Monday, July 11, 2016

Side adventure: Tower of the Mad Mage

After defeating the wolves, LaDeidre realizes she has left her whet stone at the Blue Falls Inn.  Her and others from the party decide to head back to town to retrieve it and other supplies.  Vannan and Gilley decided to stay and learn more about the huge creature Vannan seems to have bonded with.  They notice a few building up the road and decide to investigate.  One is a tavern which Vannan is very pleased to find.  They enter and are greeted to much drinking and gambling.  Shortly into their drink a goblin bursts in, bloodied and exhausted.  He ask for help and promises great riches.  The bartender demands the adventure-ers take him to the constable.  Instead, Vannan heals the goblin and they learn his name is Sqwelch.  They run into the constable that demands that the goblin be turned over to her.  Vannan questions the officer of the law and Gilley eventually brides the constable.  They find a room to sleep in for the night.  Sqwelch talks about how his tribe found a tower and Sqwelch was told to scout it out.  He found a dragon at the top laying on a hoard of treasure.  Glubnose, the goblin chief, decides to attack the dragon.  They defeat (kill) the beast and take the tower as their castle.  However, Glubnose does not share the booty equally and Sqwlech puts up a fuss.  He is beaten and nearly killed for doing so.

Sqwelch asks the two if they will assist him at rooting Glubnose out for an equal share of the treasure.  Gilley tries to negotiate the split but quickly finds that Sqwelch is really bad with numbers.  They agree to take on this adventure as it should not take long.  They make their way to the tower and kill so boars along the way.  They find a naked man, Jai Copperstaff, trapped under a tree.  They free him.  Later that night Jai transforms into a wererat and scampers away when the party does not attack him.

They reach the tower and surprise two goblin guards badly guarding the entrance.  The continue in and find many wolves guarding the next room.  Vannan has Grimtooth attempt to dominate the wolves but fail.  They lure the wolves out of the room with boar meat and after the feast the wolves run off into the wild.

They enter another room and find axe beaks, strange ostrich creature with clever-like beaks.  After defeating these foul fowl, they go up to the next level and find a room with eerie pipe music and a desk with a locked drawer.  When Gilley tries to unlock the desk, the air elemental stops playing the pipes and manifests.  They are able to defeat the swirling dervish of dust and cobwebs.  They find some gold pieces and magical goggles in the drawer.

They continue on to the next room, a study of some sort.  Here they find a book shelf with a diary for Hugo Harpwell.  When they try to open the book it spring for spider-like legs and begins running around the room yelling, "No, no, no, no!"  Vannan captures the diary and it screams, "Noooooo!" and turns to dust.  They also find boring books of no interest until they see one called The Book of Wondrous Answers.  A few pages have scribblings of questions with a fancy scripted reply.  Three pages remain blank.


They enter the third floor and a kitchen with a dead goblin.  They investigate the room.  Vannan seems suspicious and soon the pots and cleaves on the wall begin to rattle.  They escape the room before they must fight the cutlery.

They reach the top floor and Gilley runs in to find the goblins led by Glubnose.  As the sides are about the fight a great crash can be heard overhead.  "The dragon has returned!" exclaims one of the goblins.  A count down begins as the dragon begins to bust its way through the roof.  Gilley decides to capture some of the dragon's treasure and grabs a handful of loot.  She is attacked.  Vannan and Grimtooth decide the dragon is too dangerous and begin exiting the castle.  Sqwelch is badly damaged and flees.  Gilley is barely able to escape the room and they barricade the goblins to the top floor to meet their fate.

On the way out Gilley convinces Vannan to explore one more room since the dragon is occupied.  They attempt to open one more door that is actually an ooze that attacks them.  They are about to flee when Gilley thinks she sees some in the room behind the ooze.  Grimtooth bites the ooze and her mouth begins to sizzle from acid.  They are able to destroy the slime creature and find an invisible chest.  Here they find much treasure including a magical longsword called Whitherbrand and a Wand of the War mage.

They count themselves lucky and leave the tower.  They make their way back to the Gambling Golem to wait for their fellow party members to return.

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