"Charming." Wilhelm glances in to the room, but finds it to be growing crowded and moves back outside to keep an eye on the other towers. "Let me know if I should be on the lookout of more the vicious little things."
Leaving Ubagub outside, Gorrumm pulls out his halberd and begins looking around the interior, seeming unfazed by the fae's grizzly trophies. He looks for traps and more interesting keepsakes of the creature, poking carefully around the tower.
Other than furniture, Gorruum finds nothing special... until he checks a clay urn on a small cubby shelf about 20 ft up the wall. It's very heavy when he pulls it off (requring him to climb to it using handholds). The urn contains 119 gp, 131 sp, 27 cp, and a dozen different sparkling gemstones worth 1,800 gp in all.
"Are there any sign of more then one creature living here Gorruum? Natalie asks, looking inside the small room.
"I think there only lived one creature here? Should we move on or does anybody want to study this ruins more before we leave?"
"I think we would be best exploring the rest of the towers. I have the unfortunate feeling we've not seen the entirety of this keep's denizens." Wilhelm gestures towards the tower to the northwest, "Let's explore that one next."
He leads the way towards the tower, studying it as he approaches.
Natalie sneaks along the walls close to Wilhelm, and studies the entrance when she get to it.
"Careful. I'm not sure how stable these ruins are anymore, despite looking untouched. And note the macabre decorations, I doubt the quickling was that productive. Something far older has left its mark here ..." Fhârn notes and follows a bit behind, weapon ready.
The northwest tower stretches high into the sky, its upper reaches hidden in the forest’s canopy. The vines choking the tower’s exterior, which are festooned with bleached humanoid skulls, nearly obscure the dark arrow slits. It is the only tower that seems to have survived the ravages of time.
Natalie begins sneaking along the wall, moving from dandylion to daisy, like a trained assassin...
...and Wilhelm clomps along beside her, rattling armor, smashing posies, and talking at the top of his lungs as he moves along sounding like a wounded rhinocerous golem.
Once she get's to the tower, Natalie easily finds an ancient door covered with vines. The vines don't appear to actually block access, they simply drape over the door, making it hard to find. The door appears to be original, as it's exquisitely carved with intricate geometric designs. The only mar on it is that it's coated in moss, giving it an odd green appearance, making it harder to see.
After tossing off a few empty pots while exploring the quickling's wall, Gorruum nearly falls off when he finally finds the fey's trove. Grinning broadly, he carefully clambers back down the wall with his find. "Just one. Nasty quick knife thing."
As the others move on, Gorruum follows signaling Ubagub to trail behind. Gorruum keeps his halberd out at the warnings that more dangers may lurk in the ruin. He keeps a keen eye on things and takes a close look at the door behind the vines.
"Wilhem I've found a hidden door over here."
Natalie looks for more traps
Anastacia draws closer to the green door, ready to enter the tower in support of her friends. Assuming it will be dark within, she casts a light spell on the surface of her shield.
"Pharasma illuminate our way."
Natalie notes no traps on the door.
Gorruum motions the others back from the door and pushes aside the vines, feeling the door for a latch. Suspecting that the years of neglect will make things difficult to open, he depresses the latch and puts his shoulder into the door, attempting to force it open.
Gorruum puts his shoulder against the door, gives a mighty heave...
...and tumbles into the tower as the door opens easily on oiled hinges.
Gorruum tumbles through the door and falls to the ground!
There's some sort of animate vine growing on the wall inside the keep, which is attacking you! Also, a nasty looking feral elf with clawed hands!
Beyond the door of the tower, the interior has become overgrown with vines as well, from base to top in the trees above. Gorruum has a confused visage of furniture overgrown with vines and moss, and then deranged and feral looking elf leaps out of the vines and slashes at Gorruum with it's claws. Even as that happens, vines whip out and lash the frog man!
All around the tower, and outside of it for 30 ft, the undergrowth comes to life and begins to wrap itself around those outside!
+
As the claws rip into Gorruum's flesh, it burns horribly!
Gorruum feels vines slithering around his throat, and they squeeze painfully, thorns tearing open his skin, but he manages to slip out of them before they can close around his throat!
Anastacia is too slow to avoid the sinuous vines, she curses and struggles in their grip.
"Is it alive or a spell?" She asks Fhârn.
Anastacia calls on the power of her goddess, to enable her to see if the vines have a magic aura.
Fhârn blinks, not expecting anything to actually live inside the old tower. Especially not as a neighbour to a quickling! His surprise quickly shifts to annoyance and back as the veins entangle and grab his legs.
"By Brigh's brazen bosom!"
Moving surprisingly quickly for a man in clanging full plate, Wilhelm just manages to dash aside from the vines and grass of the yard as they try to whip and coil around his legs. With a yell of surprise, he drags himself through the thrashing undergrowth to Gorruum's aid. "Foul abomination, come and face me!"
Not hampered by the undergrowth Natalie moves into position "Gorruum are you okay?"
to get into position
From the ground, Gorruum twists and manages to avoid getting caught in the vines. He thrusts his halberd back up against the feral elf managing to connect in spite of his disadvantaged condition.
Feeling the vegetation wrap around his limbs, Gorruum gives up on trying to hit the elf as hard as he can and just tries to hit it from the ground again.
Gorrum, in the surprise round, rams his halberd up against the elf's stomach, making blood gush freely.
Wilhelm moves up and tries to hit the creature, but nearly cuts Gorruum's hand off instead.
Natalie sneaks in, gets a good solid hit on the thing, and watches her rapier bend against it's skin without penetrating.
The creature, on it's next action, spits blood on Gorruum's face, and withdraws, moving up the inside of the tower, entering the growth of leaves 40ft up.
Assassin Vine. You may ask 1 question about it.
There was no magic, but there was something unnatural that made the plants attack.
But even with his penalties due to the goings on, it misses.
Gorruum gets to his feet, a little shaky, and looks up to where the vine and nasty elf have disappeared. "Gorruum bleed much more traveling with Wilhelm than in Gorruum's Empire. Could climb, but probably hurt."
Immunity to Electricity, and the normal plant traits.
"Exploring is dangerous business, but never boring, Gorruum." Anastacia holds her holy symbol as she lays he other hand on the boggard's arm.
"Pharasma grant her healing power. The power of new life."
"You seem to attract these things today Gorruum! That was an elf right?" Natalie tries to recall it.
Natalie also looks around in the room she has rushed into:
Natalie notices, in addition to the moss covered furniture and table (which despite appearances, seems to not only be used, but used daily), a moss covered chest against the back wall, covered in vines and leaves.
Wilhelm yelps as the crazed elven thing leaps up the side of the wall. Peering up after him with weapon still in hand, he scowls, "I suppose there's not much to be done unless we want to risk climbing up there. Fharn, I don't suppose you have any clever solutions for seeing us up there?"
Natalie walks over to the chest and uses one of her daggers to cut off the vines and tries to open it afterwards.
There is an ominous sound from the chest, but nothing happens, nor does it open.
"The 'vine' is very much alive, the other plants are merely compelled by some supernatural influence. Not sure if it was the elf or his friend."
Fhârn replies to Anastacia, trying to hack away at the plantlife assailing him. For a moment it looks like he is about to curse again but then the attacks falter. Fhârn keeps his guard up for a moment, but when no new hostile approaches he lowers it.
"Even during the worst days of Her Emeraldness curse, at least the plants didn't attack. I guess there is always room for a new annoyance! Heh..."
On Will's querry Fhârn enters the tower and looks up and around. Stroking his chin, he looks somewhat doubtful as he replies.
"I could try, but I don't think I'll manage clever, seeing and up at the same time. My armour is enchanted so I could fly up with a rope. But I wouldn't see anything in the foliage... Then there is seeing - a little trick should let me take a look around as if I was there. I'm betting on mostly leaves, but perhaps there is something above all that."
"Now, what we could do is simply smoke it out. This tower doesn't have too many openings for the smoke to escape - and the ones that is are pretty choked with plantlife. And the walls are stone, so we shouldn't risk the structural integrity unless we do something exceedingly foolish. Assuming the thing still breathes ... But then, one can always escalate from 'smoke out' to 'burn out'."
"If that is the wisest course of action I'll leave up to you Wil."
No damage reduction.
About a minute after the fight, the local vegetation settles down and stops trying to attack.
"I can hear something inside this chest, but it's not able to open!"
Gorruum looks at Natalie and waves his halberd, "Gorruum open chest!"
"Hmm. I'll go stand over here ..." Fhârn cautiously eyes Gorruum and the chest while moving to the far end of the room.
The stuff inside that chest might be fragile, Gorruum." Anastacia gazes into the thick foliage above. "At any rate, we should probably not get off target. That mad elf-thing and his plant friend are still about..."
With a thoughtful expression, Anastacia muses. "I could summon an archon to scout up there, but it's time here is limited."
Natalie is no so concerned about the elf, her focus is more directed to the strange chest, yet she pulls herself away and says:"It might be difficult to do anything if when we are climbing up there, we have to be very careful or the thing might just pick us of one by one!"
Gorrumm tilts his head, "Fra-Jill? Want Gorruum to take chest outside and break there?"
Anastacia shakes her head. "Fragile means we don't want it broken. We don't know what's inside that box, so we should be careful. Smashing the box might also destroy what's inside it."
Looking again at the heavy foliage above, the young cleric continues. "We have long term goals. We're not here to just loot what we find. We are here to clear these lands for settlement. So, we need to deal with these denizens. One way or another." Anastacia is wondering if there might be a way to reach the 'elf' with reasoned words, as she says this.
"Yes, I think we can deal with the box with more care once this place is cleared of threats. I don't suppose we know what the creature is? I certainly do not. If we could scout its lair, that might give us some insight into how to go about this. Climbing seems suicidal and burning will take much to long given that we don't know what's in the other towers. If we have no magical means to transport us into it's lair, I think we might be best continuing to the other towers and clearing them of threats." Wilhelm continues to look up at the ceiling warily, though he occasionally glances at the walls with a grimace of distaste.
"Might not be a bad idea to check out the other towers first, maybe we can find something to help us ascend the tower in a safely fashion."
Natalie is ready to go
"Agree."
The northeast tower is open to the sky, its roof and interior levels having fallen away long ago.
As Wilhelm opens the door, thousands of rats come pouring out!
Anastacia shrieks, startled and disgusted by the filthy rodents. She really hates rats.