Benzren woke up at the Brown Tooth Inn after recovering from his last adventure, only to find that Merisiel had disappeared on some "errand" and Kyra was escorting a group of pilgrims to some far off shrine.
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes and doning his adventuring garb, he made his way down stairs to find his dwarven buddy, Dagmar.
Not surprisingly, Dagmar was at the bar talking with the barkeep.
"Ah...Benzren...I was just talking with Amond here about some locations we could scout out for a little fun! He was telling me of an old abandoned wizard's tower that is only a day's travel on foot from here. What do you say?"
"A wizard's tower? Sounds interesting...but why is it abandoned? What happened to the previous owner?" Benzren asks.
"That's the thing," says Dagmar. "A couple years back, there was NO tower in the location. Then one day...poof!...a freakin tower appears out of no where!...Shortly after that, locals say they heard..actually felt..a loud explosion. No one has seen or heard from anyone or any thing in the tower. Adventurers have gone in, but none have come out."
"Sounds like a good time. But what about Merisiel and Kyra?"
Dagmar looks around sarcastically, "I don't see them anywhere do you? Course not! This one is for the boys!"
Dagmar and Benzren use the rest of the day to pack, and get their gear together. The next morning they hire a couple of guides to take them to the tower. Upon entering the clearing of the tower the guides bolt in the other direction, obviously terrified.
Our heroes examine the stone doors and find nothing unusual about them. Dagmar is able to force one open...just enough for them to squeeze into the corridor where they are immediately attacked by a group of nesting dire rats.
After dealing with the rats, and some further exploration into the tower, a few encounters with some goblins, spiders, and an orc. Our heroes are chased off by the numerous zombies and skeletons roaming the tower.
"Next time we go on one of your adventures Dagmar, we bring the cleric!"
Nearly out of breath and laughing his butt off,Dagmar manages to say, "Well, at least we got out with some potions and these nice bracers! I still would have liked a closer look at the green crystals growing in the library."
"Yeah," chuckles Benzren. I wanted to check out where those stairs led to, and did you see the scorch marks on the walls?!?! What the heck was that?!?"
Our heroes make their way back to the Brown Tooth Inn to count up their loot and lick their wounds.
GM notes: I wiped this adventure up for my son in about an hour using the information in Game Master's book from the Beginner Box. I made sure to make it tough enough that he couldn't get too far into it, but rewarding enough so he got some instant gratification. His sister was at the mall with friends and his mom was at work, so I wiped up an old wizard's tower, put some beasties in it and ran him through the ringer. I am still fleshing out the whole back story to this tower and the other levels, but that is another story for another time.
Nice use of absent PCs. :)
Please don't be shy to post the back story once you've detailed it out. You have our interest!