As Ruso disregards the warning and enters the vault anyway, an undetected magical trap fires , casting a necromantic curse at the brash intruder. His constitution already damaged, Ruso takes another serious hit to his stamina, and can barely walk after the curse hits him.
Despite the effect, the looting of Nazhena's vault continues. The storage boxes contain an impressive selection of scrolls:
scroll of comprehend languages x2
scrolls of cure moderate wounds x2
scroll of delay poison
scroll of dispel magic
scroll of Irriseni mirror sight
scroll of cure blindness
scroll of remove sickness x2
scroll of threefold aspect
scroll of youthful appearance
The decanters hold varying draughts of potions that have not been dispensed into individual vials yet:
potion of cure light wounds x2
potions of enlarge person x2
oil of mask dweomer x3
potions of reduce person x2
The crates hold 50 trade bars of pure silver each one weighing 10 pounds and worth 50gp each.
There is also a locked chest.
Ruso has a sudden moment of clarity while looting the vault and shuts it out to Irina. "Hey Irina, just a thought, would any thing in the big blue tiled room tell us how to close that portal thing we went through a few days back. If we can get that closed as least it would stop snowing in Taldor during the summer." Ruos then returns to his looting.
The ritual chamber, where you fought Radosek, has many interesting things in it. The most interesting is the image of the globe floating over the floor with multiple lines of arcane energy shown on the surface of the world. The lines hum with arcane power, and where they intersect, brilliant white light is given off.
There are also piles of papers and books and charts scattered throughout the room. These appear to be tomes and works related to the study of ley lines, lines of arcane power, that stretch across the multiverse.
Ruso stumbles out of the vault looking far frailer than any elf should appear. "Cylina, Irina! What has happened to me?" Ruso looks at himself in a nearby mirror as he asks the question.
"Wulfgang, we appear to have found some kind of magical world map that, and I am just guessing here, appears to show where a whole lot of the portals are located throughout the world. There are also a bunch of glowing lines intersecting various points on the magical globe. With all of the books and scrolls in this big blue tiled room we might be able to possibly figure out how to close a portal or two. I suspect though that Irina or Cylina will have a far better grasp on how to accomplish that than either myself or you."
Ruso also takes time to explain all of the found treasure to Wulfgang as Irina or Cylina identifies it. Ruso then sets to the task of opening the locked chest.
As she waited for the elf to pass her items from the vault, she noticed he looked much more haggard and unhealthy than normal. When he came stumbling forward, she realized he was in big trouble and reached out to steady him. Speaking in Skald she says, "Careful, friend...the witch's magic nearly did you in, it seems. I can help with some of it...the rest shall require something a bit more."
The priestess kept a worried eye on the elf as he trudged in and out with yet more loot, helping to identify those items that were divine in nature (and generally trying to keep her distance from those that weren't). After the loot had been gathered and they were in the main chamber once again, she studied the map curiously but with little understanding. Magic was feared in her community, and those that sought it were either recruited by the witches or butchered and left for the crows.
She again backed away nervously as Ruso fiddled with the locked chest, trying to keep distance between herself and whatever trap might be on the device. She wasn't a coward, but she had no desire to include everyone in a blast radius should it come to it.
Ruso addresses Cylina's comments.
Panting from exertion, Ruso sits and works the lock on the chest, and just when he's giving up to rest, the lock clicks and opens. Inside is a canvas bag (which appears to be empty from the outside), a small iron coffer, and a heavy blue robe.
The coffer is unlocked and inside are two small metal tokens, a bird and a tree. There is also a ring inside made of white gold set with a large green sapphire, and a rather plan looking wand. The ring, the tokens, the bag, the wand, and the robe all detect as magical.
Irina takes her time examining the area. She makes sure that the cauldron ends up in the pile of loot for later examination. "Ruso there's not much I can do for your injuries, but perhaps the scroll of remove blindness can be used on Wulfgang."
She moves to study the map and the ley lines. She looks through the books and tries to recall how the magic might work.
She also studies the ring tokens bag etc to see what they might be.
Irritated at herself for overlooking the scroll that could remove the northman's blindness, the priestess quickly snatched it up and read off the brief prayer that would invoke the divine spell's magic. Her hand briefly lit as she reached forward and gently touched Wulfgang's shoulder, the curative magic flowing into him and removing the damage that the bird swarm had done to his eyes.
Having no study of the arcane, the priestess glanced briefly at the magical items to see if any might radiate the touch of the divine before glancing nervously at the window.
Irina peruses the magical finds, but some remain beyond her ability to identify today. She does find a wand of color spray (23 charges) and a robe of useful items (this comes with extra patches that are: a bag of 100gp, 3 flasks of alchemist's fire, an open pit, a ladder, a potion of cure serious wounds, a rowboat, 2 war dogs, and a window along with the base patches)
Cylina reads the scroll that restores sight to Wulfgang. She also pockets the scrolls of cure moderate wounds for later use.
Reading through the paraphernalia left behind and knowing enough about witchcraft to be dangerous, Irina hazards a guess about how the portal and ley lines work. She thinks concentrating hard enough on the portal and casting any kind of conjuration spell might cause the portal to close, at least the one in the Border Wood.
Looking out the window, Cylina sees that Radosek has landed in the courtyard at the base of the Tower, and is currently casting some form of spells which appear to be on the white dragon statue in the center down there.
Ruso claps Wulfgang on the shoulder. "Welcome back to the land of sighted. Now come help me haul all of this money and other goodies out this treasure room." Ruso says with a twinkle in his eye at the vast sums they have found. "Irina is busy puzzling out how the glowing globe, those fancy looking lines, and that magic portal we stumbled through are interconnected. I would have asked her for help otherwise. From what she has mumbled it sounds like she thinks the portal can be closed."
"Thank Cylina. She got you seeing again with the aid of a scroll I found in the treasure vault. Speaking of Cylina..." Ruso looks around for a quick moment before spotting Cylina staring out a window at the courtyard below. "What are you looking at Cylina?"
The redheaded woman gently patted Wulfgang's shoulder as his sight returned, wandering to the window as the northman went to help the elf with gathering the remainder of the loot.
Cylina's eyes narrowed as she approached the window, watching the witch for a moment before realizing he was going through the motions of complicated spellcasting. When Ruso asked her a question, she spun on him in alarm, eyes wide. "We have to leave. NOW. I don't know what the witch is doing but he's waving his arms about that dragon statue below, and that doesn't bode well, I'm thinking."
The priestess stooped and began gathering up items and stowing them, not accepting any delays. If the others stalled, she snapped verbally at them, and is more than happy to leave without the full loot pile if it came down to it. "Did I hear somebody say that robe contained flasks of liquid fire? Let's remove them in case they're needed against the ice dragon below." If instructed how to or someone else does, she accepts one of the flasks of alchemist's fire.
"Rat spit!" Ruso eyes all of wealth set before them and sighs. He begins scooping up as much stuff as he can and piles it into every backpack, pouch, and coffer he can reach.
Irina grabs the tokens and the rings. "They have aura's of Conjuration on them. Maybe this will work. I've used on my conjeration spells for the day. I'm pretty sure we don't have time to rest." She breathes deeply. "You might want to step out of the room just in case." Once everyone clears the room, she starts with the strongest aura and puts on the ring.
Wulfgang rubs his eyes, the white light glaring in his newly restored sight. He goes to work at Ruso's urging pulling the loot out of the vault. He notices that Ruso looks perceptibly weaker and frailer than he was even before the blindness set in.
Cylina reports that she can see Radosek doing some kind of magic in the courtyard below. To her horror, he completes the spell, and the inanimate staute of a white dragon begins moving shaking and has fully come to life, roaring a spray of icy breath throughout the courtyard.
"Come down and fight it out now, intruders!" cries the winter witch from far below. "You can't leave the tower without fighting us, and if we have too, we'll fly up there and roust you out!"
Irina still studies the ley lines encircling the globe of Golarion, and having no spells left to catch today, she slips on the ring with the green sapphire, aims it at the portal, and activates it. She feels a warmth run through her, a pulsing sort of magic that feels quite nice actually almost as if it were healing her a bit.
However, the conjuration magic of ring is not enough to close the portal. Moving from the ring, to the the tree token, Irnia tries to activate that. As she does, it grows into a full size tree right in the map room. The magic of that conjuration feeds into the portal on the map, and as everyone watches, the lights on the map go out, and the portal closes on the Taldor side (and on the Irrisen side). There are still several other lines along the map, however.
Cylina frowned as the witch completed his spell, near panic as the white dragon began to twitch and move, roaring and leaving a line of cold, destructive waste in its path. As Radosek bellowed out his challenge, she backed away from the window once more and turned to the others. "Well that ship has sailed. Now we need to decide whether we fight up here, or bring the fight down there. Did someone mention there was a scroll that can remove magic? Perhaps it could be used to lift whatever spell the witch cast upon the ice..."
The priestess' green eyes went to the ley line map, seeing Irina's handiwork. "Is the portal to your home land that you spoke of closed now? It seems we have won multiple victories this day...now perhaps we can live to fight another." If no one had done so yet, the cleric pulled off a patch from the robe, claiming an Alchemist's Fire for the imminent fight.
Ruso looks at the rather impressive tree and you can almost see an idea forming. "Hey Wulfgang, how do you feel about being a lumberjack?" Ruso says as a mischievous grin spreads across his face. "If we hew this tree down we could send it plummeting from the tower down onto the warlock and his animated dragon statue thing. Surely that should be enough to knock them out."
Cylina looked out the window before snorting at Ruso's suggestion. "What? You're going to lop pieces of this tree off and toss them out the window at the witch and his ice dragon? Lady, give me strength!" The priestess gripped her holy symbol tightly, then moved to the corner of the room opposite the window she had spied Radosek from, cranking a bolt into her crossbow and getting ready for the witch to return as the elf and northman carried out their plan.
Ruso gives Cylinia a wry look as she mocks his plan. "Pieces? Honestly..." Ruso sighs and shakes his head. "Look at this thing." Ruso gestures at the immense oak standing before them. "I am hoping to see it crash through the wall and hurtle down onto the witch."
The priestess arched a red eyebrow at Ruso's words, seeming unconvinced of the elven man's plan. Having been out with lumberjacks a time or two, the cleric was aware that the tree could be cut in a way to direct it's fall...but the crashing of the tree through the wall was just as likely to rain destruction down on the group as on the courtyard, she was thinking. Still, she said no further words about the plan, as it was just as good as waiting for the witch to decide to storm the fortress.
"If we can get it out of the tower, it can't hurt. At least they will be looking to the air for attacks for a bit." She pulls out a scroll and quickly begins to write down where she sees other Ley Lines in Irrisen. "Maybe we can get out by the basement or something. We could leave those two blustering in the courtyard. There has to be another way out."
Cylina nodded her agreement with Irina, thinking it might be best to be within the Pale Tower as opposed to wherever they were in the structure. Radosek's magic had animated the statue somehow, but it's size would surely inhibit its movement inside the narrow confines of the tower somewhat.
The priestess shouldered her pack, waiting for the others. "Should we try one of the portals we haven't been in yet, or just descend to the ground level and wait for the witch to go up top in search of us? After we fell the tree, of course."
"I'd say one of the portal's we haven't been in yet. He won't know where we've gone.
"Very well. Lets get it in gear then and get out of here before the witch and his new toy come hunting for us."
So far on this floor, you have spied two portals. The big one in the ritual chamber is where you entered this level. There is another in Nazhena's quarters that you have not used yet, which do you choose?
The call to hurry and the plan to take a previously untouched portal both made sense to the priestess. Hustling along, she came to the portal in the Mistress of the Tower's room, looking back at the others nervously. "Might be this takes us to Nazhena's side...should we chance it?" Radosek had been pretty formidable, but likely wasn't anywhere near the capability of the winter witch. If no one else offered a suggestion, the cleric tried to enter the portal, keeping an eye out for traps as Ruso had instructed.
Ruso follows Cylina to the portal grabbing his heavily loaded backpack along the way. He also drags the previously locked chest along having loaded it down with as much treasure as he could cram into it. Ruso grins at Cylina as he hauls the valuables into the portable. "Trust me. We are going to need money and things if we are going to be on the run from witches."
Ruso gives the priestess a wink and a nudge as he chuckles just a little. "I see you learned a little something from my misfortune. Good on you." Ruso suritipously peeks around the portal to be sure nothing dangerous was missed.
"I'd rather face the unknown that go back a way we've already been." Iva heads for the portal in the next room with the cauldron in tow.
Lugging as much as you can carry, the groupu hustles off for the portal in Nazhena's chamber, but there is one sticky little problem: no one has a key card or the right pass phrase for this sice-crystal teleporter.. Try as you might, you cannot activate it.
Ruso hangs his head as nothing happens with the teleporter. "By the Gods, why can nothing be easy in this icy hell!"
Ruso steps out the non-functioning teleporter and drags his stuff to the other one. "I guess this means we are going to have to fight the dragon statue thing and the witch." Ruso sighs. "I am really beginning to hate this place."
"Beginning? I've hated this place since we arrived. I escaped this place years ago, and I'm not thrilled to be back."
Cylina paced in frustration as the group tried to work the teleporter without success. Her green eyes flicked over repeatedly to the window where she had viewed Radosek bring the ice dragon to life, clearly anxious about the situation. When it was decided to return through the other teleporter, she hurried along with the others, silently agreeing with Ruso's statement. Nothing good ever came of these towers that dotted the landscape of Irrisen.
When the group reappeared on the level where they had fought the sylph, the priestess turned to the others, "Do you think the dragon could fit in the corridors inside the tower? Maybe we should make our stand here? If not, perhaps we could make Wulfgang bigger with one of those scrolls so he could cleave the dragon in twain should it come near. And perhaps we could finish the job on the witch."
The ice crystal teleporter in the Ritual Chamber is keyed to any of the others in the Pale Tower, so as you make ready to depart you can go to the Entrannce Hall, Dining Hall, Mirrored Hall, the Conservatory, or the Aerie.
The dragon appears to be merely large sized, and could likely fit inside most of the Tower's rooms without much difficulty.
Ruso looks as each of his companions before speaking. "We need to deal with him sooner rather than later. I for one don't want him hunting us across the snowy plains of whatever hell this place is and that he obviously knows better than we do. Let us end the witch now." Ruso rifles through the loot and pulls out a pair of vials. He hands one to Wulfgang and the other to Radzislaŭ. "Drink these when we get down there. I think Irina said it will make the both of you larger. So that should, I think, make you both troll sized. Then you can go distract or kill the dragon statue thing while the rest of us kill the witch. Which ever group finishes first then helps the other succeed at their task."
Thinking the elf's plan was a sound one, the priestess loaded a bolt into her crossbow and then prepared to follow the others down to the entrance level. She whispered a brief prayer to Milani, imploring Her to not let them get so close to success and ultimately fail. A selfish prayer, perhaps, but hopefully the goddess would determine that Irrisen's future would be brighter with the group's survival.
The heroes activate the teleporter and after a moment of disorientation, they reappear on the ground floor of the Pale Tower, just inside the Entrance Hall. Knowing that Radosek and his dragon minion lurk right outside, they have a moment to plan any tactics or just go for the full frontal assault.
Cylina shuddered as they were teleported to the ground floor once again, preferring more mundane modes of travel. She wasn't looking forward to the fight ahead, but agreed it must be done. The priestess nodded to Wulfgang...the front doors seemed as good a stand as any. She offered the northman one of the potions that would make him larger and stronger before taking up her crossbow, hoping to shoot the witch out of the sky.
"I hate to have to do this, but yes we need to take care of this problem sooner rather than later." She loads her crossbow, and sighs knowing this will be a terrible fight and the group may not live.
"Buck up! We have this. The witch is weakened. Our fighters are going to be big and powerful so that they can take on the animated dragon statue. I know we can do this!" Ruso says as he tries to buoy the spirits of his compatriots.
Ruso sets his backpack down next to the entry doors and puts the chest next to it. Ruso draws his rapier and steps up to the entry doors. "Get ready. As soon as I get the door open we need to commence the attack."
Gearing themselves up for battle, the group watches as Ruso goes to the massive ice front doors and pushes them open with relative ease. Outside in the courtyard, Radosek smiles while the ice dragon paces in place eagerly awaiting the melee.
Showdown in the Courtyard - Round 1
19 Wulfgang
11 Ruso
11 Radzislau
10 Radosek
7 Irina
6 Cylina
5 Ice Dragon
Ruso steps out from the doorway. "You and your toy will lose this fight! I guarantee it!" Ruso shouts haughtily at the witch. He then paces around the edge of the courtyard like a lion circling its prey.
Showdown in the Courtyard - Round 1 - continued
Before the foes can react, Wulfgang charges the icy dragon slashing at it with his greataxe. The blow strikes the creature which is made entirely of ice, not flesh, doing some damage.
Ruso circles the fight, planning a tactical strike if left alone.
Radzislau also makes a frontal assault, moving quickly to get close to Radosek and keep him from casting, hopefully.
The winter witch casts defensively, reaching out to touch Radzislau after he does so. The touch hits the paladin, and the magic fills him with a bitter cold like frostbite, harming, but more importantly, fatiguing his weary body.