Relia's searing light sails past the creatures, but Tessa's aim is true. The vampiric mist shrieks as the flames burn up a large portion of its gaseous body.
As Arma readies a vial of alchemist's fire, the mists rush down at you. Abigail swings on the wounded one, tearing through its body and causing it to dissipate into harmless gas. The other one reaches out to touch her, siphoning blood out through the ranger's skin! Abigail weakens as blood pours freely from her pores, and the mist seems to absorb the vitality into itself, turning dark crimson and moving with greater alacrity!
Tessa flicks her hand around, summoning arcanic symbols as missiles of force appear from her fingers, the two melding into blazing arcane power and slamming into the surviving mist.
Arma wings the alchemist fire at one of the mists as hard as she can, and the vial cracks open and ignites with a fwoom! as oxygen mixes with the volatile fuel.
Tessa's magic missiles blast holes in the vampiric mist, and Abigail tears through it, splattering blood everywhere. Arma's alchemist fire strikes true, igniting the mist and burning away all of its remnants! Abigail is splashed by the burning liquid.
With the threats dispatched, things get quiet once more. But Arma is certain that the hag at the top of the tower knows you are here now...
"I'm nearly tapped out on combat spells." Tessa notes while Abigail is being tended to, "Surprise is already gone, if you give me a few minutes I can be battle-ready again."
Arma hurries over to Abigail while pulling out basic medical supplies. "Man alive, where are you even bleeding from--oh, screw it, here."
Arma is methodical, and stops the bleeding.
Relia moves up, and casts Cure Light Wounds on Abigail. That should fix it. Tessa. Any idea if the hag can manifest the mist again soon or if she's got to wait until tomorrow or can't do it at all?
She looks around. "Wasn't there a path around the side with a cave of something? We can at least get out of sight of the tower."
"I can pray for a spell tomorrow that will heal the damage to your constitution."
She casts Cure Light wounds again.
You move out of the tower's line of sight, climbing down to the crater island's southeastern face. Here, a fifteen-foot-high flooded cave mouth cuts into the steep cliff face. Old, wooden scaffolding props up much of the cave mouth, reinforced by rusted metal brackets and splintered wooden supports. Water floods the tunnel at a depth of 2 to 3 feet.
Abigail discovers a few faint scuff marks along the scaffolding that indicates some large creature has come and gone from this tunnel recently, but she is unable to determine any more details.
"You up to this, Abi? Ready to go?" Tessa asks, starting towards the tunnel.
Unfortunately, Abigail doesn't notice the trap on the tunnel entryway. A glowing rune appears on the ground before detonating in a cacophonous burst of sound! The concussion shatters the weakened supports of the cave scaffolding, causing it to collapse on the ranger!
"Abigail!" Tessa calls in shock, and scrambles to start clearing rocks, not making much progress, but at least doing something.
Arma curses loudly in surprise and quickly moves forward to help Tessa clear the rocks away. "Criminy! Are you okay?"
Working together, Arms and Tessa are able to dig Abigail out of the collapse.
"Abigail!!" Relia helps pull her from the ruble, and heals her. "That was scary."
Clearing more rubble away from the entrance will allow you to proceed without further incident, should you still desire to do so.
The cave tunnel runs beneath the island, arcing slightly west until it opens into the tower's basement, where the masonry of the east wall has collapsed.. The lower half of the basement is flooded by five feet of water. Mold cakes the walls and ceiling in black blotches, rivulets of water leak from cracks in crumbling masonry, and the air is a foul mixture of musty and sulfuric stink. A wide stone staircase connects this lower level to an upper level of the basement.
"I never have problems with water, I can go first, I guess? Not sure how good of an idea that is, though, if there's something with teeth down there." Tessa offers, "I can't do another flight spell until tomorrow."
As Tessa glances around the room, she happens to look up. There, her keen eyes spot a nearly transparent blob stuck to the ceiling. A single eye floats in the mass, staring unblinking down at you.
"Well that looks like a giant booger," Arma remarks, classy as always. "Hell is that thing?"
Tessa almost wasn't able to put her finger on it, then it clicked, "Well, there goes our element of surprise. It's a Hag's Eye Ooze- magically created by a hag, who can see whatever the eyeball sees. Don't think it applies to sound, but I'm not entirely sure. It won't attack, probably, but it will completely spoil any tricks we try to pull." Tessa says.
"Ehh... I don't think oozes can bite, but I know what you mean. Somewhere in the middle, I think. It can hurt us, but not much at all." Tessa speculates.
"I have a spell that could make it hard to see us as we pass through. Do we want to try that or just attack the creature?" she offers to cast Fog Cloud. "I also can help with breathing in the water for one person when we do go swimming."
Relia casts Fog Cloud in the area, and makes it hard for the Hag's Eye to see them. "Let's go quickly."
Concealed by the fog cloud, you make your way across the flooded basement. Stairs lead up to a single arched doorway that opens onto the upper part of the basement, which is mercifully dry. The door is adjacent to a tall circular shelf loaded with mushrooms, glass jars of desiccated insects, dried herbs, and other reagents. A small table outfitted with a cauldron and alchemical gear fills a nook by a large, ascending staircase. A small workbench covered with carving tools and whittled bone and bits of jewelry stands to the west, next to a large table laden with scraps of paper and fragments of etched stone tablets.
Across the room, another staircase leads up into the tower.
Relia casts detect magic on the room. "Just in case." she whispers.
Tessa is any of this familiar to you? she points to the shelf and the table.
"I'm a little nervous about letting her have too much time to prepare," Arma says. "Quick but cautious, maybe. We can explore later, when we aren't gonna get ambushed."
"Hmmm. Maybe? Give me a second. Besides, at this point, the hag knows we're coming. The difference between a spellcaster who has two minutes to prepare is just as dangerous as one who had two hours, possibly even more so, depending on how much magic they use on short-term spells." Tessa notes.
It appears this room contains a fully functional alchemist's lab. The shelves hold a full collection of alchemical reagents worth 1,250 gp.
The documents hold snippets of lore in the Azlanti language, though little of actual value. However, among these fragments is a rambling treatise of the significance of prophecy as a divinatory tool and partly incoherent, resentful ravings directed towards the author. Tessa can determine that the author is an oracle or prophet of some kind and suffers from a curse that hinders the author's vision.
"Well, any powerful spellcaster can make their spells last longer, but essentially, yes. There's not much in the way of explanation as to why any given spell lasts for as long as it does- my magical armor lasts for hours, but trying to make a magical shield lasts for minutes. But yes, there are spells that last for just a few seconds, those that last for minutes, those that last for maybe an hour or two at most, and some that last for hours or days." Tessa looks like she wants to go on, but cuts herself off, "It all depends on how reactive of a spellcaster she is as to whether waiting longer will give us an advantage. What's more likely is that it makes no difference how long we take."
Arma's eyes go wide at the stock of alchemical reagents. "Somebody's been busy. Hmph. Seems like everything on this island just moved in after the original residents...well. The colony, Vriskirsa on the reef, the hag in this tower..."