On the trip back to the Naked Isle, Ghevont solved Jerker’s problem with the cursed mace taken from the goggler champion. Aboard The Ranger, beneath a heavy sky and the creaking of still sails, Ghevont began the Rite of Severance. The crew watched from the edges of the deck, hushed and uneasy. Jerker knelt at the center, the cursed mace still fused to his grasp, its metal cold and too quiet.
Ghevont circled him with oil of the Anointed One, his fingers trembling with purpose. He took one of the bones of St. Jaludi and pressed it to Jerker’s chest. He then performed the Remove Curse ritual.
“By the wounds of the Chosen, by the tears of the Just, by the Power of the Light,” he proclaimed, voice rising with the wind, “this bond is no more. Be free, servant of faith. Be free!”
A blinding radiance erupted from his hands, engulfing the mace and Jerker alike. The deck groaned. The sails snapped. The strange goggler mace shuddered. Cracks formed in the lobster shell, and the claw began to violently articulate. “Gah!” exclaimed Jerker. The mace fell from his hand. “It was burning me,” he explained as his rubbed his palm for relief.
As it struck the deckboards, the lobster shell cracked in two. Something green was seen, and it swiftly pushed the crack wider, and as their eyes adjusted to the bizarre sight, they came to understand that two alien hands were pushing the two halves of the shell apart. Presently, something like a tadpole emerged. It dragged itself across the deck, between recoiling feet and over the rail to plop into the frothing foam.
It was over in a moment, happening too fast to allow any human reaction. Afterwards, they wondered if what they saw was genuine or illusion, but the ruined pieces of the mace remained. Ghevont kicked the broken mace pieces through the gunwale and off the ship. He then looked back to Jerker. “Hopefully,” he says, his smile seemingly just like Jerker’s father when Jerker would do something dumb in the shop, “you’ve learned your lesson this time.”
Ghevont’s expression darkened as they continued to the Naked Isle. The idea of the Bone of Jaludi falling into enemy hands ate at him. He was silent for a day or more, brooding, brow furrowed in troubled thought. The thought of the relic—sacred bone of the Anointed One, carried by martyrs and miracle-workers—defiled by devilish hands was grievous enough. But worse still was the possibility that it had fallen into the grasp of the lich Caristhinian.
“No,” Ghevont said firmly. “This cannot stand.”
Old Man Waller
After some time of rest (4/24 – 5/8) most of the band were ready for another adventure. Tienarth and Hocuspo returned from their trip to Bedmer, offering no explanation. The old elf made immediate plans to sail for Fort Whitevault with the intent of bringing back enough goods to outfit the tower on the east side of the island. Ghevont found him before he departed on a galley flying the flag of the empire.
“Jerker handed a sacred bone of Saint Jaludi to a devil. We need to know where it is. Can you scry it? If the bone is in their hands, devil or lich, we must recover it. It is not merely a relic. It is a sign. And it belongs with the faithful.” He clenched his fist, the fire of conviction in his eyes. Then, with a glance upward, Ghevont murmured a quiet prayer. “By The Light, let us find it before they defile it further.”
For his part, Tienarth was unresponsive, perhaps lost in thought, perhaps holding his tongue until he had a useful answer.
Several days later, the party engaged in a conversation with an old sailor about their plans to sail south to find the pyramid encasing the Neh Rod. Old Man Waller was a fixture at the pier since arriving as Ebor’s cook more than a year before. He’d refused to leave the island along with most of Ebor’s crew.
Waller squinted at the adventurers, his weathered face crinkling like sun-baked leather. He spat a stream of brown juice into the murky water beside the wharf. “Mare Incognitus, eh?” he rasped, his voice like the groan of old timbers. “Heard younglings whisperin’ ’bout brave voyages. Brave fools, more like.”
He pushed his straw hat back, revealing a patch of bumpy, greenish skin on his forehead. “That ain’t no pond for your fancy little caravel. The sea itself breathes different out there. Swells that’ll swallow your mast whole, winds that laugh at your sails. And things… things crawl out of the deep that’d make a kraken look like a guppy.”
Waller shook his head, his gaze drifting out towards the horizon. “No oars, you say? Gods have mercy on your souls. When the wind dies, and it will, out there… you’ll be nothin’ but a tasty morsel driftin’ on the tide. Take an old man’s warnin’. Some places ain’t meant for explorin’.”
Urgesh and Aderian were skeptical of the old man’s unrequested advice. The half-orc barbarian professed deep knowledge of the superior attributes of a caravel versus the galleys used by barbarians. Waller offered a few more details about the dangers of Mara Incognitus. He explained that few ever returned from expeditions there. Those that did told of terrible sea monsters and other hazards where a ship under sail power alone would be helpless. Only desperate pirates dared skirt the edges of the sea.
Aderian seemed convinced that a larger ship with oar power would be required, and might be acquired via piracy or commerce. Ghevont healed the old man after offering some ministering about his faith.
Ghost on the Waves
A smaller party was organized to explore a small island seen west of Green Dragon Isle. It was passed by but noted by Urgesh for a return, and it was only two days away. The band assembled that day were Urgesh, Ghevont, Aderian, Jerker, Elaria and Hocuspo. They boarded The Ranger and encountered no trouble until they were about ten miles from the island. The ragged sails of a ghost ship were seen through a spyglass. Ghevont insisted on engaging in battle for the sake of destroying the suspected undead.
The two ships were on a intercepting course already, and they came together quickly. A ghost captain stood on the bow of the enemy ship where a crew of skeletons saw to the operation of the ship. Three wights oversaw the small crew.
At the sight of the ghost, most of the crew of The Ranger panicked, as did Jerker. This prevented Urgesh from controlling the course of his ship, though it mattered little with the ghost ship plowing directly into the wind and directly towards them.
A short battle ensued. Ghevont calmed Jerker’s fear. The ghost was destroyed at a distance with magic. A few skeletons were destroyed by thrown boulders. The rest were turned by the cleric. They jumped into the ocean and disappeared beneath the waves. The two ships were adrift with about 80 yards between them. The wights let down their longboat and began rowing. Urgesh raced over the water by way of his ring of water walking, slashing at the wights. Aderian fired a few arrows, striking Urgesh in the back once.
Hocuspo, who had transformed into a dragon, flew Jerker over to the ghost ship which began to sink of its own accord. He searched for a time, was unable to recover any treasure and escaped the sinking ship before it followed the skeletons down in the black depths of the sea.
The Tower
Later that day (5/10), they spotted the island with the crumbling wizard’s tower. From the water, the island looked barren, with little vegetation. Its slopes were scarred by old flows and crusted with dark, weathered rock.
The longboat scraped ashore on the north side of the desert islet, the adventurers stepping onto the sharp, sun-baked rock that offered no welcoming beach. Hiking inland across the barren, waterless ground, their eyes were drawn to the island’s northern elevation where the wizard’s abandoned retreat stood against the harsh sky. It was a tower of dark, grey-green stone, its once proud structure now a testament to decay. Crumbling edges and fissures webbed its surface, draped with patches of unwholesome growth where only rock should be. Perhaps sixty feet in height, its silhouette against the horizon was less that of a man-made edifice and more akin to a malformed fang ripped from the island’s throat. Its upper reaches were open to the sky, a jagged maw where the roof had long since surrendered to time and the elements. This was the place of a vanished wizard, and a palpable sense of ancient, unsettling energies seemed to cling to the air around the ruin, a silent promise of strange, forgotten things within its decaying walls.
The doorway at ground level offered no door, leaving instead a gaping void resembling an open maw. Ragged sheets of dark moss, clinging improbably to the stone, hung down like monstrous fangs . Inside, the air was heavy with dust and the unsettling tang of brine, overlaid with a faint, alien scent – cold and somehow wrong. Looking up through the sparse, dark window apertures in the levels above, they saw only absolute blackness, a palpable tenebrous quality that seemed to swallow the light.
Ghevont produced his stone of continual light and stepped into the lower chamber. From the shadows emerged a crab-like monster. The oversized crustacean was disturbingly large, its chitin dark and scarred, its claws capable of crushing bone. Its physical presence was a jarring violation of the ruined chamber’s silence. Jerker stepped up and hew the beast in two. A green vapor escaped from the cracked shell. The body was dragged outside.
Little but detritus filled the lowest level. Access to the upper levels was provided by a stone stair that wound tightly around the inner curve of the tower wall. Each step was worn, testament to feet that long ago departed this ruin. Ascending the winding stone stair, the dust thickened, the air grew heavy with the silence of ages. Reaching the landing some twenty vertical feet above the ground floor, the steps emerged into what was once a chamber of study or arcane experiment. It was a place surrendered entirely to decay, choked with detritus and the skeletal remains of vanished furnishings. Rotting wood, shattered pottery that might have held unwholesome reagents, and torn, dust-laden tapestries cling to the walls. The windows, glimpsed as mere voids from below, offered little light, for a pervasive, unnatural gloom clung to the very air, absorbing illumination rather than reflecting it. A palpable sense of lingering, unsettling energies pervaded the space, cold and vaguely corrosive to the spirit.
After a few moments of gazing over the array of decay, Ghevont noticed a 10 foot area left bare, suggesting a place where a potent artifact once rested. However, little time was dedicated to sifting through the junk on this level. All this time, Elaria and Hocuspo remained outside of the tower. Urgesh, Aderian, Jerker and Ghevont climbed up to the third level.
Ascending the stone stair higher still, past the unsettling void of the second floor, the air felt even colder, heavier, thick with the scent of damp stone and the mouldering decay of organic matter. The spiral terminate some forty vertical feet above the ground, opening into what was clearly intended as a place of learning and repository of forbidden or forgotten lore: a library. But time and the elements had claimed their toll. The chamber was a ruin of splintered shelving, collapsed ceiling sections, and sodden piles of what were once books, now merely indistinct masses of pulp and mildew. The natural gloom of the tower’s interior was exacerbated by the thick dust and clinging moisture, creating a palpable sense of neglect and the slow, inexorable victory of decay. Most volumes were lost to this creeping dissolution, their pages welded together by damp and time, their covers mere fragments of what they once were. Yet, amidst this watery graveyard of knowledge, a few volumes miraculously endured, perhaps protected by strange materials or simply positioned in pockets spared the worst ravages.
Ghevont applied a spell to detect magic. He noted a general low level of magic in the room. The gloom-filled windows glowed brightly with magic, and in response, he dispelled the enchantment, allowing sunlight to stream into the room. He gathered up the five books that looked to be serviceable, stowing them away in his backpack.
Presently, a chilling presence manifested in the damp, decaying air. The shadows deepened, and a foul odor, reminiscent of stagnant water and decay mixed with something undeniably noxious, filled the chamber. With a sudden, disturbing pop of displaced air, a creature tore itself from the distorted space between the ruined shelves. It was a grotesque sight: a hulking, demonic form, a humanoid toad or a demonic troglodyte with skin that secreted a smelly oil. Its mouth was full of sharp teeth, and it immediately focused its malevolent attention on the Ghevont.
Jerker and Aderian converged on the demon, delivering serious blows to it’s oily hide. The next moment, the demon disappeared in a puff of brimstone. The three warriors stood back to back, anticipating the return of the beast. Urgesh hurried down the stairs. Outside of the tower, the demon ambled from around the back of the tower towards Elaria. It clasped her in cruel claws. She screamed.
Hocuspo cast a web spell over the top of the demon and Elaria, though neither of them were trapped. With a sudden look of recognition, the demon let go of her arms in order to snatch the cube of force from her hand. She pulled away, out of the webbing. Far above, Jerker looked down from the open window and lept without further thought. He crashed into the demon, dislodging the cube from his clutching claws. Meanwhile, Urgesh had jumped from the second story window and was soon coming round the side of the tower. He stepped up to the demon and cut it down. It disappeared in a puff of foul odor.
Madness in the Square
With the demon dispatched, they returned to the second floor and the blank spot on the floor. Urgesh summoned a buffalo from his magic bag. It stood harmlessly in the square and disappeared after about ten minutes. Next, Aderian had the idea to make an offering of an arrow. He walked into the square to lay down the arrow and immediately became afraid. He ran from the room and down the stairs. Outside, he charged at Jerker, striking him. Meanwhile, Urgesh entered the square and became enranged. Ghevont, now alone with the half-orc used a spell to hold him in place.
Aderian recovered his senses within about a minute. Urgesh as paralyzed for an hour. During this time, Ghevont used a rope to pull him out of the square and strip him of all magic items, including his girdle of giant strength. The barbarian was then bound and carried back to the ship. When he recovered, he confirmed the visions he saw that matched those described by Aderian, namely visions of impossible spaces, non-sensical geometries, and the soul-chilling blackness glimpsed from the tower’s windows made manifest in thought. The effect was a profound disorientation and psychological horror.
During the battle, Jerker seemed disturbed, requiring some comfort from his wife, Elaria. After some time, he approached Ghevont and offered the cube of force. He explained it as having some corrupting influence on him and he wanted the holy man to take care of it.
The trip back to the Naked Isle was uneventful.
The Books
Here are the surviving tomes found amidst the sodden ruin of the third-floor library
The Compleat Guide to the Wild Botanicals, by Elara Meadowlight. This volume, bound in wooden covers, appears in good and well-used condition, its pages perhaps turned by hands long gone, notes scribbled in the margins. It speaks of wildflowers, a subject seemingly mundane amidst such decay, yet penned by a prolific but obscure author – hinting, perhaps, at properties or associations far beyond simple botany in the context of this place.
The Crystalline Eye, by Sibylla Veridia. Clad in leather with a gilded spine, this book too is in good and well-used condition, bearing the marks of study, including handwritten notes in its margins. Its subject, crystal gazing, touches upon the fringes of sight and the unsettling potential to glimpse things that should remain unseen. It is noted as the author’s only surviving work, suggesting a life’s strange focus or perhaps a chilling culmination, similar to the book by Halflar Qinpeiros.
Brother Mordecai’s Bestiary of the Dread Marches, Vol. II, by Brother Mordecai. Bound in tree bark, this book carries the weight of immense age, its condition described as ancient, pages crumbling as they are turned. It catalogs the beasts of a specific region, a sequel to a previous work by the same author. One cannot help but wonder what unnatural, unsettling creatures might be cataloged within its fragile, decaying pages, given the strange energies lingering in this tower.
Petrim: The Realm of the Seven Sages, by Para. Its covers are of stained leather, reflective of its state: badly damaged and nearly illegible, this single volume delves into the chilling subject of fiendish realms, penned by an author whose existence is marked by this only published work . One can only imagine the horrors hinted at in its ruined script, the knowledge it holds perhaps too terrible to survive intact.
A section heavily marred by water damage speaks of the realm itself and its unique lords: “…Petrim… built upon seven pillars, not of stone, but of aspects… the wisdoms guide the passage… through the outer dark…”.
Another fragment, stained rust-red, describes one of the Sages and a related entity: “…the First wears the grimace of bone and the high crown… his realm is the end… beside him, She Who Gathers… her song calls the buzzing ones… they rule the final slumber…”
A final, nearly illegible passage, the paper brittle and crumbling, seems to describe another Sage’s influence: “…the Third… swift passage… whispers in the ear of sorrow… they walk when life is cut short… sometimes, they borrow breath…”
Brother Mordecai’s Great Bestiary, Volume VII, by Brother Mordecai. Also of stained leather, this volume suffers from the same decay, badly damaged and nearly illegible. It too is a regional bestiary, but part of a larger work comprising 13 volumes – a mere fragment of a vaster, perhaps monstrous, taxonomy lost to time.
These five books represent 1,000 gp of the value needed to stock a wizard’s library.
End Notes
- Days
- 4/24 – 5/8 Downtime on the Naked Isle
- 5/9 – 5/12 Expedition to the Wizard’s Crumbling Tower
- Treasure
- Longboat taken from the ghost ship
- 5 Books worth 1000 gp
- Combat (3770 xp)
- Ghost 1390 xp
- 3 Wights 175 xp each
- 8 Skeletons 25 xp each
- Cursed Poison Crab 175 xp
- Demon 1480 xp
- Characters (5.5 shares of 685 xp)
- Aderian (human, fight, lead) 767 xp
- Elaria (hireling half share) 343 xp
- Ghevont (human, smite undead, minister, heal) 774 xp
- Hocuspo (human, avoid combat) 760 xp
- Jerker (human, fight, guard rear) 767 xp
- Urgesh (half-human, outdoors, fight) 733 xp
- The Ranger (Caravel)
- HP 75/75 hardness 8
- Crew (10)/Passengers: 10/3
- 10 elven sailors
- Jonja
- Dwarf youth
- Urgesh
- Cargo: 18 of 75 tons *
- Food: 108 man/weeks
- Water: 880 gallons
- The Garlic Frog (Caravel)
- Hit Points: 75/75 hardness 8
- Crew (10)/Passengers: 10/ 13
- 10 human sailors
- 7 extra human sailors
- Aderian, Jerker, Elaria, Nate, Ollie, Ghevont
- Cargo: 57.5 of 75 tons *
- Food: 0 man/weeks
- Water: 5000 gallons
- 22 tons of sugar, 5 tons of cocoa, 5 tons of cotton
* See Ship Cargo for figuring cargo needed for goods and people