Fire and Ice 10

General Summary

12 Arodus 41713

We spent a bit of time exploring the remainder of the first floor, but there wasn't much else to discover, just the route to the outer wall on the north side of the courtyard and a couple of lavatories. We then used the two teleporters (with the pass code supplied by Hatch), half of us on the north one and half on the south. They took us to the same room (which we knew would happen), the dining hall where we encountered more fey. I think these were the ones called atomies, but I'm honestly having difficulty keeping track of the different types. These were the really small ones if I'm wrong. We fought them, but they were soon joined by what seemed to be a gnome at first. He came from a room to the north and quickly grew to giant size. Apparently, it was a creature called a spriggan. There are just more and more weird things that we encounter all the time. Anyway, we dispatched the spriggan and the other fey. The spriggan had come from a kitchen, where we found some stew and pastries. There was also a cookie that was apparently magical. Apparently, it places a curse on whoever eats it. Obviously, we didn't eat it, though I'm not entirely sure what happened to it. Grinner probably has it. It's the kind of thing he'd spirit away. We did eat some stew though. We then began searching the second floor, following a verbal description of the layout given to us by Hatch. He decided he wasn't going any farther through the tower and would wait for us on the first floor. I don't think that bothered anyone. He'd done all he could, really. He's not really a combatant. We started on the south side where there were guest bedrooms. The first was empty, but in the next we discovered...Lady Argentea Malassene! Of course, that wasn't possible. We'd already rescued her and she was back on her way home. We talked to her a little bit and questioned her. Obviously, there had to be some sort of deception going on, and hopefully, the Lady Argentea we had rescued did not turn out to be a fake. Well, questioning made this Lady Argentea seem more and more the liar. Eventually, she attacked us and we killed her. She turned out to be a doppelganger. We don't really know why she was masquerading as Lady Argentea, but it was probably part of some plan to replace the real one. We then moved to the library. When we opened the door, we were immediately attacked by a fierce woman. We shut the door again to gain us a bit of time, and some of use hurried back through the dining room to approach the library from the other side. When we opened the door again, the woman had grown to giant size. No, she didn't turn out to be another spriggan. It was just a spell apparently, but all these giant-sized people were taking a toll on us. I have to admit I nearly died again. So did Valeria. But we eventually prevailed. Bronwyn got the killing shot. The damage we'd been suffering was really adding up. Sure, Valeria and Bronwyn could heal some of it, but they were running out of the ability to do that, and Cassy was running out of spells. So we decided we needed to stop for now. We returned to the first floor and used the barracks as a place to rest, sleep, and recover. We piled beds on top of the teleporters to stop people from upstairs arriving that way. We also used beds to block the doors to the barracks in case anyone used other methods to get to the first floor. There were more than enough beds to stil have some to sleep on. Then we settled down. That evening, Grinner invited Frono to sleep in his bed with him, but Frono refused. Frono continues to not like Grinner much. He seems incredibly suspicious of Grinner. I get some of the suspicion, but not all of it. Still, I much prefer having Frono with me at night.

13 Arodus 4713

We returned to the second floor and continued exploring. In a conservatory, we encounted a plant creature called a mandragora. It almost killed Ten-Penny and affected her with a poison that clouded her mind. It caused her to see us as enemies and we had to disarm her. Both Grinner and Cassy tried, but failed. Bronwyn managed though. Luckily, the poison wore off quickly, so we didn't have to hold Ten-Penny for very long. We then moved to the north end of the floor where we discovered a teleporter we knew would take us to the aerie, where the ravens are kept. None of us had much desire to deal with ravens again, so we ignored that one. We wanted the one to the witch's chambers. I should point out, we knew where that was--in a room Hatch called the "Mirrored Hall" in the east side of the floor--but we want to clear out anything else on the level first, so nothing came at us. There was another bedroom along this side, and we're pretty sure it was the bedroom of the giant woman from the library. Damn, out of time again. I will get through our journey through the Pale Tower soon. I promise.

Love,
Izzy (and Frono)