The Astral Scroll 6: The Showdown

Find out who gets the scroll in the finale!

Date: June 8, 2024

Characters present:

• Anton: tabaxi cleric
• Bib: halfling rogue
• Lazarus: drow barbarian
• Paz: half-elf bard
• Yinris: elf ranger

Character level: 5

Bib’s Slaves

Having jumped through the well, the party found themselves transported to a fantastical landscape. They stood on a rock covered in dirt and grass, floating in an endless void of swirling orange and purple. They had emerged from a well in the center of the island, much like the one in the tower. Before them stretched a long stone bridge to another much larger island. There, a path led through a garden with flowers of all colors to stairs leading up a hill to an enormous castle.

The castle had a single central tower reaching high into the orange sky. A waterfall fell from somewhere above, just grazing the right side of the castle and pouring into a small lake spilling over the edge of the island into the swirling abyss below. Small chunks of stone had come loose and were slowly drifting away from the island. Even the bridge had a fifteen-foot gap in it.

Lazarus was the only one who could make the jump with confidence. The others tied a rope to the immovable rod Anton had taken from Endar’s treasure room and threw the other end, the one with the grappling hook, to the other side. Yinris was once again determined to walk across the rope, and once again he stumbled, barely managing to catch the rope as he fell. It dug into his fingers as he held on, stinging and burning all at once. Paz tried to push him over with a wind spell, which only made things worse as Yinris lost his grip on the rope and slammed into the bridge, sending him tumbling into the infinite swirl of colors below.

The party stood in silence for a moment as they tried to process what had just happened, almost as if they were waiting for Yinris to come back. And then he did, falling from the sky, down past the bridge right where he’d fallen just a moment ago. And then again. And again. Paz used a spell to slow his fall, and then another wind spell, more successfully this time, to gently push him onto the other side of the bridge. The others climbed across the rope just fine.

Reaching the other side, the party walked down the garden path between the flowers. They heard the rumbling of the waterfall and wondered if there might be a secret cave hiding behind it. As they pondered, they noticed that the garden’s scarecrow turned to look at them.

“Oh, hello,” he said. “Who are you?”

Realizing the party didn’t have a name, Bib thought quickly. “I’m Bib and this is… Bib’s Slaves.” Nobody bothered objecting to that name.

The scarecrow’s button features looked puzzled. “You really shouldn’t be here, the whole place has been slowly falling apart since Marlin died. It exists only through his magical power, and now it’s fading. Though it’s been pretty slow, with time working funny here. But I’m starting to think we’re approaching the end.”

“Aww, we should take him with us!” exclaimed Bib.

“Well, you know what they say,” responded the Scarecrow. “A gardener always goes down with his garden. Besides, I’m also powered by Marlin’s magic. I can only live in here.”

“Do you know the way inside?” asked Yinris, caring little about the artificial gardener’s impending demise.

“Oh, sure. It’s just up the stairs ahead and through the main gate,” the scarecrow said, pointing. “Though the portcullis has been acting strange lately, you’d be better off going through the secret tunnel under the waterfall.”

“I knew it!” exclaimed Paz.

“Just head past the hedge maze on your right and you’ll get to the lake. Oh, and uh… you should probably stay clear of the other servants. Their minds are falling apart just like everything else around here.”

The hedge maze wasn’t much of a challenge. It wasn’t designed to keep people away, it was more like the eccentric gardening project of an old wizard with too much time on his hands. With Paz standing on Lazarus’ shoulders, he could see the path to the lake. As the group made their way through, they heard a high-pitched call from somewhere in the maze. “Ho!” it said. Then they heard another, and another.

“Hello?” Yinris ventured a cautious response. In response came a rumbling sound, and a small army of ceramic garden gnomes rounded the corner.

“Ho, visitors!” squeaked the gnome in the front. “Must take them to Marlin! Marlin is… dead. Take them to death!” Then the gnomes charged.

The battle wasn’t long. Paz cast a spell that shattered several of them, sending gnome shards flying all over. Yinris held his bow down low, parallel to the ground and fired, the arrow tearing through their tiny ranks. Bib picked one up and threw it at the others. Lazarus destroyed the rest by slicing through them all at once. The gnomes and their tiny ceramic shovels and pitchforks hadn’t done much to slow the party down.

Exiting the maze, they reached the lake. Dolphins were swimming in it. Talking ones. They were happy to show the party their tricks, including a particularly impressive one where the dolphin jumped out of the water and off the island, fell into the void below and reappeared in the sky above, did a backflip, and finally landed safely in the water. The other dolphins held up little signs with the number ten on them.

They were also happy to let the party ride them across to the secret entrance. Yinris borrowed Lazarus’ hat so he could be a cowboy or rather a dolphin boy. Paz asked his dolphin to repeat the backflip trick with him on its back. Once they were done fooling around they thanked the dolphins for their help and headed into the tunnel in the castle wall hidden behind the waterfall.

The Castle

Inside was a vast stone chamber with a low ceiling. Before them stood a group of creatures, humanoid with body parts made of rocks connected with chains of lightning. They all moved in perfect synchronization. Their voices were a robotic monotone.

“Take. Visitors. To. Marlin.”

“Actually, we’d prefer to just look around,” responded Paz.

“Unacceptable.”

As they pointed their stone hands in the direction of the party, charging up some kind of lightning attack, Yinris threw a rock at one of them. The creature shattered into hundreds of reflective shards. It wasn’t a creature at all. They were in a hall of mirrors.

Yinris rushed toward the maze of glass and silver, navigating it with ease. He emerged on the other side to find a single rock monster. The others followed, to varying degrees of success. Paz waved his hands through the air and spoke an incantation, producing a high-pitched note that shattered a good chunk of the maze. Then he ran in, smashed into a pane of glass, and promptly got lost.

Lazarus got lost too. Bib found her way through, passing Paz on the way. She decided to poke him, but he turned out to be a mirror. On the other side, the stone creature fired a lightning bolt at Yinris, barely missing him and destroying a bunch of mirrors instead. Once Lazarus made it through, he smashed the monster with his greatsword. Then the party took the stairs at the end of the room up into the castle.

They entered a room with red walls and a wooden floor. It was filled with trophies from various magic competitions. There was also a pedestal with a magical button on it that shrank you down to the size of a mouse when pressed. Paz enjoyed being small and decided to stay that way for a while. A door took the party to a small reading room where Bib found a copy of Bullford’s Alborynian Dictionary: Extended Edition which she took with her.

Paz found a rat hole in the wall of the trophy room which led to a miniature version of the reading room. Inside, he found miniature versions of the rest of the group. The hole behind him was now a door leading back to the trophy room. and he realized that he was back to normal size in the normal-sized reading room. He went back to push the button again, and Bib put him in her pocket.

Yinris, back in the trophy room, opened the door to what should have been the foyer. Instead, it opened to reveal a school dining hall. Based on the way the students were dressed, it had to be the Academy of the Arcane Arts. He closed the door and opened it again. Now it led to a desert at night. Again, and it led to the foyer as expected. He opened and closed it a few more times, and it switched between those three locations. Finally, he stepped into the dining hall of the academy.

The door vanished behind him. The hall was full of students in pointy hats having lunch. At a table in the far corner sat a lone student. He seemed out of place, his cheap common robes sticking out like a sore thumb in the prestigious academy. He looked like Marlin in the photo they found in Chauncey’s apartment, but younger still. He couldn’t have been more than twelve. Two others approached the table and sat down. Young Marlin looked surprised.

“You’re Kenelm Marlin, right?” asked one of the boys.

Marlin seemed nervous. “Uhm… yeah,” he responded.

“I’m Chauncey and this is Silas,” he said, gesturing at the boy next to him. “I heard you got in here by winning that magic contest, is it true that you can cast fireball?”

Marlin’s face lit up. “Well, sometimes. The hard part is—”

Then the dining hall vanished and Yinris found himself in the foyer.

Anton, Lazarus, and Bib—with tiny Paz in her pocket—hadn’t followed Yinris into the dining hall. Instead, they’d closed the door behind him, opened it once more, and stepped into the desert. They heard a voice calling from behind.

“Guys! It’s here! I found it!” exclaimed Marlin, a few years older now than he’d been in the dining hall. He was looking into a smoldering crater. Chauncey and Silas came running, kicking up sand as they went. At the bottom of the crater was an orb of glass the size of a small boulder, white, blue, and purple light shining from within. A fallen star.

“What kind of magic do you suppose we could create from this?” asked Silas, beaming with awe. Then they were in the foyer next to Yinris.

It was a massive room, with thick double doors leading outside. Before them were two curved staircases, one to the left and one to the right, leading up to a balcony overlooking the area. The party also found a door leading to a room that looked like a movie theater. A crystal ball projected a bird’s-eye view of Casteria onto a large piece of cloth hanging before the chairs. Was Marlin looking after the city or was he just a weirdo?

Heading up the stairs onto the balcony, the group opened a door leading back to the floor of the foyer. Inside stood Marlin and Chauncey, now grown men, arguing.

“Please, Marlin. Yours is the only one left, you have to use it to try and bring Silas back!”

“It didn’t work for you, did it? And whatever Silas wished for, he clearly got something else. I won’t try and change the past. I know it’s terrible, but we have no idea what will happen.” Then the men disappeared and the second foyer turned into a dining room.

Through there, the party made their way to a hallway that wasn’t working properly at all. The floorboards seemed to pop in and out of reality, revealing the theater room below. They tried to run across one by one, failing over and over, racking up fall damage as they went. Paz finally figured that he should probably return to normal size for this part, so Bib brought him back to the trophy room so he could push the button. Eventually, everyone made it across.

The bottom of the tower awaited them at the end of the corridor. There were no stairs leading up, just an empty shaft stretching high above them. The cylindrical interior wall was made from bent wooden planks. On the floor was a children’s pool filled with water and what looked like a hula hoop. Bib jumped into the pool, discovering that it was slick and soapy. She stood up inside the hoop and lifted it, creating a large soap bubble around herself. Then she slowly began floating into the air. The others followed. Yinris wanted to prank Paz by shooting an arrow at his bubble but changed his mind once he realized that he’d have to shoot through his own bubble too. Instead, Paz cast a wind spell on Yinris’ bubble, sending it rolling along the wall.

Floating to the top, they popped their bubbles as they reached a small platform leading to a narrow corridor. In the corridor stood no one less than Kenelm Marlin. Gray beard and hair, red wizard robes, pointy hat, the whole nine yards. Well, maybe seven or eight yards, since he was somewhat translucent.

“Marlin?” asked Bib.

“Well, what’s left of me. Out there I’m long gone, but time works differently in here. I’m fading away, and this place is fading with me. You should get out of here. But you’re after the scroll, aren’t you?”

“I want to keep it safe,” said Bib.

“I want to use it to make everyone know that I’m the one who found it,” Paz said with pride.

Marlin’s face grew stern. “Do you want to know what the other Astral Scrolls were used for?” He paused. “Silas used his first. I’m not sure what he wished for, but it was probably the power to rule the world or something grand and foolish like that. Whatever it was, it’s not what he got. Or maybe it was. A sick and twisted version of it. Misanthropy, unlimited magical power and immortality, that’s what he ended up with. A horrifying combination. Chauncey used his wish to try and undo it, but it just made Silas vanish. I didn’t dare use mine to try again. I didn’t dare use it at all. I wish we’d never found them, then Chauncey would still be my friend and Silas would still be alive. But I guess it’s your problem now.” Then he faded away.

The Astral Sroll

The next room was round, stained glass windows on the walls letting in colorful light. It was filled with magical items of all kinds—bubbling potions, ancient scrolls, scintillating stones, strange feathers, bags, boots, cloaks, weapons, arrows, helms, lanterns, orbs, everything an adventurer could ever want. But one item stood apart from the rest. At the far end of the room was a pedestal. On the pedestal was a scroll, untouched by time, its ink shimmering with white, blue and pink. The Astral Scroll.

At first, nobody moved. Yinris grabbed a fine green cloak, keeping his eyes on the scroll. Then Anton rushed to the pedestal, closely followed by Lazarus. That’s when they heard the sound of glass breaking behind them. The whole group froze, turning to look at the broken window.

Outside was Saryx, the elf with a scar across one eye. “Hi there. I believe that’s mine,” he said, pointing at the scroll with a wide grin.

“It’s mine!” said Paz.

“I don’t believe I’ve properly introduced myself,” continued Saryx. “My full name is Endarnymsaryxpalar. Pleasure to meet you.” His smile grew unnaturally wide. The party’s hearts froze. They knew that only one type of creature had that kind of long and complicated name. The man outside the window began to grow, his shape contorting until he was no man at all. He was a massive, red dragon.

Bib was the first to react, drawing her branch and firing it at the pedestal. It produced a swarm of butterflies covering half the room. They didn’t last long as the dragon took a deep breath and exhaled fire in the direction of Anton and Lazarus. It knocked Anton unconscious immediately and Lazarus was barely standing. Then the dragon flew out of view, moving toward the window right behind the pedestal. Bib fired her branch wand again, this time producing a lightning bolt, knocking the scroll off the pedestal. Lazarus picked it up, clutching it tightly to his chest.

Yinris dashed over to the rack of potions, drinking a pink one that he recognized as a healing elixir. He threw a similar-looking one to Bib, telling her to bring it to Anton as he drew his bow and loaded it with one of the pony unicorn horn arrows he’d taken from Endar or, he supposed, Endarnymsaryxpalar. The dragon reappeared, smashing the window above the pedestal with his claws and reaching for Lazarus. Paz hurled a magical insult at the dragon, to no effect. Yinris managed to get off two horn arrows, both exploding in a shower of confetti upon hitting the dragon, dealing a surprising amount of damage.

Bib threw the healing elixir to Lazarus instead of Anton, who drank it right before the dragon covered him in flames once more. He was still standing, still clutching the scroll, but he was badly hurt. With a thundering crash, the tower began to shake and tilt. Marlin’s demiplane was coming apart. They all rushed for the door, closing it behind them before the dragon could incinerate them. Yinris had managed to drag an unconscious Anton with him. On Paz’s signal, they all jumped, and he spent his last spell slot on slowing their fall. But they weren’t the only ones falling. The tower began to topple over too, forcing them to slide down the last bit.

They ran into the hall with the shifting floor planks and dropped through the floor into the theater. They ran into the foyer where Yinris opened the double doors while Lazarus and Bib hurried toward the trophy room. Paz charged headfirst out the double doors where his path was blocked by a portcullis, stuck partially in the ground, shifting back and forth, and blinking in and out of existence. He jumped, just barely timing it right and making it through the portcullis. Yinris tried the same thing, but his timing was off and part of the portcullis ended up intersecting his leg as it popped back into existence. This sent Yinris’ leg shooting out of it, dragging the rest of his body with it and knocking him unconscious as he landed. Paz fed him his last healing potion.

Bib and Lazarus entered the trophy room to find it destroyed, the ceiling and walls having collapsed. The pedestal with the button was cracked in half. They decided to use it anyway. Lazarus pushed the scroll to it, causing it to shrink, but only a little. Then Bib pushed the button herself, turning her from a halfling into a quarterling. With a second push, she grew bigger than Lazarus. Lazarus reluctantly handed her the map for safekeeping, not daring to become the target of another breath of fire.

They hurried back into the hall, parts of the ceiling falling on them. Bib slung Anton over her shoulder and jumped through the portcullis with Lazarus. Outside, the dragon sat waiting in the garden, smiling. Then he incinerated the scarecrow with little more than a cough. The party walked up to him. The stone bridge behind him had fallen apart. By the little island with the well—their portal home—was the immovable rod they’d left behind, the rope with the grappling hook dangling from it.

The dragon held out his clawed hand, giving them a chance to hand over the scroll. The group looked at one another. They all had the same determined look in their eyes. If they were going down, they’d go down fighting. They couldn’t let the scroll fall into the hands of someone like Endar or whatever his painfully long name was. Everyone was down to single-digit hit points.

Paz was the first to act. He pulled out the potion he’d taken from the brewery. It was labeled polymorphine and he wasn’t sure what it did. He drank it and turned into a sheep. While the others drew their weapons and the dragon prepared to bathe them in fire, he ran past, as fast as his sheep legs could carry, doing his best to estimate the jump to the well. He lept off what was left of the bridge, coming up way short of both the island and the rope. He fell, reappearing far above the islands and falling again, his momentum still carrying him forward. With every fall he could see the island with the well coming closer and closer. His fall was accelerating, and he was nearly there. Would he slam right into it? And if he did, would he turn back into his human form unharmed? Or would be knocked unconscious, falling over and over in a dimension that would collapse upon itself in less than a minute’s time, out of spells and out of healing potions. No, he had to make this landing.

He curled his new sheep form into a ball and closed his eyes. With a roll of a natural twenty, he landed dead center in the well.

They were lucky that the dragon was slow to react. Lazarus slashed at it with all his might. Bib climbed onto its back and stabbed it with her poisoned dagger. Yinris fired his final ponycorn horn arrow, striking true, blasting the dragon off the island in a rainbow explosion of confetti and glitter. It was dead. Bib picked up Anton again. She, Lazarus, and Yinris ran as fast as they could toward the edge of the broken bridge. Behind them, the world was beginning to warp. The castle was shrinking and the swirling orange and purple all around them was turning black. It seemed to be coming closer, as if the very edges of space and time were about to converge and crush them.

They jumped. Despite everyone but Lazarus dumping strength, they all managed to jump far enough to reach the rope. And they all caught it, Yinris grabbing it highest, Lazarus beneath him, and Bib with Anton catching the grappling hook at the end of the rope. They climbed for their lives. Yinris made it up and into the well. Then Lazarus. Bib got up on the island just as the darkness was upon her. Before the world could collapse around her, she pulled out the Astral Scroll and threw it into the darkness. Then she jumped into the well.

Epilogue

So, nobody got the scroll. But in the end, nobody seemed to mind all that much. Anton was happy, of course, having intended to destroy it from the very beginning. Bib had realized in that critical moment in Marlin’s demiplane, just as the world came crashing down upon her, that preserving the scroll in the library was never going to be an option. Not as long as people like Endar existed. And Paz, she supposed.

Speaking of Paz, he wrote a book about the whole adventure, and this one was good because it was true. It became a bestseller and it didn’t take long before everyone in town knew Paz’s role in finding the Astral Scroll, which was exactly what he had wished for in the first place. The book was even allowed into the library Bib worked at, ending their feud once and for all.

Lazarus never did get his loved one back. Time comes for us all, and death is a natural part of life. Losing people is something we all have to accept. But it was made easier now, with a solid group of companions by his side, friendships forged in the fires of adventure. It was something that had affected Yinris too. He found himself no longer caring about the industrialization of his homeland. He was no longer a grumpy loner. He had lost his loneliness out there in the wilds, and it seemed to have taken his grumpiness with it.

And so, their lives moved on. But how could one move on after such a journey? Go back to a normal life void of life-threatening adventure and magic? Returning to years and years of identical days that seem to pass by in fast-forward? Well, perhaps they’d be back for more adventure. After all, there’d been talk around town of a strange disease that only affects elves. And there was that strange mist rolling in from the west…