The party last left off in the library in the sunken tower. After recovering from the battle with the spider (in the book) and the zombie in the plate mail, the group looked further into the secret chamber that was exposed. Inside were 4 chests.

      The first chest contained a huge pile of copper coins which they spilled out in order to search it for anything else. They talked of coming back for those coins later. Another chest contained some old personal effects of a woman (it appeared). Of note was a polished mirror, a gilded quill case with the initials 'MM' on the side, a ruined cloak with a knucklehead trout clasp carved into the shape of the twisted tree, and some ruined stationary. The next chest contained gold coins, which the party grabbed and put in the party treasury (to be divided later). The last was empty.

      Outside the library, the group started going through the doors on the opposite side of the hallway. Gar opened the one in the middle with was a room full of cobwebs. Rael, opened and went through the first door. Danot went with her, and they came out a short time later saying they found a chest, but it was empty, save the mace that the dwarf now wears at his belt. Since noone had the skill to use the mace, it went to the person who found it. In the meantime the remainder of the party was working on a way to clear the cobwebs from the middle room.

      At this point, Rael opened the last door and looked around. She saw a rotted-collapsed bed with an iron chest at the foot of it, tapestries on two of the walls, and a skeleton wearing chain-mail, sitting on a desk facing her, grinning and beckoning her forward.

      Rael started to close the door, but the armored skeleton jumped off the desk with surprising agility and charged after her, raising a glowing broadsword as it ran. Chilled, she noticed that the skeleton's eyes burned an intense red.

      At first the fight was in the doorway, with Gar standing in it, and Danot and Dardae filling in the sides (and getting a penalty to hit for being in an awkward position). Llynowen attempted to turn the skeleton which only brought a deep, unearthly chuckle from the skeleton as it continued to hack away at the front lines.

      The first action Danot took was to swing with his axe which slid out of his fingers and struck Gar in the head, stunning him, and sending the dwarf's axe scattering off across the room. The skeleton took the break and fought like a demon, swinging heavy-handed blows with the magickal broadsword, and Gar was hacked down within seconds. Rael, drug Gar's lifeless body back to where Llynowen could reach him. And they proceded to move him back a safe distance from the melee.

      Drawing his newly found mace, Danot filled in the gap, then coordinated a withdraw with Dardae to try and bring the creature out to where more of the party could be involved in the melee. As he swung at the skeleton, the mace also slipped out of his hand, this time landing behind the creature on the other side of the hallway.

      Abashed and frustrated, Danot decided he'd be better off charging and smacking the creature bare fisted. He got in one good blow, and later the creature was finished off with magick missiles from the support group (Mazyfum and Triolus). So in all, that combat was a comedy of errors, with Danot loosing both of his weapons, and none of the fighters scoring much of a hit.

      The chainmail appeared to be in perfect condition, and on examination, turned out to be magickal, so Dardae quickly removed it and claimed it as his own. Gar (after recovering from his wounds) claimed the glowing broad sword.

      They explored the cobwebbed room then (the first door opened was explored last...go figure), wherein they found a tapestry in very good shape (unlike the rest of the tapestries in the tower), which was a picture of a tower the party saw back in Luskan. The tower looked like a giant tree, with multiple branches shooting off into towers.

      At that point the party decided to take a break, and so headed back to the top of the tower and camped the night, licking their wounds near the bent tree.

      The next morning they climbed back into the tower, and worked their way back to where they left off. They headed on down the cooridor and entered the room at the end of the hall (off the short hallway). Inside was what appeared to be some kind of guard room, although a weaponrack, complete with longsword still resting on it, the only remaining standing piece of furniture. Curious, Dardae went up to take the sword, when the rack seemed to flow and change shape, forming a long pseudo-pod and attacked him. Dardae was struck in the chest and the pseudo-pod held fast, keeping him nearby and immobilizing his sword arm.

      More tentacles spread out from the rack, and the rest of the group started to press the attack. Danot swung his axe at the pseudopod attached to Dardae and cleaved it in twain, freeing Dardae to back up and attempt to remove the now limp, pseudo-pod. The creature quickly succomed to the blows and disolved into a quivering mass on the floor, the longsword now stuck inside it. Triolus attempted to pry the sword loose with a table leg from a previous room, which stuck just as fast as the sword. Dardae and Danot managed to get the pseudopod off before too long, and as they did, the dead creature shifted again and seemed to disolve even more, leaving just a pile of lifeless jelly. Dardae retrieved the sword, and added it to his collection.

      The room also contained a gated hallway, with led down a short ways to another door. Danot bravely went through the gate and promptly crashed through the rotting floor boards, plummeting below. Triolus, with his quick reaction, managed to grab ahold of Danot, but the weight of the dwarf was too much, and Triolus was pulled after.

      They fell twenty feet or so into a watery, murky, foul-smelling hole. Upon getting their feet (the water was 3' high, and the dwarf 4'), the dwarf noticed a grey form rise from the water. Triolus, having infravision (and only detecting heat signatures in darkness), didn't notice the ghoul as it swung out and tagged him. Danot fumbled his axe swing, leaving it's tail spike buried in the rock wall behind him. Before he could mount another action, the ghould struck down Triolus. Seeing him disappear below the murky water, Danot turned his back on the Ghoul, and reached to grab Triolus out of the water. He hauled him out, and grabbing his mithril dagger from his belt, reached up as high as he could and stuck Triolus to the wall. As he buried the knife into the wall, a soft click was heard and the wall from which the soggy half-elf was hanging swung open, sending the pent up water gushing forth into the hallway beyond.

      During this time the rest of the party was searching for a rope, and worked on securing the line to the grate. Grabbing Gar's lit lantern, Rael climbed down the rope as Gar attempted to tie it to the grate, and brought light into the now empty room.

      In the hallway beyond, Danot and the ghoul squared off, the dwarf pulling the mace, and the ghoul scratching, clawing and biting. The melee continued, the ghoul raking the dwarf several times, but Danot's strong constitution saved him from the paralyzation the ghoul's touch meant. As the rest of the party entered the lower level, the melee quickly ended as the ghoul was brought down by multiple blows.

      The group continued through the muddy murk that filled this layer of the tower, the dwarf's continual mutterings broke the still, fetid air. The party decided to continue exploring the level since they were already down. They found what looked like a kitchen, a large entryway complete with broken in doors (now filled with a huge pile of seeping earth) and a stone throne, a guardroom which had murderholes looking into the entryway and a dining room. Before continuing on they decided they had seen enough, and turned back, climbing up into the upper levels.

      They cleaned up, then Rael showed a power the party hadn't noticed before. She cast a spell, and started walking on the wall, up to the ceiling and across the hallway to the door on the other side. She opened the door, and peered down into the descending staircase beyond. At the party's insistance, she followed it down to the first landing, when it turned and went further down, and decided she would go no further. She turned around and the party went back to the main part of the tower.

      They followed some stairs they found behind a door in the guardroom (the circular one at the beginning of this level) down to a landing that had a door. Beyond the door was a ruined labaratory. Shelves lined most of the walls, and there were a few other doors in the room. Danot crossed the room, ignoring the vaguely (small) humanoid shape under a tarp on a table in the far side of the room and opened the northernmost door.

      As the door opened a click was heard and a javelin shot out from the wall opposite the door in the closet beyond. The javelin scored a hit, sinking deep into the dwarf's side. As he grasped at the javelin, he noticed it was attached to a chain, and the chain to a stone in the wall, which shifted and fell, dragging him behind. As the dwarf fell, the block rotated, exposing six long and deadly-looking spikes which he was sure to fall on. He was lucky, and only landed directly on one.

      As he was pulling himself free, he heard a scraping, rattling noise and turned, noticing he was in what looked like a small cell, with a door with a high barred window in it. The source of the sound was an old, yellowed skeleton, who proceded to attack him. Even in his wounded state, the dwarf quickly dispatched the skeleton, and was hauled back up with the rest of the party.

      The party searched the room, Triolus grabbed a few unbroken vats of what looked like various body parts pickled. Exploring further, Triolus lifted the sheet off the table, exposing a small humanoid with one arm, which jumped off the table and attacked. The party quickly brought the creature down.

      Rael opened the other door on the eastern wall, letting out a smell worse than they'd ever smelled before. Rotted, fetid air flooded the room and the majority of the party began involuntarily retching, emptying their stomachs of the morning repast. After composing themselves, they explored the stone-walled closet beyond that door. Finding nothing but old bones, the party decided to continue on.

      They headed out onto the landing and followed the stairs on down further into the tower. At the bottom they found two rather large doorways. They took the one directly infront of them, and found within a small cell complete with cot, desk, and huge skeleton draped over the desk. Rael and Triolus approached the skeleton and carefully tried to search the desk under it. Triolus, was curious and touched the skeleton, bringing it to life. As it reared back from where it was a long, thick skeleton arm backhanded Rael, it's powerful blow sending her flying across the room and she collapsed in a heap on the broken cot in the corner. Triolus immediately backpeddled, trying to quickly run for the door. Danot and Gar, seeing the new threat charged into the room, causing a choke point, which was quickly resolved.

      Rael manage to recover fairly quickly and slipped out the door to hide up the stairs behind the rest of the party. Danot and Gar laid into the massive thing, which had pulled a giant two-handed (for it) axe from it's side and was swinging it widely. Danot took a hit and staggered, then another hit and was sent sprawling across the room and laid lifeless in the doorway. Seeing the opening, Dardae stepped over and into the melee, filling Danot's place in the line against the creature. Llynowen rushed to the dwarf's side, and quickly tended to the gaping wounds.

      Once again it was the many magick missiles from Triolus and Mazyfum that dealt the most damage to the creature, and allowed Gar and Dardae to survive intact.

      Shaken by the realization that even the mighty Danot could fall in battle, the party decided to head back to the top and rest before continuing further, and so they returned and re-set up camp.

Next - The Accursed Tower - Part 3
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