The game begins with crew on a Spelljammer vessel dying horribly, as evinced by their screams. Last time the PCs had passes the ghost’s menagerie and clambered up the stairs into a ruined building. Flavor text wafts around them.

DM: Something about the way the shadows play across the keep and light doesn’t seem to illuminate it quite the way it should strikes a primal chord of terror deep within your souls. Not the sort of terror that would inspire a Will save, just keep it in mind for roleplaying purposes.
Brunt: A horrible night to have a curse.
Lucian: (rolling) Damn.
Normilan: You wasted that roll.
Lucian: Yes I did.
DM: You hit yourself!
Lucian: No, no, that was for my Will save. I know you said not to…
DM: You know what happens when you roll a save you don’t have to around this table.
Brunt: You still fail!

They discover they can’t hear Giles for some reason and move to fix that. Illusionary spider silk plagues them, possibly ectoplasm?

Brunt: Brunt’s new voice is Black Panther. “I do not theenk we should goh this way.”
DM: Mexican Black Panther?

Brunt improves his accent substantially. It gets weird.

DM: ‘My name is Normilan Shapeweaver. I killed a kingdom. Prepare to die.’

The group giggles about ethnocide again. They encourage Normilan to get an extremely fanatic, racist follower. They begin treating this as a Dark Souls campaign with shortcuts and disasters. Brunt turns Cruroar into Battle-Cat. Some long debate over what to do occurs, with the DM indicating the keep is the only place they should go and the players looking for anywhere else to go but that.

DM: You step towards the keep. The great doors creak ominously open.
Normilan: ‘Nope.’
DM: For some reason, they appear to be in fine condition despite being metal-banded wood. Time does not appear to have touched them.
Giles: So since when did we have technology to have motion-sensing opening doors?
Brunt: It’s called magic.

Normilan attempts to disbelieve the doors. He does not. Some Knowledge(religion) rolls tell them that the ghost has made the castle basically into a lair, a little malleable to its will. Some debate occurs over what binds the ghost to unlife.

Normilan: Could be the destruction of his god that kept him here.
DM: Bring the Mad God back, that’ll solve it.
Cruroar: Does he have a girlfriend? Do we need to break his heart?
DM: ‘I’m an inceeeeeel!’

Brunt declares himself a noncombatant and asks for spells that will stop him when he’s inevitably possessed. They vow to kill him.

Lucian: Lucian is fucking useless, dude. He has no skills.
Normilan: Why’d you even let him have these stats? Let him reroll them!
Brunt: He probably feels as though through the different incarnations of Tasha, Lucian’s had like four characters in this campaign already, so if he has a garbage one this time it’s only his due.
Normilan: Just be suicidal, you can bring another character in.
Lucian: I feel like I should kill him off and bring another cleric in, Sasha.
Normilan: The Abstinent.
Brunt: Or Marros, the Hands of Fate.
DM: Marros the Intolerable.

Lucian attempts to get Torgo as his cohort; he instead winds up with Beaker. Actively embracing Normilan’s advice, Lucian strides straight in.

DM: You guys see your elven friend step blindly forward and start fumbling around in midair.
Giles: “What the hell?”
Lucian: “It’s dark in here!”
Normilan: I gotta do a Wisdom check. ‘That’s a good idea—‘ no. I rolled a natural 20. “What an idiot!” So I cast Light.

In they step, into a wide hall with pillars on each side, and naturally as soon as they all enter the doors start to close. Brunt, having anticipated this, promptly catches them and stops them till the others can wedge the doors shut.

DM: Would Giles like to roll a Disable Device?
Giles: Yes I would.
Brunt: Not if you have to tear him away from his whole turkey.

Giles succeeds excellently and jams the device. Brunt is pleased at winning a victory he declares to be purely symbolic.

DM: Moving forwards, between the second set of pillars you see an unusual large bulge –
Lucian: “Ooh what’s that?”
DM: Directly beneath the carpet, the oddly-preserved carpet.
Lucian: I’m gonna go poke it!
DM: With what?
Lucian: With my foot!
Brunt: With his bulge!
DM: Y’all see him run forward and start poking at a bulge in the floor.

The group can’t stop giggling at the world ‘bulge’. Normilan gets racist against elves right with Quirion there. Lucian cuts the carpet open and finds a raised stone, then promptly begins prying it up.

Brunt: You’re on your own.
Lucian: 11.
DM: Your sword begins to bend.
Lucian: Keep going!
DM: Your sword snaps.
Lucian: Aaaah, I lost a shortsword.
Normilan: I conjure up an illusion of popcorn.
Lucian: I got a crowbar, I use that instead.
DM: How smart! Why didn’t you use that instead of a sword?
Lucian: Because I forgot I had it.
DM: That is in keeping with my mental stats.

Cruroar sees stairs at the end of the hall with his improved darkvision, and Lucian attempts to charge them without even knowing they’re there. The panel glows, then sinks, and giant blades deploy from the pillars around them and begin to spin! Immediately, extensive discussion erupts over what the blade coverage is and why they can’t just walk on ahead. Lucian throws a grappling hook at… something, then shrugs and just drops to the ground. Others follow suit, and still others run for the stairs. Brunt goes for the SUNDER!

Brunt: I wonder if you creating something would stop the blades from spinning. That solid mass you create…
Normilan: That’s true. It does weigh 2000lbs.

Brunt doesn’t sunder the blade and takes 4 damage from it, then Normilan gets hit as well. The ghost emerges, and Cruroar shows back to the table! They catch him up.

Cruroar: So they got hit by the blades, took some damage. They didn’t instantly die.
DM: Correct.
Cruroar: They’re not vorpal sword blades…

Initiative and map drawing time! The DM puts pillars down and is again accused of writing an encounter solely to use miniatures. The ghost, swift to act, drains Lucian’s Wisdom! He’s down to 4!

Lucian: Question. So if your Intelligence gets too low, you can no longer be like, coherent speech or anything like that. What if your Wisdom gets too low? My Wisdom modifier is -4.
DM: You play like you normally do.
Normilan and Brunt: Awwwww.
Cruroar: OHHHHOHOHOHO! Oh my god!
DM: Hey. Thank you.
Cruroar: Someone call 911, there’s been a burn!
Normilan: I cast Blockade.

The blades attack, and do some damage all around. Normilan’s spell catches the blade whipping at him, and breaks a mechanism inside the pillar! Unfortunately, this spins up the other blades because they were all connected. A long rules debate erupts on whether Brunt can move the blockade box; it turns out he can!

Lucian: Does anyone else find it ridiculous that he can push a ton?
Normilan: He has a 23 Strength, you know how strong that is?!
Cruroar: There’s people in real life that can pull busses.

With a Strength roll, he pushes it 10 feet, getting it into the path of another blade. Giles jumps forward to disable another one, while Rock Dude lunges into another pillar to work on it. Cruroar lobs a dispel, but nothing happens. Moving forward, they see a great pair of double doors that are quivering. Lucian’s Wisdom gets dropped by 2 more points!

Lucian: “There’s no way it’s gonna attack me a third time in the same place! I’ll stay here!”
Normilan: Why do I gotta drag his comatose ass around?
DM: You could leave him there.
Normilan: It’s not in my character…

Normilan uses magic to rust a blade and weaken it, while Eilnys tries to talk Lucian into moving. He rolls stupidly.

Lucian: “There you go. I moved.”
Normilan: “Double move, please.”

A blade survives the blockade by pure luck, so Brunt calls for Normilan to help him move it again.

Brunt: ‘Come on, Normilan! Caius is making his big push, and we gotta push back!” 24?
DM: You can push it… 25 feet.

Giles breaks a pillar, and then the blockade snaps a second, leaving the remaining blades whirling around obscenely quickly. The doors begin making noise!

Cruroar: Quirion needs to catch up.
Brunt: Quirion is fine where he’s at!
DM: “I’m not standing up into this! I have common sense now! It’s character development I tell you!”
Cruroar: “But you don’t want to be alone with the ghost!”
DM: “AAH! THE GHOST!” (miming Quirion standing up and being decapitated, so that his head flies into Cruroar’s hands) “Cruroar… why?” How it spoke without lungs to push air past its vocal cords, you’ll never know.

Cruroar tries to eldritch blast a pillar, critically fails, and suffers a point of Con damage. He curls up.

Cruroar: “Ohhhh! Ohhhh!” I’m just floating and tucked in the air.
Normilan: Oh great. Now he’s gunshy with his own magic.
Brunt: Don’t worry, it happens to lots of wizards.
DM: The ghost surges up out of the ground, hand extended… sees Lucian not there. (miming reaching slightly)
Normilan: Please roll a 1.
DM: Another 1d4!
Lucian: Where’s, um…
DM: You’ve been throwing them at me.
Lucian: I know.
DM: Angrily.
Normilan: Don’t throw it. Or I’ll throw you.

Lucian hangs on at 1 Wisdom, but the ghost has revealed himself! Normilan promptly flings Manyjaws at him, then Eilnys heads for him! She rolls a natural 20. No one forgives her for it. Quirion apparently prays to Mecca? Lucian, still prone, goes for a stab!

Lucian: I have a shortsword…
Normilan: Is it magical?
Lucian: Yes, it has Ghost Slatch – Ghost Touch.
DM: Ghost Snatch.
Cruroar: That’s a horrible, horrible weapon!

Somehow he manages to hit. Eilnys gets slashed by a trap blade for 20! They realize the blades are much more savage now, which leads them to reassess their position. Giles rolls for another disable, but actually fails this one! He promptly spends a chronocharm(?) to reroll and passes handily.

DM: You have a brief and horrible vision of the future in which you get hit by a blade, but magic courses through your charm for what feels like the second time, but surely it can’t be. The pillar catches on it, grinding it to dust, but the blade wobbles and the greater instability caused by it causes the pillar to shift out of alignment slightly with a foul crunch.
Cruroar: Is – is it broken, though?
DM: Yes.

Eilnys takes a further 27 damage from the blade! Then the doors burst open and a wave of oil surges into the room, making Giles roll a save.

Normilan: Meanwhile, Cruroar’s like, ‘Man, this all kind of sucks, doesn’t it.’
Cruroar: ‘My hand!’
DM: Oh, wait till you get to the Fizzy Lifting Drinks, boy!

Giles clings on; his goggles do nothing. Cruroar fires Magic Missiles into the ghost, who promptly Withdraws into the floor. The oil surges on!

Cruroar: Is this like a backwash of the oil that keeps the mechanism going?
DM: Yes, absolutely.
Cruroar: What the fuck else is it?! Nothing else – that makes just as much sense as whatever the real reason is!
Giles: Yeah, it’s totally, ‘if someone happens to jam rocks into three pillars, we just dump oil on them.’

Normilan suspects this is something akin to alchemist’s fire. Panic sets in!

Cruroar: If only we had somebody to cast Create Water. This would be a good time to dilute the water here.
DM: That doesn’t – WHAT?!
Cruroar: Dilute the liquid to make it less flammable.
DM: Oh, dilute, not delete. That still wouldn’t work! Oil and water don’t MIX!
Cruroar: It would give us something to sit under, I guess.
DM: …what?
Normilan: …what?

Normilan runs back for Quirion, realizes this would saw him in twain, and casts Flight of the Dragon instead to get over there. Eilnys tries to head for safety.

DM: Why are you blaming me for this?
Eilnys: Because it’s your fault.

The characters continue their quest to get the hell out of trouble. Or take an oil bath.

Brunt: Yeah, out comes the ghost with a fireball spell and light the whole floor ablaze.
Normilan: I was about to say, we gotta get up there quick.

They plan to set the place on fire, while demanding the treasure not burn somehow. Giles attempts to retreat to the group so he can get on the staircase, then realizes he’s right next to them and attempts to climb them.

Normilan: Watch. Watch him do it. Like a frickin’ Scooby Doo haunted house. Steps go vwhoom, and because we got greasy feet, woop woop woop woop!
DM: Two things happen just as Giles mounts the steps.
Normilan: Oh, does that trigger…?
DM: The oil continuing to surge forward rushes over those of you who moved forward. I want Brunt and Eilnys to give me a Reflex save.
Brunt: Down I go. (rolling a 20)
DM: Nope!
Brunt: Okay. I stand and open my jaws and gulp all of the liquid down.
Normilan: Everyone’s getting the spite 20s tonight.
DM: All of you see a brief glint of light –
Eilnys: Oh shit.
DM: --tumble from beneath that balcony downwards. The keen-eyed amongst you might even identify it as a tindertwig.
Cruroar: “OH SHIIIIIT!”

Since he can fly, Cruroar – he of little Strength – checks the rulebook to see if he can rescue anyone.

DM: Your maximum weight is 80 lbs.
Cruroar: I can barely! Lift! Myself! To move! Around! How is that po—I need to lower my weight apparently!

Cruroar demands he transform into a Monty Burns evil councilmember. He ends up moving for position.

Cruroar: I’m gonna look around and hold my action. If I see some dashling ghost, I’m gonna try to scare them off!

This makes everyone crack, mostly because Cruroar was miming wild motions with his hands that the DM describe as ‘Sailor Mooning’. Normilan rescues Quirion and contemplates doing the same with Lucian.

DM: “This is more fire than I expected, Normilan!”
Normilan: “Me too!”

Eilnys starts swimming for safety, but cannot avoid the DM’s puns. Lucian concludes ‘fire bad’ and leaps beneath the oil! Giles, convinced there must be a button, moves up and gets a Reflex save called for – at which the group argues furiously he didn’t move and stuff. He begins starting, and discovers that there is no floor up on the balcony beneath the carpet!

Normilan: This is a bridge again! You’re an ass.
DM: That’s not the word you’re looking for.
Eilnys: Douchebag!
DM: Nope!
Normilan: What?
DM: HACK! Reusing old content, you hack!

Giles checks the area and finds the tindertwig release. Somewhat too late to be useful. Cruroar ducks down to peer at the room past the doors and sees a throne room, coated with the oil that had poured down on them.

DM: The doors at the far end shudder as a massive figure swoops between them.
Normilan: Oh, he went and got somebody.
Brunt: No, not the griffon…
DM: Cruroar, if you want to fire at the griffon, you can!
Normilan: Dispel it!
Cruroar: I don’t think I can dispel possessions.
DM: Not in this case. You need a young priest and an old priest. …what? It’s an Exorcism joke! Don’t give me that look!

Cruroar blasts the griffon but, unsurprisingly, fails to frighten it; Normilan follows up with a magic missile from a wand, while the rest of the group tries to make it out of the oil.

DM: You clamber out onto the staircase, the flames lick around you from the surface of the oil. You take 6 fire damage before you break free of it. Oil breaks free of it, and your armor has never felt less clingy.

Really, really long silence.

DM: I’m serious, it feels weirdly slippery but kind of weirdly good, too.
Cruroar: I’m not entirely sure where you’re going with this.
DM: No friction, no anything, it feels like you’re wearing nothing at all! Nothing at all! Nothing at all!

Giles fires an arrow at the griffon for 4, and then Cruroar uses his Bracers of Entangling Blast to ensnare the beast. With the hour late and the top of the initiative up next, the group pauses here – to be resolved NEXT TIME!