"Do we need to become older to face the Eon Pit?" Santrel wondered.
"Aging is not all it is assumed to be," Fanara answered. "Just look at Milos, he can hardly see or walk well these days."
"But I can keep all of you in good health, that is worth more than my reduced sight. I can see other things than just with my eyes!" Milos retorted.
Fanara attempted to determine meaning from the warnings and was not happy to find that the phrase was part of a "croning ritual" performed by older witches to celebrate the symbolic and spiritual transformation from motherhood into their elderly years.
"Do we really want to get that old?" Casia asked.
"Let me try to read Psychic Significance here for anyone moving over the rune," Fanara continued.
She saw many humans crossing the rune and being shocked and dismayed as they were moved forward in age. Some completely broke into crying and rage while others were less despondent but moved forward. Some turned back and crossed the rune again, aging further toward old age.
"Are there any who were happy or didn't age?" Casia inquired.
Fanara tried again and found a minimum of cases where the woman, and they were all women, didn't age and confidently strode further down the stairs.
"Maybe we need to get older to traverse the pit?" Santrel again stressed.
"But the ritual probably takes you life at the end and who knows what in the middle," Fanara countered once again.
"Let's just go try the pit," Casia said, annoyed.
Somewhat reluctantly the party decided to give the pit an attempt since it did hold one of the keys they needed. It was a long trip around to get back to the pit since they did not want to traverse the Glyphed stairs, but they finally made it and the pit looked as fearsome as ever.
"How should we go about this?" Amadeo asked, "I have a ring of feather fall."
"I'll summon a dog. We can send him down first," Milos advanced.
"I'm ready to go," Jorgen said dancing at the top of the stairs.
Milos summoned the dog and it started down the steps, Amadeo and Jorgen followed quickly and Santrel decided to take a few steps in. As they looked around it seemed as though the dog had aged and Jorgen and Santrel felt some aging also. Santrel stood and babbled while Jorgen and Amadeo continued down the stairs with the dog.
Casia, Milos were standing watch and Fanara yelled for her brother to come back up the steps. The dog looked older once again and Amadeo just leapt out over the pit and floated down. Casia moved double speed down the stairs as Jorgen babbled and Santrel headed back up the stairs. Milos took a few steps down.
Santrel, feeling brave for once, walked down the stairs and then used his Arcane slide to the bottom of the pit. Casia joined him and Fanara tied three ropes together and then to a menhir and over the edge of the pit. Jorgen stabbed himself with Emberchill.
The bottom of the Eon Pit was covered with the countless bones, mostly humanoid. There was nothing of value among the dusty, aged bones, but Santrel's trained eye revealed a single magic blue dragon scale lying on the stone floor in an area cleared of bones. Before Casia could move toward the scale Santrel rushed forward to attack her with his dagger. Luckily he missed. Casia then hurried to the dragon scale, scooped it up and headed back toward the stairs. Amadeo hit the floor and began climbing the rope back out of the pit.
Jorgen, after getting snapped at by the dog, headed up out of the pit as did Milos.
"Why did you leave my brother down in the pit?" Fanara screamed at Jorgen
"I didn't he was behind me and then left. I don't recall much else." Jorgen answered.
Amadeo clambered up the rope as Santrel used his slide in reverse to get out of the pit. Casia was still climbing up with the scale. Just as she made the top Jorgen lunged forward and attacked Fanara as she berated him once again. Fanara returned the favor, stepping back an smacking Jorgen with her hammer. With a quick lull in the action as Santrel and Jorgen babbled incessantly, the party tied up their hands and removed their weapons.
"Now what do we do? We can't go around attacking each other," Casia implored.
Just then Jadrenka the Crone popped into the room.
She removed the necklace with the gold nugget from around her neck and presented it to Caisa.
"Take this as the second key. Baba Yaga meant them for the Riders but it seems you have their mantle now."
"What do you know of the keys?" Milos asked.
"I know they are not the original keys, only copies left here by Baba Yaga. If the Queen of Witches did not return to Irrisen as planned, her Three Riders were to use the keys to follow her in her Dancing Hut. Unfortunately, Baba Yaga never told me where these keys would take the hut."
"Can you help two of our party who seem to be under some kind of Insanity?" Fanara inquired.
"Of course I can help, who needs the Healing?" Jadrenka answered.
"These two," Fanara said indicating Santrel and Jorgen.
Jadrenka cast a Heal spell on each, which gave them complete recovery from insanity and injuries.
"Is there another way out of Artrosa or do we have to climb down the pillar?" Santrel asked.
"There is only one way out. You will have to find your own way down again. Good Luck." And with that Jadrenka disappeared once again.
Now the party needed to make their way back to the entrance in the Maiden hoping to exit there. Traversing the transportation between pillars finally led them back to the entry room. Climbing the 300 or so feet up to the door was tiring and when they found a blank stone wall, all were disappointed.
"Well maybe we passed from the waxing moon into the full moon. That means that the entrance will be in another pillar," Fanara suggested.
"I think we need to find the entry or exit from the Mother," Santrel said. "At least that is what the clues lead to."
The party headed off to find any passageways they had not traversed in the Mother, but first they had to solve a trap in one of the transportation rooms. While the walls of this small cavern were rough and jagged; the stone floor was smooth and had been swept clean. A small pool of water surrounded by pale white stones lay to the west. Along the opposite wall to the east, an oaken table holding a wooden bowl and a silver chalice sat in a small alcove. To the northeast, a short passage led to a stone door engraved with the image of a naked, pregnant woman sitting in a meditative pose. The woman's hands lie folded in her lap, and a full moon is painted upon her belly. A trio of waist-high pillars of stout gray stone stood in the corridor just before the door.
The tops of the three stone pillars in the northeast passage had been hollowed out to create shallow fonts or bowls, each with an engraved symbol chiseled into the bottom of the font. From west to east, the symbols were a stylized ear of corn, a six-spoked wheel, and a downward pointing triangle inside a circle. Santrel had previously determined that the symbols represented corn, the sun, and water.
The wooden bowl on the table contained corn seed which Santrel placed in the first bowl. Santrel then cast light on the bottom of the second bowl. Fanara gathered water from the pool into the chalice and poured it into the third bowl. With that Jorgen could see that the trap was gone or at least disabled and the party made its way through the door into the Mother and Marislova's chambers.
DM's Notes: The party earned 7,467 XP (63,362 XP total) for the session and now have the keys to the hut, if they can make it back to it.
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