Episode 5: Tim the Solar Demon

This episode is also known as The ReGeoffining.

Summary
Kairos does not make it back to the Moon with the rest of the party, in his place is the returning Armaros. Aya retells the events, of the blood oozes, and the secret room behind the dragonhead fireplace, neither of them have gone well. They all make it back to the guard room, through the reflecting pool. Aya considers going through the secret passageway and retrying the fight with the four guards, but Sarrek has a plan to have Enkara set up an invisible snare trap on the stairs leading up from the jail, so they can release the Prisoner once more, and when he runs away this time, he will be trapped. After they stealthily set the trap, they see below, that the Jailer is repeating threats to an empty cell. Aya realizes that time isn't being reset whenever they die, and objects don't revert to their original state or location The only things that seem to come back are the shadow-touched enemies. Not to waste a snare, they decide to provoke the Jailer. Unfortunately, the trap did not help in the fight, but they did manage to handle the Jailer without taking a single hit. They use his unmoving corpse to trigger the trap. Not finding an ideal plan to deal with the oozes, they decide to double back to the guard's room and go into the secret entrance where the four guards stand ready. The party surprise rushes the guards, as Enkara casts a spell that sprouts clinging vine and foliage to ensnare the enemies. It manages to effectively stop only one guard, Armaros, and Enkara herself. Armaros quickly subdues the guard in his sword's range. While the rest of the party goes for the three guards in the far end of the room, Sarrek cleverly shoots a flaming arrow at the oil cauldron near the guards, causing an explosion hitting all the remaining enemies, and then setting the foliage ablaze. Armaros, Aya, and the fire put an end to the rest of the guards. The fire spreads out towards Enkara, climbing up the vines ensnaring her, she drops the spell just in time. The party takes a moment of rest, cooling down from the immense heat that was building. Aya praises Enkara for a job well done, while Sarrek waves around a torch and arrow, trying to "subtly" take credit for the explosion and fire that swung the fight in their favor. Deciding to move forwards, they investigate the door to the north. Beyond the door, in the next room, they hear the faint, rhythmic clanking of metal against metal. Armaros gets pushed to the front, he then kicks the door open. Heavy chains hang and sway from the rafters above. The thick scent of grease and metal is overpowering. There is a faint sparkling on the chains above. On the other side of the room is a ladder that ascends upwards, and to the right of the ladder, a door. Upon further investigation of the sparkle among the chains that are nearest to the rafter, it is revealed that a tear of Selune is somewhere up above. Sarrek climbs the chains as easily as it was for the rest of the party to convince him to do so. As he gets to the top, he sees that a blue-black fleshed, octopus-like creature is holding onto the blue orb tightly, glaring back at Sarrek with a single quivering, golden eye. Sarrek nervously tries to reason with it, offering to trade the orb for another item. When the creature speaks in a different language, only Enkara, down on the ground, can understand. She explains the creature is scared and wants to be left alone. She tries and climbs up to where they are, but is unable to do so. It does allow her to see the creature and recognize it as a Solar Demon. 10 years ago, in the wake of the failing sun, when the corona spread across the skies, sun flesh fell, and with it, Solar Demons. This one she can tell is a lesser, weaker demon, with no flame, and lacking color. Enkara learns through speaking with it some more, that it wants warmth, and the tear provides it some. She fails to convince the creature to come down, and follow them to the previous room, where they know there are cauldrons heated by fire. It is content being where it is, not trusting the adventurers, Sarrek most of all. Aya telepathically communicates with it and is unable to persuade it as well. It isn't until Enkara produces a magical flame does the demons eye widen with a scary interest, and greedily disentangles itself from the chains, sliding down towards the warmth. Enkara and Aya take an immediate liking to the creature, and on the topic of what to do with it after they get the tear, Sarrek suggests the lead it down the blood oozes, to feed it to the big ooze. Enkara and Aya are both disgusted that Sarrek would think about doing that, and say that they would rather keep the demon as a friend. Sarrek expresses concern that the creature may betray them once it gets the warmth it requires, by catching on fire and becoming a big, angry solar demon. At this point, they've made it to the previous room. As it climbs its way into the cauldron, the heat ignites its flesh in a blue flame, and it uncurls its arm holding the tear and it drops it onto the floor. They now have two tears of Selune. Armaros, who has been silent for some time, mentions that they should feed one of themselves to the blood ooze to acquire the tear they guard. The party all votes Sarrek, Aya mentioning that he has the most experience being eaten by them. Not even responding, he walks forwards to the chain room, opens the door at the other end, and begins walking down a set of stairs. Armaros hustles over to Sarrek and grabs him as he begins to descend. Sarrek resists and surprisingly puts up a bit of a fight. He does manage to grab Sarrek and stop him to explain that they need to stick together, if they die again they would have to go through all the fights it took to get there. Before heading down the stairs, they go back and ask the demon, which they've named Tim, if they've seen anyone pass through the chain room. Tim states that he watched many angry men pass through, but they went up the ladder, not through the door. With this information, they continue down the stairs to a room that looks like a mirrored version of the guard's room, with the dragonhead fireplace, except the staircase behind this fireplace goes up, and instead of a table, there are six cots. In the south, there is a hole in the floor, and from it the scent of damp and iron. On the lefthand wall is a straight staircase that leads 15 feet down to an iron-banded wood door, with sunlight beaming from the base. The door is barred. They recognize this as the barred door, that leads put to the entrance of the towers, where the portcullises are still shut. They remove the bar and confirm their theory. They hear the slurping of blood oozes from the hole and realize they are directly above the pit with all the oozes. Aya quickly organizes a plan to lower Sarrek by a rope, to grab the tear of Selune, without alerting the oozes. He initially is unwilling, but Aya convinces him, due to him wanting to take more credit. Sarrek easily repels down, grabs the tear, and ascends triumphantly. They now have enough tears to bring to Selune. They quickly rush through the portcullis area, to the Sunfire brazier in the guard's room with the dragonhead fireplace, killing a single guard in their way. With a single touch of the Sunfire brazier, they return to the moon, immediately refreshed, and three tears of Selune in hand.

Main Cast

 * Armaros
 * Aya
 * Enkara
 * Sarrek Bashaa

NPCs

 * Tim, the Solar Demon

Special Enemies

 * The Jailer

Cumulative Statistics
Statistics that track across the entire series.