Mission 005: The Tower Heist

Mission Log

Hired to retrieve a book of Prophecy from the tower of a missing wizard, Bryn, Paisley, Rarity, and Wendelin embarked to Port Damali's Tumbledowns district to meet with Desire, a wealthy tiefling who owed a favor to the person contracting the Golden Standard. He gave them some information regarding the tower's defenses as well as a key to a layer of the Prismatic Wall that encompassed the tower. Unfortunately, his knowledge was pretty limited, and he directed them towards Aghairon's (the missing wizard) apprentice, Alexia, at the Royal Frog, with a quick note to maybe not mention his name. This, of course, prompted the Hot Goss notebook to be withdrawn, and Desire grudgingly admitted that he ghosted the apprentice because she wanted more than he did from what they were doing.
The group split up, with Paisley off to the Cobalt Soul branch to do research (and pick up lunch), and Bryn, Rarity, and Wendelin off to the Royal Frog to speak with Alexia. In his research, Paisley learned some information about Aghairon and how he liked to modify spells, and that the Time Stop spell was something he was particularly proud of. He also managed to get some additional information that would help them dismantle the Prismatic Wall. Once he'd gotten what he could, he scampered off to get lunch for the party.
Meanwhile, the other group found the Royal Frog, a scrollery shop, in the Beaded Alley. After a very fruitful conversation with Alexia wherein they promised to get her Aghairon's staff, they received instructions on how to dismantle the Prismatic Wall (although her key for the fourth layer went mysteriously missing...), as well as the passphrase for the Time Stop spell before warning them that it was keyed to hers and Aghairon's voice. Wendelin, in a fit of inspiration, perfectly mimicked Alexia's voice, impressing the former apprentice, who pronounced that would be good enough to get past the spell. The last layer, the Alarm Spell, she unfortunately had less information. She informed them that there was no way to not trip it, and that they had to find the puzzle box and insert the correct key to turn it off. They would have fifteen minutes to do that. She gave them a ring of keys with various animals embossed on the handles and told them there'd be a riddle somewhere. She also warned them about the mirrors, a pit fiend, and a snow golem. Unfortunately, this warning seemed to intrigue Wendelin, who was enchanted with the thought of mirror frogs. The second count of the Hot Goss notebook came when Bryn started asking Alexia about Desire. She told them she hoped he fell into the deepest pit of hell. This seemed to satisfy the gossip girls and theys, and they left to meet up with Paisley, who was waiting for them in front of the tower for research purposes. They shared their findings, realized none of the gossip girls/theys remembered the password, and Paisely had a mini panic attack.
They stopped at a shop to procure a drift globe and found a gnome, who they assumed to be the shopkeeper, tossing globes into a box. When Paisley asked about the drift globe, he motioned to the box and said he didn't care what they took since it was his last day. Paisley got the drift globe, while Rarity stuffed their pockets with several orbs of direction, and an orb of shielding. Realizing that they needed to lay low for a bit, Bryn suggested an inn in town she knows.
Upon arriving at the Gilded Chateau, Danore the bartender saw Bryn and very much wanted to be elsewhere. Bryn chatted with him and, in an effort to get away from her, he gave them some rooms at a discounted rate. Bryn thanked him and led everyone up. As they rested, they attempted to come up with a plan of action. Paisley realized that the spells that they would need to use in order to bring down the Prismatic Wall would be loud and garner attention, and so the group chose to be sneaky. Bryn obligingly took off her armor to help facilitate said sneakiness, and everyone donned black for the occasion. At the tower, they found Alexia, who had Wendelin pull two cards from a deck of cards. Alexia tossed them and a Medusa and some bandits and a bandit captain sprang to life, and thus a distract was born. Paisley micromanaged the taking down of the Prismatic Wall, much to Wendelin's annoyance, and Rarity had a chance to shine with their Chromatic orb. Zhelezo came upon them in the midst of their dismantling, but some well executed lies about checking the protections (and, y'know, an illusory Medusa) had the zhelezo on their way. The group got the wall down, quickly handled the Time Stop spell, and rushed in, triggering the Alarm spell.
Moving quickly, they found some teleportation glyphs. Wendelin and Paisley went ahead while Rarity helped Bryn with her armor. Unfortunately for Wendelin and Paisley, they disturbed a flock of steam mephits. They also found the puzzle box that Alexia had told them would stop the Alarm spell. Bryn and Rarity joined the fray a round later, and Wendelin gave Paisley the box to figure out, only.... that didn't go as well as it could have. By the time Paisley had figured out the riddle, he'd summoned spiders and snakes to go along with the steam mephits. They eventually all emerged victorious if not a bit singed, and they began to loot the room. Wendelin found a mirror with Orina the Doll in it, looking worse for the wear, and immediately lost interest, zeroing in on a mirror with frogs that she took. Bryn has a conversation with Orina, which goes oh so well, and ends with the mirror being turned to face the wall. Paisley, who had put up Detect Magic, noticed that the treasure chest that was in the corner wasn't actually a treasure chest and told the group to not touch it. Rarity summoned Mage Hand and touched the chest, which was shockingly a mimic. Bryn evolved into her super-Karen form, Kakaren. Upon victory, the group took an hour to regroup in the study before moving on to the next glyph, where they were transported to a floor with a summoning ward containing a pit fiend. The pit fiend tried to get them to free him, but to no avail, though Rarity seemed close to listening to it and Bryn tackle grabbed them.
Finally reaching the top floor, the group found the bloated, drowned corpse of Aghairon hanging out in a cube of water, as well as a snow golem and their mini snow golem friends. Fortunately, they had found the control rod and were able to get the big golem (Marshmallow) to chill while Wendelin obliterated the mini Olafs. One the threat was gone, they began to chat with Marshmallow, who gave Rarity an envelope that held a prophecy for them from Aghairon, as well as the location of the Book of Prophecy. Mission accomplished, the group continued to loot the tower, finding a variety of things including Aghairon's staff, as well talking to Carol the Dragon and Orina the Doll. While trying to figure out how to relieve the corpse of its really awesome cloak without getting disintegrated by the water, Orina informed them that whoops the spells protecting the tower were back up!
Suddenly realizing they were sort of trapped unless they wanted to renege on their deal with Alexia, the group tried to figure out what to do. Orina tried to get them to make a deal with her, but the group steadfastly was anti-Orina. Carol informed them that one of the mirrors used to be used to teleport objects to whatever destination the person using it had in mind, and Rarity tried this with a coin. Upon ascertaining it worked, the staff was tossed through the mirror as Aghairon's corpse began to sit up, readying a spell. As it let loose a Fireball, the group triggered their recall bracelets and escaped in the nick of time.

SUMMARY

DATE 27/08/2022 - 14/09/2022
DM Sherri
PLAYERS Cairo (Rarity), Emily (Wendelin), Kati (Bryn), Ryan (Paisley)
RESULT Mission Complete
TOTAL XP 1519 xp each
TOTAL GP 50 pp (Bryn & Rarity), 100 pp (Wendelin)

ITEMS ACQUIRED

Prayer beads (Paisley), Periapt of Wound Closure (Bryn), Deck of Illusions (Rarity), Tan Bag of Tricks (Wendelin), Book of Protective Verses, Fireball spell scroll, Wand of Winter (Paisley), Rod of Snow Golem Control (Paisley), Driftglobe (Paisley), a handful of orbs of directions (Rarity, Bryn, Wendelin x2), The Tripod Halfling (Bryn), Guide to Making Half Races, The Summer Queen's Hot Body (Bryn), 1250 gp worth of gemstones each