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• Calliope Laurelleaf – Halfling Bard
• Ellyjobell – Gnome Ranger
• Phalen – High Elf Cleric
• Talerien – Wood Elf Ranger
• Trogdorr – Dragonborn Barbarian
• Twirpo – Hill Dwarf Wizard
• Alaric Lysane – Human Fighter

Celebrating their recent acquisition of coin from their previous adventure, the party takes a moment to tell their two friends – Talerien and Trogdorr – who had been chosen not to attend the unusual party – about the chaos that ensued.

Ump’rah Greenshell – the owner of The Shell Shock Tavern – and also one of the guests at the party from several nights ago, allows the party to drink for free for day, as a means of thanking them for their role.

As the party drinks, and enjoys the day – Calliope spots a familiar face in the crowd. Thyr Moonglade – the High Elf whom she had shared an intimate moment with – with his long, flowing purple hair, and green eyes that reminded her of the rolling hills of her home approached her. He smiled warmly, remembering that moment in the library together – and after a moment, his face flushes red with embarrassment as he realizes he’s not said anything.

He cleared his throat and finally said, “Calliope, it’s … good to see you again.” He engaged in general chatter for several minutes, also going over the unusual events from several nights ago at the elaborate party. After a moment, he finally looks comfortable – but then his expression grows serious. “My wife…” he paused, “Ella. She has left and taken one of my paintings.” He looks to Calliope, “It’s the one you saw me painting when you first walked into my store looking for painting supplies. The Waterfalls of Westbrook. It’s a painting of our… old home. We left… around a year ago. Shortly after the events triggered by an unusual wizard who came into our town named Boris Den. He hired several people to build him a wizard’s tower, just outside of our town. He quickly took up residence in the tower once it was complete… and took a liking… for lack of a better word to an elf maiden, from our town named Airey Moonstone. However, Airey was already in a relationship with Martell Starborn. Boris Den thought he was the better man – much wiser than the brutish strength of Martell. He decided to challenge Martell – and despite cheating, by trying to poison Martell – still lost. Boris Den retreated to his tower, and days went by before anyone saw him… then… Martell disappeared. Everyone suspected Boris Den, but he would never answer the door to his tower when we inquired… and none of us were comfortable trying to break into a mad wizard’s tower. Airey disappeared next. Several days later… the tower itself, exploded. The land around the tower began to change… fruit died… grass died… people grew inexplicably ill… everyone left Westbrook… and the town became an empty carcass. Ella and I settled in Ridgecrest. We had no intention of staying long, but we never left… I would like you to find her… ensure she’s safe… she does not have to come back to me… I would simply like to know that she is safe. We’re love one another… but we’ve not been in love with one another for many years now.”

• The party inquires where Ella might have gone
  • Thyr suspects that she has returned to Westbrook, which is south of Ridgecrest
• Party asks why she left
  • He explains again, that they love each other, but they’ve not been in love for a long time (Additionally, he revealed to her the moment shared by Calliope)
• Ellyjobel heads to Low Ridge to look for the Thieves Guild; she finds the signs and follows it to an abandoned Inn with three large barrels but can’t tell which barrel is the right one and suspects the other two are probably trapped.
• Elly returns to High Ridge. She recruits Calliope to go with her to Low Ridge.
• Together they’re able to determine the correct barrel and both enter the Thieves Guild
• They discover that it’s a Thieves Guild called “The Black Swan”
• The guild is also apparently run by Wererats (or at they prefer to be called “Ratlings”)
• They find a small bizarre inside the Thieves Guild and Elly picks up some poisons, while Calliope finds a magical mask that allows her to take on anyone’s face (up to 10 times) called “The Mask of Ariya” (#GameOfThrones Reference) and a “Zombie Potion” (which the wererat explains, that you apply it to yourself, and it’s such a foul odor, that it deceives the zombie’s sense of smell, and they assume you’re undead)
• They return to the party and the party heads south of Ridgecrest before seeking out to try and find any evidence of Ella having traveled in that direction
• In the meantime, Twirpo identifies the Lion Mane Shield from the caves, that Talerien had picked up as a +1 Shield. There seems to be another attribute to the shield, but she’s not able to determine what else it might be.
• Because of the heavy foot traffic around Ridgecrest – as a major city and a major hub – tracking around Ridgecrest is virtually impossible
• The party decides to simply head south towards Westbrook and see if they’re able to find any evidence of Ella headed that way once they’re in the wilderness more
• During the first night of camp, Phalen takes first guard and hears loud thumping; as if something with heavy footfalls was approaching. She awakens the others and climbs up a tree and spots a two headed giant – an Ettin! She warns the party, and Calliope casts a spell to cover their scent and throw off the Ettin.
• During his watch, Talerien abandons the others to track the Ettin and ensure it doesn’t make its way back to them.
• Because no one is there to watch for the others as they sleep, a wandering Grick (from near by ruins) stumbles upon what looks to be a free meal.
• The party is awakened as the Grick attacks, and the party manages to quickly dispatch the creature with minimal injuries.
• Furious that it seemed that Talerien had abandoned his post during his watch, Twirpo took the deceased Grick and stuff it into Talerien’s bedroll.
• By the time that Talerien had come back, it looked as if something or someone was sleeping in his bedroll – and he decided to begin beating it – until something oozed out of the bedroll, which happened to be the Grick’s last meal.
• Talerien decided to burn his bedroll after that.
• The party continued their journey south.
• They eventually reach an area where the ground is fine, gray soot, and all of the trees in the area appear as if they’ve been burned or charred black, as if a massive fire had swept through the area.
• The party eventually makes camp; and after some debate, decides that even though Talerien has offered to take one of the watches, someone should partner up with him in the event he decides to track something. Twirpo, untrusting of elves in general, decides to take watch.
• During Talerien’s watch he hears something, and spots a wagon coming from the south. It’s a simple wagon, with two people in the front, being pulled by a single horse. Curious, since they’re coming from the direction of Westbrook, and traveling through an area that seemed desolate and untraveled, he approached the wagon and hailed the two riders. He speaks with them, eventually asking where they’re coming from; and he sees both of them tense up. They do answer that they were coming back from Westbrook after dropping something off. Talerien notices that the human passenger seems to be slowly going for his daggers. Feeling threatened, the violence escalates quickly as Talerien draws his rapier and manages to sever the head of the passenger; but this gives the rider to strike him with two thrown daggers; both of which are poisoned and paralyze Talerien.
• Twirpo seeing this all unfold, curses to herself and awakens the others. To her, and the surprise of the others – except perhaps Elly and Calliope – the driver of the wagon changes his form as he leaps from the wagon, taking on a humanoid rat-like appearance.
• Trogdor and Alaric rush to Talerien’s side and pull the wererat off of Talerien.
• Talerien recovers from the poison, and with a group effort, the wererat is killed.
• Trogdor spots a torn piece of cloth on one of the nails at the back of the wagon, and notes it appears to be from a woman’s dress (perhaps Ella’s, the party concludes)
• Talerien takes the horse from the wagon (though it’s sickly looking) with the intent of selling it when they returned to Ridgecrest. He then skins the wererats, with the intention of one day making a magical cloak with some of the skins he’s been collecting. They decide to take over the wererat’s wagon and turn it around to head south.
• By the third day, they’re able to see Westbrook – and from their vantage point can see that it’s indeed a ghost town; the builds are in various states of disarray; windows are smashed; and … more strangely, zombies seem to aimlessly roam around the town.
• Talerien – along with the rest of the party – conclude that the zombies must be working with the wererats. Talerien dons the wererat skin, along with some disguise kit work by Calliope to make Talerien look more “wererat-ish”, Talerien scouts the destroyed tower area (which he notices, the zombies seem to keep their distance from).
• He also spots what appears to be wet women’s footprints (which could be Ella’s), since the Westbrook Lake was just a few short distance away.
• When none of the zombies seem to go after him, he returns and the party develops a new plan.
• Talerien, still disguised as a wererat, will pull the wagon – they will cover the blanket in the back with the “Zombie Juice” and hide under it (to mask their scent), so that Talerien can pull them to the tower.
• Unfortunately, the party has guessed incorrectly – the wererats never went into Westbrook – whoever or whatever the dropped off – was done at a distance, and the zombies lunge for Talerien (since he’s the only one they can actually smell)
• This causes the horse to panic, and it rips the reigns out of Talerien’s hands as the horse pulls the party towards the town of Westbrook, which is actually further away from the tower!
• Elly, who has some skill at animal handling, climbs out from beneath the blanket, now that their plan has gone awry and grabs the reigns; she successfully turns the beat up wagon (undoubtedly in poor shape because it was barely put together with spare parts in Low Ridge), and brings the wagon barreling down towards Talerien, who is valiantly fighting off hordes of zombies around him. Trogdor extends his hand and manages to catch Talerien’s free hand, and Talerien successfully holds on as he’s pulled into the wagon. Going too fast, Elly tries to ease the wagon into a soft turn as the reach the edge of the destroyed tower, but the faulty wheel snaps, and the wagon capsizes, sending everyone flying out towards the tower.
• Interestingly enough the zombies all stop, as if there was an invisible barrier stopping them from entering the sundered tower’s perimeter.
• Talerien enters the sundered towers lower portion, surprised to see how expansive it was. A hall 40′ wide and 60′ long opens up beneath the tower; with two hallways on each side (left and right) – and a door at the far end of the hall.
• To his surprise, a large, circular creature with a large center eye and four eye stalks turns the corner – a Spectator.
• Not recognizing the party, it launches an attack. Talerien moves into the room to allow the others to come down the spiral staircase, and the party quickly dispatches the Spectator, having all passed their savings throws against the magical creature’s attack.
• The noise however drew the attention of a Shadow Demon, who had long since served Boris Den, demanding who dares enter the “Master’s Tower.”
• The party knows a fight is about to happen – but instead, the Shadow Demon opens a portal and summons forth two Hell Hounds, before disappearing into the darkness itself.
• Trogdor tries to breathe fire on them and finds them to be 100% immune to fire!
• Twirpo thunderwaves the pair of Hell Hounds, killing one that had been injuried during the party’s attack (and also damages the wall). The party then manages to kill off the second Hell Hound. Trogdor breaks off several of their teeth to use as a necklace piece.
• The party checks the hall to the left and finds a steel locked door. They check to the hall to the right and also find a steel locked door. Moving to the next hall on the left, there’s another locked, steel door. To the far right hall, they find a wooden locked door.
• Elly is able to examine the lock and finds no trap on the wooden door, but is not able to successfully unlock it. Trogdorr kicks down the door – and the room seems to have been a prison for a woman – there is a bed with shackles, and a closet with women’s clothing, all of which looks like it’s not been used in a very long time.
• Going back to the furthest left door, Elly spots a trap on the lock, but the party has nothing to disarm it. Trogdorr stands behind the shield and smashes the door down; and what they find stuns them.
• It appears to be large phylactery – which is something used by one of the most powerful of the undead – a Lich! Though most phylacteries are small charms, used to store souls – this was a large, almost scientific like – with glass tubes, and the energy of souls passing through it in an endless cycle.
• Leaving that, they went to the other room closest to the stairs on the right and found it to be a torture chamber. Clearly Boris Den was more than “just a powerful, mad wizard” – these were things that proved he was undoubtedly a Lich, or practicing to become one.
• Going to the door to left, closest to the stairs – the steel door was also set with a magical trap. Once again, Trogdorr braced himself behind the shield and charged, however, this time, as he impacted against the door – he let the shield slip slightly – which allowed him to be hit with the necrotic trap which siphoned some life from him. But he did manage to knock the door down in the process. In this room was a shimmering portal – where two dragonheads came together at the top of this ornate portal.
• The party concluded that closing the door was the best option, and attempted to lock it, but Trogdorr’s slam damaged the locks.
• The party made their way to the final door at the end of the hall and opened the door and saw what appeared to be a man – a warrior by the looks of it – once human, now… something else, stand – and magically summon his two swords to his side. It became clear that this was Martell Starborn – and where he was once human, he was now a Wight.
• Alaric managed to disarm one of Martell’s swords
• When Trogdorr picked it up – a sense of great evil washed over him (he failed his savings throw) and he lunched at Alaric.
• Elly manages to lace one of her arrows with paralytic poison which Trogdorr fails against, and he falls.
• Martell closes his eyes – and suddenly the sound of a thousand zombies outside the tower could be heard; and the party knew he was calling them in to help him.
• Elly ran back to the phylactery, believing the souls of the zombies were the souls inside the phylactery; she smashed it with unexpected results.
• Rather than the souls escaping to freedom, they all entered her body as if it was a lightning rod; and suddenly all she could hear was a thousand voices in her head, which was very disorienting. She rushed back to the others, still fighting Martell and cried out for help; but none seemed to hear her, except Twirpo.
• Elly realized that the portal might be the answer, and tried to run back to it; but by then the zombies had shambled into the massive halls, and as she tried to run by them, one grabbed her firmly.
• However, at that moment, the others had defeated Martell Starbone, which seemed to be the switch to “turn off” the zombies; who then became non responsive. Alaric recovered the two swords; and heard the same voices Trogdorr had; but did not succumb to the evil (perhaps because Trogdorr was already evil in alignment, the swords appealed to him). A necromancy book is also recovered, that belonged to Boris Den.
• Elly was able to return to the Portal Room where she released the souls into the portal.
• The party ponders what became of Ella – since that was their whole reason for coming to Westbrook. Trogdorr gives the torn dress piece from the wagon to Elly for her mastiff, Bubbles to pick up the scent. Bubbles leads them upstairs and to the beach, but stops short – looking out into the water. The party moves closer to the water – and a Sea Hag emerges!
• A fight breaks out with the Sea Hag, and it’s defeated. After it’s demise, Ella’s body floats out to the top, further in. It would seem she became a victim to the Sea Hag. Twirpo, practicing magic – knew Sea Hags could be a part of a coven, and like all hags are attracted to tragedy (which clearly happened here in Westbrook), and Sea Hags despise beauty, and lured Ella (through an illusion) closer to her, to pull her into the water and drown her. The party recovers Ella’s body and put it in the wagon and take her back to Ridgecrest where Thyr can see to a proper burial after paying them each the promised 200 gold.

Some DM Side Notes:

• The events of the exploding Tower of Westbrook were a part of another party’s adventure. See the notes here and here.
• The reason for the original tower’s explosion is that Boris’ Imp grew jealous of Boris Den’s infatuation with Airey Moonstone. While Boris Den, did indeed dabble in Necromancy and torture, and great things of evil; during this time, he abducted Martell (after being defeated in combat by him) and tortured him. Airey promised Boris Den, if he let Martell go, and if Boris could change his ways; she promised to love him (at this time, he had abducted her and locked her in a room, where he kept her shackled). Boris lied and said he freed Martell (but he knew if he did, Martell would come after him and kill him, so he left Martell to starve).
• What Boris did not account for is several things; just before Martell died a painful death of starvation; he called out to any god, devil or demon who would hear him, and pleaded for a chance to extract revenge on Boris; he was granted this wish and became a Wight, by a Demon who had grown furious that Boris was turning away from dark magic to try and “court” a woman.
• As a part of the backstory for this leg of the adventure, it came to me that the same demon who granted Martell the ability to become a Wight was also the same demon who implanted the idea in the Imp’s head to kill Boris Den in the explosion.
• The Imp successfully killed Boris Den as well as Airey Moonstone in the Tower’s explosion; which left Martell, a Wight seeking vengeance the inability to complete his task.
• The zombies are from potential robbers who came down into the tower in hopes of recovering magical items; and died at Martell’s hands; as anyone who dies by a Wight rises up a zombie under his command.
• The Spectator was actually left over from Boris Den’s time when he was alive; as Mages often use Spectators to guard their magical items (such as the Soul Portal and the Phylactery).
• The Sea Hag was there, drawn by the tragedy it sense in Martell (someone who gave up their soul for revenge, but could never complete the mission). She happened to see Ella, who was skirting the zombies near the water, and fell prey to the Sea Hag.
• Both Elly and Calliope failed on Perception checks while in the Low Ridge Thieves Guild “The Black Swan” to spot the “Waterfall Painting.”
  • Ella had stole the Waterfall Painting and used it to barter in Low Ridge with the Wererats to get her passage to Westbrook, her old home (and the last place she was truly happy, before the Tower explosion).
  • The Wererats returning from Westbrook are from the Black Swan Guild, that had taken Ella as close as they felt comfortable to Westbrook.