The Tower of Black Flame - "Hit by a flying skull"

General Summary

The The Bear-Downers are alerted by a noise coming from the barred door. They can hear someone picking the lock and then they see the door getting pushed open, slowly, until it hits resistance from the table blocking the door. Ralornan sees this and know it must be the thieves they encountered earlier, so he calls out to them through the door. No answer. The The Bear-Downers move the table out of the way so that Ralornan can open the door. He looks left and right but can see no one. As he turns to tell the The Bear-Downers swords attack out of the darkness. The thieves are there and they attack from the shadows dealing heavy damage to Ralornan but once the rest of the party gets involved 3 thief corpses are dead, slumped in the doorway. The group locks the doors again and proceed to the next stairwell.  

• A noose of black tarred rope hangs down from the ceiling above the seventh step. It seems to dangle through a small aperture in the ceiling, not much larger than the diameter of the rope.

  Seeing this noose hanging from the ceiling Zath Sev deftly maneuvers around it. Skar, on the other hand, investigates the noose to see if it is blood and accidentally touches it. At that moment a deep warning bell tolls from some unseen bell higher in the tower. The sound is deafening but the The Bear-Downers make it to the head of the stairs.
   

• At the head of the stairs, there is a small landing in front of a closed stone door similar to others you have seen in the Tower. This one seems to have a spreadeagled human skeleton fused into its surface, protruding halfway out of the stone. There's something dark inside its bony ribcage, something that hisses at you and starts to move!

  Ralornan approaches the door, fending off the attacks from the tiny tiny snakes as Zath Sev, Baelok and Skar eliminate the threat.  

• The Tower's fourth floor isn't a single open room like the lower levels. It's divided into three parallel hallways running between a transverse corridor just inside the door you're looking through, and what looks to be a matching open area on the far side of the level. There's a closed stone door in the wall opposite your door.
• The central hallway has plain walls, but the two hallways on either side of it have walls covered with shelves and wooden pigeonholes for holding scrolls. All of them look empty, except for three rolled-up parchments halfway along the rack to your far right.
• Suddenly some creature scurries into the far end of the hallway to your left-something that rears up in size with astonishing speed. It's a dragon, its jaws opening as it glares at you and rushes forward without a sound!

Ralornan is about to take the brunt of the attack as a large "Dragon" speed towards him. The attacks from the The Bear-Downers seems to have no effect. As the "Dragon" gets closer something is not right. That is when, the Minotaur Skeleton bursts through the image of the "Dragon" where it attacks the party. Although it appears heavily damaged already it is a dangerous foe. Two of the "Dragons" are killed and all that is left are the corpses of two small lizards. Once the The Bear-Downers figure out the Dragons are just illusions they focus on the Minotaur. After some well placed attacks by both Zath Sev and Skar, Baelok takes it down with a crushing shot to the skull. After the fight they search the room and find a Scroll of Chromatic orb but not much else. The then proceed to the next set of stairs leading up.    

• An eerie blue-green radiance kindles around a skull that suddenly appears out of thin air near the head of the stairs. Then the skull flies down the stairs toward you!

The skull flies down the stairs attempting to hit anyone in it's path. Most are able to avoid the skull but Ralornan, weary from his previous encounters, sees the skull headed right at him. Ralornan braces himself for the impact as the skull passes through his body leaving him cold and confused. A second skull appears as the The Bear-Downers advance up the stairs. They avoid the skull this time and it disappears. A third skull appears but Baelok is unable to evade the attack. He is his, as if by a mace, right in the face by the skull. Seeing that this skull is more....substantial than the previous ones, the The Bear-Downers take it down after 5-6 strikes to the metal object.  

• The stair ends at a closed stone door that seems to have a stylized bronze skeleton design sculpted on the surface of the door. The image's skull is missing, leaving an empty socket about the size and shape of the animated skull you just encountered.

The The Bear-Downers correctly infer that the flying bronze skull goes in the hole in order to unlock the door.  

• This floor is dominated by a dome 20 feet across in the center of its ceiling. Around the lip or lower edge of this dome runs a ring of archways formed by a circle of twelve slender stone pillars. Standing tall and sinister at the center of this ring is a high-backed throne carved of some dark, green-black stone. Its arched top resembles a staring serpent head, and its side and arms are adorned with snarling open-mouthed fanged serpents. It emanates a faint acrid smell and has a waxy, unhealthy look.
• Beyond the throne and the ring of pillars, directly across the room from your door, is the usual closed stone door leading to the next level.

The The Bear-Downers enter the fifth floor and begin to investigate the room. As Skar approaches the door on the opposite side of the room a small bulbous and maggot-like, bat-winged creature with a long tail and bony sickly at the end attacks Baelok . A ring of golden eyes peer from it's blunt head staring in wide eyed excitement as it launches itself forward.

Rewards Granted

• Scroll of Chromatic Orb
• 5 Tiny Poisonous Snake corpses