Session 13-14: The Devil's Own Tower Report

General Summary

After the fight with the citadel-skeleton and the so-called Lord of Death, the adventurers reclaim their perambulating house and make their way south to the Throne of Cats. However, they are waylaid by a Drider would-be-king and his drow and spider minions.   Though they breach the walls of the house, the drow and the spiders are dealt with quickly enough by the heroes, but the Drider is made of different stuff. It takes a concerted effort by all to dispatch him, and even then it results in a running battle across the rooftops as Leonardo refuses to let the Drider flee.   Once that threat is dealt with, though, the heroes have little-enough trouble returning to the Throne of Cats and Raktavi, where they are able to inform the Rakshasa Lord that Zarloff's forces have been sundered: with the destruction of the citadel-skeleton's blackstone heart, ALL the undead raised by Zarloff have returned to their eternal slumbers.   Of course, there are still plenty of powerful contenders, such as the Drider they encountered, who are willing to fill the power vacuum created by Zarloff's destruction. But Raktavi moves swiftly and orders his Black Cat assassins to prepare his armies for movement into the newly-made untamed cityscape.   Raktavi gifts the adventurers with more magical loot from his horde, and it is settled that Silent Sam will continue to travel with them, escorting the Helionsiders to the portal in the mountains.   Once this is decided, there is only the question of route, and after some dissention, the Explorers decide to work their way northwest toward the river, where they'll cross at the Arcbridge, near the Tower of Murders (called by some The Chalice).   Having tamed the house (43 Wyvern Street), the party uses that to head into the Citywalk district toward the Chalice. There, they encounter another blasted region such as surrounded the citadel-skeleton, but here, at least, there are still standing walls and solitary archways. Still, 43 Wyvern Street is forced to stay on the ground and, more or less, in the open.   Which is how the demon finds them.   It skitters across the landscape from ruin to ruin, and then even fly-climbs across the side of the Tower of Murders for a short span, before crashing into the house.   The demon then tears its way through the roof and into battle with the Explorers, demanding that they give it one soul as toll to cross the barren section of cityscape.   No one stepping up to volunteer, the adventurers engage with the demon.   But this fight is more difficult than they expected. The demon has powers and strengths the party has not encountered before, and they are hard-pressed to repel it from Number 43.   They finally do, but it captures Leonardo (or, possibly, the other way around) as it tears away, lifting the barbarian high into the eternal twilight of the Orlockian sky.   ...where Leonardo kills it.   The barbarian falls several hundred feet, but Happy catches him ... or tries to. They wind up in a heap of bruised and battered selves. But, once more, the adventurers have prevailed against some of the worst this dark side of the world can throw at them.   They continue on toward the Arcbridge, leaving the pale, pulsing light of the Tower of Murders behind.