Bruce (Grenville d'Tharashk) notes that production just paged him, and reflects upon the wisdom of simply ignoring them. Perhaps he should take a page from the last session summary and go looking for some spoiled cream. Ernest (Kurgash d'Tharashk) mourns that he rolled only five for his hit point roll, but still has more hit points than anyone else in the group. In your face, Bard! Now all he needs is to figure out how to get Blind-Sight. Chris (Thaiphong) suggests that he'd be willing to put out Ernest's eyes and shut him up in a room with lots of objects. Sharp objects. Chuck (Xim) offers up that a better plan would be to simply become a Dragon Disciple. Tim (Silharath) points out that he thought Ernest was thinking in terms of real life, not just in the game. Billy (Secheck) hoots out "But the game is life! The game is life!" Paul quiets everyone else down and once again explains the difference between "reality" and "fantasy" in small words that everyone can understand.
Some time has passed, and it is now Olarune 6. The characters find themselves sitting around a table in a common house, staring at the +1 Longsword and +1 Shield they recovered during their last adventure. Thaiphong mentions, "No fricking way are we selling a magical weapon that the group can use. But I think we should sell the magic shield and buy a wand of Cure Light Wounds." Silharath rather hopefully offers, "Or we could keep the shield and use it to make me more survivable?" Nobody agrees, as the shield can be sold for 610 gold with only a bit of negotiation from Grenville d'Tharashk. Unfortunately, wands of Cure Light Wounds can only be made by clerics and artificiers, neither of which are common in Zarash'ak. Thaiphong manages to find an artificer willing to make one for 1000 gold.
After selling the shield and buying the wand, each character gets 121 gold as a share of the mundane treasure. The delivery of Jaressa Glenill to the Finders' Guild brings in another 50 gold each. Thaiphong dumps the rest of the looted equipment on the table and asks everyone to take what they want; whatever is left will be sold. Xim takes the two captured spell books: he is already looking ahead to the day when he can actually use them. He also picks up two daggers taken from the Hidden Door. Kurgash picks up a short bow and laments that all the chain shirts taken from the kenku are "small."
The subsequent equipment sales bring in another 110 gold each.
The characters decide to avoid selling the six treasure-keeper locks they took from the Hidden Door. They figure that they're probably a bit hot at the moment.
Finally, Thaiphong inspires everyone into making a quick midnight trip to steal Jaressa Glenill's fantastic wardrobe from the Jovial Jackal. The characters park it in Grenville d'Tharashk's flat. Xim takes all her clothes. Everyone else wishes that he'd stop modeling the lingerie for them.
Grenville, happy with his almost reliable ability to use low-level scrolls, spends 137 gold and 5 silver to purchase scrolls of Acid Splash, Daze, Flare, Jump, Reduce Person, Animate Rope, and Shield. And then he spends 25 gold more on a fast-draw scroll bandolier. The effect leaves him looking both tough and ridiculous. Thaiphong giggles, "I bet he thinks he's magically potent!" Silharath giggles at the sight of a bugbear giggling. Xim giggles out of simple girlish glee. Kurgash grumps off to find someone who can explain what "potent" means. Grenville just sulks.
Thaiphong estimates that he has killed six people, counting both Hidden Door thieves and kenku bandits. He finds a guy in the Crafters' Quarter who will sell him steel rings for 3 silver each. He buys six of them and has them braided into his hair. Then he spends 1 gold on a really thorough grooming and shampooing. Xim sniffs, "I smell wet bugbear." Kurgash comments, "Those nice pink bows in his hair are a nice touch." Thaiphong protests, "I didn't want the bows! I didn't ask for the bows! But the hairdresser insisted..." He seems a bit crestfallen by the experience, and resolves to be more careful the next time he gets into a staredown with a 12th-level Expert hairdresser.
And then he buys some alchemical hardware, including smokesticks and thunderstones. He complains about their cost, but only when the others can't hear him.
Kurgash buys twenty arrows. He pays for them one copper piece at a time. The others remind him that he's going to have to modify his behavior into using higher-denomination coins soon, or he'll break through the city's boardwalks from the weight.
Living costs in Zarash'ak are as follows:
| Victuals (good quality, per day) | 5 silver |
| Victuals (typical quality, per day) | 3 silver |
| Victuals (poor quality, per day) | 1 silver |
| Lodging (good inn, per day) | 2 gold |
| Lodging (typical inn, per day) | 5 silver |
| Lodging (questionable inn, per day) | 2 silver |
| Lodging (Jovial Jackal storeroom, per day) | free |
| Lodging (Grenville's flat, per day*) *only for Grenville; nobody else is invited. Hah! |
2 silver |
The characters find that they have three weeks to kill. Grenville spends 147 silver eating well and living in his flat. Xim goes all-out stays at a nice inn for 2 gold per day. He eats well too.
Thaiphong sleeps in the larder of the Jovial Jackal, on top of the bags of rice, but points out that he is willing to pay for good food.
Silharath decides to live off the streets like a homeless person. He hunts in the canals for nutria. He suspects that his old Survival instructors never thought their lessons would be put to this particular use. He does well enough to feed two other people. Thaiphong observes Silharath's initial efforts as they come out of the stewpot. He rumbles out, "Looks like a rat to me. Tastes like one too! Thanks!" Then Silharath astounds everyone else by managing to hunt down and kill a fifteen-foot alligator. He brings it back to the Jovial Jackal. He, Thaiphong and Kurgash end up eating like kings. Swamp kings!
Kurgash teaches the others some orcish cooking. He is happy to eat alligator, and put his food money towards alcohol.
One morning, Silharath gets up a bit too fast and hits his head. He falls to the ground, his mind filled by a vision of a tower in the swamp topped with a flashing red crystal eye of pain. He staggers to his feet, barely able to move under the pressure of a terrible headache. He moans, "But I don't even have the One Ring! Aieee!" After a few attempts to assuage his pain with alcohol he just gives up and lies on the floor of the Jovial Jackal twitching around randomly.
Kurgash walks in and takes a look at him. He glances over at Thaiphong, who nods and agrees, "Now the kicking starts." Thaiphong takes another bite out of his nutria sandwich. The tail moves. Xim offers, "You're supposed to kill them before you make sandwiches of them." Thaiphong ignores him.
Kurgash decides that the best plan for Silharath is to block the evil emanations with a colander. The characters dig one up from the Jovial Jackal's kitchen, then they drag him over to Grenville's place.
Right in front of Grenville's apartment building, a halfling in cleric's robes runs up and exclaims, "Oh no! Not another one! Bring him to the House Jorasco hospital! At once!"
Thaiphong raises an ear and asks, "Is it catching?"
The cleric replies, "Oh no! He's kalashtar! All of the kalashtar in town are affected!"
It is at this moment that a bugbear barbarian and a pile of hobgoblins attack. The barbarian leads off by going nuts and charging the group, apparently deeply intent upon Silharath. Thaiphong yells, "Crap! He's a barbarian!" and grabs for his weapons.
Grenville does what he always does when things go to hell: he sings! Xim rolls his eyes and casts Bless while Secheck gets down to the bloody business of the day and shoots down one of the hobgoblins. The halfling cleric Leandra drags Silharath away from the insane bugbear.
Meanwhile, down on the ground Silharath has a vision of his Quori ancestor Harath. The thing has tentacles and eyes all around. It intones, "I need you to accomplish a task for me. I need you to save my children. And I will grant you powers!" Silharath enthuses, "Gravy" Unfortunately, his only superpower turns out to be that he no longer has a headache. Silharath grouses, "Goddamn. I shoulda picked a more useful Creepy Tentacle Daddy."
Kurgash slashes at the bugbear barbarian, making him madder. The barbarian ends up so mad that he chops Kurgash down with a single strike. Thaiphong complains, "Craptacular." Thaiphong shows how upset he is by missing his attack.
Secheck mentions, "Okay, I'm no longer going to be worried about shooting into your combat!" He lands a shaft right into the bugbear. By now, the bugbear is looking fairly injured, not that it is slowing him down much.
Leandra goes way beyond the characters' expectations by stepping into harm's way and casting Cure Light Wounds on Kurgash. Kurgash doesn't get up, but he feels a lot better.
Then the hobgoblins pour in. Silharath cuts one down. Grenville annoys another. And then the bugbear barbarian cuts down Thaiphong. Secheck notices that the bugbear is by far the most dangerous thing going, and shoots two arrows at him. Secheck notices that the bugbear is still up. Very uncool.
Xim takes a hobgoblin blade to the gizzard. He observes the way his innards have suddenly become his outwards, but gives it no mind as he stabs right back. The hobgoblin just grins at him.
Silharath lands another arrow into the bugbear, who is now barely hanging on. He screams, "Tentacle Cloud Daddy save me!" Tentacle Cloud Daddy appears to be talking on another line, possibly shopping for a more useful Chosen One.
Grenville delivers another cut to his hobgoblin, actually taking him down. Which says more about how weak these hobgoblins are than how impressive Grenville is. And then the bugbear barbarian steps over and downs Grenville in one strike.
Secheck finally hits the bugbear with one more arrow, taking him down. It took eight arrows from Secheck, plus one from Silharath and an axe strike from Kurgash to do the job. Secheck mops the sweat from his brow. His respite doesn't last that long: a hobgoblin chops at him. He reports to the others, "Still up! But bleeding kinda bad!"
Leandra steps over and brings Grenville back up with a Cure Light Wounds. Grenville reflects upon how glad he is to have an actual healer in nearby circulation.
Another hobgoblin hits Grenville, staggering him and almost bringing him down again. Grenville staggers back and heals himself. He feels so much better! Haha!
Xim demonstrates how butch he is by chopping another hobgoblin almost in half. A hobgoblin with cat's eyes howls and slashes wildly at Xim with his cleaver-like blade, leaving Xim pale from loss of blood. He staggers to one side, then reels to the other quite swiftly, allowing him to strike down the cat-eyed hobgoblin in a single strike!
Secheck ends another hobgoblin, with two arrows in the neck this time. He wonders why all the others seem to be having such a hard time.
Grenville takes more damage. Almost down! But not quite. Then he cuts down another hobgoblin. Silharath comments, "That bard would be a good fighter if he had better math skill."
Secheck continues to shoot hobgoblins in the neck. He gets another one, one arrow in the eye and one in the belly. Thaiphong rather deliriously notices that the second arrow went entirely through the hobgoblin's body and sprang out the other side, trailing intestines. Secheck screams out, "I want people to know I'm a friggin' badass! I'm uglier, shorter and not as blond, but I'm still Legolas!"
Right next to him, Xim takes four more hits. And goes plummeting to zero hit points and the floor, for a well-deserved rest.
Silharath jumps down from the wall he had climbed up and very dramatically chops down yet another hobgoblin. He suddenly wonders, "Why is there a colander on my head?"
Grenville charges at the last hobgoblin and kills him.
Thaiphong groans, "That fight sucked worse for me than the Hidden Door Training Ground fight. Hey Kurgash, did you even manage to roll dice once?"
Kurgash moans, "Only once. Now I sleep the sleep of the just."
Leandra asks Grenville, "You're the leader? Which one of these two do I heal first?"
"Heal Thaiphong. He weights more."
Meanwhile, Xim throws minor healing spells on himself to avoid dropping, then brings Kurgash around with his last Cure Light Wounds spell.
The characters stagger off to the House Jorasco hospital. On the way, Kurgash takes the fallen barbarian's masterwork great axe, then does a little ritual to respect the dead warrior. He notices that bugbear is marked with all sorts of tattoos, but doesn't recognize any of them. Xim does: he has seen them in the past, as part of his studies of The Backstabbery. They remind him of Dragon Below cultist markings. Xim asks, "SO, Thaiphong, you a cultist?"
Thaiphong replies, "No. But all my people back home are. And the ones here too."
Everyone is happy to notice that Leandra is wearing a Sovereign Host medallion.
On the way to the House Jorasco Hospital, Silharath explains his vision to the to the others. He tells the others, "There are some kalashtar that need to be rescued. There is a tower in the swamp, with an Eye of Pain on top of it."
Thaiphong asks, "Is there money in it?"
Silharath lies, "Yes."
Grenville asks, "Will it benefit House Tharashk?"
Silharath continues to lie, "Yes."
Grenville comments, "I roll my Gullibility skill. W00t! I got a 20! I'll believe anything!"
Xim explains that the vision will only come true if Silharath wears the Colander of Power. Silharath reflects, "There are worse character quirks."
The characters head to the House Jorasco hospital and pay out lots of money for Cure Light Wounds spells from the Dragonmarked. Everyone is grateful that Leandra doesn't charge money for her healing efforts on the bridge.
Silharath notices that all the other kalashtar in the city are lying around on the floor of the hospital. When nobody is looking, he puts the colander on one of their heads. Maybe it really works. When he turns around, someone is standing there. He squeaks, "Aah!" Her face is covered by a cowl. Silharath feels embarrassed, because she caught him putting a colander on someone's head.
The cloaked stranger tells Silharath, "You have had the psychic strength to overcome the pain! You are the prophecied son who will end the pain! Will you undertake this quest?"
Silharath replies, "Yes. (sotto voce) do you have any freaky mind control powers that will help me convince the rest of my companions?"
She replies, "NO! I am a flametouched servant of the Light that Never Dies." In the background Thaiphong giggles. For some reason, Silharath hasn't noticed that she's on fire.
Silharath thinks about mocking her, then realizes, "Oh! That's my religion!" Kurgash and Thaiphong fall over laughing. Kurgash is barely intelligible between gasps of laughter, "Oooh! My religion is One Life to Live!"
Thaiphong joins in, "Mine is Guiding Light!"
The cloaked woman ignores the bugbear and the orc, "I've been waiting for you to come..."
Secheck giggles, "Silharath might need a little help in that department."
The woman continues to ignore the less-mature members of the party as she talks to Silharath, "You must travel into the swamp to find the Blinding Eye of Valinor!"
"Okay. What is it?"
"It was created by the Gatekeepers to combat the psychic powers of the daelkyr and their inhabitants." She launches into a long explanation, but in brief a servant of Khyber has shown up and wants to steal the Blinding Eye of Valinor.
"Those fucking aberrations!" Silharath foams at the mouth and goes to get his friends. "By the way, what is your name?"
The cloaked woman finally introduces herself as Lassashallatesatha.
Silharath explains to the others, "Demons underground have brought up a tower of pain in the swamp that is hurting the kalashtar and we need to shut it down. And if we don't deal with this, then it'll bring all the demons from Khyber to stomp over the landscape."
Grenville examines his Bardic Knowledge and suggests that the Eye of Pain is an artifact, and as such could be worth amazing amounts of money.
Secheck asks, "So, where is this thing?"
Lassashallatesatha answers, "Yes, blessed one."
Secheck scoffs, "Blowing sunshine up my ass ain't gonna get me to go on this trip. My tribe was all about prophecies, and it never got us off welfare."
Kurgash adds, "BY the way, we just got owned by some hobgoblins out in the square. What's up with that?"
Lassashalltesatha answers, "I don't know how the servants of Khyber could have known so quickly. This is a very bad sign. If the cultists have access to someone who can read the prophecies written in the air and the smoke, then they are as well-informed as we are. Or maybe they just saw the colander."
The tower should be four days' travel out in the swamp if the characters go quickly. The characters head off to buy provisions. Trail rations cost 5 sp per day; the characters each purchase 10 days' rations. Sunrods are available for 2 gold each; Grenville buys five.
Dismal. Damp. And cold. In a month, it'll still be dismal and damp, but it will be hot. And there will be lots of insects. Kurgash tells the others, "I can't wait for it to be hot!" The first day out is quite uneventful.
On the second day, the characters run into a clan longhouse. Kurgash notes, "These clan guys are usually orcs, humans and half-orcs. They're primitive, sort of like Scotsmen." Thaiphong, Kurgash and Secheck sneak up and figure out that the place is empty. They bring the rest of the group up to investigate. The residents didn't pack anything before they left. Thaiphong finds some blood, but not enough to suggest a massacre. Grenville picks up some rope. The characters have lunch, then take off.
The characters are portaging their reed boats when something horrific attacks. The creature surges up out of a pool of mucky water without warning, stomping at the characters with claws brandished and tentacles lashing. Grenville takes one look at the thing and squeaks, "Eep! It looks like an abominable combination of a squid and a crawdad, grown to horrible scale!"
Silharath takes one look at the thing and crows, "Woohoo! That's gotta be an aberration!" Much to his surprise, he finds that he's got all sorts of freaky mind powers too. It's good to be the Chosen One.
Lassashallatesatha acts like she knows what she's doing. She runs around the thing and attacks so the others can flank. She takes off her hood to reveal that she' got the head of a snake.
Thaiphong steps up and scratches the thing. It hits back, delivering a lot of damage directly to his door. And to Xim as well, knocking him down. And to cap it all, it proceeds to grapple the two of them. Grenville reminds them, "By the way, you all should remember that you have a +1 bonus to resist fear effect or low morale! Just in case it becomes necessary!"
Thaiphong grumbles, "I got an 18 to avoid low morale..." He struggles, but finds that he's thoroughly trapped.
Xim reminds everyone that he has Freedom of Movement from his Travel domain. He frees himself from the grapple like a pat of butter, then runs to hide behind Grenville to heal.
Kurgash flings the boat he's carrying to the side, shouts, "Thaiphong! Hold on!" and charges.
Thaiphong points out, "I don't have to hold on! It's got hold of me!" Kurgash crashes into the thing for 22 points of damage. He is able to detect a wound on the thing. Ichor sprays all over him.
Lassashallatesatha swings her scimitar twice, inflicting a critical hit and showing up all the characters. Well, maybe not: she only does 13 points of damage.
Grenville steps up to heal Thaiphong. Thaiphong feels better, but still very, very grappled.
Kurgash boasts, "Don't worry, Grenville! Fighting aberrations in the swamp is what I'm all about!"
The creature transfers Thaiphong from its claws to its mouth tentacles. He struggles, and slips out of its grasp, just barely. He gasps, "Thank god for Grenville's infernal tweeting!" He staggers away.
Secheck comments, "Those tentacles are paralytic! That could have been so bad!"
Thaiphong spits back, "I didn't think it was going to be good!"
The creature whirls to attack Silharath and Lassashallatesatha. It grabs Silharath easily. Secheck comments, "Oooh... Munch munch." Then he shoots an arrow into its flank.
Kurgash decides to try and get the creature's attention. Xim winces and yells, "Don't do that!" He finds he can't watch. But Kurgash rises to the occasion and cuts the tentacle-headed thing in half. It spins around, so he cuts some tentacles off for good measure. It's body collapses to the ground twitching.
Kurgash pulls his axe free and tells the others, "My people call this the chuul. This is why I have spikes on my armor. Don't you have these things around your part of the swamps?"
Thaiphong replies, "Uhhh... the gators eat them?"
Lassashallatesatha puts her hood back on. Kurgash asks her, "What the hell are you? And don't stare at me, I get orc jokes all the time."
Lassashallatesatha replies, "I am a servant of the Light. I think we need to push on."
Silharath happens to notice some hathol plants nearby. He explains that their roots are valuable: properly prepared, they give a 35% chance of increasing the save DC for a transmutation spell by +1. Unfortunately, Silharath decides to harvest the roots with his teeth. He packs the surviving roots into his bag.
On the fourth day, the characters arrive at the tower. The place is about 50 feet high and 50 feet across. It is round and covered with muck, apparently because it rose out of the swamp. It is slightly tilted, and looks like it once connected to a much larger structure. Grenville calls upon his Locate Object powers to find the nearest Crystal Eye of Pain. He reports that it is up in the middle of the top floor of the tower.
Snake lady Lassashallatesatha explains, "There is a barrier here that the daelkyr erected. I can go no closer."
Grenville gripes, "Isn't that convenient."
Xim chirps out, "Yeah. I can't go any closer either."
The snake lady explains that she'll just hide. She's very good at hiding. Poof!
Secheck explains that he doesn't like this tower. It isn't made of stone. It looks like it is made of chitin or shell. The top is broken off at an angle. And there aren't any doors. Fortunately, there is a window the characters can use to enter. The whole place looks like it should have been much taller. At a guess, the rest of the tower is either buried underground or still located in whatever forbidding Otherworld it came from.
The Tower of Pain
Secheck looks inside. He sees a big hall lined with columns and decorated with piles of recent-looking goblin, hobgoblin and orc bodies. Mixed among them are signs of older bodies, dead dolgrims and dolgaunts. The floor is covered in mucky slime. Secheck and Thaiphong head inside, linked to the rest of the group via Message and Mindlink. Thaiphong complains, "I'm not sure I like the looks of these dead critters." Then he notices that it looks like people have been sneaking up the stairs. He tells the others, then suggests that taking prisoners might be good.
Grenville slips in with Xim. Kurgash moves in and keeps an eye on the corpses.
The tracks go up past the second floor. Secheck waits at the stairwell, while Thaiphong sneaks in to the second floor corridor to listen at the doors. The second floor isn't as inundated with mud, but it still doesn't look like anyone has opened any doors recently.
The third floor is the top floor. Most of it is still open to the air. Thaiphong sneaks up to see two bugbears and six goblins chipping at a crystal formation. Most of the humanoids are wearing leather armor and are armed with morning stars. Thaiphong notices that one of the goblins is Shambral, a lieutenant of the mind flayer Azarithon who rules his tribe. Thaiphong thinks that Shambral is a cleric of the Dragon Below.
Xim asks Thaiphong, "A mind flayer rules your tribe? And you never mentioned this before?"
Thaiphong answers, "It never came up before. Isn't everyone's tribe ruled by mind flayers?"
Thaiphong readies a thunderstone for the goblin cleric and a smokestick for the rest. He tells Secheck to shoot the cleric twice on his signal.
Thaiphong throws. Then watches with dismay as he throws way wide, deafening a random bugbear. Secheck looses his arrows, hitting for four points of damage.
Thaiphong follows the thunderstone with a smokestick, ensuring that Secheck can't see anything. Secheck fires blindly to hit the goblin. Xim Blesses everyone in sight. Grenville sings! And in the spirit of the Super Bowl, Kurgash runs out through the smoke. And then the camouflaged grick attacks him. Four points from one tentacle doesn't even slow Kurgash down. He promises to hew it tentacle from tentacle, and he delivers. He chews through its damage reduction and its hit points in one blow. Kurgash strikes a pose. The goblins scatter, but the bugbears advance.
Silharath runs up into the scene just in time to run into the bugbears. He moans, "Maybe that wasn't such a good idea." He watches as Kurgash absorbs a fairly modest scratch. Silharath feels a bit left out. "Am I that much of a pussy?"
And then Shambral summons something. A chitinous buglike thing with lots of legs and a proboscis snout filled with teeth appears. Silharath tells the others, "From the look of this thing, it's gotta be another aberration. Count how long it sticks around so we know what level he is!"
The smoke dissipates. Thaiphong moves up behind Kurgash and grouses, "That was the worst 20 gold I've ever spent." Grenville demonstrates that he can spend money in even less worthwhile ways by casting an Acid Splash at a bugbear and missing. Kurgash shows how it's done by cutting down one bugbear. The other bugbear hits Kurgash, delivering enough damage that Kurgash notices.
The segmented spider thing attacks Thaiphong, who dodges out of the way. And then it sprays a stream of grubs out of its proboscis, covering Silharath and Kurgash. Both of them manage to scrape the grubs away before the things burrow into anything important.
Unwilling to let his spider-thing fight alone, Shambral summons something else. This time, he brings up a wormy creature with a spike in front of its face, a ring of eyes around the spike and tentacles all over. It says, "Hello, Chosen One! I choose you!" Silharath pleads, "I never wanted to be the Chosen One! I take off the colander!" The spike inflicts four points of damage.
Thaiphong moves past Kurgash to smash the second bugbear's ribs in.
Xim cast Magic Stone and moves up past Secheck, who continues spraying various things with arrows. None of which hit.
Grenville does a miserable job of healing Kurgash.
Silharath gets hit by the spider thing, which then sprays half the group with grubs. Everyone evades them. Then the poison-spiker nails him. He loses 2 DEX as the world speeds up around him. He groans.
Shambral decides to give up on the summoning to cast a spell at Kurgash, who saves.
Thaiphong finally ends the last bugbear. He exults, "Thank god for action points!"
Xim manages a pathetic clingstone attack against the priest.
Grenville finally realizes that he has the wand of Cure Light Wounds! He uses it to heal Kurgash. Kurgash promptly runs off to attack the goblin priest. Thaiphong shouts, "Turn him into drippings!" The goblin ends up staggered. And promptly heals himself.
Kurgash takes this as a challenge. He growls, "Let's see if he can heal himself as fast as I can batter his ass into this column!"
Silharath takes a swing at the spike-snake and takes it out, but in the process he sucks up a hit from the proboscis spider that sends him to the ground. Thaiphong gets sprayed by grubs. Thaiphong blows his save, and gets to learn what the grubs do. Fortunately, they just burrow into his skin and do additional damage.
Just when things are looking pretty grim, both the spider and the grubs vanish. Thaiphong breathes a sigh of relief. Xim shouts, "Thaiphong's leaking!"
Thaiphong runs into Shambral and dishes out a smorgasbord of damage. Shambral stays up. Secheck takes him down with an arrow.
Xim heals Silharath. He stands back up.
It turns out that Shambral had nothing magical. Thaiphong decapitates him. He tells the others, "I'm going to shrink his head!"
Grenville and Secheck talk to snake-head outside. She remains single-minded, asking them, "Have you destroyed the eye?" The characters gather that she thinks it is a weapon, and that the one who is foretold by prophecy should easily be able to destroy it. She also emphasizes that it can no longer be used safely as a weapon as the daelkyr have corrupted it.
Kurgash asks the question everyone else is thinking: "Why not give it to the Gatekeepers?"
Lassashallatesatha answers, "The Gatekeepers of today are not the Gatekeepers of yesteryear. The Gatekeepers of today are little more than... druids."
Upstairs, Silharath tries stabbing the crystal. That doesn't work well. So he decides to use his brain. He takes hold of the crystal with both hands and holds a brief conversation with the crystal. "Shut down!" The crystal answers him, "If I shut down, I will be destroyed." Silharath orders, "Okay. Do it." The crystal responds, "command confirmed." It shuts down, and immediately cracks. Silharath's mind undergoes another psychic shock. And he finds himself with new psychic superpowers.
The characters leave the tower, and apologize to Lassashallatesatha for thinking that she was evil. Silharath thinks about trying to fix her up as his girlfriend until she tells him that her fangs are poisonous and that she's oviparous. On the plus side, she can also unhinge her jaw.
Kurgash hangs out upstairs to watch the surviving goblins (the ones that surrendered). Everyone else hits the second floor. Thaiphong kicks open the door. The chamber is a sumptuous, but rotted, living room. Something horrible that must be an aberration is slumped down in one corner; it looks rather like someone's idea of a mutant dog. More interesting, four guys that look a lot like the dolgrim bodies downstairs and a dolgaunt lurch towards the characters slowly. They look quite undead.
Xim crows, "Woohoo! I try to turn them!" Four of them go running. Silharath steps up to attack the remaining zombie dolgrim. He and Thaiphong proceed to chop it to pieces. Silharath, Thaiphong and Secheck pursue the fleeing creatures, slicing and chopping. They end them all.
The big thing turns out to be dead. Very dead. A long time ago.
With the opposition out of the way, the characters investigate the contents of the room. There are a lot of fine furnishings around. All of it is obviously of daelkyr manufacture: nothing you'd sell at the market.
The characters head through to the next room. Thaiphong can't hear anything through the door, because Grenville is still singing. The place looks like a bedroom, but it looks like someone exploded while they slept. The original occupant slept in a sort of fleshy half-pod. There is a shattered mind flayer body nearby, possibly a discarded daelkyr bon-bon or plush toy. And a table by the bed holds a large leathery egg-looking thing and a box. Secheck takes ownership of the box and the perfectly-preserved illithid skull.
Silharath touches the egg. It opens and something comes out. Thaiphong squeals, "Cover all your holes!" A snakelike thing with a lampreylike mouth and four tentacles emerges and makes sucking sounds. It heads for Silharath's hand. Thaiphong covers his eyes and urges, "Pull your hand away!" Silharath does exactly the opposite and pushes his hand into the creature's way. It attaches itself to him with an obscene slurp. It inflicts a point of DEX damage on him. And then it contacts his mind. It seems confused, "You're not my master. Are you my new master?" "YES!"
Thaiphong gasps out, "What kind of ranger are you?"
Xim concurs, "What's your wisdom? It isn't too late to stop it! We can cut his arm off at the neck!"
Silharath steps back, allowing the rest of the thing to come out of the pod. The thing is a huge tentacle with a little barbed stinger at the end. It's fifteen feet long. It is a tentacle-whip. It's attached to his right arm. Silharath names it "Sparky". He takes the egg. The entire rest of the party groans in horror.
The chest contains three pearls, a large emerald, a stack of 500 old gold, and a scroll. Thaiphong uses his sword to push them around to make sure that they're really gems and coins. Grenville takes a look at the scroll. Polymorph Other. He keeps it for the moment.
The third room looks like slave quarters. It is full of zombies. The characters bar the door, over Silharath's objections that he'd like to play. Secheck tells him, "You can play later. It's a long trip home."
The fourth room is also full of undeads, but these are skeletons and move fast enough that the characters end up fighting them. Grenville hits one with the Cure Light Wounds wand and kills it. He tells the others, "Hey guys! I took one of them out, and it only cost us 20 gold!"
Thaiphong reassures him, "That's okay, I spent 100 gold on the fight upstairs, and it didn't do any good at all!"
The fight is pretty one-sided until Xim manages to turn the undeads, at which point it becomes completely one sided.
The characters return to Zarash'ak and promptly sell a pile of leather armor, morningstars, and a pile of very disturbing furniture. Grenville uses Friendly Face and does a remarkable job of negotiating. The furniture brings in 1600 gold. The 500 old gold coins bring in 2250 gold. The emerald brings in 1000 gold, sold as coinage. Each character's share is 839 gold.
Each characters gains 1611 experience points, except Kurgash who missed the last fight and gets only 1071 experience points. Most everyone goes to 3rd level. The characters' choices are generally unsurprising except for Xim, who picks up a level of sorcerer.