Justin's Game Notes: DnD Thu Ep#75(285) Played Apr 25, 2019 (Ches 12, 1490) HS!!!

INTRODUCTION

When last we left Team Deep Hammers

and those fortunate enough to join them

in the quest to save the Universe

Aurora had discovered a flight of ancient

stone stairs leading down into

some as-yet unseen cavern,

and the party's new members got a taste

of what it's like to go adventuring with

The Deep Hammers ...

Treasure Anyone?

In which the team descends some seriously creeepy stairs

The stairs are ancient and carved from the living rock
They are sized to allow a fully armed dwarf to pass comfortably
They are surprisingly un-warn for their age
They spiral down inside the solid rock then emerge around a stone pillar within a large shaft
At the bottom, the wall of the shaft (unlit, part natural, part hewn) is collapsed to the NE (10'high, 5' wide) and the opening is covered in a thick, thick webbing from behind which radiates an eeeerie cyan blue light.
Beyond the webbing the wall of the exposed MASSIVE cavern drop another 100' to the engineered floor below
CAVERN 1000+' across, vaulted 500+ feet high, and ...

300' shaft descending in the center of the floor
In the center of the shaft is suspended a 200'diameter shimmering sphere of cyan-blue energy, supported or suspended by a superstructure of gleaming silver metal.

The sphere is serviced by six 100' wide bridges which approach it from opposing directions (think intersection = hexagon inscribed in the sphere's circle)
Each bridge connects the sphere to a circular arrangement of 7 permanent teleportation circles, 42 in all.

Those in the party who can climb down or fly down, suspend rope and an immovable rod to allow the others to descend to the floor below.
After AURORA catches SWIG just as he starts to fall, the group successfully make it to the floor of the cavern and begin to explore.

There's only one physical entrance/exit by the means through which the party just entered.
FLORA, VERALT and HERBAK begin to explore the writing on the Permanent Teleportation Circles and on the activation panels (ornately decorated black stone with inlaid gold and other metal runes) to see if they can figure out how things work.
CIRCLES - the teleportation circles are permanent, which take a year or more to create, and their markings indicate that they are connected to locations in and around MIRABAR
SPHERE - the activation panels of the sphere (six in all) suggest a few things:

IN BOUND - that traffic can come from the sphere into the cavern, allowing passage from OTHER WORLDS to this cavern.
OUT BOUND - that traffic can flow into the sphere from the ramps, travelling to other worlds.
SIMULTANEOUS - the sphere can pass traffic TO or FROM six worlds at the same time.

LLYRIN and GILAM and others are able to confirm (over the course of about 20 minutes of searching) that there is no other way out of the cavern save through the opening in the wall through which they just passed ... atop the 100 foot cliff.

The central sphere suddenly becomes MUCH brighter, emanating a nearly blinding blue light for a few seconds before dimmer to merely 10 times its previous luminescence.
A deep thrumming noise fills the cavern
Out of each of the archways emerge