You arrive back on the docks without incident. At this point, every time you see a rodent you can't help but feel that you're being spied upon. You give your leave to Conroy and his crew start unloading the day's catch. It's an uneventful trip across town to the pathfinder lodge. As usual, the city watch gives you some ugly looks at being on the street in a nice part of town. You get back to the lodge and you are ushered into the study. Sheila arrives in a flurry and asks: "We're you successful? Did you find the next shard?"
You make your way back up the stairs to the fourth level. You're more burdened down with loot than you were when you came this way. You can tell the the Tower Girls took anything useful that wasn't nailed down when they came this way after you defeated them. When you reach the secret entrance over the shaft Apex, you find that the Tower Girls have vandalized the ropes and platforms that you used to reach the entrance from the ledge. Nocki's climbing equipment comes to the rescue though and he is able to rig ropes from the top of the shaft to the ledge. While climbing down from the top you can see that the Tower Girl's boats, which had been pulled up and the entrance far below, are gone. You can see Conroy Crabfisher's boat, The Green Wave, sitting at anchor a short distance from the small dock. You wave, but you're too high up for the crew to notice you. Taking up your burdens after the climb, you hurry down the stairs. You're cautious, looking out for other sabotage or traps on the way down. Reaching the bottom, you are able to signal out to the boat and you see them weigh anchor and begin to row in. As a approach, you can see Conroy in the bow: "Ahoy there lubbers! Everyone ok there? We saw a couple of small boats heading off towards the city as week approached." "It looks as if you folk found something in there after all!"
The door seems to work the same way as the puzzle box. The runes will obviously spell out a word to allow passage through the door. Without speaking/reading Thassilonian, it is hard to guess at the pattern. With the help of the library back at the Pathfinder Lodge, you feel like you should be able to translate the letters and comeup with potential candidate words. The door is hot, Olander can move the tiles on the door without any harm because of his fire resistance, but the rest of you would be burned if you touched the hot metal.
You are presently on the 3rd level. To get to the first level, you need to go up to the fourth, cross back out of the secret door above the water, and then head down the long stairs back to the first level. The second level is where you found the burning door with the puzzle. It is below you presently, but you explored everything except whatever lies beyond the door.
Mikkitar can't think of any way to use the water from the foot washing basin to track the Tower Girls. It does appear the basin is probably a valuable antique. Exhausting the search of these barracks without finding anything more interesting than the two antiques, the party proceeds to the final passage out of the central room on this level. A short passage leads to an empty room. Beyond that is a room that the gang seems to have been using for food storage. Several crates, barrels, and sacks lie here, stacked in an orderly
These consist of barrels of salted fish, dried beans, and stale bread, sacks of rye flour, two casks of Varisian whiskey, and boxes of traditional Varisian spices. Several rats scatter as you enter the room.
Nocki:
The brass platter with the rat food looks like it is old, but of pretty good quality. On the floor there is a pottery basin filled with lavender scented water that one of the Tower Girls was using to soak her feet before you guys busted in on this level and started killing people. The bedrolls and blankets spread around look like they would be sleeping quarters for all of the Tower Girls that you fought earlier.
To the northwest you find an empty room, the only real feature of note is a window looking out over the water. You continue to explore in a clockwise fashion, finding a hallway that leads to room that served as a dormitory for the Tower Girls. A dozen bedrolls occupy this large chamber, and a few pieces of crude wooden furniture have been set up between them—a couple of scavenged chairs, a bench, and a short table. Torches mounted on brackets in each wall burn merrily. As you enter, a pair of oversized donkey rats that had been eating an abandoned meal scuttle off to avoid you. Behind an unlocked door, you find a bedroom for one of the Tower Girl lieutenants. This room smells strongly of rats—a mix of spoiled food, dander, and the pungent sting of rat feces, all under an incongruous scent of lavender. A blanket has been spread on the floor, and a recovered antique brass platter holds a few bits of rat-gnawed food.
@Mikkitar: on the corpse of the mummified man you find a masterwork chain shirt, a masterwork rapier, a pendant crafted from gold beaten into the image of a lanner falcon and suspended upon a gold chain, 50 feet of silk rope, and a leather pouch containing 250 gp. @Nocki: you copy down the characters from the puzzle on the hot doors.
Sorry, I thought I had posted Mikkitar finds a hidden door in the back of the wererats bedroom! The secret door opens into a small closet that holds the mummified body of a dead man! The body is dressed in dusty clothes and has been here for some time, but the clothes are of recent style so it must have been an explorer from the recent past. Map updated with secret closet
working on a concept and a rough build. The idea is a gnome gardener who stole a just rooted sapling treant from his employer's greenhouse and made off with it. He tried to return the tree to the forest it had been taken from, but it couldn't go back to life in the wild and kept following the gnome when he tried to leave. Now, years later, the sapling has grown up to be big and imposing, but still needs his gnome buddy to help him navigate the outside world.
Sandu appears to push his torso into the wall, disappearing from the waist down. Sandu: You lean into the wall and in a moment your head extends out into the open air outside. The illusion seems to cover up what was probably constructed as an open window. You see the water and the harbor outside the Crow. You are approximately 30' up the side of the structure.
Nocki heads out into the larger room and checks the northwest door. It opens stiffly and you have to push some broken tiles and rubble out of the way to open it. It is pretty disappointing, with only a short hallway that ends in a collapse of rubble after a few feet. Map Updated There is still a chest under the bed you haven't investigated.
As Sandu and Olander read, Nocki and Mikkitar poke about the room some more. The books are full of scratchy handwriting recording the thoughts and notes they provide details on Ayala’s history with and plans for the Tower Girls, including her increasing frustration at Natalya’s betrayal. The sound and smell of the ocean is really strong on the east side of the room, as if the water was right there and not behind a thick stone wall. There is no sign of the whereabouts of Ayala, the wererat leader. Mikkitar and Nocki, I need both of you to give me a perception check and a will save.
Heaped on a table are sections of wall mural, ancient coins, pieces of jewelry, gems, bits and pieces of pottery. There are a couple of books/journals that are not as old. Nocki:
The collection is probably worth 900 gp Everyone in the room can hear the sound of waves against the side of the Crow, like you were outside. The sound seems to come from the east side of the room. |