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Story Hour
Erkonin (Campaign #2) [Session 45: Rajalmin's Agent]
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<blockquote data-quote="prabe" data-source="post: 8280292" data-attributes="member: 7016699"><p>Session 43: Into the Ancient Wizard Tower</p><p></p><p>Dramatis Personae:</p><p>Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Druid (Circle of Stars)</p><p>Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest)</p><p>Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul)</p><p>Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster)</p><p>Marxine - Mountain Dwarf Fighter (Champion)/Paladin</p><p></p><p>GM - Everyone Else</p><p></p><p></p><p>18 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 169)</p><p></p><p>We left in the morning aboard the barge the iv-Nulis being towed by oxen along the Ewiv Canal from Brush Bend to Dhaqi. It was expected to be a 15 day trip.</p><p></p><p>The iv-Nulis was mostly a cargo barge. We were the only passengers.</p><p></p><p>Vinya and Lamie, as usual, sat on the front of the boat and watched the world go by. For the first few days most of the excitement was taking our horses out to get some exercise walking alongside the oxen towing the boat.</p><p></p><p>We went past a couple of villages in those days, but not many.</p><p></p><p></p><p>21 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 172)</p><p></p><p>In the afternoon, we could see an expanse of water on the horizon. On the water, small and distant, we could see one or two other barges like the iv-Nulis being towed across by smaller vessels with windsails. One of the barge workers told us that when the canal was built, way before the Severance, there were springs and lakes in the plains, so the builders of the Ewiv Canal used those as part of the water system in the canal. We were told that it would take two days to cross this lake.</p><p></p><p>As we were approaching the village, the barge worker pointed to a hill-sized (and shaped) block of basalt at the edge of town and exclaimed in surprise. A number of other barge-men and -women came and expressed surprise as well. They agreed that this huge boulder was new since the last time they’d sailed by.</p><p></p><p>As we got closer, we could see that there was an intact tower, lying on the ground with the top lying on the ground and the base of it on the basalt.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Can we stop?</p><p>Barge-man: We were going to anyway. The captain needs to arrange for a tow-boat across the lake.</p><p>Vinya: It looks like one of those floating tower-islands crashed.</p><p></p><p>The iv-Nulis tied up at a pier along the edge of the canal. We were told that we’d be stopped for about 2 hours while the captain made arrangements.</p><p></p><p>We walked along the tow-path at the edge of town toward the basalt hill.</p><p></p><p>Villager: It fell out of the sky about eight days ago.</p><p>Vinya: Good it fell on the edge of town rather than in the middle of it.</p><p></p><p>As we got closer to it, we could see that the tower was square, about twenty feet on each side, and almost entirely intact. However, a couple of blocks lay on the ground near what would have been the top of the tower, leaving an opening where we could enter the tower.</p><p></p><p>Elama cast augury and asked about exploring the tower. The response she got was both weal and woe.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Shall we go in where the blocks came out?</p><p>Elama: Are you sure that’s a good idea?</p><p>Vinya: No -- but it seems like it’ll be fun. We’ve seen a few of these floating islands. They’re pre-Severance, right? Like by a lot. This is the first one we could go through.</p><p>Marxine: Better to explore it on the ground than in the air</p><p></p><p>As we got closer, there were some villagers in a loose circle around the fallen tower and basalt boulder. They were keeping people away from the tower, though they didn’t seem to be at all inclined to stop a group of obvious adventurers.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Why keep people out?</p><p>Villager: There are noises. Sometimes buzzy, sometimes screechy.</p><p></p><p>Before we went in, Marxine did her divine sense -- she got neither good nor bad vibes. Vinya cast see invisible from the Rod of Alertness. Elama cast freedom of movement on Marxine.</p><p></p><p>After all of that, we went in through where one of the blocks came out. We entered into a chamber that was much larger than the exterior dimensions of the tower (80 feet on a side). There were some continual flame torches on what had been the walls (now floor, ceiling, and side walls), so there was light inside. Vinya grabbed one to take with us just in case.</p><p></p><p>This chamber was mostly empty, with some broken pieces of what looked like it had been bedroom furniture on the floor. We could see a railing and the opening of a spiral staircase in the middle of the wall that had been the floor when the tower was upright, about 35’ above us.</p><p></p><p>Vinya, looking at the broken furniture: This stuff is all over a thousand years old. And it hasn’t crumbled away or deteriorated -- it’s just broken.</p><p></p><p>Vinya took a rope and walked up the wall with the slippers of spiderclimb. At the top she secured the rope to the metal railing mounted into the stone “side” of the spiral staircase, then threw the rope down for the others.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Maybe the lighter folks should come up first. I think we have a potion of climbing that could be left with Marxine just in case the rope doesn’t hold.</p><p></p><p>Elderron, who we figured was the lightest, got halfway up the wall when we all started to hear a bad creaking grinding noise from where the metal railing was attached to the stone. Vinya grabbed the rope and found herself with the entire weight of Elderron hanging off of her, with grunts and aargh-ing noises.</p><p></p><p>Marxine: I’ll take that potion.</p><p></p><p>Elderron continued up, with Vinya bracing herself and holding the rope across her shoulders.</p><p></p><p>Vinya, once Elderron had gotten to the staircase: It’s a good thing you’re slender.</p><p></p><p>We tied the rope around the central pillar of the spiral staircase. While Elderron and Vinya were doing that, Marxine used the potion of climbing to climb the wall and place pitons to properly secure and attach the rope.</p><p></p><p>Once the rope was secured, Aldalomiel and Elama climbed up. We left the rope and pitons in place so that we’d have a secure exit if we needed it.</p><p></p><p>Crawling along the sideways spiral staircase was a weird process of going up and over the central pillar and then dropping down a few feet to the bottom end of the spiral. It was awkward going but we made our way through what had been the floor to the next level in the tower. Vinya looked out into the room -- it looked like a fairly conventional study, though turned on its side. What had been the walls were covered with bookshelves, though all the books on what was now the ceiling were on the floor beneath us, which was itself a bookcase crammed with books.</p><p></p><p>Marxine tied another rope around the central pillar of the stairs and dropped it down into the study. We couldn’t see anything in the room, but we could hear a buzzing noise. Vinya cast see invisibility from the rod of alertness again. That didn’t help, because she still couldn’t see anything moving.</p><p></p><p>Armed with that knowledge, Vinya climbed down to the floor-bookcases and waited for the others to come down on the rope.</p><p></p><p>It suddenly occurred to her that she was standing on pre-Severance books and she started waiting far less patiently for the rest of the party to get down to this floor. Once everyone was safely down, Vinya and Elderron started putting books in Vinya’s handy haversack. Vinya mostly let Elderron choose which books to take, but did remind him (and the rest of the party) that we didn’t have anything to put them in other than the handy haversack.</p><p></p><p>Vinya, to Elderron: This was clearly a wizard’s tower.</p><p>Elderron: Yeah. There should be good stuff here.</p><p>Vinya: I don’t think we should take the time for you to cast a ritual. I can cast it through the rod.</p><p>Elderron: Great idea.</p><p></p><p>Vinya did so and started to walk around. As she was walking around, she spotted something that we’d missed wedged into a corner where the spiral staircase extended down into the room and the (former) ceiling it went into. She grabbed that and continued walking around on all the walls and through as many of the books as possible. She picked up any books that showed up as magical, of course, and anything written in Elvish or obviously about Elves as well.</p><p></p><p>When she made her way back around to Elderron, she handed him the staff, finally getting a good look at it. It was made of purpleheart wood and topped with a perfect cube of transparent calcite (otherwise known in the real world as Icelandic spar).</p><p></p><p>Vinya, handing the staff to Elderron: This looks like a wizard thing.</p><p></p><p>Elderron immediately sat down and began preparing to ritually cast identify on it. Vinya continued her walk, trying to cover as much ground as possible picking up books that looked interesting or magical.</p><p></p><p>Everyone in the party other than Elderron, who was very preoccupied, noticed that the buzzing sound we’d been hearing was getting louder and louder. Then four horrifically human-sized praying mantis-looking things with scythes on their arms came out of what had been the staircases leading through the walls to the “floor below” (now the next chamber over). Vinya was a bit away from everyone else in the party, because of her walking around to look for magic and books. (Vinya had totally filled up her handy haversack and was now just using rope to make a bundle of books to wear on her back and tying them on the outsides of people’s backpacks.) Marxine was standing over Elderron to make sure he stayed safe and Elama and Aldalomiel were near them.</p><p></p><p>Elderron was saved from being surprised by the flail of warning alerting him to danger.</p><p></p><p>Three of them came out of the former stairway on the left side of the room and one on the right side of the room. The one on the right flew to Vinya, who was closest to it, then landed and slashed with its scythe-like talons at the ends of its arms. It made three attacks, which all missed. The other three spread out -- one each on Elama, Marxine, and Aldalomiel (ignoring the unarmored guy sitting on the floor). The one on Aldalomiel only got one hit, but it was a big one for 21 points of damage.</p><p></p><p>Marxine: Yikes!</p><p></p><p>The ones on Elama and Marxine missed all around. Unfortunately the one on Marxine didn’t succumb to the slow from the Rod of Litrices.</p><p></p><p>Vinya attacked the mantis in front of her with her quarter-staff (guessing that these wouldn’t need magical weapons to hit them), hitting both times, then followed up with a punch and a stunning strike (that worked). Aldalomiel cast zephyr strike, then ran to the “wall” (formerly the floor) on the other side of the room and fired two arrows at the one that had attacked her. Both of those hit, doing a lot of damage. Elama cast thunderwave on the mantis in front of her -- pushing it so that it was next to the one that Aldalomiel had just skewered and doing a lot of damage. Then she moved to be adjacent to both of them and attacked one with her scimitar of speed. Marxine attacked the one in front of her, hitting twice (one of them a crit). That was so successful, she did an action surge and attacked again, hitting twice again. The total damage from Marxine’s turn was 60 points. NICE!</p><p></p><p>Of all of them, Marxine’s mantis was definitely looking the most ragged at this point.</p><p></p><p>Elderron moved to line up a lightning bolt on the three of them over there. It took a bit of doing and the bolt went perilously close to Elama. He made the bolt have a wisdom save (but left the damage unchanged) and she was able to entirely avoid damage from it. The bolt was somewhat anemic but still did 26 points of damage.</p><p></p><p>The three non-stunned mantises made a noise like a cough and from their joints emitted a cloud of what looked like shards of glass-dust. Everyone managed to avoid the dust, but it looked like it would be incredibly hazardous to breathe. Vinya’s, because it had been stunned, was unable to do that.</p><p></p><p>Vinya, seeing the crystal shard-dust: I want to keep mine stunned, I see.</p><p></p><p>She then proceeded to pound on hers, doing two attacks with the quarter staff and a flurry of blows with a knee and fist, all of which hit. She stunned it for the next round with a knee to the thorax.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel missed twice with her arrows then took her starry archer form and got a critical hit with the radiant bolt. Elama cast spiritual guardians then stepped a bit to the side so that all three of them on that side of the room were within the radius of little floating, zapping thunderclouds. Then she made an attack on one with the scimitar of speed and got another hit. Marxine attacked her bug, already starting to look frayed. She missed with one hit but did maximum damage with the other, leaving it looking pretty bad indeed. Elderron cast another lightning bolt, this time without having to worry about hitting Lamie as she’d moved out of range so he made it an intelligence save and had it do cold damage. Once again it wasn’t the most powerful spell, but it did hurt them.</p><p></p><p>The three mantises on that side of the room all took damage from the spiritual guardians, then attacked. Two of them were attacking Elama, each with three attacks. One of them hit twice. The other one only got one hit, but it was a critical hit. Fortunately the spiritual guardians stayed up. Marxine actually took a hit, which rarely happens.</p><p></p><p>Vinya hit once with the quarterstaff and once with an elbow, but it wasn’t affected by her stunning strike. Aldalomiel dropped one of the two on Elama with her arrows then fired a radiant bolt at the other one. Elama, having been hit pretty hard the previous round, started dodging. Marxine absolutely splattered the one that had been on her, then turned to the one remaining on Elama and hit it hard as well. Elderron finished that one off with a fire-damage blight spell that caused it to burn from the inside -- the exoskeleton glowing as its insides flamed before the exoskeleton itself burned and crumbled to ash.</p><p></p><p>The only mantis remaining, the one on Vinya, flew up into the air and its wings made a harmonic noise that charmed her entirely. Then it broke and flew toward the nearest staircase (the one it had come from), which was only a few feet away. Then it disappeared into the darkness.</p><p></p><p>Vinya ran after it, calling for the others.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: It’s hurt! We need to help it.</p><p>Aldalomiel, following: Sure, these are healing arrows.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel followed with a move and a dash to get to the entrance to the next room, where Vinya was waiting at the doorway. Then she fired a “healing” radiant bolt at it that hit. Elama kept up her concentration on the spiritual guardians and ran as fast as she could to get to the entrance to the other staircase, but didn’t go through. Marxine, who was closer to that staircase than Lamie, moved and dashed and got part-way through. Elderron, closer still, was able to get into the next room.</p><p></p><p>Where he saw Vinya chasing the bright elusive butterfly of love -- or at least the flying mantis-like creature that had charmed her -- calling for it to come down so she could help it. We were in what looked like a former magical work room, though all the furniture (and alchemical glassware) had crashed to the floor when the tower tilted and/or crashed.</p><p></p><p>The Butterfly of Love turned around and attacked Vinya, hitting her twice for a painful lot of damage.</p><p></p><p>That brought Vinya back to a bit more of a rational place and she was able to still her mind and end the charm on herself, then she used a ki point to step like the wind and move behind the broken remains of a bench.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel, to Vinya: Are you no longer seeing the pretty butterfly?</p><p>Vinya: Yeah. Sorry about that.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel then proceeded to shoot it -- hitting it with an arrow and a radiant bolt. Elama ran into the room and cast sacred flame on it (to no effect) then cast a powerful healing word on herself. Marxine ran in, but wasn’t able to close. She wasn’t able to get closer than the very edge of range for throwing hand axes at it. She tried that anyway, throwing two of them, but they both missed. Elderron cast a basic magic missile which did enough damage to drop it.</p><p></p><p>As soon as the last mantis dropped, Elderron sat down and started the ritual to identify the staff again. Vinya cast detect magic from the Rod of Alertness again and went back to walking around in this new room, the former workshop of the wizard who’d owned this tower. Vinya found a big, ornate book that could be a wizard’s spell book. She put that next to Elderron so he could put it into his bag when he was done with his ritual.</p><p></p><p>She got the impression, which Elderron confirmed later, that this wizard had been mostly focused on light, radiant energy, and illusions. We found some notes he’d made about research he’d been doing and slipped those into someone’s backpack.</p><p></p><p>While Vinya was walking around checking out the room, Aldalomiel cast cure wounds on her.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Thanks.</p><p></p><p>Elderron finished his identify spell on the purpleheart staff with an impressed whistle.</p><p></p><p>Staff of Triltum (requires attunement by a spellcaster)</p><p></p><p>This staff is made of purpleheart, topped with a block of clearest calcite. While holding the staff, you gain a +1 bonus on spell attack rolls. Whenever you score a critical hit with a spell attack, the target takes an extra 3d6 radiant damage. Also, while holding this staff you can cast the Wall of Light spell once; you regain this ability at dawn.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: I think we’ve gotten both your weal and your woe here, Elama.</p><p>Lamie: That explosion thing they did was annoying.</p><p></p><p>Lamie then cast protection from poison on Vinya.</p><p></p><p>We moved on, taking the staircases in the walls from one room (floor) to another. We went through a kitchen and a formal dining room, getting ever closer to the basalt rock itself. While we were in a parlor there was a low-pitched rumbling and shaking, in the mind as much as in the walls. It seemed like it was coming from inside the rock.</p><p></p><p>We figured we had to be getting close to where the tower sat on/came out of the rock, in part because this appeared to be a room for receiving visitors. There were stairs on either side of the room that went on into, most likely, the basalt itself.</p><p></p><p>Elderron sent Oda in, watching through his eyes. Oda saw three beings in the room -- one figure was an extremely obese humanoid, medium size. His hands were so fat or swollen they were almost flippers and he was holding an object that looked like a staff. The other two were ogre-sized and grotesque. The skin and subcutaneous layers were transparent, so he could see the muscles twitching as they moved around. They were humanoid in shape and ogre-sized (and looked a bit like if you’d skinned an atypically lean ogre) with lots of teeth. Their eyes didn’t seem to have eyelids.</p><p></p><p>There was a lot of stuff in the room -- a glowing and flickering crystal that was hard for Oda to look at but the rumblings we could still here seemed to be in time with the flickering in the crystal.</p><p></p><p>All three of them turned to look at Oda. Elderron immediately popped Oda back into his owl-pocket.</p><p></p><p>Before we could consider too deeply what to do, the two large skinned-looking figures started climbing through the stairway into the parlor we were in. The blobby figure walked through the wall (phasing through not bursting through like Kool-Aid man).</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Maybe we found the wizard.</p><p></p><p>And there we ended.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="prabe, post: 8280292, member: 7016699"] Session 43: Into the Ancient Wizard Tower Dramatis Personae: Aldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Druid (Circle of Stars) Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest) Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul) Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster) Marxine - Mountain Dwarf Fighter (Champion)/Paladin GM - Everyone Else 18 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 169) We left in the morning aboard the barge the iv-Nulis being towed by oxen along the Ewiv Canal from Brush Bend to Dhaqi. It was expected to be a 15 day trip. The iv-Nulis was mostly a cargo barge. We were the only passengers. Vinya and Lamie, as usual, sat on the front of the boat and watched the world go by. For the first few days most of the excitement was taking our horses out to get some exercise walking alongside the oxen towing the boat. We went past a couple of villages in those days, but not many. 21 Bluzzimin 749 (Campaign day 172) In the afternoon, we could see an expanse of water on the horizon. On the water, small and distant, we could see one or two other barges like the iv-Nulis being towed across by smaller vessels with windsails. One of the barge workers told us that when the canal was built, way before the Severance, there were springs and lakes in the plains, so the builders of the Ewiv Canal used those as part of the water system in the canal. We were told that it would take two days to cross this lake. As we were approaching the village, the barge worker pointed to a hill-sized (and shaped) block of basalt at the edge of town and exclaimed in surprise. A number of other barge-men and -women came and expressed surprise as well. They agreed that this huge boulder was new since the last time they’d sailed by. As we got closer, we could see that there was an intact tower, lying on the ground with the top lying on the ground and the base of it on the basalt. Vinya: Can we stop? Barge-man: We were going to anyway. The captain needs to arrange for a tow-boat across the lake. Vinya: It looks like one of those floating tower-islands crashed. The iv-Nulis tied up at a pier along the edge of the canal. We were told that we’d be stopped for about 2 hours while the captain made arrangements. We walked along the tow-path at the edge of town toward the basalt hill. Villager: It fell out of the sky about eight days ago. Vinya: Good it fell on the edge of town rather than in the middle of it. As we got closer to it, we could see that the tower was square, about twenty feet on each side, and almost entirely intact. However, a couple of blocks lay on the ground near what would have been the top of the tower, leaving an opening where we could enter the tower. Elama cast augury and asked about exploring the tower. The response she got was both weal and woe. Vinya: Shall we go in where the blocks came out? Elama: Are you sure that’s a good idea? Vinya: No -- but it seems like it’ll be fun. We’ve seen a few of these floating islands. They’re pre-Severance, right? Like by a lot. This is the first one we could go through. Marxine: Better to explore it on the ground than in the air As we got closer, there were some villagers in a loose circle around the fallen tower and basalt boulder. They were keeping people away from the tower, though they didn’t seem to be at all inclined to stop a group of obvious adventurers. Vinya: Why keep people out? Villager: There are noises. Sometimes buzzy, sometimes screechy. Before we went in, Marxine did her divine sense -- she got neither good nor bad vibes. Vinya cast see invisible from the Rod of Alertness. Elama cast freedom of movement on Marxine. After all of that, we went in through where one of the blocks came out. We entered into a chamber that was much larger than the exterior dimensions of the tower (80 feet on a side). There were some continual flame torches on what had been the walls (now floor, ceiling, and side walls), so there was light inside. Vinya grabbed one to take with us just in case. This chamber was mostly empty, with some broken pieces of what looked like it had been bedroom furniture on the floor. We could see a railing and the opening of a spiral staircase in the middle of the wall that had been the floor when the tower was upright, about 35’ above us. Vinya, looking at the broken furniture: This stuff is all over a thousand years old. And it hasn’t crumbled away or deteriorated -- it’s just broken. Vinya took a rope and walked up the wall with the slippers of spiderclimb. At the top she secured the rope to the metal railing mounted into the stone “side” of the spiral staircase, then threw the rope down for the others. Vinya: Maybe the lighter folks should come up first. I think we have a potion of climbing that could be left with Marxine just in case the rope doesn’t hold. Elderron, who we figured was the lightest, got halfway up the wall when we all started to hear a bad creaking grinding noise from where the metal railing was attached to the stone. Vinya grabbed the rope and found herself with the entire weight of Elderron hanging off of her, with grunts and aargh-ing noises. Marxine: I’ll take that potion. Elderron continued up, with Vinya bracing herself and holding the rope across her shoulders. Vinya, once Elderron had gotten to the staircase: It’s a good thing you’re slender. We tied the rope around the central pillar of the spiral staircase. While Elderron and Vinya were doing that, Marxine used the potion of climbing to climb the wall and place pitons to properly secure and attach the rope. Once the rope was secured, Aldalomiel and Elama climbed up. We left the rope and pitons in place so that we’d have a secure exit if we needed it. Crawling along the sideways spiral staircase was a weird process of going up and over the central pillar and then dropping down a few feet to the bottom end of the spiral. It was awkward going but we made our way through what had been the floor to the next level in the tower. Vinya looked out into the room -- it looked like a fairly conventional study, though turned on its side. What had been the walls were covered with bookshelves, though all the books on what was now the ceiling were on the floor beneath us, which was itself a bookcase crammed with books. Marxine tied another rope around the central pillar of the stairs and dropped it down into the study. We couldn’t see anything in the room, but we could hear a buzzing noise. Vinya cast see invisibility from the rod of alertness again. That didn’t help, because she still couldn’t see anything moving. Armed with that knowledge, Vinya climbed down to the floor-bookcases and waited for the others to come down on the rope. It suddenly occurred to her that she was standing on pre-Severance books and she started waiting far less patiently for the rest of the party to get down to this floor. Once everyone was safely down, Vinya and Elderron started putting books in Vinya’s handy haversack. Vinya mostly let Elderron choose which books to take, but did remind him (and the rest of the party) that we didn’t have anything to put them in other than the handy haversack. Vinya, to Elderron: This was clearly a wizard’s tower. Elderron: Yeah. There should be good stuff here. Vinya: I don’t think we should take the time for you to cast a ritual. I can cast it through the rod. Elderron: Great idea. Vinya did so and started to walk around. As she was walking around, she spotted something that we’d missed wedged into a corner where the spiral staircase extended down into the room and the (former) ceiling it went into. She grabbed that and continued walking around on all the walls and through as many of the books as possible. She picked up any books that showed up as magical, of course, and anything written in Elvish or obviously about Elves as well. When she made her way back around to Elderron, she handed him the staff, finally getting a good look at it. It was made of purpleheart wood and topped with a perfect cube of transparent calcite (otherwise known in the real world as Icelandic spar). Vinya, handing the staff to Elderron: This looks like a wizard thing. Elderron immediately sat down and began preparing to ritually cast identify on it. Vinya continued her walk, trying to cover as much ground as possible picking up books that looked interesting or magical. Everyone in the party other than Elderron, who was very preoccupied, noticed that the buzzing sound we’d been hearing was getting louder and louder. Then four horrifically human-sized praying mantis-looking things with scythes on their arms came out of what had been the staircases leading through the walls to the “floor below” (now the next chamber over). Vinya was a bit away from everyone else in the party, because of her walking around to look for magic and books. (Vinya had totally filled up her handy haversack and was now just using rope to make a bundle of books to wear on her back and tying them on the outsides of people’s backpacks.) Marxine was standing over Elderron to make sure he stayed safe and Elama and Aldalomiel were near them. Elderron was saved from being surprised by the flail of warning alerting him to danger. Three of them came out of the former stairway on the left side of the room and one on the right side of the room. The one on the right flew to Vinya, who was closest to it, then landed and slashed with its scythe-like talons at the ends of its arms. It made three attacks, which all missed. The other three spread out -- one each on Elama, Marxine, and Aldalomiel (ignoring the unarmored guy sitting on the floor). The one on Aldalomiel only got one hit, but it was a big one for 21 points of damage. Marxine: Yikes! The ones on Elama and Marxine missed all around. Unfortunately the one on Marxine didn’t succumb to the slow from the Rod of Litrices. Vinya attacked the mantis in front of her with her quarter-staff (guessing that these wouldn’t need magical weapons to hit them), hitting both times, then followed up with a punch and a stunning strike (that worked). Aldalomiel cast zephyr strike, then ran to the “wall” (formerly the floor) on the other side of the room and fired two arrows at the one that had attacked her. Both of those hit, doing a lot of damage. Elama cast thunderwave on the mantis in front of her -- pushing it so that it was next to the one that Aldalomiel had just skewered and doing a lot of damage. Then she moved to be adjacent to both of them and attacked one with her scimitar of speed. Marxine attacked the one in front of her, hitting twice (one of them a crit). That was so successful, she did an action surge and attacked again, hitting twice again. The total damage from Marxine’s turn was 60 points. NICE! Of all of them, Marxine’s mantis was definitely looking the most ragged at this point. Elderron moved to line up a lightning bolt on the three of them over there. It took a bit of doing and the bolt went perilously close to Elama. He made the bolt have a wisdom save (but left the damage unchanged) and she was able to entirely avoid damage from it. The bolt was somewhat anemic but still did 26 points of damage. The three non-stunned mantises made a noise like a cough and from their joints emitted a cloud of what looked like shards of glass-dust. Everyone managed to avoid the dust, but it looked like it would be incredibly hazardous to breathe. Vinya’s, because it had been stunned, was unable to do that. Vinya, seeing the crystal shard-dust: I want to keep mine stunned, I see. She then proceeded to pound on hers, doing two attacks with the quarter staff and a flurry of blows with a knee and fist, all of which hit. She stunned it for the next round with a knee to the thorax. Aldalomiel missed twice with her arrows then took her starry archer form and got a critical hit with the radiant bolt. Elama cast spiritual guardians then stepped a bit to the side so that all three of them on that side of the room were within the radius of little floating, zapping thunderclouds. Then she made an attack on one with the scimitar of speed and got another hit. Marxine attacked her bug, already starting to look frayed. She missed with one hit but did maximum damage with the other, leaving it looking pretty bad indeed. Elderron cast another lightning bolt, this time without having to worry about hitting Lamie as she’d moved out of range so he made it an intelligence save and had it do cold damage. Once again it wasn’t the most powerful spell, but it did hurt them. The three mantises on that side of the room all took damage from the spiritual guardians, then attacked. Two of them were attacking Elama, each with three attacks. One of them hit twice. The other one only got one hit, but it was a critical hit. Fortunately the spiritual guardians stayed up. Marxine actually took a hit, which rarely happens. Vinya hit once with the quarterstaff and once with an elbow, but it wasn’t affected by her stunning strike. Aldalomiel dropped one of the two on Elama with her arrows then fired a radiant bolt at the other one. Elama, having been hit pretty hard the previous round, started dodging. Marxine absolutely splattered the one that had been on her, then turned to the one remaining on Elama and hit it hard as well. Elderron finished that one off with a fire-damage blight spell that caused it to burn from the inside -- the exoskeleton glowing as its insides flamed before the exoskeleton itself burned and crumbled to ash. The only mantis remaining, the one on Vinya, flew up into the air and its wings made a harmonic noise that charmed her entirely. Then it broke and flew toward the nearest staircase (the one it had come from), which was only a few feet away. Then it disappeared into the darkness. Vinya ran after it, calling for the others. Vinya: It’s hurt! We need to help it. Aldalomiel, following: Sure, these are healing arrows. Aldalomiel followed with a move and a dash to get to the entrance to the next room, where Vinya was waiting at the doorway. Then she fired a “healing” radiant bolt at it that hit. Elama kept up her concentration on the spiritual guardians and ran as fast as she could to get to the entrance to the other staircase, but didn’t go through. Marxine, who was closer to that staircase than Lamie, moved and dashed and got part-way through. Elderron, closer still, was able to get into the next room. Where he saw Vinya chasing the bright elusive butterfly of love -- or at least the flying mantis-like creature that had charmed her -- calling for it to come down so she could help it. We were in what looked like a former magical work room, though all the furniture (and alchemical glassware) had crashed to the floor when the tower tilted and/or crashed. The Butterfly of Love turned around and attacked Vinya, hitting her twice for a painful lot of damage. That brought Vinya back to a bit more of a rational place and she was able to still her mind and end the charm on herself, then she used a ki point to step like the wind and move behind the broken remains of a bench. Aldalomiel, to Vinya: Are you no longer seeing the pretty butterfly? Vinya: Yeah. Sorry about that. Aldalomiel then proceeded to shoot it -- hitting it with an arrow and a radiant bolt. Elama ran into the room and cast sacred flame on it (to no effect) then cast a powerful healing word on herself. Marxine ran in, but wasn’t able to close. She wasn’t able to get closer than the very edge of range for throwing hand axes at it. She tried that anyway, throwing two of them, but they both missed. Elderron cast a basic magic missile which did enough damage to drop it. As soon as the last mantis dropped, Elderron sat down and started the ritual to identify the staff again. Vinya cast detect magic from the Rod of Alertness again and went back to walking around in this new room, the former workshop of the wizard who’d owned this tower. Vinya found a big, ornate book that could be a wizard’s spell book. She put that next to Elderron so he could put it into his bag when he was done with his ritual. She got the impression, which Elderron confirmed later, that this wizard had been mostly focused on light, radiant energy, and illusions. We found some notes he’d made about research he’d been doing and slipped those into someone’s backpack. While Vinya was walking around checking out the room, Aldalomiel cast cure wounds on her. Vinya: Thanks. Elderron finished his identify spell on the purpleheart staff with an impressed whistle. Staff of Triltum (requires attunement by a spellcaster) This staff is made of purpleheart, topped with a block of clearest calcite. While holding the staff, you gain a +1 bonus on spell attack rolls. Whenever you score a critical hit with a spell attack, the target takes an extra 3d6 radiant damage. Also, while holding this staff you can cast the Wall of Light spell once; you regain this ability at dawn. Vinya: I think we’ve gotten both your weal and your woe here, Elama. Lamie: That explosion thing they did was annoying. Lamie then cast protection from poison on Vinya. We moved on, taking the staircases in the walls from one room (floor) to another. We went through a kitchen and a formal dining room, getting ever closer to the basalt rock itself. While we were in a parlor there was a low-pitched rumbling and shaking, in the mind as much as in the walls. It seemed like it was coming from inside the rock. We figured we had to be getting close to where the tower sat on/came out of the rock, in part because this appeared to be a room for receiving visitors. There were stairs on either side of the room that went on into, most likely, the basalt itself. Elderron sent Oda in, watching through his eyes. Oda saw three beings in the room -- one figure was an extremely obese humanoid, medium size. His hands were so fat or swollen they were almost flippers and he was holding an object that looked like a staff. The other two were ogre-sized and grotesque. The skin and subcutaneous layers were transparent, so he could see the muscles twitching as they moved around. They were humanoid in shape and ogre-sized (and looked a bit like if you’d skinned an atypically lean ogre) with lots of teeth. Their eyes didn’t seem to have eyelids. There was a lot of stuff in the room -- a glowing and flickering crystal that was hard for Oda to look at but the rumblings we could still here seemed to be in time with the flickering in the crystal. All three of them turned to look at Oda. Elderron immediately popped Oda back into his owl-pocket. Before we could consider too deeply what to do, the two large skinned-looking figures started climbing through the stairway into the parlor we were in. The blobby figure walked through the wall (phasing through not bursting through like Kool-Aid man). Vinya: Maybe we found the wizard. And there we ended. [/QUOTE]
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Erkonin (Campaign #2) [Session 45: Rajalmin's Agent]
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