"He'll be fine. I took care of it."
He nods. "Yeah, he should make it just fine. He'll probably be woozy for a day or two, but that's just the nastiness of what he got exposed to. But yeah, my assessment is that he'll be fine."
"I guess it's about time we look for that sword Kal keeps goin' on about", Bjorkus says with a glance at the young sailor.
"And after that, Harrigan's head."
The Isle of the Black Tower lies along the western edge of the Shackles archipelago. Despite being near the Cannibal Islands, even the notorious f lesh-eaters give the isle wide birth, for it is commonly believed today that the island is haunted by the ghost of the Shrouded Queen.
The island on which the Black Tower is located was little more than a nameless, jungle-covered rock before the Shrouded Queen rose her home from its heart. Today, the island is known as the Isle of the Black Tower in honor of its most striking feature. The island is roughly circular, about a half-mile in diameter, covered with dense jungle, and 120 feet above sea level at its highest point (where the Black Tower extends another 400 feet into the air). The highest orders of life dwelling in the island’s jungle are insects, spiders, and other invertebrates—even birds avoid the island, leaving the place an infested morass.
Bjorkus trudges along through the sweltering diseased jungle.
Zirul may be bitten by the nasty things but none of them really seem to be doing anything to irritate him.
"Got anything for the critters Skinny?", Bjorkus asks as he swats a mosquito the size of his hand.
Both Kal and Opal seem to be scratching the various bites on their arms.
The Black Tower is made of a strange, weirdly porous but fantastically strong dark stone with a rough, grainy feel similar to pumice, yet with the strength of marble. The tower has no visible entrances—in fact, only one entrance into the tower exists, located at its peak. Indeed, the bottom half of the tower consists of solid stone. The sides of the tower are overgrown with thick, slippery vines—a Climb check is all that’s required to scale the tower’s sides as a result.
Bjorkus tucks his trident into his harness and starts the climb.
Kal pulls two scrolls from his bag and recites the words on them, his hands and feet coating themselves in an adhesive substance. Opal's do the same a moment later.
Zirul looks up, thinking that it is a dang long way down, if he were to fall and stretches, preparing to climb slowly.
Luthor will also take 10 for a 16.
Years of neglect and exposure to a quarter-century of storms have apparently caused the tower roof to collapse in on itself, forming a bowl shaped, rubble-filled concavity at the tower’s crown. Most of the stonework and rubble lies buried beneath thick blankets of moss, vines, and other hanging plants that cling to the foot-deep layer of soil, composed entirely of the sodden, decomposing remains of over two decades of jungle growth.
Kal notices that this overgrown area has a section where the ground seems strangely sunken. A few minutes of work clears the debris and reveals an old stone trap door opening onto the top of a curved f light of stairs winding down into the tower. Bjorkus easily forces the trapdoor wide enough to admit entry.
The walls of the curving stairway beyond are carved with disturbing imagery of coils of tentacles seemingly without end twisting downward into the darkness. Now and then, the tentacles are shown crushing people, ships, and in more than a few cases, entire cities or islands. Amid all of these carvings is repeated an eerie symbol—an octopus eye surrounded by sinister runes.
Bjorkus studies the sinister runes.
Zirul also studies the strange image.
You easily identify this as the symbol of Dagon, the demon lord of deformity, the sea, and sea monsters.
"Dagon, demon lord of sea, it's monsters, and deformity. I'll show that ugly bastar deformed." Zirul says just loud enough for the group to hear.
"Not the weirdest thing we've seen yet", Bjorkus rumbles as he files in after Luthor down the stairs.
"Is this some temple to him or something?"
The druid nods at Bjorkus. "Indeed. We can look at pictures later; let's continue. Keep your eyes open."
Kal accompanies the others, emitting barely-audible squeaks and chirps periodically to assist him. He moves comfortably between the ceiling and walls, making sure the group's descent is covered.
"Does it matter? We're here for the sword. I don't much care what fish-face god calls it home."
Patches of dull blue mold spot the walls of this room, partially obscuring a faded mural that depicts some sort of enormous amalgam of eel, fish, and cephalopod rising off the shore of an island. Opposite the entrance, a pair of patina-crusted iron posts suspend a massive gold-plated disc, etched with elaborate runes. Within the center of the disc stares a grayish and bulbous fleshy eye with a horizontally shaped pupil. Beside each post, a serpentine basin rests upon a short, wooden pedestal painted with flaking gold leaf. Within a small alcove opposite the massive disc stands a wooden statue also painted in badly flaking gold leaf. The statue depicts the same horrid creature as shown in the mural, and holds its hands in front of its chest to clench a fist-sized chunk of serpentine carved in the shape of a human heart. A reinforced wooden door stands to the southwest, its hinges and metal hardware forged in the shapes of fish fins and spiked gills. Iron spikes have been hammered into the perimeter of the door, presumably to hold it shut. Crudely scrawled graffiti mars the door’s face.
The graffiti on the door is written with charcoal in the Common tongue and simply reads “She Lives.” Beneath the inscription is a charcoal handprint with wide splayed fingers.
Zirul mulls over the words and the images, not exactly happy with the religious overtones of this place.
You associate the handprint with a sect of Norgorberite holy assassins who refer to their deity as “Blackfingers”—the same sect that Captain Aiger belonged to.
"Guys, we've got real trouble. That handprint is of a sect of assassins, specifically for the god Norgorber. And it just so happens a certain Captain Aiger belongs to that sect: the Blackfingers."
Zirul grimaces. "If there's one thing I hate more than assassins, it's holy assassins."
”Anything in there about where our holy assassin hides his magic swords?” the bull asks with a laugh.
"I tend to prefer my assassins with holes in them," comments Kal drily, crawling over to take a closer look at the door.
”Only one way to go”, Bjorkus says as he waits for Luthor to open the door.
Luthor tries to force the door open.
It takes him three tries, but the semi-ulfen gets the door open. A guiding row of black iron candleholders protrudes from the curving southwestern wall, their candles long since melted into foulscented, yellowish tallow lumps. Behind the candles, flaking plaster laid in the shape of fish scales exposes a rough stone wall beneath. Within a shallow alcove at the end of the hall stands a serpentine statue carved in the shape of a naked male human being devoured by tiny, flesh-boring eels that wind their hungry way through every part of his body save for an area over the center of his chest.
An examination of the statue reveals that the statue actually stands before a f light of stairs leading downward, and can be slid into the alcove to the north.
** spoiler omitted **
"Now that's disgusting," says Kal quietly, entering the room via the wall. "No one here or in too close proximity, though. Shall we continue?"
He looks around for any signs of recent passage.
”Down the stairs”, Bjorkus says.
”Judging by the size of this place from the outside, we’d better get used to it.”
Kal doesn't find any signs of life, however he does find that the statue is trapped! Pushing it aside to go down the stairs triggers the trap. Kal also notices that the section in the center of the statue’s chest that’s devoid of eels can be rotated and then pushed into the statue to reveal a hollow sized for a small object.
Zirul nods, making sure to down a few different vials, handing one to Luthor and Bjorkus, motioning for them to follow his lead, when he swishes the last vial, then returning it to the vial. "This last one is quite potent, so swish and return to the vial. And yes, I know it's gross tasting, that's why I said to swish."
After the vials, his skin, Luthor's, and Bjorkus's skin take on a stony appearance, while his simply crackles with a thin sheet of electricity over top.
----
Zirul grimaces, hearing a trap mechanism.
"Trap here — Zirul, want to grab that heart from the last room and see if putting it into this statue's chest cavity disarms the trap?"
Zirul grins. "I thought you would never ask." At which point, Zirul goes to grab the heart and begin disarming the trap.
Bjorkus takes a step back when Zirul starts describing the trap.
”You sure you can disarm it?”
As Zirul snatches the heart and before he can get out of the room, a blast of vile smelling water at fires at him!
Zirul shrugs off the icky water and books it before it can spray him again.
Zirul places the heart into the hollow causing the statue to slide harmlessly aside, providing access to the stairway behind without triggering the trap.
Huge, once-lavish tapestries hang from this circular chamber’s walls, although the curtains are now sodden and thick with yellowish fungus. The floor in the northwest portion of the chamber has crumbled away into a chamber below, leaving behind a gaping hole and significant cracks and fissures in the remaining mold-encrusted floor. A few furnishings remain, including the moldering remnants of chairs decorated with gold leaf and a wooden table, ornately carved with ichthyic motifs and draped with rotting silken cloth. A tall clay statue sculpted in the image of a bloated, fishlike humanoid stands to the south, also covered with mold. A few feet ahead, another flight of stairs descends deeper into the lower chamber exposed by the collapsed flooring.
There are also two roughly man-sized clots of wriggling intestines wrapped around many-toothed maws. They seem to be floating just above the floor.
”What the hell?!” Bjorkus snorts in disgust as the monsters come into view.
Pulling his trident free, the minotaur moves to engage freakish looking creatures.
"Hell might just be right!"