After going back and forth from there many times now, the party was interested in returning to Fengarth's Tower and clearing it once and for all.
Primary goal was to get to the library and get every book there if possible.
Karis wanted to rush to the 6th level (wherethe library was) but the group out voted him and decided they wanted to clear each level to be absolutely sure there was NOTHING to surprise them on their quest upward.
I am pleased to think that some of the party members are underestimating what still lies ahead of them on the upper levels.
Write up follows:
The party camped that night away from the base of Fengarth's Tower. No wyverns approached, no creatures came to the firelight. The next day we redonned our snow shoes and pressed onward until we came to the base of Orihalcus and the lands of the Greengrocer Coalition.
We spoke to Altern Lamatous and gave the full accounting of Flarg and his skills during the combat. A pile of coins were given as well as a promise to come back and ask for the barbaric bugbear should we need him again. There was talk about going back in a few days and the Drywood bugbears agreed to the same terms for another use of our favorite axe wielding warrior. We did discover though that the Drywood bugbears were taking over the same exploits that the K'Tharkian Kobolds had been doing – and that was primarily accosting smugglers on the old Dwarven Traderoad and taking 10% of their cargo for safe passage.
Nope. Can't see that coming back to bite us in the ass at one point.
From there we made our way up the lift to the city proper and progressed down towards Town Square, attracting some attention along the way as most of the townsfolk had learned about our commission to take care of the Forest Troll. Once at Slaine Manor, we were escorted onto the grounds proper while Sir Walter was summoned.
We showed him the head and were thanked publicly for our heroic efforts. There was some talk from the guards though that Sheriff Phozarn was being summoned as the Sheriff was very upset that we had left without him. Sir Walter said that because the party had done as commissioned, they were under no trouble as far as he was concerned and were instead commended.
When the Sheriff arrived at the Manor grounds he tried to have Karis arrested for risking the life and limb of every person in Orihalcus. There was some heated words exchanged but Detheron stood up and said that the fault was his as he had received some guidance from Frey that the time to strike the Troll was now and to not delay (even to get the Sheriff). Of course Phozarn didn't believe it but he was now duty bound to arrest Detheron.
Sir Walter intervened at this point exonerating the party of any wrong-doing and pardoning them. The Sheriff was quite wroth at this and after making sure that Sir Walter was going to stand by this statement, tendered his resignation as Sheriff. Sir Walter took Phozarn into the manor house and the two of them went to talk and the party left. They dropped off the hands at Malcath's Traders and began buying supplies for another trip out to the Tower on the morrow (leaving on the 15th).
Detheron went to see Deidra and the Blessed Children of the Wilted Leaf Orphanage, where his girl friend gave him some low level poisonous elixirs she had been brewing. She also told him that there was some problem as one of the townsfolk had commented that Brother Dardis who helps run the budding Orphanage, was claimed to be a warlock. She wanted to know what the townsfolk view was on witchery and hexcraft as up north they have witch burnings and stoning for suspected mages. Detheron told her that Orihalcus was pretty normal and not to worry too much about it.
We spoke about our trip back to Fengarth's Tower tomorrow and then eventually some trip back to Dargan's Folley. We would want to recruit more bugbears and a few other low level adventurers to help us clear it out but we are looking to wait until the snow melts and the spring has sprung.
We awoke on the 15th and took Clipclop the mule with us, eventually getting Flarg and we trekked across the snow. We camped a mile or two from the tower and the next morning upon arrival we gave the place a good observation from outside. Nothing had changed, nothing had altered. Fabambus cast 'Run' on himself should it be needed (lasts 5-8 hours) and the party entered the Tower.
We decided to clear each floor one at a time from the base (not sub basement) up, making sure that we missed nothing of interest or value. The Grand Entrance was devoid of anything interesting so we traveled up the center stairs to the 2nd floor. Once here there was a large gaming room with an ancient spell lighting the candles within. The cabinet held many games and puzzles. The party searched it across, eventually casting a detect magic. Two items came up: a set of dice and a wire puzzle with 5 beads.
After some experimenting they discovered the dice came up a pair of 6's every 4 tosses. The wire puzzle was different though. The beads needed to be solved in a particular way, but when they were, the red bead disappeared from the puzzle and reappeared inside Coruth'tae's mouth (who was solving it). The bead had draconic heads across the surface. When it was crushed (accidentally), Coruth'tae became 2 dimensional, having all the properties of paper but without actually changing into such. 5 minutes later he returned to 3 dimensions and the red bead reappeared on the wire puzzle.
From here they explored the rest of the 2nd level, uncovering a number of smaller chambers for visitors and some sort of carpeted room with a layer or ground and shattered glass.
After this they went cautiously to the 3rd floor. It was here that T'Nagrath had made his presence first known to the group, the Forest Troll dead and gone now. It was the Kitchen, Larder, and Dining Hall. The group gave each room a cursory overview but as they had already checked it out before, there was nothing new uncovered.
Then it was to the 4th floor. There was a larger chamber that had been destroyed; a skeletal figure with its head twisted completely around was hurled against the ruins of a bed, a few arrows rattling around its rib cage. There was a narrow corridor surrounding the central stairs and 6 small chambers for servants radiating off from there. We had been here before (including the room with the slain mimic) and after a short inspection, declared the 4th floor cleared.
The 5th floor was the tower master's bed chamber and across the hall was a second chamber where his Siberian tiger familiar once resided. Detheron was most cautious about being in here (as he had a run in with the wraith-like familiar once before) but we looked over the chambers and decided there was nothing new to be found within.
This meant it was time to use the black crystal and silver charm to get past the wards on our way to the 6th floor. The wards were subdued and we made it to the 6th floor landing. The same landing that we knew the library was on. Our immediate goal.
We knew that both doors could not be opened at the same time as it would make a disjointing/spatial rift, but for some reason both doors would open to duplicate libraries. We cautiously opened one of them and looked in. It was as we had left it, and we knew there was to be one "gargoyle cat" from the shelf gone and broken. It was, but there was a short 2' tall large nosed winged creature in its place.
We avoided entering and had some words with it; it jumped down and pointed at the party, speaking in some demonic tongue. And then the door was forced open and the imp was struggling to cast some ensorcellment on the charm.
Karis and Flarg shut the door with their combined strengths. The party was gearing up to fight the creature, Karis calling to Tyr to bless the party with the fury of the gods and Detheron calling on the strength of the bull to infuse Flarg.
And we ended it here on Deathmonth the 16th at 11:50.
No comments:
Post a Comment