Fallen Star

Behind the door is a circular corridor with marble white walls; it will soon become apparent that all the corridors are like this; there are very few right angles in this place. Soon they come to a spherical room with two buttons next to the entrance; one blue and one indigo. Pressing one button rotates the entire room to the right, the other button makes it go left. There appear to be two other corridors going from this room and they take the left one.

Then they come to an almost completely vertical corridor; with the way the Fallen Star landed nothing is quite level. Outside of it are two buttons, a red one and a green one. Some testing shows that the buttons control a levitating effect in the vertical corridor, allowing them to go up or down. They go down first, Calliope jumping into it with an incredibly skillful back-flip.

Another corridor and they come to a small room where they find these kind of leathery sacks with purplish-blueish goo in and over it. They can't place what it is and then Regius smashes it all with his maul, goo now all over the walls. Then Calliope and Hanur hear a sort of a 'prrrr' sound coming from the corridor on the opposite side of the room. Before they have a chance to warn the others two creatures emerge; they have four irregular, gangly arms and hooked prehensile tails. Their faces seem to lack any eyes and it seems they got pretty beat up, they are definitely not hale and hearty.

They sure have a pointy teeth though and the first one attacks the monk, bringing him almost to the floor with its claws and tail. Hanur returns as good as he got and kills the first one. It's unfortunate then that the second one promptly attacks him and downs the half-orc. When Arosin and Regius recover from the sudden attack it becomes a lot easier for Calliope to kill the second one and then quickly pour Hanur's healing potion down his gullet.

Augmentation

There's more exploration and eventually they come to a more massive door; this time it takes a first level spell from Regius to open it. Behind it they find a larger spherical room with two other doors that have also opened. Around the perimeter of the room there are six distinct illustrations done in different colors, all of them show beings, drawn in the most rudimentary style, involved in different activities. Clockwise from the entrance:

• In yellow; six figures running.
• In green; two figures playing a game on a board.
• In indigo; a figure singing.
• In red; two figures wrestling.
• In blue; a figure standing over a model of a town.
• In orange; two figures boxing.

Standing in the middle of the room is a large ring made of a light, gleaming metal, about a foot thick and wide, with pearl-like gems are set into the interior of the loop. Floating inside the ring is a slightly concave board made of an unknown material, it looks somewhat like a bed and would easily fit a human, for a half-orc it might be a bit of a squeeze.

Next to the ring is a console of some sort with a small opening on the top. Attached to the console is a transparent, closed receptacle, almost like a small bucket, holding what look to be small marbles in six different colors. Most of the marbles have cracks, some broke into small pieces. There is some speculation of what to do; Regius propose that maybe the number of people in each drawing indicates how many of each color marble should be put into the console.

Calliope eventually lays down on the board, it proves to be very comfortable. Arosin then puts a cracked yellow marble into the slot and the gems start to light up in a pattern going from left to right and then in the other direction. The process doesn't take long and at the end of it, the elf feels the worse for wear. The cracked marble has just lowered her Constitution by one.

This is not great and the party then spends a lot of time looking for marbles that are still completely intact. They find three; a blue one, an orange one, and an indigo one. Calliope remains in place and they put the blue marble in the slot. The process starts up again and now her Constitution is back to normal and her Wisdom has increased by one.

Bolstered with this success they put the indigo one in next, figuring it might be Charisma. They are right and the elf's Charisma increases by one but her Wisdom is back to normal now. It seems they know the limitations now and Regius speculates the remaining orange marble will increase Strength. So he asks Calliope to switch places with him and start the process. It works but it turns out he was wrong and it's his Dexterity that has increased. Later they learn that this augmentation is only temporary and eventually the effects fade.

Looped

The party continues on and eventually come to another door that can be opened with a light spell from Regius. A strange scene greets them behind the door. The room isn’t very big and there are scorch marks on the floor and the wall to the left. Two spectral figures, they look to be human, stand there and one speaks to the other: “Rades has risen, the era of Uyots is over, we are to be undone.” Then from out of view a violet beam strikes each of them and they scream as they turn to ash on the floor and against the wall. No sooner has the ash settled or the scene starts over at the beginning.

Status Codes

They get closer to the center of the Fallen Star now, and end up in a room with a large, valve like door of a larger proportion than any they have encountered so far.

Next to the door is a panel of some sort with buttons in different colors with words inscribed on them. At the top are two buttons next to each other, on the left a blue button saying ‘Vikik’, and on the right an indigo button saying ‘Oring’. Below those two is a set of four buttons in a vertical line. The top one is red and has the word ‘Galoon’ on it. Below it is an orange button with the word ‘Snirk’. Next is a yellow button says ‘Puckin’. Followed by a green button with the word ‘Zapp’. To the side of all these buttons is a larger, violet button with the word ‘Og’ on it.

At the top of the panel three sets of seven gems have been placed, some are lit up and they seem to make up the numbers four, zero, and four. Dried blood and other fleshy bits cover the panel.

It takes quite a bit of testing but eventually our friends figure out how the door mechanism works and with a final push of the Og button it opens.

Bulbous

The door slowly dilates like a valve. Beyond, a bulbous chamber the size of a cathedral opens up. The air is close and moist. The walls are the same marble white as the rest of the Fallen Star but restless, their blue veins more pronounced. They palpitate and move like muscle.

Spheres of glass float throughout the room, providing ample light. Around the room are a number of large, vertical, smooth slabs of crystal, colors flowing just beneath their surface.

A midnight altar, wrought from some superterrestrial metal, stands at its centre. On it, four shiny metal ‘fingers’ hold aloft a semi-translucent orb about a foot across, eldritch bolts travel below its surface every so often. It looks vaguely familiar.

Two chairs face each other across the altar. No – not chairs: thrones. Thrones of antiquity, gold and looming, salvaged from the halls of forgotten kings. They look very uncomfortable and very out of place.

A ball of energy by turns pale indigo and radiant violet swirls around the perimeter of the room.

Three other doors have opened at the same time, all equidistant from each other. Across, they can just about make out the shapes of the two Abjura Dolana mages. “Do not enter the room!” Selise Akhmelere shouts, “this is magic that is beyond your ken and much too dangerous to toy with. Please return home and let us take care of this.” They do not spot Velkor at either of the other doors.

Calliope won't let anyone tell her what to do and she steps inside and rushes towards the altar in the centre, Regius is right behind her. As the priest enters the room, the ball of energy turns in his direction and unerringly hits the trinket he wears: an ornate but empty reliquary made of silver and fractured glass. The metal and glass warp and fold into a seemingly impossible shape and the item is whole again.

As both parties move towards each other they can see that six tiny meteors slowly orbit Selise’s body. One leg of Delthrin’s trousers has been ripped off and he wears a bloody bandage around his leg as he limps forward.

The room beats, once. A single thunderous beat, which reverberates like the toll of a bell.

The pressure in the chamber intensifies. Your ears ring. Visions steal in, rich as incense.

You see men and women dressed in the finest clothes, bowing as you pass. You see streams of gold thread between your fingers like silk. You see fear in the eyes of your enemies. But all of this is irrelevant – what matters is what it enables: your transformation. You feel the slow stretching in your bones. Your organs, persistently rearranging themselves into superior configurations. You cast off your robes to stretch your new arms, all four of them, as your eyes start to uncover what was heretofore hidden from you.

Our friends look at each other and at the Abjura Dolana mages, did they all just all have the same vision?

“Did I not tell you it wasn’t safe here,” Selise cries out, angrily, “leave now while you still have your lives and sanity!”

As they near the altar, low hovering light globes illuminate an item on each of the thrones. They look almost like small, transparent, bite-sized organs. Both contain some type of viscous fluid, one a lurid red, the other a brilliant blue.

On the altar, half hidden by the ‘fingers’, lays a metal rod sculpted with a precision like you have never seen. It tapers to one end where small, red gems protrude. Next to it sits a small pyramid made of the same superterrestrial metal as the altar.

The room pulses again, deafening as thunder.

As it echoes, new visions assail you.

Adoring eyes locked with yours. The heat of a fierce embrace, beating heart to beating heart. Two lives, completed by each other. A love that inspires and consumes.

“Just go!” Delthrin looks at you pleadingly, “I’ll give you Kuroth’s Robe of Resources, it can produce many items and will serve you well. I’ll even give you my Ring of Seven Shields if you just leave immediately.”

The chamber beats again, the visions offer the most precious currency of all: time.

You see yourself defying time (the greatest of thieves), and living hale and healthy into a new age of the world. An endless future, to make of which what you want.

“I don’t want to fight you but I will not brook your presence or your interference any longer,” Selise tells you, fire in her eyes, “do not test me, you cannot match my magical prowess, do you really want this fight?”

Calliope now grabs her healing potion and drinks it, figuring things might kick off. And at that very moment a fog cloud appears over the altar and thrones. There is a sort of zipping sound and Velkor-like grinning is almost palpable in the room. Hanur and Regius rush into the cloud as Calliope keeps a weary eye out and Arosin casts a faerie fire onto the area where the altar should be.

The two grab what they can and make it out of the cloud with the orb; there is no doubt in Hanur's mind that this is the item Vardan sent them to collect. Unfortunately the other parties were quicker in grabbing all of the other items.

The room pounds once more, and you are struck by visions of a new desire: escape.

Escape from this country, escape from this world. You see the glow of a rising sun across the length of a horizon; feel the playful touch of wind in your hair; smell the scent of fresh-fallen snow, sharp and crisp; hear the relentless chatter of birds, clear in a blue sky.

The room has had a marked effect on everyone in it, and particularly Hanur has been quite affected. He wants only one thing; to get out of this place, right now. He runs off, backtracking to the entrance with the rest of the party following the monk as best they can. They get to the door and return outside.