S21. The Tower of Storms Report
General Summary
Attacked on several fronts, the party faces a giant shark, a wailing banshee, and harpy song echoing all around them in the storm. All wounded, and with their cleric catatonic awaiting the banshee's return to finish the job, they are already in bad shape as the storm grows more violent around them.
And there is still even greater evil waiting for them in the ominous tower above where an eerie green light pulses like a heartbeat out to sea to draw in ships to crash on the deadly rocks at the base of the tower and join the other skeletal ships that lie dead in the perilous tide.
Meanwhile, a few miles to the west, a ship called the Choral Mule, heading south from Neverwinter to Waterdeep, turns east as the crew stares toward the coast trying to make out what that pulsing green light is. The Captain pulls a telescope from her eye and calls to the pilot, "Keep it steady to the East, someone is in terrible danger and needs our help. There's a storm brewing yonder and we have to get in closer."
...the winds fill the sails and push the ship all the quicker toward the pulsing green light of the tower on the horizon...
The Runeknight wading in tumultuous waves continues to try slashing through the water at the shark. His blades are far less effective in the water than would be a spear or shortsword, but he has connected with a Booming Blade and as the shark continues its frenzy in the bloody water, the sea around it roils and explodes upward from the concussing magic. More shark fins are seen approaching from the north side of the lighthouse.
The banshee continues its haunting flight around her cave in a wide, counter-clockwise arc, and the other water-borne heroes work to get back out of the water and onto the causeway.
Jareth nearly walks off the cliff as well, but fends off the harpies' song, struggling to regain control of his mind. Eventually, he wards it off and begins to run down the stairs to catch up to his friends in trouble. Invoking his internal monk energies, he leaps down and takes every 10th step in a Step of the Wind.
The crashing waves are problematic for them and each of them spends a little time taking a quick dip in the drink...except Ozus, who manages to somehow avoid full baptism by the Storm Lord.
They all clambor up the hewn steps in the size of the island on which the lighthouse stands, and arrive at the door at its base. They are carved with 3 lightning bolts striking at the same point.
They enter the ominous tower and find the foyer empty, but an open door to the south reveals a shrine, with an altar alight with arcing lightning that intensifies as another bolt from the heavens strikes the rod mounted on the roof above it. They can see out the windows where skeletons of ships get hammered by the waves, their ragged masts the only parts remaining above the surface.
The walls of the shrine are decorated with frescos of an grinning evil god looking down on ships being tossed relentlessly in the stormy waves of the ocean. They scout out the other opened door in the foyer (does anyone keep doors closed around here? Were they all raised in barns?!?) and found it to be the round staircase spiraling up to the top of the tower. Another door in the staircase room is actually closed.
Kally sets up watch under the stairs as a giant wolf spider, and the others hunker down in the shrine to take a short rest and catch their breath for an hour or so.
The alter in the shrine keeps the attention of Kanenas who really really really wants to touch it, and after the rest, he walks right over to it and does so.
Lightning arcs all across his body and armor, and locks all of this muscles up like a statue as he screams out in pain. No one is sure of a safe way to free him from his electric dream, so they all end up watching the light show in stunned silence. Eventually the drake rebounds off a wall and knocks him away from the alter, leaving him prone on the ground, babbling about Deneir being a great god and that he should just shut up. His eyes continue to flash and flicker with sparks of tiny lightning bolts arcing out frequently.
Ulana takes her spider-self outside and starts scaling the lighthouse walls to find the least obvious way up to the top. She reaches the roof of the outbuilding and takes note of the tall lightning rod on the south end, and then skitters over to the tower proper and continues her climb. She winds up at the top, on the balcony where the thumping, green light calls out to the ocean seeking ships to call in from the storm.
The others begin to climb the spiral stairs up the tower, but as Torgan Wyrmsfoot and Jareth Anshar start up the stairs the door near them opens, and a deep voice calls out, the source cannot be seen. He identifies himself as Moesko and claims to recognize the dwarf as being from a clan he took part in destroying. He appears within the room, appearing from nowhere, covered in strange octopus armor, with 8 arms each ending in claw-like spike weapons. He ends his soliloquy by bringing his tentacles together and emitting a terrible lightning bolt at Togan, who dodges some of the bolt, but gets lit just the same.
Moesko is NOT a friendly host.
Kanenas
Neutral Good Variant Human (Urban Bounty Hunter)
Fighter 4
Warlock 3
Fighter 4
Warlock 3
74 / 74 HP
STR
19
19
DEX
12
12
CON
16
16
INT
14
14
WIS
10
10
CHA
13
13
Ozus
Neutral Fierna Tiefling (Acolyte)
Cleric 9
Cleric 9
59 / 59 HP
STR
13
13
DEX
17
17
CON
15
15
INT
8
8
WIS
19
19
CHA
12
12
Report Date
10 May 2022
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