That mirror maze isn’t going anywhere

The party started the session in a forest, in front of a house of mirrors. Obviously, we wanted to go anywhere except inside. We walked all the a way around - that was weird. We considered going back into the forest, but it was pretty obvious that wasn’t going to work. Resigned, we entered the mirror maze - but stealthily! We tiptoed in like the Scooby gang at their very best!

It was all Intelligence and Charisma checks and saves to get through. This worked pretty well for everyone except Dennis, whose MAD build revolves around Dexterity and Wisdom. So the rest of the party is out the far end, wondering what happened to Dennis, while he’s busily vandalizing the maze so he can bring all his friends with him. Shouldn’t have worked, Dennis doesn’t have any friends.

Found the Bastard!

We came to a clearing in the forest; on the far side we saw two figures. A figure in bedazzled armour spinning a lottery cage, and in front of them, one of the shapeshifters facade’s waiting impatiently for the draw. With a clear line of sight, The Captain came into his own. Turning invisible, he crept up on the shifter and pickpocketed Louie’s portable hole off his belt. Just to be sure, he also pickpocketed another sack off his belt. He then crept back to the party (disappointing Dennis, who had been waiting for combat to start) and got them to validate the contents we had stolen.

The Captain had delivered, and we had our portable hole back! Louie now stores it safely inside his armour, where it is impossible to reach, and even trying does poison damage. In addition, the other bag contained a magical spear for Dennis, and Rings of Spell Storing for Louie and The Captain. The Captain is now adamant that he also has a Bag of Holding, because there is no other way Dennis’ spear could have fitted inside a normal sack.

Louie and Dennis then emerged from the forest and walked over to the Bedazzled Knight. That bastard froze, turned slightly away, and put on a hat of disguise. The Captain pickpocketed it. He then attempted to subtly move away from the party and shapeshift into a marble so we wouldn’t find him - but The Captain was watching the entire time. We picked up the marble and put it into a potion bottle, and left it in the care of Oriana, who is watching it monomaniacally.

The Bedazzled Knight then spun the lottery cage, and drew our names out - creepy that he not only knew our names, but also had them written in the cage before we got there. He, or his master, may know everything about us, and is probably hoping to glean our plans so he can foil them. Well, the jokes on him - we have no idea what we’re doing! Hah! Anyway, we won golden tickets that we can use to get into the Revelia.

Onward to the freaky circus

The Bedazzled Knight - who introduced himself as Liard Bubble of Squeak, but we forgot that immediately - walked us to the gates of the Revelia, and we entered. We almost immediately found a lady with broken fingers. Dennis fixed them for her, and we talked. She introduced herself as Doctor Stella, and was a font of exposition.

She came to the Revalia looking for her older sister, Sophie, who had joined a cult years ago and was supposedly somewhere here.

Dr Stella was looking for her, but had bumped into a Thrall, who broke her fingers because they suck. The Thralls, not her fingers. She explained the different strata of Revelia society: Rubes, normals like us; Revelers, uninfected people who basically lived in the Revelia; and Thralls, people who had been infected with the clownification parasite.

Dr Stella explained the life cycle of the clownification parasite as best she knew it. The mites could be tiny, or as large as your fist. They found their way into your body through your nose, eyes or ears, and converted a host into a Thrall - someone who looked like a clown, was forced to perpetually have fun, and worked the Revelia.

We told Dr Stella that we would catch up with her after a rest, and headed to the Hostile Hostel.

To our well deserved Rest

We headed to the Hostel, but were informed before we even went anywhere that we needed to pay with Red Tickets (RT). We turned around, went to the ticket booth, and converted our Golden Tickets into 10 RT each (including Oriana). The ticket booth was operated by a very broken down marionette called Polly. She gave us our tickets. Then we went to the Hostile Hostel.

On the way there, we met a unicycling Thrall called Pinky and her animated map friend, Map. They directed us to the Hostile Hostel, and Map elected to join the party for a while.

The Hostel was as creepy looking as we expected. The receptionist, Ramona, was very distracted by a haunting. We said we’d look into it for her, and she said that in return she would give us 2 nights free accommodation, and 50% off accommodation costs thereafter. She also gave us the keys to all the rooms except the Sweet Suite and Room 9. The keys were very eclectic.

Room Number Key Description
1 (H3) Grey space helmet
2 (H4) Rattling noisemaker
3 (H5) A selection of yellow tickets and one blue ticket
4 (H6) A live garter snake
5 (H7) Leather with an anchor stamped on it
6 (H8) An axe
7 (H9) A brass Key

Saga of the Rooms

We went to room 1 first, and after some fumbling (we all had to be touching the helmet for the door to recognize us), the door spoke: “Declownification complete. Helmet may be removed. Have fun.” Worth remembering if we get clownified later and none of our healing fixes it.

We got into a room with zero gravity, and weirdly, a bucket of popcorn. The popcorn attacked! The Captain was down one arm. Dennis’ cards didn’t work in zero gravity! He resorted to daggers (which worked) with poison (which worked) that paralyzed (which didn’t). And punching (which worked) with stunning (which didn’t). The blood in his arm was converted to butter, but a quick Hands of Healing/Physician’s Touch fixed it, thankfully. Louie laid about him with a morning star, which worked, causing Louie to spin (no negative effects). The Captain did massive sneak attack damage, but the final blow was struck by Louie, causing the Popcorn Swarm to splat against the back wall, spelling the word “Scooter”.

So that was fun, but we moved on to the next room - Room 3, which was a live talk show with the Bedazzled Knight. Louie went up and was typically uncommunicative, which I’m sure the viewers loved. Still didn’t locate the source of the haunting.

The next room we entered was Room 2, and as soon as we entered, a horde of partygoers followed us in, then sang a warped version of Happy Birthday. We had cake.

The next room was Room 4, and it was a jungle containing 2 monkey animalgamations, and a pink owl, which vomited the remains of sweets at us. Ick. Next room!

We had to go upstairs to the next room, Room 5. It was a pale imitation of underwater, and had nothing of particular interest except a tiny diver marionette who advised us to check the “Sweet Suite”.

The next room we tried was a campsite with a tent. We found some candy wrappers and a compass belonging to G Figgypudding wrapped in some linen. The compass pointed slightly east of north. Dennis asked Map what the magnetic deviation was in the local area, and he said “5”. So obviously the compass is perfect.

Next we checked Room 7, the Boring Room, which was a typical motel room with a note on the desk saying to remember to expect someone to visit in one week. We stole the note, and wrote in the impressions left in the paper the exact same note, but extending the time to 2 weeks. The Captain returned to Ramons to get the key to the Sweet Suite, and we retrieved the last piece of cake from room 2, and some candy remains from room 4.

Using the key, we entered the Sweet Suite, which was a forest clearing with a candy house in it. Inside the candy house was an old crone, Gertrude, who wanted candy. We gave her what we had, and said that Ramona had asked us to remind her it was time to check out. She wanted us to escort her downstairs, but no way. Old age is contagious!

Inside the candy house, we found Room 9, a miniature room with a tiny Gnome inside. We took him down to Ramona. She told us how to let him out, and when he emerged, he was quite upset with Ramona, but thankful to us for our help. He introduced himself as Scooter, and went his own way.

Final Rest

Ramona gave us 3 nights free accommodation, and 50% off after that. We elected to take the Boring Room, and retired up there for a long rest.

Game Day

After our rest, we decided to play some games. We started with Pin the Flail on the Donkey. The rules were, it would be released from its pen, and we had to get it back in within 5 rounds. Easy!

So first, it wasn’t a donkey. It was a Huge donkey animalgamation. Second, it moved 50’ on its first round of action. Dennis immediately caught up and paralyzed it with poison. We figured The Captain with his magically boosted 19 strength should walk this in, but it turned out to be harder than that. 4 rounds of dragging, we drag the Donkey 53 feet, to find the Thrall running the game had moved the pen back 10 feet. Dennis re-paralyzed the beast, then held his blade to the Thralls throat while Louie and The Captain dragged the Donkey the remaining distance in the last round. We win! It cost 1 RT each to play, and we got 4 RT each back (1 more than we should, because he cheated!)

Lord of the Rings

The next game was Dead Ringers. There was a forest of zombie hands with their fingers pointing up, wriggling. It cost 1 RT to play, we got 10 rings, and if we managed to throw them onto a finger, we would get 1 RT back. Statistically, if you had Sleight of Hand proficiency, you should easily win, and if you didn’t, you should barely win.

The Captain went first, once in real life and once with dice. We got 10 RT for each ring we actually got over Zoe’s fingers, and the Captain walked away with 10 RT from real life, and I think about 6 RT from dice - way more than he should have. Dennis went next and won 20 RT in his real life game, and 2 from his dice game. Louie went last, and won 15 in real life (throwing at Scott’s fingers won 15 RT, because they’re fatter), and none in the dice game. Not having Sleight of Hand really hurt him.

Here we ended the session, mostly because it was really late.