As the Ocean Queen unloads and loads cargo on South Haven dock of
Golotha Dwain uses his (newly personalised) powers of divination to find out that
Daelhaelin is being held with Freya. Furthermore Moonbeam has found a suspicious tower by the sea which seems
ruined but which actually has a load of reasonably fresh tracks leading to it. The tower is 80 miles up the coast
but the moon is full(ish) and the weather is favourable so Laif, the captain, accepts Waethryth's offer as a
Windsinger to speed the ship to the tower by dawn. A new passenger, Alalna (profession 'adventurer'), joins the ship and the party spend some time trying to work out her secret identity. They are alarmed when M'lady suggests that
Alana joins the raid on the tower before they have worked out whether she is an assassin, a spy, a doppelganger,
or a polymorphed demon and M'lady, who has already had Alana vetted, is happy to keep them in a state of paranoia.
Anchoring in a cove out of sight of the tower, the party prepare for their assault on the stronghold. Hirgond and Lorfalma are forbidden by their oaths from taking part but their have prepared many helpful scrolls and even more helpfully cast True Seeing on three party members. Moonbeam, who lands on the ship in the form of a seagull, has done some preliminary scouting of the tower
and passes on what he knows including the best entry point. Aided by Moonbeam's infiltration skills, Medalric
uses his stones to project himself into the tower and talk to Freya. Freya and Daelhaelin are in the topmost
room of the tower which is shielded from detection and teleportation. They are also chained to the wall by anti-magic manacles but Moonbeam has already stolen the key. Freya, who appears to have foreseen these events
at the Dreaming Stones doesn't want to be 'rescued' but for the party to 'help her capture the tower'.
When Medalric returns he relays Freya's 'plan' to the party. This suits M'lady fine as apparently her mission
in Tammarik was to unmask and nullify the
Cult. Following Moonbeam's advice the party bypass some pirates
in the caves by the cove and instead enter by an entrance in the cliff-face (normally reached by a rope bridge).
They descend a few stairs to a large empty room with two other exits. Medalric uses his 'stone powers' to jam
a secret entrance behind a waterfall as the party have no intelligence as to where it leads. Instead they jam
the trap in the other corridor and enter the fortress by a trap door at the end of the passage. They are at the
end of a long corridor with stairs (down) at the opposite end and can hear the sounds of six cultists enjoying their (last) meal through an opening on the
left. Further along on the left is another opening which seems to be some sort of guard room with stairs leading up. An officer sits at
a desk with four guards standing about. A silence spell allows the two groups to be disposed of quickly in two
separate melees. Also on this levels the party discovers many other empty rooms including bedrooms, a library and two
different areas for worship. In a desk in what might be a high priest's quarter's the party discover gold and jewels
worth 2050gp.
The party ascends some stairs to the next level. They come to an empty room and Medalric's 'true seeing' enables
him to see that a mirror at the end of the room is in fact a magical two-way mirror. Peeking through a door into a
courtyard they see guards on a battlement opposite and also hear them directly above. The party prepare themselves
for a coordinated assault on the guards which goes well. Although they again use silence spells the courtyard
is overlooked by
the main tower and they scan the windows to see if they have been observed. Screams from bodies falling from the
topmost tower bring further guards from the guardhouse near the entrance to the courtyard. These are dealt
with and then the party asssault the two storey guardhouse itself killing a captain and a number of guards. Hoping they have remained undetected the party enter the ground floor of the main tower which is deserted. At the far side
of a well-appointed room they can see a grand staircase (with a left and a right branch) which may lead upwards to the tower where Freya was
held captive.
Sadly for the party it would appear that tower's deadly occupants had woken up to the fact that there were intruders in their base. From the next floor came cries from Freya of 'Help me!' and the party sprang up the stairs. As the leaders in the race to save Freya reached the first steps a mist descended of both branches of the stairway
obscuring them from view. Gale, sensing that it might be a trap, flew up the stairs in bird form and reaching the
top found herself alone. Rumpkin following Medalric up the right hand branch of the stairs had reached the top
in gaseous form but returned back down the stairs when Medalric disappeared. Having decided it was a trap he then
bravely turned into his normal form and decided he needed to fall into it. Dwain hesitating at the bottom of
the stairs suddenly vanished from sight although no one noticed.
Dwain suddenly found himself in a glowing mystical circle in a room he had never seen before. Beside him he saw
Dernwyn. formerly navigator of the Ocean Queen, dressed in ceremonial robes and looking triumphant. Also
in the circle was something indistinct a large beast of shadow and flame, sporting fangs and claws. Dernwyn called
this monster the 'Beast of Malkora' and ordered it to attack Dwain who was still trying to grasp what was
happening to him. The Beast leapt. It bowled Dernwyn over and with a resounding crunch bit off his hand. Dwain,
never a dwarf to forgo an advantage followed up with an attack on the prone assassin. He then stared as the glamour
surrounding the Beast slowly dissipated to reveal Mr Fluffy. Mr Fluffy wagged his tail and then spat out a ring
onto the stone floor. Dernwyn wimpered in a corner utterly defeated and remorseful.
Gale meanwhile had little time to explore the new level of the tower until an invisble assassin struck and whisked her away to the basement. Instead of finding a healthy Dernwyn and Dwain's dead body the assassin found himself
outnumbered three to one. He did not last very long. Shortly afterward they were joined by Freya and Daelhaelin
who had earlier (via Moonbeam) helped themselves to some of the jewels which enabled teleportation to the circle
in the basement.
Medalric on the otherhand has suddenly found himself in a pit stinking of death and inhabited by a pack of ghouls
and ghasts. As fate would have it, however, he is the only member of the party immune to paralysis and he brushes
past the monsters and looks for the exit. There he finds a secret door that has been jammed (by himself about
40 minutes ago) and he exits the trap. Rumpkin arrives in the pit just in time to see Medalric close the door.
Rumpkin is surrounded by the ghouls and ghasts and is not immune to paralysis like the monk. In desperation he
centres a fireball on himself and having set many of the monsters alight tries to find a defensible nook
in the wall of the cave firing off another fireball from that spot. Escaping from the pit he catches up with
Medalric and they both re-enter the tower again overcoming three cultists on the level they had previously cleared.
In the meantime the remaining members of the party have been teleported to dungeon cells and are even manacled
to the walls. M'lady casually escapes from the manacles picks up her weapons and kills the jailer who had
come to investigate taking his keys. The party fight off the cultists who want to recapture them while releasing
their comrades. Luckily the cultists come at them in two waves and by the time the second wave approach Dwain,
Gale, Freya and Daelhaelin reinforce them having disposed of the cultists in the temple on the floor below.
Little rsistance is left and almost none of the cultists survived the brutal assault. Apart from
Dernynw only one magic user on one of the upper floors managed to teleport
away.
The party spend two further days in the tower awaiting their promised gold to be delivered. During this time
a party of black clad Elves arrive who the it transpires are from the
Defenders, a mercenary group hired by the Reetland government. One of their duties
besides burying all the bodies is to mount a guard on the teleportation circle as two of the teleportation jewels are unaccounted
for. Dernwyn identifies one of the bodies as Lomelinde in her true female form.
M'lady discovers Lomelinde's secret diaries (her real name was Duvan) and finds her to be a more complex
character than you would expect. She also discovers many references to the
Cult's activities which she briefs to the party. Somewhat
surprisingly she finds a way to contact the magic user who escaped the tower and persuade him to come back and she also revives his colleague. They have apparently agreed to work for M'lady now although no one
knows what hold she has over them.
M'lady and the party pay a visit to the pirates in the cave by the cove and quickly overcome them without
bloodshed. Their main ship is overdue and they fear it is lost and their readily agree to work for M'lady.
Elsewhere in the cave M'lady finds the treasure she suspected was hidden there from her dream. It appeared
to have been buried several hundred years ago and once shared out among the party comes to 550gp each. From
Lomelinde's diaries it would appear that she disposed of the body of the previous cult leader, Ulrik, in the pit
of ghouls and since he had one of the Malkoran Rings on him the party have the unpleasant job of sorting through
the human remains on the floor of the pit. On the plus side they find a few items which give them another
450gp each. M'lady has by now found a secret store of gold which she shares out with the party telling
them to keep quiet about it because she is not including the discovery in her report.
Alana agrees to stay with M'lady and she also tries to persuade some of the party to stay.
Daelhaelin promised to meet her academic colleagues in Tammarik within three days, however, and the rest of the
party leave with her. Supplemented by two of the mercenaries they agree to take out the Cult base in the city.
They also have the details of the Cult base in Riavod. Meanwhile Freya has found a
book in the Cult library that contained an interesting story and a map. Osriga helpfully told her that she recognises
some of the natural features on the map and says that she and Waethryth will help her find the castle on the map
if the party intend to travel to Riavod.
The party of course first have to find their contact in Tammarik to find their next destination.