Notes on the Aether (Rae judging)

"50 gold will be more than enough for each of our travel expenses m'lord. Thank you." Rapture says.

Thyrin claps his hands together. "Excellent. I'll get the gold, give me a moment. Oh, and I've finished crafting your things." He produces 258 gold pieces from somewhere in the tower and hands them over to you, along with the items you requested. (Tommy has had time during the week to copy the spells he wanted.) "There's pay in there for this week. Try and keep in touch, would you? A short letter through the post every once and a while is enough. I'd like to know that you haven't gotten into too much trouble on my account. Right then, if that's all, hopefully I'll see you in a few weeks."

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OOC: Another month has passed, so everybody except Tarag receives another month's time XP, or 150 XP, since you're all L3.

Also, Thyrin paid you for your minor tasks. 2gp to each of you, in addition to the 50 for travel costs.

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It's early enough in the afternoon to head off to Orussus. The trip is only a few hours long. ... Right?

About 4 hours into the journey, you start to think that maybe you're lost. Nothing around you looks familiar, but you've done nothing but follow the wagon trail, so how could you possibly be lost? You press on.

Well past dusk now, you come upon a small house emitting a warm yellow glow from the windows. Knocking on the door, you are greeted by a man and his wife, who invite you inside. They offer you a meal and beds, for a small fee, and you accept. Over dinner, Orussus comes up. "Orussus is a bit far for my old legs. We used to make the journey for festivals and tournies, but not anymore." "Aye, leavin' the animals alone for a week, it's just not possible."

After your stay at the little house, you find that Orussus is indeed several days' travel away. How you made it to and from Grenton in such short time is a great mystery. Besides the time it takes, the journey is unremarkable.

You arrive in Orussus, tired and bewildered. The Red Dragon Inn looks inviting, as always.

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OOC: This adventure is officially over! Continue in the Red Dragon Inn, and then the adventure thread: A Rather Odd Shovel.

Notes on the Aether

Characters:

[smallcaps]Thyrin[/smallcaps] is a powerful but reclusive wizard who lives in a tower about 15 minutes from Grenton. He is good friends with Rilithorne. Currently, the two wizards are researching novel summoning methods. The earliest prototypes of these experiments are littered about Thyrin's tower: summoning devices which can call a guardian from an elemental plane three times every hour. These devices can only sustain one elemental on the material plane at a time, but they provide a decent means of security, since the elementals continue to be summoned every 20 minutes.

Thyrin is a quirky old man, happy and friendly, but a little paranoid. His tower is a bit of a mess, he has unfinished projects lying all over the place. His custom summoning devices are located on every floor for security, and he has various traps protecting the delicate inner workings of each summoning device.

Thyrin is a generalist wizard capable of preparing and casting 5th level spells and has the feats Craft Magical Arms and Armor, Craft Wondrous Item, and Improved Familiar.

[smallcaps]Arngrim[/smallcaps] is Rilithorne's agent in the mundane world. Because Rilithorne is very busy with his experiments, Arngrim takes care of finances, tower upkeep, and errands for the mage. He's all business, and often seems grumpy. But he's reliable and very dedicated to his job.

[smallcaps]Cassandra[/smallcaps] is Rilithorne's lightning elemental familiar. Summoned through a special process known only to Thyrin, she is medium sized and rather intelligent for an elemental. Cassandra is a focused, dedicated individual, and her voice is soft and crackly. Her body sparks when she's excited.

Some new information about old friends...

Rilithorne was once in an adventuring band with Joe the bartender known as "The Four". They once slew a seven-headed hydra.

Rilithorne wears a ring of telekinesis.



Places:

[smallcaps]Thyrin's Tower[/smallcaps] is a 5 story, cylindrical tower with a tapered top, 60' in diameter at the base. The entry way has a large stone door with an inset for a wardstone key. Beyond the entry way is a long hall which leads to a living room. The first floor also has a kitchen and guest room.

The hallway opens up into a warm, well-lit living room. On the ceiling are two simple metal chandeliers with many lit candles each. To the left in the wall is an ornate fireplace with the remnants of logs smoldering within. A couch and two armchairs surround the fireplace, and a plain wooden table rests atop a woven rug in the center of the setup. On the right side of the room, a stone staircase ascends along the curve of the tower. A small door in the stairs probably leads to a closet-space beneath them. This side of the room seems rather barren, aside from a low dais with a small rock sculpture on it.

Looking back toward the hallway from which you came, you can see two sets of closed doors leading to rooms on either side of the entryway. On the inside of the doors, closest to the hallway, are tapestries depicting a wizard manipulating elemental energies. On the outside of each door are bookshelves. A quick perusal of the titles reveals a large variety of subjects, but nothing terribly in depth: A History of Enworld, Kobolds and Dragons, and even a few fictional novels, including a series by Larry Birchwald all about The Adventures of Sir Raynedil.

The western door leads to a bedroom. It has a fourposter, an armoire, and a tall mirror. The armoire is mostly empty except for a few old coats and a pair of boots.

Behind the eastern door, you find a kitchen. It has large food stores, and various cooking implements. Nothing that wouldn't normally be in a kitchen. Most of the food is dry and bland, it seems that Thyrin doesn't care much for fancy food.

The second floor is Thyrin's forge.

The second floor is a stark contrast to the coziness of the first. The floor is stone, before you lie piles of clutter; wood, stone, and lots of pieces of metal, all of varying sizes and shapes. Amid the clutter are vaguely humanoid sculptures made out of the materials at hand. On the far side of the room, an orange glow emanates from behind a large black shield wall.

Exploring the room before you a little closer, you notice various metal working tools hanging on the wall to your left. You see that on the other side of the black heat shields is an anvil and a massive, hot furnace. The furnace has a thick exhaust pipe on its right side that goes out and then straight up into the ceiling. The pipe has a grate on it. The furnace itself has a door on it, which is currently open. Inside is a shelf made from the same black stone as the tall heat shields. There's also a little door in the back leg of the furnace.

The piles of stuff contain mostly an assortment of metal arms, legs, heads, and torsos, or some (oftentimes strange) combination of all those things. It looks as though Thyrin was experimenting with golem constructs and giving them different types of appendages. Some have claws, some have crude, hand-like-things, some have awl-shaped points. One could clumsily manipulate the fingers by pulling on levers at the base. A few of the constructions have many eye-like objects, some on extendable stalks. All are gnome sized, and the ugliest ones are cast aside in piles. Beneath one such pile is a stone dais, much like the one downstairs. To the right of the furnace is a staircase, up against the wall of the tower, leading up to the third floor.

Some magical details on the furnace:

Inside the furnace is a large ball of fire, about 5' in diameter, hovering behind the black stone shelf. (This is actually a permeanent flaming sphere spell.) Some brimstone and dried tallow are in the furnace's little leg door, and the easiest way to disable the furnace would be to remove those components.

The third floor is Thyrin's living quarters.

Just off the stairs is an ornate hallway. It has a marble floor and pictures hang on the walls. In the middle of the hallway is yet another stone dais, upon which a stone sculpture rests. At the end of the hallway is a large oak door with magically reinforced hinges. When closed, this door locks magically and can be reopened again with a command word. A large red rug is on the floor of the room behind the door, which turns out to be Thyrin's bedroom. Straight ahead are two large bookshelves, filled with texts and magical scrolls. Off to the left is a large bed, with silk sheets and two pillows, beneath which Thyrin keeps wands of color spray and magic missile. Across from the bed is a desk with parchment paper, ink, and quills. Thyrin was writing a letter to someone, and he also has several blank books which he is currently filling with abstracts on his magical research. One book stands out on his desk as it is actually finished. It is titled A Treatise on the Thyrin-Rilithorne Warp Node of Material-Elemental Planar Intersections. Also on the desk is an unmarked book which is Thyrin's spellbook. Underneath the stairs is a closet containing an assortment of robes, traveling clothes, hats, shoes. None are particularly fashionable.

Back on the other side of the room is a set up of couches and arm chairs surrounding a fireplace. It's quite cozy and a little too warm, as the fireplace is emitting heat despite having no flame inside of it. From here, all you can see is a log stand, but a glance deeper inside reveals the black vent pipe from the 2nd floor forge. It has an open grate on it, and is emitting a large amount of warm air.

The fourth floor is Thyrin's large personal library and the first floor of the saferoom.

It's a large library, with a desk in the back corner. A little more than halfway into the tower is a wall, splitting the tower in two sections. Against the wall is a flight of stairs, and underneath the stairs is a fortified door. This leads to the saferoom.

The fifth floor is Thyrin's lab and the second floor of the saferoom.

The fifth floor of the tower is the same size as the last floor. To your left is a solid wall, behind which must be the second floor of the saferoom. Straight ahead is another pair of the large, metal doors leading into the saferoom.

Clockwise around the room from that door is a work bench and table. Various items litter the table's surface, a dagger, some cutting tools, pieces of wood, candles. You do recognize a few pieces of the summoning devices. Continuing the clockwise progression, you see two cabinets, filled with jars and containers, presumably containing spell components. On the floor near the cabinet are a few pieces of paper with arcane writing and some spell components. Across the room you see the focus of the lab: a large, ornate, silver wrought summoning circle. Inside the summoning circle, a tall, thin being made of flowing water slowly circles. An altar stands outside the circle, upon which an open book rests.

Next to the summoning circle are two basins filled with glowing red liquid. Further along the wall is a pile of summoning devices in various states of incompletion. Closest to the stairs is one water filled basin.



The Story:

Rilithorne was supposed to receive notes on the aether for a joint experiment that he and Thyrin were conducting. Thyrin was supposed to send the notes along a while ago, but they never came, so Rilithorne asked Arngrim to investigate the matter and deal with it. Arngrim, knowing that Thyrin probably had some kind of accident, hired five adventurers to go to Thyrin's tower to get the notes and take care of whatever problem Thyrin was having. He hired Keldar Warbray, a 'bard' with a very handy set of 'toothpicks', Galwynn Grimslade, a grumpy paladin of Halina, Tommy Worthallingham, an Academy wizard, Rapture, a beautiful paladin of Valessa, and Samina, a blind cleric.

The gang traveled to Grenton, dealing with a dire weasel on the way. When they arrived in the tiny village, they saw that a barricade had been constructed on the road to Thyrin's tower. It was explained that some living spell had probably gotten loose at the tower.

At the tower, after dealing with some elemental guardians, the group met Cassandra, Thyrin's lightning elemental familiar. She explained to the adventurers that two burglars had broken into the tower and managed to mess up the security system on the top floor before they were incinerated by the fire elemental guardians. Thyrin was trapped in his saferoom by his own guardians. It was at this point that Samina, the blind cleric, decided the adventuring life wasn't for her.

After a trip back to the Red Dragon Inn, the adventurers returned to Thyrin's with Tarag, dwarven smith and cleric of Chennet'. Cassandra granted them entry inside, and the group spent the next few days clearing out the tower of the various rogue fire and earth elemental guardians. At the top floor, they encountered a fire elemental that exploded into smaller fire elementals when damaged. It was defeated with the help of an intelligent water being that Thyrin had summoned before he was trapped. Who'd have guessed that Keldar could actually speak Aquan?

A short time later, Thyrin was freed. Grateful, he offered to craft some items for the adventurers. Back in Orussus, Rilithorne also paid the adventurers a bonus for having to deal with an entire tower of rogue elemental guardians. Rilithorne received the notes on the aether, and though Thyrin's relations with the water elementals is on the rocks (as it were), his tower is back in full operation, and the summoning experiments continue.

The adventurers stuck around for a while to help Thyrin out with the heavy lifting. They also asked around town about the bandits, but didn't find much. Finally, they stumbled upon the thieves' lair: a tunnel dug from the woods all the way to Thyrin's tower's foundation. In the tunnel, they found some cots, a book of maps, and a rather odd shovel. Thyrin, curious and concerned about those that would try to steal from him, then hired the adventurers to do some further investigating, following the two new leads to wherever they led.

Notes approved