Session 13 Recap

* Strange haunted Elven Tower

Lokkuri - Female Dwarf from the Rangers guild. Mole/Armadillo Mount.

### Rewind for Gar and Tivram

Tivram decided to spend a half day with the Great Travelling show and catch up with the others at Willow Hill. Ze shared stories with them and caught up on the rumors and news around Terrinoth. Ze tells the travelling show about the events in Vynelvale regarding Taffney and the egg artifact as well as the Dragonbound shards she encountered there. Tivram learns that an area of Terrinoth (not too close to them, but not that far away either) is having ‘Strange Weather’.

Gar arrives at the village at the same time as the others. He decides that the Turtle King must have gotten into the town by mechanical means (a crane or trebuchet), and goes searching around the perimeter for evidence. He finds nothing of the sort but does spy an interesting tower in the distance and makes a note to check it out later.

## And Now....

   Shortly after having left Dandy alone in the bar with the two dwarves, Goldie finishes laughing and goes back in to find all three of them gone. They recruit Tivram’s help to investigate. The investigation shows Dandy may have been taken out through the kitchen, the pair have a brief run-in with the orc chef before leaving.

Arik returns to town, after having ventured into the nearby woodlands sampling mushrooms with bad results. He meets up with everyone else and they all begin looking for the Dwarves.

Gar finds out the Mole mount is no longer in the stables and the dwarves may have gotten some good distance between them. So Arik casts a location spell with his censer and they follow it.

While the rest of the party gets organised, we cut to Dandy waking up in a small stone room. She is offered a green, swampy drink to help her recover from the fuzziness in her head, which she accepts. The Dwarves continuing to try and get information about the Turtle King from Dandy, but all ‘politeness’ is now gone. They begin to resort to violence and torture (finger breaking etc). Confused, hung over and frightened, Dandy launches into a long, rambling flood of information, none of which is useful information.

As they head in the direction of the tower, Gar remembers the tower he saw and they speed towards it. The tower is tall and slender, built from white stone and looks like it was carved from a singular piece of stone. It’s ancient and deteriorating, with the top level seeming to levitate above the broken base, apart from the circular stairwell connecting both. Tivram recognises it as elven, and identifies it as from a time before the non-elven races appeared in Terrinoth, Ze also theorises this might be one of the places that Ynfernal Elves might have been bound. A large black stone needle blocks the entrance. Writing in common warns away from the tower.

They enter the tower at the bottom level, finding it completely empty. Venturing upwards, they begin to hear the sounds of the Dwarves terrorizing Dandy. As the rest of the party readies for a fight, Gar simply draws his sword and charges up the steps, setting off an alarm left by the rangers.

Even though they are prepared for them , the dwarves are quickly overwhelmed. Even so, Dhojnit gets a good shot off with his heavy Crossbow and injures Gar quite badly. The PCs begin to free Dandy, tend to Gar's wounds and question the dwarves when they sense a noise from below them. The noise is soon followed by a ghostly light and they realize that they are in danger from the tower itself.

Gar grabs the semi-conscious Dandy and runs downstairs with her over his shoulders, jumping out of the window on the 1st floor (landing poorly and hurting himself further.) The others just behind Gar encounter a ghost coming up from the ground floor. Fear almost overtakes them, but Goldie is adrenalized by the danger and takes it out with a fire spell. Arik casts a ward spell preventing the ghosts from advancing into the 3rd floor before jumping outside. Goldie presses forward, lobbing fire spell after fire spell. Tivram realises that the two Dwarves have not followed them and may be in danger if they stay. Ze advances to the top and find them no longer in the floor they were earlier.

Seeing an eerie glow from the top floor ze presses on and arrives in time to find a single dwarven dagger spinning on the floor in front of a glowing portal set into the wall. As Tiv starts to investigate, zir mind is invaded by a powerful presence. Ze experiences family/cultural memory of zir parents (and other elves) fighting with a powerful Ynfernal elf (who happened to be a family friend and a ‘godfather’ type figure to Tiv) at this location. Unable to fully defeat him they bind the elf to a chamber below the tower.

Goldie, now spent of magical energy, comes to see what is holding Tiv up and finds zir struggling to resist entering the portal. Goldie tackles Tiv out of the way. Wondering what's keeping the others, Gar, Dandy and Arik decide to re-enter. Knowing the way is barred by ghosts, Arik casts a spell (tapping the last of his magical reserves) to banish the ghosts, but instead manages to push his ward and trap them away from the entrance.

They arrive to find Goldie trying to stop Tivram entering the portal (again) and decide to ‘bless’ the dwarves swampy drink and throw it in the portal. This seems to just momentarily confuse the entity on the other side. Goldie get contacted mentally by the ancient elf and it seems confused about what precisely they are (later, they theorised that he may never have never encountered catfolk). When Tivram sensed Goldie was threatened by the entity, ze pushed back with all the might ze had and resisted it’s influence. It seemed to use it’s familial connection with zir, so ze used her sword to inscribe a public disownment. Tivram breaks free and they all flee the tower.

They make it back to Willow Hill and tend to their immediate needs (rest, food, clean up etc…) They end up visiting The Turtle king late in the evening and, once again, it insists on ‘Tribute’ and invokes the name of Dandy’s father ‘Chance’. It insists more then usual by nudging it’s head into Dandy. Dandy decides to try offering one of the 2 journals of her father’s that she carries with her. She reads it to the mighty Tortoise and, at the end of the first story, the creature ‘breathes in’ the book and starts to move. A huge magical underground path opens up in front of the Tortoise and it begins moving into it. The party and several townsfolk follow it in before the the tunnel closes behind them, and they begin their journey to an unknown destination.

**Continued in Session 14...**

*20xp (end of story)*

*(195xp total)*