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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Reynard" data-source="post: 8081109" data-attributes="member: 467">The Avernus crew took a little side trek. They need to get up to the Companion to crack it open as the first action in trying to free Elturel, and to do so they went looking for a magic carpet. One of the PCs is from Elturel and he recalled an eccentric wizard named Weird Gimble that used to fly around the city on his carpet. No one saw the wizard fly away when the city started to get drawn into Avernus, so the party decided to look in Gimble's tower for the carpet. (NOTE: This was an adventure I thought up as a way to a) have some levity prior to things getting all Deadly Serious, and b) get some real firepower into the PCs hands prior to the Big Showdown.)The tower was a very ancient one, probably older than the city itself, made by some long lost empire of wizards. The door was arcane locked, but not especially dangerous. When they got in they discovered a rather unusual decorating style (giant dwarf statues) as well as a strange animated rug (not the magic carpet). A little investigation uncovered more animated furniture, all shy and uncertain of the new arrivals. It was all cute until one of the chairs licked the half orc ranger and started smacking its lips: the furniture was not animated, but rather all domesticated mimics. Some PCs made an attempt to befriend or even train the mimics but it wasn't especially successful.As they continued to explore, one party member called out for Gimble and eventually got an answer. The strange old man threatened them with fireballs to "prove they weren't devils" but sense won through and eventually the PCs were standing before Weird Gimble. It was clear from the start that something was not right and while at first it seemed he was just addled, it turned out Gimble was not Gimble, but a shape-changed Ancient Brass Dragon called Azazel. Gimble had saved Azazel from Tiamat's prison on Avernus and in return bound the dragon to protect his tower while he zipped off through a planar portal. Poor Azazel did not even know he was still in Avernus in the tower, and quite cross with Gimble chose to help the PCs as best he could without breaking his binding oath (to protect the tower until Gimble's return).Astonished, the PCs still needed to find the carpet so they continued to explore with the polymorphed dragon in tow. The dragon showed them Gimble's planar observatory and portal room but seeing as they don't have a tuning fork for any planes, they could not make use of it. They did open the doors to his private vault, which was trapped with some sort of portal. They used combinations of brute force and magical trickery (as well as sending the poor imp familiar through the portal trap; it returned babbling about "the screaming void") to extract the great treasures from the collection: a scroll of power word kill and one of true resurrection, a crystal ball with true seeing, and The Deck of Many Things. The carpet turned out to be sleeping quietly upstairs and they retrieved that too.Now they are on the cusp of the final conflict and attempt to get Elturel back into the Realms. If they succeed, they now have any ally (Azazel) and a potential enemy (Gimble, whose vault they plundered) as well as a threat (Azazel told them Tiamat's cults are close to releasing her from Avernus and drawing her into the Realms). And there's the matter of the Deck in their possession. Can they resist drawing from it before facing Zariel? Should they?</blockquote>

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