Cenday, 18th Zenith 211 EoL
The group slowly entered the looming structure. Apart from the light entering through the doorway and from a broken window high above, it was completely dark inside. Upon exploring the room they realized they were in a giant-sized living room. There was a fireplace, with a large stone chair next to it, and an enormous humanoid skeleton was resting upon the chair.
After further investigation, the group realized they were not alone in the tower. They came upon Gwenelle Nirinath, a half-Drow. Their first encounter was rather tense, especially considering
Tiny's short fuse when it comes to dark-skinned elves. Gwenelle, however, was branded as an outcast and fleeing from her home. While traveling through the jungle, she came upon a band of Lizardfolk. To escape them she sought refuge within the tower. So rather than cut each other to pieces they decided to work together for the time being.
To ascend the tower they had to solve a couple more runic puzzles, similar to the one at the entrance outside the structure. This time around though, the meaning of the runes was revealed. 4 runes representing each: protection, home, family & faith. There were murals along the tower walls. One was of humanoids (possibly giants) protecting themselves with force fields against an onslaught of dragons. Another pictured a walled city. A third showed a temple-like structure, and the last a family gathering. Slotting the runes into the board according to the murals opened up a spiral staircase in the middle of the room to the next level. As the stairs were also giant-sized, climbing them was no easy task.
The second floor seemed to be living quarters, with the stone frame of an enormous bed remaining. There was a huge tapestry hanging on the wall showing a family gathering in the middle, surrounded on the sides by a city, protected above with a forcefield and supported from below via a group of praying people.
Additionally, there was a phrase written across the wall:
"At the core is family, surrounded by a home, built upon a foundation of faith. All needs protection."
When they ascended up to the third and final level, it was Cap and
Mini who took point on the flying carpet. They came to a mostly empty room with a circle formation of flowing rocks. In the center of the circle was a magic holographic map, highlighting points of interest. The map seemed ancient as the general layout matched Vrinn island, but it wasn't an island just yet. The room was also filled with hungry lizardfolk ghouls, circling underneath the flying carpet.
While Cap and Mini were charting the map upstairs,
Tiny got impatient and started climbing the stairs, leaving
Lucky, Hotshot and Gwenelle on the second floor. Once Tiny made it to the third floor, all hell broke loose as the Ghouls immediately started swarming and tearing into him. Cap frantically tried to keep them away from Tiny, while Mini ferried the rest of the group up to the third level with the help of the carpet. Gwenelle charged up the walls, thanks to her magical boots. But all the help came too late. There were too many of them. Paralyzed by the Ghouls' attacks, Tiny could not defend himself and got torn to pieces. The party managed to fight off the Ghouls, eventually, only to stand over the lifeless body of their companion. Cap poured one healing potion after the other down Tiny's throat, but to no avail.
Their time for grief, however, was cut short when the tower started shaking and acid burned its way down the middle of it. The top of the tower got ripped apart by an invisible force. With a loud thundering sound, something seemed to have landed in the middle of the tower in front of Tiny's body. Some of the group were already on their way down to leave the tower. Cap & Mini stayed frozen over the body of their dead friend, while Hotshot remained close by, commandeering the carpet. Cap ordered them all to run, and threw Mini, who wouldn't move, unto the carpet.
The dragon roared and turned visible as it readied its acid attack. It was the same dragon, that attacked them on the boat when they first came to the island. In a last-ditch effort to not let anyone else die under his command, Cap threw himself into the line of fire. Most of his body got evaporated by the acid, but he managed to provide Hotshot and Mini with enough time to fly down the staircase before being hit by the acid attack. The rest of the group managed to escape as the dragon continued his rage and the tower was falling down around them.
All that remained of the once-proud structure was a cloud of dust, with the bodies of their friends buried somewhere beneath the rubble. Once they made camp and were safe, Lucky made some rudimentary grave markers for Cap and Tiny.
Mellsday, 19th Zenith 211 EoL
Early in the morning the group was approached by a red-skinned Lizardfolk, called Iv, who meant no harm, but rather pleaded for their help. Having survived an encounter with the false god, the dragon, Iv wanted the group's help in killing the Lizardfolk King of the Greenskins. In exchange, once the king was dead and he redskins would take back control, the war with the
Numian Empire would end. It turned out, however, that the King was a Lizardfolk shaman of the Redskins who had betrayed them, and turned to the dragon as his newfound god. Despite some reservations on Mini's part, the group agreed and followed the Lizardfolk back to their camp.
At the camp, they came across two prisoners, a Tiefling and an Elven lady. Through some minor deception, they managed to convince the Lizardfolk to release the prisoners into their care. Both Shirel (the Tiefling) and Yelena (the Elf) were grateful and decided to stick around and follow the rest of the party into battle against the Lizardfolk king. However, they did not have much choice in the matter, as they were still surrounded by hundreds of Lizardfolk.
Lumday, 22nd Zenith 211 EoL
After a few days of a trek through the jungle, it was time to kill the Lizardking. The group waited for the battle to commence between the Greenskins and the 47th Legion of the
Numian Military. With a select few Lizardfolk to accompany them, the group snuck up on the unsuspecting king and managed to successfully pull off a glorious ambush, all the while the majority of the Redskins engaged the Greenskin army to prevent them from reaching their king. The fight was nearly over before it started, and with their commander being dead the Greenskin army quickly fell into disarray.
