Dungeons and Dragons! Part 6!!

The party prepared themselves for the first bout in the Sporting Maze. They were pitted against another group of first timers and were given the low down of how things work. Ring the bell, defeat or bypass the monsters, and please the crowd. The party headed to the what they believed to be the center of the maze and encountered four-way intersection, choosing to go straight they encountered a beholder, combat ensued and the party lost their enchantments while it looked at them. It closed its main eye to zap as many of them that were trapped in the hallway as possible. It put up a valiant fight but the assassin in the group was able to deal it many crushing blows between its attacks. They traveled ever close to the center and found another four-way intersection and continued south again, ignoring what was to the right or left. They found themselves at a T intersection and went right, finding a dead end with a small jar. The assassin shot the jar and brown mold came out of the cracks. The party ran left and found a string hanging across the passageway and the wizard’s horse bumped it. Rumbling started and they saw a giant boulder come down a ramp and straight into the party’s hallway, crushing a few of them. They started bandaging the wounded and after a minute heard the rumbling again. They ran into the room with the rumbling and found the boulder was falling again and there was space in the room for them to rest up a bit without being crushed again. Between boulders they were able to climb the ramp and find another level of the maze. They traipsed the hall and found it ended with a room with a passage on the right and horrifying teeth, tentacles, and eyes carved into the floors and walls. They drew out the gibbering mouther with a bacon holding mage hand and proceeded to nuke the room with fire magics. It was chased into a corner with a burning sphere of fire and the party was able to run into the far hallway. They reached a chamber with four hallways and noticed there was no sound in the room. They threw bacon from their rations into the room, slapping it around on the floor with mage hand. The bard and assassin grew bored and ran to the center-ward hallway and waited there for the rest of the party, now being able to hear each other again. The bacon investigations lead them to find a reverse gravity spell placed on the center of the chamber and a spiked ceiling around eighty feet above. They watched as their magically illuminated bacon sailed into a bed of spikes. The wizard began to prod a dead end up the tunnel and found it to be soft and pliable, and alive. The wall was a cross between a mimic and a gelatinous cube and engulfed, finding swift unconsciousness. The party pummeled the beast, hitting the wizard a few times as well. The paladin pulled the wizard from the wreck, noting the wizards clothing had been wrecked. They got him back up and running and traveled further into the maze, finding a large chamber with a giant glabrazu demon with a key on his necklace. The assassin spoke with him in forgotten languages and the bard hit him with hypnotic pattern, grabbed the key, and they ran past the demon. After closing the door, they heard the demon yelling about being bamboozled. They found the next four-way chamber full of mushrooms reaching the ceiling and mobile mushrooms going about their business, some small, others around fifteen feet tall. The party asked the best way, leaving the mushrooms be and rushed to the final chamber, seeing their prize ahead of them, a bell incased in magic fifty feet in the air suspended by magic. As they entered the room the cobra headed hydra became visible and battle was unavoidable. The assassin and paladin took massive chunks out of the hydra, sending heads flying. The heads slithered into attack position, still moving after being dismembered. The cleric tossed a wall of fire down the opposite hallway, hoping to slow the other group just in case they were on their way to the chamber and was greeted with a group of screams and counter spells, which the party’s bards countered. Flames filled the hall with more screams and a half orc barbarian with a flame proof coat ran into the chamber holding his badly burnt friends in his arms and once they were safe, he passed out. the party killed the hydra and was able to ring the bell, winning five thousand gold. The group had time to rest for a few days before there next mission.