"The celedons mentioned that Eliza was heading to a place called Spindlelock Tower after she last left them. It seems worth the effort to head there ourselves and see if we can find any trace of her and to see what secrets the Tower may hold."
"Lorelel's right. There might be clues there about what's been going on here."
Ramona nods. "Sounds like that warrants investigation."
As the party travels to the north, the forest gives way to hills, which in turn give way to steep, rocky inclines. The exposed rock suggests that the area was once quarried for stone structures.
Upon coming within sight of the tower, it is plain that what the celedons said about the tower being in the mountain is quite literal: the tower seems to be partially embedded in the cliff face of the mountain. The tower looks to be three stories tall, narrowing slightly toward the top. Its smooth windowless stone is in amazingly pristine condition. At the bottom double doors hand slightly ajar, an with Azlanti inscription:
"Spindlelock Research Facility: Making tomorrow's humanity, today.
Authorized Personnel Only."
"Impressive building, and in good shape. Too bad it is so far from the settlement, I wouldn't mind living in something like that." Valdern moves closer to the door and look at the inscription. "No idea what this thing is saying, so I'm going to pretend that it says, please make yourself at home." Without touching the door, he tries to take a peek inside.
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"It says something about research and 'Authorized Personnel Only'.
"All long dead, along with everyone else all those ages ago...
"I better check to see if anyone, like goblins, have put traps here...
Bhookaaj then checks the entry for signs of traps:
The door opens to an impressive entrance chamber with another pair of double doors on the opposite side of the room. The pure white walls and floor are covered with faint but incredibly complex geometric designs. The room is brightly light by light shining from the ceiling. In the center of the room is a very detailed statue of a black-robed human with a face-obscuring helmet, very similar to the illusion on the dais where the monkey goblins were.
"Before we head in, I should call on Rhyfedd. We might need him. It will just take a minute." Valdern concentrate and slowly Rhyfedd materialize next to Valdern. Once the other dwarf is there, Valdern looks at the group. "There, I'm ready now. What about you guys?" When everyone is ready, Valdern will send Rhyfedd in first. The phantom will inspect the statue first, then move to the double door.
The statue is very detailed and almost appears to not be carved of stone, but does not seem to have any other important attributes. The doors are made of metal like the entrance but bear no inscription and are fully closed.
Bhookaaj goes into the room next to Rhyfedd and inspects the new set of doors.
He looks it over carefully, for traps and all that.
And also has a listen to determine if there's any noise coming from the other side.
Given the warning about authorised personnel only, Elia couldn't help but wonder if the Azlanti had taken measures to give the warning teeth. As such, she cast a detect magic spell, with a particular focus on the statue.
Ebirah follows in, a few steps behind the others to keep an eye out for things. "This place is really pretty."
Elia is able to confirm with her spell that there is indeed magic in the room before two green-skinned humanoids holding tridents seem to rush out of the walls. They have tails, clawed hands, fin-like ridges on their arms and back, and their faces are a grotesque cross between frog and fish. They stab Bhookaaj and Rhyfedd with their tridents, drawing blood and ectoplasm.
Bhookaaj moves back 5 ft from the creature that attacked him and hits back with his short sword:
"Someone's attacking us!" Bhookaaj yells out
Ebirah rushes up to th fish-frog attacking Bhookaj and hacks at it.
Both Ebirah’s and Bhookaaj’s weapons strike and injure the creature, although the cold surrounding Bhookaaj’s blade seems not to affect it. The creatures responds with a flurry of claws and teeth which is mostly ineffective, but does manage to scratch Bhookaaj.
"Back off, Skum!" Ebirah snarls before swinging.
Ebirah’s swing fells the first skum.
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"Of course something is attacking us. Something is always attacking us on this island."
Lorelei will move to attack the still standing skum with her morningstar.
Upset to have been injured, Rhyfedd returns the favor to the creature in the for about two slam attacks. Rage might have blind temporarily the phantom, as his attacks aren't precise as they could be.
Valdern moves into the room and using the reach of his weapon, takes a stab at the remaining creature. "Well, the statues didn't attack us... so far. That count for something, right?"
Bhookaaj moves over and tries tabbing the other Skum
The rest of the group rush and take down the second skum.
Elia’s spell continues and she can now determine 5 magical auras: on the skums’ tridents, the statue, and portions of the side walls.
Bhookaaj will pick up a skum trident and tentatively poke at the nearest wall with it.
Too see if the wall is an illusion...
The trident goes through the wall as though it weren't even there.
"Look at this! I guess this is a magic wall or something", says Bhookaaj as he moves the trident he picked up in and out of the wall in front of him
"Interesting, both tridents are magical."
"Well, seems there were hidden room for those skum to lay in wait. I wonder what the circle of inlaid metal was for though..."
”Best not to step on them till we find out what they do.” Ebirah suggests.
"The statue is magical as well," Elia noted, moving to take a closer look at it.
"I can't make out what type of magical aura is on the statue. Maybe someone from the settlement would have a better chance, but first we need to secure the place." After having studied the statue, Valdern moves to the double doors. While he waits for the others to be ready to move on, he uses his magic to increase Rhyfedd's protection.
Valdern is able to discern a transmutation aura on the stone within the circles in the side rooms.
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*second yoink?*
Lorelei will put away her morningstar and pick up a trident. "Shall we move on to the next room?"
Ebirah nods to the Cleric.
The next room is covered in murals depicting kind and happy-looking humans, both adults and children, with tiny jewels orbiting their heads like halos. Above the murals is an inscription in Azlanti. There are doors to either side as well as a ramp that appears to lead up to the next level.
Lorelei reads aloud the inscription above the mural: “Ours is the Great Work to see humanity achieve its greatest potential.”
"Hmm, how altruistic of them. Didn't seem to work out for them though."
"Sadly not." Ebirah solemnly muses.
"Hey! There are some hidden panels here!
"one there, on the North wall", Bhookaaj says pointing,
"... and two more, one each above both side doors."
Bhookaaj goes to inspect the panel on the north wall first, making sure it's not trapped, and then trying to open it:
Filing the statue away as something for future examination, Elia followed the others into the next room. Deferring to Bhookaj's expertise on hidden panels and traps, she stood back and studied the murals.
"The Azlanti vision of humanity's highest potential does seem to prominently feature ioun stones," she observed.
Having grown up among the ruins of Thassilon, she didn't hold a rose-tinted view of the Azlanti. They could be studied and learned from, certainly, but you wouldn't necessarily want to emulate them.
”They’re really cool, but they’d be really distracting.”
As soon as Bhookaaj steps into the room, the two sliding panels Bhookaaj noticed above the doors slide aside, and crossbow mechanisms mounted on gyroscope-like platforms spring out from the walls. They immediately swivel to point at Bhookaaj and fire. THeir aim is extremely precise and both bolts hit.
The panel in the north wall looks to be some kind of Azlanti clockwork interface that appears to control the crossbows.
"Bhoo!" Ebirah calls out when he sees the Rogue get shot.
"Shit!" Bhookaaj exclaims.
He then runs over to the panel to try disarming the trap:
"Bhoo?
Lorelei will run up to Bhookaaj and heal him, even if she has stand beside him while he's trying to disarm the traps.
"I hope you can disarm these things."