Session 10: The Curious Home of Lord Ozin Lorimer

General Summary

54th of Varmalev 21st year of the Second Era
The party awoke before dawn to cold rooms and the sound of freezing rain hitting Lucky Hawk Inn. When they left their rooms, they saw Sebastian Braun eating breakfast while waiting for them. When they joined him he informed them he had already found some information on Emmet (Jesper Forsyth). "It seems anyone who worked with him couldn't easily forget him. The man had to move around from one criminal organization to another because he had sadistic tendencies that didn't bode well for a thief or smuggler. Would rather kill a man and loot his corpse than simply pickpocket him. Last anyone heard, he was recruited by a group of cultists that called themselves the Cult of Mantus."
Malcolm asked if Sebastian knew anything about the cult itself, but Sebastian didn't have any useful information on them. He promised to keep his ears open but had to leave for Twin Locks. He implored the party to join him at The Grey Boar in two weeks to help him with a dangerous heist.
The party took note of how quickly the the winter was coming on and decided to arrange winter gear. Meara purchased a fur hooded cloak. Zuko had a leather hooded robe with a fur liner made. Malcolm had his leather coat re-treated and had a fur liner added. They stopped by Al-Hai's Bazaar (Palhas Location) and noticed that the desert tent used for the shop was repelling the rain by arcane means, and inquired about getting a 4 person tent with the same enchantment. The shop keep said he may be able to acquire something like that for them within a week. The party purchased feed for the horses and headed for the wizard's tower.
When they arrived at the tower, it was apparent that there hadn't been any traffic in or out of the building for some time. They approached the building and where confronted by a strange metallic eye that descended from the glass dome on top of the tower. While it was insisting that Lord Ozin Lorimer was not available and demanding they leave the property, a voice seemed to take over briefly and call for help. Three large metal spheres were launched from the dome, and folded out into Humanoid constructs with blades for arms. The party fought them off, with Alaric taking out two of them himself and coming out of the fight unscathed. Malcolm decided to throw one of the machines into the horse cart to study the dual crossbow mechanism it used on them.
They forced their way into the building and found themselves in a room that seemed too large for the building that contained it. The most noticeable features at first were the torch sconces with with globes instead of combustible material, a painting of the apparent owner of the building, a lone tapestry, a fireplace that burned without consuming the wood inside, and a painting above the mantle that appeared to be a mirror image of the room. Malcolm realized that the painting was so accurate that even the front door was open both in real life and the painting. With some experimentation the party realized that the painting (when not observed) would update to reflect changes that occurred in the room. In the process Zuko realized that once they had closed the front door, there was now a room beyond it instead of the exterior of the building. They eventually realized that it was in fact the same room they were in. Walking through the door brought them to a raised platform above the fireplace, and every conceivable exit brought them back into the room from the opposite end.
Malcolm used the Magnifying Glass of Identify and determined that the room and everything in it was magic, most of it illusion. THey were able to determine that the tapestry was in fact a flying carpet when Zuko recognized the Elvish word for "fly" was hidden in the patter on the tapestry. Malcolm experimented with the Marvelous Pigments on the painting of the room, eventually painting a door on the ceiling of the painting, which created a miniature replica of the door as well as a door on the actual ceiling. The party ascended to the door and found a spiral staircase beyond it.
The next chamber the party came to seemed to be made of pure white light with a black marble bridge leading to the next stair case. The space outside of the bridge seemed to have no gravity. Any loud noises seemed to awaken angry entities in the white light that then began a chorus of whispers that had a heavy impact on the party's psychological health. They tried to hover across the bridge on the carpet but anti-magic runes rendered the carpet temporarily useless, and caused a loud disturbance. The whispering caused Malcolm to run off the bridge, but Zuko recovered him before any serious damage was done. They tried to make their way across the bridge stealthily but they awakened the shadow people several more times; causing Malcolm to nearly stab Zuko, and Meara to run off the bridge. They eventually made it safely to the other side, and continued up the tower.
To be continued... @session

Report Date

24 Aug 2019

Primary Location

Palhas City