Weary from battling the hag’s dangly parts, the adventurer’s quest began from trusty Beoir’s tavern once more.
The party was approached by Njord the warlock who immediately and astutely discerned the ragged bunch of adventurers to be weird in nature; he quickly regretted walking over to them.
‘Erjhjkshdjkht’ the jolly patron, after receiving a generous silver from Johannesz, proceeded to tell the party about the mad wizard Triskell. The party learnt that this wizard is no trifling mage, and lives in a large tower north west of Sabhail.
“Tis’ very dry near the wizard’s tower isn’t it ‘Erjhjkshdjkht’? Very dry indeed”.
Rejecting a very generous and honest offer from a stable master outside of town, the adventurers began their quest in search of the wizard on a high note. “Walking is free after all” ^^
Due to the stormy and snowy weather, the adventurers had to camp in snowy terrain under the protection of some mighty trees. “Fuck sleeping out in the open, everyone knows sleeping near trees sets the scene for camping, mm hmm”. After a palaver? Or rather, a shared nightmare thanks to Njord, the party began to have a wonderful sleep ^^.
On Johannesz’s watch, he discovered something under the layer of snow on the ground nearby. A rusted helmet with an old skull inside, from a time long before. Johannesz felt the urge to practice his ventriloquism act using the hollowed out skull, but fought off the temptation and proceeded to check the surroundings more closely. It wasn’t long before he had uncovered the remains and armour of multiple skeletons which were assumed to be the resulting aftermath of a battle fought long ago.
Just then, Johannesz was confronted by vivid apparitions of the battle once fought on these grounds! Voices echoed and a dragon rained down fiery death on the ghostly visage of soldiers in battle.
After this surreal moment, Johannesz turned his head to face a now very real looking horse and a rider complete with glowing red eyes and a battleaxe at the ready. Before he could blink twice, this mysterious figure vanished just as quick as it appeared.
Johannesz managed to sleep through the night without shitting himself in fear. “Repress those scary and nasty thoughts Johannesz, and concentrate on your ventriloquism act instead I say ^^”.
From some of the leftover snow in the area, Njord conjured up some kind of icey/watery like serpents which swirled around him and remained at his side for the journey ahead.
Continuing along the rest of the way toward the wizard’s tower, Laithina spotted some Gnolls whilst scouting ahead of the group. “Could it be? No…surely not… the same Gnolls the adventurers spotted on one of their earlier adventures?! Yes, the very same!”.
Bivouac and his diplomatic disposition, insisted that he at least try and attempt to initiate dialogue with the furry critters. Attempting to decipher their language with magic and mitigate their fears with a friendly strumming of his ukulele, he managed to succeed in lowering the guard of one of the Gnolls. This moment of unease and confusion amongst the gnolls was enough to allow the party to scuttle around the ragged creatures with hurried steps.
This act of weakness greatly angered the alpha of the gnoll group. The alpha, milky eyed gnoll then proceeded without hesitation to accost the gnoll who dropped his guard, by biting out his neck and spitting it at the adventurers. “You cunt’s are fucked”, he said? “there will be more of us next time!!”.
The adventurers immediately felt regret rising up from their stomachs at hearing this threat, and everyone produced an audible ‘gulp’ in unison. “Fun times ahead eh boiiiis~”.
The road thinned out and wide open plains became more visible as the snow began to melt. Entering these vast, flat plains, the party was trekking along uneventfully until they heard a piercing screech in the distance…From a stroll to a now hurried pace, the adventurers clenched their butt cheeks and waddled towards the now visible tower in the distance.
Just as ‘Erjhjkshdjkht’ had said to them in the tavern, “Ooh, very dry around there, very dry!”. The very moisture of the place seemed to be sapped away and the land became barren and lifeless around the tower. Njord sent in one of his serpents which quickly began to evaporate in an unnaturally fast way.
“Yep, very dry around here, very dry indeed”.
As the group approached the tower they noticed some flashing lights coming out of the upper most floor of the tower and some gargoyles atop the roof. Without waiting around too long, they knocked on the towers iron door. Abruptly, they were greeted by a loud and amplified voice recording of what they assumed to the mad wizard Trisskell residing in the tower.
Accepting what seemed to be a direct invitation into his tower, the party proceeded to enter the wizard’s tower and wait near the entrance as instructed by the wizard’s voice recording.
As Bivouac started to have thoughts of snooping, and as Johannesz dropped his body onto the very fine couch… mysterious pink blobs began to make their presence known on the ceiling above the party.
Eyes formed, then mouths…and before the group could act, the pink fleshy blobs fell to the floor near the party! Now bearing wicked sets of razor sharp teeth and revealing many gazing eyes, the party found themselves under attack!
Surprisingly, these toothed vagina mouthed monsters were no match for the party and were unable to land a single blow.
By the strength of Mourns in bear form! The might of Johannesz’s magic! The swift swordplay of Laithina! And Vinnie “Fucking” Jones and his floor and door… face-planting skills? The party obliterated the enemy! Yay.
From here on, the party poorly navigated their way through the tower and its rooms with glass like walls around the exterior. “Circular hallways can be pretty overwhelming I must say”.
Bivouac managed to stumble upon a few different rooms with loot and nothing terribly noteworthy until he found a room with glass floors that contained something very strange beneath them. Deep underneath these panes of glass were what looked to be many dead bodies with eyes closed and lying flat on their backs…until some began to show signs of being…itchy and mildly uncomfortable.
“Hmm, how very curious, dead things usually don’t move like that”. It became obvious to the group that there was some kind of ruse at hand here. They ignored these “people” for now and pressed on upward throughout the tower.
Walking up the stairs, the adventurers stumbled upon a room with a sleeping halfling inside. They knocked on the door and announced themselves. The halfling introduced himself as the keeper of the stairs, and it would seem that he keeps the stairs very well indeed.
After some persistent questioning from Bivouac, the halfling became agitated and the party had the door closed on them followed by a very definite and resounding ‘click’ of a key turning in it’s lock.
“Well done Bivouac, let’s hope that stair keeper doesn’t have more friends like the gnolls do, and come back to kill the adventurers someday. I hear that the stair keeper guild is quite a formidable workforce who take their jobs very seriously… Gulp”.
At the end of the stairs, the party was confronted by the presence of an inanimate statue near the doorway. The very moment the party drew closer however, the statue became animated and raised its stone fists in defiance. “The password is monkeys!”, it bellowed.
…uh huh
After some pointless questioning, Noam cut straight to the chase with her infallible logic. “What is the password?”, she spat, and with an accepting tone, the golem construct lowered its head and said “monkeys…”.
…mm hmm
Now with access into the room beyond, there, in the centre of the room, was the source of the mysterious chromatic lights they saw coming out of the towers top floor earlier. The flashing colourful lights were emitting from a crystal like orb on a pedestal. On the other side of the wall was a stone ladder which they climbed and reached the top of the tower with.
Now on the roof of the tower, the group notices a large pile of miscellaneous PRETTY BAUBLES~ and also a collection of junk and useless trash, along with the statue gargoyles they saw from the foot of the tower.
The adventurers quickly put two and two together, thought this was VERY suspicious, and climbed the fuck back down the ladder to the flashing orb below.
Fed up and annoyed at the fact that Triskell the wizard was nowhere in sight, Vinnie “the fucking headbutting” Jones, did just that…and headbutted the shit out of the flashing orb.
And what a headbutt!!
The orb smashed apart easily and swirling smoke gushed out of the once whole orb. A vividly strong and magical vision flashed throughout Vinnie’s mind, and revealed a hidden door to him within one of the tower’s rooms.
I am trying to be brief but this turned into a FUCKING essay!
The adventurers all grumbled, kicked some loot about, and found said door from the vision, opened it, and found nothing but darkness. WHAT LURKS WITHIN!?
Who the fuck knows? It’s certainly not for the adventurers to know…
Triskell, the mad and elusive wizard, nowhere to be found…
At least not yet…^^