Timberlands Campaign, Session 11: The White Tower Mystery

March 1, Caudex Annales, 71 AUP

The conference schedule in disarray after the unexpected (and unexplained) gargoyle attack, the party decided to investigate the rumors of a spy in the Academy. Since every headmaster had made some version of the same report, there were all kinds of promising leads to explore. Sister Anatolia went into a trance to determine a plausible culprit... and got a strange vision of shifting colors in response to what should have been a yes-or-no series of questions about the traitor's identity. The colors settled out to "black" in the case of all the headmasters, save for the gnomish artificer Enoch Teacandle. [Note: This isn't a custom class, just setting flavor for a mage focused on magical engineering. He's not a tinker gnome; his body armor was built for him by dwarven machinists.] Shayna decided NOT to enter the Dream Arena, despite some coaxing from Eldred's assistant Nathalia.

First, the party visited Chlodwig Vance and his monkeys. His office contained the logbooks of all spells cast in the tower, and he was able to confirm that only spells cast during a limited block of time (second watch on Thursday) featured tainted spell signatures suggestive of malign influence. The next occurrence was expected early Friday morning, on March 3rd -- though he warned them that staking out the halls in a visible way had thus far prevented the incidents.

The second candidate for interview was Alaric Wainskirtle. He expressed general exasperation with the badly run administration of the tower, but also communicated suspicion that something strange was going on -- fatigue among the researchers was widespread, and suggested that the problem was more than a single rogue agent. Meanwhile, Jeeves scanned the entire building (slowly) for "evil", finding nothing in particular, but a sort of general sense of malaise hovering around the upper floors where Alaric and Eldred had their offices.

The dwarven contact introduced in Alaric's letter arranged a meeting at the local tavern, purchasing an enormous quantity of food and drink (presumably on a travel expense account). He promised the party wealth, artifact, and fame if they could clear the occupiers of the dwarven fortress at Kilndelve. Afterward, a random interview of a tavern patron indicated that the tower staff had been working unusually long hours... somehow without being aware of any shift in their schedules.

Then they went to chat with Enoch Teacandle, who seemed a little too gung-ho to demonstrate the auto-wand feature in his juggernaut armor. Teacandle indicated that he had been wearing the armor nearly full-time, and that he rarely went into the tower dungeons himself, preferring to order monster parts off the open market. Plenty of other researchers, particularly the Dream Arena project, had been spending substantial time down there, "in search of squid tentacles, that sort of thing". The Dream Arena required a steady supply of fuel, apparently.

On the way down the stairs, Zelmar was accosted by a strange scholar in the metaphysics department, who indicated that he was working on something top secret and could reveal "the truth" about some kind of conspiracy. The party was in too much of a hurry to stop, but agreed to come back later. (The name given, Malon Dreadwhit, was identical to someone they had been warned to avoid in one of the letters.)

Believing that the time had come to confront Eldred about the nature of his suspicious project, the party ascended to the 9th floor -- only to find that Eldred had already been murdered by an assassin. The knife had a strange substance on the blade, and there were drops of water on the floor. Testing of the water indicated that it contained some kind of biological agent inimacable to life and health.

Later that evening the party confronted Nathalia, who seemed deeply surprised. By that time, the body had already vanished.

Finally, Zelmar, Merda Strega, Herrobrin, and ??? made a late-night visit to Malon Dreadwhit. Cackling with glee, he bustled them into his office to reveal his secrets. But first, he demanded they open a box for him. The box turned out to contain a phase tiger. A weird phase tiger that kept blinking in and out of the ethereal plane, and wanted revenge! The cat warped around the room, and split into several smaller and equally deadly kittens which mauled the two spellcasters badly. Malon Dreadwhit, indifferent to the carnage, triumphantly opened a second box to reveal a DEAD phase tiger. Zelmar, having survived the ordeal, grabbed Dreadwhit under one arm and bustled him out of the room.

Roster

• Edw...ina(?) Sir Dame Winsley, 5th-level dandy mystic (Andrew)
• Jeeves, 1st-level butler-paladin
• Zelmar (...is he a henchman now? I'm a bit confused...)
• Anatolia
• Frigodria Dawnbringer, 5th-level paladin (Reba)
• Herrobrin, 6th-level summoner, and his scads of spooky scary skeletons (Kyle)
• Grurdev Onyxvault, 5th-level dwarven lightbearer (Sion)
• Need to check about henchmen here also (two, I think)...
• Merda Strega, 6th-level witch (Will)
• Viserion, 5th-level young white dragon (Zac)
• Adonirim, 3rd-level mage
• Shayna, 6th-level shaman (Kim)
• Ur khla lu khbea, 4th-level gladiator (Jonathan)
• Saltbeard (Trefor)

Mercenaries and followers:

• Army o' skeletons (400+ at this point), with a few abominations as champions

• Aksel Steelheart, 9th-level vaultlord
• 10 dwarven lieutenants:
• 4 5th-level vaultguards
• 3 4th-level vaultguards
• 2 3rd-level vaultgaurds
• 2nd-level vaultguard
• 18 fire dwarf infantry
• ~ 90 light-infantry pirate survivors from the defeat of the Charybdis crew in the Saberstrath campaign

Not appearing in this adventure, but potentially available now that everyone is back in the area:

• Slarus (Austin)
• The very young white dragon, Namazu, reporting back on the frost giants
• Sir Rock Boulder Fist, dwarven 5th-level summoner
• Sir Robin

Retiring, unless they somehow resurface:

• Zalgesh
• Jarrus Velt, 5th-level thief
• Thorvald, 6th-level spy (Zac's Mom's PC, not a henchman)
• Togast, 6th-level skinscribe (Juston is happily married)
• Tu'a'than, 5th level spriggan

Casualties

Herrobrin, slain by quantum phase kitties (and calling upon his crowning moment of awesome to drag the souls of all his skeletons into the abyss along with him)

Merda Strega, both legs destroyed by phase kitties (at least there's a floating disc around here somewhere that's suddenly available)

Magical Items

None

Valuables

None

Experience

For Zelmar and... the other survivor of the phase tiger fight...

Killed: quantum phase tiger [820 xp], 2 quantum phase kittens [2x410 xp]
Total: 1230 xp

Total experience from treasure: 0 xp
Total experience from kills: 1230 xp
Total experience from exploration: 0 xp
Total experience: 0 xp
Total experience per member (Zelmar and ???): 615 xp