Session 32: Up a tower, down a hole

General Summary

The party, just finishing off a pair of goat head demons, looked around the obvious torture room adorned with chains on the walls and dried blood on the floor. Also on the floor, was a still breathing body of a female silver dragonborn in tattered clothes.
Brother Les rushed over and did an immediate check to see how badly she was wounded and then sealed her wounds with Pelor's light. The dragonborn opened her eyes.
She looked up at them and saw relief that it wasn't the goat demons.
With some suspicion, the party listened to the tale of the dragonborn, who's name was Immal Haqwen. She was a wealthy merchant who was in the city of Tussoa at the time when the giants started coming down from the mountains. Feeling a bit of a notion that maybe she could make a difference for once, she hired some mercenaries and headed for the hills to see if she could stop them. The entire mercenary group was wiped out in the field outside of the tower and she was dragged to the tower where she was tortured shortly before the party showed up.
She promised them a great reward for helped her get home. Zanthros, who was holding out on a single use teleportation wand, offered to take her back to Tussoa.
The party, understanding that it might be possible that they may never see Zanthros again, said their goodbyes. Immal told them to meet her at The Opulant Crab in Port Damali. And then she, and Zanthros, were gone in a small shift of light and space.
Taking a moment to realize that Zanthros would no longer adventure with them, they then walked back out the room and up the next set of stairs.
The third floor found another door in the hallway. Atreena was weary of this floor as this is where she saw the weird, shifting chains in black inkyness in a corner. They opened the door slowly and saw what appeared to be a small shrine with the chained blackness in one corner and a couple small pews facing it. Brother Les entered first.
Immediately, chains from the idol shot out and wrapped around Brother Les, pulling him directly to the idol and started crushing him with necrotic energies.
Pooka entered to try to help get the chains off of it, not before Brother Les got a decent swing on the chains with his mace. The damage wasn't enough to free him, but with Pooka's massive strength, Brother Les was freed and they escaped the room before it could grab someone else. As they shut the door, the chains crashed against the other side of the door.
Given that this area was supposed to be some sort of temple to Tharizdun, "The Chained Oblivion", that thing was probably an idol to the betrayer god.
Taking another moment to breathe, they looked at the next set of stairs heading up, and started up. On the fourth floor, they found yet another door to another room. They opened this door to find a small, broken bedroom. Empty shelves lined the walls, a broken bed, an empty chest and a small table with an hourglass on it.
Looking around the room, Atreena took out her wand of secrets and tested the room. The hourglass pinged with an evocation trap. They chose to leave it alone, and started up the stairs to the fifth floor.
The fifth floor looked to be an experimentation floor with arcane runes engraved into the floor in one corner, a cauldron in another, and a few tables in another corner. However, there was nothing to be found. The west wall was broken with a large hole leading outside.
Once all now four members of the party reached the top, they all started to feel a little woozy and off balance. Then they realized...the tower was starting to lean and maybe even fall over!
Immediately recognizing the threat of being in the tower if it fell, Atreena ran to the hole in the wall, crawled out and down the outside. Meanwhile, Brother Les ran to the same hole, and started tying a rope around a nearby stone table in hopes of climbing down it. Pooka also ran there and was waiting a moment to send his echo outside and then swap spots.
However, Eglantina had a different strategy. She ran up to Pooka and yelled at him to punch her. After a second of thought, Pooka swung a meaty hook at her face, slamming into her cheek. The shock and pain allowed her to channel her powers granted by Xalicas to instantly teleport herself outside on the ground, next to Atreena but also invisible.
Brother Les, thinking that maybe the rope wasn't going to work as the tower started to tip passed a breaking point, looked directly at Pooka and declared that Pooka was going to break his fall and shoved Pooka as hard as he could out the hole. Pooka did not see that coming and out the hole they both went.
As they fell, Pooka got really pissed off but that helped him take the sudden impact of the rocky ground better, as well as Brother Les landing on top of him. They both suffered some bruising but it could have been so much worse.
The tower finally came crashing down near the pit outside, some stone rubble falling into the pit itself. A few seconds later, an explosion erupted around where the fourth floor would have been signaling the trap that Atreena found but did not set off.
The human Gillando, who led them here, was waiting outside and was unhurt. The party knew that they had to head down the pit, but decided to take a rest at the top thinking things were clear. Atreena took watch most of the night.
Before most went to sleep, however, Pooka, still annoyed with Brother Les, found the chains from the idol in the tower wreckage, and promptly wrapped the supposedly still sleeping form of Brother Les' feet. Brother Les was not quite asleep yet, but he let Pooka do it anyways.
Sometime after everyone but Atreena had finally fallen to sleep, Atreena started to hear shuffling and the baying of garbled and strained goats coming from down the pit. She listened carefully, but none were coming up the stairs of the deep pit (too dark and deep to see the bottom). Thinking they were the demon goats, she waited to see if they were coming up but they did not seem to and eventually the sound went away.
A few hours later, she awoke Brother Les for watch. As Atreena rested herself (entering her relaxed state as she did not sleep), Brother Les took the opportunity to take the chains that Pooka used on him to wrap them around Pooka instead. Then he stood his watch.
Around 2am, everyone awoke, gathered their things and started down the stairs of the deep pit. Everyone at this point had dark vision and could see the stairs so, while things beyond their 60ft depth perception were grey and clear, it was all pitch black beyond it.
As they reached the bottom, they found in the center of the pit was another inky black chain idol to Tharizdun, just as seemingly threatening with its soft and creepy movement. In front of the idol was a beaten and broken body, human or elf it was hard to tell.
In the wall, a 20ft tall corridor led underground. The party took precautions and let Atreena enter first. She crawled along the ceiling, passed some statues of humanoid figures but that have a stone representation of the inky blackness for faces. This corridor led a bit far but then turned to the right. The rest of the party moved in, for fear of the Tharizdun idol slowly, unnervingly shifting behind them in the center of the pit.
Around the corner, a closed door blocked the path. Eglantina checked the door for magic and found evocation magic on it. Brother Les, with caution, dispelled the magic on the door. Then opened the door.
Behind the door, the hall continued shortly before splitting in two. To the left, Gillando said the stairs go up to a room with pots, while the path to the right led further in. Both ways lead to the same destination. The party chose to the right.
The halls led around some corners and then eventually down some stairs to a room. The halls led north again, and stairs led south. But Atreena noticed that the wall in the northeast corner looked wrong. She used her wand of secrets to detect that it was indeed a secret door. They opened the door and found a narrow cavern filled with water 10 feet deep that led north. They opted to come back to that and went north out of the room.
The hall turned here and there again, and at one point they found a small room with a couple statues. On one of the statues were some fine leather bracers. Atreena retrieved them without issue. They continued onward.
They eventually came to a door but with stairs leading upwards to their south. Gillando told them it was just upstairs. They went up the stairs and found stairs leading back down to their west, a door to the south and 10 feet farther to the east, another door. Gillando rushed to the door to the south, opened it and went inside.
The party followed him inside, where they saw him rush to the far southeast corner where a bedroll, a few crates, a backpack and other gear lay. He immediately picked up the backpack, pulled out a ring and looked super happy and relieved. He turned to the party and exclaimed that he was thankful for their help but its time for him to go and started arcane gestures. Eglantina immediately recognized the acts of a spell and threw out a hand and countered his spelled, preventing Gillando from teleporting out of the ruins.
Gillando looked wildly frantic and trapped. Brother Les grabbed him, threw him against a wall and started interrogating him. They learned very little but that his "partner" was an Illithid, a mind flayer, and that he was probably in the next door to the east. They learned very little else, except that maybe the ring was his wedding ring that belonged to his wife that left him recently.
Meanwhile, during this interrogation, Pooka was being spoken to by Sizlifeth, the lash, about how Gillando was treacherous, a liar and needed to be punished. Pooka, always fighting his violent side, easily fell to the sway of the lash. Pooka walked up to Brother Les and Gillando talking, then broke out the lash, and tore the face off of Gillando with a single swipe. Gillando died instantly.
Brother Les and Pooka had a very tough argument. They eventually came to a content conclusion, but it was a difficult and tense moment for sure.
They then steeled themselves for a potentially very difficult encounter. As they walked to the next door, Brother Les started encanting a spell before they walked in. Just before they entered, they all heard a voice in their heads that beckoned them to enter as they wished. They entered the room.
Inside to the north was another large idol to Tharizdun, the inky chained blackness slowly swirling. To the south, a pair of large, hulking demons with large claws stood to each side of a single figure with purple skin and a tentacled mouth; an illithid.
The party walked in and the illithid started to welcome them in with smooth words. But before he could finish his sentence, Brother Les unleashed his spell he was holding onto and instantly banished the illithid to an alternate plane!
The demons, realizing the were no longer being held back by the illithid, rushed the party. It was a quick fight and the party took very little damage before they killed both demons. But the illithid was due to returned in 45 seconds, so the party quickly moved to surround the spot it was return, with Pooka even dropping a bear trap in the exact location where it was appear. And just with 6 seconds left to go, Brother Les dropped his concentration of the banishment and immediately cast a spell of his spirit guardians; little Brother Les' swirled around him.
The illithid returned, very flustered but did not step into the bear trap. The party then unleashed everything they had. Rapier, eldritch blasts, the lash and then a mace swipe brutally hurt the mind flayer, but it was still standing...until Brother Les' guardians attacked it and killed the creature. It never stood a chance.
Pooka took his time to harvest the creatures, taking some choice bits. The rest of the party found a stash of treasure behind a stone table and found some goodies.
The party took a short rest and then continued on to explore the ruins some more. They backtracked down the near stairs and went through the door to find a room filled with a pile of broken wood furniture, mostly rotted. They took a look through it and find a small vial with a needle in it. They pocketed it and continued on.
They followed the hall south and found a split in the path again and they took a right to find a small room with a large well in it. Looking down, 50ft down was a small bucket floating on the water with something blue and shiny in it. Atreena offered to climb down, but instead Brother Les thought it better to hook up a sturdy plank of wood and use Pooka's block and tackle to have him drop down (impossible mission style) to the bucket. The moment he touched the sapphire necklace inside, however, the water in teh well erupted and four water elementals appeared. 3 went up to the top while the 4th stayed at the bottom with Brother Les.
The party fought them but found it difficult as the water elementals tried multiple times to suffocate them but engulfing them within. It took a long time for Eglantina who was stuck inside on for at least 20-30 seconds but they eventually got her out. Pooka lashed out, splattering water everywhere. Meanwhile, Brother Les attempted to fight off the elemental at the bottom with him but was having difficulty as he was upside down and it beat on him. But Atreena had a great idea to grab the rope and run with it to pull him up. She had to leave the room and go around the corner to do that and eventually Brother Les hit the top with his fingers (he tried to reach up and climb up as well) which then caused him to fall back, the momentum carrying him the opposite direction and then found himself holding on to the edge on the opposite side of the well. He pulled himself up.
The party destroyed two of the elementals while the other two threw themselves back into the well to avoid annihilation.
The party looked around, completely wet, and still holding the necklace. They left the room to find what else could be found in the ruins.
What else will be found? What treasures and danger await them? Who is Immal Haqwen and what reward awaits them when they return? And will they ever see Zanthros again?

Report Date

19 Aug 2021