Eventually, the party traded some jellybean material to the habitat for a wick-clock and started debating their next step; after considering Quaz's proposal to track down the Manuk and learn whatever he knows, they decided to take a shot at the tower (since they were already optimally located for it). Since the plane is rumored to punish Chaotic behavior, Yves though it might be wiser to wait until the appointed time to assault the tower, while most of the others thought attacking at an off-peak time might give the party some advantage.
- Ganeth:
- "Plus most of us are going to be completely wacko in 30 days."
- Silvana:
- "It's not really the insanity that worries me."
- Quaz:
- "No, the insanity worries those of us who will be sane."
Based on his conversations with the liason, Ganeth believed that the main tower on each face might connect to the Seed Crystal (which would fit with the legends related by Wazeri-Ben); if so, the area containing the Seed could also act as a way to travel between planes without going out to the walls. Using symmetry arguments, Quaz and Ganeth decided that the best place to put the eight Lesser Crystals were at the vertices of a cube, but since Ganeth isn't certain the six planes of Dustworld literally form a cube in space (he feels it's more likely for them to simply be connected in a cube-like way by the gates in the walls), he's not sure whether these vertices would be the corners of the planes or some other structure that maps on to the planes somehow.
- Thorongil: [smiling]
- "Maybe we should just try to take over the plane."
- Quaz:
- "I know not whether the suggestion is serious...If you do not seek to destroy the plane, it would mean that you are admitting to being a traitor. Now, no one in their right mind would admit to being a traitor. So you can't be in your right mind...Are you insane?"
- Beeel:
- "It was a joke, Quaz."
After discussing various contingencies, the party decided to focus their efforts on one panel on the bottom cube of the tower; Yves and Stealth would climb to the second cube and anchor a harness to hold Silvana in place while she picked the lock on the panel, while the others stood by to rush up the ramp when the panel lowered. The habitat dwellers agreed to look after the horses if they'd gain ownership after a week, the local weaponsmith made 10 arrows in exchange for a day of rations and a horse in the event of the party's nonreturn, and after an uneventful night (aside from nighttime damage for the Chaotics and healing for the Lawfuls), the party headed out for a daytime assault.
Everyone got into position without incident. While on top of the first cube, Yves sifted through a layer of settled sand and noticed a tesselation of haxagons (each a few inches across) carved into the cube. Each hexagon had a symbol (possibly a number) inscribed in it, so yves made a charcoal rubbing for future analysis. Meanwhile, Silvana pried the glassy cover off the wall's control panel; she took some damage and got stunned for a few rounds but then went back to work. As she tried to pick the door mechanism itself, the second-tier panel near Stealth and Yves opened (like a pet door; since the panels have no apprarent hinges, operators may be able to open them from any edge) and four orange spiders came out; they seemed basically equivalent to standard huge spiders, but their "poison" drained one point from all stats (or worse, transferred them to a central energy pool). Eight smaller spiders came out on the other side and headed around toward the rest of the party; their poison only drained one point from a victim's highest physical stat.
Silvana succeeding in opening the lower door, the top spiders were killed, and the ground forces headed up the ramp (with the rear people engaged by the small spiders). The area inside the bottom cube had a square column 40' across rising through the center; the area around was paritioned by a web blocking the top 20' and a hexagonal network of 2' wide horizontal struts at the level of the ramp (blocking off the bottom 20', though there was plenty of room between the struts for human-sized things to fall through). The web was home to some small bungee-jumping spiders; we never found out what effect their poison had.
Stealth and Pepper underwent no obvious changes as the combat progressed, but Ganeth changed from spear-and-buckler style to two-handed spear and started enthusiastically vocalizing as he one-shotted the bungee jumpers ("Yes! Next one ready to go splat too?"; "Didn't Rakni tell you to look before you leap?"; "Sorta gives new meaning to having a stick up your ass.") Quaz used a psionic ability to light an arrow for Yves to shoot into the webs. The tower defenders managed to partially close the panel, but the whole party was already inside; the lurching ramp, plus a stunning attack launched from the web, caused Quaz, Ganeth, and two spiders to fall through the struts to the floor 20' below, while Yves found himself stunned on the beams, still holding the burning arrow.
As the melee continued, the tower occupants finally completely closed the panel, plunging the interior into darkness (except for the light from the still-burning arrow). The upper spiders were dispatched with quiet efficiency, while G killed the bottom spiders with a bit more...excitement. ("Ah, sir, you say you'd like a demonstration of our new arachnodildo? Why, certainly.") After the bottom was cleared, G calmed down a bit, but Quaz gladly scampered up the rope Silvana lowered to him. ("I think he's a little insane.") Meanwhile, Yves unstunned and lit the webs; the last spider jumped out and landed by G, re-igniting his fervor. ("Now, though this exclusive offer, you can get your very own, Consortium-approved Arachnodildo, in crisp bone or attractive shell, for the low, low price of 50000 gp.")
Quaz began hearing psychic screams, leading him to speculate that the webs might be linked in to the room's mechanisms. Silvana and Stealth went down to check on G (who was reminiscing about Ogilash and his blood-based pigments), and he attacked them for their troubles; they retreated, and Ganeth again calmed down. As far as he can tell, his battle euphoria overtakes him in combat; he gets a spell save to snap out of it when he runs out of enemies and another one (with a bonus) if he attacks a friend.
There were no apparent entrances to the area below the bottom cube or into the central pillar, but there was a 10' wide square annulus surrounding the central pillar where it went through the ceiling of the first cube; climbers could use this space to move between the first and second cubes. One possibility is that the central pillar tapers at it rises, filling the center of all the cubes, and can normally only be accessed through the panel at the top of the tower.
The party was not too thrilled about the prospect of climbing up the outside of the pillar and then back down the inside, so they started looking for secret doors on the pillar. After the party sent Ganeth a lit torch, his search revealed neither trapdoors nor entrances to the pillar, but he did note a runed hexagonal tesselation (similar to the one Yves observed atop the cube) under the dust on the floor. Up by the grillwork, Silvana and Stealth found a set of four secret 4' square panels in the pillar. Silvana forced one open (using charisma rather than physical strength on the open doors table); it swung inwards and upward, and a set of (hexagonally) armored rubbery-translucent-jelly-filled tentacles came out the doors. Ganeth, guessing that there would be four more tentacles coming out, took up position below one of the open panels and was met by the arrival of the second set. And another set of bungee-jumpers came down from the second cube to join the fun.
- Quaz: [to Beeel]
- "Suggestions?"
- Silvana:
- "Use your mighty Manuk powers and obliterate them."
- Beeel:
- "That would work."
- Quaz: [attacking with staff]
- "How droll."
Stealth successfully summoned four orcs to assist Ganeth with the bottom layer, while Yves fired another flaming arrow up into the second cube; it apparently lit something, since two of the jumpers were called back for damage control. At the end of the battle, Quaz, Frankel, and Pepper had been reduced by 40%, and Stealth had manifested a spellcasting insanity (after attempting to cast a spell, there was a 50% chance he'd attempt to cast another one the following round).
Ganeth's euphoria took hold again during this combat, though he was more or less able to converse coherently throughout. He also sang a lot ("Smells Like G's Spirit" and other hits).
- Frankel:
- "Are we supposed to be getting the impression that Ganeth is not mentally among the more well of our crew?"
- Quaz:
- "No one else is even remotely as crazy as he is."
G stopped singing after killing the last tentacle, but the party wasn't entirely convinced that he'd entered another lucid phase.
- Ganeth:
- "Well, right now I don't think I'm randomly attacking the orcs, so I'll call that a positive sign."
- Frankel:
- "Also, you're calling it a positive sign and not Ggztshtzhth, so I'd call that an even more positive sign."
- Ganeth:
- "Overall, I find I'm becoming...overly enthusiastic...about combat. I'm also doing a bit better than I'd have expected."
- Quaz:
- "`A bit'? You're killing stuff singlehanded."
- Silvana:
- "Don't mess with the Red One."
Looking into the pillar through one of the upper panels, Beeel noted some crystalline mush pooled about ten feet below the level of the 80' cube's floor; Quaz noticed a set of rungs in each of the four corners of the core, but they were well out of reach from the panels. Silvana went down to the bottom of the cube and cast a cure on G without incident; they then began searching for trapdoors in the floor. Meanwhile, the orcs lowered a rope into the pillar, and the reduced one went down to investigate the remains of the tentacle creature; unfortunately, the ooze gave way under the orc, forming a little pit for the orc to fall into and drown. The remaining two orcs then went down to attack the creature; when they attacked, the creature retaliated in proper pudding style, taking a simultaneous attack on both orcs with appeared to be sets of eight miniature pseudopods.
After a turn, the slow on Stealth ended, but the reductions on Quaz, Frankel, and Pepper persisted. Beeel examined the struts and figured that about 50hp of bludgeoning damage might break one. Yves and Quaz climbed into the 70' cube and saw no activity there, though there was some movement up in the 60' cube. Yves lit the webs in the second cube; the flames traveled up the walls as expected, but the web design on the ceiling proved more cunning: A few key strands burned first, producing a fire break that prevented the third cube from lighting up and dropping a mass of burning web down along the pillar onto Pepper and Frankel's heads.
Meanwhile, Ganeth and Silvana had each located a movable hexagonal tile on the floor; each was marked with a stylized octagon, and Silvana's was trapped on pulling but not pushing. Applying symmetry principles, G located another six floor panels (all about 60' from the center of the pillar). The party convened on the bottom level; Beeel stood by the pillar watching for trouble, and everyone took a panel and simultaneously pressed it. Loud machinery kicked in, and Beeel noticed that the ooze (all 1600 square feet of it) seemed to be getting closer. Apparently the proper procedure is to activate the lift, let the ooze be carried past the lower panels, and then open them up; the party's solution was markedly inferior, since it seemed to involve lots of deadly jelly spilling out of the pillar and over all the heroes.
The fighters started trying to shove the lower panels shut while the rogues went back up to grillwork to meet the bungee spiders, who'd decided to come down and try to keep the panels open. The spiders ignored the rogues and attacked people on the bottom, but by this time the lower panels had been shut (straight strength checks), and the spiders got attacked by the equines instead. Ganeth, trying to maintain his sanity, ignored the spiders and climbed up to the grillwork to start on those doors. He got one closed, but the jelly sent a fresh set of tentacles out the other three panels (three out, and a fourth inside the core to act as a damage sink) to engage the other party members, who didn't much much success against them with their primarily bludgeoning weapons. A small spider tried to sneak down and reopen a lower panel, but it was spotted and swatted; a large spider then rolled down the side of the pillar to the bottom level and engaged the equines.
- Ganeth:
- "So I take it that tentacles aren't dropping fast enough for me to sedately walk around slamming panels?"
- Quaz:
- "Umm...No."
- Yves:
- "But being sedated is good in your case."
So G entered the combat and wigged out again ("One Fight on Dustplane").
- Yves:
- "I request permission to retreat from tentacle in favor of greeny...I'm not helping much up here."
- Quaz:
- "Yes, please come down. The more of us Lawfuls that are with G, the smaller the odds that he attacks me."
(But note that if alignment were a targeting factor, G should have attacked Silvana rather than Stealth during his first breakdown.)
The party won the combat, though Dan had remarkable difficulty rolling two-digit numbers on his d20...
- Dan:
- "Beeel readjusts his nunchaku grip."
[Rolls a 1.]- DM:
- "Beeel fumbles the nunchaku within reach, but it falls through to the lower level."
- Roger:
- "That's a readjustment all right."
...though this was somewhat balanced by the boss spider rolling two critical misses with mandible attacks ("you can't always kill who you want..."). The party eventually won the combat, though Quaz landed on the weekly table, but at the end Ganeth had a strong desire to jump into the core and take on the central ooze.
- Ganeth: [to ooze]
- "Look, I thought we went over this last time. You come out, I bust you. Is this really such a hard concept to grasp? Did Rakni forget to stick some kind of brainpan in that big fat ooze of yours? Come on, this is basic operant conditioning here!"
Beeel attempted to disarm him and was attacked for his trouble, taking some damage but succeeding in returning G to his senses. Silvana managed to use the control panel to close the remaining three doors just before the ooze reached the upper level.