Oathday, Erastus 3

Sometimes, ethics and morals are inconvenient.

Red dragons are not known for their generosity, or even their friendliness. In fact, they are generally recognized as evil and untrustworthy. I know this now, and I know this is why Father has always been reluctant to reveal our family’s lineage. It is said that the apple does not fall from the tree. What would people think? I’m fortunate to have fallen into a group that judges more by actions than simply by reputation. Or presumed reputation.

But I digress. We’d made a deal with Longtooth which, in hindsight, had people wishing they had not. In return for doing nothing (and we were very explicit on that — had he shown up we’d have been very upset) we would give him a share (1/9 or 1/10) of anything we found, earned, recovered — what have you. It grated on us that we took all the risk, and simply based on the fear that he might harm us, we were willing to pay ‘protection money’. Do nothing, and there’s something in it for you.

Some have openly advocated not paying him, now that we’ve defeated Mokmurian. That doesn’t seem right either. It grates on me to give away what seems so much like it is ours, and yet to not keep the bargain seems to make me – us – as bad as any of the evil beings we’ve been defeating. Our reputation and our actions are what define us. If we are not true to our principles, we risk losing the reputation we’ve created. Even if only among ourselves.

To that end, I offered to teleport to him and let him know we did indeed defeat MM, and that we were tallying the treasure we’d found, and would contact him again within 24 hours. Without that notification, I thought, he might think we were doublecrossing him.

But others argued that if he feared that he was more than welcome to come and check it out. Or use magic to contact us. Even though I felt I could teleport away if he threatened me, others thought he might try to doublecross us and grab more treasure through capturing or injuring me. I feel, unfortunately, like I understand him and that that is not likely, but the group urges strongly against that and instead advocates we regain all our spells and visit him at full strength, just in case battle does happen.

I’m a little worried that planning for a possible battle increases the likelihood of a battle, but I do not fear we’d lose the battle. I fear we’d lose the moral high ground, and I for one would be disappointed if I found any one of our party could create circumstances where it was reasonable (or even convenient) to ignore the deal we’d made.

Some have asked if I’d feel the same if Longtooth himself broke the deal first. It is a good question. If one party breaks a deal, there is no deal, I think. Certainly if he attacks us for any reason, we would need to defend ourselves, and it would be unwise in the extreme to wound but not kill an angry dragon.

Meanwhile, Takkad and some others are spending a great deal of time in the library, trying to discern what information is actually held there. He found much information about the Rune Lords, and in particular Karzoug and Alaznist, whose minions we seem to be running into with increasing frequency. And he also discovered the answer to a question that we’d asked ourselves when MM’s corpse spoke to us: what role did the runic tattoos play in all this, and if it really did pass, grant, or amplify a dead Rune Lord’s power or essence, how could we undo that? The answer, it turns out, is that if the tattoo is actually removed, then the Rune Lord gets nothing from a death, but if it does not then the manner in which it was originally enscribed means that the Rune Lord does indeed get some small measure of power, or essence, or something from the soul that has been extinguished.

It borders on religious doctrine to me – all this talk of souls and such – but everyone else takes it very seriously. Any power that a Rune Lord can exert in today’s world is bad news, so I guess I don’t need to know the details of how it works if I simply know it does. I’m not sure how we will erase these tattoos berfore killing our opponents, but we will undoubtedly look for opportunities in the future.

The Black Tower, it turns out, was not so much a Rune Lord construct as a religious one. It was once the bell tower of an order of Therassic monks (whom we suspect were not exactly law abiding and virtuous souls.) The Peacock Spirit, I think he said.

Fireday, Erastus 4

Clever.

I didn’t really ruminate out loud, but perhaps my expression or my demeanor has conveyed to the group my mixed feelings about our deal with Longtooth. It seems we may be intending to adhere to the letter of the deal while being somewhat more free with the spirit of it. As we are separating Longtooth’s share, his pile is becoming full of things that have no use to us, but do have value. We calculated his share would be in the neighborhood of 8500 gp, and the pile did include gold (red dragon after all!). It contained a couple of giant-sized magic weapons which were of no use to us, and great piles of giant armor that, again, had value but no use to us or even Longtooth except, perhaps, as trophy pieces.

I think they are hoping he expresses dissatisfaction in a manner which requires we kill him.

Fireday, Erastus 4 (later)

We emptied our sacks, and haversacks, and bags of holding so that we carried nothing but Longtooth’s share. He couldn’t gain additional treasure by force. Even if he attacked and we all died, he’d not know where the rest of it was.

And when Rallo and I teleported the group there, he appeared in short order and inspected the loot. He seemed satisfied, but then said he also wanted the scrolls and the location of the library. Takkad threw a verbal barb at him – “you should be happy you got what you did when we did all the work while you crouched cravenly in your cave” – and that was all it took. He bared his teeth, waved his wings and took a snap at us.

And quick as you could blink, he had three fighters dimension door right next to him, and Takkad Smote him, and I hasted everyone and that was all it took. While I knew a fireball would be pointless against a red dragon, I was ready to create an illusion of the entrance sealing off as if with a giant shape stone spell. But it wasn’t necessary. Before I could do anything else, our three fighters had created dragon hash. And we had our share back, our honor intact .. and additional treasure to inventory.

There were a great number of coins .. a stunning amount of copper coins (copper? what a slacker for a red dragon!): over 360,000. There were over 23,000 silver pieces, and over 34,000 gold pieces. But it wasn’t just the coinage. We had some in our party who are skilled at appraisals, and they informed us there was a water opal worth a thousand gp, a diamond worth 1600 gp, 2 black opals worth 8000 gp each, 53 gems of assorted size and quality worth a total of 3500gp, a tapestry of monks sparring worth 600gp, a set of 4 silver idols worth 2400gp, and a pure platinum statue of (ugh) Karzoug worth about 5000gp. All told, it had over 70,000 gp in value.

This, Father. This is why you went adventuring, right? 🙂 And yet, as stunning as these figures sound, when one looks at the price of even “inexpensive” magic items, there’s only a fraction of them that we would be able to buy with this hoard.

With the empty bags of holding that Takkad and Sabin had brought (gosh, almost as if they’d planned for Longtooth to die 🙂 ) we were able to get the loot (but not Longtooth’s corpse) back to the library with just one teleport by Rallo and I. And rest.

But what about the Black Tower itself?

Starday, Erastus 5

We started the day by sending messages to Conna (any ‘friendly’ giants should be gone in 3 days), Sandpoint (ther’es been a giant earthquake and a sinkhole has appeared), Magnimar (what Rune Lord cult?), and our ferryman (thanks, won’t need you but tell the stables we’ll pick up our horses in a couple of weeks).

The news from Sandpoint was disturbing and yet, sigh, it seems almost normal. I get the sense that Sandpoint will never be normal again, or perhaps disaster is the new normal. It started with goblins, and then giants and dragons, and now even the earth is trying to destroy the town. We have no more message capability today but we will have a longer conversation tomorrow. And the mayor of Magnimar remains relatively clueless, and I’m not sure short messages of 25 words or less will convey to him what we’ve learned.

Sunday, Erastus 6

Well, in talking with Sandpoint, it seems things are more dire than we thought. Yes, there’s a sinkhole, but part of Sandpoint had apparently fallen into it, and the guards that went to investigate it never returned. Apparently there is also a loud howling that does not sound like a normal dog, or pack of dogs. We told the mayor we’d be there as soon as possible. With teleport, now, we can be there almost instantly but we need to wrap some stuff up here yet. We’ve decided to take on the Black Tower.

So we teleported out to the area in front of it and were immediately beset upon by harpies. It turns out these were not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill harpies (if such exist). These seemed much stronger or more powerful somehow. Still, Takkad encased one in stone (silly harpy sat oh a stone wall, and, well, “wall of stone”), and we eventually defeated the other three. I managed to fireball one, but then I’m afraid I became rather useless because the harpy’s song got to me.

But when we finished, there were no more harpies. We cautiously inspected and then entered the door and found ourselves in a round room that was noticeably cold. Not just a chilly draft. Cold. As in, walls glistening with frost. Sabin opened a trap door that Kane was able to find on the floor. It revealed a five foot shaft which seemed to be about 70′ deep, judging from the lit stone we dropped. Might be a chamber down there.

And then the eyes. The eyes looked up at us. And Sabin and Takkad felt a chill from that gaze, but shook it off. And because of that, if for no other reason, Takkad sent a flame strike down the shaft. Kane cast bless. Rallo sent a lightning ball down. And we waited. For a very short time.

Because in response to all this, a figure shot out of the shaft carrying some sort of metal rod or cylinder and clung to the ceiling. This was a major clue that we needed to take action. Cold room. Evil figure. Fireball, right? But both Nolin and Kane had the ability to get to the figure (by airwalk and spider climb, respectively) and by the time I could try a fireball, there would have been too many friendlies nearby. I really need to research a haped fireball. So instead I made Avia able to fly, and effectively threw another fighter at the problem. I was later able to try an old favorite (burning hands) which does less damage but can be better aimed. Eventually, the mummy was dead, but not before Nolin reported feeling .. off. Or ill. Mummies are renown for passing on disease so we hit Nolin with both a heal and a remove curse, unsure of which would be needed.

The cylinder, it turns out, was locked, but using several knock spells from the wand, I was able to make the six spinning ring align to the correct places and open it. Inside we found

9 scrolls describing various curses that could be issued. I suppose we should study these sometime, if only to know and recognize them.

8 magic scrolls:

Greater Restoration
Hero’s Feast
Order’s Wrath
Scrying
Slay living
Unholy blight
Regenerate
Symbol of Stunning

1 scroll describing the entrance to the library (which we’ve already found), and how to get past the shining one (which may be useful).

We’d hoped to go up and clear the Tower. But the only opening appears to be down? What next?