Sundered from us by gulfs of time and stranger dimensions dreams the ancient world of Nehwon with its towers and skulls and jewels, its swords and sorceries. Nehwon's known realms crowd about the Inner Sea: northward the green-forested fierce Land of the Eight Cities, eastward the steppe-dwelling Mingol horsemen and the desert where caravans creep from the rich Eastern Lands and the River Tilth. But southward, linked to the desert only by the Sinking Land and further warded by the Great Dike and the Mountains of Hunger, are the rich grain fields and walled cities of Lankhmar, eldest and chiefest of Nehwon's lands. Dominating the Land of Lankhmar and crouching at the silty mouth of the River Hlal in a secure corner between the grain fields, the Great Salt Marsh, and the Inner Sea is the massive-walled and mazy-alleyed metropolis of Lankhmar, thick with thieves and shaven priests, lean-framed magicians and fat-bellied merchants—Lankhmar the Imperishable, the City of the Black Toga. (From "Induction" by Fritz Leiber)
(Note: For real world size reference, the Island of Lankhmaria is roughly the size of South Korea)
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Whilst taking a breather after your fight with the Winter Wolves, Cathlynn scans the area around the tower, searching for.... well, searching for anything really. Things just aren't quite adding up to her. Why would a wealthy archaeologist, or at least supposedly wealthy (or supposed archaeologist for that matter now that she thinks of it) not want to be here at this tower? Archaeologists love adventure and discovery just as much as paid adventurers and explorers do, if not more because of the depth of history that they can see in nearly every rock and pebble.
As she's considering this, her eye catches a glimpse of the most stunning golden yellow color. She looks up the side of the tower and there, perched in the middle hole of the tower, is the most beautiful golden canary she's ever seen. While she hasn't seen many canaries in her travels since the climes she tends to explore are cooler than these types of birds enjoy, she is struck by its almost other-worldly beauty. Focusing more closely, she sees that its feathers glint with a metallic sheen as the sun hits them in certain ways, very much like the ruby-throated hummingbird's feathers do. She recalls a time that you were in a merchant's square in a village far to the south, where a merchant had all sorts of canaries and finches for sale. She knows for sure none were half as gorgeous as this specimen is, and that merchant was known far and wide for his vast collection of birds.. well, at least as far as the merchant himself told her.
His singing naturally attracts the attention of Verbena and Mateu, especially as his song reverberates powerfully and his notes reverberate from the interior walls of the tower.
Cathlynn feels calmed and rested by his singing and while she is unfamiliar with the effect he has upon her, she knows that there is some level of magic involved, but she can't *quite* latch onto what it is. She knows that this is no druid-craft as far as she's aware, or if it is, it must be the most powerful druid-craft she has ever witnessed as it is a craft unrecognizable to her.
"Perhaps he is a spell or a manifestation of spell-work", she thinks to herself. Just then, the canary stops his singing and looks at her as if he heard her thoughts, and takes flight into the air, flying Westward over the top of the tower. He's soon gone from your sight. Another thought crosses your mind... "Could this be Brigit or Lugh, sending me a message?"
*ooc ( out of character). Cathlynn: This story is not necessarily a call to action on your part, but if you wish to do some between-game actions based on this you are free to do so. Just make your declaration of what you want to say or do. Just know that this may be entirely something, entirely nothing, or something in between. (No Action taken)
Game Session 3 (22 Oct 2022)
Roll20
Cathlynn wild-shapes into a peregrine falcon, alighting to same point of the tower that the golden canary was perched upon. She looks down into the tower's interior (as its roof has long ago since collapsed) and spies several bedrolls and campfires. She also spots a large circular hole in the center of the tower's floor. The hole is capped with a metal grate.
Verbena and Matteu climb into the tower using a rope anchored by Cathlynn after she re-transforms to her normal form.
After surveying the interior, the party comes to the conclusion based off the size of the bedrolls that the denizens must be very large or giant in size.
Cathlynn and Verbena analyze what is in the pit and how to climb down into it. As they are pondering its depth, Matteu sees a chest near the tower's north wall. He opens it and finds 6 light colored gems (later identified as sapphires) as well as 75 gold pieces. He keeps all of these items to himself.
At this point, the golden canary returns to the tower and perches in the tower's centermost hole. Cathlynn casts Speak with Animals and has a discussion with the golden canary.
The canary laughs at Cathlynn when she call him a "gorgeous little canary", seeming to have forgotten that he's either gorgeous, little, or a canary.
Cathlynn asks the canary for help by asking him to dive into the pit to see what's in it
the canary agrees and after a few minutes comes back to the party and tells Cathlynn that there are a fair amount of collapsed stone blocks, rotting wood and a few inches of water at the bottom. He also reports a dark door with runes chiseled into it. He tells Cathlynn that they are "on the right path" and he takes flight before she could question him further.
The party each takes a side of the metal grate and moves it off to the eastern edge of the pit. They plan on tying rope to grate and climbing down.
As they are preparing the rope, they hear voices in an Unknown language coming from the west. The speakers seems to have large booming voices. They only hear two individuals.
They change plans on how they are to scale to the bottom of the pit. Matteau and Cathlynn will descend the rope (in that order) while Verbena will wait at the edge of the pit until they reach the bottom. At the point, Verbena plans to drop the rope down after them and then cast a Teleport spell to join their side.
Because it took approximately 12 rounds for Matteu and Cathlynn to descend, during which each one of them nearly fall to their death on two occasions, Verbena gets nervous as the individuals near the tower's entrance and decides to teleport down early and leave the rope where it is.
Matteu reaches the bottom successfully however Cathlynn falls from 15 feet but is not seriously injured.
Matteu checks the dark door for traps. As he traces his fingers along the surface of the door, electric bolts arch out from each of the four corners of the door and strike Matteu's fingers. The electricity not only causes him damage but travels through his body, into the water they are all standing in, and causes secondary electrical damage to Cathlynn and Verbena.
Cathlynn shares a healing potion and heals herself and Matteu, as she took damage from both the fall and the electrical shock, and Matteu took a significant amount of damage from the direct shock. Verbena did not take a lot of damage so she passed on sipping from the potion.
After a few minutes, the party figures out that the door will no longer shock them if they touch it.
As they arrive at this conclusion, they hear the voices they heard earlier shouting down at them from the top of the pit. They later identify these individuals as Frost Giants.
The giants pull the rope up from the pit
One giant begins to shoot crossbow bolts down at them, but at the beginning of the second round of doing so, he rolls a crit fail and drops the crossbow into the pit, where it smashes to pieces on the jagged blocks.
Because the party is at a loss as to what to do next, Cathlynn casts a Divination spell to ask her Goddess Brigid what will happen to them and/or what the future will bring. Because the spells requires a sacrifice to perform, Cathlynn offers to sacrifice her cantrip Produce Flame to Brigid in exchange for an answer. Brigid obliges and shows them a vision of lifting the door from its bottom as two Frost Giants descend toward them using a rope of their own.
True to the vision, these events do come true, however the door is so heavy that it takes Cathlynn and Matteu both to lift the door just to lift it a few feet. Because Verbena is the smallest of the party, she attempts, and fails several times to place a block under the door to prop it open. She fumbles the block so badly that she keeps losing grip of it. One such such failed roll, the block tumbles beyond her reach into the space that lies beyond the entrance of the door. As she reached to retrieve it, both Cathlynn and Matteu failed their strength rolls and the door smashes Verbena's arm. This causes so much damage (since the door is upwards of 400 lbs ) that Verbena reaches 0 HP.
Matteu subsequently rolls a crit success roll (natural 20) in his attempt to lift the door off of her arm. His roll creates the super strength condition that sometimes people get when their loved ones are in danger and manages to lift the entire door up over his head, allowing Cathlynn to go into the area beyond the door, pulling Verbena's nearly lifeless body in with her. Matteu pivots on his heel into the space with them and lets the door slam down just as the two Frost Giants reach the bottom of the pit.
Cathlynn uses her Healer's Kit to stabilize Verbena which also grants her a success on the death save process. Verbena fails one death save roll but succeeds on her next two rolls.
Cathlynn casts Goodberry and squeezes the juice down into Verbena's throat, then giving the pulp to her as Verbena comes out of unconsciousness.
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