1/31/2024 Afternoon of Windsday, Fertility Week, Sea Season, Year of the Overlord 2164 The party had dispatched a squad of knights to investigate the tower southwest of Strum that they had first seen during the battle of the giant slime. Curiously, however, none of the locals seemed to know of a tower in that area. The party sent Cirrus to fly high into the sky and see if he could spot the tower from above. Oddly, Cirrus could not see a tower in the area the party had previously seen one. Concerned that this mystery may pose a danger to the area, the party decided to investigate the matter themselves. Riding out on their horses, the party quickly met up with the squad of knights and traveled together to where they believed the tower to be. By the time they arrived, it was nearly dusk, but there was no tower to see. Instead, the area was lush with green grass and beautiful purple flowers. Chance sensed that something odd was going on, and Maeddes recognized that the purple flowers were not native to the area; in fact, the flowers were native to the Yin Sloth jungles, far to the south. The party concluded that there was some sort of powerful illusion in the whole area. Garack used “Divine Sense” and determined that there was something evil and chaotic about the area. The party decided to camp for the night at the edge of the strange area. That evening, they were visited by an elderly, small, stunted humanoid that approached from the east. Garack used “Divine Sense” and Chance cast “Detect Magic”, but in both instances, oddly, it appeared as if there was nothing there at all! “Call me Ishmael,” the old man introduced himself, saying he had taken many names to many different people. He was rather vague about more than his name, saying only that he “helped people find lost items.” He wore tattered robes covered in runes. Tempest stared at him curiously, as if there was something familiar that she couldn’t quite put her finger on about him. Ishmael told the party that he was concerned they might be in a little over their heads at the moment. He confirmed there was indeed a powerful illusion in the area, concealing a tower that was home to Yangin Dao, the former follower of the Old Ones that had imprisoned Tempest. Following the defeat of the Old Ones, Yangin Dao had become a follower of Thanatar, “the Headless One”, but now sought to free the Old One trapped in the nearby mountains. He gave the party a magical Kraken part, which would summon a Kraken to fight on the party’s behalf if thrown into water. He also gave Igny a device to dispel the magic illusion in the area, but could only be used once, at dawn. After that Ishmael departed. Some time later, Tempest realized suddenly that Ishmael was, in fact, Eurmal, the god of illusions! The next morning, the party dispelled the illusion using the device Eurmal had given to Igny. Suddenly, the lush green area was replaced with dry dead brush, cracked ground, and skeletal trees. In the middle of it all stood a tower, surrounded by a ring of menhirs. The menhirs stood 45 feet tall, were prism-shaped, and appeared dark and semi-transparent. Gunther was deeply afraid of the menhirs and was quite alarmed at Chance’s suggestion that perhaps they should try to destroy them. Chance approached close to a menhir and noticed his crystal dagger was vibrating slightly. The menhir seemed to be calling to him to approach and touch, but Chance resisted and quickly retreated several steps. The party decided to approach the tower, carefully making their way through the ring of menhirs, trying not to get too close to any one of them. Rudolph and Garack briefly were entranced by the menhirs, but the party was able to snap them out of it and everyone made it past without further incident. The tower itself was round and made of grey-green granite, standing four stories high. The party astutely noticed scorch marks in an area in front of the huge doors to the tower. Additionally, there were symbols carved on the door. The party deduced that the doors were magically trapped and would likely cause a fiery explosion if they tried to open them. Chance cast “Mage Hand” and used it to tie a rope to the handle of the door while the party stood a safe distance away. Then the party pulled the rope to open the door, and, sure enough, a huge blast of fire erupted from the door. The rope was burnt to a crisp, but the plan had worked and the party was unharmed. The party entered the first floor of the tower and discovered a large circular room, littered with bodies. The bodies were covered in runic symbols, and a grille in the middle of the room allowed for blood to drain below. There was a spiral staircase going up on the right side of the room, and one going down on the left side of the room. Directly ahead, there was a door, which seemed to emanate some sort of foul smell. Maeddes opened the door and just on the other side was a pile of dung, but beyond that was a vast expanse, as if the walls of the tower didn’t exist on the other side of the doorway. More concerning, however, was a 50-ft long caterpillar-like creature that caught sight of the party. Maeddes recognized the monstrosity as a blood maggot. Quickly, the party closed the door and ran up the stairs to the second level. Below them, they could hear loud thuds as the creature threw itself against the closed door. In no time at all, there was an enormous crashing noise as the blood maggot broke down the door and started following the party up the stairs. As Igny and Garack prepared to stand and fight the creature, Maeddes used some quick-thinking and took out the five bunches of seraphas turbith they had received from the herbalist in Strum. Maeddes threw the herbs directly into the maw of the monster, and almost immediately the blood maggot fell into a coma! While it was defenseless, Igny and Garack carved up the monstrosity – a rather thankless and disgusting task that left quite a mess in the stairwell. From the corpse, they recovered 372 golden wheels. On the second floor, the party found a room containing a mangled, but alive, creature in a stasis field. The creature was, in fact, an Elder Servitor for the Old Ones. It had clearly been tortured and harassed for quite some time. The party decided that such a creature was inherently dangerous and must be killed. So, the party dispelled the stasis field, at which point the creature disappeared! However, Igny cast “Devine Sense” and could tell that the creature was merely invisible and had not moved. Igny cast “Branding Smite” and hit the creature with Kekax. As a result, the Servitor became visible again and glowed with a dim light. Garack followed up a blistering “Divine Smite” from his sword, and the Servitor died. The party recovered two small bags that appeared to contain some sort of clay, and a ring. In another room on the second floor, the party found a map on the wall. The map appeared to show Zhalindor with the locations of the Old Ones marked. Additionally, the map showed moving icons, including a bright red icon moving between two islands in the Thousand Isles. There was also a lightly glowing red icon moving to the north towards the mountains, and another icon in Chagna Fel. Two icons were in the northeast of Montlieb forest. The party deduced that the icons appeared to denote beings that had achieved a certain level of power. The party continued upward to the third floor. There they found two small boxes, one of which Chance recognized as containing magical items. Maeddes disabled the traps on both of the boxes, and the party opened them to find two magic scrolls and a pair of bronze circlets with amber in the shape of a spider. Also on this floor, the party found a library. And with this the session ended. TL;DR: the party started exploring the tower, and drugged and killed a giant worm.