Five Tower Keep Session 26: 02/28/2019 Throw Her A Baby Shower, The Fellowship of the Skull, and The Old Dragon of Horcton

As we begin this week’s session... three of the half-orc statues in the second stone garden gasp for air after our characters revived them from stone to flesh with the blood of the greater basilisk; they take long moment to regain their bearings and assess their situation. Our characters find these three speak broken common as well as orcish; some of our characters speak orc whilst others have the ability to comprehend languages and share with the others the conversation. Mesha notes they are all collectively evil.

Mesha channels positive energy to not only heal our characters and hirelings, but also the half orcs thereby indicating we mean them no harm and are open to a dialog.

Our characters quickly realize they are intellectually simple, and on a side note they are all males of their species. A robed half orc, an adept named Mulkrod, rips off his mask throws it to the ground and curses it in disgust. Mulkrod then notices the other robed half orc that remained stone and spats in his direction too. The bastard sword wielding half orc, a barbarian named Tailkrur and the scimitar wielder- a ranger named Koad, also come to their senses and allow Mulkrod to do all the talking.

Mulkrod thanks our characters and tells us they was betrayed by the masks (which did nothing to help them against being turned to stone); they do not remember this specific statue garden, but does remember being in a place such as this.

He also remembers a humanoid woman with hair as snakes and describes the many lizards of the area become highly active when she came upon the battle fields, herding his group together. It was all very preternatural to them, but to us this clues our characters that the medusa can control basilisks as she can lizzardkind. He goes on to describe Tozvroth (the other adept, remained as stone) said these masks would protect us, Mulkrod feels he was betrayed.

When asked what does Mulkrod plan to do next, he says they plan on returning to the ruins of Horcton. At this our characters tell him the unfortunate news of the Hags of and Sisters of Gyronna and that it's been probably been 50 years since they last drew breath. 

What of the dragon Mulkrod asks? Apparently, our characters learn, there is a huge old black dragon that lived (lives?) deep in the ruins of the old holy grounds of Horcton. It's description approaches the scope and size of the King Kazzurog. The dragon has been their the half orc's whole life. But now Tozvroth assumes he will travel north to the ogre fens to look for family.

It is here where our character begin to assemble the mosaic of dragon breaded opponents we've been facing for most of the time; they have all been of black dragon blood. Not just, we are in the swamps black dragons, but seemingly now one specific black dragon possibly working for the hags. 

When asked why our characters saved the half orcs, Mesha answers that life is too precious and Melderon tells the half orcs that we too are adventurers and we would want the same courtesy. And after the question was asked, we tell Mulkrod our main quest is to root out the hags that displaced the citizens.

We ask about Horcton and besides learning of the dragon there are two places of significance. The first is called First Well, it supposed to be where the founder of Horcton broke through the earth and first saw the sun; and the second is the Church of the Morning Sun one of three churches in Horcton.

Soon conversation ebbs and eventually our characters set to prepare for rest before we explore the tunnels below the next morning. Our characters take the usual precautions by sleeping in extra-dimensional spaces provided by Melderon. 

In the morning, Mesha, with last watch, sees the half orcs wake, eat and descend to the sinkhole ahead of us. She wakes us immediately and we hastily prepare and ten minutes later descend down the same sinkhole the half orcs. The tunnel is about 12 feet in diameter, tunneled out by ankhegs. Nearly an hour later, in the warrens we encounter the half orcs again. It was an awkward meeting and non hostile.

Over the course of the day our characters find some treasure: a third level wand, 5th level caster: Lions Courage (Thethmommon); Ring of chameleon power/moonstone ring (James); Spined shield; 5th level scroll 9th level caster: Shadow Plane Adaptation; and finally Bodywrap of mighty strikes +2 (Sonayo). In the meantime Melderon collects the half orcs discarded Masks of stony demeanor.

We rest.

The next day our characters prepare to venture to the third stone garden. It takes us only a couple of days, days filled with the usual swamp encounters, to arrive. Arrival to this final stone garden brings us closer than ever to Horcton, and serves as a kind of gate house to Horcton. During this travel we see large flying creature(s) about high overhead. Our characters cannot identify them, they don’t immediately react to us and their motives remain a mystery. We also notice that there seems to be a respect for the area within the territory of the stone garden, creatures somehow give berth to this area.

When we arrive sudden impact strikes the goemancher; Melderon barely escapes a discordant feedback weighing on the laylines; the disruption runs from Horcton to the metal tower in the center of the three macabre statue gardens and this final stone statue garden lies along that same line. It permeates with old world energy possibly causing planar weaknesses. The statues here are the oldest we’ve encountered.

Eight greater basilisks meander about as our characters repeat the tactics from the stone garden prior: isolate one and slow the others from attacking and overwhelming us. Defeating one after three rounds, from the sky a mantidrake descends with murderous intent.