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Ruins & Resolutions

Last week, the party finally entered the Sekerren Ruins. They found a tunnel descending deeper into glowering gloom. The party detected a pressure plate trap in the tunnel, but Briar made a magic bridge over the pressure plate and the party simply walked over it without finding out what terrible secrets it held. At the end of the tunnel, the party found a staircase descending ominously down, ending in a wooden door. Din Morat carefully crept down the stairs, avoiding another hidden pressure plate, to peek through a keyhole and see what awaited the party. The room beyond the door was large and square, and filled with a group of three large geckos and a bear. The party contemplated their plans and were going to try to do something creative, but Din Morat accidentally triggered the pressure plate while trying to disarm it. The trap flipped the entire staircase around rapidly, flinging several members of the party into the room unexpectedly. The animals rushed to attack the party, but the party held their ground and tried to appease the animals with doughnuts and gentle words instead of smashing. Thanks to the party's surprising skill at creature handling, combined with the high quality of their doughnuts, the animals were convinced to leave them alone long enough for them to escape into another room. They shut the door behind them and proceeded down another set of stairs.

On the next level, the party found a strange goopy creature in the room and a gigantic turtle blocking the door. The goopy creature spoke to them and demanded to know why they were here. Briar recognized that the creature was similar to Alistair's goop golems, but it was likely made by a different person who tapped into a similar source of magic. She also realized that the monster was just a magical conduit for some other person that was speaking through it. The party were unwilling to allow the person controlling the goop to leave the Ruins, but couldn't get past the turtle blocking the door, so they talked with the goop for some time. The creature controlling the goop explained that she was Ellenforma, a swamp witch who found her way into the ruins and began channeling the powerful magic they contained. The magic apparently originated from a collection of ancient dragon bones. It was very powerful, and she had used it to create all of the warped and mutated animals that the party had encountered in and around the Bramblepatch. However, the ruins were sealed six months ago, and she was becoming increasingly desperate for more outlets to use the magic, since it somehow compelled her to use it.

The party decided to try to demonstrate how much she was hurting the animals she modified to get her to come to her senses. Weiwei convinced the turtle to express how much pain it was in from its excessive bulk, and Ellenforma transferred its size to the goop creature to demonstrate her control of the magic. With the turtle out of the way, the party sprang into action and ran through the door past the now regular-sized turtle. The goop rampaged behind them, but it was too large to fit through the door. In the room beyond, they found a beautiful and massive magic circle which Ellenforma had almost certainly used to make the animals that the party had encountered. They ran past the circle and found a larger group of additional group golems that swarmed the party. Before any serious combat could break out, Briar instinctively tapped into the powerful magic of the area to sing a superior song of somnolescence that suppressed them all into a swift sleep. With their final obstacle removed, the party burst into Ellenforma's room.

Ellenforma stood before them. Her skin was mottled and sickly, and her body was oddly proportioned in unsettling ways, with extra joints and too-thin arms. She threw up her hands in frustration at the party's arrival. Recognizing that they had made their way to her with apparent ease and without even needing to fight anything in their way, she decided fighting was pointless, and tried to persuade the party to give her more creatures to experiment with so she could use the magical power that threatened to consume her. The party tried to convince her to leave the dangerous magic behind and come with them out into the world. After a long discussion, they finally broke through to her by conveying how much she had hurt the animals that she once held dear. As she struggled against the magic's control over her, Gregory used his anti-magic powers to weaken the magic's hold on her, and she agreed to go with the party. With Ellenforma in tow and rapidly slipping towards unconsciousness as she purged the magic from her body, the party prepared to make their way out of the ruins.

The squad goop creatures were still asleep from Briar's spell, so the party was able to run past them and reach the monstrous goop that Ellenforma had enlarged. Din Morat squeezed through a crack in the door into the room and drew its attention so the rest of the party could run for the stairs. Bench picked up the turtle on the way out the door and bestowed its new name, Henry. Upstairs, the party was confronted by the bear and group of geckos that they had left behind. The animals remembered their last encounter, and were mostly eager to chase after the sack that Bench threw containing the last of the party's (non-special) doughnuts. One of the geckos was unconvinced, and Bench blocked its path to the rest of the party while they escaped. When the rest of the party was safe, Bench retreated and slammed the door in the gecko's face, and the party emerged on the surface with Ellenforma.

Outside of the ruin, Ellenforma writhed in pain as the magic left her body, but Briar's magic healing tea soothed the worst of it and brought her to her senses. She was extremely grateful to the party, and promised to use the lingering remnants of the power she carried to travel the forest and bring all of the mutated animals to peace once she recovered. In addition, she made the party promise to destroy the dragon bones in the ruins to prevent anyone else from tapping into the same power and becoming corrupted by it as she was, though she warned that the bones might be difficult to destroy. They readily agreed, and prepared to start the next chapter in their journeys.

Thus ends the saga of the Sekerren Ruins! You have all stopped the source of the magic that was corrupting the animals, gained information that can help stop Alistair's machinations, and shared doughnuts with many friends.

Stupid Awards

Briar: Bench McSmashy: Din Morat: Weiwei: Gregory:
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