After Tittlin disarms the trapped chest, we find an absolutely ludicrous amount of platinum coins. After filling our extradimensional pockets, we head back to the chamber with the statue. The tendrils appear to be streaming out of the short passage behind the statue.
Moving through the corridor, we find an antechamber with a stairwell in front of us leading down, one to the right leading up and a door on the left. We decide to check out the chamber on the left. Spesof takes the lead and Tittlin rushes in with curiosity as soon as he sees it’s safe. The room has a large reflecting pool on the left, and Tittlin and Spesof start poking it as if they’ve never seen water.
With a sigh, I walk in and move to brush one of the hanging dream tentacles off my shoulder. It refuses to budge and feels strangely sticky. I follow the pinkish white tendril upward and see a single fleshy orb with a single red eye staring back at me. I scream as it picks me up into the air. I feel a jolt and a piercing sensation as arrows start to fly. At first, I wonder if Tittlin hit me, but then I can see my own blood flowing up the tentacle. Panicking, I struggle to get free and land atop Spesof’s shoulders, almost hitting his swinging lance on the way down.
As I get down and get my bearings, Tittlin and Spesof start laying into the creature with Tittlin bouncing off the walls to avoid the swinging strands. The creature avoids one of Spesof’s swings, but Shifty’s mouth jumps out mid-swing to bite off several of it’s tentacles as Tittlin’s arrows find their mark. With a horrid screach, it lashes out again, grabbing Tittlin and I.
As I grab the tentacle with Vampiric Touch, Spesof takes advantage of it’s distraction to get behind and finish it, impaling it through and allowing Shifty to eat it from within.
I sit back against a wall and start bandaging my wounds, explaing to the other that that nightmare we just fought was actually one of the beholder’s nightmares. We block the door with the imovable rod before we finish off treating our injuries. Tittlin takes comparatively little time to do so as he decides to chug a few potions instead. He then heads over to the pool and starts walking across it, bending down to stare into it.
There’s a scratching at the door. We glance at each other before Spesof slowly approaches and cracks the door open. He mouths that there’s a creature and I pass him the lens. We wait a moment, identifiying the creature as a Nothic. Spesof pushes open the door just enough for Tittlin to get a solid shot off, before he charges in and impales it.
As Tittlin starts getting antsy to explore upstairs, I remind him that the longer this takes, the more monsters the beholder will dream up. A promise that we can explore it after seems to satisfy him and we head downwards.
Below, we find another crypt containing the artists from the above gallery. We continue on, finding all surfaces covered in thicker and thicker layers of tentacles. We take care to check the ceiling as we go, as neither Spesof nor I want to be surprised from above again.
As we use the rod to barricade off an exitless room of still clockwork defenders, Tittlin shows up with a scroll of Greater Restoration that I stash in the portable hole for later.
Heading back to the artist’s crypt, we discover that the top door leads to a room with several nothics. We have a short battle as they try to claw their way through Spesof and steal the circlet from his head. The last remaining nothic runs to the right and disappears as that end of the room fades into a starry and cloudy purple void. The rest of the room was at one point a banquet hall, with tables filled with food and, somehow, a dozen circlet’s of blasting in what strikes me as a trap.
As we tie off Tittlin and start to see if the void can be traversed, a hungry sorrowsworn shows up and starts devouring the food before it. Before we can overcome our surprise and decide whether to fight it or run past it, it starts shoving the circlets into it’s mouth. There’s a flash of light that illuminates it from the inside for a brief moment before it explodes into a rain of unidentifiable half-cooked gibblets. We shudder and step into the void, hoping not to encounter another.
As the walls fade away, we see starry fish swimming beneath our feet. We travel south, following the feeling of dread and trying to ignore the sensation of being watched as eyes slowly open in and close, literally blinking into and out of existance.
Moving around thick columns of tentacles, we come across the star coated beholder floating above a large stone pedestal. It’s evedentally no longer sleeping, as it turns around and screams at us. Eyes start opening around us, spewing beams faster than we can react. We start charging towards it. From the corner of my eye, I see one hit Tittlin and knock him to the ground. Another one of necrotic energy washes over me. In response, I pull out the wand of binding and point. I feel the air grow tense before it seems to shatter, the beholder having overcome the wand. As I put it away, Spesof climbs up the pedestal, yelling and screaming as he hacks and slashes without notice of the beams that hit him.
Another ray hits me and I can feel my legs and arms stiffen up under it’s magical influence. However, by this point the beholder isn’t even looking at me. A cone of desaturated colour appears to be spreading from it’s eye and encompasing Spesof, sapping some of his vitality and dropping hairs from his beard. Jumping to avoid it, Spesof climbs onto it and continues yelling and stabbing.
Through the stiffness, I manage to get a single finger pointed at it. Just enough to cast Finger of Death and send necrotic energy coursing through it. I feel relief as I see an arrow land right beside my hit as Tittlin must be alright.
At this, everything starts to speed up, going faster and faster until there’s a flash of light, pain and sharp tingling.