Tower Cove
Ehlessa's narrative
Everything returns to the mundanely normal after our strange experiences at the estate of Auquhol the sage, and we get on with our mission. Arriving at Tower Cove, we take note of the building the Pan Tang map obviously used to identify it, but our immediate concern is a sleek black galley bobbing in the light waters of the bay. This cove is especially well sheltered due to the headlands almost converging, leaving only a small gap which is probably shielded by mud flats, going by the reputation of these shores. It also explains why nobody else has found it; the place must be well nigh invisible from the sea. We start to discuss what to do, but any further conversation is forestalled by events on the ship.
We are close enough to hear the shouts of the Pan Tang captain, who is easily identified by his huge size and demeanour; he must be at least six foot seven. Haranguing his crew, we hear snatches of his brazen voice as he orders the ship's derrick to lower the captain's boat. He snarls at his Pikarayd crew. "Yes, I know the rest of the men should be here by now, but we can't leave without express orders from Theleb K'aarna. I'm going ashore and I'm taking some of you with me; we are going to find out what has happened. And don't even think of sailing off into the blue yonder; apart from me, the only one who knows how to handle this ship is the First Mate. I'm leaving you in his capable hands. But remember, if you don't do what I say, I'll feed the lot of you to Theleb K'aarna."
With that he steps down into the boat and four of the crew start rowing him to the beach, almost exactly at the spot where we are observing. We decide to let them get into effective bow range, and then I and Destiny take careful aim and loose - at the captain, of course. We both hit and he sags under the effects of an arrow in the belly and another in the chest region. Neither gets entirely through his sea leather armour, but he is obviously not happy. He shouts at the boatmen to get to shore quickly: "Rush them! If we try to turn around and head back to the ship we will be sitting ducks!" As they run into the shore Marion puts a dagger into his leg and then I get a clean head shot. He falls back, with my arrow sticking at an angle through his right eye socket. That must have hurt.
"Yay! He's dead!" shout the men in the boat, and a great cheer goes up from the men still on the galley. The four crewmen on the boat run it ashore and gleefully surrender to us. One of them looks over his shoulder at the ruined face of the Pan Tang captain. "Oh, that's a shame. He isn't dead, yet. Let's feed him to the fishes!" We stop him, mainly because it is barely possible that we could revive the man for questioning. At the same time, there is a great splash and the sound of jeering from the galley; the crewmen there have thrown the First Mate overboard, and amuse themselves by thrusting oars at him every time he tries to swim back to the ship.
My arrow has gone into the captain's eye socket at an angle and the tip is protruding into empty air at his temple. If it had been a true shot it would have gone right into his brain, and he would be dead already. As it is, though, he is fading fast, and we have little time to try to revive him. Destiny tries, but is not successful. I'm pretty sure she finished him off before consigning his body to the sea; a somewhat cleaner death than drowning while unconscious. Ah well, we can always question the First Mate.
We receive a resounding reception from the crewmen, which amuses Sir Blanque and Marion greatly. As we retrieve the First Mate from the waters of the bay, the Pikarayd warriors offer their surrender - and their service for the future. They are not happy at the loss of half their number in the assault on Nikorn's estate, and have been grumbling mutinously for several days now, which explains the shouted conversation we overheard earlier. Sick of Pan Tang captains and sorcerers, their spokesman says that they recognise our prowess as great warriors, and they all swear to serve us by right of conquest.
The First Mate is from Shazaar, the same western nation as Marion, and tells us as much as he can. He basically confirms our suspicions about the Pan Tang sorcerer's excellent prior information, and says that the ship's orders were to remain here until Theleb K'aarna returns from the Weeping Waste, after installing Syphax as leader of my tribe. This still gives us time to act before the Pan Tang warlock realises something is amiss. He does add one note of caution, though; "You have to kill him. His horse is not normal. It has red eyes and never eats or sleeps. It has tremendous speed and endurance. You'll get one shot, and if you miss he will be sure to escape". He is obviously terrified of what Theleb K'aarna will do to him if he discovers that the galley has been captured. Destiny mentions that she is surprised that the captain had no magical abilities of his own. The First Mate replies that Teheleb K'aarna is a bit paranoid, and very jealous of the abilities of other sorcerers. "He never travels with others of his own kind," he says.
The men from Pikarayd break open the captain's stores, especially his copious supply of alcohol, and insist on a victory party. I find it difficult to hold a grudge against these men; they were just hired swords. Besides, it looks as though we have just acquired a superior quality war galley for ourselves, along with a crew. Speaking of which, the vessel has a sheen to it and when I run my hand along the wood, it feels strangely silken to the touch, almost how I would imagine the skin of a dolphin to be. Destiny spots a water rune carved into a spot near the prow, and says that she thinks the ship has a water elemental bound into it. If Pan Tang is doing this to even a small number of galleys, it will give them a serious advantage. Not to mention really annoying Straasha of the Waters. Destiny says that she does not know how to release the elemental, but there is always Theleb K'aarna's grimoire. If she can get hold of that, she will be able to study and learn much.
The next day, three Ilmioran galleys heave into view, with Jorthan and Bomilcar on board. They do not try to enter the cove on the ships, but instead send several boats ahead. After several false starts, including one of them having a bad time in the shifting sands, they make it. My brother is still limping, but Jorthan is looking the happiest I have seen him since the deaths of our fathers. They are amazed at our success with the black galley, and I notice out of the corner of my eye that Jorthan shoots me several strange looks. I take him aside and ask what's wrong. He replies, "Nothing, my love. It's just that you look, well, even more lovely to me." Of course, I'll need to tell him about the strange mask I found earlier.
Destiny seems distracted. She keeps looking at the partly ruined tower on the right hand headland. I agree to accompany her to investigate, as do Marion and Sir Blanque. Jorthan stays behind to supervise what has become quite a complex situation, and Bomilcar stays with him. His bruised leg is turning golden yellow, but he is still badly affected by the underlying hurt.
As we approach the tower we are pretty sure that what seemed like large birds from the shoreline are much larger than that. "Bats?" ventures Sir Blanque. "Not in the daytime, surely," replies Marion. Destiny stops, looking at the remains of the tower from several different angles. "Not only is it almost fused into the rock, it's octagonal. I think this is of Melnibonean origin." This comes as a surprise; surely apart from herself none of her people has been in this area for at least four hundred years. This tower could predate the grand revolt that led to the formation of the nations of the Young Kingdoms, and it could well be even older than that.
There is evidence of substantial earthquake damage, with plenty of rubble lying around the base of the tower. It looks mostly dilapidated, but should certainly be worth a look. The main door is mostly rotted away due to age, and anyway is now leaning at an angle, presumably as a result of the earthquake. All of us except Destiny manage to squeeze through.
Inside is a corridor that leads straight towards the rear of the tower, with a set of stairs going upwards. The ceiling is at least 30' high. There are two doorways to our left, and three to our right, the nearest of which is still intact. The place stinks and the floors are covered in refuse; there is definitely some sort of animal living here, because the entire floor is covered in guano. I hear substantial movement coming from the left, and run to block the first doorway. The sight that greets me is amazing - Clakars! It looks as though a whole family of the winged apes of legend have made their home here. Marion joins me and between us we manage to wound and drive off a large male; it and the rest of the animals in this room squeeze through enlarged windows and fly off. We hear similar noises from other parts of the tower. In the meantime, Destiny has forced the remains of the front door.
These are resin ape figures by Bad Squiddo Games. The wings are part of a range of conversion pieces made by Ristul's Extraordinary Market, also stocked by Bad Squiddo.
Now that the tower seems clear of the Clakars, we turn round and find Sir Blanque already investigating the only room with an intact door. It has no light apart from a little afforded by cracks in the walls, more evidence of an earthquake. It doesn't seem to bother him, though, as he easily sifts his way through what turns out to have been a master bedroom. He says, "There is a skeleton still in the remains of a large bed, its skull crushed by some masonry. The only other thing of note is a distorted brass mirror, damaged beyond repair." I wonder that he can see so effortlessly in the dark; as Bomilcar said, there are probably some hidden sides to Sir Blanque. We all have our little secrets, I suppose.
We search the rest of the ground floor, but the only other sign of life is a large cobra that has taken up residence in a badly damaged chest. Fortunately it slithers off through a crack in a wall. We find a substantial amount of money, mostly in the form of ten Melnibonean silver dragon coins, and happen upon an intact armour cabinet. It contains two antique sets of good quality Melnibonean full plate armour, conical helms and all, although the leather straps have long rotted to uselessness. These look as though they would fit Sir Blanque and Marion once restored. We also find a cask of the most incredible smelling wine, but Destiny stops anyone drinking from it. "This is Melnibonean lotus wine. It is very potent at the best of times, and can be poisonous to non-Melniboneans. It is probably lethal now." So we have a supply of poison.
We go up the stairs, and this is where everything comes to a halt. There is a large, intact black door inscribed centrally with an octagon of chaos. Inside the octagon is the very much alive face of a demon, which converses with us in Low Melnibonean after greeting Destiny in the high tongue. She treats it with a very healthy respect, as well she may. I have enough education to know that her ancestors were far more powerful than their enervated descendants, and something like this will be unbelievably dangerous. I say so, and the door acknowledges me with some condescension. "We could always bargain our way in with a captive soul, perhaps?" muses Destiny. Sir Blanque absolutely refuses. "There's no way I can condone feeding anyone to that, no matter how much I hate them," he says. The door answers "But I'm hungry. Go on..."
We beat a very careful retreat; that has to be the strangest conversation I have ever had. Destiny seems intent on trying anything to get through that door, but I take Sir Blanque's side. "After all, why do we have to do this now? We have no idea what something like that is capable of doing. Once you have Theleb K'aarna's grimoire, you might be able to research a way to deal with the door. It must be guarding something of great value, yes, but it has been there for at least four hundred years. A bit more time can't hurt, surely." And with that, we exit the tower.
Umpire's notes
I've lost track of the number of times I've run the Tower of Yrkath Florn scenario from the rulebook, and I have to say this is the first occasion I have seen any party be so sensible, especially when confronted with the demon door. I'm not sure if it's because the players have never done any role-playing before, but they are inhabiting their characters in a most effective way. They won't take unjustified risks, and will yield to a majority decision taken in group discussion. No munchkins here, then! Also, this was the first session in which a death took place, and even then it wasn't an immediate moment of slaughter. I want to retain this feel.
I've also begun to realise that this campaign is becoming flavoured more and more with a sort of Call of Cthulhu aspect to it. By that, I mean that a library of items to be researched is beginning to build itself up, and this is where Destiny in particular will be very useful. I wasn't really expecting this, but I think it will add a little bit extra to the mix. It should be fun watching the players finding out more about the various scrolls, books and other items they are now beginning to accumulate.
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