The Saturday Game 3/9/19 – More Questions Than Answers?

The party continues to explore the Necromancer Spire by climbing upstairs. A door opens to a sixty-five by seventy-foot room filled with the stench of death. Pits containing bodies and body parts lie on each side of the room. On an elevated walkway stands a humanoid figure. As the Luchador approaches it, the hideous golem turns to face the group and utters a low groan.

As we take a closer look, we see the creature is seemingly sewn together with body parts of drow elves. We attack the hideous golem with the Monk, Warlock, Druid, Cleric and Warrior Princess all landing hits. While in battle, activity stirs in the pits as eight undead crawl out. Party members begin to whack on the closest undead while the Luchador successfully grapples the golem. The Druid conjures two dire wolves to join the battle. In their turn, the undead bite and claw at us. The Monk is hit, begins to be paralyzed by ghoul touch, but the dice gods intervene with a Con save to shake off the effect. The Bard fumbles badly and loses the sword she just received into one of the pits. The Warlock and the Warrior Princess dispatch one undead each. But then the Luchador lands the killing blow on the golem. All the other undead fall in the absence of their golem master.  The Druid and the Cleric heal the party while the Bard casts mage hand and watches in disgust while it retrieves her sword from the pits.

Further exploration finds us in a small room with a secret door beyond which is a corridor that runs under the charnel pits.  Wish we had found that earlier to avoid the undead! The corridor ends in another secret door.  We enter a chamber that widens to resemble an operating theater. A stone stage marks the far end of the room with a platform in front. Stone pews fill the room seated upon which are lifelike statues of drow elves, a surprised look etched into their faces. We attempt to wake them up but fail. They have the same surprised appearance as the goblin statue we found earlier in our adventure.

Entering a small library, we find a scroll rack containing haste, vampire touch and create undead spells and a spell book on a desk. To our east, we enter a large room smelling of rich earth – a graveyard! Back on the right is a mausoleum. To the left, a stone stairway leads up to a ledge. A hulking figure shambles out from the mausoleum. We prepare for battle with the Warrior Princess breathing fire, the Druid casting fairie fire and running his wolves up, the Monk leaping over everyone while the Warlock blasts for damage. As we watch in bemused horror, the figure starts pulling corpses from the ground and throwing them at us. He then picks up the Warrior Princess and buries her in the ground! We scramble to dig her out!

The Warlock glances up and sees two figures watching the scene from the ledge above and notes a sickly green light on the hulker. She speculates that they are healing him; we must stop that! A figure hobbles down the steps and now we have two fights. Through a good perception roll we determine the remaining figure on the ledge is a mindflayer, and a weakened one at that. The Paper Merchant confronts the mindflayer and begins battle. The mindflayer telepathically communicates with the hulker who begins moving up the ledge to protect. Thankfully, after this protracted battle, the Luchador finally explodes the mindflayer with thirty-two points of necrotic damage and all is still.

As we gather our wits, some explore the stone mausoleum. There are two burial vaults for a male and female. The male one contains a bundle of assorted currency, three magic items and gems. The female one contains the well-preserved body of a beautiful drow female dressed in fine garments. We replace the lid and wonder whether she too will confront us as an undead monster. Is hers the mind behind this horrific place? Is she the Fadheela mentioned in Xeron’s note? What happened to the male body? Has he already been raised to undeath to await us further up the spire?

We return to the library for a long rest, to identify the magic items and speculate on the puzzles this tower still hides.