Recap –
Our heroes were attending the Spring Festival in their home town. During the celebration slavers swept down on the party and through the use of alchemical bombs captured an unknown number of the celebrants. Our heroes, Biminey the human artificer, Torel the shifter avenger, Dra’kin the human warlock, Elisssa the dragonborne warden and Stak the shifter ranger were among the taken. They awoke aboard a slave ship. They were eventually freed by one of the other captured, a man they didn’t know. The slavers were dead on board, poisoned. There were indicators that some slaves were missing as was the ship’s boat. During their internment the ship had drifted north into sealie territory, carnivorous humanoid underwater dwellers and was attacked twice. During the attacks it was damaged. Repairs were made that let them limp the ship to an island where it ran aground. After arranging for the remaining other captured citizens to start repairing the ship our band of heroes decided to investigate the mysterious tower located in the center of the island.
This session –
Biminey, Torel and Elissa were in attendance and Stak was played by Elissa’s player.
We start our session with the band of four standing in the entrance to the keep. The outer courtyard looked like a very pleasant place to spend the day. Statuary of white marble dotted the area, the figures human or similiarly proportioned although time had erased most of the details. They were typically in poses of repose or casually posed, none were in a warlike or martial air. Â Planters still held the dead remains of bushes that the party thought were probably decorative types, flowering and or pleasantly scented.
After entering the courtyard and looking around there was a resounding crack from the front door as if something had broken and it slammed downwards shutting them in the courtyard.
As it was now after dark they decided to set up camp for the night, it seemed a secure location. Biminey began the ritual that created a neat and clean campsite. While intoning the words that powered the ritual they heard the other door into the courtyard open and close.
Then crackling bolts of blue energies fired down at them from the keep walls, flowing out of the mouths of several of the gargoyle like creatures lining the top of the wall 30′ above them.
Four humanoid constructs showed up, moving on metallic feet carrying silver spears. The party was able to defeat the creatures with Stak assisted by Biminey taking care of the bolters atop the walls while Torel and Elisssa cut down the spear constructs. Not without a modicum of damage taken but none were killed.
After the fight they attempted to rest again, this time successfully. Biminey after examining the constructs was able to extract some amounts of residium from the remains which he tucked away to use later for his own arcanic constructions.
With assistance Torel was able to lift the broken gate far enough that they were able to jam it open using parts of the constructs. Â With a way out secure they moved further into the keep.
The second set of doors opened without issue. As they moved into the large vaulted chamber there were two crashing thuds that reverberated throughout the chamber as two large constructs slammed down to the ground splintering the tiled stone. They let loose with deep thundering growls blasting Stak with the force of their blasts and intimidating the ranger.
Undaunted our four heroes maneuvered around the chamber catching the guardian constructs in advantageous positioning and they were able to defeat the creatures.
[DMs Note:Â These creatures were Level 5 Elite Skirmishers worth 400xp each. Originally there were going to be 3 of them and making it very much a 'boss' level encounter. But with the party down 1 player I had to pull one of the creatures and only put in two of them. So the encounter was reduced by 1/3 but the party was only reduced by 1/5 so this wasn't the really tense fight I was hoping for but it was still a decent fight.]
After the fight the heroes recovered and Biminey went to work with his tools and knowledge and extracted 1800gp worth of residium and he believes he was able to extract the arcane devices that the guardians used to blink and will be able to turn those into two amulets that the party can use.
They explored the rest of the lower level of the keeping finding lots of small rooms with the dust piles of furniture decayed away. A large gilded door drew their attention and lead them to the stairs leading up into the tower.
At the top they found walls of crystal on three sides with openings leading out to the sky. There were signs of ramps that had fallen down from the top of tower that had protruded outwards from the openings.
A metal door beckoned their attention next and after unsuccessful attempts to pick the lock using a hair clip and a sword and being unable to force by strength, they resorted to just bashing it down. Â They found a room inside with silver inlaid lines in the floor with red dots and one green dot.
Biminey sent his hand construct familiar in to look around and as the hand passed by the green dot it started blinking.
[DMs Note: I'd planned on it requiring something of the fallen constructs to trigger this effect but the hand IMO qualified.]
Stak after some time noted that the green blinking light had shifted along the silver path, leaving a red light in its place. They made camp for the night in the tower after Stak’s prediction the green light would reach the next red light in about 3 days. The next red light they believed indicated the tower.
Fearing the worst they left at dawn the next day to get back to their ship and see if they could get it repaired quickly enough to escape whatever was coming toward them.
They found the remaining captives fleeing giant crabs and swarms of crabs coming out of the surf and their ship even lower in the water than they’d left it.
The crabs proved pretty easy to do away with but one of the two pitfighters they’d left in charge of the repair party was cut in twain by one of the giant crabs pincers before they could pull it off the other group.
Torn, the last remaining pitfighter informed the party that the sealies had attacked while they were gone and used their crystal oozes to destroy a much larger portion of the boat below the waterline. It would require a shipyard and trained shipwrights to salvage the boat now.
After deliberation on how they might be able to blame the sealies for the destruction of the tower’s guardians they decided to face their fate like the heroes they are and trooped back to the tower taking the remaining captives with them.
Everyone was up well before dawn the next day as the green blinking light inexorably grew closer to the circled red light on the floor chart.
A speck grew in the distance and eventually they made out a flying ship covered in tattered remains of canvas flying through the air toward them. An elemental ship, a series of rings mounted to the frame channel the energies of minor air elementals that keep the ship floating and moving. Â It has two decks and is the size of a small seagoing vessel.
It stopped about 30′ away from the tower, the presumption is that a ramp at one time led out to it. They were able to get ropes over to the ship and get on board. The ship was empty and dusty, crafted out of strong but lightweight woods and metals. Several small cabins were below decks, each barely big enough to hold two bunks one atop the other and some slightly larger ones that had two bunks and a desk.
A wheelhouse, the wheel locked in place and unmovable beckoned Biminey and he was able to trigger the ship into motion. [DMs Note: Thanks to the familiar construct.] and it continued on the way it was going heading southeast.
Biminey thought of the ancient city of Darkmith and felt some trepidation as to their journey’s end. The tales of horrific things that ventured forth from the ancient city of evil, slowly being swallowed up by dark swamps were not tales to make one sleep well at night.
The party leveled up to level 2, new power sheets will be made available with the updated stats and powers you’ve selected at the next session. Treasure consisted of 2200 gold worth of residium which can be used to make 2200 gold worth of magical items by Biminey once he finds a place to do so. In addition he will be able to create two amulets of Blink which will have a Daily power use as a minor action to allow the wearer to teleport up to 4 squares. Four silvered spears worth 50 gold each were also recovered. As was a backpack full of bits and bobs for Biminey to make the tiny constructs that he uses for his powers.
We end this session with the party and the 6 remaining (out of 25) captives on a magical ship flying roughly 200′ above the ocean’s surface in a southeasterly direction at roughly the pace of a sea going vessel.
