Stone Cold Cleric Report

General Summary

With the beholder Isyptotrix slain, the Grey Outcasts got to moving their friend Naelen out of the cave, with both Martin and Kaizzt quaffing giant's strength potions to drag him to the entrance. From there, Sylvan flew Raijo, carrying Meera along with him to the town of Magepoint, where Meera would be safe and Sylvan could look for a cure for Naelen. There, he met Narina Cordon, an accomplished mage who served as a teacher for bright young minds on the coast, and an administrator for the town, who told him of two potential cures that he could get without risking a cart ride all the way back to Greyhawk. One was Alana Fimbar, an alchemist in Elmshire, who was a bit kooky, but talented. Another was a dangerous ruin on the coast known as the Tower of the Green Devil, which was said to have a cure for any ailment within, but none to her knowledge had ever returned. Sylvan decided to try the less risky option first and continued westward to Elmshire, where he found Alana in her shop called "Drip, Fizzle, Bang". He found Alana in the middle of an experiment, surrounded by broken glass, but when he asked her for a cure for his friend, she quickly produced a solution she called "Basilisk's Tears" which, in theory, would help his friend. He purchased it for a few hundred gold and sailed back to the beholder's lair, where his friends sat in wait. After applying the solution with a makeshift sprinkler that Martin smithed from a shield boss, Naelen was partially cured; his movements were janky and stiff, but able to move, he was still mostly stone, but could walk around. Unfortunately, the effect seemed only temporary, as he became stiffer and stiffer as they rode along. Seeing no other option in immediate sight, they risked the Tower of the Green Devil, bumming a ride off of the Mist Dragon Olcholoros that they had met prior, thanks to a favor he owed Narina. Flying for a day and a half, they reached this ancient tower, touching down at its crumbling steps. The tower's first level was mostly collapsed, save a pristine archway and around half of its wall. Above the archway, was an old bronze tablet, covered with verdigris, making it almost unreadable. Quickly, Martin cast the mending spell and blasted it away, revealing a foreboding message:
  "Acererak welcomes you, who are laden by sickness, within death's cold grasp. Enter my tower for restoration if you dare, but know that failure will lead to a fate worse than death, so make of this whatever you wish."
 

• Your doom awaits within the green devil's maw
• Obey those of stone, for they follow alone the red law of tooth and claw
• If blood you wish to spill, you need only heed its crimson color
• Though gold lies below, and gemstones in tow, they belong to the man of iron
• Against desperate spirits tortured long, a heart may turn the tide
• Unless you choose the final cure, your mortal soul is mine

  Taking note of the warning, they made their descent to the basement of the tower, where they found their first obstacle: a red and a green archway, both carved in the likeness of devils. After deliberating on the riddle somewhat, they decided to test the red doorway, with Sylvan taking his last steps straight into the darkness with a faint hiss. The party called out for their friend but received no response. Kaizzt gingerly felt around the arch with his 10-foot pole, and felt its end give way. Pulling it back, he saw that it had been eaten completely with a faint smoke drifting off the end. Their friend Sylvan, had been atomized. The group of them were struck with sadness, Martin frozen in place. Dream and Kaizzt both fell to the ground, Kaizzt crying, feeling terrible about how he had treated Sylvan in the past few days, and Dream crawling up in a corner to process what had just happened. Clarimund, too, shed a few tears, petting Luka to comfort herself. The party, took a long time to recuperate enough to continue, but when they did, they marched forward with greater determination, Martin striding forward, taking the helm of the Grey Outcasts. They still had a friend they could save. They first passed into a passage full of bones, three great red circles stood spaced throughout, completely clean of any debris. Taking the warning of the color red more seriously, they walked only along the bones and reached an almost painfully bright, white-tiled cubic room with a giant four-armed gargoyle hunched in the center. A plaque near its feet read:
  "Embrace the deep to continue your journey. Refuse, and I will crush you"
  Behind the gargoyle were two buttons, one red with a skull on it, the other, a blue button with waves. Martin mashed the blue one, and the entryway behind them slammed shut as the room began to fill with an aquamarine liquid. Upon further inspection, they noticed that bits of seashell and sand were floating in the liquid. After a while of the room filling with the liquid, Kaizzt remembered drinking a potion that was very similar to the liquid and took a gulp. He found thereafter that he could breathe the water and told the others to do the same. Once they had all taken a gulp, a hatch opened on the north wall, leading to the next room. After crawling their way through a stone tunnel, they found themselves in a torchlit room, filled with murals of people being sacrificed to lava. In the center of this room, like the last, stood a gargoyle, this time with a drawing of a set of buttons with arrows pointing out a sort of number combination. Martin, both angered at his failure to prevent Sylvan's death, and anxious to save Naelen, quickly rushed up to the door with a similar button matrix to the hint and mashed the combo in. While it did not work exactly according to plan, as the red buttons he pressed sent spikes through his mechanical hand, the door opened nonetheless, and the Grey outcasts proceeded to a room filled with magical treasure, and masterfully painted murals of nobles dressed in white tunics enjoying fine food and drink at a countryside estate; in the center of the room, stood what appeared to be a large iron statue holding a sword at the ready. Remembering the instructions on the tablet, the group of them were careful not to touch the treasure and instead looked for an exit that would move them forward. Quickly, Clarimund spotted some strange grooves on a painted door on the wall, which turned out to be hiding a secret door into a cold, dark passageway beyond. As they rounded the bend, they stepped into what appeared to be an ancient crypt, bones lining the walls, spirits wafting along the vaulted ceiling, and a stone altar with an ethereal key floating above it, almost asking them to press beyond the locked door at the end of the room. They moved forward and snatched the key, but only for the spirits around the room to surge forward and begin an otherworldly assault. The Grey Outcasts did their best to beat back the waves of undead, but they continued to surge forward endlessly. Thinking quickly, Martin thought back to the riddle and slapped a portion of wizard's brain onto the altar, hoping that a brain may pass for a heart. And indeed it did, as Kaizzt called upon the warriors of Valhalla to assist them, they beat back the spirits, who lessened their assault, as they shoved the key into the door at the end of the room, leading them to their final test: a five-tiered pedestal with many containers on it, anything from a golden chalice to a lowly tankard, many having some sort of number combination on them. With the help of S.A.M., Martin deduced that the number sequence was a letter cipher using a base 13 numbering system and from there figured that the jug with the word FINAL written on it was probably the correct choice, as per the riddle. As carefully as they could, the Grey Outcasts made their way back through the dungeon and were taken back to Magepoint by Olcholoros. There, they went to Narina's tower, where she was keeping Naelen safe and poured the contents of the jug over him. Immediately, it began to take effect, as gravel and stone dust rained off of the cleric, restoring him to his loveable old self. Unfortunately, the moment was bittersweet, as the party told Naelen of what had happened to Sylvan in the dungeon. Naelen became crestfallen and walked to the small dock at magepoint for some time alone. In honor of Sylvan, he poured out the last of his alcohol in his bottle into the lake, and as if Procan himself opened a portal to another world, a vortex appeared and sucked up the liquid. With a sigh and then a scream, Naelen hurled the bottle out into the lake, and it slowly floated away. The group of them then returned to Greyhawk, and broke the news to Yarruk and Febblekin, who both took the news hard, but were thankful that Sylvan had left them the Hell's Outcasts. Searching around in his quarters, Martin also found a will, with a few nice parting words for the party. From there, the party made their way to Hardby and told Sylvan's parents about what had befallen him. They were both heartbroken but invited the party to his funeral in a small graveyard outside of town. They placed a headstone in an empty spot of earth, and said a few words. It was at this point that a strange creature, perhaps a person covered in ancient plate mail, vines and dirt, made its way to the grave. It seemed to be a caretaker of the earth here, as it used its staff to grow flowers around the new addition to the graveyard. As the party was about to leave, something changed for the thing, and it no longer felt tied down to this place, and began to follow the party around. Not being able to speak or tell anyone its name, Martin named the thing Ent. After the funeral, the party took a long stretch of downtime, in which Kaizzt sent gold up north to improve the defenses of Castle Mountainhelm, and Martin's tower had finally been completed. Along with everything the new tower would offer him, two new allies showed themselves. Alana Fimbar, the alchemist that Sylvan met in Elmshire, had unfortunately burned down her shack, but offered her services to Martin. In addition, a dispossessed flesh golem named Jerry showed up in the middle of the night looking for a place to hide, now that its dead master could no longer protect it. The Grey Outcasts would not get much longer than two months of rest though, as the trouble in Elmshire was not as solved as they believed it to be...

Notes

• Started the 24th of Flocktime, and ended the 1st of Harvester.
• Combines the events of two sessions.