SATURDAY, APRIL 11TH - MASTER AND APPRENTICE CAMPAIGN 1 : SESSION 11 RECAP
Aldor’s Journal - Entry 11
Even a city boy knows that forests shouldn’t go silent.
The “NeverEnter” Woods (Yes I know its Neverwinter…)
It started loud enough — an ent, or treant, or whatever you want to call an animated pile of bark (with a distaste for parties of three apparently) decided we were trespassing. We fought it like you fight most things made of wood: aggressively and with fire. Once it became clear the flames were hurting it, I tried something different.
Being a creature of nature, I guessed it might know Elvish. So I spoke to it.
“Creature, this is your last chance to run”.
To its credit, it took the offer. The thing turned and fled, leaving behind scorch marks, splinters… and an uneasy feeling that the forest didn’t approve of what we were doing here.
We traveled another half day, and that’s when the silence fully settled in. No birds. No insects. Not even small game. Just us, our footsteps, and that hollow feeling you get when you realize the world has stopped paying attention.
We were following the map, looking for something. A hill. A mound. A marking that meant we were close.
The trees began to thin, many of them rotted, dead, or outright burned. The ground looked sick. Even the stones weren’t right — cracked, blackened, covered in greasy algae like they’d been sweating rot for decades.
Off‑putting, sure. But at least sunlight finally reached us again.
Then we found the mound.
It looked unsettlingly familiar. Too familiar. Mogur’s mound flashed through my head, and I didn’t like that thought one bit. As we drew closer, the illusion dropped away entirely.
It wasn’t just a mound.
The Tomb
It was a giant skull.
Ukalis sent his magical globe ahead — about fifteen feet in — and the entrance swallowed the light like a hungry mouth. Inside, the cave didn’t feel like a cave at all. The walls curved wrong. The passageways followed shapes that felt anatomical.
Like veins. Like a throat.
I started to wonder if we were standing inside the remains of something living. Not a giant — far too large for that.
Titans? No…couldn’t be
One of my old orphanage teachers whose name escapes me used to ramble about them endlessly, but always made sure us starving kids knew those were just folk tales.
We reached a chamber that arched high overhead, with an exit visible on the far side. In the center sat a plinth, humming faintly with magic. Above it hung a crystal shaped like a frozen tear, suspended by what looked like membrane rather than rope.
As we approached, the crystal began to glow.
That’s when the phantom spoke. Heavily armored and armed with what looked to be a 2 handed sword embroidered with some kind of devils face.
This place seemed to be centered around some sort of trial. A maze. And some kind of treasure at the end. Fail, and we would join the sorry souls forced to guard it below…
Well. We’d come this far.
Following the globe, we moved deeper, eventually reaching a large domed chamber with three doors. Naturally, we opened the left one first. Three armored figures stood waiting. Naturally, we closed it immediately and went right instead.
That room was vast and rectangular, with arched pillars holding the ceiling aloft. Three steps down. A flat floor. Three steps up on the far side. In the center, a brazier carved directly from the stone floor as if the room itself had grown around it.
Then came the middle door. Cade opened it to reveal a natural cavern split by a chasm — sixty feet across, with no visible bottom. A narrow bridge stretched over the darkness. I stepped out into the open with my lantern while Ukalis recalled the globe for better light.
That’s when I heard it.
Fluttering.
The Chasm of Wings
Something stirred beneath us. Then many somethings. Eldritch bat‑things surged upward from the shadows of endless dark below — wings and fangs in a living wave. I ran, shouting for Ukalis to use the orb to cast daylight and send it screaming upward - figuring things living in a deep cave like this would be sensitive to light, especially daylight.
Ukalis got stuck on the bridge as the creatures overwhelmed us. One latched onto him even as he deflected others with his shield spell. Cade held the line, knocking one creature aside while another missed and a third earned a hammer to the face.
When the daylight spell ignited the ceiling, we saw how truly deep we were in it (pun absolutely intended).
There were dozens of them latched to the stalactites on at the top of this cavern that we could now see, but in the seemingly never ending abyss below…I’m sure there was countless more.
The daylight spell did have the result we were looking for however, none of these creatures would pierce the brightest circle around the globe, and with that, Ukalis had his window. We ran, slammed through the next door, and sealed it behind us — breathing hard and hearts pounding (which if it wasn’t for the banging on the door behind us from the creatures slamming into it trying to pursue us, you could probably hear). We took a moment to be very aware of how close we’d come to being devoured in the dark of what felt like another world. After catching our breath, we carried on.
Fire, Serpents, and the Pool
Beyond lay a chamber like a dwarven hall — columns like petrified trees blending seamlessly into floor and ceiling. We walked for what felt like forever before reaching ancient bronze double doors etched with coiled serpents.
No handles. But we noticed torched on either side of the large doors.
My tinderbox failed, but Ukalis tried firebolt — and that worked. When flame struck the sconces, the serpents shifted, realigned, and the doors opened.
Beyond them: an amphitheater descending toward a pool of stagnant green water. Cade tossed in a stone. No sound. No bottom.
After listening to Cade and I discuss how we would get across, Ukalis simply misty‑stepped across. Always a showman. I tied a rope to a javelin and hurled it to him. He secured his end, and Cade and I did the same. As I shimmied across I slipped off the rope and into the gloomy pool beneath.
The Water and the Undead
I plunged into the water and felt shapes move around me — undead, but moving much faster than they seemed capable of, and very silently. Cade’s crossbow bolt punched into one, Ukalis followed with magic missiles into the same creature and that must have done it because after that impact, the monster just floated in the pool, even more ‘lifeless’ than before. Three more coming, panic should’ve set in, but I knew I had an ace up my sleeve. I swam to the surface, and coated myself in undead‑repelling potion I had on me, I knew that would come in handy.
They fled from me.
But, high on my strategic play, I failed to think that would send the, straight toward my friends.
Cade went down hard, knocked unconscious. I swam back to him knowing my potion would the undead away at least a while longer. Helping Cade up, I shifted focus to Ukalis, who was now the only target for them. I chucked the last half of the potion across the pool and it shattered in between Ukalis and his attackers forcing them back into the water. I ferried Cade across, shoulder to shoulder, close enough for my potion to keep them at bay, and we were through this rooms challenge as well. NEVER sleep through potions/herbology class gents. Saved our hides in this one.
The Game Revealed
The next chamber held three small rooms. Each had a table. Each had three chairs. And none had obvious exits.
Cards. Dice. Cups.
Each was a puzzle.
Ukalis drew from the cards — suffering brain fog, gaining boons, and eventually pulling the one we needed. A bell chimed. Stone ground against stone.
Next up was Dice - days in the service had meant Cade played plenty of Dice. after some rolling, he remembered he needed to cast the die from the cup, and soon he had a match, one more to go!
The cups were my gig. Tavern games and street magic were my forte. After some test runs, I saw the pattern, and turned this test into a diamond level performance (you just had to be there). All three tests aced and our reward, stone on stone grinding which means only one thing.
A secret spiral staircase opened.
The Necropolis and the Final Trial
One hundred feet down waited skulls. Endless skulls. Floors, walls — all of them watching… or tracking the light.
At the far end we see a massive skull. Then something floated up — a flaming skull with ruby eyes.
We fought hard. I drove a blade into it as it passed. Ukalis landed a devastating firebolt. Cade charged and crushed it. Cade smash…
But the giant skull didn’t move, until Ukalis found the emerald in the ashes of this flaming skull. He placed it in one of the large skulls eyes and the gargantuan mouth opened with the creak of an ancient boat during a storm. A tunnel revealed itself behind the ancient jaws of the hulking skull….
And that’s where we leave things for now…
The crew of the former Odds and Ends shop will see you soon in…The Maze!