Zoom 2024-04-16 21:00

Zoom session 16/4/2024
The party discusses the idea of blocking the progress of fire elementals by getting someone with a Prot/Evil or Prot/Non-Wildwood to stand in their way.
Continuing the fight, Umar clobbers the third fire elemental.
The front rank (Umar, Riff Raff & Dougal, all hasted) reach a spiral staircase and start to climb, just as elemental number 4 appears coming down to meet them.  Francis & Brokev (also hasted) follow as the second rank.
Behind us in the vestibule, the giant we spared earlier appears on the stairs, glowing blue and with his throat slit.  We've seen this before, indicating that he has been animated by Ceinwyn, the master of apprentices.  Wun takes offense at this piece of necromancy and turns the giant.  It runs away, revealing the fact that Sholar is also coming up the stairs.
Hamish runs around the 8th floor anticlockwise, trying to try to find a way behind the elementals, but finds out that they came from the spiral staircase and the front ranks are already there.  Hamish joins the front ranks at the bottom of the stairs.
Riff Raff finishes number 4, and heals Dougal for 2 points.
A fifth elemental is coming down the stairs.  The party fights on, Dougal dropping back from the front rank.  Francis returns to the vestibule to investigate the noise coming from there.
Something upstairs throws a Dispel Magic on the front rank, removing haste & Resist Fire from Umar, Resist Fire from Riff Raff.  Dougal loses Haste, Shield & Mirror Images.  Brokev loses Slow Poison.
Beyond this elemental, a 6th one is seen at the top of the stairs.  Hamish heads back to fetch Bazin, so the the chant keeps up with the fight.
Umar steps back from the front line and Brokev takes over, spear first and finishes off number 5.
Another round or two of fighting and Riff Raff backs out with only 1hp remaining.  Dougal puts up a Shield spell and steps back into the front rank.
A couple more rounds of combat leave Brokev and Dougal in a bad way, but they battle on and win.
[Apparent inconsistency: at this point we check the total number of elementals that were summoned (five), but the audio recording has the party defeat six of them.  It's hard to keep count in a combat like this, but we may be due a couple of extra xp]
There is now a swarm of insects buzzing toward the party, but they can't close within 10' of Brokev, since they're summoned creatures.  Garaf throws a fireball into them, which clears the swarm.
Meanwhile, back in vestibule, Wun, Twoo, Francis & Bazin see the undead reappear.  Wun attempts to turn it again, but fails, in part because Francis interrupts him.  The giant says "Sholar knows where to go - follow him.  Get the rest of your suicide squad out of the stairs".
Why didn't Sholar tell us this himself?  He didn't know until he heard about it.  The giant collapses and the blue glow fades.
Francis & Wun have an argument about the anathema of undead and the value of false religions.  In future Wun will treat Francis as an atheist for the purpose of cures.
The party call back the front ranks.  Sholar leads us through the South door from the vestibule, through a small corridor to the East leading to a blank wall.  He touches it in a couple of places to open a secret door.  In the next room, a doorway is filled with blue stone and a picture of an hourglass.  Sholar touches it with an hourglass and a corridor opens to a circular staircase leading up.
Sholar leads the way up into the sub-tower and a couple of rounds later the corridor closes behind us.
We arrive at a room with a dark elf, Ceinwyn, the master of apprentices.  He comments that we were not well advised to pick that particular fight.  The front door was closed 2 hours ago, which leaves 22 hours before the entire tower collapses and implodes.  When there is a new Blue Mage, the tower will regrow, probably in about 2 years.  The prime candidates are Ceinwyn and perhaps Sholar.  Or one of us could join the Blue order?
There are a number of these incarnations within the Blue cult: the Blue witch, the Blue sage, the Blue warrior and the Blue priest as well as the Blue mage.
The Blue cult primarily exists to oppose the cult of Chaos.  Blue is not religious, but allows the worship of gods, while Chaos allows the worship of gods and subverts them.  Ceinwyn has not thought about a colour for Chaos, but probably red.  Chaos is the "other player" mentioned by Tocsin's brother "of the One", as the "leeches on the gods".  Sallahan is the closest thing to a headquarters for Chaos.  Tocsin and his brother are in opposition on this.  While Tocsin claims to be the founder of Chaos, that's not clear, although he is seen as a figurehead for it.
Our way out is to reach the top floor and fly / feather fall down to the ground.  There are 4 great-hawks stabled up there, if any of us can fly one.  Ceinwyn will stay with the tower.
The bastard hobbit upstairs is probably aware and will make his own way out.  Ceinwyn has no idea what they are looking for.  They turned up as emissaries with a couple of goblins in tow; the old Blue Mage was interested in the sentient races, so he granted an audience.  One of them (a human) teleported next to him, which shouldn't be possible within the tower, and then put up an Anti-Magic Shell before killing him.  The core group with the hobbit were a dwarf fighter & three humans.  Ceinwyn had already run by this time, and was trying to coordinate things from the sub-tower, but none of the attackers were accessible to magical links unless they were dead and their tatoos had been removed.  Most of the footsoldiers were giants.  The tattoos are marks of chaos, which perhaps explains the purpose of their attack.
We are welcome to rest in the sub-tower, there is food and Ceinwyn offers some cures. Francis, Brokev & Umar take cure serious.  Cure lights to Twoo, Joshua, Riff Raff, Wun & Brokev.  This part of the tower restores 2d4 hp overnight.
Mages in the party can borrow one book each from the library, for example the spell books for Wish, Limited Wish & Shape Change.  That's the Master Library on level 10.  The general library on level 8 is full of interesting documents, but we don't have days to rummage through them.
There could be some documentation on the creation of familiars and totems in the master library. The Blue mage was one of the instigators.  When a mage or his familiar dies, the familiar returns a little faded but grants extra powers.  That seems to proceed at least 2 or 3 times.  Beyond that it becomes more dangerous; there are stories of the familiar becoming the mage and the mage becoming the familiar.
Ceinwyn's best guess at why Wyldwood sent us here is to visit the Temple to all gods on level 8.
Ceinwyn notices that we were also at the Blue witch's place when the goblins turned up there, and wonders who is pulling our strings.  We mention Vinmira and he goes to check something in a book.  Vinmira is not a member of the Blue cult, but he is a useful person.  He has been one for more than 30 years, any older information would need the previous volume.
As master of apprentices, Ceinwyn sees 3-4 new apprentices most years.  Sholar only got in because one year there were only two other applicants.  The apprentices stay in the tower, unless they renounce their vow and go back into the world.  The Blue mage did send some promising apprentices out with more detailed instructions.  [Ceinwyn will look up some names for us].  Ceinwyn will also look up a Monster Manual entry on fire elementals for us. [This may also point out that they normally need +2 weapons rather than +3]
Including today's combat, the party receives 6492xp.  Brokev levels up, as does Francis.