Perhaps it was not what Chance and Aguri expected when they agreed to help the scroll-smith, but it was too late to back out. They were inside his mind now. Sort of. Their minds were inside his mind? Their thoughts were inside his dreams? Whatever. The process had involved complicated magics, and trances, and drinking certain potions, all while lying in a circle holding hands. They had all drifted off to sleep and now Chance and Aguri awoke in a room they did not recognize.

Mr. Wazowitz, the scroll-smith, had hired the barbarian and thief to retrieve an item for him. An item that he somehow managed to stow away in the one place he considered to be safest. Within the fortress of his own mind. He had informed the duo that the item was guarded by traps and monsters, but probably nothing the two couldn't handle. After all, when he set up his mental defenses, he merely wanted his secret well-guarded and protected, but not impossible to retrieve.

And so Aguri and Chance found themselves standing in a circular wooden room with no doors or windows, nestled firmly somewhere within the recesses of Mr. Wazowitz's mindscape. The two adventurers still had all of their gear and felt like they were at full health, and the scroll-smith assured them that reality would operate essentially the same as the real world. The main difference being that any resources they used and damage the accrued would not follow them when they exited his mind. Death, however, was a trickier business. If they died in his mind, there was a very real chance that they would not wake back up when all was said and done. Which is why Mr. Wazowitz agreed to a fairly hefty payment if they succeeded.

After a moment or two, the adventurers came to notice a few more details about the room they were in. It was circular, about twenty feet across with a twenty foot high ceiling. The walls were made of tall wooden panels, and the floor was made of square wooden tiles decorated with engraved images of plants and animals. The entire area smelled a bit musty and the air was quite humid. A blackish green ooze dripped occasionally from the cracks in the ceiling tiles. There were no clear ways in or out of the room, but every so often an indistinct sound could be heard on the other side of the wall.

What do you do?

---

Aguri and Chance, you are up! Your first quest is taking place inside a person's mind. (Mostly so that I can have him wake up wherever it is convenient for the main story when the time is right.) Please pick a color for your character's speech. Feel free to answer a few of the following questions to help flesh out this side adventure. And remember, don't be afraid to be bold with your character's choices!

What does Mr. Wazowitz want you to retrieve?
What were you promised as payment for helping Mr. Wazowitz?
How did you meet Mr. Wazowitz?
Who is Mr. Wazowitz? (age? race? quirks? appearance? etc.)

The Cleric of Corr needed just a moment to get his bearings. When the little old man asked them to take a journey through the depths of his mind to retrieve a map, Chance had thought that he was speaking metaphorically. Now he wasn't sure it had been a good idea to agree to do it. He glanced over at Aguri, who unsurprisingly appeared to him to be taking this all in stride. Who knows, he thought, maybe they do this sort of thing all the time where she is from. He would never admit it, but her presence, both physical and figurative, was comforting.

Reassured he turned his attention to his surroundings. Ok, help me out here, he prays to Corr. Guess who's going to get a copy of this map if we can find it?

There weren't any obvious exits to the room they found themselves in. That couldn't be right. There had to be some way out. He considered the leaky roof for about 3 seconds, just long enough to realize that it was beyond his reach, anyway. He decided to focus on something a little closer; the floor tiles. Perhaps there was a clue among the plants and animals that were engraved on the tiles. He started off by making a mental note of the various species that were depicted, then tried looking for ways that they might be interpreted to reveal a message of some kind.

Aguri sighed aloud at the sight before her. Sighed in her head? Sighed in...Mr. Wazowitz' head? This was all a bit over her head, personally. Fighting? Sure. Flowery poetry? Why not. Heck, courtly intrigue was annoying, but understandable. But this? This was crazy. But she couldn't show it. Her small friend was relying on her.

"Chance, are you well? We were warned the transference might be a disorienting, after all." She thought to her self. Fingers playing at the hilt of her blade. At least its reassuring heft felt real enough. "So this is what a gnome's mind looks like? I'm not a fan. Or is this just how brains look inside?" She grunted, eyes roaming the walls, focusing especially intently on where the sounds seemed to come from. "I don't like this lack of doorways..."

16:43, Today: Aguri Saika rolled 10 using 2d6+1.  Discern Realities.
On a 10+ Ask the GM 3 Questions:
What here is not what it appears to be?
What should I be on the lookout for?
What is about to happen?

OOC: A minor ret-con. Chance would have responded before beginning his study of the floor tiles.

---

Chance shrugged. "I'm ok, Aguri. I wouldn't be too keen on being here alone, though."

"Since we're in the mind of a gnome, I guess that this is what they look like. I don't think you'd find a place like this in my mind, though. As a rule, I try not to go anywhere that doesn't have more than one way out."

Chance turned his attention to studying the floor tiles.

---

00:04, Today: Chance rolled 6 using 2d6-1.  Discern Realities.
Oops.

As Aguri walked along the walls, trailing a hand against their surface, she could tell that the wood paneling was rather thin. It would not take a lot of effort to break through. The sounds on the other side, however, made that choice of action questionable at best. It sounded like the low warning growl of some beast, and it followed Aguri as she moved along the wall. Save for one section of the wall where the sound subsided.

Looking at the tiles on the floor, Aguri noticed that in the same section of the room as the "silent spot," the tiles on the floor showed images of animals like beavers, woodpeckers, termites and carpenter ants. Whereas the tiles further away along the other sections of wall showed images of oaks, willows, baobabs, and sequoias.

Chance would have surely noticed the same thing, except as soon as he leaned over to examine the floor, a glob of goop from the ceiling landed on the back of his shoulders. It was only a small bit, no bigger than a marble, but it melted a hole straight through his leather armor and shirt beneath like a hot knife through butter. He felt an intense burning sensation as if his skin was literally boiling where the glob had landed.

Of course Aguri saw Chance's reaction to the burning goop, and quickly noticed that the drips were beginning to occur more frequently and in more areas. The duo had maybe a minute before the room was filled with a rain of the blackish green goop!

What do you do?

---

Chance
When the glob of goop hit you, it melted straight through to your skin where it filled you with a searing pain. Take 1d4 damage. Armor does count, despite the description I gave. Don't forget to add +1 XP if you haven't already.

Aguri
What here is not what it appears to be?
The walls are thinner than they appear, and there is one section of wall with different where you can't hear a creature behind it. It is the same section where the floor tiles have a different plant/animal theme.

What should I be on the lookout for?
There is a creature on the other side of the wall that may need to be dealt with.

What is about to happen?
The goop is about to start falling more frequently and will become difficult (maybe impossible) to avoid.

Take +1 forward when acting on the answers.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:24, Thu 25 July 2019.

Chance felt the heat as the gooey substance burned through his armor. The small drop even burned through his shirt but stopped just shy of burning a hole into him. Looking up he saw more of the caustic drops forming on the ceiling. He was already wondering if this was going to be worth the trouble. The reward Mr. Wazowitz promised them sounded good at the time, but now he found that he couldn't remember exactly what it was that they had been promised.

Now, he realized, was not the time to try to remember. If they didn't make it out of here there wouldn't be a reward.

"Aguri, please tell me you have found a way out of this room. It's about to get messy in here. You'd think that if  Mr. Wazowitz set up all these defenses that he ought to be able to turn them off, too."

Wait a second... Chance's eyes narrowed. His brow furrowed in thought.

"If we make it out of this room in one piece, I've just had a thought that I want to bounce off of you."

---

23:47, Today: Chance rolled 0 using 1d4-1.  Damage minus armor.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:50, Thu 25 July 2019.

Aguri quickly took in these small details, a plan starting to form in her mind. "Well, chance, I think I may have...but I can't say it'll be pretty." Keeping an eye out for drops of slime, she squared herself into a low stance, drawing her blade and holding it in a striking stance. "If you want to bounce that idea off of me, be ready. I'm fairly certain of my plan's effectiveness, but I cannot be sure. Prepare for the worst." And with that, she hauled back, and attempted to smash her sword through the wall, on the quieter portion that lined up with the animal tiles.

Not 100% sure how to handle something like this. I'm going to assume it's a defy danger[Strength], but I'm not positive. Please let me know if I did something wrong.
12:43, Today: Aguri Saika rolled 10 using 2d6+2.  Defy Danger to smash down the wall.

Aguri smashed through the wall of the room, sending splinters flying into the space beyond. The barbarian and thief were able to exit the caustic chamber just as the drips turned into streams of the gross goop. Puddles formed where they had been standing moments before.

The room the had broken into was quite spacious. The two walls that joined to the former room were made of bars. Behind the bars the adventurers could see two wolverines that would have surely tried to bite the adventurers if they had broken through the wrong wall. The woodland creatures still paced aggressively near the bars, ready to lash out ant anyone who got too close.

Further from the bars, the walls of the room turned to colorful stone. There was an archway with highly stylized writing above it at the far side of the room. It read "Beware," in a language that only Chance could read. Aguri and Chance could see a spiral staircase leading downward. Each step was a different color of the rainbow.

What do you do?

---

Chance
The words above the arch say "Beware" in a language only Chance can read. What language is it, and how do you know it?

Aguri
I was unsure if I was going to have you roll or not for breaking through the wall, but that result makes the point moot. You succeeded!

Chance dashes through the opening in the wall on Aguri's heels. He stops dead in his tracks and curses when he sees the writing on the walls. "I sure didn't see this coming," he says to Aguri once the initial shock wears off.

"I figured our friend  Mr. Wazowitz had sent us who knows where after this map because it was too dangerous for him to come to get it himself. That's what occurred to me back there, and I wish it had a lot sooner. If Wazowitz hid this thing in his own mind and set up all these defenses himself, then why couldn't he just shut 'em down and get the thing out the same way he put it in here? It doesn't make sense."

"I thought that was bad enough, but you see that word above the archway? It says 'Beware.' It's not the warning that bothers me though. We'd beware whether it was written up there or not. What bothers me is the thought that we might be inside the mind of someone who knows that language. Cause if we are, then we are in big trouble. I don't even wanna talk about this in here, now. What if they can hear me?"

As soon as he says that he realizes that if they can, he's blown his chances of playing dumb already. "I don't guess that really matters now, does it?" he mutters to himself. Then he continues in a quieter voice than before.

"There's something I've been workin' on for a long, long time. I wouldn't normally say anything about it, but we might have really stepped in it here, so hear me out. You've heard of a guy named Nikadroy Qizproteus? Well, if it weren't for him, nobody would be able to read that. That... I call that grave-speech. It's the language ol' Nik used to call the dead back to life and to order 'em around once they'd answered his call."

"If we're in the mind of someone who knows grave-speech, we're in the mind of someone that worked for Nik. Someone he trusted. Completely. I have spent years tryin' to get close enough to him to..." Chance doesn't finish the sentence.

"That part's not important. What's important is that I've learned a thing or two along the way. If there were anyone other than me who could read that and didn't work for the guy... I'd know about 'em."

"So, if Mr. Wazowitz really sent us into his own head, we can NOT give him what he wants. And if we're not in his head, then where the heck are we, and why is this Wazowitz guy involved with one of Nikadroy Quizproteus' lackeys? No. Mr. Wazowitz is gonna have to have a very convincing explanation about all this if he thinks he gettin' that map."

Aguri scowled, glancing warily at the beasts on either side of them. "So, you mean to tell me that there's two possible situations here, neither of which is particularly agreeable? Either we are not where we were told we would be, in which case I do not trust this Mister Wazowitz not to lie to us again. Or our employer is not even close to who he says he is, and we were hired to assist a vile fiend?"

Aguri shook her head, scowl deepening. "I too, would like an explanation. And if it does not satisfy you, my suspicious little friend...I would like to do the honors." She finished her statement by eyeing her blade meaningfully. "Nobody tricks me into doing their dirty work. Not and lives to tell of it. What do you make of these stairs?"