Aletheia University Dungeoneering Practicum
Party No. 17
- Lilias Calbach, College of Elemental Magick
- Dev Malim, College of Temporal Magick
- Susan Surn, College of Martial Magick
- Suffer Wayte-Archer IV, College of Medical Magick
Proctor’s Notes
Party “completed” the Master-Level Dungeon in 9 hours 43 minutes, the shortest time so far on record. Several of the walls will need to be rebuilt, and I will need to check the Library Archives to look up the exact text of the Riddle Scrolls in order to recopy them from scratch. Party complained that the Master-Level Dungeon was insufficiently confusing, violent, life-threatening, and flammable, and asked if I had anything “harder” available, despite my explanations that they had already received the highest possible score on the Practicum. Faced with their repeated insistent demands, I finally directed them to the Sealed Dungeon, designed and constructed by Horus Obliq the Pale shortly before the revocation of his tenure 30 years ago. As no staff member sent in to dismantle the Sealed Dungeon had ever been heard from again, I judged it to be a thoroughly suitable challenge for this group of students.
Due to the powerful barrier surrounding the Sealed Dungeon, I was unable to use the Scrying Beacons worn by the party to monitor their progress in real time, but the beacons provided a full transcript of their explorations upon their return three days later, which I have included below.
[…]
SURN: “Hang on, what’s this purple shit?”
[A purple fog fills the chamber.]
[Calbach snaps her fingers, producing a small flame.]
CALBACH: “Not flammable.”
[Calbach continues staring at the flame.]
MALIM: “I’m feeling itchy.”
SURN: “Yeah, me too.”
[Wayte-Archer examines the party’s faces and arms.]
WAYTE-ARCHER: “Hmmm, the coloration of these lesions, and this pattern of the edges… Wait, it couldn’t be… This is Langleigh’s Flesh-Eating Pox! It was supposed to have been eradicated 25 years ago! And an airborne variant is completely unheard-of, this is incredible!”
[Wayte-Archer begins excitedly pulling out vials from their satchel, collecting samples of the fog and cultures from the lesions on their own arms.]
[…]
[The party enter a circular chamber. A mage seemingly in their early 30s enters through another door at the same time. Both doors slam shut behind them.]
???: “Wait, are you students? You’re not supposed to be in here, this dungeon is condemned! It’s strictly off-limits while we work on dismantling it –”
[Malim perks his head up, as though hearing a noise.]
MALIM: [muttering] “Eighty-three? Hmmm, mnemonics are completely severed, even the count just barely made it through…” [inspecting his Scrying Beacon] “… and the beacon’s wiped too… The amount of power it’d take to create something this airtight…”
SURN: “What’s wrong, shorty?”
MALIM: “It’s fine, we’re just in a time loop.”
???: “A what?!”
MALIM: “Yeah, looks like the loop starts when people enter the room, and ends when… ah, yup, see how the tiles are changing color in a spiral pattern inwards? I’m guessing things reset when it reaches the center, so maybe 30 minutes? The four of us are on our 83rd iteration right now, but it might be more for you… When did you come in? I’m Dev, by the way, nice to meet you.”
???: “Oulisto Qwery, Adjunct Professor. … I came in on the 12th…”
MALIM: “Gonna need you to back up a little more, what year?”
QWERY: [nervously] “… 1539 RA… you’re not telling me it’s already 1540, are you?”
SURN: “It’s 1572.”
QWERY: [strangled] “Fifteen… seventy…”
MALIM: “We should chat later about how to tactfully discuss Time Shenanigans, if you’d be down for that, Susan. But yeah, it’s 1572. Don’t worry though, we’ll all get out of this.”
CALBACH: “It all resets? Can I set a fire?”
WAYTE-ARCHER: “Oh, good point! I’d love to do more experiments with that pox too…”
SURN: “What if we just smash the door down?”
MALIM: “Not ruling anything out as a possible solution, but the problem is we don’t know what we’ve already tried before. Here’s what we’re going to do: I’ll write down every option we can think of to try, in alphabetical order, and then we’ll use the loop number to decide what to do at each step. So far we have ‘Release the pox’, ‘Set a fire’, ‘Smash the door down’, what else…”
[…]
CALBACH: “Again.”
WAYTE-ARCHER: “Oh, please, go right ahead! I have plenty more Blood Pearls left! Would you mind diving in backwards this time? I’d love to see how that affects the condition of the corpse!”
[Calbach moves to stand on the edge of the platform, and jumps backwards into the pool of lava.]
QWERY: [sitting in a corner, covering his face] “… There’s… there’s got to… Surely there must be a better way of activating the switch to open the door!”
SURN: “She already got the switch. Three dives ago.”
MALIM: “They’re having so much fun though, a few more won’t hurt!”
[…]
[The construct beast roars loudly, bruised and torn muscle reforming once again over the spiked bones.]
WAYTE-ARCHER: “Fascinating! It seems to have practically limitless regenerative ability!”
MALIM: “More than that, I think it’s got some sort of impossibly precise time-reversal effect at the cellular level!”
CALBACH: “Fire?”
SURN: “No way, this rules! I gotta see how many hits this fucker can take before it goes down for good!”
[…]
REVENANT: “… and so, the Jewel of Remorse, the beating heart of this labyrinth, is yours to claim. But if you dare to brave the Master’s true trials, and stake your lives in search of greater wonders sti—”
“sti—”
“sti—”
“sti—”
“sti—”[The party exit the Throne Room.]
QWERY: “…w-what did you find in there?”
MALIM: “Just this jewel, looks like it was powering all the wards and traps and constructs. We should be able to just walk right out now.”
[…]
The Jewel of Remorse has been placed in the custody of the College of Curses, Relics and Demonology for further examination. Their report to the University Council is currently pending.
The party have reported that the skipping near the end of all four beacons’ recordings was caused by a burst of magickal power from the Revenant suddenly and violently dissipating. They speculated that it must have been in fragile condition after lying unmaintained for over 30 years, leaving it unable to deliver whatever message it had been left with.
Adjunct Professor Qwery has demanded 30 years of back pay, including pay raises commensurate with a promotion to Senior Professor with tenure. I have directed her to Chancellor pel Colophon to discuss this matter in more detail.
– Professor Gearlock Planth, Dungeon Proctor