As we ended last weeks session instead of finishing the encounter at hand and taking a much needed short rest the characters instead used the teleportation circle to exit the encounter, knowing not where they would emerge. For game play purposes we played out last week with the players that remained on level one of the tower, until they all had exited the room. We therefore started this week with the players, one by one, as they emerged wherever the teleportation circle took them.
Krstic appeared in a room on top of a magic teleportation circle that had four nondescript pillars surrounding it. A door stood closed along the east wall, and a passageway led south. Krstic's first concern was that he had not landed in the middle of a new combat - indeed, there was a gentle hum that emerged from beyond that set of closed doors, but he was otherwise alone. Krstic first action was to move off the circle and over to the door to listen for what may be inside and to get a better view down the hallway. Down the hallway there was a door along the west wall and then the passage turned into an open area to the east. As he waited, all alone in the silence, somewhere off to the south he heard some large footsteps, heading his way.
Then Bogar appeared on the magic circle. He moved over to the door next to Krstic and Krstic then spun south to stand next to the passage opening. Again, silence, until from around the corner to the south emerged a Bronze Warder, it's giant great axe in hand.
As the warder moved north up the hallway Miave appeared on the circle, and she moved to gain a sight line on the intruder. With Bogar in clear view the warder moved up to attack and became engaged with Krstic.
Then Akta appeared, a norker slave in tow. But it was the sound of battle that cause the occupants of the room behind the closed door to appear - a norker and an Enigma of Vecna, plus another norker arrived from behind the warder. The warder was already enough, but suddenly the already weakened party found the numbers suddenly evened.
And then the party went into full swing - Jenneth, Oester, Renny, Eldred, and an Enigma of Vecna appeared on and around the magic circle. With the remaining Enigma of Vecna teleporting in on the next turn, mayhem ensued.
The norker slave and the two already bloodied Enigma's that teleported in were quickly dispatched to open the field of fire a little. The two norkers proved to be tough to kill, the warder prevented anyone from moving south, and the enigma used his ranged attacks to cause mischief from afar. And just as the party seemed to be getting the upper hand yet another norker and another Enigma of Vecna appeared.
Finally Renny went down, in a state of unconsciousness. Eldred moved up to provide assistance to the fallen comrade, but found his advance otherwise blocked by the last norker. Already at risk of dying himself Eldred was teleported/swapped away by Akta. It was about this time the two norkers in front went down and the focus turned to finishing the warder and the two enigmas and the last norker. One of the enigmas was next to go down, and Jenneth teleported in behind the remaining enigma.
The enigma pushed Jenneth away and moved up to engage in the fight. This then gave Jenneth a chance to force a Potion of Healing down Renny's throat. The enigma saw his remaining comrades fall, including the Bronze Warder, and decided to make a break for it. He tore south through the room and out the door, temporarily disappearing from view.
As the party gave chase they saw that the remaining enigma had stepped onto another teleportation circle located in the south end of the complex. A few got off ranged attacks, and Krstic managed to at least push the enigma off the center of the circle - while avoiding to remain on the circle himself - but alas the evening ended as the remaining enigma disappeared.
DM Note: Wow! This was the best battle the adventurers had all year. Well, OK, maybe it was the best battle the DM had. The players were each pushed to their maximum, resulting in much scrambling to look at otherwise unused items or powers to squeeze out whatever amount of healing they could find or to provide what extra amount of damage they could deliver.
The second level of the Tower of Mysteries had not been completely inspected yet, but in the room in the north east corner the party found three tables covered with beakers and vials that contained odd looking liquids. They also found a glass enclosed device that was giving off the hum Krstic had heard initially. It contained several piped and tubed from which different color fluids passed and percolated, but most importantly it also contained the floating head of a Bronze Warder.
There was some discussion about following the enigma as he was no doubt giving warning to whatever lay ahead, but with many (most) of the party already bloodied and without major powers it was decided a minor rest was needed before even exploring the rest of the rooms on this level. As the party looked around they saw (between the two levels):
12 Norker Slaves, each welding a battle axe
10 Norkers, each wearing leather armor and wielding a battle axe
4 Enigmas of Vecna, each wielding a dagger
1 Bronze Warder, wielding a large great axe
The party has not found any GP or magic as of yet. Each member of the party earned 420 XP for the entire encounter.
Score Card: With the completion of the Level 1 and 2 Tower of Mysteries encounter and the party had accumulated an additional 164 GP and 700 GP in gems. With the 420 XP earned during these encountered the party had accumulated 9990 XP (10,000 needed to reach Level 7). Including the previous encounters Renny was sitting at 6690 XP (7110 needed to reach Level 6).
Next week - R and J's.
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