After safely making it through the enchanted forest, the party reaches the front door of Puddlewick’s tower. Not wanting to waste time, they quickly knock on the door, and get a cautious “hello” from inside. The party makes their identities known, and are suddenly dragged inside by Puddlewick who quickly closes the door behind them, careful to not be spotted. He greets the party, but asks them what they are doing in the area, saying it is not safe. The party tells him about their plan to stop Legion from infecting the world, and are asking him for any help whatsoever.
After bringing Puddlewick up to speed, he tells the party that he doesn’t know anything about where the elder brain might be hiding, saying it could be anywhere large enough to house it, be it in the bay, in a warehouse, temple, or even the Golden Tower. He starts looking through his belongings to see if he can find anything that might be of use to the party, taking out a Belt of Unity he used in his early days of adventuring, as well as two unstable shards, which basically works like grenades. Miryks and Raenerys take one each, while Gaia dons the belt.
Raenerys then tells Puddlewick that she would like him to look after Nibblet, the little homunculus that Zhaun left behind. Puddlewick introduces himself to the homunculus, saying he’d be happy to take him into his care, and has Jonathan show him around the tower. As they discuss how to go forward with their infiltration, finding a way into the city, there is suddenly a large thud from outside of something landing. Shortly after there are several knocks on the tower walls, as something inside wants Puddlewick to open the door. He beckons for the party to hide, as he opens the door, revealing a wyvern waiting outside. The wyvern speaks to Puddlewick, demanding to know who the horses outside belong to.
The party reveals themselves, still in their disguises, pretending to be a family from the Emirate of Khetam, hoping to move into the city. Seemingly convinced by their ruse, much helped by Quill acting like the child of Raenerys and Gaia, it welcomes them to the city, before departing, satisfied that it is not the party that has gotten close.
As Puddlewick closes the door, Gaia asks him if he learned anything from the sample of her skin that she left behind, to which he replies that her entire biology is “off”, it’s a mixture of living flesh and that of a tree, but not any type of tree he is familiar with, seemingly a mix of several. He is unsure how long she will be able to live, it might be decades from now, or it might be tomorrow when the magic leaves her. As this doesn’t change anything, she is satisfied with his research, and thanks him. The party then takes their leave, heading towards the city itself.
𐡸
After about an hour, the party reaches the small village north of the city proper, finding it to be occupied by Legion’s troops. They appear to be keeping people confined within the village, not letting anyone leave, and there are several piles of corpses spread around after the apparent battle for the city. Quill plays her part of a child, pointing out a body to Raenerys, which causes two Legion-troops to suddenly appear to take it away.
The party passes by Andrex’ tavern, seeing him inside with a few patrons, but not nearly as many as there used to be. He looks frustrated with the situation. The party hitches their horses outside, heading in to fetch a meal, hoping to learn more. They notice two Legion-troops eating supper, while a man is sitting at the bar trying to drink himself to death. Andrex comes over to the party’s table, and quickly realizes who it is after they give him some hints about their identities.
Waiting until the Legion-troops have eaten and left, Andrex joins them, and then tells them about what has happened. Andrex confirms to the party that he saw the elder brain enter the golden tower, as it is using it to keep away from intruders or attackers. The party asks him if he knows any way inside, and after thinking about it, he tells them that there is an old friend of his, Gimble Musgraben, that has been holed up in the city for a few weeks, hoping to hit the vault in the Golden Tower. He might know of a way inside, so Andrex gives them the thief’s address, an apartment overlooking the tower in the inner circle of the city.
They borrow some jewelry from Andrex to fit into the inner circle, while Quill and Raenerys works on updating their forged deed to be that of the apartment within the city. As they sit there, working, they see one of the mind-flayers passing by outside. It looks towards them, but doesn’t react, continuing onwards, giving the party a shiver from the sight of it. Satisfied with the forgery, the party heads to the city center, hoping to find an easy way inside.
As the party crosses the bridge they see several Legion-troops holding back people trying to escape the city. When they get closer, a few people manage to push themselves through, one of which is struck down by a sword, while the other one manages to reach the midpoint of the bridge, before a wyvern comes swooping down from the skies, taking the escaped citizens with it.
When they get close to the crowd, a Legion-trooper approaches them, saying that their horses will be taken away from them, and that once they enter the city they will not be permitted to leave due to the current situation. The party looks at each other, faking ignorance, saying that they’re here to move in, providing the forged deed to the guard. This seems to be good enough, so he and the other guards make a hole, allowing the party to enter, then take their horses away to the stables.
Suddenly, a mind flayer comes walking towards the crowd of people, past the party who is about to walk away. It grabs one of the protesters, then two Legion-troops take the protesters arms, as he is led away by them. Raenerys uses her magic to look through the eyes of the mind flayer, wanting to follow it in case it can lead them to Legion somehow. To her horror, all she sees is the mind flayer forcing its tentacles into the man's face, pushing through every opening as soon as they are in a closed room. Seemingly satisfied with what it has found, it breaks the skull apart, and then starts consuming the brain. Raenerys pulls away from the sight, but keeps the link open in case they can use it later.
𐡸
The party makes their way to the central district, seeing the damaged tower up ahead. It appears to have mostly been repaired, but still carrying scars of the attack. The streets are mostly empty, so they hurry inside the apartment building before they draw any unwanted attention. When they reach the door of the apartment, they knock, but there seems to be nobody inside. They try to open the door, finding it locked from within with a chain and bolt. Miryks, still in the form of a cat, squeezes her way inside, then unlocks the door for the others.
A quick glance around the apartment reveals that they are in the right place. There are several plans and schematics laid out on the table and hung up on the wall, with all windows being blocked from peering eyes from outside. There doesn’t seem to be anyone home, so Raenerys sits down in one of the comfy chairs, while Miryks and Gaia search the apartment. Quill, still in the form of the child, starts examining the plans, but suddenly feels a sharp pain in her side.
As the knife retreats from between Quill’s ribs, she feels another knife at her throat. Raenerys feels the same as a second assailant stands invisible behind her chair. Quill’s attacker demands to know who they are and why they are here. Raenerys calmly says that they learned of a certain Gimble Musgraben from Draakos before they killed him, lying to prevent Andrex from getting in danger by revealing what he knew.
Gimble and his associate, Tilla, both become visible, then introduce themselves. After things cool down and everyone realizes that they have the same target in mind, to enter the Golden Tower, Gimble reveals their original plans which was to sneak in during an official event, but seeing as things have changed, they are looking for another way. Realizing that the party attacking the Legion would serve as a perfect distraction while they empty the vault, Gimble and Tilla both agree to lead the party inside the tower at nightfall. They retreat to the bedroom to rest while the party prepares as how they see fit. As they rest, Athreos appears to Raenerys, hoping that she survives the coming conflict.
As night falls and the city calms down, Gimble and Tilla return from the bedroom, well rested, and dressed up in their break-in finest. The party has prepared themselves by finding some aluminium foil, wrapping it around their heads so as to prevent Legion from detecting them. They exit the apartment, while Gimble throws an alchemist fire at the plans, wiping away any trace of their presence. Quill is annoyed, and was hoping to keep the apartment after Gimble had escaped, but he assures her that someone will put it out before too much damage has happened.
They make their way down into the basement of the building, then down a manhole cover in a maintenance room, taking them below street level. Gimbal takes out a fancy arcane flashlight of sorts, leading the way through the dark tunnels. He suddenly stops at a random wall, and begins to work on it by removing brick by brick. They hear voices in the distance, so Gaia uses her magic to blast open the hole, but this attracts too much attention, so they hurry inside the hole, entering the extremely narrow pathway that has pipes leading into the tower, as the voices come closer, investigating the noise.
Quill quickly puts up an illusion of the wall, hoping to stop them from discovering them. As they begin to examine the wall, she uses her mage hand to make a noise further away, hoping to lure over the people investigating. Instead, they become spooked, retreating from whence they came, allowing the party to safely sneak away into the tower.
They eventually emerge into a small chamber, and so Gimble starts removing the bricks again, more carefully this time, not asking for help. Raenerys uses her spell to instead look through his eyes, allowing her to review their progress as they continue up through the tower. After breaking through the wall, Gimble wishes them good luck as he and Tilla head downstairs. Quill, thirsty for the contraption on his belt, uses her magic hand to take it off before he notices. She then pockets it as they head up the stairs.
After some helpful sneaking by Miryks in rat form, they manage to sneak through the bottom layers of the tower, reaching the lobby, a tall circular entrance chamber with two staircases leading up, with an elevator at its core. They decide to let Gaia and Miryks go up first, as they are the most silent with their flight and magic. As they reach the top, Gaia is about to open the door before she hears shuffling on the other side. A small maintenance latch to the side allows her to see a guard standing in front of the elevator.
Miryks decides to distract the guard, running straight out between his legs, forcing him to follow, giving the others an opportunity to work their way up the shaft using teleportation magic. Miryks manages to avoid the guard, who returns to his post, but she causes another distraction, making him follow her once more, giving the party the chance to open the door to advance.
They hide in a closed room as they wait for Miryks, finding three bodies inside, casualties of the hostile takeover. Miryks in the meantime have avoided the guard who had called in backup, and then tries to find the others. She manages to smell a familiar scent as Quill has taken out some bones they retrieved from the otyugh, letting Miryks find the room they’re hiding in. Unfortunately, another guard spots the rat and makes his way to the room to investigate. The others hide as best they can while Quill makes an illusion of a dead rat in front of the door, so when the guard enters and looks around, he peers down at the illusionary corpse, then, seemingly satisfied, closes the door behind him as he leaves.
Continuing onwards, they encounter a few more patrols, but manage to circumvent them. At one point they hear a large group of people walking down a hallway, so they hide, and spot four guards leading Selvara Duskbane, the Keeper of Secrets, down the hallway. Raenery takes a quick look through Gimble’s eyes, confirming that they have made it to the vault and is working on opening it, hearing his annoyance at someone taking his torch. She then switches her link to Selvara, watching her as she is led down the elevator into the basement, and then put into a cell with Maedra Solvine, the Minister of Culture and Veynor Thalen, the corrupt Treasurer.
Eventually they manage to get up to the next level, past the labyrinth that is the offices below, coming to four large chambers, two courtrooms, an audience chamber and a library. Quill takes a book about the geography of Krawdoth with her, as Raenerys finds a hidden staircase leading up from one of the courtrooms.
At the top of the staircase they come to a small hallway, with two staircases leading down, and a very pretty set of double doors with some gold decor on it in front of them. They approach it quietly, trying to listen through it to hear what’s on the other side, before the door is suddenly pulled open. Inside they see the large elder brain, with several appendages attached to it, made of a dark sinew. A mind flayer stands at its side, with several guards surrounding them, prepared for danger.
“It is about time we met face to face,” Legion says as the door closes behind them.