Five Tower Keep Session 33: 04/18/2019 The Final Encounter

We begin this week’s session with Melderon using an earth glide spell to back track to the Ziggurat battle scene to retrieve items and resources from our fallen hirelings. Close to the Ziggurat Melderon identifies three zombie giants, the ones we defeated when we came out of the mirror. Overhead, the dragon of Horcton flies a lazy diameter around the Ziggurat followed by three half-dragon hags in lose formation. The entire area around the Ziggurat is actively being guarded.

While collecting the items, Melderon finds the two magical rings- see invisibility and flying- that were worn by the Hezrou before Melderon returns.

When we exit the rope trick in the morning, hoping for favor from Peylor during the dawn, we find no dragons or half-dragons in the stormy early sky.

Our characters prepare for combat and approach invisibly with most of us flying the distance to the Ziggurat. The closer we get, our characters find all the deceased hirelings as well as everything we have defeated have been turned to mindless zombies.

Melderon uses stone shape to create an aperture in the Ziggurat to enter by and when the first character steps through the threshold a magical alarm goes off both inside and outside- one that is sure to summon the dragon.

Battle ensues and Drake was quickly brought to the precipice of death, but after about a minuet of deadly combat including many more channeling negative energy the embodiment of Gyronna is defeated. This seems to break the hold or mayhap a pact between Gyronna, the hags, and the Great dragon of Horcton we some of us witness the dragon breaking off from its approach.

We feel a motherly voice in our heads, and bids our characters to come up stairs. At the top of the stairs a mirror with a succubus reflected in it, sits atop an evil looking pedestal in the center of a summoning circle; where candles would be placed there are spheres of black inky darkness.

Melderon identifies the mirror as a drow crafted artifact and that the mirror at the very least provides access to the Abyss. Melderon uses stone shape again, this time in the ceiling of the Ziggurat temple; sunlight poured into the chamber destroying the drow artifact and ending the Gyronna threat. 

We gain our ninth character level and second mythic tier.

Five Tower Keep Session 32: 04/11/2019 Return To The Ziggurat Continued

We begin this week’s session continuing the battle against the Hezro, the three covens, and six giant husbands and eventually the embodiment of Gyronna herself guarding the Ziggurat. This form of Gyronna (A fen witch) came with debilitating negative energy as well as physic truename magic.

By the end of over a minute of combat, our characters had killed all the half-dragon minotaurs and two of the giant husbands as well as the hezroo demon. However, with most of our character's resources spent we make a tactical retreat to a stony ruin about a thousand feet away from the Ziggurat and set up a rope trick to rest for what presumably will be another onslaught against the faithful of Gyronna. Unfortunately all of the hirelings, save for Mesha's archer and Melderon's bard, were killed in the waves of negative energy wrought by the Fen Witch, Sonayo's remains were recovered by Stoutwood during the retreat.

Five Tower Keep Session 31: 04/04/2019 Drake Finds His Friends and Return To The Ziggurat

We begin this week’s session with a review for Rob and his character’s journey into the first mirror and an endless plane of white light and a hall way of mirrors in every degree of direction. Happenstance causes Drake and his hireling disorientation and end up being lost on a plane of mirrors for about a year.

Then again by happenstance Drake finds the only mirror with his and Thethemommon's reflection and are able to escape the mirror plane emerging out the other magical mirror-window and the battle scene from the combat with the medusa in the cathedral-like chamber and the cavern that leads to the lost Horcton silver mine.

A chance encounter with Shystermeth gives Drake directions to where our characters were last.

Drake bids Shystermeth good travels and follows the rat-folk’s directions through the 'silver mine first-world portal', passes through a Jurassic transitive plane and exits the 'Horcton first-world portal'.

Coming out into the irregular room, passing our battle scene with the giants and drow, Drake eventually finds himself outside the ziggurat and surveys the ruins of Horcton eventually finding the soul-less dead female pregnant drow corpse seemingly killed by a wild animal due to the clawed throat. 

It is Fen, the archer, who spots Drake ; at long last Drake rejoins the Black Parrot Mercenary Company. We welcome Drake with a ring of flying (invisibility: Sonayo, water breathing: Weston) huzzah! 

During the night however, as our characters rest, those on watch report activity in and around the ruins and when dawn arrives, it does so with a monsoon-like rain storm. Melderon feels the jabbing sensation from the ley lines and feels this storm has magical undertones; Mesha concurs but adds there is an old-world evil at play.

We make some brief preparations and traverse the jungle distance towards the ziggurat. When it times into view our characters see a black miasma around the structure that seems to pulse magically with the lighting storm. Scattered about are half black dragon minotaurs and multiple malevolent eyes peering out from a shadowed entrance. There is a cloudy shadowy darkness a top of the ziggurat alive with movement where Mesha feels a strong opposing force- the antithesis of life and energy.

Most of our characters feel the sense of a large threat in the skies; Stoutwood and Thethemommon however feel the hags are playing on the fears of the group. Our characters close the distance and face six half black dragon minotaurs, six giants, three covens (9 hags) and one hezrou.

hezrou comin for you

Five Tower Keep Session 30: 03/28/2019 The Ruins of Horcton

We begin this week’s session as we step foot into the ruined church of Pelor, Mesha immediately feels the stain of the coven similar to what we’ve encountered before. It is a place of evil and darkness both literal and metaphorical; it smells of viscera from the blood of many sacrifices. Also located here is the other discordance that Melderon senses so strongly and confirms the mirrors are the terminals causing it.

Looking around at the irregular room we have found ourselves in, our characters almost immediately hear a small bell of alarm on the other side of the only door from this room. Our characters begin preparatory measures and notice that Shystermeth is nowhere to be found, our partnership at an end. 

Mesha is the first to step out into a hall with two passages veiled in magical darkness leading off in the same direction and a third that seems to lead outside; from out of this darkness lumbering giants, husbands of the hags, emerged along with a very pregnant drow woman. Battle ensues and it gets serious and bloody very quickly.

The drow woman attempted to transform Stoutwood into a chimpanzee and tries to feeblemind Melderon, but eventually Melderon anticipates the drow woman’s moves and feebleminds her instead. Sonayo descends on the feebleminded drow woman killing her. Soon our characters are able to drop three of the giant husbands before one flees.We gather the bodies of the giants and the drow.

Our characters retreat briefly into the mirror room to heal before we head forward towards the late afternoon light and a passage. We come out at the base of a stone ziggurat in the midst of the ruins of Horcton. Scanning about the ruins we see a few still standing structures but all the rest are over grown rubble. Our characters take cover under the over growth while Melderon expends a fly ability and scouts around.

The ruins look blackened and soured, fouled and spoiled. The next closest visible structure is an open stone shelter (#8 on the map) where four giants are huddled. #2 looks like a double towered gate house about fifty feet high; the walls having crumbled away. Here Melderon identifies an obvious hag lair.

Our characters head out to about 100 yards outside of Horcton where Melderon erects a couple of magical rope tricks for us to rest and examine drow items: 

One of the items is evil, a scarf/viel (and cursed)- we leave it behind. Otherwise she was in possession of a cloak of resistance +2 (Alaric) as well as three type I bags of holding: one containing an amount of scrolls, the second has numerous wands, and the third bag has spellbooks and several magic rings.

The drow word a ring of flying (Mesha) and a ring of see invisibility (Alaric)

In the ring bag are a ring of invisibility, (2nd) ring of see invisibility (Stoutwood), (2nd) ring of fly, ring of water breathing, and a ring of earth glide (Melderon) 

In the wand bag are wands each at 30 charges: 

Invisibility, see invisibility, magic missile, fly, dispel magic, lighting bolt, deep slumber, hold person, haste, water breathing, lesser globe of invulnerability, charm monster, confusion, malicious spite, lesser geas. 

The spell book (along with two scrolls of each spell):
1- Identify, charm person, sleep, hypnosis, shield, mage armor, prot from good, alarm, magic missile, color spray,

2- daze monster, touch of idiocy, darkness, invisibility, see invisibility, rope trick, web

3- fly, dispel magic, lighting bolt, deep slumber, hold person, water breathing, haste

4- lesser globe of invulnerability, charm monster, confusion, malicious spite, lesser geas, earth glide, stone shape

5- break enchantment, constructing coils, feeblemind, dominate person, baleful polymorph, transmute mud to rock, permeancy, dark vault.

We begin next game session with the intention of returning to the ziggurat.