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Rumor tells of a missing wizard, who leaves behind marvels of magic in his now abandoned tower. Hearing about these marvels, and with wants of riches, our party heads to the town of Towercrossings to enter the wizard’s tower.
The other occupants of their traveling cart nervously clutch their belongings. They shift their gazes in worried expressions. One man, scraggly and with sunken eyes, has his sword tied into its hilt with rope and twine. Victor, the Warforged, leans over to him and asks what is going on. He shushes him and says that “they will hear you.” When Victor inquires further, the man just says “them” and keeps looking around nervously.
As their cart approaches the town, they can see in the countryside that there are streams of travelers heading to the town as well - from all paths except the North, towards a massive tower that is covered in dense fog.
The fog gets denser as they get into town, and mixes with smoke. The scene is busy - there are people being lead by militiamen into lines, although around that are swaths of people who push and prod. One crowd is in-front of the inn, another tossing their belongings into a fire pit, and a third with people, and belongings, being registered. A pitchfork moves through the scene, walking on its tines as if legs, heading North.
Our party slips away from the cart in the commotion of it being stopped by a militaman. On their way through the Northern path, they pass a cart of goods awaiting burning. It springs to life, with a bailiff, some militiamen, and the party engaged in combat with an animated scythe, umbrella, and shovel.
After the fighting, the bailiff “recruits” the party into investigating the tower (they lied as if they weren’t already heading there to loot it). When the bailiff notices that Korin, a sorcerer, seems like a magic type, he mentions that there’s another mage, a young Tiefling who helps at the Inn, that the party should talk to for more information about the wizard and his tower.
The party reaches the Tiefling girl just as she is getting scolded by a human; presumably the owner of the inn. Victor engages with her the most, tweasing out most lies and half-truths, but missing one about the defenses of the tower…which Korin picks up on, but doesn’t mention. Nyx, a Tiefling herself, levels with the young girl to learn some truths. Victor uses a magic trick with a glowing coin to get his rumors and truths.
They learn that once the wizard Nimbus disappeared, his apprentice (who was jealous of Nimbus’ spellbook, a person sized tome of immense knowledge) and the Stone siblings broke into the tower, and DEFINITELY dis-armed the traps and defensive magic to do so.
They go North, encountering an army patrol of bucket-helmeted mops, and a communicating quill pen that commands them. Victor encourages the pen to become and artist, and it flies off. Without orders, the mops remain still.
Further North, nestled by some canopied woods and a stream, down a path that started with a sign that had two rocks with hair on it, is a small roughshod house. Nyx tries to kick the locked door down…it’s solid oak though, and doesn’t budge. Victor smoothly steps in, “Pardon me,” he says with a tip of his tophat and a wiggle of his Thieves Tools. He spends the next 40 minutes trying to pick the lock, with no success. It’s embarrassing. Korin breaks a window, clears the remaining glass, and they all hop in.
The house’s inside looks picked over, with signs of struggle. A statue, of a bald man with his arms outstretched defensively, clings to a spellbook. They can’t seem to get the spellbook out of the statue’s grasp, until Korin just breaks the statue’s hand. Victor flips through the spellbook, which feels like it takes ages. Pages and pages go by, initially of spells, but eventually shifts to a writing system he does not recognize. As he is drawn farther into the book, he flips to a page of a photo realistic cockatrice, and with a brief moment of clarity, slams the book shut. It makes sense now - this is the wizard’s apprentice, and he must have stolen a dummy book that froze him. Victor pens a note, instructions on how to heal this man, BTW no book or anything LOL don’t ask WTF you talkin’ about, and the party heads out.
As they approach the tower, they notice all the moving objects - swarms of flying cutlery, barn walls and homes making a palisade, and hobbled together siege engines. After being fired on by trebuchets, they explore other methods of entry, and find a small cave to the East. In order to get inside, they first must crawl on their belly, and it looks like child sized person had already done this…..the Tielfing girl? They crawl, then climb down into it with a rope, into a foggy, oily tar pit like cavern…with two more frozen statues. These ones have hair. Presumably, the stone siblings. One holds a dagger and another a bag.
The party takes these objects, to find that the bag is a bag of holding with a little gnome (like a garden gnome) in it, who carries a big book and asks them what they need him to retrieve. They then hear breathing in the distance. They presume it’s a basilisk, and ask for something to slay a basilisk with. When the little BagGnome produces a regular sword (“This kills things!”), they begin to shimmy along the wall, BUT, Nyx is heard and the basilisk approaches her.
…..it is huge, as large as an adult dragon, and fat, and gets right up into her face….she looks down, scared, avoiding eye contact as to not get frozen. It….licks her. When she pets it it makes a low, pleased sound, and she uses BagGnome to fetch a meat cookie for it. BagGnome identifies it as Binkles.
The cave leads to the inside of the manor connected to the house. Investigating a big book on a wooden stand shows that it is superficial, and would cast “Conjure Water” on the person who would interact with it. A regular kitchen, a regular bathroom, a regular parlor, the tower (which is a large set of stairs going straight up, turret style) and…a big door that says “DO NOT ENTER”. After exhausting all options, the party enters the big DO NOT ENTER door, which….
…..opens up to a beach. A scraggly, bleach blonde, bronze skinned Gnome (the traditional DnD kind) stands in-front of them, with sunscreen on his nose and tanning fold tucked under his arm. “Can’t a man go on vacation without some dolt engaging the defense mechanisms of his tower?” This is the great wizard Nimbus, and he is on vacation. The party are handed glasses as they walk farther onto the beach, the door closing behind them.