In the Shadow of the Black tower

Summary

Continuing on from The Disappearance of Yasmin's Hammer

Adventure In the Shadow of the Black tower
GM Jono
Season Winter 822 WK
Night Playing Monday night starting in June 2023 in Glendene (Jono's place) at 6:30 / 7:00pm.
Area Alusia
Level Low

Party

Character name	College / Skills	Race	Player
Ruby	Fire	Human	Kelsie
Sonny Holliday	Celestial	Hobbit	Michael M
Johann	Wicca	Human	Michael H
Thornie	Earth	Dwarf	Michael P
Dae	Mind	Elf	Gus

Employer: Mistress of Shadow (also known as Lulu till she tells me her name)- one of the Celestial Guild leaders from Gugnir's Hope is working for the Court of Duke Leto of Cazrala.
Mission: A party to scout raiding goblins in the west of Carzala that have been disappearing only to reappear elsewhere.; Get more clay from the Minotaur caves for 'clay pigeons'.; Secure a safe location for scouts with 'clay pigeons' to watch for raiders in the Fastness.; Scout the Black tower in the Fastness.
Pay: 50,000sp in advance

Scribe notes

Night 1 (01/07/823-19/04/823)

At the Guild

So we went to the Guild Meeting. I got an award for being bravest. I tried to get Dae to nominate me for stupidest but he wouldn't.

I was supposed to try and sell the 5 extra goblin blankets and a shrunken hand amulet but I forgot.

Mistress of Shadows of a spot in the party for on more but no takers so far.

We are getting paid to look for goblins, 50000sp in advance, which they gave to us in coppers, then changed to ingots, then eventually to 2 1/2 ingots of truesilver each worth 20160 and the remaining 5968 each in SP. I repay 1000 to Jo and 500 to Marcus's guild account.

We are to scout raiding goblins, get clay from the Minotaur, secure a safe location for scouts to watch for raiders and to scout the Black tower in the Fastness.

We are told about the black tower: another land far off, another land closer and hot, a cult of fire/metal/heat elementalists.

We are told that the wicca want Catherine the witch about a blood ritual to see into the spirit realm to track goblin spirits, using us because we're expendable.

We stay at the guild for 15 days training and also get some of our blankets made into cloaks (the tailors and sewers were busy, but I sent out Sonny to find a hobbit one and flirt with her and bribe her with a spare blanket ;) and that worked a treat). But I think they "saw us noobs coming" because they charged a lot for fancy add ons. Mine is reversible with an ermine collar and is blue with silver embroidery. Cost 2250. Dae's cost 5000 and gives 5% defence, Sonny's cost 2000 and gives 1 protection at night. If we bring fresh oak saplings from the fastnes they can be modified to regenerate.

There have been shadows of ogre magi around town murdering.

Amber

After that we fly straight to Amber in the Fastness with Mistress of Shadows (I'm going to call her Lulu form now on). She waits outside of town until we are ready to go.

They are digging a wide well. It seems that they are "fashionable". The mayor who's a bear made them do it. It's called Clementine. She's a hobbit. The well is in case of "water problems"

The town has a clay hut for adventurers to stay in. It's clearly been a while.

We ask for news

Bad necros - caused the raiding by attacking the goblins. They used to live in a fortress through the tunnel. Mordrin took it over from other bad guys, the goblins took it back about 12 years ago, the necros took it back a year ago. Ask Jedburgh or Hobbit detectives.
The thing the minotaurs are digging for is a basilisk. Clementine killed it twice but it comes back.
Where to set up scout watchers? There is a slowly rotating castle in a cloud (we saw this) It doesn't belong to anyone. But it's impossible to get too. It is protected by sorrow. Otherwise up with the hobbits.
Collect blue White and red poppies near the statues, normally spring and summer to increase the ferocity of magic.
The witch is a ghost and has been for about 3 years, it may be the leeches who are keeping her.
All of the creature in the minse are werecreatures. If you stay there 48 hours you will turn into one.
The goblins are gathering resources - Hands, tine nuts and silver willow.
At the common room we meet townsfolk and 6 females in saffron robes. They are not monks but "carvers". They are richly dressed and are a dancing troupe here to bless the well.

We sleep in the little house.

We go into a nearby field and collect some oak saplings which we leave near the hut.

We get some bones that dryads like and set off for the swamp.

THornie says that the swamp is artificial. It has been dammed. We spot a black tree. A spirit comes out and threatens us, but she is also speaking to us in silent tongue. [there is a bad spirit, a shade, in the forest controlling everything. It is very dangerous]. We ask about the witch and are told that she ahs moved on, but gives us a scroll with a forwarding address. [the spirit sucked the life out of the witch about 4 years ago. others came about 18mths ago and died now there two? shades. they left treasure behind. the evil spirits will attack the beavers next]

We leave the swamp because we want to deal with this in a full day of daylight. Back to Amber. Lulu thinks we should go straight back to Gugnirs Hope for buffs.

The "address "note is not cursed. It says "Be careful. Help us, greater undead controlling everyone in the swamp. Send 4 adventurers."

For some reason at this point one of us asks about clay... pigeon clay comes from the minotaur's areas. There is a bog south of the black tower that lures in undead and sticks them.

We fly back to Gugnirs Hope. Sonny, me and Dae crash in a big pile. I've been doing so well up to now

Random note from mum - two blacksmiths can open a portal to a forging realm by ringing hammers

We meet with Joh's wicca mentor Lithwaite.

Lulu organises the posse - us, 4 rangers, Alice, 3 earth mages.2 ruffians (1 is a water mage). 6 witches, 4 guards.

In the morning we fly to Amber, stay the day there and next morning into the swamp.

Buffs:

Waterproofing
lesser
Sos 11 EN
Rk 20 shadow form
rk 20 strength of darkness 7pt
prot from normal fire

Night 2 (20/07/823-20/07/823)

I was in a mood so I stayed at Amber so here are Dae's notes.

These are my half baked notes with [Ruby's interjections]

We left Amber with a horde of people, among them there were -4 Rangers (one of whom was Ruby's sister! [Glory]) -Alice (the 'water' mage master for Dae) -3 Earth mages -2 Ruffians (one being a water mage and the other being the protector of said mage) - 6 Witches -4 .....gnomes?....guards? probably guards. -The mistress of Shadow (did you guys name her Lulu in the session I missed?)

The ruffians decided we should split the group into 4, and Master Alice asked our most important members [the party]to stay behind with the horses, close to the black tree where the dryad had hid the previous day. After some hours, we feel a huge presence coming towards our position, an Earth Elemental (or golem) approaches the elite horse guard (a.k.a. party) being summoned by an earth mage to go towards the swamp. He tells us of the big evil that made it (dunno what was it) cold was a shade.

The Dryad (same as the previous day) came out of the tree! For some reason she was speaking in common instead of sign language, [sign language was so that she wouldn't be overheard; she was holding parallel conversations that day] she was grateful towards us for bringing so many people!

Torney(Thorney?) was torn about the horses, he fears, that if we get attacked, they are remarkably vulnerable by being tied up and grouped up.

We feel several life forces headed our way through the fog, back from where the our allies left, the rangers have returned!. Behind the rangers were the witches, following them close by. The rangers informed us that 4 shades were destroyed, a truce has been reached with the dryads! Oh, Ruby will feel so elated that dryads don't want (well, still want to, but, are unlikely to) to kidnap her no more!

The rangers discovered a dozen ordinary goblins caged in the swamp, [did they set them free? did I here that one of them was the mapmaker?] with a dozen corpses of other goblins from the previous month or so, seemingly drained of their life.

The Rangers requested the elite horse guard, to stay behind and attempt to contact the witch, if not, to contact the beavers who built a dam for her.

We departed towards the Witch's house, in it's surroundings, lay several feet, all of them, the 16 sets, petrified! Everything hinted towards a basilik! Someone did a DA. (DIA? D/A? you guys say "dee ay" ) [tee hee!]

Blue cheese & Honey!? (now, I can't say this note was part of the game, or I had a sudden craving, it was written slightly different than the rest)

Owls have hidden the treasure, they like mice, the Witch used to fed the Owls, the Owls and Dryads are not in good terms. Dryads have attempted to burn them (Swamp fried Owl maybe? tasty thoughts, but i digress). These Owls are parrot~y, they like repeating what you say.

Sonny attempts to summon mice, fails, and then succeeds. 45 MICE HAVE BEEN SUMMONED! [they swapped mice for trinkets, bits of amulets and an amulet of Jasper]

Dae tries to perceive hidden dangers (or the gods tested everyone's senses, and he was the only one not to fail this time), and sees a Phase cat stalking them at the distance, feeling that he had been found, he disappears from sight. Blue Quills (don't remember what that was...likely the name of the cat), the Phase Cat is the only survivor.

The elite horse Guard, was preparing to have a fruitless night waiting for the witch, but around 10 at night a Ghostly figure spawns from the fog, the ghost of the Witch, greets the party.

Beavers, about 4 feet in height, come and are grateful for our valiant assault, getting rid of the nasty Shades.

While talking to the Beavers, they offer to bring back the witch from the dead, we require two mystical artifacts, both found in nature...A piece of Sorrow Song Stone, and a pint of water from the center of the lake.

NO MORE NOTES FROM HERE ON OUT, so

We went back to the town, there we found out about the issues with the Irish-rainbow-end creature whose name and creature type fail to be accessed through my memory right now [Leprechaun]. His chest [of gold] was in the town, and apparently he could not access it due to it being closed off by salt, maybe?. He had been molesting harassing and playing tricks on the town-folk. We found out it was due to it's chest being stolen by adventurers. we went to talk with the creature, we took his chest as a bait to lure him out and talk to us we went out with no magics cast upon us to show our peaceful intentions.

He gave us a quest...or was it a geas? Jono or the others remember that better. We had to recover 3 items, [these are probably in seagate, maybe pawned or adventurers have them] and he'd bless us with something something. Also, the town-folk had to refill his chest, all 200 gold coins, for him to stop bothering and punishing them. He had either a bigger hate towards the Hobbit Governor from the town, or respect, I do not remember, but he felt strongly about her either way.

The party had some discussions about getting mixed into these dealings, since our backlog of things to keep done kept increasing, it was 2 in favour and 2 against. It was conceded towards the ones who wanted to get involved with the creature.

[The beavers told us that the mapmaker goblin uses blood to do an enchantment, he would like Sonny's, Dae's or Ruby's, he is exploring the portals]

Night 3 23/07/823-02/08/823

Not all of the villagers can afford their gold coin. There is a shortfall of 1800sp,and they look at the party. We look around and whistle nonchalantly, so Lulu pays the difference.

Setting off towards hobbit cliff to arrange scouting base, we borrow horses, and a mule and cart. we travel south along the road. After crossing the 3rd river ford we come across and area where the grass is suddenly 15ft high and things are moving around in it that we can't see. THere is also a 50ft tall golem a mile in the distance. We scarper back over the ford (there are an extreme number of multicoloured eels passing that weren't there a minute ago). We later find out that this area is where the magic that hides the goblins originally came from.

We therefore head west off the road to cross the other part of the river which is about 80ft wide, deep and flowing. We find a jetty and across are some elves who ferry us over and invite us for lunch at her camp, RiverGrove. We have a choice of 3 destinations

cross the river
cross the river which should not be crossed
cross to near Tiana falls

We choose 1 The elf driving the boat is Sudi. She has heard of us; the witches sent word. She tells us some stuff.

The is an alchemist Gurin in the trees on the hill/mound. It is a tree creature so we can speak to enchanted or speak to earth creature or speak to dark creature.
There might be a price on Sonny's head by the minotaurs
She knows a shortcut to the hobbits village
In the sorrow forest, the stone is where the spirit is. It is white and salt-like. WE figured dried tears
The giant golem - long ago gnomes dug him up, it is steam powered, they want to free him and go to plane of earth
clay - take nice smelling scarves to keep us from magically sneezing around the minotaurs

She takes us to meet the alchemist. There are petrified gobd in the forest - a gorgon lives in the forest.

We throw some coins in the pond and the tree creature comes out. He's about 5ft tall, carrying a pot of plants. He casts speak to enchanted on us. We go down the path. There is a huge tree with an animated face. It is peaceful with many plants. He tells us

He has asked the gorgon to stay away
Sorrow stone is jealously guarded, never touch it directly, take three different size pieces and drop large 1st day, medium 2nd day, keep smallest and run.
Minotaur - give us bark to burn, hold scarves in the smoke. It allows you to hold your breath as long as you like, but don't use for more than 30mins (or less if you are puny) or you may fall unconscious or even die.
Someone wants celestial hobbit skin for enchanted armour. The chimera on the cloud island has sent a message around that it will collect so others don't.
The purest water we need is not our gems - it is elemental droppings.

He is going to make us smell like driftwood to an elemental. We go to the pond, the gorgon is there but leaves. We do a ritual to of driftwood, but only Thornie and Dae succeed. Thee rest of us turn to sticks have need curse removal. In the end it takes 6 days. There are huts and street lamps under the water and it is bigger than the surface.

While the rest of us are going through this, Thornie and Dae have dreams that teach them new spells. Thornie gets rk 0 Smoking Magma, and Dae gets rk 1 Mindspeech

Once that is done we take Sudi's shortcut to the hobbits. We have to wait 2 days for their wise woman to get back to ask about the scouting base. While we do we work for them and get magic torches.

Sonny's bounty is 5000sp, the chimera's bounty on them is 50sp. Huh?

Suzanne the wise woman has been trading in the tunnels to the south. She explains that the gobs have shaman sticks that use magic of the long grass. If we have one a watermage can use it and rain on the others sticks and wash holes in the magic to see the truth underneath. We could steal one or talk to the goblin mapmaker who is imprisoned in the swamp (now free). Try the goblin toymaker or keymaker in the fortress in the tunnels.

She says the scout base is fine, but scouts should be hobbits or at least people who like good food. We send this confirmation back to Gugnirs hope by clay pigeon and include a message about a huge swarm of mushroom men who are heading north having been corrupted by the forest of sorrow.

Sleep

Night 4 03/08/823-10/08/823

Head for green goblins to get purest water

Train 1wk all to rk 0 net and trident

Night 5 11/08/823-18/08/823

Down the Hole

We are in the underwater temple and an undead ogre rises from the hole. Some hitting happens by us and to us, and I finish it off with a bolt of fire. Weird that I can do that underwater, but the priestess told me it would work and it did, but also spread a bit and hit Jo and Sonny who were near the ogre. Meanwhile the priestess is having a big argument with the octogod.

We get reluctant permission to go down the hole and the priestess gives us an iron key for the chest. The key is visibly corroding before our eyes so we need to hurry.

Mind magic tells us that there is an octopus below waiting for us with its mouth open. We sink down into an area of not normal darkness (magic or ink or both we don't know). Sonny casts a lot of light spells below us for us to fall into (yay for high mana) and that works and really upsets the monster when they get down to it. It scuttles of into the unilluminated area to the side.

Jo goes for the chest which needs to be pulled out of the mud, Sonny makes more light, and we keep watch for the grumpy predator, while yelling at it because the green crystals we have mean we can talk to it. It also does not like it's dinner to be so noisy.

Jo pulls out the chest and the octopus attacks with a tentacle from under the silt, but another bolt sees that off. Ahah!. But a shade is holding onto the chest and pops out of the mud with it, so we threaten it and it sees the wisdom in retreat.

In the chest are loots including the keys the goblins want. See below for loots.

We swim back up to the temple. The priestess is still arguing with the octogod and there is a grate over the hole so we can't get out. Eventually the priestess wins the argument and we are let out. She has collected the special water that we need. (She has a chicken mace)

Green Goblin Village

Three days have passed while we were gone. We recuperate for a day. While we were gone they had a battle with an ogre, goblins etc and a hobgoblin necromancer. They have it's corpse. And many bones. THey offer us the necro at a feast, so we could get magic. We all decline. WAIT A MINUTE! WHERE IS HIS STAFF?? WE NEED THAT!!! I must be distracted by water in my ears and goblin girls.

We spend another day checking out the loot we got.

Dae is seeing thing about clouds and crows that nobody else notices.

Get the Sorrow Stone

So we are going to use the elemental potion to send the elemental to get the sorrow stone since we were told beings of earth or air are not affected. We will have Thornie do it cos earth is his jam.

We head off ignoring chickens that are following us.

We get to near the forest and are distracted by Thornie talking to a copse of trees with a hairy moss disease (which he and Jo contract). The moss seems to have a charm effect and the trees want it burnt and the moss offers limitless power. Sonny and I move on and they eventually pull themselves loose before we have to go back and rescue them. The moss may be able to be used as an preserving ingredient?

Meanwhile Sonny and I meet up with some centaurs who have a message from Clem the Bear that the goblin mapmaker has put a price on our head.

We go to the sorrow forest. The elemental is duly summoned and successfully controlled and sent ofto get the sorrow stone with instructions about dropping chunks on the way back. The elemental (its name is Bernakin) is carefully dismissed back to the plane of earth without letting it loose to rampage about the countryside as it wishes to do.

Head Back to Amber

So now we have the ingredients we need for the res of the witch so set off back to Amber. That night we plan to sleep at the green gobs, but they appear to be being attacked and we don't have time to help, so we quietly camp nearby. In the night some kind of siren effect creatures come for Dae (effect of giving his blood?). But although we all ending up running about in a panic we all regroup in the morning.

Next day we get back to the hobbit village. We ask whether they know any shortcuts back to Amber. They have one to the willow cliffs. They also inform us that there is a retired adventurer called Jedburgh in Candlestone Farm who know lots of shortcuts who we should ask.

We take the shortcut, then go down the cliffs and get to the treant alchemist and stay there the night. They offer to cure Thornie, Dae and Jo of their moss problem (phew) by bathing them in the pond and a creature fixes them.

Next day we cross the river. The elves with boats are not there so we swim the horses. Something pulls Jo's horse under but we make it and get to Amber. We sleep the night.

Night 6 19/08/823-26/08/823

Resurrection

We head into the swamp with the resurrection ingredients, all the way around to the other side where the beavers are. They take us to the witch's house.

They do a ritual 6 hours long plus at least 4 hours more, construct a mud simulacrum and bring her to life at about 4am. She is very unwell and belching/vomiting mud and smoke.

I tell the beavers about the beaver on the turtle and they don't believe me really, or he is someone who was lost and maybe his memory is lost.

The witch promises to teach Jo to make amulets. Also a dead creature has come through with the witch, and I berserkly kill it. We get some stuff from it.

We stay the night at the beavers' island.

Bluegrass-Healing, amulets and a weird cave

My leg wound is moving around, and I have taken another EN point. The party are worried about me so we ride to Bluegrass to see the witches. The population consists of young witches, old witches and beautiful young men.

We take 3 days for me to heal up, and there is a piece of glass in my wound that can be added to a weapon.

They also make us amulets, 3 each but Jo get to choose, and buttercup amulets for everyone.

If we get monster teeth they can make the luck ones better, so they say they are going to summon one for us to kill, so they give us multiple blessings like on unborn but on us and temporary - 17 stat points onto each of 3 stats. Instead they take us to a cave.

We wander about and find a stadium with a monster in water. We leave.

We wander some more and find a jungle. We here a roar and are attacked by a griffon/dog construct/elk chimera and also a huge stone creature. This is pretty rough. I get a piece of the griffons beak stuck in my chest, but we take down the griffon part. The chimera makes a fumble that moves it away a bit and it decides to run. The stone creature is untouched. We take this opportunity to run too. The beak counts as 1 tooth. Enough of this; back to Bluegrass.

The wicca are making the amulets for three days, and fixing the spec grev in my armour. They also make me a suit of sharkskin armour and carve some foot combs for Sonny (which will work on other people's head hair) for protective braidings. And they feed me special turnips which will allow them to easily use the stat blessing on me.

While this is being done we make a quick trip to Gugnirs Hope for buffs, back to Bluegrass to pick up and quickly back to the Fastness while the buffs last so that they will stay on. Back into the fastness at the nearest point on the evening of 26/08

Now we need to get onto our paid mission to find the hidden goblins so next stop the green goblins to get the staff we need.

Night 7 27/08/823-28/08/823

"Buy" possessed pig
Destroy possessed pig
Destroy shadow with last magic coal
Go to green gobs for hobgoblin staff They give us two different ones

Night 8 29/08/823-02/09/823

Go get clay
Rescue one "water hobbit" CrowFoot
Ximera takes Crowfoot and rewards Sonny and Dae
Back to Gugnirs Hope
Plan to attack enemy at vineyard at dawn tomorrow

Night 9 03/09/823-08/09/823

Attack goblin army
Tidy up
Back home

Loot

Gifts from pig

truffle like objects

distilled weapon spell x 2, rub on weapon
2 others

Staves from green goblins

strongly hides things in grass
drains power of wielder to one true shaman

From owls

amulet of Jasper (Ruby is wearing, even though I wasn't there, it seems I claimed it by remote)

From Hobbits

we worked and got 3 torches each -9 hours, can only be seen by holder

From the underwater temple:

Delicate bottles

Remove 18 MA from a curse
~~Summon and (maybe) control a rank 14 earth elemental~~
Protection from earth entrapment

Bags of herbs

?
Blemish Gold, temporarily makes gold seem worthless
Destroy all copper within a mile, made from desert plants

old coins
scroll cases

precog shows the the cases are trapped and will capture opener and other(s?) nearby into a maze. Can be opened correctly. Hides magic

dancing magical writing that none of us can read
this one shows readers own S3 (mostly). More than one person can cast from it.

the goblins' missing keys
a bracelet in the form of a series of gripping hands

imprison a person and bind them to your will

and the lock on the chest is rk 9

Hairy Moss

preservative?

From the dead thing with the witch

silver circlet - possessing recently resurrected
sword of ice - a spell effect but we preserve it somehow with the hairy moss
a torch that takes transferred damage
the glass from my leg wound

Amulets etc. from Bluegrass

Glass shard from Ruby's wound which they say can be added to a weapon

One of the amulets of luck is better with the griffon beak

Thornie: aquilegias, beryl, luck
Sonny: aquilegias, beryl, carbuncle
Ruby: aquilegias, hypericum, diamond
Dae: aquilegias, amethyst, elderflower
Jo: aquilegias, luck, diamond
5x buttercup, 2nd resistance to charm
sharkskin armour for Ruby
foot combs for Sonny (which will work on other people's head hair) for protective braidings
special turnips effect and blessings on Ruby?

Buffs

buffs seem to stay on while we are in the Fastness

Waterproofing
lesser
Sos 11 EN
Rk 20 shadow form
rk 20 strength of darkness 7pt
prot from normal fire
blessing equivalent to rk 12 greater on all areas
we taste bad or are hard to detect to water creatures as driftwood don't know whether this is useful