“Welcome children of wood and earth, air and stone,” intoned the resonant voice of the tree. “Panur give us the strength to weather the storms of fate and fortune, for who knows what is to come? All we can do is accept our fates.” The tree preached for some time about how the acceptance of suffering and hardship was the path to true happiness and freedom. Habbajabbalavaloo, Walki-Patooki, Ilenia, and Welby Wishbottom stood and listened along with the strangely mutated forest animals. Finally, the tree asked, “who among us today is ready to accept all things and transcend mortal notions of right and wrong, good and bad, before and after?”
After a momemt of thoughtful silence, Habba stepped forward and boldly said, “I am,” which prompted the others to as well. The animals reacted in surprise and having heard their voices for the first time, the tree said, “Oh! Uh… new comers! You have taken in the message of Panur so quickly. My children, show them to the mound.” The animals gathered around the party in a press and lead them splashing through some shallow water to a small mound crowned with stones. At the top was a shaft, some 30 feet deep.
“Jump in!” the animals cried enthusiastically, but the party hesitated so the bear growled, “it’s normal to be afraid when you stand on the edge of great change. All you must do is accept your fate and jump.”
“But the fall will kill us,” said Ilenia.
“Of course,” the bear replied, “what better way to show your commitment to the principle of total acceptance then accepting your own death?”
“I’m not doing that,” Walki-Patooki said flatly.
The bear sighed, “this happens sometimes. It’s OK, we’ll help you. You’ll come to accept your fate on the way down,” and the animals rushed forward to trip and shove the party into the hole.
Habbajabbalavaloo was the first to fall and he was nearly killed instantly. He lay unconscious at the bottom of the well. Welby jumped down to help him and barely survived himself. With a word, he healed them both and soon Walki-Patooki and Ilenia came too, though more gracefully.
The party found themselves in a kind of shrine across from a statue of a woman with her hands held out in welcome and warding. Behind her, a tapestry richly woven with silver traced complex, arcane designs while before her strangely shaped people climbed up from the underworld to meet and trade with richly dressed humans. Between them sat a lizard curled around a ball of lightning, smiling and benevolent.
While they examined the tapestry, a number of skeletons, made from the mixed bones of various woodland creatures, walked past them to the place where they fell down the well. Looked at the empty floor for a minute and then turned around and left down a broad stair, the way they’d come.
After deciding against walking through the doorway topped by an inscription threatening to curse all who enter, the party made their own way down the broad stone steps into a vaulted room dominated by a large circular hole in the floor. They saw beneath the hole a sloping mound of sand and broken rock stretching down into the darkness. Ilenia dropped down to investigate and stalked into the dark out of sight.
As she carefully picked her way down the dune, she noticed two huge yellow eyes glittering in front of her on the edge of her vision. As she approached, the eyes turned out to belong to an enormous lizard watching her closely. “Hello… New faces are so rare these days.” It said slow and sibiliant.
The party spent the rest of the session talking with what amounted to a fantastically knowledgeable, fairly benign dragon-like creature named Klisp. They had loads of questions about the ruin, the giant cavern, and himself, and he was frankly happy to talk having spent most of the last few centuries alone.
Klisp explained that Gemelos, “a small wizard” wanted access to the Spell Engine he guarded, but that he’d never be allowed to see it because he desecrated the tombs of the people who lived and served Klisp for almost two hundred years. The party asked if they killed Gemelos and returned the objects he stole to his friends’ tombs, would Klisp allow them to keep Gemelos’ things, enter the tombs, and let Habajabbalavaloo see the Spell Engine. The last request was too much, but Klisp gave them permission to enter the tombs to return the stolen artifacts and keep whatever they wanted of Gemelos’ things.
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