"Okay, so we're going together, so can we get going?" Polli cleans her glasses as she snaps in impatience, obviously crankier than usual.
Taking off her glasses while she talks to her fellow officers has become a tactical decision on her part because just seeing lips moving and a peeking, here and there, of a soft pink tongue is driving the poor wizard to the brink of utter distraction. Then there is the straining of fabric across a chest or a swaying of a skirt as someone walks.
F@~!! F$$+! F%!@! F**$! she mentally swears from hells to heavens. I will kill them.
She tells herself she is going to kill those damn twins quite often these days, with just a little bit of doubt that she could bring herself to do so, or succumb to... other... things.
She'll cast her bunch of daily and hourly spells.
Heading ashore in the longboat you begin the trek through the undergrowth towards the clearly visible tower. The greenery is thick and trackless and it takes you till lunchtime to reach your goal. During your trek through the jungle-like growth, you've seen nothing in the way of higher animals. Not even birds have disturbed the lonely sound of the wind and the sea. Other than the buzz of insects, that is. The island seems to have no shortage of insects and spiders. Biting, crawling, and buzzing around in full force.
Around noon, you reach your goal; The Black Tower itself.
The tower is made of a strange, weirdly porous but fantastically strong dark stone with a rough, grainy feel similar to pumice, yet with the strength of marble. The sides of the tower are overgrown with thick, slippery vines that look to be easily climbable, and the tower is crowned with a growth of greenery at the very top. You spend a few minutes searching, but find neither door nor window at the ground level and, in fact, see no windows on any of the sides at any height.
One good thing about a miserable jungle filled with biting infernal s!~$ty insects, it clears the mind of other thoughts. So oddly, Polli becomes a little less irritable. "Magic. It's keeping the entire thing up." she sounds impressed, very impressed, and happily spends whatever time they have before going UP studying it with her magical senses. "I'll keep a teleport handy in case the unthinkable happens when we are in there and we trigger the magic going away."
Tessa toughs it out through all of the biting and crawling insects, avoiding the worst of any disease that might be floating about.
Tugging on a vine, she says "Everyone ready to climb?"
"Oh fine" Polli sours again, being pulled away from studying. She casts levitate on Dony, sliding her hand in hers with a soft glance and lovely smile then flies them up into the air, hovering while the others start their various forms of accession.
Harmony does fairly well until she gets stung in the neck - at which point she has to bite back a lot of curses.
Examining the tower is pretty straightforward. Harmony already knew that the tower was impossible without magic.
"I think we'll have to climb it..." She says unhappily. "This is definitely the time for a flying scout!"
"Would you rather I cast flight on you? I have a few memorized but was thinking it might be better if we get in a fight that needs Pirate Queen Tessa to get to a spot she couldn't quickly." Polli asks Harmony with a slight frown, wondering why she felt the need to call Tessa that suddenly.
"Val's our best scout and she can fly herself." Harmony responds, with one raised eyebrow at her fiance's new title. "Save your spells until we know what we're dealing with."
Polli frowns deeper at the raised eyebrow, then glances at Tessa with the deepest of frowns, then pointedly looks away and starts moving upward at a slow pace to match the two climbing captains.
Val quickly reaches the top of the tower and, seeing no immediate threat, waits at the edge for her captains to climb the height of the peculiar structure. Polli and Donomsail slowly rise along with the two climbing figures.
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.
Harmony and Valeria easily identify a section of sunken ground where an ancient trap door hangs partially open, clogged with rubble, soil, and roots. A few minutes of work clears the debris and reveals the top of a curved flight of stairs winding down into the tower.
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.
At the bottom of the stairway is a door and behind that, a room.
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.
Val remains quiet as they make their way through the jungle and then up and into the tower. She finally speaks when they reach the spiked door. ”There’s a hunk of serpentine in this basin of salt,” she points out, ”we may want to check it for magic before touching it though.”
Turning her attention to the message on the door, she wonders aloud, ”is the ‘she’ the shrouded queen? Maybe they succeeded in sealing her behind the door but not in killing her?”
As she walks down the stairs Donomsail takes the time to look at the symbols on the wall.
On the wall
Then, as she steps into the room and, notices more iconography, she starts walking around studying it.
In the room
"The handprint be most like from Nogrobite Assassins. They be callin' their diety Blackfingers. As ta tha rest, welp this place gots me real spooked 'n' Ah no be recallin' what tha meanin' o' them be."
"Dagon..." Harmony says after a long time studying the iconography, "Demon lord of deformity and drowning. Not a nice guy. I think these things are all the ways he can be portrayed."
"The Shrouded Queen was probably a worshipper of Dagon, it would explain a lot, and she was slain by Captain Aiger who was a Norgorberite - so that would explain the images. Val, try putting the stone in the basin over there."
She points to the serpentine basin.
Polli looks over anything anybody wants to touch with her magic, but otherwise keeps an eye on that door. "She lives? The Shrouded Queen I'd imagine. When we should cast our spells of protection and offense Before opening that I think."
Val moves to retrieve the heart-shaped piece of serpentine from the statue. She notes that, as she lifts it, it's removal is designed to trigger some sort of device. With quick hands, one could replace the carved serpentine with something of similar weight.
Val nods at Polli's words and adds, "I don't know what the Shrouded Queen is, or was, but if a whole expedition couldn't do any better than locking her away there's a good chance there's more sealing the door than just those metal spikes... you might want to give that a look too while you're checking out auras?"
At the captain's order she turns her attention to the wooden figure and the stone mounted on it, moving to pull it out and then stopping short. "It's a trap..." she relays to the others. "When you remove the stone the change in weight sets some kind of mechanism in motion. There's a similar stone in the basin there... someone with nimble enough fingers could switch them out without triggering it? Although... I'm not sure what to do with the stone after that... Other than that, we could ignore it or have someone trigger it with magic once we're a safe distance away?" Cautiously moving about the room, the slayer searches for signs of any other traps (or of what all is involved with the one already discovered).
"Already doing so." Polli points out as she continues to look at the door for anything that might appear magical in nature.
When people are ready, she'll cast a flight spell on Tessa and Dony, a haste on everyone, and protection from evil on herself.
"If it's a trap then it's more important than I thought." Harmony says. "Is it the unlocking mechanism for the door? And why this second part?"
She joins in the search for clues, wracking her brains for anything that might help.
Tessa balances Wayfinder in her hand, keeping a vigilant eye about and trying hard to not make Polli call her Pirate Queen Tessa again. She lets them hash out the trap, unsure herself what exactly is going on but ready to strike should when trouble arrives.
You search the room fairly extensively but don't discover any potential usage for the heart-shaped serpentine stone in this room.
"Let's leave it alone for now then." Harmony decides. "No point disturbing something if we can't use it. Now to open that door..."
She goes to examine the door, with a focus on how to open it.
Finding no other clues in the room, Harmony steps up to the door and with a few taps with the hilt of the dagger, she knocks the spikes loose and opens the door revealing the room that appears to take up the rest of this level of the tower.
A guiding row of black iron candleholders protrudes from the curving southwestern wall, their candles long since melted into foul-scented, 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.
Any attempt to force the statue aside or bypass it looks like it will trigger a very nasty magical trap.
"Hold on, hold on-" Tessa says, putting her hand out to stop everyone. "Looks like the chest area with no eels can be turned and pushed into the statue. Anything else is likely to make bad things happen."
Turning to Harmony, "Alright Vi, let's see you do your thing. Carefully dear, carefully."
Harmony grins. "How about a kiss for good luck first?" She asks. Once she sets to work it becomes apparent that Tessa does give lucky kisses...
"Okay, so no trap then, but do we still need to do something with the man's chest? Should we use the heart you found in the other room? Maybe press it in and rotate with it, or do we use our hands to press and rotate and then put the thing in there?" after getting people's ideas Polli will move in and try it, lifting the heart with her magic and pressing it into the chest, trying to rotate it all, then if that doesn't work, she'll sigh and use her own hand.
It's a simple matter to rotate the small section of the statue's chest and press it in. This reveals a heart-shaped space that looks to be sized perfectly for the heart-shaped piece of serpentine in the previous room.
... the piece of serpentine that's resting on a trapped stand. It could probably be replaced with the other piece of stone that's in one of the basins with a quick and delicate hand without triggering the trap.
”It looks like this is where we need to use that stone...” Val observes. ”Do you want to disable the trap on the basin, Cap’n, or are we going to have someone try to switch them? Or have Polli grab it with magic and hope that the consequences won’t reach this far, or stop us from getting out later?”
"All the options are risky." Harmony replies. "Let me take a look and see if we can figure out what the trap will do."
She suits actions to words, examining the trap minutely with both magical and mundane senses.
Harmony can determine that removing the stone without disarming the trap will fire a jet of cursed water at a random person in the room. What the curse is, she's unable to tell.
Tessa obliges her co-captain and turns the dark-haired woman's head to her own before planting her lips on Harmony's. "For good luck."
Once Harmony relays the information, she nods. "Doesn't make sense to have everyone in the room then, I think. "
Looking back to Harmony, she asks "What do you think? Can you disarm it or should we pursue another approach?"
"I'll try. I need everyone but one person out of the room. We also need something that can cover that vent in the Eye - care to lend me your hat sweetie?"
Once she has someone standing by with something to cover the vent and well out of the splash arc themselves, she sets to work - weaving a little magic to help her out.
With nimble fingers, Harmony manages to disable the trigger mechanism for the trapped stand and removes the large piece of serpentine with no complications. Placing the stone heart into the recess in the grotesque statue causes it to slide to the side exposing the descending staircase. With nothing else holding your interest at this level, you descend to the next floor.
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.
"So that's yellow mold, which we absolutely do not want to touch or else its lung damage for all of us." Harmony says with a frown, her encyclopedic knowledge coming in handy. "And I wouldn't walk on the floor either. How much flying do we have available? Worst case some of us could just drop down into the room below through the floor. Speaking of... Val could you sneak down to the next level? If there's something unpleasant down there we could probably drop this floor on them!"
"I have two flight spells memorized and can push for a third. Which will get all of us in the air. But for only a limited time... about eleven minutes." Polli points out, slightly irritated at the limitations of her magic. "I worry if the floor collapses the mold might eject its spores. I could blast the room in fire to kill it first?" it is obvious from her tone she doesn't love the idea, but offers it up as an option.
Once Harmony has disarmed the trap, Val gives an acknowledging nod and brings Tessa's still dry hat back to her.
Several rooms later, when the dark-haired captain asks her to scout ahead she glides over to the other staircase, hides herself in the shadows, and transforms into a goblin. Then she creeps down the stairs far enough to take a peek at what's down there.
"We'll wait for Val before making a decision." Harmony says firmly. "I can carry a few of us across the room if need be."
As Valeria rises up from the unstable floor and begins moving across two other shapes rise up from below. Hideous shapes. They look like a mass of floating intestines tangled around a fanged mouth — the tips of the coils also end in toothy maws.
Combat Begins!
Round 1
Tessa takes her hat back with a smile that quickly sours. "That is the most disgusting thing I have seen today." Tessa remarks with a frown, "It's just not right."
Groaning and grabbing her stomach, Tessa doubles over.
Val recoils slightly at the truly foul sight before her. Shaking off the disgust she quickly studies the toothy balls of innards and instinctively starts stabbing the one next to her.
With her flurry of stabs complete, she flaps backwards moving slightly closer to her companions .
Harmony gasps at the sight of the creatures, really wishes she hadn't and joins Tessa dry heaving on the floor.
Both Tessa and Harmony have their attention diverted immediately to their stomachs which have begun outright rebellion. Valeria moves up and uses her shortswords effectively, stabbing here and there and opening up vicious wounds on one of the creatures. Unfortunately each wound Val inflicts sprays the slayer with acidic fluid. The final strike even more so. Donomsail reaches out and touches Tessa and speaks a quick prayer. Tessa instantly feels better.
The injured creature moves a little closer to strike at the red-headed captain with its mouthed tentacles while the other strikes at Valeria.
Polli is frankly fascinated "How does it even move?" the wizard says in awe as she watches the intestines roll about. "Oh its a Nyogoth, from the Abyss. I read about them but never thought... they would be this gross!"
"Abyss, so lawful attacks and immune to acid, cold, poison. Resistant to Electricity and fire. And their intestines are filled with powerful stomach acid so..." she's too late on that one as Val is bathed in the vile stuff.
Polli doesn't love using one of her most powerful spells this early, but she doesn't like her friends being bathed in acid either, so a green ray shoots from her fingers.
Harmony continues to wretch, heave and feel generally miserable/
Tessa suddenlly pulls it together, the sickness fading away. Spitting once to the side, she steps up and thrashes the creature with Wayfinder.
Val flaps her big black wings and spins through the air over behind the ball of intestines that she and Tessa have stabbed. Once there, she stabs at it again.
Polli's ray strikes the second creature squarely causing pieces of it to crumble to dust.
Round 2
Tessa's blade stabs deep and a gout of acidic bile sprays back at her. Undeterred, she stabs it again with a similar result. Harmony attempts to wrest her insides back under control while Valeria flips through the air to descend behind Tessa's foe. Plunging her short blade into the creature, she's rewarded with another spray of acid, but the beast plummets to the ground below, the squelching sound it makes when it hits signals its demise. Donomsail repeats her spell on Harmony and the bard instantly feels better.
The remaining creature slams one of its tentacles against a nearby patch of the mold and a cloud of spores fills the air. It then moves closer to Tessa and snaps at her with its main mouth which she manages to brush aside with her blade, stabbing it yet again, but more acid jets out at her.