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The Ghost Tower of Inverness (C2)
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<blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 4291158" data-attributes="member: 8530"><p><strong>Chapter 35, “The best laid plans of dungeon masters often go astray”, Day Twenty-Nine (August 22nd, 1006 / September 27th local):</strong> </p><p></p><p>The party awakens on the side of the mountain. Old Man Hawkins had gone back down to the river to fish, so the party cooks themselves up some breakfast. The peaceful morning is then interrupted by a bright flash of light, coming from the distant city of Specularum. The party looks up to see a cascade of smoke and ash traveling upward from the city. The rising plume is the width of the entire city, and eventually forms the shape of a giant mushroom. The party stands silently in awe, as the cloud begins to dissipate, leaving behind a crater surrounded by charred husks that were once buildings, with fire and smoke pillowing up from the outer environs of what had once been a great city. </p><p></p><p><em>[Chronicler’s Note #50: The DM tells the players about what transpired during his other group’s game the night before. The characters found out that their mission was to stop a megalomaniac time traveler who was threatening to detonate a nuclear bomb in the city.</em> <em>The players had then been told that another adventuring team would soon be joining them to help deal with this threat. The group decided not to wait, feeling that they alone had sufficient power to handle the situation. The DM stated that he warned them that without the combined resources of both teams there was a high probability of failure, but they choose to proceed on their own despite the warning. The end result was the explosion that the party had just witnessed.] </em> </p><p></p><p>Old Man Hawkins returns, and stares at the distant remains of what had once been his home. Klaaze is the first to speak, saying “Maybe we should find ourselves a nice tropical island to go to instead?” “I just want to go home,” Serita states. Hawkins says “You might still be able to. It’s hard to tell from this far away, but I think that part of the Royal Palace looks to still be standing. That was the “Castle of Old” from your poem. It is worth checking out. The party decides it can’t hurt to check. Hawkins teleports them to a safe location a good distance away from the city, and the party spend the rest of the day hiking towards it. They reach the outer edge of the blast zone by evening, and decide to wait until morning before entering the remains of the city. </p><p></p><p>Day Thirty (August 23rd, 1006 / September 28th local): </p><p></p><p>The party arrives in the city and cautiously make their way towards the castle. As they near the building it becomes obvious that it is the only structure in the entire city that is still partially intact. The enter the charred ruins, carefully making their way past debris and fallen walls. They enter the castle proper, finding that the upper floors of the manor house have collapsed into a pile of rubble. They check the still standing servants’ quarters, and soon discover a slightly ajar door leading to a staircase downward. </p><p></p><p>The party descend downward, finding themselves in a series of well-traveled tunnels, which they conclude is how the servants traveled between the various buildings of the palace. They follow the tunnels to area beneath where the great hall of the palace stood, with Kharole discovering a secret door. It leads to another corridor, which spirals downward. They soon reach an intersection, which has a series of recently made tracks, that from the size Mark identifies as having been made by either elves, half-elves or small humans. </p><p></p><p>A series of traps and secret doors are found along the way. The hallway eventually ends in a section of wall that has been covered by both magical webbing and darkness. The fighters uses their magical blades to cut through the webbing, and then charge through the darkness, entering through a doorway into to a large brightly lit chamber. Inside of the room are twenty margoyles and about forty human females. At the far end of the room the party sees the Basin of Time that had been mentioned in the poem. </p><p></p><p>The leader of the women, attired as a wizard, points towards the party and says “More enemies of the Master have broken through. Attack.” Hearing that, the fighters all draw their weapons and charge into the room. Kharole tosses a fireball into the women. The fireball is quite powerful (almost at maximum) and with a lower ceiling than she is used too covers a much wider area of the room than she had planned on. It kills most of the women in the room, also catching Narg and Phuddipeduzh. The party notice that the leader and the two women beside her were unaffected by the fireball, apparerently surrounded by a magical protection sphere. </p><p></p><p>The enemy leader tosses up a Wall of Fire between the party and a group of ten female archers. The women begin to fire arrows into the fighters, who cannot reach them for melee combat due to the flames. Another of the women leaders orders the margoyles to attack, and a fierce battle follows, during which one of the margoyles bites off one of Phraakeese’s thumbs. They party appears to be having success against the margoyles, but they keep getting picked off by the arrows from the enemy archers, many of which catch fire as they fly through the flames. </p><p></p><p>The gnome Freyland tells Narg “Enough of this. Can you toss me through the flames fast enough that I won’t catch?” Narg grabs him and says “Fine, I’m the outfielder, they’re home plate.” Other than a slightly singed beard, the gnome sails through with minimal damage, hitting several of the archers and knocking them back. Narg comments “Okay, so it was bowling instead of baseball.” Freyland cuts into many of the archers, until succumbing to a Sleep spell cast by the enemy leader. The group of Mark, Klaaze, Phraakeese and Phuddipeduzh all draw their bows and begin to fire back into the female archers. </p><p></p><p>The leader’s two bodyguards move forward to engage Narg and Serita in battle. Kharole has invisibly made her way around the room to the leader. She jabs her dagger into the leaders back, disrupting a spell. The leader moves aside, and begins to toss spells at Kharole. Elsewhere, an invisible female assassin had moved up behind Mark, and stabbed him into unconsciousness. However, before she can finish him off Klaaze, Phraakeese and Phuddi turn and fire their arrows into her. She turns invisible again and retreats. The three fighters then concentrate their arrow fire on one of the leader’s bodyguards, who appears to be a cleric, freeing up Serita to come and heal Mark. The cleric soon falls, and they then concentrate their arrow fire back on the remaining enemy archers. </p><p></p><p>Narg continues to engage the enemy fighter in battle while Kharole goes one-on-one against the leader. By now both have already exhausted all of their high-level spells. Kharole uses both her Ring of Invisibility to evade, but the enemy has a Helm of Teleportation that she keeps using to move around and behind Kharole. Both strike each other with Magic Missile and Shocking Grasp spells. The enemy actually has more low level spells, but Kharole compensates by using up most of the patches from her Robe of Useful Items. They are soon both down to single digit hit points, when Kharole changes tactics, and instead of relying on spells tosses both of her magical daggers into the women. The enemy leader falls dead. Seeing this, the enemy fighter parries Narg’s next three blows while maneuvering over towards the wall, and then disappears into a secret door. Narg considers pursuing, but the party tell him not to leave, that it may be a trap. </p><p></p><p>The bodies of the enemies are quickly searched, Kharole grabbing the helmet of the foe she was fighting. Kharole then investigates the basin, trying to figure out how to activate it. Klaaze dips his hands into the basin’s water, and they come out with webbed fingers. Freyland says “The poem stated ‘You appear where its told’. Why don’t we just ask it to take us to Orman?” “Sounds too simple,” Serita states, but they try it and the fountain begins to glow. Deciding that they have nothing to lose, the party all jump through. </p><p></p><p><em>[Chronicler’s Note #51: While the battle itself was fun, it would have worked far better if the players had had an idea who is was they were fighting. The DM then tells the group that the women were working for the megalomaniac, saying that the DM’s other gaming group had fought them earlier. He adds that the Megalomaniac was named Namro, and that he was the evil twin of the arch mage Orman who had sent them on this mission. This did not mean much to anyone since the party never met or fought him. Instead of just ending this fairly unsatisfying module at this point the DM then asked each player now roll a System Shock roll, with a modifier of –25%, to see how they managed their journey through the basin. Both Freyland and Serita failed their rolls. “Then they are both dead,” the DM stated, ending the module on that note.]</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Silver Moon, post: 4291158, member: 8530"] [B]Chapter 35, “The best laid plans of dungeon masters often go astray”, Day Twenty-Nine (August 22nd, 1006 / September 27th local):[/B] The party awakens on the side of the mountain. Old Man Hawkins had gone back down to the river to fish, so the party cooks themselves up some breakfast. The peaceful morning is then interrupted by a bright flash of light, coming from the distant city of Specularum. The party looks up to see a cascade of smoke and ash traveling upward from the city. The rising plume is the width of the entire city, and eventually forms the shape of a giant mushroom. The party stands silently in awe, as the cloud begins to dissipate, leaving behind a crater surrounded by charred husks that were once buildings, with fire and smoke pillowing up from the outer environs of what had once been a great city. [I][Chronicler’s Note #50: The DM tells the players about what transpired during his other group’s game the night before. The characters found out that their mission was to stop a megalomaniac time traveler who was threatening to detonate a nuclear bomb in the city.[/I] [I]The players had then been told that another adventuring team would soon be joining them to help deal with this threat. The group decided not to wait, feeling that they alone had sufficient power to handle the situation. The DM stated that he warned them that without the combined resources of both teams there was a high probability of failure, but they choose to proceed on their own despite the warning. The end result was the explosion that the party had just witnessed.] [/I] Old Man Hawkins returns, and stares at the distant remains of what had once been his home. Klaaze is the first to speak, saying “Maybe we should find ourselves a nice tropical island to go to instead?” “I just want to go home,” Serita states. Hawkins says “You might still be able to. It’s hard to tell from this far away, but I think that part of the Royal Palace looks to still be standing. That was the “Castle of Old” from your poem. It is worth checking out. The party decides it can’t hurt to check. Hawkins teleports them to a safe location a good distance away from the city, and the party spend the rest of the day hiking towards it. They reach the outer edge of the blast zone by evening, and decide to wait until morning before entering the remains of the city. Day Thirty (August 23rd, 1006 / September 28th local): The party arrives in the city and cautiously make their way towards the castle. As they near the building it becomes obvious that it is the only structure in the entire city that is still partially intact. The enter the charred ruins, carefully making their way past debris and fallen walls. They enter the castle proper, finding that the upper floors of the manor house have collapsed into a pile of rubble. They check the still standing servants’ quarters, and soon discover a slightly ajar door leading to a staircase downward. The party descend downward, finding themselves in a series of well-traveled tunnels, which they conclude is how the servants traveled between the various buildings of the palace. They follow the tunnels to area beneath where the great hall of the palace stood, with Kharole discovering a secret door. It leads to another corridor, which spirals downward. They soon reach an intersection, which has a series of recently made tracks, that from the size Mark identifies as having been made by either elves, half-elves or small humans. A series of traps and secret doors are found along the way. The hallway eventually ends in a section of wall that has been covered by both magical webbing and darkness. The fighters uses their magical blades to cut through the webbing, and then charge through the darkness, entering through a doorway into to a large brightly lit chamber. Inside of the room are twenty margoyles and about forty human females. At the far end of the room the party sees the Basin of Time that had been mentioned in the poem. The leader of the women, attired as a wizard, points towards the party and says “More enemies of the Master have broken through. Attack.” Hearing that, the fighters all draw their weapons and charge into the room. Kharole tosses a fireball into the women. The fireball is quite powerful (almost at maximum) and with a lower ceiling than she is used too covers a much wider area of the room than she had planned on. It kills most of the women in the room, also catching Narg and Phuddipeduzh. The party notice that the leader and the two women beside her were unaffected by the fireball, apparerently surrounded by a magical protection sphere. The enemy leader tosses up a Wall of Fire between the party and a group of ten female archers. The women begin to fire arrows into the fighters, who cannot reach them for melee combat due to the flames. Another of the women leaders orders the margoyles to attack, and a fierce battle follows, during which one of the margoyles bites off one of Phraakeese’s thumbs. They party appears to be having success against the margoyles, but they keep getting picked off by the arrows from the enemy archers, many of which catch fire as they fly through the flames. The gnome Freyland tells Narg “Enough of this. Can you toss me through the flames fast enough that I won’t catch?” Narg grabs him and says “Fine, I’m the outfielder, they’re home plate.” Other than a slightly singed beard, the gnome sails through with minimal damage, hitting several of the archers and knocking them back. Narg comments “Okay, so it was bowling instead of baseball.” Freyland cuts into many of the archers, until succumbing to a Sleep spell cast by the enemy leader. The group of Mark, Klaaze, Phraakeese and Phuddipeduzh all draw their bows and begin to fire back into the female archers. The leader’s two bodyguards move forward to engage Narg and Serita in battle. Kharole has invisibly made her way around the room to the leader. She jabs her dagger into the leaders back, disrupting a spell. The leader moves aside, and begins to toss spells at Kharole. Elsewhere, an invisible female assassin had moved up behind Mark, and stabbed him into unconsciousness. However, before she can finish him off Klaaze, Phraakeese and Phuddi turn and fire their arrows into her. She turns invisible again and retreats. The three fighters then concentrate their arrow fire on one of the leader’s bodyguards, who appears to be a cleric, freeing up Serita to come and heal Mark. The cleric soon falls, and they then concentrate their arrow fire back on the remaining enemy archers. Narg continues to engage the enemy fighter in battle while Kharole goes one-on-one against the leader. By now both have already exhausted all of their high-level spells. Kharole uses both her Ring of Invisibility to evade, but the enemy has a Helm of Teleportation that she keeps using to move around and behind Kharole. Both strike each other with Magic Missile and Shocking Grasp spells. The enemy actually has more low level spells, but Kharole compensates by using up most of the patches from her Robe of Useful Items. They are soon both down to single digit hit points, when Kharole changes tactics, and instead of relying on spells tosses both of her magical daggers into the women. The enemy leader falls dead. Seeing this, the enemy fighter parries Narg’s next three blows while maneuvering over towards the wall, and then disappears into a secret door. Narg considers pursuing, but the party tell him not to leave, that it may be a trap. The bodies of the enemies are quickly searched, Kharole grabbing the helmet of the foe she was fighting. Kharole then investigates the basin, trying to figure out how to activate it. Klaaze dips his hands into the basin’s water, and they come out with webbed fingers. Freyland says “The poem stated ‘You appear where its told’. Why don’t we just ask it to take us to Orman?” “Sounds too simple,” Serita states, but they try it and the fountain begins to glow. Deciding that they have nothing to lose, the party all jump through. [I][Chronicler’s Note #51: While the battle itself was fun, it would have worked far better if the players had had an idea who is was they were fighting. The DM then tells the group that the women were working for the megalomaniac, saying that the DM’s other gaming group had fought them earlier. He adds that the Megalomaniac was named Namro, and that he was the evil twin of the arch mage Orman who had sent them on this mission. This did not mean much to anyone since the party never met or fought him. Instead of just ending this fairly unsatisfying module at this point the DM then asked each player now roll a System Shock roll, with a modifier of –25%, to see how they managed their journey through the basin. Both Freyland and Serita failed their rolls. “Then they are both dead,” the DM stated, ending the module on that note.][/I] [/QUOTE]
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