Mentmore 24-26 May

The party successfully exits the tower and defeats the 6 giants who are lying in wait for us.
As the combat ends, so does the tower – it smoothly shrinks down until all that is left is a blue stone embedded in the ground.
We recover 6 potions, 2 runic staves and 4 runic sets of giant chain mail. Next day Garaf and Joshua identify the items:
* 4 Potions of	Delayed Healing. (Note HP’s when drunk. If within the next 1 hour	you fall below 50% of that, heal 60 points). One each to Francis,	Umar, Brokev and 1 spare.
* 1 Potions	Speed. 1 Potion Gaseous Form.
* 2 * +2 Runic	staves – cause Paralysis (saving throw applies) 9 charges and 6	charges.
* 4 * +2 Runic	giant chainmail (One set to Umar)
* (From Mage in	Summoning room) +3 Ring of prot (To Hamish, who gives +2 ring to	Wun)
* (From Mage in	Summoning room) Wand of 1st/2nd level spells. 12 charges (Mages can	cast mage spells, illusionists cast illusionist spells.) Can cast	Detect Magic+Runic (2d level spell)
However, as Garaf does an identify, he feels he is being looked at over his shoulder. Joshua casts True Sight, and sees a pair of eyes staring over Garaf’s shoulder – and then feels that he is now being looked at over his own shoulder. We assume that this is Toscin being able to now ‘tap into’ our divinations spells, and know anything we know from casting them. We determine that we cannot be spied on from inside a closed rope trick.
We rest up for a full day, and the following day – but that afternoon we spot a fishing boat sailing towards us – it is a couple of hours away. A clairvoyance spell shows shows some crew, a well as an armoured guy in Alveran livery and … Vinmira.
When they land, Vinmira and liveried chappy start tramping inland towards the old tower. We join them – but Vinmira is in a hurry, and asks us to walk with him as we chat. However, when Vinmira learns that we have scried Vendor and given Toscin some kind of hold over us, he stops. He is concerned that Toscin is now ‘free’ or back in the world at large. This is so important that he puts his current mission on hold, and asks us to wait for him here for a couple of days (along with the guy he is with.) We agree, and Vinmira pulls out what we recognise as a ‘twisted ladder’ rung, and climbs up the ladder and disappears. He returns three days later. Discussions reveal that:
* Vinmira doesn’t	think that Toscin is entirely free – but he has had a significant	boost from our inadvertent meddling. The ‘Five’ are probably now	under his control. (Woe to the Lizardmen!)
* He suggests we	go to speak to Rasten in Wilstone. We could go to Northlake (Adamas	is probably not ill-disposed to us) to research Toscin and the	‘eyes’ over our shoulders. But he recommends Wilstone.
* We shouldn’t	go anywhere near Vendor! FarHaven is probably not a good idea either	– the ThunderClan won’t be too happy about the ShadowClan. (Not	that we actually did anything to cause their demise, but since when	has that ever been important?)
* Hentron is in	StormHaven with Sorlor – rumours of his existence are growing.	Sorlor is losing influence rapidly as her interferences have become	known.
* The Solaran	kingdom has split – with the northern cities seceding from Solara	and becoming more aligned to non-humans and Ghoulagabba.
* The Elven	Empress has landed in Granger.
* Vinmira	identifies the guy who teleported and cast the anti-magic shell to	kill the Blue Mage as the “Shadow Jumper”. He knows little about	him – Thirson would know more.
* Thirson is old	– far more so than a ‘human’ ought to be. He is an	assassin/monk/mage/priest.
* The guy with	Vinmira is a gormless noble scion who has been tasked with ‘keeping	an eye’ on Vinmira He is a stupid teenager who is completely out	of his depth and competence. He lets slip (one glass of brandy is	enough) that he had been to Bristol and Wilstone with Vinmira. He	had seen a ‘shiny statue’ in Wilstone (the fabled Mithril	statue???).
* The Blue Knight	has also been taken out
Vinmira leaves us with some sacks of decent supplies, and a replacement bottle of HighTower brandy. He sails off with Sholar. (Spoiler alert – this is not good!)
While waiting for Vinmira’s return, we had time to learn spells – and Hamish learns (Arcane) Enhancement of Dispel Magic (Volume 1).
Using the spell book allows you to automatically succeed in learning Dispel Magic (though you do need the spell!) The enhancement allows you to:
* Learn a 4th	Level Dispel Magic as an Enhanced Dispel Magic or cast	two ‘normal’ 3rd Level Dispel Magic spells	simultaneously as an Enhanced Dispel Magic.
* Enhanced Dispel	Magic either dispels at 10 levels above your current level or	gives you two rolls to dispel each spell. Whichever way it is cast,	it will also automatically dispel any spell of a level you don’t	need to memorise (ie 2 levels below your current maximum spell	casting level.) [Note from editor: Casting at +10 levels is almost	always better.]
* We also realise	there is an advantage to casting a 4th level Dispel Magic	as it would affect all spells within a Minor Globe of	Invulnerability as well as the Globe itself.
* Other mages may	attempt to learn the enhancement from your spellbook, but with a	spell success roll at half of their INT.
We want to go to Willston – but it is a very long journey. We think that the Twisted Ladder might take us there as the 4th window (disused fountain in old courtyard) could be Willston, but we don’t know for sure.
So we decide instead to go to Northlake on the grounds that (a) someone there may be able to identify where the fountain is, (b) we can do some research into Toscin and (c) we can organise our onwards travel to Willston.
However, as we aren’t in any great rush at the moment, we think it is a good idea to investigate the ‘Old Tower’ that Vinimira was heading towards. So we tromp inland for a most of a day and reach the tower – it turns out to be Vinmira’s ! It has his coat-or-arms on the outside, and a drunken retainer within, who thinks we have come to collect Vinmira’s ‘delivery’ – a box of 12 bottles of very good quality hooch. We take delivery, and Hamish signs for it, and we put it in the bag. We also do the guy a favour and get a couple of sheep for him.
Next day, we decide to try to rid ourselves of Toscin’s ‘divination piggy-back’. Everyone who can learns Dispel Magic (and Hamish uses an enhanced one). Joshua casts a Divination spell, and when he feels a presence over his shoulder, everybody casts their Dispel Magic at once. The presence disappears, and a subsequent Divination doesn’t produce the sensation again. (Apparently, Bazin rolled a 00). So that seems to have solved the problem – at least for now.
We return to the fishing village near the erstwhile Blue Tower, and patch up a fishing boat – which we name “That Sinking Feeling”. The next day – having learnt appropriate spells, we row/sail as best we can (given that none of us have sailing skills) across to the town of Buris. Halfway across, we get attacked by Sahuagin, who we manage to drive off with a concentration of Lightning Bolts – but it is a salutary reminder of just how vulnerable we are in a boat, when we can’t target enemies who are under the boat and sticking spears up through the hull.
We make it to shore, and patch up the boat, then go to Buris – a parochial town whose only claim to fame is that Saratak I once stayed there. They have never even seen an Ariel before, so Twoo tries to charge a copper to let the kids see him fly. This does not go down well. We hire a sailor to pilot us down the river to Northlake. Once in Northlake, we give the pilot a hefty bribe (20 sp!) to not say anything about us to anybody, and ask him to take ‘That Sinking Feeling’ back to Buris where they may keep it on permanent loan. (It is too obviously a Blue Tower vessel for us to keep.)
We find lodgings for the night at the Lakeside Inn in the port area. In the taproom, we hear that Adamas has relinquished his regency, returning power to Alvera. There are still Lizardmen to the south of Northlake – it is currently a bit of a stalemate/phony war.
We are joined near the end of our meal by a human who suggests that we ought to go to our rooms soon – a patrol is due round soon and they may recognise us. We take this advice, and later on this guy and an Arial visit us in our rooms. They explain that they work for Box (head of the criminal underworld) who wishes to help us – for a fee – avoid being found by the city patrol or other interested parties. For 2gp a day, he will put us up in a safe house and help us remain hidden while we visit the University. He can do this for a maximum of 15 days. We take him up on his offer. He suggests that the only other people who are well disposed to us are Sparrowsight, Golderod and Shan Swordbearer.
So once we are installed in the safe house and have learnt to move safely/unobtrusively, we go and visit SparrowSight at the University. Even though we are wanted, she accepts our wild stories, and will help us, but will not lie if questioned about us. She agrees to help us do our research here – which is mainly into Toscin, but with two of us researching Vinmira. She also easily identifies the drawing we made of the 4th window from the Twisted Ladder as being in Trollheim next to the Blue Market (presumably home to the Blue Trader.) She is also able to tell us that a RuneWriter is something used by an enchanter to make Runes (duh!) - each enchanter makes their own RuneWriter during their apprenticeship.
Vinmira Research: Vinmira is about 200 years old, the 3rd son of a HighTower Lord. The family are known enchanters, and in good standing.
Toscin Research: We come across an ‘alternate history’ of Toscin put together by a scholar about 150 years ago. He questions the veracity of the legend of Toscin’s origin (81), and of his banishing (3), though he accepts there must be some truth to the latter as he knows that the ‘drums’ exist. He believes that Toscin and ‘Of the One’ were once a single being that has been split into two – the good and the bad. They could be merged together again to form the ‘One’, but neither party would want this. Alternatively, destroying one of them would destroy the other. We also discover another legend (16: The Death Anvil) which seems to be connected. (The Anvil in the forge in the Vale of Vendor???)
We ask the guys working for Box if they could help us get to Willston – and with two high level failure-free teleport scrolls left over from Eliezure, we reckon we just need to get nearer to Willston than to Stormhaven, and teleport. Using the ladder to Trollheim is a possibility – apparently now that Trollheim has split with Ghoulagabba it is not likely to be that hostile to us. We pay Box 25gp to get maps and contact information there should we need it.
However, it seems simpler to simply travel overland to just past Wingsport and teleport from there – keeping the ladder to Trollheim as a contingency. We manage to get to our teleport spot in 11 days without too much trouble – though we do need to make some detours to avoid patrols.
We successfully teleport to the Willston teleport trap, and grovel before the Elven guards who are stationed there. We are taken to a holding area and politely ‘processed’. Finally, Kahu (from the Wyldwood temple) arrives and tell us we are welcome to stay at the Temple. We are given updated passes, and go to the Temple – we notice that the city is far more integrated between Elves and Humans now – with many more humans bearing arms. The Empress’s banner is now flying. The Wyldwood Temple itself has obviously prospered here.
We tell Kahu our story, and he asks us about when we last saw Sholar – we say we saw him sailing away with Vinmira. He asks us if Sholar took anything from the Blue Tower and we say we are not aware of anything other than the Spellbook of Tongues. It appears that there is much concern about Sholar, and there are people looking for him. We might infer that he has taken whatever it was the Hobbit was looking for in the Blue Tower. It looks as if we have been played again by one of The Five.
We meet a Dark Elf who will act as an intermediary between us and Rasten. Rasten will help us recover Hentron from Sorlor, as long as he is not implicated in this. We learn:
* Sorlor has	become somewhat unhinged with Eliezure’s death. This severely	effects her abilities.
* Rasten still	has strong feelings for Sorlor, and does not want to see her harmed.	He will come after us if we harm her at all. However, he has no	problem with us killing her Elven acolytes.
* Hentron is	severely and multiply ensorcelled – with loads of geas/mind	controls/constraints etc. His brain is totally fogged (think of	Hodor). However, he will fanatically protect Sorlor in his current	state.
* Sorlor is holed	up in the Temple of Hashandra in the Imperial Palace in Stormhaven.	She refuses to leave – even though the Empress has commanded her	to attend her in Granger.
* Rasten can get	us to the entrance of the Temple, and possibly inside the Temple.
* The Temple is	not heavily occupied – most important people have been summoned to	attend the Empress in Granger.
* Rasten can	provide us with scrolls that ‘might have come from Eliezure’ but	has to be careful that nothing can be traced back to him.