After several days running all over the tower in search of an Archmagister of the Society, Vorahill, who has gone missing the party closes in on a prime suspect. The Tower has been locked down and the party were the last allowed inside to try to solve this mystery. Various hijinks ensue, including an orgy in the climate control room for the Wilds that results in damage to the console and extreme weather changes while some of the party attempt to find children from a field trip. A brawl breaks out in the Chapel while Riley leads a service and spots an old enemy in the audience. Vilma goes berserk in the market when someone buys all the tomatoes. Shiele upsets the casino by breaking all the machines that are keeping the people trapped inside. The school is set ablaze, leading to the arrest of the Janitor, Scruffy, as the prime suspect. In pursuit of the suspect, several people are paralyzed by poison. Unrest is building on various levels as people discover the lockdown has been increased to lock down each level. Clarinette beat an old frienemy in an epic rap battle who is now the lead suspect in their investigation. Clarinette and Shiele discovered that they are pregnant. Their prime suspect, Tatiana, has made a fortune telling her own version of the story of the Kobowlders in the Outlands. Shiele, distraught by her pregnancy, took refuge in the retirement level and met Judith. Nikki walked out of the Tower on strange business.

Current leads in the investigation indicates that while Vorahill was running some experiment involving transmutation of people into animals. They believe that somehow Tatiana turned him into a parrot as well as the Librarian into a skeleton then, turning him into a table. Another official had also been turned into a bird in his quarters. Now the party is hunting Tatiana and the caged parrot. Riley learned at the school that Tatiana had been interacting with a little girl. Scruffy and Shiele find similar evidence at Tatiana’s apartment.

Clarinette is in the entertainment district with Scruffy and Shiele, an enhanced mouse (Mickey) is looking over the entrance to the district. Sar’n, Davros, and Vilma are in the botanics district before traveling to the Wilds. Riley is on his way to meet up with Scruffy, Clarinette, and Shiele. Linwe is keeping watch in the lobby. Sar’n and company go to the Wilds where ‘someone’ cranked down the cold and created a snow storm, trying to drive everyone out of the Wilds. For some reason, there is another field trip there with the same chaperons. The children have been rescued back to the Greenhouse from the storm. One of the children apparently had the caged parrot they currently believe to be Vorahill. Sar’n uses magic to begin melting a path through the snow. He soon finds a broken open cage buried in the snow. They decide to look for a Pocket-Gnome Engineer who may have seen the parrot. With no new evidence, they trudge back into the snow to continue searching for the parrot or anyone that may have taken it. With a view from the rafters, they spot footprints. Someone has taken the bird and sneaked back through the portal.

Meanwhile in the Entertainment district, Scruffy and Shiele have met up with Clarinette and calmed a riot before it got out of hand. They head to the tavern for a short break and find out that someone in security has been sneaking things through the lockdown. Riley soon arrives and they exchange new intel and after a quick lunch decide to head to security once they get hold of Sar’n. The woman obsessed with him is the smuggler among security. A server in the tavern asks them to deliver an amount of gold to the woman in security. There is some arguing over Bob’s true identity, but with the intel that the dead man from the school may have been a pedophile, attention on Scruffy has decreased.

The party, now re-united, heads down to the Security level. Their new target, Kaylen, is at the desk to greet them. To discover more information, they take her into an office and talk with her, minus Riley who is watching the desk and Davros who is looking for someone else from security to relieve Riley. The others try to discover deeper intel on the smuggling ring. The guards in the lobby, guarding the arena level, were apparently involved as well. Davros is left at the desk while everyone else continues the interrogation. The guard is upset with Kaylen and is instructed to keep an eye on her.

Their next lead is to interview the injured guards. They find the stabbed guard is now dead and was apparently strangled. With the aid of a scroll, Sar’n brings him back and they interrogate him. Shiele leads Scruffy out of the room for fear of suspicion. The guards admit to knowing the way in and out of the tower and that Tatiana may know it as well. They lead the party to the last cell in the detention area and open a secret passage. With Scruffy’s cover fully blown, he is sworn into the Kobowlders after some debate. The passage leads into a mine.

Vilma finds recent tracks, leading into the mine and presumably toward the exit. In the main cavern, they find many people chained to the ground with Tatiana currently chaining up someone else. The guards are shoved to the ground as the party demands to know where Vorahill is.

Tatiana disappears and her pets, two hydras, appear to fight them. When that doesn’t do the trick, she summons more and mirror images. With strength and ingenuity, the hydras are dispatched and Tatiana is knocked out and locked up. As they free the prisoners and begin to take her up stairs, the real Tatiana, somewhat worse for wear, appears and stabs the bound, gagged, and manacled impostor off Vilma’s shoulders. The illusion fails and they discover that Vorahill’s butler, was behind it all along.

Clarinette and Davros take a disgruntled Sar’n to search the tunnel ahead. They soon encounter a parrot which Davros manages to turn back into the Archmagister Vorahill. The others have secured Tatiana and Wally in seperate cells with Scruffy, Shiele, and Vilma keeping close tabs on them. Riley leads the rescued people upstairs to the infirmary in search of aid.

Soon Vorahill is led up to the cells to confront the villain of this escapade. He condemns Wally and thanks Tatiana for aiding him. Sar’n immediately degloves one of Wally’s fingers, then sits in the corner and smokes his pipe, deeply unsettling his party. Riley returns shortly afterward with 3 guards. Vorahill decides to take everyone up to his quarters to settle the issue.

With Wally tied to a chair, they discuss the problem Sar’n has become. Vorahill determines that Sar’n had some kind of psychological break during the fight at the Coronation. With a short stay at the Tower, he thinks it can be corrected. He also lifts the internal lock down of the Tower. Vorahill tells Davros it will take some time to translate the holy book he found. The Archmagister then goes over the various incidents that have occurred during the Kobowlders investigation and excuses their less legitimate actions. Scruffy is pardoned for the fire and the associated death, rewarded with a sword by Vorahill personally. As a diplomatic matter, he requests they turn over the Djinn they’ve had in their custody. Riley has no problem with this and no one else objects.

Vorahill also reveals that five weeks have passed in the five days they’ve been in the Tower. Back in the prime material plane, armies are mobilizing. The party quickly begins moving, except for Leroy, Sar’n and Shiele who simply wanted to return Tatiana’s necklace before leaving and ask about her niece.

At a frontier town on the plane of Carceri, the party is working to find their way to the Nine Hells and safely cross the Grey Wastes. As per usual, they end up in a bar, this one run by a hag. Sar’n has managed a strange contract with a demon and a forger. His clever wording has their new associates bent to their whim. Vilma and Davros have gotten tanked and are currently sleeping it off in Sar’n’s pocket dimension. Riley is sitting at the bar and drinking, while glowering at his lot in life, trying to keep the others out of trouble. While they await the return of the forger, they kill time at the bar. Sar’n plays a game with some patrons while Shiele and Clarinette watch, and Riley keeps to himself. When Sar’n ups the stakes, an Ultraloth joins the game as well as Shiele. Riley keeps a closer eye on the game now that the rolls are looking suspicious. The stakes get higher and higher, but the game manages to end peacefully with a large win for Sar’n and Shiele. The Ultraloth leaves with some other creatures of his ilk.

Sar’n gives some of the money to Riley for safekeeping and the party begins looking for rooms for the night as the forger won’t be ready until tomorrow. Shiele heads out on her own, while the others go look for quarters. Meanwhile , in the pocket dimension, the Davros and Vilma enjoy some drunken revelry. Shiele finds a shady den to hang out in with people of her own sort.

Immediately upon exiting the bar, Riley notices 9 people watching them. The zombie from the tavern gives them a map to a safe bunk house to rest in for the night, so they head there on an abstract route. The group watches them begins to follow them as they move out. Sar’n magics them to the far end of the street and they take a false turn to divert their pursuers. Riley uses his own abilities to take them in the appropriate direction, thoroughly losing their tail hopefully. They make it safely to the bunk house and Sar’n goes to check out some local shops while RIley and Clarinette secure some rooms for the party. After some wandering, Sar’n disguises himself and returns to the bunkhouse, he enters and gets a room without identifying himself. After a mysterious conversation with his colleagues Sar’n the douche goes up to his room, and later has the desk attendant succubus deliver a note to Clarinette. The others are only marginally surprised by this dick move and go to sleep.

In the morning, Sar’n has the misfortune of waking Vilma and Davros, before they head out to the bar they met at the previous day. The party dines at the Hag’s Tavern while they await the return of their accomplice. They make a surreptitious exchange after the forger arrives, getting their documents in exchange for the payment Sar’n promised. As soon as they leave the tavern to continue on their quest, they are attacked by the Ultraloth that lost the game of chance the night before. It was at this point, the Ugoloths began to realize… they fucked up.

Before their battle can draw too much attention, Sar’n teleports the party back to the entry point of this plane, avoiding a lot of walking, casting of minor spells, and probably trouble. From here, they reconcile their plans. They need to pick up the demons they contracted as a distraction and some cloaks to protect them in the Gray Waste, before heading into the Nine Hells to pick up the trail of the missing Paladin of Pelor. The party heads back to the portal to the City of Sigils to continue on to their next destination. Sar’n and the portal attendant are rather catty toward eachother, eventually he slams his book shut and just tells them to go through a door. Sar’n, Davros, and Riley head in while Shiele tries to get some information from the desk clerk. Davros is immediately affected by the atmosphere of Lost Hope.

While they attempt to convince the depressed clerk in Lost Hope to help them, Shiele comes through and tells them to turn back. Back in the Tower, they try to keep the peace between Sar’n and the desk man while on their way to the next portal. The next portal leads them back to the Prime Matieral plane, part of a short cut to their destination. The party appears in some ruins in Shaar, the northeastern plains of the world. Riley manages to snap Davros out of his depression with a flick to the eye. The anger brings him back to himself and the party discusses their situation before setting out northwest towards a portal to the second level of Hades where they can get their cloaks.

In their travels, they spot a herd of buffalo and change course to avoid running into Vilma’s tribe, who are apparently vicious and cannibalistic. Later that day, they spot the herd of horses of the tribe shadowing the buffalo. Shiele, Riley, and Vilma move in to disable the riders directing the horse herd while Sar’n observes invisibly from above. After Shiele and Vilma disable the guards, Riley startles the herd, trampling the unconscious riders to hide the party’s presence. Vilma then sends Riley back to the other party members and they mount up, ready to move on toward their destination. With their stolen horses, the party makes camp for the night.

As they make their way westward, they note tribes in the distance, but Vilma feels they will not be subject to any attack they can’t handle. Upon reaching the foothills of the mountains, they send the horses away and Sar’n flies, dragging the party along on magic disks. Soon they find themselves on the outskirts of the ruins of a city that seems to corresponds to the map’s location of the gateway. Most are uneasy about approaching, Vilma’s people tell tales of this region. It’s people were once enslaved by powerful magical beings during a great war. Information about their current status is less than reliable. Sar’n flies over to recon the place and the party debates how best to proceed.

The group decides to sneak in with Sar’n’s magic, using invisibility and floating disks to enter the city. Upon attempting the fly directly in, instead of far overhead, they find a magic barrier over the city. Forced to enter at ground level, the find the construction is for creatures ten feet tall, but the magic is elven and the construction is dwarven. Doors are made of stone blocks, including the gates which have tumbled inward. They find tracks moving into the city, somewhat recent. Somehow, the first building the investigate appears to have once been a tavern. Finding nothing but dust and stone, the party spreads out, exploring the ruins systematically. Sar’n provides overwatch from the tops of the broken stone walls of the buildings. Riley soon joins him to keep watch while Sar’n coordinates the searching. When Vilma points out the tracks look like oversized Kobolds, Riley heads toward the center of the city along the upper walls of buildings, safely above street level. Sar’n ascends to keep watch better while Riley scouts and the rest of the party continues searching.

While Riley tries to sneak up the walls of the city center keep, Sar’n flies up to the top and alerts the occupants. Fleeing crossbow bolts, oversized Kobolds start moving out from the keep. Having ruined the element of surprise, Sar’n summons a different element, Earth, to fight the Kobolds. Shiele continues her searching, feeling that there is something strange about the building they are exploring. Vilma and Clarinette explore on their own a bit, finding a desecrated temple and a tavern. While the elementals engage the ground level troops, Riley surveys the forces inside the keep and disables the sentries in a swift strike. The elementals quickly dispatch the attack party and move around to the front gate. Sar’n joins Riley on the walls and blasts most of the ground troops prepping for a fight inside the walls. The buildings inside the keep have rooftop hatches, which prove imperious their grenades and adamantine wings. One surviving Kobold smashes the portculis controls, slamming it shut before the earth elementals can enter. The gate guard tries to flee Sar’n and is intercepted and disarmed by Riley.

They capture the Kobold and find they are escaped slaves. The situation has just gotten very complicated, they quickly call for Clarinette to hopefully remedy the situation with diplomacy. Back across town, Davros and Shiele find a hidden room and spring a gas trap. Davros quickly pulls her out of the gas and brings her back around, they call for Clarinette to clear the gas. Leeroy acts as the communication agent for the team to rally the party. In the hidden room, they find locked shelves, cabinets and containers, full of ledgers inscribed on stone. The ledgers indicate that this was the city of the Shaarii, offshoots of the ogres. The city was established as a defense against the great enemy, which they believe may have been the Kofrath. The populace had fled here from a great war elsewhere in the planes.

Leeroy fetches the rest of the party and they head toward the keep to join Sar’n and Riley. The others are unsurprised to find a considerable amount of damage to the location, Davros complains loudly about the ancient stone gates which are now a pile of stone. Climbing over the rubble, with varying degrees of grace, they find the courtyard full of the charred remains of large kobolds, scrawny orcs and some goblins. They did however manage to take one kobold alive.

They attempt to convince him to begin diplomatic talks, despite the Kobold’s trepidations. He manages to convince the guards to let them in to meet with the boss. Clarinette is rather cutesy today and confuses many a guard. The guard warns them to show respect to their leader who led them to freedom from slavery. Which leads to Clarinette bowing to a guard in the corner, embarassing the guard thoroughly until Riley drags her back to the group. Before the leader can even speak, Shiele teleports with Clarinette who noticed a shadowy figure slipping out the side door (several people did, but only a few of them were tactless enough to do anything). This immediately causes a scuffle, only Vilma manages to ram a guard before the encampment leader slams his weapon into the ground, shocking everyone into stillness once more.

With their more impulsive members behaving for the moment, they begin talks with the leader, informing of their search for a portal in this area. Some party members have difficulty ignoring the shadowy figure that slipped out the side door. The leader opens the door to show them an empty room and after a brief inspection, some party members resume talking with the leader. When they finally get to introductions, the leader introduces himself as Maelor. Shiele continues examining a strange contraption in the other room (an elevator), Clarinette joins her after she finishes flirting with Maelor. Sar’n manages to use a potion of detect thoughts and hears only a buzz from Maelor, seemingly confirming their suspicions that his constant pauses in speech are because he is being controlled.

Riley tries to keep Maelor on track, talking about finding the portal, while Sar’n is bent on tricking him into saying something. Shiele is now searching for a power source for the device in the other room. The conversation follows several different tracks simultaneously as the party attempts to confuse Maelor, which is less than successful. Eventually Sar’n calls out Maelor’s controller to Maelor’s face. The locals react only with confusion and eventually the conversation turns back to the portal they are searching for. Maelor admits that there is a complex in the corner of the city with some towers that has defied all their attempts to enter and killed anyone who did so. The shaman becomes upset and storms off, the party comes to an understanding with Maelor that after resting for the evening, they will attempt to gain entry to this portion of the city. At one point, Shiele teleports away with Davros to study some of the tomes they found out in the city.

The party is led to a small hall with several tables, benches and barrels, as well as a shelving unit, perhaps a store room, to rest for the night. Shiele and Davros later return, but Shiele of course wants to snoop around. They are nearly caught when Davros opens at door at Shiele’s behest. Luckily, Sar’n manages a distraction and casts invisibility on the pair. Davros sneaks into the room with the party, while Shiele continues snooping. Clarinette uses magic to disguise herself and heads out to join Shiele, bluffing her way past the guard. The pair snoop around together, finding a kitchen near a training hall and then head upstairs. Meanwhile, Sar’n spends several minutes casting Geas on one of the guards, causing him to immediately collapse.

Upstairs, Clarinette and Shiele run into some Goblins who speak in undercommon to the visible, but disguised, Clarinette. She responds in draconic and brusquely moves on as they try to explore the upper level before the invisibility wears off. Sar’n replaces the guard with an illusion and sends Davros into the pocket dimension to keep an eye on the guard until he awakens, which is almost immediately and looking to serve his new master. Sar’n even convinces Riley to knock out the other guard, who proves very susceptible to a Stunning Blow and is also replaced by an and illusion from Sar’n. RIley and the second guard join Davros and the first guard in Sar’n pocket dimension, where Davros heals the guard so he doesn’t die from subdual damage. Upstairs, Shiele and Clarinette find a nursery, which Shiele cannot handle the smell of.

Sar’n then disguises himself and joins Shiele and Clarinette in exploring, ultimately finding the shaman performing an augury with the entrails of a freshly slain goblin. The invisible Shiele vomits and gives them away, resulting in their sudden disappearance to the pocket dimension. Sar’n also fetches Vilma and Leeroy, now that their game may be up. He begins interrogating the captured guards and they decide to take action once more, primarily in taking out the shaman. After some rest and a few buff spells, they teleport back into the shrine to attack. The shaman is the first to fall as Shiele teleports in and destroys him with two strikes. Three more are eliminated by a spell from Sar’n and a blast of song from Clarinette removes the last two. Riley zips off down the corridors and scouts ahead for more enemies. Undetected, he returns to the party and they head in the opposite direction, finding a path into a lower level.

The lower level of the keep is recently carved out of Earth and rock, they soon find the locals finishing other similar rooms toward a more complete state, scrubbing, scraping and sweeping. They even find Maelor scrubbing floors, completely unresponsive to stimuli like the others. After some wandering and traps, they come across a room full of locals and an Illithid, who is foolishly confident, controlling them all. He turns out to be an illusion, but the party quickly dispatches most of the enemies. Shiele retreats to the next room after taking a hit from the enemy. The doors seal shut behind her and Maelor, or the creature that resembles him, turns out to be an illithid in disguise. Riley uses his ring on the door that has locked itself in an effort to get to Shiele’s aid, the door holds but the frame is badly damaged. Shiele really gets her bell rung as she was sitting with her back to the door and quickly crawls away to hide nearby. After the party dispatches the enemies, they catch up with Shiele.

In the next room, they find some bookshelves filled with strange books, which are promptly looted. Shiele heads into the next room and finds a tomb, which matches the architecture of the upper floors. The inscriptions seem to resemble the language they’ve seen elsewhere, which Vilma finds quite intriguing. Shiele is unwilling to loot this room as it seems important to Vilma. They turn back and head for the other door out of the last room. Riley, unable to find a trap, tries the handle. While he isn’t electrocuted, he does end up with his fur standing on end. Shiele checks again and opens the door. Inside, there is what appears to be a massive brain, surrounded by Illithids and the locals from upstairs.

Shiele instantly flees via teleportation, while Sar’n throws a wand into the room and detonates it with disintegrate. The wand explodes violently, as party members attempt to dive to the side in an attempt to shelter from the blast. The only one that really gets hurt is Vilma, who trips and lands on Davros who was knocked unconscious by the sheer mental power of the Illithid hive mind. The room is a smokey, charred ruin with nothing remaining, except for a single, wounded Illithid who escapes, warning that “This isn’t over!” Vilma is actually glowing now and even looks a little taller now, but only a few people notice this until Clarinette points it out. Vilma seems to have been imbued by the arcane blast of the exploding wand, although all she’ll say is that she’s not feeling well. The party decides to head out, looking for Shiele.

Shiele, who teleported towards the stairs leading back upstairs, collapsing in an emotional wreck, believing that all her friends are dead. A stranger, who was apparently being held hostage, tries to run past her. The panicked Shiele jumps up and they collide, ending up accidentally stabbing her in the thigh. The stranger, Lillith, turns ethereal and attempts to run away, despite her injury and Shiele’s panicked apology. Lillith only stops running away when Shiele offers a healing potion, she takes it, but is still unhappy about being stabbed.

When she hears Sar’n broadcast over the neural link, she gets excited and teleports back to the party, very happy to see them all still alive. Lillith panics and runs, but Sar’n manages to contact her mentally and convince her not to flee. Riley provides her with his spare monk robe as she is currently only wearing a dressing gown. After a brief chat, Sar’n teleports the party plus 1, up to the second floor in search of Lillith’s gear, which she can apparently sense. They find her equipment in a room littered with random detritus; gear, clothing, broken boxes, and many odds and ends.

The party heads back home for a while while Shiele runs around confirming that all the people she cares about are still alive. Back at Kobowlders Keep, the Pocket Gnomes have retreated back into their realm while gnomes have stopped in to visit. The others go about their usual business on returning to the keep, checking on their cohorts, apprentices and minions. Cort has completed his very own wizard tower, which Sar’n brings their new member, Lilith, to visit. There they seek to arm Lilith with some new gear, including some armor, a rapier and a dagger. Cort eventually rouses from his fatigued stupor to fill them in about the war efforts. Kofrath raids are becoming quite common and many races from the underground have been driven out by the enemy advance.

Clarinette is relaxing in the amphitheater and finds a young bard fawning over her. Apparently many young bards have heard of the Kobowlders and come to be at the center of the action. She messes with him for a bit, sending him off to bother Vilma. Davros goes to the keep’s temple to perform some rites, aid in rituals and meet with the local clergy of Pelor. Riley checks up on the war efforts as well with his order of monks, sparring with the various levels and groups of pupils and imparting knowledge of some of his advanced techniques. Around late-afternoon, the party reconvenes in the Great Hall. Eating and drinking, prepping to resume their quest, Davros fills Lilith in about their current mission.

Vilma shows up with the young bard in tow and a large pot of soup. Kilrem’s excitement is undampened when he realizes he’s just met more of the Kobowlders. Lilith attempts to distract him with a discrete math problem in arcana. Vilma grows impatient and goes to fetch Clarinette from the amphitheater to make her eat lunch. Clarinette chats with Vilma on the way back to the great hall and then with Kilrem. Shiele also soon shows up and the ladies discover that the soup was the greatest soup they’ve ever tasted. There is some debate as to whether the party should set back out immediately, which leads to discussion of Sar’n’s deal with the demons. Some details come to light, including failure penalties that the party was previously unaware of and is now rather angry with Sar’n. Especially Shiele who immediately confronts and berates him before teleporting back to the town where the met Lilith to continue their journey. Lilith immediately follows while the rest of the group puts a little more effort into preparing.

Lilith and Shiele have a rather tense stand off and eventually Shiele heads off on her own again. When the party finally catches up, little progress is made in calming down Shiele, but the party does try to meet up. Riley heads off to find Shiele, then keeps up with her in case trouble shows up. The rest of the party makes it’s way towards the towers in the corner of town they had not previously explored. There they meet up with eachother.

The outer towers are massive round pillars, and based on the shape, that appeared to originally support a giant sphere, balanced atop the square central building. Each round pillar has a doorway facing the central tower, but it’s protected by an energy barrier of some kind. The red barrier deflects a rock as a molten ball of rock. The green barrier deflects the projectile but it dissolves in midair. The group spreads out, exploring and cautiously trying to find a way into the towers. Touching the tower results in taking damage related to the color of the barrier. The central tower seems to be safe and atop it RIley finds the top is shaped like a bowl with a curious dark patch exactly in the center that resembles a hatch, aside from being just a darker patch of the stone. Sar’n attempts several spells, as well as sending a fire elemental through the fiery red barrier, which results in the painful destruction of the creature. Vilma seems to have some reaction to the towers, her eyes turning silver and a sudden ability to read the inscriptions above the doors. Her eyes do return to normal eventually. Velma helps the others read inscriptions from over the doorways. Red = “Fire purifies” Green = “Destruction Promotes Rebirth” Blue = “Winter Preserves” White = “Energy is Life” Bones of the goblins and other locals litter the ground by each barrier and they soon realize the barriers have some kind of pull on people that get too close.

At the final column, Vilma tries to walk into the portal and it takes several people to prevent her from walking into what they believe to be certain death, including a conjured shelter, a monk, and teleportation. Lilith finally learns about the groups mental link and sends Riley back to fetch the rest of the group after teleporting them away from the barrier. Some of the group reach the conclusion that perhaps Vilma can safely bypass the barriers due to her heritage. To test it, they plan to have her touch the side of one of the towers as Riley did, which was at least survivable. Their idea works and Vilma manages to get into the towers and deactivate the barrier. Inside the entrance, they find several what may be either statues or stone golems. Beyond that is a room decently lit room with several low tables and a desk in front of a door. Everything is coated in a layer of dust about a quarter inch thick, parchment they find is so brittle it disintegrates upon being touched.

In the next room, they encounter two very large golems that react when Vilma reads the inscriptions. Whether they are under her influence or not is not entirely clear, but they don’t immediately attack. Clarinette and Lilith attempt to influence Vilma who seems to have limited control or capacity when her ancestral abilities are active. While the party attempts to deal with the golems, Riley manages to open the next doorway. Inside is another large golem which is watching him intently. It soon becomes clear the golems are attempting to herd them further inside, the lone golem moves out of their path to allow them to enter the third room. Shiele and Clarinette, who had been left in the foyer, manage to squeeze in to follow the group. The rooms have book shelves, closets, weapons racks and other things. Many of the books are made of metal with metal sheets for pages. The golems reacted with varying eye colors when the group interacts with items in the rooms. While Vilma’s strength seems to be increasing, she does not seem to be gaining more control, she can easily move heavy doors or lift the metal books. Clarinette and Vilma attempt to read some of the books to gain a better understanding of the language.

The golems follow the party, blocking their path of retreat, soon the party finds themselves on the second floor. In the second room of the second floor the party encounters the shambling corpses of 5 Shaar’i and a suit of armor with glowing red eyes. To their credit, they actually attempt diplomacy first. Which fails and Davros unleashes his holy abilities to Turn Undead. It has little effect but Vilma’s abilities surface again, with a new, stronger rage as she leaps into the fray. Shiele and Riley flank the enemies who are drawn to Vilma shouting in Shaar’i. In a break in the fight, Shiele scouts the next room and spots an inactive golem. With a shout, Vilma brings it into the fray, smashing one of their enemies into dust. Unfortunately, the armored enemy seems able to command it as well and it attacks Sar’n and Leeroy, somehow hurting him even in his shadow form. Vilma’s abilities allow her to cut down the remaining enemies and regain control of the golem.

Past the frey, the party finds the stairs up to the final floor. Here they find a mysterious device (like an elevator) that Vilma can activate. It takes them out to the roof, but there doesn’t seem to be anything else there. They take what appears to be the power source and the golems on the final floor deactivate. Perhaps this is the key to opening the central tower. The party decides to rest for the night before continuing.

The party rests for the night after clearing the first tower, noting that Vilma is definitively taller. When Riley notices that her sword is the same size it was before, Vilma inspects it and discovers that it has fiery properties. After exiting the pocket dimension, the golems seem to be active again, but are behaving passively with their eyes glowing blue. The party heads back outside to continue their quest, the barrier they had previously shut off is electricity arching over the walkway. Aside from their hair standing on end, no one is harmed by the arcing energy. Vilma heads out last, the arc channeling into the gem stone/power source as she leaves. Lillith’s persistent efforts to cheer up Shiele result in a thrown punch.

Now that it’s later in the day, the other towers have a glow that was not previously noticeable in full day light. As they are heading in, Riley jokes about Vilma striking a pose when they notice the statues in the Fire tower’s foyer resemble her. Unfortunately, she takes him seriously and a brief panic ensues. Luckily no one is hurt and they get inside the tower safely. Inside they find more golems and similar decor, however these do not comply when the Shaari commands are issued. Quite the contrary, the golem in the third room attacks and the party soon discovers how powerful they are firsthand. While Vilma attempts to read commands from a book to no avail, they manage to destroy one of the golems, but one of them manages to kill Riley. Vilma finally manages to use a command that freezes the golems in place. And everybody was a huge dick about me going to the bathroom, despite the fact that a bunch of people left during the battle and nobody said a god damn thing.

The party gathers in the corner behind a line of summoned minions around Riley’s body which begins to noticeably glow. Shiele slowly recovers from her latest mental breakdown. The word Vilma used was Truce and the golems are still red-eyed, but do not move to attack. Lillith seems to know a bit more about this and postulates that it may be related to the Artathi gods. A pantheon on par with the others in terms of power, but mostly unknown to outsiders. She attempts to calm Shiele, with little success, then moves to inspect the monk’s glowing body. When she attempts to touch it, divine energy arcs to her fingertip. Leaving no permanent damage, she notices her finger briefly glows, then encourages Davros to touch the body.

Ready to procede, Vilma goes to open the doors to the next room and carries a sobbing Shiele on her shoulder into the next room. No one really wants to move the glowing monk corpse, so they watch and wait. After a moment, Davros notices that Riley has a pulse again and points this out. Finally Riley surges back to life, divine light surged from his eyes, mouth, and the mark on his forehead, morphing to the symbol of St. Cuthbert. The monk makes a weak attempt to attack his killer but is easily restrained, the party moves into the next room to get farther from the golems. Putting aside their issues as best as possible, they proceed upstairs. On the next floor, they encounter a silver-eyed golem that doesn’t seem to react to them. In the next room, they find many crates, in one of them, Davros finds what appears to be golem parts. The next door is actually locked for once, inside they find some sort of workshop where golems may have been made or repaired. It seems that someone left the workshop in a hurry and somewhat messy.

While Sar’n and Lillith begin to loot anything that might be useful or valuable, Riley inspects the golem on the table which appears to have been incomplete and Davros looks in some crates, finding more golem parts. The pair loot everything from the workshop that glows with a magical aura and all the crates stored in the other room. Heading back the way they came, they go in the opposite direction around the tower, the first room to the right has a half dozen small statuettes on pedestals. Shiele seems to really like them and they make her feel much better. Clarinette stays with her as the others move on. The next room is lined with strange braziers, with symbols made of some kind of flame hovering over them with no detectable source or means. Vilma feels a little nervous about opening the next door, but all they find inside is another giant statue that reminds her of her father. When she touches, it nods to her, but doesn’t move other than that. Stairs lead them up to the top floor.

This seems to be some sort of throne room, four massive statues face a throne in the center of the room. After a few moments, they solve the puzzle, the statues raising their spears towards the glowing red stone that powers this tower. When Vilma sits in it, the chair lifts her up to retrieve it the stone. As soon as she does the chairs drop out from under her, luckily Sar’n is ready to catch her with magic. With what they assume will help them gain access to the central tower, the party begins to head back down, collecting Shiele and Clarinette on the way. Shiele stuffs the statues into her bag and Lilith attempts to steal a few also, but the golem forces her to put them back. Riley is reluctant to get close to it, but they all head down to the first floor. The golems there now have yellow eyes, but allow them to pass. As they leave, the exit also charges the brick with energy. Sar’n takes a quick trip back to the keep to unload their haul of loot with the help of the pocket gnomes. Vilma snags Davros back into the tower for a few minutes of private time and the others wait to head over the next tower.

The party heads into the acid green tower next, inside they immediately meet two golems with gold eyes gesturing them further into the building. The second room seems to be a waiting area with couches and seats. The third room is full of shelves and stands covered in pamphlets and brochures too old to touch without destroying. The fourth room is full of stone stools, glowing sigils on the floor in a line toward the other end of the room. The sigils light up blue as Vilma crosses over them, fading back to normal after she passes. The line leads to a counter in the next room, another golem awaits and points them to the stairs.

The first room of the second floor is rather large but empty, a golem stands at either end. A message in Shaari is on the wall along with arrows pointing in either directions. Vilma manages to decipher them, one leads to pickup and the other to outbound. Behind the desk in pickup they find a void, unable to be seen or detected in any way. They move on without taking any chances on it, other than throwing a few items into the area. On the outbound side, they meander through a queue to the next room. This room has lines of writing on the floor leading to the stairs up to the next level.

The third floor has a grid in the center with 4 pedestals near the walls and the a green glowing brick in the center of the ceiling. Shiele examines one, climbs aboard and activates a control that raises it to the roof like the elevator in the first tower. Riley, Lilith, and Davros also activate the other platforms as well. On the roof, there’s a metal spike rising out of the center of the roof. Inside, Sar’n and Vilma try to move the spike once they notice grooves on the spike. It does go up and down after being manipulated just right, but does not pull free. The message on the floor is something about a safety override and the lifts. When they bring the lifts back down, the spike and brick come free. When they reach the floor again, a hole in the floor opens for the spike which is still attached to the brick. When inserted into the floor, they can hear mechanical sounds and the brick detaches, leaving the spike in the floor. With the third brick in hand, they head outside, the brick being charged up just like the others. The third tower appears to have been a transportation hub at some point.

The fourth tower seemed to be a hotel, allowing the party to easily progress to the second floor. The first floor was full of small rooms, the second, larger and more nicely appointed rooms. Or at least they were at one point, now everything decays when touched. With nothing of interest, they head up to the third floor seeking the final brick. The final floor has a trapped door which blasts them all with a wave of cold when Vilma attempts to open it. Shiele checks for traps and doesn’t find any others, however a needle jabs her when she picks the lock. Luckily the poison has long since decayed away. The room appears to have been some sort of ultra fancy suite and the last brick glows overhead. Three inactive golems inhabit the room. A beaded curtain dividing the room seems to fascinate Shiele and Lillith while Riley investigates the glowing blue brick in the ceiling. The room holds many possible riches, if the party can manage to loot them, including a set of armor that would fit Vilma. Sar’n manages to loot some things by pulling them into his pocket dimension.

When Shiele unlocks the door to the final room of the top floor they find a room full of strange windows showing images, possibly scrying devices, and buttons, levers and switches all over. Shiele of course hits some buttons, but nothing happens fortunately. Several members of the group gather round to attempt to figure it out. A switch powers up the devices with arcane energy, Vilma’s eyes turn silver and she begins hitting buttons. One brings up an image of the suite, Vilma releases the bead curtain of precious stones, sending Lillith and Shiele scampering to loot it. Davros and Vilma have a little more focus and someone warns Riley that they are attempting to release the brick from the ceiling. Vilma is looking for a way to do so, but is concerned that the process may cause an explosion and activate the golems. Luckily, they are successful and there is no explosion and they have the final brick in hand.