Seven and I met up again at some tomb we’d both been hired to investigate. Last time we worked together was that wendigo situation - thought I watched Seven get torn apart by the thing, but here she was, mostly intact. Well, except for the arm. New prosthetic, looks magical. Didn’t ask too many questions about how she survived or where he got the replacement. We’ve all got our secrets.
The job was simple enough on paper: retrieve a magical axe from a tomb built by some Purple Witch. The axe had apparently been given to a barbarian ages ago. We found a control panel near the entrance with three buttons - red, blue, and green. Green opened a door, red controlled some kind of defense system, and blue was a mystery.
Hit the green button and a door opened to reveal a room with an acid pit. Pillars stuck out of the acid at various heights, most in rough shape. Bones floating in there too - always a good sign. Spotted two levers on the far side of the room.
Seven can’t apparently just walk on walls, which made crossing harder for her. I had to jump pillar to pillar. Found a bear trap on one of them - Seven used some kind of rope spell to help me leapfrog over it. Made it to the levers and pulled one. Heard a click somewhere to the north.
We experimented with the control panel buttons. Blue drained a massive amount of water from somewhere - turned out there was a fountain system throughout the place. Red we left alone for the moment, figured it might be keeping defenses off.
Explored a bit and found a sorrowsworn wandering one of the rooms. Thing was huge, had hooks for hands, and someone had carved out its eyes so it was blind. We avoided that fight entirely - no reason to poke that particular bear.
Found some golems moving rubble around uselessly in a collapsed room. Also discovered a guy camping out in what looked like a chapel. Poor bastard had been stuck in here a while, burning benches for warmth. Said he’d wait for us to finish up and then we could all leave together. Turned out he was a fellow grave robber. Takes one to know one, I suppose.
Here’s where it got interesting. In the next room over there was a Giant Brain named Mr. Gray. Funny enough theres one of these brains in Atlanta so I am a little familiar with it. I pretended to be someone named Meredith who worked for the Purple Witch, convinced the brain I was just doing maintenance. Mr. Gray bought it and gave me a pass, opened up access to a graveyard area.
The graveyard was a mess - graves dug up everywhere, shovels lying around, torches still burning. We started checking graves looking for clues. Found a skeleton on a gravestone that turned out to be somewhat alive. Called himself Giuseppe. Real character, that one. Been stuck there by the witch for pissing her off. He pointed us to a specific grave - said it was supposed to be the witch’s cat, but she never had a cat. Found a button, pressed it, heard another click.
This whole place was basically one giant puzzle. We found several statues with plaques - Cadfael Yarwood, Elfen Conway, Darwin Pierce. Crystals Lights were in the room to the south, which we discovered would light up based on hidden buttons being pressed around the dungeon.
Seven adventured to a fountain room the fountains made different pitches when water flowed through them. Played around with the fountains for a while. Seven used some endless water spell to figure out the melody. While this was going on I went back to the brain and asked him some questions. He was hesitant to answer but after a little convincing he let me know that one of the statues had a button that would play the proper rhythm. Walking back I still see seven pouring water down the drain, which was interesting. Once we had it, Seven played it on a flute and a door opened to reveal a drained room with three dead killer whales in it. Someone had really gone all out decorating this place. Another button, another click.
Eventually figured out we needed to get five lights activated and figured out that there were buttons on the back of all of the statues. We needed to press them in order. We then press three buttons in a specific order based on the names on the statues. The order was C-E-D - Cadfael, Elfen, Darwin. Took us way too many attempts to figure that out.
Found a ghost in one of the rooms. Couldn’t understand what it was saying, but it made a threatening gesture at its throat. Seven found the apprentice’s body under some rubble - they’d been wearing a necklace with a woman’s portrait inside. The ghost took the necklace, smiled, and opened a door for us before disappearing. Inside was a lever wrapped in chains. I picked the lock, pulled the lever, heard another click.
Mr Gray also hinted that there was another button in the same room as the sorrowsworn, so I took a little ghostly walk through the area and eventually found a button on the east wall and pressed it, revealing a hidden room. There was a giant Winch in there and man that thing was heavy as hell. Took both of us straining to move it even with Seven’s magic helping out. Finally got it turned and heard the final click we needed.
With everything activated and the combination entered correctly the last room that was holding the magical axe was revealed. However it was displayed in a locked case so I decided to use my phantom-like features to retrieve it. I noticed I was JUST small enough to fit inside of it so I ghosted up and slipped myself inside, materializing in order to grab the axe, and ghosted myself out again. VOILA, Axe in hand, mission in tow. Seven and I wrap up and head on out, certain we will be keeping the axe rather than the reward it provides.
Seven’s still not explaining how he survived that encounter or where the new arm came from. I’m not pushing it. We all come back from bad situations in our own ways. Long as he can still handle himself in a fight and solve puzzles, we’re good.