Seeing the king isolated, Amkarang steps to the side as he shifts his grip on his meteor hammer, swinging a few times at the fey singer.
Two shots from Aerel's bow thunk into the spriggan, eliciting a grunt from the enraged attacker.
Only Amkarang's second attack manages to strike the korred, but he manages to do some damage.
Halk's shaggy and unruly hair suddenly animates, wrapping around the handle of his knotty club. It swings the club just as if he was swinging it with his own arms.
Benedict steps up and swings at a Spriggan, fighting defensively. His real job is just to block for the archers.
William seems to be getting into high gear and unleashes even more arrows at the spriggan.
Grum cleaves completely through the first spriggan, then follows up with a massive blow to the other one.
William's first volley of two arrows strike the last one on Grum dead, then he shifts targets to the one on Benedict. Two more arrows create wounds to join the one Benedict gave it.
The final spiggan, swaying under its injuries but still in the battle fervor inspired by Halk's song, swings again at Benedict.
Amkarang grunts in pain as the korred strikes him, nonetheless continuing his assault on the king, scoring one blow followed by a direct hit to the fey despot's hairy chin.
Aerel continues to fire on the spriggan attacking Benedict.
Amkarang finishes off Halk with a double hit, the follow-up swing crushing the fey's skull despite his resistances. Then Aerel finishes off the last spriggan, and the throne room falls silent except for the heavy breaths of the heroes of Phaendar.
The four stone "boxes" on the floor are so smooth and even-shaped, they were probably created using stone shape. The spell cannot create working objects, though, so hinges are impossible to create. The only way to open them is to smash them or through casting stone shape again.
William looks around the room, "Good job guys! Hopefully this will clear the haunt. Those blocks look like they were made with a stoneshape spell. The only way to open them is another spell or busting them open."
"Well done indeed!
Let's see if this Korred king has anything on him that will help with the task. We should try to get those boxes open, and then continue clearing the fort."
Benedict will ask Grum to use a couple of wand charges on him.
"Never killed a king before. First time for everything."
Aerel studies the boxes, but has to concur. ”No cracks or gaps that I can see. Do we have something other than weapons to strike the with?”
When the spriggans die, they revert back to their small, gnome-sized forms. Their morningstars also revert to a smaller size.
Busting open the stone boxes reveals 5,305 sp in one, 1,403 gp in another, a third contains two emeralds (500gp each) and a magical pearl, and a fourth only contains a terrible odor.
Halk had one potion (bear's endurance), a scroll case that contains four scrolls, a magic chain shirt (+1), a masterwork dagger, a masterwork frame drum, a red wool scarf (15gp), and a silver tankard shaped like an old dwarven woman (50gp). His club is also magical.
"Might be, Grum. But there could also be more enemies, so the place isn't safe for the Rangers to take over again just yet. Let's keep looking."
The passageway to the North tower looks to be collapses, so once the party has gathered, Benedict will look to move to the South tower.
Aerel offers to scout, as usual.
William picks up the scrolls and the club. He says to the group "Hold on a moment please. Let me see if I can decipher these scrolls as they may be useful and determine what this club does."
Club
Aerel stops at the door and waits patiently.
William determines that three of the scrolls are of cure moderate wounds, and the fourth scroll is invisibility.
The club is a korrigan club, a +1 thundering club that once a day can have its wielder animate its hair to use the club for four rounds, so long as the wielder's hair is long enough (at least two feet long).
When the rest of the group gather at the door to the south and get ready, it doesn't open. The door is entirely stuck.
"Okay, if there is nowhere else to go from this floor, let's go to the ground floor and check the north tower."
The door to the northern tower is shut. It is oozing a thin red fluid that puddles on the ground at the base of the door.
Testing the liquid reveals it to be wine.
"Well that's not as bad as it could be," says Benedict as he looks at the dripping red liquid.
"But it's odd. I thought the fey drank every drop of wine they could find. Why wouldn't they have gone into this tower and got the cask of wine that seems to be leaking?
Aerel, is there a trap here?"
Benedict is uneasy about the mysterious wine.
You detect no traps on this door. The dripping wine has nothing to do with a trap.
Still no traps. The wine has nothing to do with a trap.
"I don't see any sign of a trap, no."
Aerel motions the others to stand back before he tests the door to see if it is locked.
The door is not locked. It makes a grinding sound as the wood scrapes along pulverized stones on the floor, revealing the ruins of the room beyond.
The ceiling in this room is only six feet from the floor, and consists of cracked beams and blocks of stone pressing down from the collapsed tower above. Chunks of wood and stone litter the room, with a particularly large specimen covering half of a once-fine writing desk.
A ghostly apparition sits at the desk, mulling over the scattered papers and documents. It looks up when the door opens.
William waits to see if the ghost is hostile. "Hello! What can we do to help you move on?"
If it acts hostile William attacks immediately.
The ghost moans. "My ledgers! I must find some way to make this venture profitable, but this damnable pen has run out of ink! I can almost work it out... why won't this pen write?"
The ghost seems agitated, trying to scrawl notes on real paper with a ghostly pen that won't make a mark.
"You there! Have you something I could use to write with?" he asks William.
Aerel whispers, ”I do not. Can he even move a real pen?”
William shrugs to Aerel and says to the ghost, "I have an inkpen and ink and I can scribe for you. If you tell me what to write on the paper I will wright it and you can see that everything is correct." William digs out his inkpen and ink and if the ghost accedes moves to the desk and takes the paper and prepares to write.
"Oh, thank you!" the ghost exclaims as William enters the room. The spirit lunges at him, disappearing within his mortal shell!
William shudders once, straightens, then pats himself down briefly. "Ah, this will do nicely." "William" then sits down at the desk and starts working through the ledgers on the desk.
"Uh..."
Benedict has two potions of Protection from Evil, but isn't sure if they would expel the ghost.
He tries to recall what he knows of ghosts.
Very little, as it turns out.
"William, can you hear us?
Or... Sir... can we help you with the ledgers? Will you then release our friend?"
The ghost inhabiting William's body waves them all in. "Yes, yes. I could use the help. This will take some time to wring some profit out of this venture." He pushes around some of the papers on his desk.
"The Rangers contacted me, you see. I'm Erno Haruvex, wine merchant, supplying the finest vintages all over central Avistan. So I went to considerable expense and length to get a large shipment through this damnable terrain to Fort Ristin -- and the Rangers wanted it to be a donation! I'm not running a charity, here!"
He grunts in frustration. "I have to figure out a way to profit from this. I must! I cannot-- I must not rest until I've earned a decent profit!"
He goes back to muttering and working through the ledgers.
"Ah, I don't have much of a head for business, I'm afraid..."
"Well, what value would you need to clear a profit?"
Erno shuffles some papers around. "I would need 3,000 gold, with all the lost business I've suffered coming out this far and getting stuck here in this tower."
"Hmmm... what about this powerful magical armor? It is a chain shirt that protects as well as a breastplate, but at half the weight. Truly, you can see the exceptional craftsmanship. Will taking this in trade be sufficient?"
The ghost contorts William's face. "I don't barter! I deal in wine, not armor and weapons! You find a buyer for it, then I'll take the coin from the sale."
"Well then. I have 5,305 silver, and 1,514 gold."
"That would have a value of 2,044 gp."
"If you can accept this as restitution, I will also spread the word far and wide of Erno Haruvex, his honest dealings, and his quality wine. Can we come to an arrangement?"
If he can't be bargained with, Benedict will throw in the two 500-gp emeralds, and keep 44 gp, making the total 3,000 gp.
Erno eyes the coins covetously. After a moment of thought and listening to Benedict, he looks over his ledgers one more time. "I suppose... I don't need to account for the expense of returning back to my abode, given the present circumstances. That would mean..." He makes a couple more notes.
"The 2,044 will suffice."
He steps out of William's body and greedily reaches for the gold and silver offered by Benedict. Somehow, his ghostly fingers manage to clasp around it, and he absorbs the coins into his essence before fading away.
As William is about to stand up from the desk where he was sitting, he notices that it was damaged from the rubble, and an ordinarily locked drawer is partially open. Forcing it open is no trouble at all, and he finds 1,060 gp within.