Written by Jen, a player.
We first ran into the “dead level” long ago, fairly early on in our explorations of Skull Mountain. It was incredibly scary and intimidating, and we immediately turned back and intentionally avoided that area for years. But we often talked and debated about how we could get through it – and live to tell the tale. Quite awhile ago, we asked a sage about the dead level, and we found out that there was a constant level drain and entropy effect, so that anyone who spends time there would have levels drained, and would potentially age at an accelerated rate. In addition, it would eat away at items and marks, so that it would be impossible to leave a trail. We also found out that there were many traps further inside it, and there was a ghost found at the end of the maze. Further research indicated that a Globe of Invulnerability could protect against the level drain, but we still hesitated to enter. We later found out that it was the original location of The Device, until prior explorers moved it with a misapplied Vanish spell – this is actually what created the dead level. We knew we wanted to put The Device back where it belonged, hoping it would normalize this area of the Mountain. Plus we knew there was a massive loot haul from all who died there. This all made us really motivated to deal with this level of Skull Mountain, and we thought of it often through our years of adventuring.
As we went through the years of adventuring, we found tools and spells and henchmen that we thought could help. Seeker had been agitating to go back for quite awhile now, but the timing and opportunity were just never perfect – and we knew it would need to be perfect. Recently, we realized the best characters to cope with this all had downtime at the same time. Seeker (a mage/thief played by Jack), Greystar (a magic user played by Sam), Owen (a magic user played by Nick), and Ingrid (a fighter played by Jen/me). We spent a week of real time on planning and prep work.
Our plan became thus: we would scry the way with spells, and use a potent scroll of Globe of Invulnerability to protect ourselves as we traveled. Greystar had a cube of force as back up protection, as well as protection against the Ghost’s possession attack. Before we set out, we conferred with a Bishop about the Ghost. Seeker researched the idea of putting the device back with a wish. Owen used contact other planes to gather more information, and it seemed that putting the device back would indeed be a positive change overall. Meanwhile, Ingrid – who has not had a lot of luck staying alive and uninjured in the mountain – was terrified at what could happen. Level drain and age acceleration seemed to be huge potential issues. Ingrid sent a note to Brigid, asking for shelter if things went wrong and she was able to make it out somehow – vowing to never set foot in the mountain again if things went badly. Then, we finally set out through the mountain…
We headed down towards the fifth floor dead level, stopping just before at level four. We staged here before going further.
Greystar cast Divination to try to figure out the threats. This told us that the level had – 1) a powerful undead creature, a Ghost who hates all life and good, 2) a form of corrupted magical tech that spreads corruption across all things, 3) a quasi elemental portal that we had to be aware of, 4) a teleportation trap, and 5) tremendous loot, one of which is a staff of the magi.
Owen conjured an air elemental and asked it to map the level below us. It returned visibly weakened, but it was able to draw a very confusing map that did show the end of the level, and conveyed that some of the walls move.
At the very last moment, Seeker asked his summoner henchmen to cast “find the path”, and then we figured out which of our PCs and henchmen would be best to take with us so we would all fit inside the globe of invulnerability. Then, the moment came, and we entered the dead level.
We followed the path while inside the globe and managed to avoid eight pit traps and encountered three areas where the passages closed behind us. Once we got to the stairs going down, we were outside the entropy field – but where was the Ghost? With a limited duration on the cube of force, we had to be super careful of when we turned it on, and made the decision to turn it on just before we opened the door to the lost control room – and there was the Ghost! We were able to kill him, mostly thanks to Greystar’s new manservant, Filbert. Once we secured the control room, we used a wish to return The Device to its original location.
Doing this ended the dead level’s powers, and it instantly became what looks like a server farm, complete with roomba like cleaning robots, obviously space elf tech, and what felt like air conditioning. We put a feather token door between the main level and the control room which now holds the device – at this point, only Greystar knows the password for the feather token door. We know we need to further secure this area as soon as we can!
We gathered the rest of our party from the level entrance and then explored further, looking for the storied loot haul. We headed back to an octagonal room and come to a shiny black door. Inside is a massive, ragged cavern full of gold and loot – we saw at least one goldbug. We decide to explore the other areas first and come back for the treasure later. We found two secret doors, the first one smelled of ashes, and there is a small rift to the plane of ash – this leads to the Ash Temple, untouched for all these years. We opened the other door into a room with a shadowy form in a niche – then all of a sudden, we were on the pink moon, in the western planes. Guess we found the teleport trap! As we made our way back, we encountered Rupert in the former dead level, protecting and maintaining The Device, like he did before. We didn’t talk to him and quickly made our way back to the octagonal room and into the room we left, where we managed to disarm the teleport trap. We found another apartment entrance behind a secret door, where we found a heat box and a journal with a bookmark – a diary tab. We finally got back to the treasure room and cast detect curse, setting aside the cursed items. And we did indeed find *amazing* loot!
Now, all of us
that went on this adventure are rich, leveled up, and ready to set up
our domains!
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