2.27.21 - Shaal's Tower Part 1

After taking a peaceful watch--only disturbed by my own thoughts,--waking She-rah, and heading to bed we were wakened by shouting nearby. Rhys seemed to have turned into Tiger-Rhys, but there was no sign of Cannon other than his pack which had been left where he had been sleeping. Over by the edge of the lake, there was a dark form crouched in a tree above where Halfling-Rhys was standing calling out “blink” and waved us over where the dark form joined us on the ground. Once we were gathered, She-rah and I were introduced to a dark haired cat person with spectacles perched atop their nose and a pack with cases and tools strapped to its sides who was named Blink. In the distance we saw a small row boat making its way towards our shore and a fog was settling about the top of the lake.

   Moments later, Tamsin hopped out of the boat, onto the shore beside us and headed for our camp. He immediately asked for breakfast upon seating himself next to our fire and started telling us how to go about entering the tower to reach Shaal’s Tower through his. Tamsin explained there were nine towers all connected to each other to become almost one tower, but those seeking to reach the others had to prove themselves worthy. There would be 10 levels to go through to reach the floor where there would be nine portals to take us between towers and that there was one still in Phlan we might like to visit. He then offered us the use of his boat, but Blink seemed concerned about the water so Rhys sat down to start casting the spell that allowed us to walk on water. Meanwhile, She-rah and I started to ask Blink and Tamsin about some of the magical items in our possession starting with the necromancy stones we had been given. They took one look at the runes and determined we had one that would raise creatures as zombies and the other would raise them as gasts. The pair also seem to think that there are a dozen different possibilities for what kinds of undead could be created with these, so they are probably collected in sets to maximize their storage and maintenance. Then we asked what would happen if dead things were stored inside of a bag of holding with the stones and he did not know but seemed eager to find out.

We then hinted at the phylactery in our possession to find out what we should do to destroy it. Tamsin informed us that there was probably no way to destroy such a thing because they were created so many years ago that it would be hard to do so, but that he could determine which dracolich was stored within if we showed him and he had enough time with it. Next, we asked if a soul’s power would hinder us from destroying the phylactery if it were possible to do, and we used the example of Tyranthraxus’ phalactory as opposed to just a dracolich phylactery. Tamsin scoffed and told us that Tyranthraxus didn’t use a phylactery, he used pools, and that he was one of the weaker bearings from his plane, but he liked being here so much he had fail safes to keep him here. She-rah and I decided to give Tamsin the crystal skull, so he could summon it and we wouldn’t accidentally unleash the soul within unless we knew who was trapped inside. Rhys hopped up just then from where she had been sitting, casting her spell, and ran onto the lake to test that it had worked. As we all started heading towards the tower, I briefly stopped to pull out some very nice cutlery from my bag (minus the spoon) and placed it on the stone across the fire from Tamsin before running to follow my friends.

Blink started acting strange and her tail started to puff out the closer we got to the tower, eventually she just climbed atop She-rah’s shoulders until we could make our way around to the correct side of the tower to enter from, following Tamsin’s directions. The appearance shifted as we moved about the base into a much older structure, covered in moss, until we reached a doorway that appeared open. However, the door was still there, and with Blink’s keen eye we were able to find out we needed to knock with the knocker three times for the doorway to be truly empty. Inside was a small room, with a gauntlet holding a blue gem in the middle on a pedestal and five sets of symbols carved into the wall: hands, birds, bovine creatures, skeletal creatures, the sun, the moon cycle, and pyramids. Upon Blink’s instruction, we all placed our hands against the depictions of hands and the gauntlet in the middle released its hold on the gem and a hole opened in the ceiling. As soon as the gem was touched the doorway behind us sealed itself.

The floor was not far from the gap in the ceiling so we moved to the next level with ease where we found there were no walls and the next ceiling above us was supported by three statues. These statues depicted demons and devils fighting each other: the first had a long snout and backwards horns holding a golden gem while wielding a flail; the second was a bald headed creature rushing at the first and had a sing eye who was wielding a sword of flame while carrying a ruby colored gem; and the third creature had three eyes and a single horn coming from its head and was wielding a three point trident and had an outstretched hand that was immediately filled with the blue gem. On the floor nearby, there was a twelve pointed star. We tried to do things to all three at the same time which was nearly impossible, but when we bounced light into the red gem it caused four of the points on the star to glow a bright light. We proceeded to pour water on the blue gem and a gold coin was offered to the gold one. As the coin was absorbed the start shone a bright white light that we all passed through into a new room.

Our latest room had an unusually warm temperature and the walls showed us pictures of a fiery hellscape and large forms moving nearby. Under our feet was a soft bed of grass that was able to pass through the walls we could not. We all heard the sound of hoofbeats growing louder and saw a large flaming horse charging at us and circling our position. Rhys noticed the ceiling had an encrypted message that said “Nourishment”, so I started cutting the grass with my dagger and threw it out to where the horse could reach. Once it had had its fill, the darkness surrounding it faded to reveal it to be a unicorn and the landscape around us transformed into a lush green place full of life and a wooden door appeared with a handle in the shape of a red dragon’s head. I checked it for traps by licking it, only to discover the handle was very cold.

We opened the door to reveal a room filled with ice, the temperature a stark contrast to the one before it. Our group emerged on a platform far above the rest of the field, with two others parallel to it, but atop those there are contraptions with levers. In the middle of the room there were four pillars and two large ice cubes and across from us there was another platform but without a way to reach the top of it. She-rah sent her ax flying into one of the contraptions and a large gelatinous cube fell from the ceiling into the middle of the room. I immediately slid down the stairs to face it and we dealt with it no problem, and it left behind it a small disk-like key which Rhys had determined we needed to unlock another mechanism on the other side of the room. Blink and I then activated some other levers on the pillars in the middle of the room which then produced cold winds and broke the ice cubes into gelatinous cubes. Through more combat we slew them and found our last key which we quickly inserted into their slots to leave this cold place behind.

The next room arrears to be a study which is filled with six doors labeled by their numbers on the back sides and there is a seventh door against the wall that we can see ourselves out of when we open any of the doors. We take turns trying to open them in different combinations eventually coming to the conclusion we should walk through them, but when we did we came back into the room from the door on the wall. It took walking through them in combinations that added up to seven to leave the room.

We all went through combinations of the doors to come out into a large crevasse where there were stone formations around, tall sides keeping us in, and a golden key on a pedestal. Down at the other end of the space we could see a large door on an elevated platform with a ladder leading up to it. The area around us has signs of battle with scorch marks on the rocks, a few scattered bones, and many piles of ash. Blink grabbed the key and we heard someone call out, “Don’t touch that! It’s mine!” so we started to spread out and run as a large floating creature with eight eyestalks and a singular central eye came into view. I immediately tried to grab its attention and distract it from Blink while moving towards what I hoped was the exit. Rhys, She-rah, and I managed to distract it long enough for Blink to get to the door and insert the key,  but in the process I was paralyzed and She-rah was turned into a glorious looking statue reaching for her handaxe when suddenly the creature disappeared. Rhys came to our rescue soon after that and we evacuated the area in case the creature should return.

The next room, our seventh, seemed much friendlier as it was filled with the smallest sheep I have ever seen, soft sleeping areas, and a nice fire. Blink seems to think this was put here on purpose by Shaal and the other wizards who created the tower as a place of rest before we face any more challenges. She started to count the sheep before realizing that was the way to open the door to the next room after our long rest.