"No time to reload, wait a minute, I didn't study for years just to shoot people!" Zareth then sends a bolt of force into the uninjured foe.
Noticing the trouble that her fellow elf is having a bit of trouble, Bel will get within range of the third ruffian and toss her bolas at said target.
Bart, lacking a shield, will hold his truncheon in front of him in both hands.
"Now, now, fellow. Surely you see this is a hopeless cause, simply let us pass and this can all end."
If negotiations fail, Bart will try and give one a sound smack on the chin with a two-handed swing of the truncheon.
Bel tosses her bolas at the ruffian threatening Lua but it goes wide in the darkness. Zareth blasts the ruffian with a bolt of eldritch energy. The ruffian then lunges at Lua and falls face first into the deck, unconscious (Lua didn't actually get hurt since the ruffian would have fallen before attacking her). The second ruffian stabs Bart (Bart didn't have his armor on correct?) and spits at him, "You won't take me alive scum!" Orion answers the strike with a strike and Bart likewise hits the fellow knocking him unconscious.
Two of the ruffians are just unconscious. The third ruffian near Lua is bleeding out from the lethal damage Zareth did to him.
On the top of the tower there appears to be a complex type of door built into the ground.
"Hmm, I wonder what that's supposed to be..." Bel wonders, trying to get a better look at the door.
Lua will bend down and tap the 3rd ruffian with a 1 pnt cure minor wounds, then head over to look at the door with Bel....
"What have we got here ?"
Orion drags the bodies of the two unconscious ruffians onto the boat along with the one that Lua stabilized. "I think I will accompany these people back to town to make sure these thugs get properly dealt with.", Orion says. "We will come back tomorrow night to take you off. Sorry I won't be going into the tower with you but I think it is important that these thieves are brought to justice."
Johnathan meanwhile has joined the two elves examining the complex door. Johnathan quietly examines the door carefully for a couple of minutes, pushing here and there when suddenly he presses something and the door opens, moving down and then sliding into the rock surrounding. A dimly lit staircase spirals down into the tower.
Bart bids farewell to his new, young friend Orion.
"Return when you can, we'll leave the door open for you," says Bart with a warm smile.
Soon he joins his friends and ignites his last sunrod. With Orion gone, perhaps I should lead the way? Unless, Mr. Snow, you would like to scout ahead?"
Zareth pulls out a sunrod.
"So long, Orion. So, lets go down, shall we?"
"I don't think it would be a good idea to keep the door open during the day." Johnathan mentions. "It is likely the water will rise and cover it and flood the tower, not something I would wish to be in when it happens."
Orion waves to his fellow adventurers, "Take care my friends, we shall see you tomorrow night if all goes well."
Johnathan turns to Bart, "Lead the way by all means. Just watch your step and don't touch anything."
As you go down into the tower, the stairs spiral around towards the edge of the tower. There are occasional lights flickering in the darkness (look to be everburning torches built in to the structure of the wall making it impossible to remove without destroying them), but they are too spread out and dim to make it comfortable to see by without the sunrods. You come to a place where the interior wall has crumbled a bit exposing a dark hole. It looks like an archway was stoned over at some point. The stairs continue downward.
"Hmmm. It looks like someone tried to seal this archway over. Well, if there's anywhere in this dungeon where you would be behind an apparently whole wall. Let's investigate, shall we?"
Zareth then gets ready to strike his sunrod.
Lua will ready her bow and approach Zareth.(As her bolas are now out to sea)
"I think your right, they probably didn't search behind a wall....but was it built to keep things out, or to keep something in? I believe we should proceed with caution."
With that she will glance at Bart,Bel and Johnathan
" How should we go about this?"
"Hmm, maybe we can find a way around, or even a secret way of some sort to get into this place." Bel will chime in. She will then go around looking for some way to get in.
Bel doesn't find any other entrance to the inner chamber.
Johnathan says, "If we want to investigate this, we will have to open it up wider. That hole is too small for any of us to fit through. Only a child or small animal could get through it."
Being discouraged with her findings, Bel answers Johnathan. "Well, why don't we use a hammer or some other blunt object? Perhaps that'll do the trick."
"Hmmm, aside from this truncheon I do not think we have much that could open that hole. I could give it a try, but it could take hours or days. I would advise a different course of action."
Johnathan looks at the hole and the bricks in place. "I'm sure if we work together we could bang those bricks out. The mortar looks weakened by all the dampness. Of course it would probably be a bit back breaking at first. We could just continue down and look into it on our way back out if we want."
"I vote we continue on down and try it on the way back. We don't know what else is in here and the banging could draw unwanted attention."Lua will glance down the way seeing if the sounds of their conversation has attracted anything.
"Yeah, sounds like a good idea, let's keep going down", Johnathan agrees.
Lua you don't notice any thing that has taken notice of you, but you do notice that in a few places along the outer wall there are very small water leaks. Leaving a couple of puddles here and there on the stairs.
As everyone nears the entrance Bart draws his greatsword and takes up position in front of the party.
A trickle of sea water runs down the staircase. The stone masonary is weakened in places and in one case they stone stairs have fallen through altogether. Passage will require vaulting the gap.
The walls along the stairs shelter a trio of small alcoves. In each alcove are small figurines: hand-painted fetishes carved from ivory and decorated with hair and small beads. The first nook holds a fierce-looking barbarian, the second a pair of snarling panthers, and the last a somber knight.
"Johnathan, perhaps you could setup a rope for us? I do not feel like making such a jump wearing this heavy armor at the moment. However, most of us should be able to make it on a sturdy, knotted rope."
"Hmm. This does not bode well for the dungeon's structural integrity. So, who wishes to jump the gorge first?"
Johnathan starts getting out some rope and then looks at the other two men. "Are we jumping or climbing down?"
Bart is rather surprised by Zareth's suggestion.
"Really, I think the rope is a better course at the moment. It would be quite a shame to make it this far only to plummet and injure ourselves this early."
"My vote is for climbing down, but we may want to backtrack back up, to make sure we don't miss anything." Lua will tighten her gear and make sure nothing loose is hanging out to catch aything on the climb down.
"I guess we're climbing down then." Bel mentions. "Personally, I would prefer to jump over, but I guess the old men can't do such a task anymore..."
Johnathan will finishing taking out some silk rope and tie it onto a grappling hook and move up the stairs and around the curve a bit. He quickly returns with the rope trailing behind him and drops it down the hole. "I braced it up a bit so it should be able to handle our weight if we go one at a time."
Bart chuckles, "I'll accept old-man jokes from Orion but not from anyone who's likely three times my age, elfling."
Bart takes his time to carefully get down the rope and set up guard at the bottom while the others climb down.
"Oh. I didn't think of that." Zareth says dejectedly before climbing down with the rest of the group.
After climbing down the rope and traveling a bit farther down the stairs you come to a chamber.
This chamber is dominated by a trio of arches set against the walls of the room. Each arch resembles a snarling dragon; all are carved from dark mahogany and bound in bronze.
The arches would be identical were it not for their gemstone eyes. The dragon in the southwest corner of the room has emeralds for eyes; the dragon in the northwest corner, pearls; the dragon in the northeast is missing its gemstones and the eye sockets are empty.
Beneath the arches are flat slabs of blank obsidian.
An enormous eldritch sigil is etched into the stone floor, dividing the room into three distinct vectors. A fight must have taken place here: dried blood can be found near the pearl archway.
upon arriving on the next floor down...
"We should be careful here, it may have been a fight or possibly a trap." Lua will glance around defensively looking for possible lurking assailants.. Not noticing anything she relaxes somewhat.
Checking out the surroundings of the new area, Bel will look at the sockets with no jewelery. (from a small distance away...)
"I wonder what was supposed to go here..." Bel will say to no one in particular.
"Hmmm, this is interesting. Whatever could this mean?" Zareth says as he looks at the glyph, grinning slightly.
Zareth
In response to Bel's offhand question Johnathan says, "I am less interested in what was there than what is in the other ones." He then sets his pack down and begins taking out some tools. "Might as well make some profit while we are here, right?"
"Beware friend Johnathan, they may be cursed or trapped."Lua will ready an arrow, looking for possible trouble.
Bart will put up one strong arm to try and keep Johnathan at bay.
"Best to be listening to the lady, lad. If all goes well, we can drag them out of here as we leave."
"Hmm. These arches are apparentlly mystic portals powered by blood. Let's try not bleeding on the rune, shall we? I certainly don't want to find out where they lead."
Johnathan studies the gem stones for a time. "I don't think they are trapped, but they seemed to be somehow tied to some function of the arches."
Turning to Zareth, "Well if we don't want to take one of these portals, then it looks like we've come to a deadend here. I guess we can climb back up and try to break open that other chamber."
Johnathan looks at the others. Seeing no response from them he walks over to the archway with the gems missing and draws a dagger and cuts his hand. "Let's just see how these work shall we."
*drip*
*drip*
*drip*
Nothing happens as the blood drops to the ground in front of the archway. "Doesn't seem to work."
"Well, I assume it is supposed to be powered on more than three drops of blood. After all, anyone could give up three drops of blood. If you wanted any actual security on this sort of thing, you'd have to power it on more blood than that."
After seeing Johnathan use his own blood, and then Zareth mention more blood is needed, Bel takes a few steps back from them, looking with concern at both men.
"Oh, don't worry, Bel. I'm not actually implying that we should slit someone's arteries to power the gates. Besides, I personally doubt the gates lead anywhere we would want to go in the first place. So, let's go back to the gap in the wall, shall we?"
"I think we should go back to the wall, and break through.I'm not interested in gating through a portal to who knows where"
Lua will climb back up ()
Johnathan will shrug his shoulders and head back. He'll wait till everyone has climbed back up the rope before stowing it away.
The party heads back up the stairs, passing the alcoves with the small figurines, and gets back to the walled off entrance.
After working for over an hour, you finally are able to open the door way enough to pass through. Inside you find a balcony and a large chamber filling the center of the tower. The ceiling is 15 ft above the balcony and the floor is 35 ft below.
In the center of the floor there is a pedestal. And along the walls of the chamber are hundreds of small alcoves, each with a small crystal disk in it.