With the world saved from destruction, again, we prepared for a much needed holiday. It was to be back to our tower in Fallcrest, for more free drinks and more people singing bad songs about us. Although since my kit is simpler than most, for my part the only real “preparation” was a welcome end to the rationing of wine and ale.

Sadly though, Distress had to part ways with the company. Her human sister has run into trouble back at her home town and she’s since headed there in company with a trading caravan, hopefully to sort it out.
Then, not long after we’d said our goodbyes, Carn announced that he had saved enough money to raise a small army and he’s off to reclaim his lost land and his estate. I think he was going to try picking up some retainers in the Halfmoon Inn and start there.
A point to be observed. I could have sworn we’ve been splitting loot evenly. Whilst I will admit that I buy some expensive beverages from time to time, and often in large amounts, I do not feel like I could confidently “hire a small army”. Could I? Probably Carn could though – I think there are people in that tavern that would follow him for a few coppers…

Back on the road, out of the caverns and tunnels, past the last demon and/or minotaur statue, our steps were a bit lighter and we started making good time. We hit the kings road and seeing perfectly ordinary travelers on the kings road was a welcome sight. But the traffic dwindled after a half a day until we realized we hadn’t seen anyone coming the other way in a long while. Soon enough the mystery was compounded. Ahead, a man and a woman also traveling our direction had been stopped by a Knight who blocked the road. At least, stopped by a large man with large shield, large sword, large helmet, large plate armor. Large enough to plausibly block the road. This man soon walked over to us and greeted us with friendly smile and introduced himself as Tyros Halfhelm, For a man with a skull on his dented shield, the smile seemed a bit misplaced.

In the distance beyond we could see a broken down wagon and standing next to it a man in fine clothes looking a bit frustrated. Two oxen flicked their tails nearby which seemed normal. Two drakes lounged nearby, which did not.

Tyros Halfhelm told us that the man near the wagon was his employer and a tax collector, named Larix or something of the sort. Presumably he would have gone on to ask for our help, but he had a few too many flecks of blood on his shield whereas the tax collector had clothes too loose to have been tailored. Oh and horns. Horns are always a dead giveaway (even on a tax collector) that the one wearing them secretly wants to kill you.
One might submit Distress as an exception. Or then again one might not.

At any rate, it all seemed improbable. Not to me, I was drunk. To someone else. I forget who. Things were pleasantly settled a few moments later when we all tried to kill eachother. I recall being angry but not a lot else. I think I shouted many things during the encounter. Like how unfair it was for them to make us work on our vacation.

As to the two fellow travelers, it was a man and a woman. I should describe them in case I wake up sober tomorrow and retain no recollection of them. Nobody wants a repeat of the halfling brothel incident .
The man Arannis is an Eladrin, which is to say an elf who is extra tall, extra odd, and actually from the Feywild. He carries two swords, one long and one short. I have not seen him smile yet. He did not take kindly to our initial mispronunciations of his name. In his protestations, his name has become AranNIS. The NIS here is to indicate not an emphasis but rather a deranged shriek.
The woman Esmerelda is a bit of a mystery. Due to a combination of striking shoulder length hair, magical accoutrements, an obsession with the color red, and a peculiar splotch on her shoulder that is quite clearly bat shit.

I should also mention that Splug has been in a disguise of my devising. From humble beginnings as a plan to pass him and Norbert off as deformed halflings, I give you “Humpy the Halfling, and Stumpy the Halfling”. We tell travelers that they would do well to stay away from Humpy as he has a mean case of the clap, an overly “friendly” manner, and because his name is not ironically given.

before the action started, Humpy and Stumpy tried to sneak away into the trees but the fighting started too quickly for them to get very far.

The action. It was blurry.
The knight struck fiercely with his big sword, first at Esmerelda.
Some knight.
Splug: “Ah a bastard sword. Should have called it the Asshole Sword.”

but the knight never really got to be much of a bastard. I think all of us landed at least one devastating blow on him within about 30 seconds and so he left this world kind of in a hurry. Say hi to the raven queen I guess.
The drakes roused themselves and attacked. the oxen less so. A number of crossbowmen and bandits in silly masks also appeared in the trees and fired crossbows at us which was nice. A clearer invitation to set something on fire, I have never seen.

standout moments:

– Neil taunting a bandit so much that the man fell out of his tree and cried.

– Splug offering a fist bump up to the towering Klajdu, who charitably returned it before realizing that what Splug had just said
was “Raven Queen Fist Bump!”
Klajdu: “Wait. what? No! Klajdu only agree read pamphlet !”

– Esmerelda firing some weird bolt of rainbow something out of her dagger, and then tossing her hair in impotent fury when it had no effect whatsoever.
– Esmerelda firing some weird rainbow thing again, but this time she hits a tree. And knocks the bandit of the tree. well ok. that’s something.
– Esmerelda firing some weird rainbow thing, and the tree exploding, and a bad guy catching on fire and exploding and dying . And a second later when Splug attacked another person nearby, him exploding and dying. We’ve got a live one people.
– One of us, I forget who, enjoying Esmerelda’s fireworks show, yelling “Taste the fucking rainbow!”

– An image of Neil’s playing card formed on the ground and followed him around. We’re pretty sure it at one point caused someone attacking Neil to suddenly scream and fall dead. (More news when we figure out wtf).

– Klajdu doing an impressive backflip and twirl to get up on a high ridge (except I think he called it a “twirtle”), so as to attack two sharpshooter bandits.
– Shortly thereafter Splug executing some hard-to-follow divine magic that resulted in both those same bandits falling out of their trees and then falling off the ridge.
– The look on Klajdu’s face when he realized there was nobody left on the ridge for him to fight.

– YOU get an oxen!!!! and YOU get an oxen!! and…. oh no wait that’s it. There’s only two.
– Splug and Klajdu high fiving just as Splug says “Raven Queen!”
Klajdu: “Wait! No!”

We tried to kill the tiefling, then we were to spare the tiefling, then we tried to kill him, then we spared him again. then we watched him run away. He wasn’t even on fire. Oh and he also claimed to know Distress, saying at one point “If you wondered where Distress got her training, tell her Larix (sp?) says hi.”

Oh and Arranis kinda died briefly but we brought him back. He still did not smile.
Shazia: Welcome back!
Arannis: What do you mean?
Shazia: Well, er, you were kinda dead for a while.

Much loot there was to sort through. Gold and silver in the “tax collector wagon”, which, surprisingly, turned out to be an actual tax collector’s wagon. the bloodstains on many of the clothes therein suggested that the current tax year did not end well for him.

I snagged what I at first thought was a pair of pajamas but turned out to be some magical cloth armor! I am slightly less likely to die tomorrow!! let us drink.

Retooled, refueled and even rinsed off a bit in the stream, we make our way to the spot Splug saw in his vision. It’s past the hall of a lanterns, and then we made some unremarkable turns. Rights and lefts and such. Hopefully someone else was paying attention.
As we got closer, the key began to glow, and to tug Splug’s hand forward. Neil exclaimed, “off trail, but on key!”

The pull became stronger and stronger until the key yanked itself out of Splug’s hand as we approached an otherwise unremarkable wall. Fitz picked it up and it pulled his hand to a particular spot on the wall and slipped inside some invisible lock. A passageway opened before us – 50 feet worth of hallway stretching away into the darkness, ending in a square opening. We crept went down the hall to find a figure waiting for us at the end – a figure with only one arm and one eye. Oh good.

The figure spoke: “What can you offer the dreaded lord of secrets?”

Splug eagerly began to relate the recipe of minotaur jerky. To us it was no secret and in fact as Klajdu said some time past “It was better when not know secret”. Vecna’s emissary seemed to feel the same. I told him of the screaming creature in my head and the underground fortress wherein she is imprisoned. Not a lot of detail and I withheld her name, but he seemed to accept it.
Splug became impatient and threw a demon eyeball at the figure to intimidate it. The figure simply placed the eyeball into his empty eye socket and grinned, prompting a collective shudder from the party.
Neil told a story disguised as a song.
Distress told the story of our adventure to the Cairn of the Winter King.
Fitz offered his demonskin cloak.
Klajdu spoke of his backup loincloth with “aroma power”, and was understandably shocked when the figure showed an interest and asked for more details. (We must not let this particular power fall into Vecna’s, er, hand)

In the end, the emissary from Vecna allowed us to pass, but he withdrew from each of us some of our vitality, and one of our powers. A little discomfited but without any recourse to complain, we went through the teleportation circle.

On the other side, we were in a corridor with faces on each side. Half of them were gagged and staring at us, with the other half blindfolded and chanting at us in an unknown tongue. Neil and I fiddled with the faces a bit – he trying to remove their blindfolds and me trying to pour wine into their mouths. Neither served much purpose, except that as often happens with Neil, he made me feel a little less crazy.

The narrow twisting corridor opened onto a large open chamber filled with pillars. The pillars had eyes on them which I was sure was an excellent sign. They were looking at us so I waved. On one end, 2 little goblins stood near the opening to another corridor across the room. Rushing ahead as usual, Splug ran across and up to the goblins and did a little dance and began to preach at them of the glories of the Raven Queen Cult. It was a compelling pitch, I mean in that they seemed to listen attentively. In terms of content it was a little deranged and involved pledging oneself to a cult of death, but hey I’m not judging.

Neil made for one of the eye-pillars and wrapped a demonskin around it
(has everyone been flaying themselves a demon? Have I been missing out
here?).
And at the moment the eye became obscured I sensed a great anger from a magical presence nearby. It being a nice change to have some *other* angry magical presence in my head, I took my bedroll and immediately obscured a second eye. Anyway, more Norkers showed up, with all the fighting clustered around a second teleportation circle. Klajdu used the spot to unleash one of his Great Cleaves and moments later became the first to teleport through, and thus the first to fight the 9 foot tall Bronze Warder in the next room. Without, I might add, either of the control amulets which Neil and I were carrying.

Eventually though, the little goblin “norkers” were given over to the Raven Queen and most of us teleported across to join Klajdu in the next room. Splug and I were the last people across.

Shazia: Ah now I’m alone with all the pillars.
Splug (calling from the norker quarters) What about me? I’m still here”
Shazia: Oh yea, and the little guy
Splug: Don’t you feel safer?
Shazia: Only until the poo starts flying
Splug: and then you’ll feel *much* safer.

We eventually came across to join the Bronze Warder dance party, as I and Neil uttered various forms of “FFFflanda” (the amulet control word given us by Orantour), paired with various instructions. It mostly seemed to just slow the Warder down, but I can’t complain – it was a 9 foot tall remote control minotaur construct. I did land one good blow on an enemy later and it was pretty sweet. There were other enemies though. At first more Norkers, and later some ugly humanoid things in robes that were a litle tougher with a lot more magic going on

{watching two Norkers run down the hall together}
Distress: Wow, they move in tandem!
Fitz: They’re gonna die in tandem!

Splug picked up where he left off, preaching his sermon of the Raven Queen’s awesomeness, trying to convert the goblins. He was intermixing the sermonizing with the attacking to the point that we later named it the “Sermon of Opportunity”. It had such a compelling rhythm that all of us began to periodically testify with encouraging shouts to punctuate his points. I’m not sure how much time Klajdu has spent in such temples though, as some of his testifies were a bit random; one of them was definitely “Thirsty!”

And hallelujah! A goblin norker was thus converted! He was christened Norbert the Norker. Hopefully not with pee.

Not long after, we discovered that when the ugly humanoid guys in robes took a lot of damage, they exploded and their skin spontaneously flayed off of them. It was seriously gross.

Fitz: Oh hey take the skin!
entire party: {wtf}
Fitz: It just reminds me of my mission!
entire party: {WTF}

The next room was full of magical constructs and magical tomes and scrolls and plans. In a maddening touch, every single written word had been enchanted to vanish from the pages the second you looked at them, so after a few moments of frenzied searching Neil and I had successfully erased all magical knowledge that might have once been interesting. Fantastic. Like many of our experiences lately, it had all the better qualities of a good nightmare.

Oh and there was a huge tank full of liquid in which floated the head of one of the Bronze Warders. The tank wanted to be smashed clearly so we obliged. The next teleportation circle awaited.

The next room was a small room with a door in each wall. Splug opened the door to the east only to find an empty room. Carn, Klajdu, Fitz and Distress opened another that opened into a huge chamber full of enemies so off they went charging to battle. There was a huge mosaic of a hand clutching an eyeball on the floor, there was a huge altar on the far side with a huge eyeball, not to mention the demons. There was much battle. Carn orchestrated a brilliantly violent chorus of attacks where Klajdu, Fitz and Distress all simultaneously charged and made quick work of one enemy.

Our newly converted Norker Norbert, still back in the first room, opened another door and did a double take – for a moment he had seen Paldemar there but the mage promptly disappeared.
Neil not long after saw Paldemar again, hooded, frowning, irritated. He reasoned with him, that our party has gotten this far without really any problems (we have?) and that he should parley and we can negotiate terms. Paldemar’s response took a page out of the debating book of our old friend the enchanted boat, and he zapped us with lightning. Oh how I missed being zapped with lightning. Words do not describe. Distress did too.

Distress: I disagree! No!

Klajdu charged Paldemar, and hit although the mage disappeared from sight like he had with Neil. I hit the mage with the Dark Dream curse, Distress attacked him too and knocked him down, and again the mage disappeared from her sight.

Distress: Well at least he is on the ground, invisible.

Splug sprung another deranged sermon at Paldemar, that Vecna will torture him for failing to conceal his mysteries. I can not do it justice here so I won’t try. Plus I don’t have a pot on my head so the main effects are lost.

Distress: Oh Snap!

Enemy goblin, attacking Splug: “Shut up already!!”

Carn then found a weakness in Paldemar’s defenses that allowed us all to hit him a lot more easily and since he had already taken more damage than he was comfortable with, we put him down pretty quickly! Thus, if we only put our minds to it, great things can be made to fall down and die in a messy puddle of their own blood. And thus we proceeded to the looting portion of the day.

I am now the proud bearer of a magical staff. =) I don’t use it for much more than prodding things, but I am still excited to be *magically* prodding things. We found 1000 gold beneath Paldemar’s bed, more books that became blank as you looked at them( I took as many as I could carry anyway), and a card. A strange looking card. It had an image of a Fool on it. Definitely magical. Very very powerful.
We found a ritual scroll that had not been fully designed. It seemed to be a way to channel arcane power from one mage to another. Evil business to say the least. It bears more scrutiny, possibly while more sober.
We also found a magical Orb. Neil looked into it carefully and saw a shadowy figure clad in robes. The figure seemed to find Neil wanting cause he shook his head at Neil and the orb shattered, doing a fair bit of damage in the process.
We also found a map that showed a glowing pyramid off in the forests north of us.

We looted, scavenged, and made our way back to the 7 pillar hall, for the big payday and some proper revelry.

As the last echoes of Neil’s saxophone faded away, I couldn’t think of anything to say so I just held out the bottle to Orantour again.

The mage only stared at it. And sitting there at his desk something seemed to go out in the man. He let his head sag slowly down and it hit the desk in front of him with a little defeated thump. He eventually told us a tale of some despair. For 6 days he’d been keeping himself awake with a vile wakefulness tincture of his own making. Listening to him talk, he was clearly beyond useless in any kind of a fight. Worse, the Tower of Mysteries is NOT also the Mages Tower within which Klajdu might have so triumphantly used the bathroom. He offers the goliath the use of his bathroom in the back of the custom house as a consolation prize, I suspect a decision which will later for him mark the Bottom of this entire experience. He does give us a second control amulet and he says they may be helfpul to control the Bronze Warders.
He also promises us all of the gold in the 7 pillar hall vault.

Retooled, refueled and even rinsed off a bit in the stream, we make our way to the spot Splug saw in his vision.