DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Fun & Games ETD: Escape the Dream Episode III: The Sixfold Seal

Looking for something that will burn. Thinking the Wizard's study is most likely. Study the painting.

If I can't see anything obvious, I may try an insight.

You study the painting beside the southeast passage: the stone sundial beneath a perfect noon-shadow.

Gypsy Study painting insight
AquaDyne rolled 1d20 and got 17

At first, the meaning seems obvious enough. Sundial. Noon. Shadow. But with the thought of the Silent Crypt still in mind, more details begin to stand out.

The painted sundial is not shown outdoors. It stands inside a cluttered chamber, surrounded by shelves, broken wood, and scattered objects. The light striking it is strangely deliberate, as if someone has arranged the room so that one particular shadow falls exactly where it should.

You are fairly certain this painting is telling you two things.

First, the Wizard’s Study has its own puzzle, and that puzzle has something to do with making the sundial show noon.

Second, your guess about fuel feels promising. If any room in this place is likely to contain old furniture, loose wood, paper, books, candles, or other things that might help make a proper sustained fire, it would be a wizard’s study.

The southeast passage waits quietly beneath the sundial painting.

But I need an 8 to enter this passage...

So thinking about the order of corridors, I think I need to do W (9) before NE (6) and do SE (8) before SW (4). But I don't have the 9 or the 8. Unless the 6 can be turned upsidedown and used as a 9?

Not yet sure about the E Labyrinth (1) or the NW Smoke tunnel (2).

Also look again around the room for anything that might be possible to take with me.. a light (candle) for example?

All the paintings except the ones with 6 and 4 had their numbers installed already. Those were the only ones missing.

When you put the 4 in the crypt square, it seemed to unlock something. The 6 may have just been a way to make the 4's spot not so obvious.

So far you have examined 4 paintings, rolled really well, and have determined game room before bright corridor, and study before crypt.

You still have the rope you found earlier.

There are no candles here, but you recall from your earlier investigation of the Wizard's Study painting that you might find one in there.

Your options at this point seem to be:
- study the other two paintings
- go to the game room
- go to the study
- go to the other rooms that you know are harder

Let's try the study!

You step into the southeast passage marked with the painting of the sundial.

The central chamber smelled of dust and candle wax. This hallway smells of old paper, dry wood, and the faint metallic tang of magic left too long in one place.

The passage opens into what must once have been a wizard’s study.

"Once" may be more ancient than one might think.

The floor is littered with broken furniture: splintered chair legs, cracked shelves, warped drawer fronts, bits of table, and curled shavings of very dry wood. Much of it looks useless as furniture, but very promising as kindling.

Tall bookcases line most of the walls. Their shelves sag under the weight of ancient books, scroll-tubes, ledgers, and loose sheaves of parchment. Many of the books look brittle enough to crumble if handled carelessly.

In the center of the room stands a stone pedestal supporting a circular sundial. It is an odd thing to find indoors. Its gnomon points upward from the center. Around it are carved hour marks, with NOON marked more deeply than the rest.

The problem is immediately obvious.

There is far too much light.

Several bright orbs hover near the ceiling, drifting slowly in place. They shine from different directions, so the sundial has no single clear shadow. Instead, faint overlapping shadows point every which way and nowhere in particular.

On the far wall, opposite the entrance, is a boarded-up window. No daylight enters through it now, but its position lines up suspiciously well with the sundial.

You are fairly sure this room wants one clear light source, from the right direction, and all the other lights either moved, blocked, dimmed, or otherwise dealt with.

For your other purpose, the room is much more cooperative. There is plenty here that could serve as fuel: dry splinters, chair legs, scraps of shelf, curled paper, and perhaps even candles or lamp-stubs if you search the desks and shelves.

The room appears quiet.

The floating lights, however, seem to be watching you.

Happy to have a source of combustables but I need something to carry them in. Look around.

Examine the boarded window to see how easy it might be to unblock it.

See if there is anything that might be used to block the floating lights from the sundial.

Looking around for something to carry fuel in proves more successful than elegant.

Beneath a collapsed writing desk, you find an old canvas satchel. It is stiff with age, dusty, and embroidered with the words:

PROPERTY OF CONUNDROMUS
NOT FOR SNAKES

There are, fortunately, no snakes in it.

You think. Sometimes they hide well.

The satchel is large enough to hold a useful bundle of kindling: splintered chair legs, dry shelf fragments, curled scraps of parchment, and a few broken bits of drawer. It will not carry a bonfire, but it should carry enough fuel to make a proper small hearth-fire if you can get it lit.

Searching a little more, you also find three stubby wax candles in a cracked ceramic cup. One is bent nearly in half, but all three still have usable wicks.

The boarded window is less formidable than it first looked. The boards are old, dry, and nailed in place with rusted iron nails. A strong pull might loosen them, but a better approach would be to pry them up with one of the sturdier chair legs or broken shelf boards scattered around the room.

Through the narrow gaps between the boards, you can see not daylight exactly, but a pale golden glow — as though some artificial sun waits just beyond the wall.

The alignment is suspiciously perfect. If the boards came away, the light from that window would fall directly across the sundial from the far wall.

That still leaves the floating lights.

The orbs drift lazily near the ceiling, shining from several directions at once. They are not so much “in the way” as they are “ruining the shadow.” Every time the sundial tries to cast one clear line, another orb washes it out.

There are a few things you find when looking around:

- a dusty, moth-eaten curtain or wall hanging, fallen behind one bookcase
- several large cracked book covers, stiff enough to use like screens
- a dented brass lampshade with a soot-blackened inside
- a few broken drawer panels that could be leaned or held to block light

You still feel there may be more to find with a more dedicated search (OOC: roll required).

The little orbs continue to drift overhead.

One of them bobs lower, as if curious.

Then it bobs away again, pretending it was not curious at all.

Well seems seem to be looking up. Dust off the satchel, stuff it with said combustable for the hearth fire, add the candles, Once done set it by the exit so it is ready to grab if I have a hasty exit.

Keep an eye out for snakes, just in case.

I suppose I could try talking to the lights, they might be sentient? Pick up the lampshade.

"Err.. I don't suppose I could persuade you to duck under this lampshade for a few minutes. I would be very grateful."

Address my remarks towards the ceiling and watch to see what happens.

You pack the satchel with dry scraps of wood, splintered chair legs, curled parchment, and the three stubby candles. It is not a tidy bundle, but it is very definitely combustible.

You set it by the exit, ready to grab.

Then you pick up the dented brass lampshade, look up at the drifting lights, and make your polite request.

Gypsy Persuasion orbs
AquaDyne rolled 1d20 and got 6

For a moment, the orbs hover in silence.

Then one of them brightens. Another brightens too. A third zips behind a bookshelf, peeks out, and then darts away as though it has just performed an act of tremendous stealth.

The nearest orb descends toward the lampshade. It hovers just above the opening. This looks promising. Then it darts sideways.

Another orb immediately dives under the lampshade instead, causing the brass shade to glow like a tiny captured sunrise.

This also looks promising. Then the first orb bumps the outside of the lampshade. The second orb pops back out.

A third orb swoops down and circles your head.

The sundial’s shadows wobble wildly across the stone face.

You have definitely gotten their attention. You have not, however, gotten their cooperation.

At least not yet.

Still, you learn something useful: the lights can be influenced. They respond to voice, movement, and possibly novelty. They are not mindless fixtures. They can be lured, distracted, covered, or perhaps herded, but asking nicely once is not quite enough to make all of them sit still.

The boarded window remains closed, but the golden glow beyond it is steady and perfectly aligned with the sundial.

The orbs continue bobbing around the room, now clearly interested in the lampshade. One of them dips halfway into it again. Then backs out. Then dips in again.