It's also pretty good as an inn, all things considered; the food's inconsistently spiced and the beds aren't as soft as they could be, but it's clean, and she's able to fall asleep just in time to catch the prophetic dream channel.

A drow woman, stomping around in armor that truly must be seen to be believed, growls at a nearby wizard wearing black-and-red robes. "Do not test my patience, iblith. Would you have me wait? I, the Valsharess? I, the great queen of shadow?"

"No, dread Mistress," he trembles.

"Then proceed with the ritual. I wish to see this being that my agents say has the potential to stop my rise to power."

"I do not believe anyone could stop you now, dread Mistress."

"So I thought. But my agents have resources beyond the means of mortals, and they say this one may yet defeat me... if I do not act."

An illusion of Belmarniss appears, after an amount of arcane fanfare that can't have been strictly necessary for a simple divination.

The Valsharess prowls around the image like a cat examining a bird it doesn't know yet if it can kill. "What is this? This... child... wearing the signet of no house? Have your spells grown faulty, fool?"

"N-no, dread Mistress. This is indeed an image of the one who shall defeat you."

"I will not be defeated." The Valsharess incants a quick spell, and the wizard screams as he dies. "This image shows but a threat which will be dealt with like the others. You, other male. Remove this trash and summon my assassins." A nearby wizard casts some kind of spell which causes the body of the first wizard to vanish, bows, and scurries out of the room.

"And you, iblith," the Valsharess says to Belmarniss' image. "Whoever you are, and whatever threat you pose... you will not be able to hide. My Red Sisters will strike quickly and without mercy."

She wakes up, puzzled about the implications for the local functionality of prophecy.

Well, points towards the "something is up" hypothesis: there is another drow in her room, carrying a knife that could not be more obviously coated in deadly poison. Currently she's going through Belmarniss's stuff; she doesn't seem to have noticed that her prospective thievery/murder(?) victim has woken up.

Well, she didn't intend to level in sorcerer but having done it the opportunity cost is much lower, and the cost of being caught in her underwear before she prepares her spells much less, if she says, "Admonishing Ray."

The intruder doesn't even have time to turn around, she just drops like a sack of rocks. Her dagger skitters across the floor.

Belmarniss wraps the dagger in the hand towel from the bathroom and ties up the assassin in the bedsheet. She peeks out in the hallway for other attackers.

No other attackers, but there is a concerned half-(surface)elf adolescent with a breakfast tray who looks like she was considering knocking. "Is everything alright, ma'am? I heard, um, spells."

"Assassination attempt! I don't even know if my insurance even covers me out here. Can I get you to dispose of this poisoned dagger?" She holds up the towel coccoon.

"Oh my goodness!" the girl exclaims. She puts her tray down carefully and takes the towel cocoon much more carefully. "I suppose I'll, um, put that in the armory? Or, no, I'll bring it to Father, he'll know what to do with it. I'm so sorry this happened, is there anything I can - well, I can take this dagger. That's what I'll do. Thank you for telling me."

She takes the dagger-in-towel and hurries downstairs.

Belmarniss preps spells while waiting for the assassin to wake.

The assassin wakes up after a little while! She's quite groggy, and looks deeply surprised to be alive. When she realizes she's been captured, she goes a much paler blue than her usual tone, and swallows heavily.

"I bet you've got just oodles to tell me," says Belmarniss, without looking up from sharpening her dagger more than momentarily.

"I... tell... nothing," the assassin says in halting Common.

"Really?" She flips through her spellbook. "Nothing?"

She nods firmly. "No stop Valsharess, iblith qu'ellaril."

The color's coming back to her face pretty quickly.

"Really! Why's that?"

"Queen of darkness. All Underdark fears she. Humans not stop her, qu'ellaril not stop her, not even- hrkk-"

Blood starts dribbling down her chin, and she grins fiercely. Belmarniss might notice, now, that she's missing a tooth.

"Wow, okay, have fun in the Abyss, I guess." She steps into the hallway. "Housekeeping!"

The half-elf girl has come back and was once again hovering outside her door. In the meantime she cleared away the breakfast tray. "Hello again! Did you need something?"

"My assassin bit her poisoned fake tooth. Can you get her out of my room?"

"Oh my word," the girl says faintly. "I, um, I can, I can get Father, I'd be no use at all with. That kind of thing. I can put you in another room in the meanwhile? Or you could get breakfast, I'm sure we'll have it all cleared up in an hour or so."

"I'll get breakfast. Thanks, you're a champ."

"Well, thank you," she says happily. Then she scurries off again, presumably to get her father.

Downstairs, where breakfast is, there are a few people eating together who look... adventuresome.

There's a scarred-up lizardfolk in plate armor with an obviously enchanted visor over his eyes and a composite longbow strapped to his back.

There's a kobold with a lute and crossbow, ignoring his food in favor of scrawling in a book.

And there's some kind of... mouse-person? Sitting with them, enjoying a bowl of what looks to be plain rice.

They're chatting in the manner of acquaintances, or possibly just unusually friendly strangers.

She attempts to whistle in an unintimidating manner while she gets food.

No one stops her, though she gets a couple of double-takes and at least one hostile look from the non-adventurer patrons of the inn.

The lizardfolk gives her an appraising glance as she passes. "Are you that fourth adventurer Durnan's been waiting for? If so, welcome. If not, welcome anyway, I'm not stingy."

"I don't know if he's been waiting for me specifically but I'm an adventurer, sure."

"Great! Want to sit at the big kids' table, then? Deekin can regale you with the best-selling tale of his adventures in Undrentide, and Jojo can tell you how he singlehandedly saved Neverwinter."

"Exciting." Plop.

"I did have help," Jojo says in a quiet, deep voice. "And I'm not one for boasting, really - I simply do what must be done."

"Well, sure, you do what must be done, but then you get to talk yourself up - that's half the point."

"Deekin think good story be most of point," the kobold muses, not looking up from his tome. "If no good story, Deekin might as well just stay home."

"I mostly haven't stumbled into any adventures that really musted at me. Some people have all the luck."

"I suppose there was an amount of luck involved," Jojo says, his nose twitching.

"You kidding? You had great luck. That quest was morally unambiguous, epic in scope, paid for by the government... A little bit incomprehensible towards the end by all accounts, but that's nothing for you to worry about, that's the bards' problem."

"I haven't actually heard this story, I'm from another planet."

"Wow. That one's new on me. Uh, do you in fact want to tell this story or should I?"

"Please, go ahead."

"Alright. So, there was this big magic-resistant plague in the city of Neverwinter, right? Jojo here was a monk in the service of Tyr in that city, when suddenly the Lady Aribeth, this big-time paladin higher-up, comes to him and says, basically, 'we screwed up.' They'd brought in some magical creatures to use parts of them to make a cure for the plague, but the creatures escaped. So Jojo and some compatriots hunt down the creatures, and they make the cure, and along the way it turns out the plague was actually an enemy action, and Aribeth's boyfriend was in on it. So he gets executed. Now, they're searching for who sent the plague in the first place, and Aribeth's having a real hard time because her boyfriend got killed. Jojo finds out the plague was inflicted by this archmage from Luskan, and whoops-a-daisy, Aribeth vanishes, and next thing anyone knows she's a blackguard leading a Luskan army against Neverwinter. But Jojo found out along the way that the archmage is looking for these ancient artifacts called the Words of Power, and the best idea anybody has is 'find them before he does'. So they do. And it turns out along the way that the archmage is a servant of the ancient lizardfolk - no relation - who ruled the world before the dragons, and they want to turn the planet into an eternal jungle and rule again, and so they're puppeteering this archmage, and that's why the plague and that's why the Words of Power. And then Jojo vanquishes Aribeth in single combat and defeats the archmage and uses the Words to go into the pocket dimension with the ancient lizardfolk and kill their evil queen. And we're all very proud of him."

"Cool. What went down with the lizardfolk power vacuum?"

"The pocket dimension collapsed without Morag to sustain it," Jojo says quietly. "I believe any who were not personally devoted to Morag and her plan of conquest had already perished in the ice age, however."

"Wow, rough day to be a lizardfolk who found a qualm under the couch cushions though."

"Yes," Jojo says. "It was the most important thing I have ever done, but it may be the one that has made me lose the most sleep."

"Most important thing you done yet," Deekin corrects absently. "...wait, no, missed mood there. Ignore Deekin."

"Congratulations, condolences."

"Thank you and thank you," he says wryly. "Deekin has a fascinating story of his own, but I'm not sure I'm qualified to tell it. Then again he also published his story himself, so you could read it at your leisure if you prefer."

"Will I miss much if I do it with comprehend languages rather than as a language exercise?"

"Deekin has always felt Deekin's work highly translatable," the kobold says humbly. "Content universal; language largely incidental. Might miss subtlest wordplay."

"I will imagine some subtle wordplay. I don't usually feel like I can use a new language for light reading till I've been fluent in it for longer than this."

Nod. "Deekin not fluent in anything except Common and Draconic and old kobold tribe pidgin, sounds stressful."

"Being suddenly on another planet is sure an experience improved by access to Comprehend Languages and Tongues."

"Deekin certainly imagine so."

He roots around in his backpack and pulls out a slightly beaten-up copy of The Shadows of Undrentide, the cover of which features a human in black armor facing off against a medusa. "Here, Deekin lend you copy. Deekin not want you buying from publisher unless you have to, bastards stiffed Deekin."

"Aw, thank you."

"No problem, uh... drow... lady... What be drow lady's name?"

"Belmarniss."

"Nice to meet you! Deekin be Deekin. Scalesinger, but Deekin mostly just get surname for publicity."

"I don't have enough publicity to get fancy with so far."

"Saving the world and writing a bestseller helps with that, as it turns out. Who'd have known."

"I should try that."

A human man with slightly greying hair enters the room and heads over to their table; it's Durnan, the owner of the inn. "Greetings, Belmarniss. I am glad that you made it. I trust your accommodations were adequate?"

"Everything's been super comfy. Somebody tried to assassinate me but honestly the housekeeper handled that real well."

Durnan sighs heavily. "Aye. Tamsil told me what happened. I cannot apologize enough. Once, I would have been able to ensure the safety of my guests, but no longer. The damnable - invaders," he stumbles only very slightly, "come and go as they please, it seems. The enemies of Waterdeep must have somehow learned you had answered our call for heroes; I don't know why they attacked you specifically, but it does not bode well."

"Are divinatory dreams often a thing here?"

"Not common, but not unheard of," he says, confused. "Why?"

"On my planet prophecy has been broken for a few decades but I had a dream last night that included some very melodramatic lady identifying me via some spell as a threat to her and sending the assassin."

(Deekin, who has been scribbling in his tome, underlines something he wrote down earlier a couple of times.)

Durnan's eyebrows raise. "Well, that's very unusual. Usually prophetic dreams are quite vague, and concern events of the future. But I've seen enough to know that having a powerful ally in your corner is something to be grateful for... usually. If someone sent you that dream, it might be a good idea to find out who."

"Well, who goes in for that kind of thing?"

"I'm not a man of much faith," Durnan admits, "so I don't know which gods might be interested in this little venture."

Jojo speaks up. "It seems unlikely to be one of the gods themselves; divine visions almost always go to the faithful, and as Durnan said they don't tend to be quite so clear-cut as what you saw. Either some mortal caster sent it, or the gods are behaving uncharacteristically. Either way, I think our best bet might be to simply keep an eye out for other clues. At least, as Durnan said, it's likely to be someone who wants to help - after all, it woke you in time to intercept the assassin."

"The assassin made the rookie mistake of looting before murdering, so that might have happened anyway."

Durnan nods thoughtfully. "It's possible that her job was to leave you defenseless for a more experienced killer, but we can't be sure. At any rate, I've gathered you all here for a reason. The city is under siege. Raiding parties of drow and other creatures rarely seen on the surface are attacking the city. We've determined that these attacks are coming through Undermountain."

"But Undermountain has existed for centuries. Why hasn't there been any trouble before?" Garrus wonders.

"That's what I need you all to find out. The labyrinth of Undermountain was created centuries ago by Halaster, a mage whose power may have rivaled Elminster himself. Halaster rules Undermountain with a tyrannical fist; it was his magic that kept the creatures within from pouring out to overrun Waterdeep. Now Halaster has suddenly decided to unleash his creatures on my city, and I want to know what that madman is up to!"

"Is it possible the drow agitated for it for some reason and he agreed with them?"

"That's the going theory. It's odd that Halaster would ally himself with the dark elves; he's never been too fond of them. But the drow are attacking through Undermountain, and that would be impossible without Halaster either cooperating or out of the picture. And if they somehow took out the archmage, we've got an even more serious situation on our hands."

"Do they seem to want anything? Like, are they trying to settle somewhere and you're in the way, or do they want your stuff?"

"So far they've been assassinating political figures and former adventurers, for the most part. Magic items and valuables have been taken from those killed, but more in a casual looting-the-dead sort of way than anything that would indicate resource scarcity."

"Huh. Prepping for a war, maybe?"

Durnan nods grimly. "I fear so. If they are, they're going about it the right way; the Lords' Alliance is reeling from the losses they've suffered in recent weeks, and our military forces are largely engaged elsewhere. This is why we must stem the tide at the source. If the drow retain free access to Undermountain, a war would be untenable."

Nod.

"Now, as many of you know, this inn is built around one of the stable entrances to Undermountain: a magical well that descends thousands of feet down into the depths of the ever-changing labyrinth. But I don't intend to send anyone into Undermountain unprepared. That would be suicide. I'll offer you what advice and equipment I can. In fact, I think it might be a good idea if-"

The door to the basement swings open, and a fireball bead streaks out and detonates in the middle of a cluster of civilian patrons. Three drow saunter into the room, a priestess and two swordswomen, followed by a handful of ashen-skinned duergar.

"Foul drow! You dare to attack my inn?!" Durnan roars, drawing a longsword from his belt.

"Your inn, your city, your race... all will fall before the Valsharess, fool!"

"Ice Spear." Let's skewer that cleric before learning her favorite evocation.

The priestess is duly skewered; she screeches in pain and falls to the floor.

The swordswoman on her left sprouts blue-feathered arrows in four locations including her neck; there's a burst of electricity, and she topples to the ground.

Jojo is abruptly no longer sitting down but instead is pummeling the second swordswoman, his fists glowing with a soft golden light that leaves burns on her purple skin.

Deekin is... humming a strange little tune to himself. The tune fills Belmarniss with a feeling of power, a feeling of precision, a feeling like her body will do exactly what she tells it to do. From the looks of the people around her, it's not lying; the various inn patrons and staff are putting up a shockingly competent show of force against the duergar minions.

Wow, Jojo seems like a good Haste target? She hastens him.

He's so fast. He hops off the now-unmoving swordswoman and weaves through the shrinking crowd of duergar, felling them rapidly.

Once the duergar are taken care of, Durnan raises his sword. "Adventurers, to the well room! We must secure the entry!" He charges down the stairs to the basement, followed by the three adventurers.

(A white-robed surface elf priestess is channeling positive energy over the wounded and dying, such that they are no longer wounded or dying respectively. There appear to have been few actual casualties thus far.)

She heads downstairs. "Why did you build an INN here," she says, not really expecting an answer.

Durnan does not have time to explain why he built an inn here, no, though the explanation probably makes perfect sense at least to him.

The well room is... weird. There's a railing separating the part of the room with a floor from the part of the room without; the floor has an outcrop containing the eponymous well, a large elevator-bucket that descends into a deep pit which can be sealed off by a convenient lever. There are several bodies on the floor, guards in the uniform of the Lords' Alliance. There are also several more drow, currently having the living hell beat out of them by an incredibly fast mouse-man and a pissed-off innkeeper with a sword.

After the invaders have fallen, Durnan goes to seal off the pit with the lever. "I don't know how they got in," he mutters. "It should have been sealed, the guards know to pay constant attention, and how did they get in without raising the alarms, anyway? At any rate," he says, turning to the party, "I need you all to guard the well room while I-"

A beholder rises up past the cliffside from behind him and shoots him with a beam that freezes him in place.

Garrus shoots it several times, and it retreats whence it came. "We have to follow that thing before it gets away!" he says, going for the lever.

Belmarniss feels, perhaps unusually, inclined to agree.

"Y- waitasec check yourself for enchantment!"

Garrus looks very confused for a second-

then he looks at the lever again-

then he slowly backs away.

"Okay! That was bad."

Deekin squints at Durnan, then sings at a very particular pitch, and the effect holding the innkeeper in place shatters audibly.

Durnan starts moving again. "Argh! I- thank you, Deekin. Is everyone alright?"

"Think so."

Durnan dusts himself off reflexively and exhales. "Thank you for stopping him, Belmarniss - I have no doubt that this was planned in advance, that you all would have run into some kind of trap or ambush. I'm going to re-engage the magical defenses that should have already been in place, call in some guards to stand watch, and stay right down here to make sure those defenses stay in place."

He goes to fiddle with a panel set into the wall, and a transparent sheet of force covers the sheer drop. "There. That's got an antimagic field below it - no beholder is getting up that way again. Though there hasn't been a beholder this high up in Undermountain as long as I can remember - the invaders must have brought it with them."

"Why did you build an inn here."

Durnan shakes his head ruefully. "Adventurers love coming to Undermountain. And where there are adventurers, there's money to be made. You have to understand, there hasn't been so much as an escaped kobold from the place in a century - this kind of, of overflow is completely unprecedented."

"If you say so."

Deekin makes a note in his tome, which has reappeared. "What can you tell Deekin about Undermountain, while everybody wait for new guards?"

"I suppose I'm as much an expert on the place as anyone can be... short of Halaster himself, of course. I can't tell you what to expect to see - the layout and inhabitants change, not constantly but frequently enough that foreknowledge is close to useless. One thing I do know, however, is that while you can find anything from goblins to gold dragons in Undermountain, things trend more dangerous the deeper you go."

"How we get out once we in there?" Deekin queries, scribbling away.

"Well, you can return to the well's terminus and I'll pull you up. There's not many options besides that, given teleportation is nullified within the dungeon."

"Teleportation not work?"

"Yes. Any magic that takes you from one place to another, even traveling by the planes, is completely forbidden by Halaster's magics. Only his own devices - shimmering portals that take you from one part of the dungeon to another - work inside that place."

"Thanks," Deekin says. "That all Deekin needed to know."

"Portals're trustworthy?"

"I wouldn't call anything in Undermountain trustworthy," Durnan warns her, "but yes, while their destination is unpredictable they will reliably transport you to a different portal's location rather than, say, disintegrating you."

"I like nobody getting disintegrated," Garrus comments. "That's a positive outcome for me."

"Maybe getting disintegrated is really fun but you never hear about it for the obvious reasons. Earlier you were talking about equipment?"

"Indeed. While I've sold off much of my old adventuring gear, I keep some items around in case of emergencies, and I want to encourage you all to go through it and take anything you need. There's nothing really game-changing in there, but I know some adventurers prefer to shore up their strengths than their weaknesses; if you've got a flank exposed, a Ring of Minor Resistance can mean the difference between life and death."

Garrus has the decency to look a bit guilty.

"Sure, let's rummage."

Rummage rummage.

They turn up a couple of Rings of Protection, a middling-tier Cloak of Resistance which Garrus admits to needing pretty badly, an Amulet of Natural Armor, a Belt of Dexterity, and a Robe of Infinite Twine, along with an amount of more or less useless enchanted knick-knacks sufficient to fill up a decently sized treasure chest.

"If I weren't sharing I'd take the belt and the amulet and a ring, I've got all the slots open - I think magic items must be easier to make on this planet for some reason -"

"Maybe they are, a ring like that's pretty cheap. I've got a belt, and my hide's already pretty tough. Jojo?"

"I have a belt as well, and an amulet. Deekin?"

"Deekin same as Garrus. Belmarniss welcome to loot choice."

"Sweet." She yoinks.

And Garrus gets the cloak and the other ring - "I know I said it's pretty cheap, but every time I get a spare couple of gold together I end up thinking about how cool it would be to add something new to my bow or my armor or my belt, so I'm a little short on accoutrements that aren't, uh. Those exact three things."

"Maybe I'll spruce up my mom's ring as long as I'm on the planet of cheapo magic items."

"Sensible. Undermountain is by all accounts a place of fabulous treasures, so we're likely to stumble across at least some equipment worth keeping anyway."

At this point, a small troop of new guards tromps into the room to replace the old, dead guards who were here before (who have since been removed by that priestess from the common room). Durnan, who had been talking with the priestess, looks up. "Ah, here they are. I'm going to stay in the well room for a while until I'm sure the incident from before won't be repeated; are you all ready to go into Undermountain, or do you need some more time to prepare?"

"I'm down a few spells but don't know if it's worth waiting."

"I am ready to do what needs doing."

"Same here, if a little less dramatic about it."

"Deekin ready to take on the world! Or just trap-filled dungeon, that too."

"In that case I suppose I'll send you down. Just step onto the platform and say when."

The others do so.

"When."

And Durnan sends them down.

They spend a few minutes in the elevator. When they reach the bottom, they exit into a room that looks like it might have been lifted from some ancient, evil temple. In the room with them is a circle of glowing red runes, inside of which is a yellowed skeleton.

"Poor soul," Jojo says.

"I guess a corollary of cheap items is that the traps are gonna be really extra."

"Yes. Now that I think of it, it's odd that the bones would be left undisturbed so long, so close to the entrance... perhaps as a warning to newcomers? Hm."

Jojo leads the way out of the room, carefully circumnavigating the runes. They come out in a large central chamber, where there is a bridge blocked by brightly-colored, glowing pillars in four rows of three. In front of the bridge are four levers, each of which appears to be missing a central rod.

"Puzzles," Deekin says knowingly. "Big part of Undermountain be puzzles."

"Puzzle dungeons are stupid. Big bad get off on them or what?"

"Halaster like puzzles, yes. Halaster like powerful people making mistakes and getting killed, smart people getting treasure, and puzzles."

"A simple villain with simple pleasures. Or maybe fiendishly complicated ones, haven't assessed his puzzle design yet." She inspects the puzzle.

Four rows of three pillars each stand on the bridge. There are five colors of pillar: blue, yellow, red, green, and white. No row has more than one of the same color of pillar, nor any column. There are four levers in a row in front of the bridge, each with a slot that is clearly missing something rod-shaped.

"Gonna guess it doesn't react well to attempts at parts substitutions."

"I'm going to have to agree. Well, searching for lever bits isn't the most tedious thing the mad mage could have us doing. Probably."

"Probably." Any immediately obvious?

Not in the central chamber. There are exits to the north and south. (And the east, but that way is back to the inn.)

"Flip a coin or left-hand rule it?" Garrus asks.

She gets out her notebook and starts a map. "Wanna bet the puzzly bastard has heard of the left hand rule?"

"Probably," Garrus sighs.

"Deekin like idea of going north," Deekin contributes.

"North it is." What is north? They. They is north.

North they is!

It's twisty-windy, but there's no forks in the road for a while. There's a couple of minor traps that Garrus spots before they can do anything, along with another couple of runic circles that everyone gives a wide berth. Belmarniss's map is looking pretty straightforward so far.

They come to a small alcove containing a treasure chest, lid invitingly open, overflowing with gold coins stamped with Halaster's own face.

Garrus sighs. "Is it wrong that I expected a higher caliber of trap? Is that tempting fate?"

"Maybe it gets worse farther down, so that the real art is reserved for connoisseurs."

"You might be right."

They pass the obvious trap, and they come eventually to a door with a sign that reads DISTURB NOT THE REST OF THE SLEEPING KINGS!

Well, that might be a riddle or it might be some sort of genuine warning or it might be a red herring. "Is this a cultural reference I'm not getting?" she murmurs.

"Hall of Sleeping Kings famous Undermountain feature," Deekin says with a hushed sort of tour-guide cadence. "Bodies of ancient humanoid kings Halaster steal from tombs. 'Great kings and queens and sorcerers, all from lands that existed before other lands that have also been forgotten.' They be very old. And here they sleep. Supposedly they not do much unless you try to steal their stuff."

"I don't suppose we can rouse them and convince them to be helpful?"

"Undead rarely are," Jojo says, scrunching up his nose. "I will admit to a certain desire to put them to rest for good."

"I considered being a lich once, maybe they're lovely folks. I admit it's not the smart money option."

Jojo shudders genteelly. "I do not think liches stay, ah, lovely folks."

From within the Hall of Sleeping Kings, there comes a faint voice. "Is that the telltale sound of adventurers I hear?"

"Who wants to know?"

“Enserric the Grey. Erstwhile wizard, current prisoner of the eponymous Sleeping Kings of this hall. Must we shout at each other through this door?"

"We were just debating waking up the kings and leaning nay, do you suppose it will do that?"

"No, I can say with confidence that it will not."

She looks at her party rather than unilaterally go for the door.

"If they're holding someone prisoner in there, then I do think we have a moral duty to help him," Jojo says.

"Agreed."

Garrus is the one to actually open the door. It swings open without a hitch, or for that matter a lock.

The room is in a flattened horseshoe shape, with thrones along the walls each containing a skeleton, or in one case a withered corpse, all in variously ostentatious regalia and bearing ceremonial weapons.

There doesn't appear to be anyone with a pulse on this side of the room; the voice comes from the other side of the horseshoe.

"People can lie about being prisoners," she says. "If it's ever convenient for them to assign you a moral duty. Enserric? Where are you?"

"Over here," he calls. "I'll explain when you see."

Garrus, an arrow nocked, leads the way.

There's no one over here either, but the voice comes again, seemingly originating from one of the skeletons, who's carrying an ebon-bladed longsword with a strange red glow to it. "Hello. No, I'm not the skeleton, I'm - well, I'm in the sword he's carrying. Enserric the Grey, at your service."

"So, if you're trying to hitch a ride, I hear they maybe do stuff if we take their stuff. Not that I don't go in for liberating personal property as it were, but I'd like to have that confirmed or denied."

"Well, yes, there is that. The catch, as it were, is that these Sleeping Kings do not take kindly to having their belongings removed. I was myself once an adventurer much like you, exploring the infamous Undermountain, when my compatriot Jeets had the bright idea to try to 'nick' the circlet off the Sorceress - the one over by the lizardfolk. I was at that very moment examining the plaque on the throne of Chief Urdon here, when he abruptly resumed animation and stabbed me in the neck. My soul was drawn into his enchanted blade, and here I have sat for the last four or five decades, growing ever more bored."

"That sounds really rough. If he should stab me in the neck, will you, like, move on to an afterlife, or what?"

"No - the weapon's design was such that my soul was intended to be, well, digested some time ago, but I, fearing oblivion, attempted to escape and return to my body, which had by then been looted by adventurers and consumed by rats. Instead of escaping, I seem to have gotten myself stuck. So I'm no longer being digested, but neither can I be displaced, at least without substantial arcane assistance."

"So if he stabs me in the neck I'll still be stabbed in the neck, which is still bad, but at least straightforwardly so. I guess the advantage of this kind of fight is unlimited buff rounds but perhaps you have other advice?"

"From what I've seen of the Kings in action, Chief Urdon is the heaviest hitter due to his possession of the black blade, which is quite powerfully enchanted even without its ability to steal souls; your taking it before the bout can properly begin can only help. The heaviest hitter after him is King Krolon, with the greatsword and plate mail. The Sorceress loves her magic missile storms, so if you’ve got Shield in your spellbook now would be the time to use it. And if you’ve got any specific kind of blade you’d like me to be for the fight, from falchion to estoc, just say the word.”

"I'm... not especially a sword person but if the rest of y'all are also not especially sword persons I guess I'd take a falx? Also if they all wake up at the same time each of us should take something we do not want them to have at the same moment. Also also does tying them up or finding heavy objects to put on their laps count as taking their stuff."

"Deekin could use quality rapier," Deekin muses. "For when spells run out."

"I've never actually witnessed anyone try to tie them up, but I know that vandalism in a more general sense counts as violence, which would awaken them. I think the coordinated theft idea holds more water."

"Okay, Deekin wants a rapier so he can grab you, I guess, and Garrus can take Krolon's sword, and what are the next two priorities?"

"I'd go for the Sorceress' Staff of Defense next, and those three are the ones who'll wake up immediately - if you want to get out you'll have to fight your way through a couple of others, but then there's a tradeoff between fighting more undead at once and fighting armed undead one at a time."

"I'm not prepped for undead, I was expecting mostly drow this morning, but if I take the staff I can cast shields out of that, and I dunno if any of you three benefit from fox's cunning but I have it qua sorcerer, and I have lots of true strike and a magic missile. You lot?"

"Fox's Cunning is useful, makes my aim a bit sharper, I know that's not usually how it works but for some reason it works for me."

"I'm always prepared to fight undead," Jojo says, his tail swishing slightly despite the gravity of the situation.

"Deekin got plenty of song left in Deekin, ready to support allies and stab skeletons with talking sword if necessary."

"Fox's Cunning, Fox's Cunning." She positions herself beside the throne of the Sorceress so she can duck behind it for cover after she has the rod. "Anything else or should I count down?"

Jojo and Garrus seem to have come to an unspoken agreement that Jojo should be the one to take Krolon's sword, and Garrus should stand in the middle of the triangle formed by the sleeping kings' throne.

And Deekin readies himself to take Enserric.

"Ready when Belmarniss is ready," he says.

"On one. Five four three two one." She yanks and tries for a shield first thing.

And lo, she is shielded! The Sorceress stands up while casting a Quickened magic missile, which gets sucked into the shield. She doesn't seem to notice, already casting another magic missile.

Jojo tosses Krolon's sword to the ground and starts punching him in the skull before he's fully gotten out of his throne.

Deekin wrenches Enserric out of Urdon's skeletal fist, the blade shimmering into a rapier, and starts perforating the skeleton as much as reasonably possible, humming the same tune from earlier in the inn.

And Garrus starts shooting the Sorceress. "Wish we had fewer piercing weapons in this party," he mutters to himself. "Worked with a guy who had a maul once. That'd be nice."

Belmarniss staffs herself a Mage Armor. "You want I should hit her with the staff?"

"Oh! No, it's fine, let's all keep doing what we're doing."

Jojo's duel with Krolon is going well - Krolon gets in one good scratch with his phalanges, but after a particularly devastating open-palm strike, the king's skull shatters and he collapses into a pile of bones. Jojo goes to help against Urdon.

The Sorceress notices after the failure of her second magic missile that Belmarniss is shielded, and hisses with rage. Her hands glow green and she fires off an acid arrow instead.

This sort of thing is why she usually has a dispel magic prepped but she didn't want to waste it before the Sorceress noticed the missiles weren't working. She does her best to duck, since spell resistance won't help.

The acid, aimed at her torso, splashes across her arm. It fucking hurts!

"Fuck fuck fuck," she mutters, getting ready to counterspell the next bullshit, "fuck, fuck..."

The Sorceress appears to feel that this is enough deterrence for now, instead turning to cast... some kind of custom multi-target missile spell... at Deekin and Jojo, who are whaling on the surprisingly sturdy King Urdon.

Well, dispel magic is versatile.

So it is! The missile storm fizzles, and the Sorceress hisses again.

Garrus's next arrow catches her in the eye socket, and with a burst of electricity, she goes down.

More or less simultaneously, Jojo's hands flash with golden light, and Chief Urdon's animating force dissipates, causing him to clatter to the floor.

"Ow ow ow ow I hate acid ow ow."

"Do you require healing before we go on?" Jojo asks, coming over to investigate.

"I can walk and cast but I wouldn't turn you down."

"It's no trouble, I have plenty of applications left."

His hand hovers about an inch from her arm and glows with that same golden light, and the burns heal over.

"Thanks. Rest of these guys wake up on what time scale, Enserric?"

"Proximity, not time. You could take a refreshing nap and they'd still be waiting until you get close enough."

"I have napped nicer places but that seems prudent."

No one objects to this. Before they rest Deekin pulls out a harp and plays another song, which causes Jojo's scratches to heal over.

"I'm used to doing first or last watch."

"I'm good with middle watch, nobody ever likes middle watch except me."

"Deekin take first watch, Deekin always wake up groggy."

"Okay, last is mine."

She has a spellcasting adventurer's ability to sleep soundly in a dungeon surrounded by pulverised undead.

Garrus wakes her when it's time for her watch. "It's officially your turn to make up fun backstories for all the skeletons you can see," he murmurs.

"Aw, wish my friend from back home was here, he'd be good at it."

"You should tell me about him in the morning," Garrus says, slithering into his bedroll.

Belmarniss preps spells and writes a bit but does come up with Hagan-esque funny stories for all the skeletons.

And eventually everybody else wakes up, and her watch is over.

"Want to tell me about your friend while we re-kill the rest of these Sleeping Kings?" Garrus asks while everybody gets ready. "Or we can just trade the stories we made up about them."

"Ranger, the shooty kind. Doesn't talk about his family or where he's from but will make up amusing lies on demand."

"Huh, that's fun. I've known a lot of people who won't talk about their families but most of them aren't generous enough to lie amusingly about it instead of just clamming up."

"Friend have name?" Deekin asks, jotting down a quick note in between pulling his boots on.

"Hagan. I joined up with his whole party for a couple adventures, there was a cleric of a god called Abadar, Fazil, and another wizard, Mahdi."

Deekin nods, scribbling, then laces his other boot. "Thanks!"

Jojo finishes up his prayers and stands up. "Everyone ready?"

"Assuming those of you who haven't had breakfast don't want any yep."

In that case Jojo will go and aggro the next skeleton in sequence, Lady Fensor. She has a slightly impractical-looking orc double axe, but she doesn't get to use it, because as soon as the monk's fist touches her skull, she collapses into a clattering heap.

"Oh, excellent," he says. "I've been hitting them all with Disruption, but she's the first to actually succumb to the effect."

(If someone was looking fairly closely, they might notice that one of the bones looked different than the others. Whiter, for one thing, and with slightly beveled ends.)

"Is there something weird about - that one, I can't tell if it's an arm or a rib or what, it's shaped funny -"

Jojo sifts through and picks up what turns out not to be a bone at all, but a shining white rod, of indeterminate composition but obvious significance.

"Good catch. It looks like it might fit into one of those levers from earlier, doesn't it? I think we're keeping this."

"Hell of a place to hide one, I wonder if the swap would've impaired her if she'd had a chance to demonstrate."

"I couldn't possibly say."

They advance through the territories of Revisionist Balorthon, King Bolon (Krolon's descendant, or so Deekin informs them), and the withered corpse, identified as "the Vivisectionist", without any significant casualties, although the Vivisectionist hurls a dart that lodges in Deekin's upper arm, forcing Jojo to heal him before they exit the Hall.

"Sweet, sweet freedom! The taste of fresh air!" Enserric says joyously. "Relatively speaking, of course, on both counts."

"Welcome to not being in the same room."

“I truly cannot thank you enough.”

From here, they could return to the central chamber, or continue further north on the assumption that one rod will not be enough to solve the diabolical lever puzzle.

Belmarniss votes north.

The others agree, bar Garrus who wanted to see how the rod interfaces with the puzzle. He’s a gracious loser, though.

They don’t get much farther in before they come to another door; this one is labeled HALL OF MIRRORS. “Don’t love the sound of that,” Garrus comments. 

"Are we going to have to fight our evil duplicates or some shit?"

“Deekin think that distinct possibility,” Deekin says. “Also potentially mirror of madness, mirror of sucks you into crazy alternate world, mirror of you see treasure and can take treasure out of mirror.”

"Oh boy, a crazy alternate world, my ticket home. I kind of think the concept of alignment is bullshit so I'm really curious what an 'evil me' would be like, but if there's no reason we need to be in there, and there might not be, it's not like our evil selves are already a menace that must be destroyed. Also don't care for mirrors of madness."

“I agree,” Jojo says. “I find the concept of an evil version of myself quite unsettling, and would prefer not to unleash such evil on the world.”

“Does sound like the kind of place Halaster might put one of those rods, though,” Garrus contributes.

"Swing back this way if we don't find them all dealing with preexisting enemies?"

"Makes sense," Garrus admits. "Alright, bypassing the Hall of Mirrors. For now."

They bypass the Hall of Mirrors, Deekin looking moderately disappointed.

The next obstacle they encounter: an ogre, backed by a handful of orcs.

"Death to da small folk!" he roars. "For da Boss!"

"Diamond Spray."

The orcs go down; the ogre, though gruesomely wounded, stays up and charging.

Then Deekin stabs him, and he goes down.

"Ooh, Deekin feel vital," Deekin says. "Love that for Deekin."

Belmarniss looks for funny looking sticks.

None on these fools. She finds a shiny chunk of topaz on the ogre.

Any of their swag magic?

Nope!

...There's some magic behind this slightly discolored bit of wall that's obviously, on reflection, a (nonmagical) secret door. Illusion and transmutation.

"Secret door over there. Illusion and transmutation. Who wants to help me drag one of these guys over to try opening it with their hands?"

Garrus volunteers!

The door opens without incident, revealing a room with a treasure chest inside! The chest is the source of the illusion and transmutation, or at least the subject of it.

Garrus taps his foot thoughtfully. "Hmm. Is 'behind a secret door' enough reason to trust a treasure chest in this place?"

"Not when we have this handy test corpse."

The corpse is induced to touch the treasure chest...

which turns into a flock of small bats. They scatter.

"Huh," Deekin says. "Not really trap, not really treasure. Weird."

"And too small to eat too. Somebody's just pointlessly showing off."

"Archmages be like that," Deekin nods.

They continue along the path, which twists in weird and unnecessary ways several times, and fight a couple more ogres and one troll, each of whom declares his allegiance to "Da Boss" and declares them "small folk" to be exterminated. There's not much challenge (or treasure) to be found, but at least it breaks up the monotony.

Eventually they come to a hallway-terminating door, behind which can be heard much ogreish carousing. "Deekin think this be room of Boss," Deekin whispers.

"Buffs for anybody before we barge in?"

"Do you mind if use the staff to cast Shield Other on you? I think you might be the most, er, fragile member of our party, and I'm the least."

"You will not catch me complaining." She hands over the staff.

And Jojo casts the spell and hands it back, and then they open the door.

It's a large room, with several mess tables and a few kegs of unknown provenance; there's a side door. The ogres (of whom none really stand out as a "boss") react to their intrusion predictably: they get up and charge. Jojo charges too, as Deekin begins singing and Garrus begins shooting, and general violence ensues.

Belmarniss has another diamond spray for the mob of them.

The ogres go down pretty quickly.

"Hmm. I imagine that door leads to this 'boss'... who no doubt heard us taking out his guards, and has had ample time to prepare. Deekin, can you Haste Garrus and myself?"

Deekin nods and starts casting.

Belmarniss tips over a table to hide behind and cast from.

Garrus does the same.

And Jojo opens the door.

The ogre who bursts out definitely looks like he could be "da boss".  His skin is a blueish lilac color, his tusks magnificent, and his skin wreathed in a curtain of flame. "Me crush you good!" he roars, before manifesting a Cone of Cold that crashes into the tabletops like a wave. Jojo leaps above the effect.

Deekin gets clipped by it, but doesn't seem to be very badly affected; he takes the opportunity to stab the ogre mage in the foot.

Brrrr. She hits him with an Admonishing Ray, she has a bunch of that and they can always slit his throat if they need him dead in particular.

It strikes the ogre mage cleanly in the torso, leaving an angry purple bruise.

Garrus nocks several arrows in quick succession, and with such a generous target, sinks each one into his opponent's chest.

Jojo strikes several times, wincing at the heat, but the glow around his fists doesn't seem to be doing anything. He looks surprised, but doesn't let up.

The ogre mage roars with fury and casts a fireball at the center of his foes' territory; the warding tables catch fire, though they don't let the blast through.

She backs up from her table a bit, hits him with another Ray.

And Deekin stabs him in the torso -

and the ogre sucks in a deep breath, and coughs wetly, and says, "Truce! Truce! I beg your mercy and implore you for a truce!"

"Talk real fast."

He coughs again. "I- yes, I'm obviously no match for you, my good friends. But we are all civilized creatures here, there's no need to kill me. You defeated me in good cavalier fashion, so what would you have me do?"

"You got one of these?" Belmarniss holds up the rod from the skeleton.

"Oh! Yes, it was given to me by Halaster shortly before his disappearance." He fishes around in a belt pouch, and offers over a blue rod, which looks like a matchstick in his enormous hand.

"Toss it over. What's Halaster's deal?"

He tosses the rod gently. "Well, he was the mad king of Undermountain, as I'm sure you know, but as of about three weeks ago he vanished without a trace, along with the magics controlling the monsters - myself included - within the dungeon. And the magics that occasionally caused the dungeon itself to shift; the place has been solid as a rock, lately. Needless to say I decided to capitalize on the opportunity, and began to recruit some followers and spread my influence through this level of the dungeon. Apparently, however, the Faerie Queen to the south had similar ambitions, and our minions clashed in the middle."

"Huh. Can you tell us about her and hers?"

"I don't know terribly much about her, only that she was once a pixie but that for some reason she's now the size of one of you. Oh, and that her minions are vicious little creatures - I didn't even know grigs could learn necromancy, but they've taken to it like ducks to water. Perhaps the lack of plant life has driven them to madness. She's also got a handful of harpies on her side, but they're easy enough to crush."

"Know anything about the hall of mirrors?"

"It's a hall of enchanted mirrors - most of them are full of treasure, but one is a Mirror of Opposition, and if you look into it your reflection will come to life and try to kill you. Inconveniently, I have reason to believe it's the hiding place of one of the other rods. -but before you ask, I don't know about the fourth or fifth, I just know that Halaster has a particular fondness for the Hall of Mirrors and he'd hate to neglect it."

"Any idea what motivates the reflections?"

He laughs, then starts coughing again. "I'm not a philosopher, I just live here. I know they've got everything you have, from spellcasting to equipment to memories, and they want you dead."

"Huh. Anything else we might want to know?"

"Hrmm... there's a cache of gold and gemstones in my desk, which I've been collecting for no particular reason except general magpie instinct. You're welcome to it, as long as you continue not to kill me; theoretically you could kill me and take it anyway but it'd be terribly rude. Other than that, I can't really think of anything."

"How do we feel about not being terribly rude, gang?"

"He did surrender," Jojo points out. "I'm inclined not to break my sacred vows."

"Paladins," Enserric says with an audible roll of his nonexistent eyes.

"It wasn't all that much trouble to take him down in the first place," Garrus points out. "I don't see much problem with letting him walk, on the understanding that if he hassles us any more we won't make the same mistake again."

"We will be ever so polite and if you don't need your loot we can absorb it."

"Not much use for gold as a full-time denizen of Undermountain," the ogre mage points out. "I'm glad it'll go to such honorable persons. And I swear on my honor that I won't harass you any further."

"Delightful. Where's your desk? Oh, also, what do you eat down here? Haven't passed any mushroom farms."

"My desk is in my office, the door to which I came through in my attempt to crush you. The monsters of Undermountain are actually sustained by Halaster's magic, and fortunately, like the teleportation ward, it's one of the spells that didn't vanish when he did, otherwise we'd be in quite a pickle and would likely have resorted to cannibalism by now. Not that we are not occasionally anthropophagic, but I wouldn't want to live off my subordinates."

"Yeah, that's not sustainable." She pops out from behind the table, doesn't turn her back on the boss, and heads for the desk.

It's got a significant quantity of gold coins, a smaller but not insignificant quantity of platinum coins, and a handful of gemstones of varying quality. Assuming she's got the stones appraised correctly, it's worth about twenty thou all told, mostly based on a walnut-sized black diamond.

"Do you guys like to divvy up front, or at the end of adventures?"

"At the end," Garrus says firmly. "With the exception of immediately useful magic items. If we don't trust one person to carry the loot, something's wrong."

"Cool, who won't be staggering around under all this gold?"

"Bag of Holding," Deekin says, offering his satchel. "Deekin be fine."

"Magic items are so dang cheap on this planet," she mutters, dumping the loot into the bag of holding.

Deekin shakes the bag a couple of times, then closes it up and shoulders it again. "Deekin find bag in ruins of Undrentide. Deekin find like six bags of holding in ruins of Undrentide actually, but most of them go to Boss and Boss die in big mythallar explosion so Deekin not have them anymore."

"Mythallar?"

"Very shiny very magic crystals, held up lost flying cities of Netheril including Undrentide, all destroyed except one, that one destroyed later. Explode very impressively. Detailed in book."

"I will start reading it on my next watch."

Deekin grins toothily. "Huzzah!"

They leave the ogre mage whose name they never got, and head back toward the central chamber.

Before they get there, of course, they reach the Hall of Mirrors again.

"So, we know there's probably a rod in there now - do we go in?"

"Do we need them all?"

"We don't know that we don't. The ogre said there were five, and there were four levers; on the other hand we have no information on the location of any other rods and so it might be a good idea for us to go for the one we're pretty sure is there, in case one of them is behind a particularly cunning secret door or its owner dropped it down a hole or something."

"We could go poke at the puzzle in case two is enough."

"That sounds prudent," Jojo nods. "We have precious little information on this puzzle thus far."

"Alright, alright. I'm just trying to be efficient, here."

They continue on, and reach the central chamber in good time. There it stands, just as they remember it, with the bridge blocked by a sequence of colorful pillars, and four levers with rod-shaped slots. The pillars are in the following sequence:

R G B

W B G

Y R W

G Y R

"We have... a white rod and a blue rod, which probably matters. Every straight path forward would require at least two other colors. Also nothing in the front row is either. We might need four? I don't see us needing five, there's only four slots."

"Sounds about right. Well, we can head south and see if the other two drop into our laps; shall we? Or shall we rest, actually, I know I talked a big game about taking that ogre down without a sweat but his minions were kind of exhausting."

"I have no objection to resting."

"Fine by me. Same watch?"

"I can take first watch, give Deekin a break."

"And I'm still fine with middle watch."

Resting occurs! Garrus wakes Belmarniss again, but doesn't have a pithy comment this time.

She preps spells and starts Deekin's book.

Deekin's book is quite well-written, and bears no trace of its author's linguistic difficulties. The prologue briefly details the birth and childhood of a kobold named Deekin, who is runty and does not get along with his peers but is eventually taken under the wing of the great white dragon Tymofarrar, who teaches him reading, writing, and magic. The book then clarifies that this is not Deekin's story, and switches to talking about a young adventurer-in-training named Alan Tagan, the paladin apprentice of a dwarven mystic theurge by the name of Drogan. Alan is a well-intentioned lad, but slightly off; he has a temper, and there's a darkness to him that he does his best to fight and doesn't always succeed. A few incidents are recorded: fights with residents of nearby Hilltop over philosophical differences, a near-fatal brawl with an adult named Toman Bross based on an insult to one of Alan's co-apprentices, and an ongoing feud with a young woman named Nora Blake, cause unknown.

Disaster strikes one day, as kobolds from the tribe near Hilltop attack the village. The reason for the attack: several artifacts under Drogan's care. The casualties: about a dozen villagers, and Drogan himself is poisoned and lies near death. The result: Alan and two of his fellow apprentices are sent to recover the artifacts. Along the way, Alan acquires the ingredients for an antidote to the kobolds' poison, helps a wandering Red Wizard of Thay, and rescues Nora Blake's child from the kobolds who have already killed her husband. Then, he tells her that he's not giving the child back, and she attacks him, and he kills her. When he does so, he experiences the sickening, vertiginous sensation of a paladin's Fall from Grace.

The murder is described with a clinical eye for detail. Alan receives neither condemnations nor apologia. His actions are not explained, because the narrator readily admits that he does not know why Alan did this. Alan looks at the blood on his hands, looks at the sleeping infant in his arms, and looks at the path ahead of him.

The chapter ends as Belmarniss's companions begin to stir.

"This is really well written," she remarks to Deekin when he's up.

Deekin grins, fastening Enserric's scabbard. "Thanks! Deekin tell story how it happened, but story was good story, so."

"I'm noticing that items are cheaper but resurrection seems maybe more expensive."

"Um, resurrection if body fresh and available cost about... five thousand for diamond, plus five hundred for caster? Hilltop very poor town, though, no big clerics for raising."

"Maybe I'm just spoiled by the insurance system."

Deekin shrugs.

Southward the party goes, until they reach a door labeled LET SLEEPING DRAGONS LIE.

"Bad sign," Deekin notes.

"Eesh. I guess it was real polite of him to label everything as far as that goes."

"Are we sure we don't want to take a look? It could be cute baby wyrmlings."

"I guess if we need four then it's probably either this or the mirror, and that's if we decide we definitely want to take on the fey, assuming as tidy a dungeon structure as seems implied so far."

"I'm not going to go around assuming anything, but this level has seemed pretty straightforward so far. And yes, I think we'll need two out of three, so it's either dragon and mirror or mirror and fey or dragon and fey."

Jojo squints at the door and winces. "There is a moderate aura of evil behind that door. Not overwhelming, as a great wyrm might be, but not negligible like a wyrmling either."

"I guess fighting a dragon's a classic I haven't gotten around to, and we're fresh. - The advantage if we're feeling pressed for time of the mirror is that it doesn't benefit from being fresh, presumably they'll match us however we go in even if that's down to cantrips and beat up."

"The other advantage to the mirror, as I see it, is that we can send one person to look into it and take out their reflection together from a distance - and pick which one we send, too. I'd rather fight an evil you than an evil Jojo. Uh, no offense intended, it's just, he's so fast."

"Thank you," Jojo says wryly. "I do try."

"I wanna talk to her first. If she'll talk, if she won't talk go ahead and shoot her."

Nods all around. "I'm sorry to ask it of you," Jojo says. "We can at least investigate the dragon, see if we can guess its age and level of danger - my sense for evil is not a fine-tuned instrument, and it is still possible that we could defeat it handily."

"Maybe if I go first it'll guess I'm friendly since I'm purple."

"Deekin was going to suggest making Silent Image of door, then opening door and looking through illusion door," Deekin says. "Lower chance of Belmarniss getting eaten."

"Good idea. If the door opens out."

Conveniently, it does!

Deekin casts the spell and opens the door. The room beyond is largely empty, except for a treasure chest and, in front of the treasure chest, a statue of a massive black dragon. Clutched in the dragon's claw is a yellow rod.

"I was really hoping for the wyrmlings. This is much less cute."

"It wouldn't fit through the door, but probably it's grabbing too hard for a mage hand to get it. ...Mage Hand plus Grease? I didn't prep Grease but I can cast it anyway, if I want to blow that for the day."

“I think it’s probably worth a shot. If it doesn’t work, though, I’m going on the record as not wanting to fight that thing.”

“That dragon bigger than Old Boss was,” Deekin agrees. “And Deekin not even particularly wanting to fight Old Boss.”

Belmarniss nods.

"Grease. Mage Hand."

The rod slips out of the stone claw -

and there’s a surge of transmutation magic, and the statue is abruptly a large and furious dragon.

Belmarniss flinches but keeps pulling the rod toward the door.

The dragon opens its jaws and prepares to spit acid, but the rod makes it out first, and Deekin slams the door. There's the sound of a pressurized jet of liquid hitting the door and surrounding wall, and the hissing of wood being eaten away. The dragon roars, enraged.

"We run now?" Deekin asks.

"Yup."

Away they scramble.

The dragon's roars echo through the halls of Undermountain, but eventually they outpace the sound.

When they stop running, there's a sound like tinkling bells somewhere nearby, and a girlish giggle.

"...Fey," surmises Belmarniss.

The giggling stops. "On, my undead minions!" pipes a squeaky voice. "For the Queen!"

Several humanoid zombies and one zombie troll round the corner.

Deekin breathes a cone of cold, snap-freezing the humanoid zombies and frosting over a significant portion of the troll.

Jojo punches the troll zombie a few times, staying miraculously clean as any undead gore that flecks onto him burns away in his aura of golden light. His foe collapses in short order.

Belmarniss zaps a lesser zombie with an arcane bolt rather than busting out any big spells; this seems like Jojo's job.