CROAK!

The shell changes and underneath we see a small frog like creature, not unlike in appearance to Glop. A Grung. They wear a puzzled expression. “Oh hey, I guess you’re here to help Unk too” Yesne asks if he is Unk. His name is Croak. No he’s the guy in the sky. He found a shell, spoke with Unk and she teleports him, he doesn’t remember everything from the things he does each time he teleports. Last time he was helping the Company of the Yellow Banner but can’t quite remember what he did. He isn’t sure how long he’s been there. He asks where we are, and pulls out a map. Kailyn asks to look at the map and takes it off him. He said it’s from a man who smokes a pipe. We think it may be Aumar, Croak agrees it could have been him. Says he had a hooked nose (which Aumar has). It’s the shell that seems to bounce him around with the teleporting. He doesn’t remember where he found it, just in the jungle somewhere. Couldn’t point to it on a map. Croak asks why we are here. Yesne says they are looking for the rest of the body to the arm that Fang is holding.   Fang climbs the downward stairs to see if the arm she holds matches the gouges in the floor but as the floor is upside down she doesn’t reach.   Croak points out there are more by him and so Fang walks over to try those, they don’t quite match but seem similar.   Yesne goes to towards Croak he says please don’t touch me my skin is poisonous. She asks if the shell is poisonous which it isn’t. So she touches it and then flicks it. She asks whether I could touch him with a glove on.   Fang attempts to look down the upstairs but the confusion of it being upside down gets to her so she stands on her head to make sense of it. Yesne looks down the upstairs, a sickly light glows with a warm ambience as Croak lights the way. She sees a staircase heading downwards. There is a subtle movement of cool air.   Fang, still on her hands, begins to descend.   Croak suggests that he can make a big bug if we want to check it’s safe.   Croak follows Fang down the stairs, and the rest of the party follow on.   Fang progresses around 15 foot and reaches a crevasse around 3ft, the stairs have fallen away from the current tower.   Croak passes Fang a stone with light on it and she throws it down the hole. It bounces and disappears. She sees something skitter away from inside the crack.   Fang jumps the gap and makes it to the other side. Kailyn slides down the staircase and makes his head invisible so he can look over the side. He throws a rock down. Whilst looking in the gap he perceives an eye.   Croak attempts to talk to the eye. “hello down there, we can see you, we don’t mean you any harm. Do you want to come out and talk?”. The eye blinks and disappears.   Bjorn throws Yesne across the gap and she tumbles into Fang. He throws Nisus across next. Bjorn follows, then Kailyn jumps (with Bjorn pulling him with the rope). The party progresses down the up. And reach a door. Bjorn storms the door despite it being ajar. The room is cracked and falling towards the sides. The ceiling he is standing on is made of stone. There is one exit to one side.   Fang looks at the exit door and there is a wall blocking the door, barricading the door – it was definitely put there.   Kailyn standing in the doorway, hears a strange skittering noise.   Croak notices that the debris on the floor, including cages, are empty.   Bjorn attempts to jump the step to Kailyn and away crumbles the rocks, which are held together with chains. As Bjorn falls, the door slams shut and a barricade of stone appears. Kailyn is on the outside of the door. The skittering noise passes Bjorn. A fight ensues.   There was an immensely powerful lich called Vecna, some of his devout followers who sought his god like powers didn’t always turn out as planned. And so they became twisted and deformed and warped into these Nothic creatures. Can sometimes be communicated with and can be bastions of great knowledge. Their arcane sight can extract knowledge from these minds and retain it.   With Bjorns help, at the end of a rope, Kailyn is lowered into one of the cracks where the Nothic’s appeared. He makes it around 40ft where the crack becomes very tight. The other crack becoming tighter around 30ft.   Hi artus, have you ever met Croak? Rainbow shell? Lost some of my rainbow hair, sad times. Love you.   Hi yesne, yes little guy with colourful shell? Bit busy now wolfs on my tail.   Yesne makes a dome and sees if Ilonas is around, she is, they have a chat about how disconcerting the upside down tower is. I ask if she’s met Croak before, she hasn’t. I suggest it would be funny to sit on his shell, so does. Yesne finds it funny.