Murderers in the Mist

As the platform descended, Firinne and Kale decided that it was time to act. Firinne knocked out the guard, and Kale grabbed the guard's signalling stone, which controlled the movement of the platform.

From our hiding place on the ground, we saw the struggle on the platform, and we moved quickly to take out the guards at the bottom of the tower.

When the platform finally reached the ground, we regrouped and hid the guards bodies. We moved back onto the platform, and Kale used the signalling stone to move the platform upwards.

As we reached the top and exited the platform, we heard rallying cries from the floors above us. There were four stairways (one in each corner of the room), and Kale surmised that the guards in the barracks had awoken and would come streaming down the stairs soon. He positioned Firinne and Carlagnios before two of the stairways and had the rest of us stand a good distance away from the other two stairways. We readied our bows, throwing axes, and slings so that we could deal with the guards before they reached us.

The first set of guards tried to storm down the stairs, led by their sergeant. Firinne held them off. Their glaives (polearms) lashed out at her, but many of their blows could not get through her powerful armor. Firinne quickly bloodied their sergeant.

A second set of guards took the second staircase and were met by Carlagnios, who kept them from entering the room. He knocked several of the guards out with a sweeping blow.

The third and fourth sets of guards came down the other two stairwells and ran toward us, one group led to another sergeant. Garg started to take out one group, while Bran bloodied the other sergeant. As the sergeant became bloodied, he called out to his men, who moved to surround Bran and strike at him.

Bran quickly shifted out of the way, and Carlagnios drew the guards to him and struck them down in a rain of steel. Kale summoned a cloud of stench that covered the sergeant and his guards.

Meanwhile, Tiny healed us and quickly killed the first sergeant with a lance of faith. In his dying breath, the sergeant called out to his men, who once again lashed out at us. Tiny healed us again, and we were able to kill the remaining sergeant and guards.

As we fought, the platform suddenly began to descend again. Someone else was coming up. We had to act quickly.

We made our way up the stairs, past the empty barracks, the glowing device, and the residential level, until we reached the Guildmaster's offices. As we entered the room, Tiny warned us that there were people in the room. He also detected a strange mist in the air.

From our left and right, we were attacked by barbarian women -- murderesses, who sought our lives. The mist suddenly congealed into the Guildmaster. Tiny and Kale were able to identify the Guildmaster as a vampire.

As we fought off the vampire and murderesses, Bran attempted to make his way to the storeroom that held the scrolls. Two of the murderesses pursued him and attacked before he got the chance to open the door.

Meanwhile, the murderesses struck us with sharp blades, leaving us bleeding and slowing us down. Firinne was able to kill the first murderess. Carlagnios drew the others to him and sliced through them with a thicket of blades, killing another. Bran drew out his wand of poison and shot another one, killing her. Kale summoned a gigantic, icy hand -- the hand of Bigby -- and kept the vampire at bay.

The murderesses attacked Firinne and knocked her unconscious, but Tiny quickly revived her. In time, we were finally able to destroy the rest of the murderesses.

The vampire, seeing that his comrades were defeated, turned into mist again and escaped from the room.

In the vampire's wardrobe, we found stylish attire, along with some gems and two potions of healing. He also had a magical suit of serpent skin leather armor, which Bran decided to wear. He handed me his magical Elven battle armor, which (after some adjustments by Tiny and Kale) I was able to us.

As Bran picked the lock on the storeroom, Tiny noticed someone entering the room behind us. It was the Drow Librarian.

"I saw the Guildmaster leaving in his misty form," he said. "It's a shame that you didn't kill it."

"Thank you for the information that you gave us," said Kale. "It served us well."

"You are welcome. May I recover my library books from the storeroom?"

"Only if you give us some of the rituals," Bran quickly replied.

The Librarian nodded. He went into the storeroom and, after some time, came out again with a bag full of books. He handed us a few scrolls, including the Ritual of Challenge. "Thank you for providing a distraction for me and my warriors. We will be disabling the Turnip soon. There are some Vulture Drakes downstairs. I suggest that you use them."

But we were not done with our work. Bran quickly picked the lock on the other room, where, earlier, Kale had detected an object of immense power. He found a coin in the room.

"Could this be the coin that the Lover of the Raven Queen used to become a god?" On one side of the coin was the image of a dove; on the other, the image of a chimera.

Suddenly, the Turnip began to shudder.

"I wouldn't tarry any longer," the Librarian said as he quickly left the room.

Kale and Bran grabbed a couple of artifacts from the room, and we ran down the stairs. In the chamber with the blue device, we saw that the Drow had used a leather strap to clamp something on to the device. Whatever this was, it had stopped the device from glowing.

We found the Vulture Drakes, mounted them, and flew out of the Turnip in a mad rush. As we flew away, we saw the Turnip tipping and falling on the tower below it, crushing the top levels of fine stores and restaurants. The tower shuddered under the weight of the Turnip and collapsed, sending shards of stone and glass throughout the city.

As we rode to the ground on our Vulture Drakes, we were awestruck, staring at the rubble that was once the tallest tower in the city.

Bran turned to Firinne. "Well, I hope you weren't planning to return those shoes."

She had a horrified look on her face. "Why does this always happen to us? Why do we always leave a wake of destruction behind us? Melora would not want us to do this."

Tiny nodded. "Moradin would also not approve."

Garg shrugged. "Eh. At least it gets us closer to our goal of getting to the Centenarch."

"We now have the Ritual of Challenge," agreed Kale. "We can become members of the 100, and we can reach the Centenarch."