One-shot: The Tower of Thazahl

1827CE, Fel Country, Morgovan Empire

The town of Vaske stands in the shadow of a mighty tower. This tower is the home of the wizard Thazahl, a master of the arcane and one of the greatest wizards in the history of the empire. Some three months he travelled south to the land of Kewhua on a personal errand, and two weeks ago a raven landed in the halls of the Emperor and croaked out a message: ‘Thazahl is dead’.

The tower has stood abandoned in his absence. No servants maintain it, no visitors have ever been permitted. Rumours have circulated over the decades: that it is bigger on the inside, that Thazahl kept a menagerie of monsters that he experimented on, that he has a god imprisoned inside. With the wizard dead, his property has been claimed by the Empire. One week ago, a team of adventurers were sent into the tower. Yesterday, one emerged almost torn to pieces. Before succumbing to his wounds, he said: “the monsters are loose.”

The second team of adventurers were sent into the tower, tasked with eliminating any monsters within. They consisted of Titiliel von Anderfell – a half-elf Life cleric of Alma, Crusher – a brass dragonborn barbarian zealot, Gertie – an elf swashbuckler rogue, and Euphoria – a tiefling twilight domain cleric. Entering into the tower they found themselves in a broad entrance hall, and were soon attacked by three gelatinous cubes that roamed the hall. After a battle spanning much of the hall they slew the cubes and advanced up the stairs to where two circular stone plinths stood. They quickly determined that these utilised conjuration magic to enable teleportation between floors, and they warped to a room full of cages, lit by flashing red orbs of light. Several of the cages were torn open, some with dead monsters inside, and two guard drakes attacked them. After destroying the monsters they encountered a mimic posing as a chest on the far side of the room before journeying onwards to a circular room of grey stone brick with the walls adorned by tapestries. One showed an artistic depiction of the Coming of the red star, another the coronation of Moroth Krall, first emperor of the Morgovan Empire, in 1252CE. The third and newest depicted five silhouetted figures facing a colossal sea serpent. The room held five different teleportation plinths, each with a label showing them as leading to the Cage Room, Potion Hall, Arcane Workshop, Library, and Lounge. They decided to travel to the library.

There they found a massive expanse of bookcases, tables and bottomless pits as the library seemed to be suspended in a bizarre unending space. Their presence alerted a spectator, a bizarre smaller variant of a Beholder, and after a short battle they killed it. They then travelled to a room marked ‘experiment chamber’, and found themselves in a room full of the wreckage of magical equipment, tables, bookcases and experimentation supplies. Several large green frosted-glass cases were set against one wall, one housing a humanoid abomination that seemed to have been stitched together from different bodies. A chimaera lurked within the workshop, and after a lengthy fight Gertie slew it. They then stepped onto a plinth marked ‘Dreadnaught’.

When they were warped this time they felt a strange lurching sensation and found themselves in an entirely bizarre place. This was an unending swirling sea-like expanse of shifting colours and light and fog. They stood on a long slab of stone that seemed to anchor them to it, as there was no gravity in this place. They found a table with a journal in which Thazahl had kept notes on a being he had found in this place (that he referred to as the ‘astral sea’.) He had managed to imprison the monster but had made little progress in learning its full capabilities, beyond establishing it held incredible magical resistance. As they read about this they heard a deep rumbling in the fog around them and saw a gargantuan shape moving within it. As the fog parted briefly they saw a chained behemoth, a monster like bloated purple-grey worm from which extended two arms ending in pincers the size of buildings. It was perhaps a hundred or more feet wide, and its body extended out into the expanse farther than they could see. Above its pincers its head rose with a wide mouth bristling with enormous teeth. Above that was a broad metal plate affixed in place by a series of giant chains that bound the monster along its body and held it locked in place, the chains stretching out to island-rocks and floating metal weights that seemed to hold it suspended in this strange colourful space.

They left the monster where it was and transported to the ‘study’ after answering a puzzle at a large circular stone door. Thazahl’s study had been ransacked by some clawed monster, though they found some trinkets of value and found several letters on his desk: one from a Vyaran Shapash, continuing a seemingly ongoing discussion about the safe keeping of magical beings, another from Archmage Jourreal Kryn of the Shadow Assembly, inquiring about Thazahl’s health, and finally a letter from ‘the Cynelish’, referring to the Lost Library of Muirneag. The Cynelish believed they had found a clue to its location. They invited Thazahl to visit them at their home in Kalomo in the United Nations of Kewhua, where they could discuss this further. The letter was dated to a couple of weeks before Thazahl’s departure for Kewhua.

The party discovered another door leading from the study into a vast treasure room, in which a young black dragon made itself known and announced it had laid claim to Thazahl’s Tower. Though the party tried to reason with it, the dragon decided that they would send a better message dead, and attacked. The ensuing battle was lengthy, with the dragon spewing blasts of acid and waves of noxious gas and acid spraying up from the trove of coins, gems and treasures. Finally the dragon was slain.