of the PC’s.
"Dur-Dur-Dur, you're naked! You can't talk to these children!" Valour shouts.
"It's a doll, and a monkey on a unicycle!" Zanzibar says,
"LISTEN!” Dur-Dur-Dur says, putting the kids down. “They're my adopted kids. This one's Penny—”
"No I'm not," the straw one says. “I’m Strawbundle—”
"That's Harry—" Dur-Dur-Dur says, pointing to the monkey.
"That's Clay-No-Face!" Strawbundle interjects, pointing at the clay one.
"I know!" Dur-Dur-Dur snaps at her. "Now... what were you talking about?"
"It's the Sewn Sisters," Strawbundle says.
"How many Sewn Sisters are there? Children, you will address me as warchief!" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"Yes warchief,” Strawbundle stutters. “The Sewn Sisters are three night hags. I can't mention them by name, or they'll hear!”
"Will anything happen to us?" 🌱 says.
"If you go down there, then maybe," Strawbundle says. "We were children at one point. They made us this way. They're making something else down there. Some kind of creature on the other side of the Skeleton Gate."
"You need to show us the skeleton gate," Valour says.
"Wait a minute!" Strawbundle says, then whispers to Clay-No-Face for a bit. She then turns to Valour and points at him. "You!"
"Me?"
"Yes, you're the lookie-like!"
"Lookie-like?" Valour says, stunned.
"Valour you're a doppelanger?" 🌱 says. "Put yourself in the zone of truth!"
"It's entrapment if you don't," Zanzibar says. Fucking nerd.
"You're the one they've been looking through!" Strawbundle tells Valour.
Valour thinks for a bit. "I have had some weird psychic episodes in the jungle."
"Well then take a look at this!" Dur-Dur-Dur says, then shoves his ass in Valour’s face. Valour removes the ass from his face.
The little doll goes up to Valour and says, "I need to see you closer."
Valour leans in closer. She tilts her head, then she cries a little bit. "You won't be able to surprise them. They've been watching you. They've always been watching you through YOU!" she says, pointing at Valour.
"How?" Valour says.
Strawbunde plucks one of Valour’s hairs out. "This is just like the one they have on their table," she says.
"Wait, but we killed Nanny Pu’pu,” 🌱 says.
"She doesn't live down here," Strawbundle says.
"Well, what's their names? If they know we're coming, what does it matter?" 🌱 says.
"Okay okay okay,” Strawbundle says, then nervously musters her courage. “Well first, there’s Widow Groat. She keeps gold coins over her eyes, and ants crawl in her hair—she’s the one with the visions! Then there’s Baggy Nanna. She has a burlap sack over her face, and a snake or terrier or rooster always pokes out of it. Then there’s Peggy Deadbells… she's the one who leads them! She has a necklace of chittering children’s teeth and a peg leg that thumps around. She's the one who nurses the thing behind the door."
"Is there any way to turn this armory thing off?" 🌱 says, looking at the hallway with the decaying magic.
Zanzibar eyes the bull skull with the ivory ring in its mouth. "Hey Dur-Dur-Dur, I have an idea. Take all your weird kids and go smash that bull thing!"
Dur-Dur-Dur grabs the doll children and walks up to the thing. He knocks it the ivory ring out with Durminator, and it crumbles into dust. He then smacks the bull’s face with a strike of his axe, obliterating it. "I am the war chief!" he shouts, then goes back to the party. "It didn't work."
Actually it did work, but the PC’s won’t know it worked because none of them do any kind of test to see if the magic decrepifying field still exists. Which means they spend a good bit of time trying to tiptoe around and choose which items they want to take.
Dur-Dur-Dur points at Zanzibar, "You translate! She has the chitin armor. Does it rot? Translate to your girlfriend! Tell her that your warchief wants to know if your chitin armor will deteriorate when you go down these stairs."
Zanzibar sighs, then turns to Lukanu. "This big ugly one wants to know if your armor is magical.”
“It is,” she says.
"So mundane items tend to be falling apart if they goes downstairs," Zanzibar explains. "You should probably leave that sword behind."
Lukanu sets aside her Omuan sword and keeps the dragon-hilted sword. She then goes forward, down the hallway.
"I don't want to get naked, but I will throw down a snake thing. I don't want to lose my hat," 🌱 says, then throws down his staff of the serpent so that it’s a snake.
"I don't wear armor, and the weapon I use is magical," Doomfist says.
"Is your mask magical?" 🌱 says.
"Yes, but I can't tell you why," Doomfist says.
Everyone is unnerved a little bit.
Valour drops everything that isn't magical, so he’s only carrying Bookmark, Flametongue, and his enchanted armor and +1 shield. No shoes though. He’s going full Dur-Dur-Dur.
Dragonbait drops his armor and shield, bringing only Holy Avenger.
"Is this our group?" Dur-Dur-dur says. "You three going to guard our stuff?" he says to Chumbawumba, Zanzibar, and 🌱.
"I'ma send Drip-Drip-Drip with you!" Chumbawumba says.
"Oh... I feel so safe..." Dur-Dur-Dur says.
Zanzibar summons his owl. "Lucky you! Make sure you don't die right away!" he says, then sends the owl with them.
Valour is invisible, so he gets ready to scout ahead.
"Wait, they'll see us coming if Valour's coming!" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"What if he carries the owl? Valour closes his eyes, and we see through the owl's eyes..." Doomfist suggests. Then he stops suggesting.
Dur-Dur-Dur, Valour, Dragonbait, Doomfist, and Lukanu go downstairs, accompanied by the spellcasters familiars: a snake, an owl, and a sprinkler system with a hammer attached to it. Oh yeah, almost all of them are naked.
They enter the witchy room filled with green vapor. The cloudy smoke is hard to see through, but they begin poking around. They see a cage with someone trapped inside! Valour goes up to the cage to investigate the prisoner and sees…
Himself!
"Well, well, well," Valour says. "Wha... hrm..." he’s a little confused.
"Zone of truth! And both of you stand in it!" Dur-Dur-Dur demands.
"Well, let's just start with talking," Valour says.
Dur-Dur-Dur steps up and kicks the cage. "HEY WAKE UP!"
The other Valour panics and bolts up. He’s scrawny, malnourished, and unkempt. He’s startled to see the party in front of him.
"Dur-Dur-Dur! Why is there a copy of me with you!" the other Valour says.
Valour feels suspicious, so activates divine sense. There’s nothing overly weird about this fake version of him, but he detects three fiendish presences huddled together in the northeast of the room—unseen to the naked eye.
Valour leans into Dur-Dur-Dur and whispers, "I think there's some people in the corner." He then turns to the clone. "Hey, caged Valour. Cast zone of truth.”
"I can't. I don't have my stuff," the other Valour says.
Valour then casts zone of truth around the cage, and he stands inside with his duplicate copy.
"Doomfist, come stand in this thing!" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"Nah, I'm good!" Doomfist says.
Dur-Dur-Dur is fine with that answer. He then turns to the Valours. "Who is the real Valour?"
Both of them answer, "Me."
"How'd you end up here?" Dur-Dur-Dur asks the clone.
"I woke up here," the other Valour says.
"Good enough for me!" Dur-Dur-Dur says, then breaks cage with his axe. “There's a hag in the upper right corner,” he then says.
And with that, Dur-Dur-Dur announces that he knows some witches are huddling and waiting to attack to everyone in the room, including the witches huddling and waiting to attack—a fight breaks out!
Doomfist dashes to the northeast and yells, screams and whatnot, then swings and punches and tips over a bunch of shit—looking for a hag to hit! He hits no hags. Dur-Dur-Dur then runs around, using his Nanny Pu’pu hunting skills to swipe and try to hack at an invisible witch. He also finds nothing. He does, however, open a door on the upper gallery and sees a small room with a weird book on a pedestal and skeletons hanging on the wall as through they’re falling. He gets on the ceiling.
"Give me something to fight with!" the Valour clone says.
“You know how to use this, don’t you?” Valour says, tossing him Shatterspike.
“Of course I do!” the clone says, catching it.
In the mayhem, a hag materializes near Dur-Dur-Dur. She has gold coins resting on her eyes and a nest of ants crawling through her head—Widow Groat! She shouts “Not the keys!” at Dur-Dur-Dur and casts eyebite on him, but he resists the spell.
Then another hag materializes near Dur-Dur-Dur. She wears a burlap sack over her head, and a rotten terrier snout bursts forth from it and roars at Dur-Dur-Dur—Baggy Nanna! She casts phantasmal killer at Dur-Dur-Dur, who is frightened as he sees several scenes of his father being brutally tortured and wracked by nefarious people.
Zanzar flies his owl at Baggy Nanna and casts shocking grasp through its talons, striking her! 🌱’s serpent slithers up to Widow Groat and lunges, but the elder witch is more nimble than she appears, so she slips out of reach. Dragonbait closes in on Baggy Nanna and swings the Holy Avenger at her, sending swathes of radiant energy through the witch and breaking her concentration on phantasmal killer, freeing Dur-Dur-Dur from the painful images.
Valour closes in on Widow Groat and swings with Flametongue as Chumbawumba dashes down the stairs and casts scorching ray with all beams aimed at the Widow Groat as well. The fire from their weapons simply washes over her, and she cackles at their petty attempts.
Meanwhile a third hag materializes on the upper gallery. She has a large pointed hat, and her wooden leg lands on the ground with a resounding “THUD!” Peggy Deadbells stands near Doomfist, aims an open finger at him, and lines up her shot: Valour’s clone, Drip-Drip-Drip, and Zanzibar’s owl are in the perfect line!
Peggy cackles as she upcasts lightning bolt, using a 4th level spell slot to hurl 10d6 damage at her enemies. Doomfist manages to duck out of the way, but the lightning grazes him and eats away more than half his Hit Points. The others unfortunately wriggle and contort themselves, wracked with lightning energy, and all of them drop down—eliminated and dead from the lead hag’s assault!
Doomfist hops up on the railing and goes to smack the ol' lady with all he’s got! He then proceeds to critically miss with the mace of terror. "I'm just getting warmed up!" he shouts, then misses again with it. After finally getting warmed up, he swings with his fists and hits her twice, but she’s immune to his fist damage.
Well shit!
Dur-Dur-Dur shakes the terrifying image from his mind, and he lunges at Baggy Nanna recklessly with the acid damage of his weapon engaged, then swings with great weapon master! He crits, then swings again! Baggy Nanna’s serpentine head hisses at him from the bag, but his axe meets it and cleaves it down the center, slaughtering the hag and ending her reign of terror.
Widow Groat and Peggy Deadbells exchange terrified glances, so Widow Groat blasts Valour with a ray of enfeeblement—but then 🌱’s snake grapples her and pins her down.
Valour unsheathes Bookmark and lunges at Widow Groat, shanking her repeatedly with the magical blade. Dragonbait abandons the fight with Widow Groat and tries to close in on Doomfist since he’s face-to-face with the leader of the Sewn Sisters. As he does so, Lukanu chops at Widow Groat, further draining her life force away.
Peggy Deadbells aims an open hand at Doomfist’s face, the same pose she had when she nearly killed him with lightning bolt. "Let's make a deal!” the witch shouts. “He lives, and we walk away."
"Counterpoint!” Dur-Dur-Dur shouts. “He lives and you walk away!”
The party debates what to do in this sensitive moment. Is she bluffing? Can she kill Doomfist right now?
"I vote we kill these witches...” Valour says, eyeing Widow Groat enraptured by the serpent. “But I like Doomfist!”
"Take the risk!" Doomfist says, staring Peggy Deadbells in the face.
"Do your worst, hag!" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
Peggy Deadbells looks down at her sister and smirks, then lowers her hand, shrugging. "Well, it was nice knowing you, Groat!" She then dematerializes away, abandoning her sister.
"Yeah, you better run!" Doomfist shouts.
Dur-Dur-Dur runs over to Widow Groat and slams Durminator into her, slicing her ant-filled head off and letting it roll across the ground. The ants scatter, and the fight is over. Two of the Sewn Sisters are gone! They loot the hags, finding their hearthstones and soul bags.
"Let's check out this bubbling pot here," Valour says, smelling the weird brew. He then goes upstairs to reconvene with the rest of his crew and tell them what happened. "Here's what those witches had. One of them escaped.”
"What do you mean escaped?" Zanzibar says.
🌱 sees the bag of goodies and runs down the hallway to get them, but he realizes nothing he’s carrying is dissolving. "We did it!" he shouts, and now everyone finally knows that the hallway no longer destroys mundane items anymore.
Zanzibar goes downstairs as well and sees that his items don’t rot. They then gather everyone’s gear and regroup downstairs in the room with the witch’s cauldron.
Zanzibar finds a ring of keys on Baggy Nanna’s waist, and he identifies the keys but finds that they are not magical.
"Stop wasting my time with these keys. They're not magical!" he shouts to whoever gave him the keys.
🌱 summons his fairy nightmare beast and shoves eggs into people's mouth to heal them. It’s still weird.
"Where are my kids at?" Dur-Dur-Dur says, and the three doll-children come forth. "Children, what happens if we put the lid on this?"
"The smoke goes away!" Strawbundle says and coughs a bit.
🌱 covers the cauldron with a nearby lid and the smoke dissipates. When the dolls see Widow Groat’s and Baggy Nanna’s corpses, they cheer.
"Warchief did this!" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"You’re the best, daddy warchief!" Strawbundle says. She then gives Dur-Dur-Dur a big hug, bestowing him with a charm that allows him to cast etherealness up to three times. Dur-Dur-Dur enjoys this boon.
"Tell me child, what do you know about this room?" Dur-Dur-Dur says, approaching the room with the book on the pedestal.
"I'm not allowed in," Strawbundle says.
"... Well you're still not! Stay outside! Tell Zanzibar that the warchief needs him!" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
Strawbundle runs out, "HEY OLD MAN! DADDY WARCHIEF NEEDS YOU!"
"Ugh... what?" Zanzibar says. "I'm not calling you warchief! You are these children's warchief! not mine!"
Zanzibar gives up trying to argue with him, so he comes into the room and looks at the book from a distance. He casts detect magic, which shows that the book radiates transmutation magic.
"This is a good time to summon some monkeys," Dur-Dur-Dur says.
Zanzibar backs up to the door and tries to manipulate the book with mage hand. It won’t move from the pedestal. He flips the pages around, which there seem to be only 8 total. Nothing disastrous happens, so he walks up and tries to read the infernal script on the pages. He casts comprehend languages and sees what looks like a nursery rhyme on the page:
BACKWARD, BACKWARD, EIGHT TO ONE.
"You should go backwards," Valour says.
"I want to read it all first," Zanzibar says, then reads it to himself.
Page 1: Backward, backward, eight to one.
Page 2: Speak the rhyme until it’s done.
Page 3: Keep the spider locked away.
Page 4: See the lever, clear as day.
Page 5: Spin, spin, iron spider.
Page 6: Turn their flesh and bones to cider.
Page 7: Speak the rhyme and meet your fate.
Page 8: Forward, forward, one to eight.
"So there is a creepy nursery rhyme here!" Zanzibar says.
The party debates what it might mean, but they’re pretty bad at this and just decide to open other doors at one point.
"Is there a lever around here?" Zanzibar says. "If we see one, we can prevent a spider."
Dur-Dur-Dur opens doors to other rooms repeatedly while Zanzibar ponders over his room.
"STOP OPENING DOORS!" Zanzibar shouts.
"There may be clues!" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
Dur-Dur-Dur opens a door and sees a scarecrow kind of person standing behind it. "I'm the new warchief. My name is Dur-Dur-Dur!"
The scarecrow doesn’t respond.
"Child!" Dur-Dur-Dur calls for Strawbundle.
"What is it?" Strawbundle says.
"Who is this person?"
"That's Mr. Threadneedle. He's the Sewn Sisters' manservant."
"Hrm... Come out here Mr. Threadneedle," Dur-Dur-Dur says.
The scarecrow doesn't come towards him. Instead, it gestures to a scene behind it: five red tapestries adorn the wall, and four tables are set out with food: one of a roast boar, one of frosted cakes, one of squash stew, and one of frothy beer!
"HEY! Get all those frosty cakes. Don't trust the beer,” Nangnang whispers to Dur-Dur-Dur.
Dur-Dur-Dur ignores his frog deity and slits the stitches on Mr. Threadneedle’s mouth, seeing that he has straw stuffed in his face. Dur-Dur-Dur orders him out, but the scarecrow resists, so Dur-Dur-Dur swings at it with his axe while the scarecrow claws at him. Eventually Dur-Dur-Dur reduces the scarecrow to a pile of straw.
Dur-Dur-Dur then leaves the room, then feels a sudden desire to eat. He eats a ration, but he’s still hungry.
"Papa Z, what do you feel about this?" 🌱 says, looking at the food.
"The roast boar is fit for a king!" Papazotl says.
🌱 eats the boar and feels his strength skill checks gain advantage for 24 hours. 🌱 leaves the room and shoves Dur-Dur-Dur with his newfound goat strength.
"I'm so hungry! Nangnang, you said iced cakes?" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"Yes, they're my favorite!" Nangnang says.
Dur-Dur-Dur eats them and gets a temporary HP boost!
While the orc and the goat(?) check out the doors, the others realize that the south end of the witch’s room has a massive gate adorned with five shapes: triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, and octagon. Those shapes match the heads of the skeletons they killed throughout the dungeon.
Zanzibar then reads the nursery rhyme backwards out loud, “Forward, forward, one to eight. Speak the rhyme and meet your fate. Turn their flesh and bones to cider. Spin, spin, iron spider. See the lever, clear as day. Keep the spider locked away. Speak the rhyme until it’s done. Backward, backward, eight to one.”
When he finishes, the lectern with the book opens up and reveals a lever with an octagonal handle. He pulls it, and the octagonal shape on the massive door in the main room opens up to reveal an octagon-shaped keyhole!
Valour is baffled. "Are you telling me that we just unlocked the keyhole!? Wow! They built this huge, huge, mega-fuck-you-dungeon and then they also double locked the door!"
"We did this one! I did this one! This room is done, pick another room!" Zanzibar says, running out of the room with the book.
Dur-Dur-Dur opens another door. He sees a glass cylinder with a lever at the bottom of it. A tiny, triangular shaped hole rests in the wall of the cylinder. He then opens another door and sees a bunch of pages flying around the room. A ghostly lever sits on the wall.
"Pages? That sounds like a Zanzibar room," 🌱 says.
"Your warchief has unlocked the puzzles. Figure it out!" Dur-Dur-Dur says. "I will sit here and ponder."
Zanzibar and Dragonbait go into the room with all the pages fluttering around.
"This one feels like it is not going to be easy as they are flying around," Zanzibar says, not liking the idea of reading such a long nursery rhyme.
"Aren't you some kind of wizard?" Valour says.
Zanzibar grabs at the pages and snatches one. It's a page for a spellbook! The spell is investiture of ice.
"I already have this one!" Zanzibar says, then snatches another: catnap.
"Get a better spell because that one is terrible,” Dur-Dur-Dur says from his pondering stoop.
Zanzibar grabs another: dimension door, which he probably also already has as well.
When he grabs the final page, all of the floating pages disintegrate into a pile of dust, then coalesce into a mass of dust mephitis! The dust mephitis are immediately obliterated by the good guys. When the last one dies, it transforms into a piece of black chalk.
Doomfist takes the chalk and draws an outline around the lever, but nothing happens. He then realizes that the symbol of a square is on the door to this room, so he draws a square around it instead. The lever materializes, and he pulls it. The square lock unlocks!
"OOOH!" Zanzibar freaks out.
🌱 goes over and checks out the triangle room with the glass cylinder. He wildshapes into a cockroach and skitters through the hole in the cylinder, then poofs back into humanoid form and pulls the lever to unlock the triangle lock.
"I'm trapped... I don't have any more wild shapes!” 🌱 says, hands splayed against the glass. “I'm just kidding!" he says, then uses another cockroack wildshape to escape and fly onto Doomfist's mask.
🌱 steps into the room with all the food in it and sees the tapestry with the pentagon-shaped devil’s mouth on it. He takes the curtain down to see behind it, but he finds nothing. They check behind all tapestries, finding nothing. They decide to try the food and see what happens. Dragonbait drinks the beer and gains an ability to add 3 to a d20 roll of his within the next 24 hours. Doomfist and Chumbawumba eat the squash stew, getting advantage on Constitution saves for the next 24 hours.
The party is confused since nothing else happens. They dig through Threadneedle's stuff and find nothing there.
"Hey children, what's up with this room?" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"It has the five-shaped shape on the shape!" Strawbundle says.
Dur-Dur-Dur goes into the room and eats everything there.
They look behind the tapestries again and see bare walls again.
🌱 hangs the tapestry with the devil’s face on it back up.
"Let's put food in the mouth!" Valour says.
Valour gets some mayonnaise from the alchemy jug, puts it on the pork, and shoves it into the tapestry's mouth. His hand goes through it, like it leads to another realm! He shoves the mayonnaise-dunked leg of pig in and feels a lever. Valour pushes the lever with the mayonnaise leg, and the pentagon-shaped lock opens.
That’s four down, one to go!
They enter the next room, which has an altar with five candles on it and a cracked mirror. Process of elimination hints that this is the hexagon room. Smeared in blood above the mirror are the words, “PIGGY PIGGY PIGGY.”
"Get some ham from the other room to put on it," Doomfist says.
"Zanzibar, come light these candles," Dur-Dur-Dur says.
🌱 casts druidcraft and lights the five candles.
"Should there be six candles?" Zanzibar says.
"Someone chant Piggy Piggy Piggy in infernal!" Dur-Dur-Dur says, which immediately causes a lever to appear on the south wall in the reflection of the room in the mirror.
Looking in the mirror, Zanzibar goes over to the south wall and put his hand where the lever should be. His reflection grabs the lever, and he pulls it.
THREE OINKY WEREBOARS LAUNCH OUT OF THE MIRROR AND LAND ON ALL SIDES OF HIM but the PC’s close in super quickly and just annihilate the shit out of those wereboars until none of them are left.
With that task done, the PC’s step back into the main room. All five locks of the skeleton door are now open, ready for the skeleton keys to be inserted.
