the Prisoner of Zender

Set Up

* The PCs are hired by the local Mages' Guild to deliver a magically sealed casket (with a cloak of displacement inside) to an important unnamed customer. The location of a tower on the cliffs overlooking the port of Scant is given. The PCs better not make off with the item, or else. (Ever tried evading 25 angry invisible stalkers?)

* A major NPC is afflicted with a magical curse that prevents him from defending or attacking in hand-to-hand combat. He is going to see Bigby the Archmage, a very distant relative, to have the curse removed. He obviously needs guards, and he employs the PCs for the trip.

The Lair

Bigby has not agreed to any meeting at his place. Although the location of his shop is known, he is pathologically secretive and evasive and has arranged to meet in a tower overlooking the cliffs outside the town of Scant. This tower is used as a workplace by junior mages and an alchemist, but they are loosely affiliated with Bigby. The tower is easily located by the PCs.

Nothing about it appears unusual from the outside. The DM may want to have the PCs meet some tough encounters during their travels here, so that arriving here seems like the end of a successful mission. Try to catch the players off guard.

Obviously, not all is well inside. An aspiring young mage (14th level), having learned of Bigby's imminent visit, decided to impress him with the prison of Zagig he had discovered. The item itself is rare enough, but the foolish mage decided to summon, and imprison within it, a powerful greater daemon named Zender. The mage made one tiny but crucial error in the summoning spell he used. Zender ate him alive after forcing him to tell the secrets of the prison.

Zender made swift work of the rest of the tower's occupants, and when an unsuspecting Bigby arrived it was simple for the daemon to imprison the archmage in the prison of Zagig. Zender then took its time examining the magical items within the tower, after summoning a servile lesser daemon to act as guard. Zender is checking items against its innate magic resistance and has just found, to its delight, a ring of spell storing with some decidedly useful spells in it.

The carnage in the tower is mostly in the third and fourth stories; lower down there are only subtle signs of disturbance, for Zender killed most of the inhabitants upstairs. The PCs need to be alert here!

Terrain: Shoreline (Tower)

Total Party Levels: 54 (Average 9th)

Total gp: 10,000

Monster XP: 17,000

Area 1: The main doors of the tower are unlocked but closed. Knocking on the door elicits no reply.

Area 2: The main reception room is pleasantly furnished with armchairs, carpets, and a fine collection of sea shells on a mantelpiece. The wooden door is waxed and slightly shiny. If a PC examines the floor,secretly roll an Intelligence check for him with a - 4 penalty. Success indicates that the PC noticed that something has been dragged across the floor to the doors into area 7-there are clear lines indicating this.

Area 3: This is a games room, with a set of ornate polished wooden skittles of elvish design, packs of fine lacquered cards on a baize-covered playing table, a trolley with a decanter of brandy and glasses, and a cigar box. There is also a dart board and a rack of darts affixed to the wall. lf the darts are taken from the rack, success on a secret Wisdom check with a - 4 penalty means the PC saw that there is a faint streak of blood on one of them (thrown by a mage at Zender).

Area 4: This is a cloakroom; there are six plain robes and cloaks of different colors here, and also five pairs of stout boots for seashore walking (and appropriately weathered), yet the PCs have seen no evidence of anyone at home as yet.

Area 5: Here is a small and fairly spartan dining room. The dining table is laid out for six persons, and an unseen servant is hovering about anxiously, as if it does not know what to do.

Area 6: This is a kitchen where unseen servants (on whom permanency has been cast) are cooking a splendid fish stew (with cream, white wine. and dill) over a stove with a permanent wall of fire. The meal has obviously been brewing for some time. The food is very over cooked.

At some stage the PCs may holler out a greeting while they are on this floor. lf this happens. Zender hurriedly hides things away upstairs (which he has time to do anyway if the PCs spend a while checking things out downstairs) while calling out that he is just finishing some thing off and they should just give him a minute. After four rounds he calls to the PCs to come up, directing them to the stairs up, if they have not already found them.

Area 7: These wooden stairs spiral up to the second floor.

Area 8: This is a splendid lounge, with many trophies of aquatic sport (swordfish beaks, sailfish fins. a kraken beak. and the like), decorated in blue and green. Here the greater daemon sits quietly, using its power of illusion to appear as Bigby. Unless a PC knows Bigby very well indeed (highly unlikely), this illusion is good enough to fool them.

Zender motions to the PCs to sit down; the lesser daemon hides behind one of the two heavy lacquerd ornamental screens, as indicated on the map by the dot enclosed within a circle. Zender does not know what the PCs want, and it just wants to get rid of them. If they have something for Bigby, it feigns a sudden remembrance ("Of course! I get so absorbed in my work I forgot about this. It takes so long, you know.")

If they have an NPC who wants a remove curse spell, then Zender/Bigby can cast this from the ring of spell storing. Zender/Bigby will not know any specific individual to suggest to the NPC for help if this happens-whereas Bigby would know, of course).

Querying Zender about anything odd downstaits elicits a rationalizing response. The overcooked meal? Forgetfulness, endemic among archmages. Drag marks on the floor? One of the youngsters slipped across the waxed floor yesterday. Blood on a dart? Nicked myself with the wretched thing this morning (holds up hand with illusion slightly altered to show graze mark). Lots of cloaks and nobody home? All up stairs working hard in the alchemical laboratory, not to be disturbed. Now give me my parcel (if appropriate) and run along, I'm busy ....

Really gullible PCs may actually say goodbye at this stage. If they do, Zender waves them a relieved farewell and gets on with his searches.

If the PCs are really persistent. and clearly unhappy about what's going on and evidencing suspicion, Zender attacks. It drops the illusion and casts mislead, almost certainly with the benefit of surprise. This gives it the equivalent of a projected image insofar as he has a phantasmal double from which spell effects appear to emanate while being cloaked by improved mvisibility (giving a -4 bonus to its already low AC). At the same time, the lesser daemon hurls itself forward from its hiding place and engages the nearest PC in melee.

These two fight very differently. The lesser daemon just tries to rip the heads off people. Zender is much more subtle and devious, and should be played accordingly; it will use magic in preference over physical attacks in practically any case.

If the PCs survive, undetailed areas here are the bedrooms of the tower's occupants (Areas 9 and 10), the alchemical laboratory (Area 11) and the storeroom (Area 12) where Bigby is held prisoner on a table. in the prison of Zagig. Bigby knows the command word to release himself, but this word must be spoken by someone from outside the prison.

Assuming the PCs free Bigby, the grateful archmage rewards them with 10,000 gp in gems, and also provides each PC with a suitable magical item for his class. Allow each PC to name a magical item (no artifacts, relics, or amazingly rare items), and Bigby will have this delivered to them in 1d4 weeks. Ordinary items such as a plain ring of protection + 1 or a wand of enemy detection (Bigby thoroughly approves of these and will never go anywhere without one in the future!) are immediately available.

The PCs now have a member of the Circle of Eight as an acquaintance. Who knows where this may lead?