Session 5 — Into the Minotaur's Lair¶
The brewery, briefly¶
The session opens with the party about to set out for Wave Echo Cave to rescue Gundren Rockseeker. The brewery was finally operational, equipment delivered from a supplier in Neverwinter, everything on the up and up.
Then disaster.
Their barkeep came running from the manor, and behind her came awful roars and the sound of things being destroyed. A minotaur had come up from somewhere beneath Tresendar Manor — the noise of construction had apparently woken it out of an ancient slumber and sent it into a frenzy.
The brewery was in shambles. The basement wall was broken open onto unknown depths. The party knew what they had to do, and avenging their fledgling business was at the top of the list.
Into the lair¶
The heroes descended, and the cave opened into a grand entrance — marble and copper pipes running throughout. This had been here a very long time, directly under everyone's feet.
Exploration turned up something less encouraging: they were standing at the entrance to a maze, and somewhere inside it an angry minotaur was bellowing at frightening intervals.
No choice but to go in.
The maze¶
- Rust monsters, whose attacks ate away at the party's armor
- A gelatinous cube, waiting in a pit that Krunk rushed straight into
- A mimic, correctly identified as a very suspicious treasure chest
Navigating the twists and turns proved exhausting — but not without some very interesting things to find along the way.
The reading nook¶
A side room opened into a reading nook, with a tome lying open to a page that changed the shape of the campaign.
What the tome said
The lair was built by one Urmon the Architect.
He built it as a vent, to let magical energies from something called the Forge of Spells dissipate safely.
Those discharges were having a detrimental effect. Urmon's second in command — the man he'd charged with running the lair, named Asterion — was suffering terrible side effects. A worsening temper. Growing horns.
Which sounded suspiciously like the thing they'd just chased back into this maze.
The second journal¶
Another journal filled in more.
The Forge of Spells was located in Wave Echo Cave. Quite the coincidence.
And Urmon had written down what it was for: once completed, the Forge would create magical weapons and armor.
Wave Echo Cave now had more than one reason to draw the party there.
The rune door¶
The end of the maze led to a sealed door. Six runes set into the floor, and a plaque nearby carrying a foreign inscription.
After careful consideration the party cracked the code and pressed the runes in the right order. The door slowly opened.
Asterion, and something else¶
The minotaur was waiting — and it was not alone.
A helmed horror stood with it, an animated suit of armor with nothing inside, guarding the lair alongside the beast. Nothing in the journals had mentioned it. Nothing explained why it was there, or who had left it.
Neither went down easily. Gerald almost fell that night. After a great deal of heroics from Krunk and Arthas, the minotaur went down and the construct with it.
The horn knife
From its horns, Fenro crafted a magical knife that deals additional damage when rushing at an enemy.
More importantly, the brewery was secure.
What changed¶
- The minotaur is dead and the brewery is safe.
- A helmed horror was destroyed alongside it. Nobody knows what it was guarding, or for whom.
- Fenro gained a magical horn knife — bonus damage on a rushing attack.
- Urmon the Architect entered the story: builder of the lair, and of the Forge of Spells.
- The lair's purpose is known — a vent for magical discharge from the Forge.
- The Forge of Spells is in Wave Echo Cave, and it makes magic weapons and armor.
- Party armor took rust monster damage.
Loose ends¶
- Asterion was a man before he was a monster. The magical discharge did that to him, and nobody has asked what else it might have touched.
- The helmed horror is unexplained. Constructs don't build themselves and they don't stand guard for centuries by accident. Someone put it there.
- The Forge was never finished. Urmon's journals describe what it would do, not what it did.
- Gundren is still in Wave Echo Cave, and now the party has two reasons to go.