Our adventurers enter the aged ruins of the former royal home of the Tethyrian nation. Following up on the lead that this was where the Princess was last seen entering, escorted by a company of unknown figures...
The party begins making their way into the ground floor of the castle ruins(E). There are walls that have fallen. There are doorways without their doors. There are sections of floor sunken in, making for treacherous steps. In the center of the perimeter of the structure is an open air courtyard, filled with dead and struggling grasses and bushes. As if the grounds here no longer allow things to grow and flourish. Overall the place seems quiet, aside from the random crumbling of debris that once made this home a beautiful one. it is still unsettling for them all as they proceed. Almost immediately they come upon a hall(X) with an entryway where the floor has collapsed and filled it in. This is the now inaccessible basement level access stairway of the old castle. It's probably better that they cant go down there.
Sendak believes it would be best to search the ruins thoroughly as so it will better help them avoid missing any clues about the Princess. Without a map, they start tactically and systematically clearing each room as they pass along them. Eventually they decide to divide and conquer, splitting into smaller pairings with each other to cover more ground quicker(They know, they know. Never split the party...). Not much is found as since it's demise from civil war, this place has been ransacked, claimed, targeted, and razed again & again by varying forces over the years. None of them really leaving anything of worth or note behind. Luckily for the party, this works in their favor as they know they should now be the only entities exploring its fallen halls. That is until Sendak along with Inka, made his way to a room on the easterly side, find they are NOT alone. Sendak walks in to see three beings sitting at a table. Now, Sendak has seen some amazing and inexplicable things already on this young journey of his. And now, he can add ghosts to his list. As there are three of them at this table. Grey-blue hued phantoms all silently sitting and facing the table. Sendak sees upon the table a large carafe. The 'muir', fully inexperienced with beings from the beyond, tries to simply ask them some questions. The ghosts silently acknowledge him by turning their gazes towards him. They also put their fingers up to their lips in the "shhh" motion, and point at the carafe at the table's center.
And just like that, the ghosts faded into non existence. Sendak moved forwards to the carafe to see it contained a cloudy yellow colored liquid. As he was preparing his next decision of what to do, he was interrupted by the sounds of the other party members. Who also discovered they were not alone! He made his way back into the hallway and towards the northern end of the floor to see the remaining party members standing in the hallway to the north and east, with their eyes locked onto the doorway of a room. And from that doorway came a monstrosity they would not forget seeing. It was orange in color, it was at least the size of a large dog. It had a bulbous body, two long antennae that lashed out around itself, and made a chittering noise that made their skin crawl. The biggest thing that they told Sendak was, "there's more of them in there! It looks like maybe an armory as there are old rusted and broken sets of armor lying everywhere among the rubble. We can make the doorway a choke point and take them out one by one as to not get overwhelmed by...whatever they are!" And with that, weapons were drawn. Spells were prepped.
Do NOT let your weapons of metal touch this monster
These monsters were a tough fight for the party. It seemed no matter what they tried, no matter how hard they focused, they could not get the upper hand on the first creature. It also was struggling to string together it's main attack, a focused whip of its tentacles at anything metal the party had on them. A couple of blows were landed by the creature finally. And so too were a few weapon blows by party members. And it was then discovered what was happening here. Any time the monster successfully used its antennae, whatever metal they touched, that object instantly rusted. Inka also realized this when she landed a blow, the head of her hammer instantly turning to rust, minimizing it's effectiveness. Changing their strategies for this, they began to finally start overcoming the monsters that continually piled out of the room at them. Well, now they know, particularly to the scent of metals they held on them. A few spells and a few accessories(like the recently found Thunderstones from another room by Pip) later, the party finally had the upper hand in this longer than usual battle. If only they could stop getting harassed by the floating skeleton orbs around them that constantly zinged them with small dozes of lightning damage they would feel much better about their progress.
These Will-O-Wisps may act like mosquitos, but they cant just be swatted away like them
After what seemed like forever and a day, the party finally vanquished their bug and floating skull foes. While they were taking a moment to recuperate, Inka had the idea of taking whatever part of the bug that caused the rust effect, out of the bug. Well not exactly having the knowledge on how to do so expertly, it took a combination of Inka and Pip pulling the bug apart, leaving them covered in goo, but with the seemingly one organ that caused the rusting. It seemed upon death, the organ went inert. This entire scene caused Sendak to absolutely empty his stomach contents. Certainly not something he was used to seeing up in the mountains. Once refreshed the party continued onwards through the ground floor. One room contained the remains of what was some sort of library. And after a good search result, the party came up with a couple of old books they decided to hang onto:
'The Loathsome Daughter of the Grave': A torn, stained, and charred bestiary of things that come out of graves.
'Dying Water'- a simple book on watercolor painting
'The Contemporary Forbidden Tome' - a ratty tome containing ways of how to conjure. Inka hands the book to Pip and they both feel a a slight jolt of energy between them.
'The Songs of Sleepy Time' - A book full of old world nursey rhymes to help little ones sleep. Inka decides she is going to use this to teach Alystn his letters(he's not very educated with reading and writing it turns out). When she examines it by flipping through the pages, a thin piece of round metal falls into her hands from the book. It looks like a gear of some kind.
On their way out of this old library, the party hears footfalls upstairs. Steeling their nerves, they make their way up to the second floor of the ruins, arriving at the southeast side of the floor. Once again they are faced with a hallway of rooms, and to the west, broken remnants of the 2nd floor exposing the open air section of the courtyard area, now further below. They see across the way there are other rooms and what looks like another staircase up to the north-west. The only way across this open space is via either of the crumbled remains of the walls and floor of this level. They first decided to investigate where they stood and then once ready, make their way across to what seemed another level. The first room they came across had a door. It was closed and wouldn't open. The party observed in the door itself as an indent in the exact shape of the metal object that Inka found in the books earlier. Placing this "cog" into the door, it was taken into the door and turned on its own until it locked in place, and the door swung open to a dark room. And from this dark room came a distorted somewhat hissing voice. "Do you seek the knowledge?..."
Pip, being the sorcerous type, somehow innately knew to answer with a yes. As he audibly did, his cohort Alystn the Half-Elf excitedly ran past him into the room yelling out an emphatic 'YES!" thinking of nothing other than he was going to get to learn how to read and write finally! As Alystn crossed the threshold of the doorway & into the darkened room, the door slammed shut! And the impact of this caused the cog key to fall out, shattering upon impacting the floor. Slight panic hit the remining party members who had to quickly think of a way into the room. Pip was up first using a shot of Fire Bolt on the door hinges, eventually causing the door to fall out of the way. Next up was Inka instantly surrounding herself by a silvery mist and zooping out of existence, reappearing 30 feet further in the room thanks to her ability to use Misty Step. Everyone else followed on foot until they saw something horrifying. Alystn was there in the back corner of the room, not moving, head looking upwards. What he was looking at defied current explanation for the party. Hovering above Alystn a good 15ft in the air was this large, black, swirling, ghastly figure. Seeing it only from the back for a moment which didn't reveal much more detail, Sendak looked again to Alystn and simply said "heh, look. He's peeing!" Sure enough, there was a stream of yellow-ish liquid dribbling out of Alystn's pant leg and onto the floor, pooling up at his boot. And so began the reason WHY Alystn was having the literally piss scared out of him.
Driven mad past the point of death itself, this being needs to give you knowledge
Once again ready to defend themselves, the party advanced on the creature before them. Using what they thought would work, they eventually found that some tactics did, & some didn't work against this abomination of life itself. After another heated battle, the monster gave up it's quest to pass on its maddening knowledge from beyond, and fell at their feet, leaving not much more than a few desiccated bones. Alas not without leaving its mark as a couple of times, it seemed to invade the minds of the heroes, causing them to want to attack each other, or feel like their minds were being ripped out of their heads! Luckily that passed after some time, and only lingering headaches remained. Still, they felt uncomfortable. This latest encounter had the party questioning if they would even find the Princess in a place such as this. Yet, they had to press on. They were on agreed assignment from the Royal Pair, and also just following their instincts that they were a force of good in the world that would come out victorious. Luckily for the party, for now, things did calm down encounter wise. They began clearing the other rooms on this floor without trouble. After finding some more nifty loot(some funky stones, eyeglasses and some potions and the like) as they made their way, Alystn gasped as his find. He found this too big of a fancy looking hat. When he put it upon his head, he was instantly imbued with the ability call forth vermin! And of course being in this kind of place, what better thing to get. Within a few moments, the party had a new companion. A small black bat rested upside-down upon the extra large and wide brim of Alystn's new hat. This made him feel much better after the ordeal he just went through.
The view from the top of this tower was once calming. Now it is nerve-wracking. Due to its condition, and it's inhabitant.
Finally the party made their way across the open air space to the stairs that made their way upwards once more. This part of the trek was tiresome as the crumbled walls they had to maneuver across were not as easy as they originally thought, and the staircase was in terrible condition. It took many strained moments to make their way up. When they did they saw they were at the top floor of the castle's lone remaining standing tower. Panoramic views of the Tethyrian countryside and coast were some of the first sights they were able to see from this height. The circular space up here, made of stone and not exactly in terrible shape as most of the rest of the ruins, was about one hundred feet in diameter. It had begun to show signs of wild overgrowth in some spots. And in the dead center surrounded by frayed bits of grasses & a small dead tree laid on its side, stood a rather ornate looking pedestal made of a bright grey, almost white stone. And upon seeing this, the party continued their gaze, following it to the western edge of the tower where a part of the perimeter had broken away, & saw they were not alone up here.
The last remaining occupant of old Castle Tethyr just HAD to be this evil giant
The party took a step backwards in shock(and probably innate survival) as this giant monster, who had not yet noticed them, and its back facing them, was looking out to the western horizon. It's two massive heads seemingly arguing with each other about something not yet known. Yes, it's TWO HEADS on the same body! Whether it was instinct, or maybe the wind, the party froze in their physical and mental tracks as the large giant turned around and faced them. It was such an ugly thing. Two bulky heads. Each with a set of really big lower tusks within it's teeth. Tribally styled dirty beards hung down from their colorfully painted faces. The party realized between the two heads, there were only two eyes, The left head had only its left eye, and the right head only had its right eye. And in each of the monster's hands, were held large fierce looking weapons. The right head held a massive spiked club, while the left hand held a large bone like object shaped in the form of a crude axe.
Even with this shocking and scary discovery of nature in front of them, it didn't hold Sendak back from wanting to achieve the party's goal of locating the Princess as so far, she was nowhere to be found. He immediately took a step forward and addressed the monster, hoping it would understand him. "Where is the Princess?! I demand you tell us now you foul beast!" Well, that may not have been the greatest first line, but it seemed to work because immediately back the giant replied to Sendak, but in the language of Giants. So he and Inka heard the following, while the others stood in place, ready(tiredly) to attack once again.
The right side head was the first to reply. It had a deep, intimidating yet slightly immature voice. "Princess? No princess here. Only Zammo here!" As it said this it beat its chest with its club in an aggressive show of prideful dominance. The left side head, which was clearly not as intelligent or tact as the right side head, also had a comment to toss out. Its voice clearly showing its lisp& its mental deficiency. It said in an almost silly loud voice "Yeah, no Princess here, right Zammo?" as it looked to its partner head for approval. That approval came in a whack to the face by the left heads clubbed weapon. It yelled to the right head "you no speak, only Zammo speak!" It turned again to Sendak with its wild eye focusing on the group. "You no take Zammo's treasure! This is Zammo's treasure!" The party was becoming more confused as the creature spoke. What treasure was it talking about? The little piddly trinkets they found on the lower floors perhaps? That couldn't be it, they thought. Until again Sendak, maybe becoming impatient in his excited fear, once again lashed out at the giant in their common tongue, "what treasure are you talking about? Is it the Princess? Is the Princess the treasure?" The giant that called itself Zammo, with its two heads, was showing signs of frustration now. Stomping its feet, loudly snorting, and grunting. And like the immature child the right head was, instead of taking another moment to try and reason with these invaders of its house, it went ahead and did the only thing it knew it was instinctually proud of doing. And the party at that moment thought, oh no. The two-headed giant, both its weapons held high in its hands, mouth agape releasing a primal scream, was charging at them full speed...
FIN
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