The hedge maze had swallowed the world.

Behind the adventurers, Greenest and its honest fields had vanished into memory. Ahead, the living walls bent in close, green and patient, their leaves whispering against one another like things that knew secrets and had no intention of giving them up. Somewhere beyond the maze waited the tower they had come to find, and with it, perhaps, some knowledge of planes and portals and of whatever unseen hands had been plucking at the threads of their lives.

But the maze was no mere garden. It was a place apart.

Thorn felt it first in the wrongness of the space. The path behind did not lead where it ought, the sun had lied upon the sundial, and the sky itself could not be trusted. Even the simplest act, a corner turned or an arch of leaves passed under, had become treacherous. This was not an enchantment laid over the world but a world made of enchantment, a pocket of thought and will folded out of reality by some mind powerful enough to write its own laws and expect others to bleed within them.

Behind them, the shattered guardians were already reforming. They had been knights in shape only, statues in armor that stood silent upon their plinths until the party intruded. Then stone and steel had stirred, blades had risen, and the courtyard had rung with the crash of magic and weaponry. The adventurers broke them apart, only to watch them gather themselves again, fragments scraping across the flagstones as if the room itself refused to accept their defeat.

One of the fallen guardians had yielded a red gem, bright as a captured ember. Elora lifted it with conjured force and tucked it safely away, or so it had seemed. Outside the chamber, the jewel was gone. There was no tear in the pack, no trick of hand or thief that anyone could name. Just gone.

The maze had simply decided that she had not taken it.

“That is not normal magic,” Thorn murmured, staring at the place where the gem should have been.

Maledurk gave the reassembling guardians a sour look. “Normal or not, they keep getting back up.”

Tempest, distracted by the geometry of the place and perhaps by three unrelated thoughts of her own, glanced from the armor to the impossible exit. “Maybe we are not supposed to kill them.”

The idea settled over them. Victory here did not have to mean destruction; the maze had no interest in rewarding the obvious. The guardians were less enemies than punctuation in a hostile sentence written in stone, and the party needed to learn how to read it.

So they tried the room again. This time they did not waste themselves on a full battle. They moved quickly, testing the courtyard, studying the patterned floor, the plinths, the strange circular markings worked into the stones. The guardians animated as before, slow at first, then hungry with motion, and the party scattered to the marked places, each claiming a circle as if the chamber might be some vast mechanism awaiting the proper weight of bodies.

The armor came for them anyway. Steel rang and fire flashed. Maledurk’s claws and teeth tore through enchanted stone with a brutish efficiency that made the room seem briefly offended, Thorn cut with precision, Elora answered with magic, and Tempest burned away anything foolish enough to stand still in front of her. The guardians fell again. This time a different one yielded the red gem, as if the jewel moved through them like a heart seeking a chest.

They took it, they left, and the maze returned them to the beginning. The gem vanished again.

It was maddening. The answer sat near enough to touch and not near enough to understand. A jewel placed in a pack apparently ceased to matter, and a jewel carried by invisible force was no true possession. If the gem was a key, someone was going to have to actually hold it.

So when the red gem appeared once more amid the wreckage of another fallen guardian, Maledurk picked it up in his hand.

Nothing happened. No lightning, no vision, no rumble of hidden doors; the gem simply sat in his palm, heavy and red and smug. They passed it from one to another, and still nothing. Yet when at last one of them carried it openly, flesh against stone, and stepped through the exit, the maze yielded and the looping corridor broke.

Instead of the same courtyard waiting for them like a cruel joke, the adventurers emerged again into the space of the sundial. For a moment no one spoke.

The sundial stood where it had before, surrounded by paths vanishing into the hedges. Its shadow had once pointed north, though the sun above made no sense of it. Now it bore two shadows at once, one pointing north and one pointing east. An instrument that should have cast a single truth was offering choices.

Maledurk stared at it with the expression of a warrior who would rather fight ten more statues than argue with one suspicious instrument.

Thorn studied the shadows. “The first shadow led us into a test. Perhaps the second marks what has changed.”

“Or perhaps the entire thing is mocking us,” Tempest said.

Elora looked down one path, then another, feeling the green walls breathe around them. “Mocking or not, it is speaking.”

They followed the indicated way, though even that decision was not simple. The maze twisted them through long corridors of hedge and silence, paths without branches, turns without choice. At times the air smelled of cut grass, at others of rain on stone, but no birds sang and no insects hummed. It was a garden made without nature’s consent.

At last the hedges opened into a bright passage where a fountain bubbled in the center of the path. Its water was clear and lively, spilling over worked stone in soft silver threads. Along the hedge walls grew great luminous flowers, white and red and gold and violet, each petal shimmering faintly as though dusted with powdered moonlight. Their scent filled the air, sweet enough to be inviting and a little too sweet to be trusted.

A white flower grew near Thorn’s hand, delicate and lovely and, in a place like this, probably neither. He plucked it and tossed it into the fountain.

The moment the bloom touched the water, the hedges convulsed. Vines snapped together, stems twisted, and flowers ripped themselves from the wall to gather into a towering two-headed mass of greenery and blossoms, its mouths opening in wet, fibrous hunger. It lunged for Thorn, all sweetness gone, and bit at the air where he had stood an instant before.

Elora’s eyes flashed. She lifted a hand and called on the withering force of the wild turned inward, the rot beneath spring’s bright mask. A pulse of pallid magic spread through the creature. Blossoms blackened, leaves curled and dropped away, and one of its heads recoiled, petals shriveling like paper in flame.

But the hedge itself remained untouched, and that told her something. The maze protected its bones. Only the growth that had become the beast could be harmed.

Maledurk, seeing the path around the fountain, judged the creature with a warrior’s practical eye. It was rooted. Dangerous, yes, but bound to the place where it had grown; it could strike but not pursue. He moved around the fountain, placing himself beyond the worst of its reach, ready to carve an escape route if one presented itself.

The plant did not let the others follow so easily. Two vines whipped out with sudden violence. One lashed around Thorn, biting into him and dragging him toward the ravenous blossoms. Another seized Elora, coiling tight, thorns pressing through cloth and skin as it hauled her closer to the creature’s mouths.

Tempest answered with fire. A bolt of flame streaked across the fountain chamber and struck the plant-thing squarely. It burned but did not blaze, smoking in angry patches, its vines twitching from the pain. Thorn, gritting his teeth against the pressure around his ribs, drew his rapier and slashed at the tendril binding him. The blade cut clean enough, and the vine fell away, writhing on the stones like a severed serpent.

Elora tried to bring flame to bear, conjuring a burning blade into her hand, but the vine around her spoiled the strike. The creature dragged her nearer, and its flower-heads opened eagerly.

Then Maledurk arrived, and he arrived jaws first. The dragonborn hurled himself at the mass of vines and blossoms, teeth snapping shut on enchanted growth. His first bite tore away a huge knot of stems; the second struck deeper, savage and final. He ripped the creature apart with a violent shake, scattering petals and sap across the stones. The two-headed form collapsed into limp greenery, its animating will broken, and the vine around Elora loosened and dropped away.

For a heartbeat the only sound was the fountain, where the white flower Thorn had thrown still floated, serene as a tiny boat upon the water.

They regarded it. In another place they might have left it, but in this maze every object might be a key or a judgment. So they retrieved the blossom from the fountain and laid it carefully upon the remains of the creature, an offering, an apology, or maybe just a practical refusal to leave any symbol unfinished.

Then they continued, and the path returned them to the sundial. Again, two shadows pointed north and east.

They chose again, tested again, and the maze answered not with combat but with more uncertainty. When they took another route, the sundial changed. Three shadows now stretched from it: north, southeast, and southwest. Its impossible face had begun to accumulate memory, as though every trial they passed taught the sundial a new direction, or perhaps taught them one.

They followed the southwest shadow and came to a larger courtyard, an open square dominated by a dark pool sixty feet across. The water was murky and still, black-green beneath the sky. At its center, hovering a foot above the surface, gleamed another gemstone, deep amber this time, warm as honey trapped in old glass.

Elora’s conjured hand drifted out across the water and closed around it. Nothing rose from the pool to contest her, no serpent or drowned guardian, and the gem came freely, though no one trusted that freedom. Once it reached the edge, they took it properly in hand. Having learned the maze’s appetite for technicalities, they did not insult it by hiding the prize away.

Holding the amber gem, they circled the pool and passed onward. The sundial awaited them again, unchanged in its three shadows, so they took the southeast path.

This time the maze softened. The hedges opened on a tranquil pond, its surface stirred by the slow movement of koi beneath the water. At the center a boulder rose from the pond, and upon that stone rested a graceful pagoda with six pillars and a red roof. An arched bridge reached from the shore to the structure. At the roof’s peak, carved into the wood, was a great koi, five or six feet long, its scales rendered in exquisite detail. It seemed part of the roof itself, not attached but born from the same impossible piece of wood.

Within the pagoda sat a man in silk robes of yellow, red, and gold, embroidered with fish. Delicate stringed music drifted through the air, though no player could be seen. The man smiled when the adventurers appeared. He did not speak.

Thorn called to him from the shore. “Are you friendly? Can you help us leave this place?”

The man smiled, and silence answered.

Maledurk approached the water with suspicion, stirred it with a hand, and tasted it. The pond proved refreshingly cool and faintly fishy, a discovery that did little to dignify the moment but at least confirmed that the water was water. Koi scattered from his touch with the ordinary disdain of fish disturbed by large creatures with poor manners.

Elora, unwilling to leave even fish unconsulted in a place this strange, reached out with druidic magic and brushed one small mind beneath the pond’s surface. The fish knew little of towers, mazes, or riddles. It knew water, swimming, other fish, and the rough arithmetic of “many.” But when gently pressed about the silent man in the pagoda, it offered one useful truth: sometimes he took water and made it hot.

A humble clue, but they had learned by now what humble things could mean here.

Thorn crossed the bridge. The robed man gestured toward cushions arranged around the pagoda, and Thorn entered and sat. The man remained smiling, silent, patient. Beside him rested a charcoal pit and an iron teapot, with a clay jug standing nearby. He made no move to answer questions or to threaten, only sat with the serenity of one who had been waiting a long time and could wait longer still.

Elora, meanwhile, had not surrendered her curiosity to decorum. She became a monkey and bounded to the roof to inspect the carved koi. Up close its craftsmanship was astonishing, every scale shaped with loving precision, yet there was no gem in its eye, no seam or hinge, nothing to suggest it concealed a prize. Below, the robed man glanced up and again gestured toward the cushions.

The invitation was clear. Elora climbed down, returned to herself, and sat. Maledurk joined them, and Tempest followed.

Only when all four had taken their places did the silent host move with purpose. He raised his hands, and the iron kettle floated up as if lifted by invisible servants. He poured water from the clay jug, added leaves, bowed to the kettle, and guided it back to the coals. Then he lowered his head and became still, waiting while the tea began to steep. The first ribbon of steam curled upward.

It should have been peaceful, a pond and a pagoda and tea warming on the coals, and none of them quite believed it.

Thorn studied the man through narrowed eyes, sifting old lore against instinct. The silk robes, the composed silence, the strange hospitality, the sense of something not quite human beneath the human shape. The pieces settled into a single unwelcome word: dao. A genie of earth and greed, powerful, cunning, and often cruel. This was no courteous stranger in a garden but a being of ancient appetite wearing a mortal face.

Elora had noticed something else: the leaves. Set beside the silent host were the same leaves he had placed in the kettle, and she knew them. Drake’s wort, a dangerous herb, potentially lethal depending on the preparation, the dose, and the mercy of whoever served it.

The teapot whispered on the coals, its steam rising thicker now, fragrant and perhaps deadly. The dao went on smiling. And the adventurers sat in the heart of the pagoda, surrounded by dark water and bright koi, with the maze waiting beyond and poison steeping between them.

Session Notes

  • The session resumed with the party still inside the hedge maze surrounding the wizard’s tower near Greenest.

    • The party had come to Greenest while seeking a wizard known to be knowledgeable about the planes of existence.
    • They had found his tower, but it was hidden within or protected by a hedge maze.
    • In the previous session, they had entered the maze, reached a sundial, chosen a direction, and eventually found a chamber containing armored knight statues.
    • The statues had animated and attacked them.
    • The party had destroyed most of the statues.
    • One destroyed statue dropped a red gem.
    • Elora had used Mage Hand to pick up the red gem and place it in her backpack.
    • When Elora exited the chamber, she turned a corner and saw the same chamber again, including her companions who had not quite left yet.
    • This showed that the chamber’s exit looped back to its entrance.
    • The destroyed statues had begun reforming after being defeated.

  • The party began the session at the animated-statue chamber, apparently caught in the looping exit.

    • The DM clarified that the party had entered the statue chamber from the top side and had been trying to leave through the bottom side.
    • Elora had been slightly ahead of the others and had discovered that leaving the area brought her back to the entrance.
    • The party was technically still in a fight, because some of the damaged statues were reforming and getting back up.

  • Thorn and the others discussed the missing red gem.

    • Elora considered investigating the red gem in her backpack to determine what it was.
    • When she opened her backpack using Mage Hand, the red gem was no longer there.
    • Elora tried stepping back into the room to see if the gem would reappear in the backpack.
    • The gem still was not in her backpack.
    • The party discussed whether the gem might have been unreal, hidden, forgotten, or subject to some kind of enchantment.
    • Thorn suggested that the maze’s defenses might involve memory lapse or perception-altering magic, similar to how the party had been unable to see the tower properly from above.
    • He reasoned that perhaps the gem was still there, but the party could not perceive it.

  • The party made Arcana checks to understand the magic of the maze.

    • Thorn rolled very well, with a result of 19.
    • Based on the effects they had seen, Thorn concluded that entering the hedge maze may have transported the party into a different plane of existence.
    • The DM clarified that the wizard was known for expertise in extraplanar matters, and that the hedge maze may be a personal dimension created by the wizard.
    • Thorn understood that if the wizard had created this plane, then the rules of reality within it could be whatever the wizard defined.
    • The party compared the situation to Barovia, a separate domain they had visited before.
    • The DM clarified that the maze was not merely part of the normal world under a magical enchantment, but more like a dreamlike or artificial reality where strange rules could apply.

  • The party considered trying to bypass or escape the chamber by normal means.

    • Elora asked about flying up to see a way out.
    • The DM reminded her that they had already tried flying over the maze and had encountered an invisible ceiling.
    • The party discussed how the statues were likely to keep reforming if the party simply fought them repeatedly.
    • The DM noted that animated statues reforming after destruction was strange but still within the normal range of magic the characters understood.
    • By contrast, the disappearing red gem was much stranger.
    • Thorn and the others concluded that there was probably no point in simply fighting the statues over and over.
    • They suspected the puzzle required doing something with magic or with the gem.

  • The party considered whether they could return to the sundial.

    • They had previously tried going backward through the chamber’s entrance or exit.
    • The DM reminded them that when they went backward into the room, they ended up at the exit side again.
    • The room functioned as a loop with no obvious way back to the sundial.
    • The DM clarified that leaving the room through the exit brought them back to the entrance, and going back through the entrance also looped them to the exit.
    • The party was effectively trapped in a short looping space.

  • Elora considered using Passwall or similar magic.

    • She remembered that she had the spell Passwall and asked whether she had already tried it.
    • The DM confirmed that she had used Passwall previously.
    • When she had stepped through the wall created by Passwall, she had ended up back at the entrance to the statue chamber.
    • This showed that simply opening a passage through the wall did not bypass the looping magic.

  • The party examined the layout of the statue chamber more closely.

    • They noticed gray or empty-looking spaces on the map and wondered whether hidden areas might exist.
    • The DM revealed more of the map and clarified that there was nothing hidden in those spaces.
    • The party then noticed circular designs or markings on the floor.
    • They wondered whether the floor pattern might matter.
    • The circular markings appeared on different squares within the grid.
    • The party speculated that each circle might be unique or important.
    • They considered whether the party needed to stand on the circles together.
    • Since there were four party members and four visible circle-marked positions, they decided to try standing on them.

  • The party entered the statue chamber and each took a position on a circular floor marking.

    • Elora chose one position.
    • Maledurk chose the south position.
    • Another character took the east position.
    • The party spread out so each member stood on one of the marked squares.
    • The armored statues animated again and began walking toward the party.
    • The DM chose not to run the fight round by round, because the party had already defeated these statues before and was powerful enough to destroy them again without much trouble.
    • The party destroyed the animated statues again.
    • As before, the statues began reassembling after being destroyed.

  • A red gem appeared again after one of the statues was destroyed.

    • This time, the gem fell from a different statue than before.
    • The previous red gem had fallen from another statue.
    • This suggested that the gem could appear in different statues each time the room reset.
    • The gem fell on the ground near Elora.
    • Elora used Mage Hand again to put the gem into her backpack.
    • The party noticed that no other destroyed statue dropped a gem.
    • Nothing else in the room changed.
    • No doors opened.
    • No hidden spaces appeared.

  • The party tried leaving the chamber with the gem in Elora’s backpack.

    • The party rushed south through the room before the statues could fully reform.
    • They turned the corner and immediately found themselves back at the same statue chamber again.
    • Elora checked her backpack.
    • The red gem was gone again.
    • The DM clarified that the gem had not reappeared beside Elora simply because she stepped into the room.
    • The gem appeared only after the party fought and destroyed the statue that contained it.

  • The party understood that the red gem had to be recovered again from the statues.

    • The DM clarified that each time the party reset the room, the gem was hidden inside one of the statues.
    • The party would have to defeat the statues to find which one contained it.
    • The DM continued to summarize these repeated fights rather than run them in full.
    • On the next attempt, a different statue dropped the gem.
    • The gem fell near Maledurk.
    • Elora asked Maledurk to pick it up.
    • Maledurk picked up the gem directly in his hand.
    • It looked like a large red ruby.
    • It did not burn him, harm him, melt him, or give him any vision.
    • Nothing obvious happened when Maledurk held it.

  • The party experimented with physically touching the gem.

    • Maledurk handed the gem to Elora at her request.
    • The party considered whether dragonborn might be resistant to any danger from the gem.
    • They all placed their hands on the gem together.
    • Still, nothing happened.
    • The gem granted no obvious magical benefit.
    • The statues continued reforming while the party experimented.

  • The party searched for a possible socket, keyhole, or other place where the red gem might fit.

    • Someone asked whether the gem matched any shape on the wall or looked like a key.
    • The party made a Perception check.
    • The result did not reveal any obvious keyhole, socket, or fitting.
    • No wall markings or mechanisms appeared to correspond to the gem.

  • The party considered throwing a backpack through the loop.

    • They discussed the fact that the crown was the only other significant story object they had with them.
    • They wondered whether throwing a backpack through the exit might reveal whether objects looped normally.
    • Someone threw a backpack through the southern exit.
    • The backpack immediately appeared from the northern side and landed back in the room.
    • The party picked it up and opened it.
    • The backpack still contained its normal contents, but not the red gem.
    • This confirmed that the gem behaved differently from ordinary objects.

  • Thorn or another party member tried carrying the gem in hand while leaving.

    • The party defeated the statues again and found the gem in yet another statue.
    • This time they picked up the gem and held it in hand instead of placing it in a backpack or using Mage Hand to carry it separately.
    • Holding the gem, they walked through the exit.
    • This time, instead of looping back to the statue chamber, the party returned to the sundial chamber.
    • The party realized that the red gem was a magical key to escape the statue chamber.
    • The important detail was that someone had to physically hold the gem in hand while leaving.
    • Putting the gem in Elora’s backpack or throwing it through the loop did not work.
    • The DM confirmed that the gem needed to be held, not merely carried in a container or manipulated by Mage Hand.

  • The party returned to the sundial chamber.

    • The DM described the sundial as looking like the same sundial they had seen before.
    • Previously, the sundial’s shadow had pointed north, even though that did not seem to match the sun’s actual position.
    • This time, the sundial showed two shadows at once.
    • One shadow pointed north.
    • One shadow pointed east.
    • The party remembered that the first time they saw the sundial, they had thought the shadow pointed north.
    • There was some confusion over whether they had gone north or west the first time.
    • The DM checked notes and corrected himself.
    • The party had actually gone west the first time, despite the sundial pointing north.
    • That western path led them to the statue chamber.
    • The party decided to follow the sundial’s current north-pointing shadow and go north.

  • The party traveled north from the sundial.

    • They walked through the narrow maze for about ten minutes.
    • The path twisted and bent, but there were no meaningful branches or decisions to make.
    • Eventually, they returned to another sundial chamber.
    • This sundial again had two shadows, pointing north and east.
    • The party discussed whether to continue north or take the eastern path.
    • They chose to go east.

  • The party traveled east from the sundial and reached a fountain chamber.

    • They followed another winding hedge path with no side routes or choices.
    • Eventually, they came to an area where a bubbling fountain filled part of the pathway.
    • Large bright flowers grew in the hedges alongside the fountain.
    • Each blossom shimmered.
    • The air smelled fresh and sweet.
    • The path continued straight through, but the fountain occupied the middle of the way.
    • The flowers and growth along the sides were overgrown and would brush against anyone moving around the fountain.
    • The flowers did not fully block passage, but characters would likely need to push through or brush against them to get around the fountain.

  • Thorn interacted with the flowers and fountain.

    • Thorn chose a white flower from among the available flowers.
    • He pulled the white flower and tossed it into the fountain.
    • He made a wish as he threw the flower.
    • As Thorn did this, the flowers and vines nearby began moving.
    • The stems and blossoms coalesced into a large two-headed plant creature.
    • The creature tried to bite Thorn.
    • Thorn managed to throw the flower into the fountain before the attack.
    • The creature’s bite missed Thorn.
    • The party rolled initiative.

  • Combat began against the two-headed plant creature.

    • Elora acted first.
    • The DM clarified that the creature was plant-like, formed from flowers, stems, and vines.
    • Elora cast Wither and Bloom.
    • The creature failed to avoid the effect or did not receive a save as handled in the transcript.
    • The spell significantly harmed the plant creature.
    • Parts of the flowers withered, died, and fell off.
    • The creature remained active and capable of attacking.
    • The surrounding hedge itself was not affected by Wither and Bloom.
    • The flowers along the edge of the area were affected.

  • Maledurk examined whether the party could bypass the plant creature.

    • Maledurk asked whether the creature blocked the entire path.
    • He made a Perception check.
    • He realized that the creature was still rooted to the wall or ground where it had formed.
    • It did not appear fully mobile or able to chase the party out of the chamber.
    • Maledurk was not sure how far it could reach, but he believed the party might be able to get around the fountain and move past it.
    • Maledurk moved around the fountain toward the eastern side.
    • He chose to wait there for the others.
    • He prepared to attack if the creature came close.

  • The plant creature attacked with vines.

    • A vine whipped out at Thorn.
    • The attack roll was 20.
    • The attack hit Thorn.
    • Thorn took 12 damage.
    • The vine wrapped around Thorn, grappled him, and began pulling him toward the plant.
    • A second vine whipped out at Elora.
    • The attack hit Elora.
    • Elora took 11 damage.
    • She was also grabbed and pulled toward the plant.

  • Tempest attacked the plant creature with Fire Bolt.

    • Tempest cast Fire Bolt at the plant creature.
    • The attack hit.
    • The firebolt singed and burned off parts of the vines and flowers.
    • The creature smoldered but did not catch fully on fire.
    • The fire appeared to harm it significantly.

  • Thorn tried to free himself from the grappling vine.

    • Thorn drew his rapier.
    • He attacked the vine holding him.
    • The attack roll was low, but still hit.
    • Thorn dealt 8 damage.
    • He sliced the vine enough to break free.
    • The vine holding Thorn was severed or disabled.
    • Thorn was no longer being pulled by the plant.

  • Elora attempted to attack while restrained.

    • Elora first considered casting Ice Knife.
    • The DM reminded her that Ice Knife explodes and would also damage nearby allies, including herself and Thorn.
    • Elora decided not to cast Ice Knife.
    • She instead used Flame Blade.
    • She produced the flaming blade successfully.
    • Because she was constrained by the vine, she was not able to strike the plant creature effectively that turn.
    • Her attack missed.
    • The DM noted that she would be able to use the blade again on her next turn.

  • Maledurk attacked the plant creature in beast form.

    • Maledurk used Form of the Beast and chose a bite attack.
    • He attacked the main mass of the plant creature.
    • His first bite attack hit.
    • He dealt 15 damage.
    • Maledurk then made a second bite attack.
    • The second attack was a critical hit.
    • He dealt 19 damage with the critical bite.
    • With that bite, Maledurk tore the plant creature apart.
    • The plant creature fell inert.
    • The vine holding Elora went limp and fell to the ground.
    • Elora was freed from the restraint.

  • The party considered the white flower floating in the fountain.

    • After the plant creature died, the white flower Thorn had thrown into the fountain was still floating in the water.
    • The party wondered whether the flower might be a key to leave the room.
    • Someone picked up the white flower from the fountain.
    • Rather than carrying it away, they placed it back on or near the destroyed plant creature.
    • The DM described this as placing the flower like a lily on a grave.
    • The party decided to leave the chamber by the eastern path.
    • They joked that they had murdered an innocent flower, though the plant had tried to eat them.

  • The party exited the fountain chamber and returned to a sundial.

    • The sundial again showed shadows pointing north and east.

    • The party reviewed their prior choices:

      • They had first gone west from the sundial and reached the statue chamber.
      • They had then followed the north path and looped back to a sundial.
      • They had then gone east and reached the fountain chamber.

    • Upon returning to the sundial, it still showed north and east.

    • Someone suggested going northeast.

    • The DM clarified that the sundial was not pointing northeast, but rather had two separate shadows: one north and one east.

    • The party nevertheless chose the northeast path.

  • The party traveled northeast from the sundial.

    • They again followed a winding hedge path with no branches or choices.
    • Eventually, they came to another sundial chamber.
    • This sundial looked like the same kind of chamber as before.
    • This time the sundial cast three shadows.
    • One shadow pointed north.
    • One shadow pointed southeast.
    • One shadow pointed southwest.
    • The party chose the southwest path.

  • The party traveled southwest and reached a courtyard with a large pool.

    • The courtyard was much larger than the previous spaces.
    • It contained a circular pool of water in the center.
    • The pool was about 60 feet across and filled the center of an 80-foot-square courtyard.
    • The water was dark and murky.
    • In the center of the pool, the party saw a gemstone hovering about one foot above the water.
    • The gemstone was not the same as the red gem.
    • This new gemstone was a deep amber color.

  • Elora retrieved the amber gemstone.

    • Elora used Mage Hand to reach toward the gem.
    • She could reach it if she stood at the edge of the water.
    • She grabbed the gem with Mage Hand and pulled it back toward herself.
    • She then took it into her physical hand.
    • The amber gem felt like a normal gemstone.
    • It resembled the earlier red gem in form, but was a different color.

  • The party exited the pool courtyard while holding the amber gemstone.

    • The party decided to walk around the pool on the northern side.
    • They looked into the murky water while passing, but saw nothing else of note.
    • The party left the courtyard while holding the amber gem.
    • They returned to a sundial chamber.
    • The sundial again showed three shadows: north, southeast, and southwest.
    • The party decided to take the southeast path next.

  • The party traveled southeast and reached a pond-and-pagoda courtyard.

    • The path again wound through the hedge maze without meaningful forks.
    • The party entered another courtyard.
    • This courtyard contained a pond in the center.
    • In the middle of the pond was a pagoda built on or around a boulder protruding from the water.
    • An arched bridge connected the western edge of the pond to the pagoda.
    • The pagoda was held up by six pillars.
    • It had a red roof.
    • At the peak of the roof was a carved fish.
    • The fish statue was made of wood and appeared to be part of the pagoda’s roof.
    • Inside the pagoda stood a man wearing yellow silk robes embroidered with red and gold fish designs.
    • The party heard music playing in the area, apparently from some kind of stringed instrument.
    • As the party entered, the robed man bowed or acknowledged them, then sat down inside the pagoda.

  • The party examined the fish carving and the robed man from a distance.

    • Someone wondered whether the fish statue on top of the pagoda looked like an object worth taking.
    • The DM said the carved fish was likely as large as a person and would be difficult to carry or dislodge.
    • It seemed attached to or carved from the same wood as the roof.
    • The party called across to the robed man, asking whether he was friendly and whether he could help them get out.
    • The man smiled but did not respond.

  • Thorn investigated the pond water.

    • Thorn walked to the water.
    • He splashed it around and drank some.
    • Fish, including koi, could be seen swimming in the pond.
    • The water tasted refreshing but slightly fishy.
    • The DM described it as what one might expect from drinking fish tank water.
    • The water did not appear to have a magical effect.
    • The fish reacted normally, swimming away from Thorn’s hand rather than approaching for attention.

  • Elora considered communicating with the koi.

    • Elora wondered whether Beast Bond could allow her to ask the fish whether the robed man was dangerous or what was going on.
    • The DM initially mentioned animal friendship, then clarified that Beast Bond would allow telepathic communication with the animal.
    • Elora used Beast Bond to communicate with one of the fish.
    • The fish said it liked swimming in the water.
    • It saw many other fish in the water, perhaps “a billion,” though the fish could not count.
    • When guided to think about the man in the pagoda, the fish said that sometimes the man used water and made it really hot.
    • The fish did not like that idea.
    • The fish preferred cool water.
    • The party inferred that the man might be boiling water for tea or something similar, rather than heating the whole pond.

  • Thorn crossed the bridge to the pagoda.

    • Thorn walked across the bridge into the pagoda.
    • The robed man remained seated and smiling.
    • Inside the pagoda, Thorn saw that the boulder protruded through the pagoda’s floor.
    • The robed man was sitting on top of the boulder.
    • Silk cushions were arranged around the edges of the pagoda.
    • Beside the man was a charcoal pit with an iron teapot on it.
    • A clay jug was also nearby.
    • The robed man gestured toward the cushions.
    • Thorn understood the invitation and sat down.
    • Thorn asked whether he could have a cup of tea.
    • The man did not speak or respond verbally.
    • Thorn probed further, asking whether the man could speak and whether he was a friend.
    • The man continued to sit silently and smile.

  • Elora climbed onto the pagoda roof as a monkey.

    • Elora considered flying to the top of the pagoda, but the DM reminded her that she usually flies by wild shaping into a bird.
    • Elora instead chose to turn into a monkey.
    • As a monkey, she leapt across and climbed up to the top of the pagoda.
    • When she landed on the roof, the robed man looked at her and gestured toward a cushion inside the pagoda.
    • Elora continued climbing to inspect the fish carving.
    • Up close, the carved fish appeared to be about five or six feet long.
    • It was intricately detailed, with carved scales.
    • It appeared to be a carving of a koi like the fish in the pond.
    • Elora saw no gems in its eyes or elsewhere.
    • She noticed no seams, attachments, bolts, or other signs that it was a separate object.
    • The fish and the roof appeared to have been carved from a single piece of wood.
    • Elora climbed down, returned to her own form, and sat on one of the cushions.

  • The whole party eventually sat in the pagoda.

    • Maledurk also entered and sat on a cushion.
    • Tempest joined the others and sat as well.
    • Once all four adventurers were seated, the robed man began preparing tea.
    • He waved his hands.
    • The tea kettle floated up toward him.
    • He picked up the clay jug and poured water from it into the kettle.
    • He added leaves to the kettle.
    • He bowed to the kettle or gestured reverently toward it.
    • The kettle floated back down onto the coals.
    • The man lowered his head, almost like he was meditating.
    • He then sat silently.

  • The party made Perception or Arcana checks regarding the robed man.

    • Elora and Maledurk sensed that something was off about him, but could not determine exactly what.
    • Elora believed he might be something else, such as a magical being taking human form or an illusion in the shape of a human.
    • Thorn rolled extremely well, with a 31.
    • Thorn recognized enough from stories and lore to believe the man was a dao.
    • The DM clarified that a dao is a kind of genie.
    • Thorn also knew that dao are generally considered evil genies.
    • The dao was disguised as a human.

  • The party made Nature or Medicine checks regarding the tea.

    • The DM asked for Nature or Medicine checks.
    • Elora, as a druid, noticed the tea leaves beside the robed man.
    • The leaves were identified as Drake’s wort.
    • Elora knew Drake’s wort to be a potentially lethal herb.
    • The kettle was beginning to steam.
    • The party had not yet drunk the tea.
    • The session ended with the party seated in the pagoda, facing a disguised dao who had prepared tea containing potentially lethal Drake’s wort.