The Spider Wasp Chronicles Chapter 10: Angela’s Madness
The adventure picks up right where it left off. Kyle the bard, Oshanda the sorceress, Kobo the arcane trickster, Sul the arcane archer, and Arnor the paladin stand in the second circle of the city of Riens. It is designed in 7 concentric circles, with Dragonwing tower standing tall in the center of the city. Even though the weather is fair and the city looks clean and bright and beautiful (even if void of all people), our heroes understand that this is all a giant illusion, a mirage masking the ruined remains of a once glorious place.
What remains to be seen is whether the dire animals guarding the bridge between the first circle and the second circle are also part of the illusion. Together with Kuro, an elven fighter with a giant scar across her face who entered the city earlier that morning, they feel their way to the top of a house and Sul fires an arrow at the nearest lion.
As the missile sinks into its flesh, the heroes understand that these dire animals are very real. The lions start advancing towards them, clearly immune to any illusion effects. The first lion is dead before it can reach the party, but the second lion paws the elven Kuro dead across her face, right where her scar was. After disposing of the second lion, Kyle discovers that Kuro appears to have been dead for a while, as the lack of blood in her body suggests.
Weirded out, the adventurers brave the bridge to the third circle. Oshanda sends an invisible helper across it to activate any potential traps, but none go off. As Kobo goes through, he appears to fall through the floor to a pit. He finds himself a little dizzy but otherwise unscathed. A magical darkness surrounds him as well as a sphere of silence. As such he cannot signal to his friends that he is okay. Kobo turns into gas form and levitates out of the pit to the other side. The others cast all sorts of silly low-level spells to make sure they can jump across the pit cleanly. Even Oshanda in her heels makes it safely across.
In the third circle they encounter a rough-looking dwarf by the name of Ulrik, who has been there since this morning in search of fabled treasure in Dragonwing tower. His right side looks rather charred, but he appears not to notice. After testing for traps and doing the ole Indiana-Jones-in-the-last-crusade-throw-dirt-into-space-to-see-if-there’s-a-floor-or-not trick they manage to cross over to the 4th and 5th circle. Here nature seems to be taking over the buildings a little more, with vines and flowers growing over the roofs and walls of the houses around them. In the 6th circle they notice the vines start to move towards them and begin to grab at their feet. Kyle and Oshanda find themselves trapped. Kobo and Sul run back to help as Ulrik cleaves a path with his axe. The vines are resistant and getting free isn’t easy. Out of the building a huge sickly fungus starts approaching them slowly. Our heroes finally cut their way through over to Ulrik, who runs across the bridge to the last circle. He dodges the first trap fireball, but gets the full brunt of the second one on his right side. He falls to the ground, immobile.
Our adventurers now find themselves outside Dragonwing tower. The stone wings protruding from the top glisten with the hundreds of crushed gems encrusted in them. As they approach the main door they encounter a young-looking human getting his crossbow ready. He introduces himself as Alex. He came in here this morning looking for his companion, whom he suspects is inside the tower looking for the treasure. His skin is very pale, with a tinge of blue.
Together, they enter Dragonwing Tower. They find themselves in a large room. In the middle lies a body, whom Alex identifies as that of his companion. As the heroes enter the room the floor below them crumbles and they fall down to an icy cavern. There is nothing in this room, save for icy-looking water in one end and ice-covered walls.
After much debating on what to do, the casters imbue Sul with Spider Climb, who crawls his way out of the cavern and then uses a rope to pull everyone else up. They climb up the stairs to the second floor. The first room takes up half the size of the circumference of the tower. Once again the walls are lined with thick ice and convenient healing potions and crude weapons lie in frozen mounds. An ice golem guards the only door through to the next room. The golem engages them when they get close enough, and quickly our heroes realize that it does not move very fast. They decide to draw it out, away from the door, and then run past him to the other side. The strategy largely works, even though Kobo takes one for the team as he catches one of the Golems giant ice fists in the face.
The adventurers quickly rush through the door, the circumstances not really allowing to check for traps. As they enter through to the second room a large number of ice stalactites fall down from the ceiling and deliver some damage. Assessing the situation with a bit more calm, they find themselves on a small shore. In front of them, a small pool of unknown depth blocks their path to the next staircase. In the middle of the pool is a stone platform where a simple wooden box rests on top. Hovering above the box is a blue orb emanating a soft light. Sul notices that one of the stalactites didn’t fall and, still under the effects of the spider climb spell, crawls up the wall to get it, thus acquiring a white diamond frozen inside the stalactite. Unsure what to do, they send Alex swimming across the pool. As he approaches the stone platform an ice beam shoots out of the box, freezing Alex immediately and sending him to the bottom. Goodbye Alex.
Sul and Kobo decide to team up. The elven ranger Spider Climbs his way to the top of the room with the halfling on his back. Using the rope, Kobo lowers himself down in perfect Ethan Hunt fashion. Using his mage hand he telekinetically starts pulling the box up. As it gets closer, the box shoots out another ice beam at Kobo, who deftly manages to dodge it, even in his hanging, essentially prone state (should check the rules for that later hmmm). Kobo decides he’s done with the box and drops it in the water. The heroes destroy the floating orb and the ice lining the walls crack loudly. Kobo and Sul crawl to the other side as the remaining three swim across the freezing water, staying well clear of the ice-beam-shooting box.
They open the door to the next floor and find themselves in an unusually large garden with a hedge maze in front of them. Oshanda uses his familiar, Felicia, to fly above and tell them the right way through the maze. In the middle they find a scantily clad female wearing a helmet that covers her entire face. She sits by the fountain, and after introducing herself as Toscana, invites the party to drink and feel refreshed. There is a lot of hesitance from the party, as is to be expected. Our heroes question her about Angela. From Toscana’s account, Angela is a young girl who has been brought here to heal after her incident at the frozen lake. Our adventurers deduce that Toscana is from another time. Arnor, now in action after a tardy appearance, offers Toscana to drink from the waters together as a sign of friendship. She takes off her helmet and reveals a face so beautiful as to be blinding. However, our paladin’s divine resolve and chastity are such that he can hold her gaze without flinching. They drink together and find indeed that the water has minor healing properties.
The adventurers leave Toscana as they take on the second half of the maze. Felicia spots a floating green orb and the party takes it. As they run out the maze a few of our heroes succumb to a sleep spell. As more and more members of the party start to pass out, the paladin decides to toss the green orb out of sight and rouse the others with his dagger.
In the fourth level of the tower they are greeted by a large empty space below them, where they appear to be above the clouds. Above them is a complex system of ropes and beams which seem to lead to the next door. The adventurers spot a white orb floating above one of the beams. Unsure what to do, they fall back to their default strategy whenever they get stuck: they shoot the sumbitch with arrows till it shatters. Immediately the clouds below them disappear and the tower’s regular floor appears. They do the Indiana Jones thing to make sure it’s real and they run across.
The staircase leads to the roof, where they encounter a large blue snake like worm coiled around a large pink crystal. An arrow seems to be stuck in the snake’s head. The adventurers try to talk to reason with the naga-like creature, but she’s having none of it and responds by breathing fire on them. The battle is over before it begins. Sul and Arnor jump on the snake and together remove the arrow. After a large shriek the snake turns into a naked woman. Dazed, she identifies herself as Angela. The last thing she remembers is being near the sea as she mourned the death of the four dragon kings when she got hit by an arrow. The adventurers bring her up to speed with the current events. They take a chunk of the pink crystal, which has the ability to copy the memories of people and display them as if on a screen, and head out. They leave the city of Riens, all illusion of its previous grandeur now shattered, and head towards Green Haven to identify the owner of the bloody handkerchief that the paladin found.
