Session 29: Arfo's Tower

The Littleton Legends approach the underground entrance to Arfo’s tower only to find that it is magically sealed. A strange rune is inscribed on the wooden door, and a paintbrush lies next to a bucket of swirling colorful liquid on the ground. As Isaya is trying to determine the nature of the enchantment, Jerky picks up the paintbrush and simply traces the rune on the door, causing it to glow and disappear. Several other runes appear, and in turn each party member traces one of them, taking care to not lift the brush or pass over a previously drawn line. Aaler however, feeling uncomfortable in presence of this arcane magic, falters and lifts the brush before the rune is completed causing it to glow red and burn him. On his second try however, he manages to trace the symbol and the door swings open into a small circular room that seems to be Arfo's living quarters.

The room is in quite a state of disarray. Pots and pans are strewn around the kitchen area, the cupboard doors are ajar and many items have fallen and broken as if the entire complex had been shaken by an earthquake. Amid the clutter, a small creature is frantically attempting to tidy up, barely stopping to introduce himself as Stubert. He lets the group know that his master Arfo is not currently home, and that in his absence a terrible tremor shook the tower. Stubert will be brutally punished if Arfo’s room is not spic and span by the time the wizard returns, and he asks for the party’s aid in activating a spell that will allegedly cause the items in the room to animate and put themselves away. Unfortunately, the spell backfires and the various pots, pans, and knives conglomerate into a mighty golem that attacks the group. The Littleton Legends make quick work of the monster and leave Stubert to clean up an even more drastic mess as they continue upwards into the next room of the tower.

Shed opens the trapdoor with some difficulty, pushing aside a fallen table littered with surgical tools. The large circular room is completely dark and the glow of Isaya’s staff casts long shadows towards the ceiling 30 feet up, illuminating a plethora of cages hanging from chains at various heights. At the opposite end of the room, a massive cage stands twice the size of a human, its steel bars bent outwards… whatever was in there now roams free. The Littleton Legends gingerly enter the room and look around. A pedestal stands across from the cage with a broken gem at its foot. A bookshelf is toppled to one side and the floor around it is strewn with tomes. In the center of the room on the ground, a large circular rune pulses with a faint glow. Finally, a spiraling metal staircase leads upwards to a small trapdoor from which an irregular thudding pattern emanates, sending vibrations through the walls and into the floors.

Aaler climbs the staircase to investigate, but as he grasps the handle to open the trapdoor, a blinding wave of arcane energy explodes out of the rune on the floor. When Jerky and Aaler open their eyes, Isaya and Shed are nowhere to be seen and the thudding on the trapdoor has stopped. When Isaya and Shed open their eyes, they are in a room indistinguishable from the one they were in before, save for a faint blue glow that emanates from the floor, wall and ceiling and a giant bipedal toad-like monstrosity which now faces them. The body of a pixie lies limp in its grinning maw...

The beast charges Shed, shredding his skin with its claws and infecting him with a condition known as the Chaos Phage… Meanwhile, Jerky hears motion from the cages above him and Aaler witnesses a mutated tadpole erupt form the chest of one of the fallen creatures within. Several other tadpoles drop to the ground from the cages and swarm Jerky, hungry for blood. As Shed begins to succumb to the chaos phage, Isaya’s eyes flash white with arcane energy, releasing a polymorph spell that transforms the toad-like creature into a harmless sheep. She then rushes to the fallen bookcase to find information. Jerky carves through the tadpoles like butter with his Khav-Sin Blade Master sword, accidentally stepping on the arcane rune during the fray. This allows him to catch a glimpse of the alternate dimension where a feeble Shed is struggling to subdue a sheep using his scarf and a panicked Isaya is flipping through books. Her face turns from worry to dread as she discovers what has befallen Shed. The creature they are fighting is called a Slaad and it infects its victims with an embryo that quickly develops into a tadpole and devours the inner organs of the host before exploding out through its chest, resulting in instant death. Meanwhile, Aaler finds a book describing the rune on the floor. He manages to gleam that it creates some sort of extra-dimensional prison, but the details of the enchantment are lost on him. Seeing that Shed has fallen to his side, Jerky and Aaler begin destroying the symbol with their weapons in frustration, breaking through the wooden floor and severing the thick lines that hold the magic in place. With two powerful sweeps of his sword, Jerky splits the symbol and a resonating crack of arcane energy violently dispels the extra-dimensional space, causing Isaya, Shed and the Slaad to burst back into existence in the Feywild. The damage from the transition kills the Slaad’s sheep-form and the beast erupts from its dying body. Elune cures Shed of the Chaos Phage through Aaler’s hands, just seconds before the parasite would have reached his vital organs and killed him. Isaya’s spells flash through the room, bouncing off of the Slaad’s magically protected skin almost harmlessly. The three of them then watch in awe as Jerky performs a dance of death around the Slaad. He deftly avoids its lethal claws as he opens deep gashes all across its body and finishes with a mighty leap that sends the Khav-Sin Blade Master’s sword straight through the creature’s head.

The combat ends to the wails of Galafey who cradles the body of her sister Capucine in her arms near the remains of her final prank, the broken crystal. The Littleton Legends press onwards, scaling the metal staircase into the room above and find themselves in Arfo’s study, another 30-foot tall room. This room’s walls are lined with massive bookshelves that reach all the way to the ceiling and are equipped with long worn ladders. In the center of the room, a desk stands amid a dense canopy or ropes and platforms that hold various alchemical ingredients and equipment at arm’s reach. Chained to the wall is a miniature green dragon with sorrowful eyes, who takes an instant liking to Shed when he feeds him and releases him from captivity. The pseudodragon’s attention shifts towards Isaya however, when he witnesses her take magical flight to reach the attic door on the ceiling. He goes soaring up into the air with her and together they search the small dusty attic of the tower, revealing Cappucine's empty cage and Seelia, still held in her own. The pixie sisters reunite, and swear revenge upon Arfo for their fallen sibling. The pseudodragon bonds with Isaya as her familiar and their minds link together telepathically.

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