In which the party clears Skerples's Generic Wizard Tower and mirrorwalks their way to the lost Starmoore Academy.
Our dramatic party of looters and booters finds themselves resting up from the doppelganger encounter in the tavern room at the base of the disappearing wizard's tower. Presented with the choice of the two doors leading out from the room. To the left, a filigreed door with wrought iron accenting and to the right, a simple wooden door. After smelling, listening to, and observing each door carefully the party chose to head left and leave the horse and donkey with their man-at-arms in the presumed safety of the lobby.
To the left was a short staircase that opened into a room with a grander staircase that split into two which wrapped around the room. Plush carpets lined the staircase and on either side were large marble statues of a stately wizard. After fondling the wizard, the party heads up the stairs but fails to notice the pressure plate hidden by the carpeting, causing a spiked ball to Indiana Jones its way down the stairs. Alma and Stratford are caught in its path while the other two are able to dodge out of their way. Now freshly suspicious of the decor, the party spends some time tearing apart the carpet to locate any further traps. While doing this, the ominous sounds of marching accompanied by the clatter of bones can be heard from above. Taking battle positions, the party readies for another practiced combat with the undead at the bottom of the stairs.
What appeared though was a group of six purple robed and unarmed skeletons which quickly set to work repairing the destroyed carpet. Somewhat deflated and unable to communicate with these newcomers, the party presses forwards up the stairs and into the next room.
A chilly room with fine wood panels and several display cases holding decrepit scrolls met them on the next landing as well as a central spiral staircase, rusted and accumulating drifting snow. Examining the scrolls found them to be extremely fragile, but one was discernible enough to identify the signature of Duke Conrad, lord of Yonwell. Somewhat puzzled, the party set to work examining the room for further hints and treasures. Uninterested in the idea of hauling the somewhat valuable furniture back down the mountain, they discovered a hidden switch underneath one of the scrolls on displays which when pressed revealed a hidden compartment in one of the display stands. Inside, Olga retrieved a nine inch long child's femur, ribboned with gold spiralling to a tapered point at the end.
Up the spiral staircase, the party finds it comes to an abrupt end in a mass of twisted metal, cutting off access to the next floor. The room they find themselves in looks to have once been a lush lounge, but now all that remains is snow drifts from a gaping hole several feet up alongside the outer wall of the tower. A section of the circular room was blocked off by a wall with a locked door set in it and in one corner of the room were the remains of the lounge, two velvet couches now frozen and moldy and a table. On the table however sat a curious oddity, a freshly baked strawberry cake, two bottles of wine whose labels were incomprehensible and bore identical illustrations of a woman run through a Picasso filter, as well as two shiny silver goblets. The whole arrangement notably showed no signs of tarnish despite the environment. Olga carefully pokes at the cake with her dagger and cuts a slice out, eating it and quickly spitting it out before any damage can be done, as small blades nearly tear apart her mouth and the cake begins to writhe.
Twin eyestalks pop up from beneath the strawberries adorning the cake and centipede-like legs prop it up as it launches itself at Olga's face, the cake's top becoming a writhing assortment of teeth and faux-strawberry creme but she manages to catch it and hold it inches from her. Unfortunately the rest of the arrangement begins to make similarly insectoid reveals, as the bottles of wine sharpen at the top and coil before with a mosquito-like buzz they launch for the necks of the surrounding party. Stratford is struck and despairs at the sight of the bottle burrowing into his neck and fresh blood beginning to fill its still translucent bottle-like stomach.
With the fight on, Olga tries to throw the cake out the hole in the tower but misses, causing it to scuttle along the wall then launch at her again, closing around her face and tearing in. The bottles of wine continue to harass Pepper and Stratford who each lose vital fluids to their latching mosquito-like attacks and Alma tries to battle the goblet creatures but is taken by surprise as they snap together and steal her magical sword, using it to counterattack the now disarmed ranger. She does have a stroke of luck when using the strange bluemetal shield recovered from the Ranger's Guild. Smashing the goblets with it causes a blinding flash of light and disorients the creatures- but to no avail.
Olga manages to get the cake off her head and smashes it apart with her warhammer before being incapacitated by one of the wine bottles draining her blood. Stratford casts spider-climb and tries to cut off the goblets that are now dragging the magical sword through the hole in the wall, but he's unable to prevent this and the goblets with sword in tow disappear up the side of the tower. Pepper crushes one of the wine bottles as Olga once more miraculously survives a brush with death as the party slays the other mimic left digging into her neck. Potions are drunk, bandages used, and Alma stress eats after the loss of the sword. Disheartened after this net loss encounter with the Tea Party of Death, the party returns back to the tavern room and sets up camp for the night.
During Stratford's shift, he catches glimpse of the unexplored door opening and shines his Wolfshead lantern at it, revealing a room with comfortable beds and a trapdoor (the party groans realizing beds were available) from which a group of strange rats with grafted metal bits were escaping with a comically large wheel of cheese. After trying to speak with the rats fails, Stratford allows the group to pass through the room and escape, cheese in tow. In the morning, the party makes a miserable stew from ingredients they discover in the trapdoor/cellar and Olga gives a less than rousing pep talk before the party climbs back to the loungeroom once more. Picking the lock on the door is simple and the moldy, tiny study beyond is of no interest aside from the rope ladder which extends to the next floor. Stratford scouts the room and discovers it mostly ruined but for the spiral staircase continuing upwards and a large landing pad extending out over the mountainside, on which perched a gargoyle surrounded by freshly disturbed snow. He spies a decaying journal alongside a rotting table and pockets it as well before returning downstairs to consult with the party. They discover from the journal that the femur they had recovered earlier was actually a Wand of Remove Skin that had been recovered by the tower's still unknown master from the ruins of Starmoore.
Carefully tiptoeing through the room and up the stairs, the party find the next room to be only a corner slice of the floor available, with the rest locked behind iron doors, one set along the north-south wall and one the east-west wall. Observing the room to have a thick layer of ash and scorch marks covering it as well as large locks on the doors, Olga experiments by throwing a coin in and is unsurprised when after a moment on the ground, a light from below begins to glow followed by the strike of a bolt of lightning. They opt to leave this room for now and proceed upstairs to find another quarter-slice room with twin doors on opposing walls, but this time no obvious trap greets them but instead rows of shelves with alchemical ingredients.
Stratford harvests the ingredients and prepares his summoning spell with them as Alma and Olga continue examining the room, noting one door to be iron and stained with blood and the other to be simple wood. After completing his preparations, the group carefully peers into the room with the ominous bloodstains and finds it to be darkened, with several holes where stone has crumbled letting enough light in to reveal four large glass vats along the left hand wall. Two contain a vibrant green liquid with insectoid creatures suspended within which coil and shape into common objects over and over again. The third vat is filled with an opaque grey ooze and the fourth is broken open, its contents missing. Along the back wall are two operating tables with large iron chain restraints and sealed barrels flanking on either side. On one table is the rotting corpse of a wolf, its limbs hacked off and one seemingly replaced with a human foot (This tower was rumored, after all, to belong to the maniac wizard who created the handwolves which plague the surrounding lands).
Deciding they wanted nothing to do with fragile vats containing obvious horrible monsters, they close the door but a glint of metal catches Alma's eye and she spies that tucked into the corner by one of the barrels- the hilt of her magic sword emerging from a hole in the right-hand sealed barrel. Cursing her fate she creeps into the room and tries to pull it out, only for the operating table's chains to animate and attempt to bind her. She manages to evade and flips the table and then uses her Stun-Shield to cause the mimic clearly hiding in the barrel to release the sword, giving her time to grab it and haul ass out the room as the vats began to froth and crack.
After heated arguments over who was supposed to bring chains and ropes, the party finally finds their rope supply and sets up a contraption to hold the door to the operating room closed. Reunited with her magical sword, Alma opens the yet-explored room and finds a somewhat intact library with several rare tomes, including a spellbook for Mirrorwalk which reveals how to operate the rooms other feature and the goal of this journey, a grand floor to ceiling silver mirror circled with runes. They pocket their goods and explore the final room at the top of the spiral staircase. It's mostly ruined by weather and decay, however, but appears to have been a bedroom. The crumbling walls allow Stratford to make out some of the features of the forests over the foreboding Greenspine mountains, identifying a colossal Moai statue some three hexes away in the mountains that divide the Beastwarren and the Fairywood. Off in the Fairywood, he spies to oft-rumored but never before seen Spire that stretches past the sky, said to always be in the distance but impossible to reach and to be home to the Fairy Queen.
Alma begins studying the intricacies of mirrorwalking while Stratford and Olga begin disarming the trapped room with the iron doors. Olga uses her elasticity spell to reach over and unlock the door, then stretches her neck into the room beyond. At the far end is a table with a complicated brass machine that appears to dispense liquids, flanked on either side by treasure chests with posted suits of armor bearing halberds and a large tasseled rug in the center of the room. Immediately on testing the limits of her elasticity she discovers that the carpet is animate as it tries to suffocate her- but she escapes easily.
Stratford and Olga then plan the heist, suspecting that the suits of arm will animate if provoked, Olga stretches into the room and readies to fight while Stratford casts spider-climb and crawls along the roof until perching above one of the treasure chests. Spiderman and Elastigirl then move into action with Stratford opening the chest looking for an attack from the suit of armor, only to be taken by surprise by the chest's sharp teeth and lolling tongue which rises up to its obscene nine foot height to try and swallow him whole.
Dramatis Personae:
Alma Tumbler (level 5) Aspirant Ranger, purple feather mutation, Wielder of the Unknown Blade and the Lightning Bow, Chronicler and Sole Survivor of the first session
Olga Derippe (level 3) Body builder, Hammer Enthusiast, Haunted by a Revenant, Death Defier, Hoardmaster
Pepper Slorah
(level 3) Expert Archer, Herbalist, Bell Priestess, Blindshot Expert,
expedition leader and freshly returned from work with the Bell Priests (now retired to the status of Henchman as the player is no longer in town)
Stratford Slee (level 3) Member of the Hunter's Pact, Arguably Australian, no longer stuck at 6 HP, ex-pirate
To the left was a short staircase that opened into a room with a grander staircase that split into two which wrapped around the room. Plush carpets lined the staircase and on either side were large marble statues of a stately wizard. After fondling the wizard, the party heads up the stairs but fails to notice the pressure plate hidden by the carpeting, causing a spiked ball to Indiana Jones its way down the stairs. Alma and Stratford are caught in its path while the other two are able to dodge out of their way. Now freshly suspicious of the decor, the party spends some time tearing apart the carpet to locate any further traps. While doing this, the ominous sounds of marching accompanied by the clatter of bones can be heard from above. Taking battle positions, the party readies for another practiced combat with the undead at the bottom of the stairs.
What appeared though was a group of six purple robed and unarmed skeletons which quickly set to work repairing the destroyed carpet. Somewhat deflated and unable to communicate with these newcomers, the party presses forwards up the stairs and into the next room.
A chilly room with fine wood panels and several display cases holding decrepit scrolls met them on the next landing as well as a central spiral staircase, rusted and accumulating drifting snow. Examining the scrolls found them to be extremely fragile, but one was discernible enough to identify the signature of Duke Conrad, lord of Yonwell. Somewhat puzzled, the party set to work examining the room for further hints and treasures. Uninterested in the idea of hauling the somewhat valuable furniture back down the mountain, they discovered a hidden switch underneath one of the scrolls on displays which when pressed revealed a hidden compartment in one of the display stands. Inside, Olga retrieved a nine inch long child's femur, ribboned with gold spiralling to a tapered point at the end.
Up the spiral staircase, the party finds it comes to an abrupt end in a mass of twisted metal, cutting off access to the next floor. The room they find themselves in looks to have once been a lush lounge, but now all that remains is snow drifts from a gaping hole several feet up alongside the outer wall of the tower. A section of the circular room was blocked off by a wall with a locked door set in it and in one corner of the room were the remains of the lounge, two velvet couches now frozen and moldy and a table. On the table however sat a curious oddity, a freshly baked strawberry cake, two bottles of wine whose labels were incomprehensible and bore identical illustrations of a woman run through a Picasso filter, as well as two shiny silver goblets. The whole arrangement notably showed no signs of tarnish despite the environment. Olga carefully pokes at the cake with her dagger and cuts a slice out, eating it and quickly spitting it out before any damage can be done, as small blades nearly tear apart her mouth and the cake begins to writhe.
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| Anna Amelia C. |
Twin eyestalks pop up from beneath the strawberries adorning the cake and centipede-like legs prop it up as it launches itself at Olga's face, the cake's top becoming a writhing assortment of teeth and faux-strawberry creme but she manages to catch it and hold it inches from her. Unfortunately the rest of the arrangement begins to make similarly insectoid reveals, as the bottles of wine sharpen at the top and coil before with a mosquito-like buzz they launch for the necks of the surrounding party. Stratford is struck and despairs at the sight of the bottle burrowing into his neck and fresh blood beginning to fill its still translucent bottle-like stomach.
With the fight on, Olga tries to throw the cake out the hole in the tower but misses, causing it to scuttle along the wall then launch at her again, closing around her face and tearing in. The bottles of wine continue to harass Pepper and Stratford who each lose vital fluids to their latching mosquito-like attacks and Alma tries to battle the goblet creatures but is taken by surprise as they snap together and steal her magical sword, using it to counterattack the now disarmed ranger. She does have a stroke of luck when using the strange bluemetal shield recovered from the Ranger's Guild. Smashing the goblets with it causes a blinding flash of light and disorients the creatures- but to no avail.
Olga manages to get the cake off her head and smashes it apart with her warhammer before being incapacitated by one of the wine bottles draining her blood. Stratford casts spider-climb and tries to cut off the goblets that are now dragging the magical sword through the hole in the wall, but he's unable to prevent this and the goblets with sword in tow disappear up the side of the tower. Pepper crushes one of the wine bottles as Olga once more miraculously survives a brush with death as the party slays the other mimic left digging into her neck. Potions are drunk, bandages used, and Alma stress eats after the loss of the sword. Disheartened after this net loss encounter with the Tea Party of Death, the party returns back to the tavern room and sets up camp for the night.
During Stratford's shift, he catches glimpse of the unexplored door opening and shines his Wolfshead lantern at it, revealing a room with comfortable beds and a trapdoor (the party groans realizing beds were available) from which a group of strange rats with grafted metal bits were escaping with a comically large wheel of cheese. After trying to speak with the rats fails, Stratford allows the group to pass through the room and escape, cheese in tow. In the morning, the party makes a miserable stew from ingredients they discover in the trapdoor/cellar and Olga gives a less than rousing pep talk before the party climbs back to the loungeroom once more. Picking the lock on the door is simple and the moldy, tiny study beyond is of no interest aside from the rope ladder which extends to the next floor. Stratford scouts the room and discovers it mostly ruined but for the spiral staircase continuing upwards and a large landing pad extending out over the mountainside, on which perched a gargoyle surrounded by freshly disturbed snow. He spies a decaying journal alongside a rotting table and pockets it as well before returning downstairs to consult with the party. They discover from the journal that the femur they had recovered earlier was actually a Wand of Remove Skin that had been recovered by the tower's still unknown master from the ruins of Starmoore.
Carefully tiptoeing through the room and up the stairs, the party find the next room to be only a corner slice of the floor available, with the rest locked behind iron doors, one set along the north-south wall and one the east-west wall. Observing the room to have a thick layer of ash and scorch marks covering it as well as large locks on the doors, Olga experiments by throwing a coin in and is unsurprised when after a moment on the ground, a light from below begins to glow followed by the strike of a bolt of lightning. They opt to leave this room for now and proceed upstairs to find another quarter-slice room with twin doors on opposing walls, but this time no obvious trap greets them but instead rows of shelves with alchemical ingredients.
Stratford harvests the ingredients and prepares his summoning spell with them as Alma and Olga continue examining the room, noting one door to be iron and stained with blood and the other to be simple wood. After completing his preparations, the group carefully peers into the room with the ominous bloodstains and finds it to be darkened, with several holes where stone has crumbled letting enough light in to reveal four large glass vats along the left hand wall. Two contain a vibrant green liquid with insectoid creatures suspended within which coil and shape into common objects over and over again. The third vat is filled with an opaque grey ooze and the fourth is broken open, its contents missing. Along the back wall are two operating tables with large iron chain restraints and sealed barrels flanking on either side. On one table is the rotting corpse of a wolf, its limbs hacked off and one seemingly replaced with a human foot (This tower was rumored, after all, to belong to the maniac wizard who created the handwolves which plague the surrounding lands).
Deciding they wanted nothing to do with fragile vats containing obvious horrible monsters, they close the door but a glint of metal catches Alma's eye and she spies that tucked into the corner by one of the barrels- the hilt of her magic sword emerging from a hole in the right-hand sealed barrel. Cursing her fate she creeps into the room and tries to pull it out, only for the operating table's chains to animate and attempt to bind her. She manages to evade and flips the table and then uses her Stun-Shield to cause the mimic clearly hiding in the barrel to release the sword, giving her time to grab it and haul ass out the room as the vats began to froth and crack.
After heated arguments over who was supposed to bring chains and ropes, the party finally finds their rope supply and sets up a contraption to hold the door to the operating room closed. Reunited with her magical sword, Alma opens the yet-explored room and finds a somewhat intact library with several rare tomes, including a spellbook for Mirrorwalk which reveals how to operate the rooms other feature and the goal of this journey, a grand floor to ceiling silver mirror circled with runes. They pocket their goods and explore the final room at the top of the spiral staircase. It's mostly ruined by weather and decay, however, but appears to have been a bedroom. The crumbling walls allow Stratford to make out some of the features of the forests over the foreboding Greenspine mountains, identifying a colossal Moai statue some three hexes away in the mountains that divide the Beastwarren and the Fairywood. Off in the Fairywood, he spies to oft-rumored but never before seen Spire that stretches past the sky, said to always be in the distance but impossible to reach and to be home to the Fairy Queen.
Alma begins studying the intricacies of mirrorwalking while Stratford and Olga begin disarming the trapped room with the iron doors. Olga uses her elasticity spell to reach over and unlock the door, then stretches her neck into the room beyond. At the far end is a table with a complicated brass machine that appears to dispense liquids, flanked on either side by treasure chests with posted suits of armor bearing halberds and a large tasseled rug in the center of the room. Immediately on testing the limits of her elasticity she discovers that the carpet is animate as it tries to suffocate her- but she escapes easily.
Stratford and Olga then plan the heist, suspecting that the suits of arm will animate if provoked, Olga stretches into the room and readies to fight while Stratford casts spider-climb and crawls along the roof until perching above one of the treasure chests. Spiderman and Elastigirl then move into action with Stratford opening the chest looking for an attack from the suit of armor, only to be taken by surprise by the chest's sharp teeth and lolling tongue which rises up to its obscene nine foot height to try and swallow him whole.
Olga decides she wants nothing to do with the affair and offers her heartfelt cheers and support while Stratford manages to climb the mimic's back and begins stabbing, only for the animate carpet to leap into the air and begin suffocating him. In his last ditch attempts to salvage victory, he manages to cast his prepared summoning spell and the tower shakes and cracks as the living blizzard and Harbinger of Winter Antoban steps through a crack in the world and sees his summoner in a predicament once more. Sighing, he cuts the carpet to ribbons while cold burns into those present and Olga flees back to the stairwell where Pepper and Alma wait- unable to get around the lightning trap.
Antoban is then quickly swallowed by the mimic as Stratford rolls away, but the mimic freezes up and falls to the ground dead after consuming the summoned Harbinger. The mimic's "contents" proved to turn up no loot, only revealing the insectoid carapace of the mimic. Disappointed, Stratford uses the brass machine which he finds dispenses potions, three in total (Giant Size, Transformation: Bees, Doom Treading). Potions in hand, he then tries the remaining chest only to nearly be devoured once more by a mimic. Barely escaping with his life, he spider-climbs back to the waiting party and they decide to mess with the room no further (which was a real shame, as the maniac wizard stuffed the suits of armor full of his gem supply).
The party returns to their man-at-arms and pack animals to do some inventory management and give instructions that they may be gone for some time. Satisfied with their preparations they ascend upstairs to the library/mirror room once more- hearing the occasional ominous buzzing of insects nearby. Alma activates the mirrorwalk spell and the party steps into the unknown darkened room beyond. In the light of the Wolfshead lantern they find its a small, sandy reading room with empty candelholders and a single exit from under which sand drifted into the room and a dim violet light shone.
Opening the door reveals their destination, Starmoore Academy, and much more. Beyond the shack they're in is miles of grey sand dunes with a great stone citadel-like structure sunken into the sand in the distance. The skies are roiling smoke with crackles of electricity which reveal enormous gliding shadows beyond, but at least the grey sands are warmer than the mountain tower and the air has a strange but not unwelcome sweetness to it.
Starmoore Academy lies now in the distance, and the quest to save their friend, guildhall, town, and possibly the realm makes another step as the mirrorportal closes behind them- unable to be opened for another day. What lies ahead for the Whoa Whoa Bellringers in the ruins of the Starmoore Academy? Will they recover the greatest joke or will they become lost in the disjointed and merged spaces of the Stygian Library that the Academy now finds itself? Was this all just a prolonged excuse to run Stygian Library? Will there be a giant owl spirit? Only time will tell.
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