Chapter 6: The Legend of Estanouhir

Opening the front doors (Or bashing them down. I'm not sure which they agreed on, but the end result was the same), the Pushermen found themselves in the lobby of the mansion that was most recently occupied by a cult of, if the web-themed decor could be trusted, followers of Lolth the Spider Queen. They found a black book written in elven. None of them understood the language, but Samel knew its alphabet, and the name "Lolth" in the title confirmed their suspicions.

Inside the book, they also found a card with the word "ESTANOUHIR" written in the elven alphabet. Was this someone's name? It wasn't familiar to anyone. Samel spent his time trying to identify the card while Nalied looked at the fancy doors. One of them had a golden doorknob shaped like a hand. He tried to turn it, and it grabbed his wrist and started squeezing, but he forced his way free before it did any harm.

The lobby inspection was cut short by a woman screaming. The sound came through the opposite door. Running through into the hallway and through the far door, one of them lit a sun rod and saw that the screaming came not from a woman but from a giant spider. The spider had learned to scream like a human woman in order to lure in rescuers when it got hungry. Also waiting to feast were another giant spider and a swarm of smaller ones.

Underneath the large web covering half the room was a golden doorknob. Instantly, the heroes knew they found the key to the other door. The spiders were ruthless and hungry but were defeated in time, and the web was burned away to recover the doorknob.

Before diving too deep into the secrets of the cult, they group chose to try the third door in the lobby, leading into a short corridor with two spiral staircases leading up and down on either side, both locked away behind heavy iron gates. Nalied tried his hand at picking the locks for several minutes, but the mechanism proved more difficult than he was capable of defeating. Time to move on.

All throughout this, the party was taking turns deciphering the card they found. The letters could be rearranged to make a good handful of words, none of which were in any way useful. And Samel had taken to shouting "Estanouhir!" at things to see how they reacted. But anyway.

In the next room they found a sort of art gallery/tribute room. On the wall hung six portraits of former drow leaders, all wearing identical robes and pins shaped like the symbol of Lolth. Each painting had a leader's name and the dates they were in power. (None of them were named Estanouhir.) In the center of the room was a statue of the founder of the cult in the same outfit holding a staff. On the west wall was an iron portcullis leading into a small alcove with nothing but a few random bones inside. Maybe they used to keep a dangerous pet in there. On the north wall were three identical double doors with large grinning skulls in the middle of them. Above the doors were numbers, 30738, 31402, and 42812.

On a hunch, Ka-Moh tried the center door and was blasted with corrosive acid. That was not the correct door. No more trying doors, they decided, until they figured out the numbers. Chrome tended to Ka-Moh's chemical burns, and one of them decided to try lifting the portcullis. After two tries, it was up. Nalied randomly tossed a sun rod into the alcove and saw it cause ripples in the air and then stop. It wasn't empty. A gelatinous cube of living corrosive goo slimed its way out and engulfed Ka-Moh, who escaped and was re-engulfed two or three times. After learning to keep their distance, the Pushermen launched ranged attacks until the cube had melted down to nothing.

Afterwards, the group spent a good while trying to decipher both the numbers above the doors and who and what the portraits were supposed to be exactly. After I hit everyone over the head with a clue hammer, they figured out the letters in "Estanouhir" correspond with the numbers "1234567890", giving the doors labels of "Truth", "Tears", and "Ashes". The correct door, of course, was Truth.

...

And since I've had a few chapters worth of posts happen since I started writing this, I'll cut this off here and try and only post major plot points and a few interesting details. I hope.