The Abominable Towerman

Week 4 (29/03/16): The Abominable Towerman
GM: Rackle

Players:
 * Spudacus / Liam A
 * Merlin / Mutu
 * Geopo (sp?) / Ciaran
 * Ainsley /
 * Leonarro (sp?) /

Report from Spudacus (Liam)
''In memory of Geopo, a kind, brave man who gave his life defending his allies. He will never be forgotten.''

After the animation of Thordrasil’s bones it was seen traveling east toward the dreaded Necromancer Island. On its way it had to have flew passed The Granite Eye, yet we received no word, nor did we receive any reports later into the month, concern grew and I decided to form a team and investigate. Much to my disappointment Merlin joined, he is a skilled man, but so very selfish. I don't trust him. We were joined by a snobbish elven tactician by the name of Ainsley, and his boy-scout Leonarro, and Geopo, the Citadel’s resident cleric of Ban.

We started out by having a completely useless conversation with Sentinel Nat because Merlin didn’t trust my judgement. Afterwards we headed to the requisitions office, Martleby’s uncle was on duty. It was a sad sight, he was so deep in grief. Geopo comforted him and offered to help the rest of the group out with what they needed. Unfortunately to get to The Granite Eye we needed to obtain mounts of some description, the animal requisition tokens were all number coded, it occurs to me now there was probably a reference book somewhere. We had no idea what meant what so we grabbed one of each, each, and headed off to the “stables”. We handed the stable-master our tokens and with strange looks she brought us our mounts. A warhorse, a frill necked dragonet, a hound of some sort, a donkey and cart, and I was given a magic carpet.

Excited to see what my new friend, I named them Genie, could do, I immediate request it give me a demonstration. Off we flew. We returned some fifteen minutes later to an increasingly impatient party, we decided to use the portal to get as close as possible, and then all take Genie the rest of the way. We arrived in the town nearest the tower late that night, Genie was impressively fast. As soon as we landed we were met by a crowd of panicked townsfolk. Before we could speak we were swarms with requests for aid in evacuating the town, they said something had happened to the graveyard and any townsfolk who attempted to contact the garrison at The Granite Eye never returned. After some questioning we were pointed to a scout who lived in the settlement, we were told he got closest to the tower and found the bodies of tens of villagers.

We approached the still very shocked man and he told us his tale, he said he got close, close enough to the tower he believed it should have been in sight when he saw the dead. They had been torn apart as if by teeth, and there were other wounds, sword wounds on the bodies. I feared that along with the graveyard disturbance this was proof of the risen dead. Geopo promised to share a drink with the man when we were finished. It was late at night, so, knowing the cemetery wasn't going to go anywhere, again, we thought we’d sleep. Before sleeping I made an oath of Pon to defend the garrison of the tower from whatever inequities that had beset them, in return I was granted resistance to any foul magics or illusion that may present itself. We headed out early the next morning straight to the disturbed resting place. Upon investigation it became evident nothing rose out from inside the graves, the site was rather evenly and uniformly disturbed, and it appeared anything that was potentially animated had traveled underground in the direction of the tower, the sea, and maybe as far as the island.

We followed our map and the directions of the scout to find the location of the deceased citizens. Leonarro has outstanding knowledge about weapons and was able to identify the weapon wounds as caused by citadel issued short swords, a worrisome, though expected, discovery. Using Genie to gain some height I was able to discern that whatever attacked the people was either a single gigantic creature, or a large group of people, whatever the result we were in for a challenge. We continued toward where the tower should have been.

The rubble came within sight, it was horrific and absolutely total. The tower was in ruins, stone blocks littered the ground. In the middle of the tiny stone ring that was once a mighty fortress was a statue, one of pure horror to behold, there must have been three, four dozen heads scattered around its body. It had dozens of limbs, at least one full set per twisted face, some arms wielded swords, others were covered in mouths. It was just standing there, this nightmare stone statue in the middle of the ring. Before anyone could act Geopo was approaching it, he placed his hand on one of its countless thighs, he leapt back in terror as one pair of eyes opened, then the others. Its colour changed, from this light grey stone to the most horrid rotting shade of flesh I’ve ever seen as it shook the tower dust off of its putrid skin. It lashed out at Geopo, throwing him into a wall causing serious harm to the holy man.

The most dangerous and one of the most frightening battles of my life had begun, it chilled me to the bone. Thugs, goblins, cultists, a werewolf, this was like none of those, I hadn’t felt so afraid since the night everything changed, but I had sworn an oath, an oath to a god, I had to fight. It was long and exhausting, the abomination just kept healing itself, the mouths were screaming, it felt like eternity had passed until we finally discovered how to weaken it. Geopo accidentally splashed holy water on it while casting a spell and it caused a head to disappear, along with it’s attributed limbs. A great deal more combat ensued after this, during which Ainsley fell and Merlin removed some kind of thorn from its back. Once removed the thorn disintegrated into nothingness and the heads began to speak. It was the souls of the garrison, they were returned to their monstrous bodies, he could gain no control of the abomination they were a part of and begged for us to lay them to rest. Leonarro recovered Ainsley’s body and brought him back to consciousness with a potion.

We pushed on, the cleric and I attempting to maneuver the monster on Genie. Unfortunately the unholy conglomeration of flesh managed to grab Genie and almost without effort tore the marvelous thing in two. Even more disastrous was the situation Geopo and I found ourselves in, with nothing to keep us aloft we began to plummet. Plummet right toward the abomination. As soon as we started to fall Geopo positioned himself between the creature and me, hoping to transfer all the impact to himself and save me from injury. His plan worked. Unfortunately he lost his life in doing so. I will never forget his sacrifice. His sacrifice provided me with a position right atop the monster, I immediately smashed his jug of holy water, coating the creature, with his dying words Geopo told me the the words of the funeral ritual required to put the souls to rest, I spoke them. The faces all thanked us and faded away. The abomination was almost destroyed, it was restored to what must have been its original form, almost, Captain Grall, the commander of the tower remained and talked us through dispatching the creature. We laid Geopo to rest and searched the tower site.

We located the bodies of some halfling guards, they appeared to have been killed by the collapsing tower, that might be the reason they weren't fused with the creature, or maybe it was something to do with the inherent connection halflings have with the dead, or it could potentially be a reason as simple as their small limbs would have made the abomination unbalanced. We also discovered a cowering guardsman in the basement, he had little to say about the event, just that the skeletal dragon was seen overhead and then there was a mad crash and chaos as the tower crumbled, I don’t trust him.

We tried to make our way back to Carabalis where we were to teleport home from, but Leonarro who was leading us caused us to get lost. We were trying to cut through the Picaroons when we were set upon by swarm of giant vampire bats, they were quickly dispatched and we finally got home.

''I don’t think I’ll be adventuring again for a while, I need time to recover. There are also personal matters I must attend to.''
 * The journal of Spudacus the Brave