Chapter 1: The Dead Wizard's Skyscraper

[Inferno]

Chapter 1: The Dead Wizard's Skyscraper

City State of Denethix, Domain of the Wizard Fenethra
The Land of One Thousand Towers
Early Spring, 912 CY






"I seen it, I tells ya!" the wizened sea dog croaked after several tankards of ale in the Oracular Dodecahedron tavern in the vile slums of Denethix. "When we was lost at sea! On that ghost island. A lone tower! Abandoned it was! Dark and silent. The evil wizard, Xygax, must be dead! Leaving behind who knows what fer the taking! ...For them what's brave enough to take it!"

After a successful raid on the ruins at the edge of the Ceratopsian Plains, the party of hungry young adventurers...

• Buck Russellswart the Mole-Man Cleric
  
  Chaka the Ape-Boy Thief
  
  Fiefo LeBratt the Rat-Man Fighter
  
  Jeojand the Cat-Man Magic-User
  
  Ko-Nan the Human Barbarian
  
  L.L. Adrock the Half-Elf Cleric/Magic-User
  
  Maskelyn the Gnome Illusionist
  
  Tullia Galena the Half-Elf Ranger

...were in Denethix to rest, resupply and find their next opportunity. They believed this was it.

They sought out rumors and legends about this wizard Xygax and found many:

• "They say his tower was called Quasquetron."
  "Xygax had no subjects beneath his evil yoke."
  "Obsessed with his dark studies, he was."
  "No soul has ever gone to the island and returned to tell the tale!"
  "Xygax lives, I tell ye. He's come back from the grave!"
  "I heard that a dungeon lies beneath the tower."
  "Mark my words. The tower is filled with Xygax's depraved experiments!"
  "Are ye mad?! To go there is certain death!"

Young, reckless and eager for easy treasure, the adventurers chose to forget what they knew of wizards in the Land of One Thousand Towers. They planned to loot a dead wizard's tower.

They set out from Denethix on the old coast road. When they reached the shore, they pooled their coin to hire a ship with a captain desperate enough to take them on their chosen course:



The captain never saw land again.

After days at sea, they had safely navigated passage through the Forest of Lost Towers...




...when catastrophe struck.




"Sea monster!" cried the doomed crew.

The ship and all hands were lost, except the adventurers and two sailors who charged the stern to battle the savage leviathan as it tore the ship asunder.

The survivors of the wreck rode the shattered timbers of the lost craft for days (subtract 2 days rations) before washing up on the eastern coast of the mysterious, forbidding island of Xygax the wizard.

Staggering ashore with their belongings, the party and two sailors can barely see the top of a steel tower shimmering in the far distance, rising over a vast inland jungle.

On the beach, the shipwrecked adventurers are confronted by an ancient, long-forgotten monument from The Age Before.





Actions?! and welcome to the game.





PC Status:

• Buck Russellswart: Mole-Man Cleric 2: Move: 9", AC: 3, HP: 18/18, Spells: 4/4 1st lvl
  Chaka: Ape-Boy Thief 3: Move: 12"(6"), AC: 6, HP: 17/17
  Fiefo LeBratt: Rat-Man Fighter 2: Move: 9", AC: 1, HP: 20/20
  Jeojand: Cat-Man Magic-User 2: Move: 9", AC: 7, HP: 10/10, Spells: 2/2 1st lvl
  Ko-Nan: Human Barbarian 2: Move: 12", AC: 4, HP: 32/32
  L.L. Adrock: Half-Elf Cleric/Magic-User 1/1: Move: 9", AC: 2, HP: 6/6, Spells: 4/4 1st lvl
  Maskelyn: Gnome Illusionist 2: Move: 9", AC: 8, HP: 10/10, Spells: 2/2 1st lvl
  Tullia Galena: Half-Elf Ranger 2: Move: 9", AC: 5, HP: 24/24

PC Magic:

• None currently

PC Resources:

• End of the World (game description)
  Strange New World (maps and realms)
  Memory Tapes (the story so far)
  Viewscreen (the story so far in images)

[Urson]

Maskelyn

Shaking himself like a dog, Maskelyn flipped salt crusts and water on his companions, Houdin, and the surrounding sand.

That was a bit much, eh, chaps? I believe I shall pay for a first-class cabin next trip. Are we all well?

Maskelyn is a gnome- but could easily be mistaken for a Rat-man with mange, considering the patches of thin, straggly hair all over his body. His ears are large, round, and stick out like jug handles, and his nose is monumental. He wears a simple robe, with bright-colored patches and panels, and has a pack almost as large as himself.

Here now, Houdin! Leave off that! he shouts at a mutant Iguana the size of a German Shepherd. The beast looks up, sneezes, then walks away from the unidentifiable bit of rotting sea creature he's been trying to eat.

Maskelyn sounds like Bernard Fox when he speaks.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1WTUqfMPxc

[Mant72]

Chaka crouches on his haunches, sniffs the humid, salty air, and looks askance at the strange monument buried beneath the beach sands. It reminds him of a crowned goddess, and Chaka has no time for religions or their zealots.

The grizzled Ape-Boy lifts a gnarled-knuckled fist and points off in the distance toward the top of the scintillating tower.

“There,” he grunts. “Need get out of sun before burn.”

He scrambles toward the welcome shade of the tree line, hoping the others follow suit.

[wolfpack]

L.L stagers and spits salt water form his mouth.

Aye Carumba he says as he adjusts the hubcap he wears as a helm.

He stops and looks up in awe at the fallen statue.

this must be a monument of the ancient world he says in reverence.

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

[ChubbyPixie]

Wiping one hand over his face, Fiefo doesn't bother tidying up much after their trial at sea. Bedraggled and pathetic, he actually looks pretty much the same as he did before you ever stepped foot on the doomed ship. He sighs. Leaning on the tribal fork, Enard', which, against all odds, he managed to hang onto through the entire ordeal, he squints and surveys their surroundings. He sniffs the air, whiskers twitching, and picks up the distinct scent of impending failure.

"Well... we might as well get after it," he says, finally, looking resigned.

[ravenn4544]

Ko-Nan lumbers up the beach dragging a huge instrument of death, dripping salt water, and a smile on his jagged face "My first shower in months!"

His rations nearly depleted he expresses the one thing now on his mind "Food." Hefting his huge bludgeon, the towering figure stalks up the beach to scan the area for what is edible.

[SpinwardMarch]

Tullia staggers to her feet and flips back the dripping hair from her eyes. She is tall and lean, with shoulder length platinum-blond hair; the points of her ears stick out enough to show her elven ancestry. She has survived the soggy journey, but is thoroughly disgusted.

Ugh, a sea monster, why did it have to be a sea monster... I agree, Ko-Nan, food sounds like a good idea.

[Urson]

Maskelyn

Quite so. A spot of tea would warm us up wonderfully. Come, Houdin! The gnome follows the others toward the treeline.

[Starbeard]

Jeojand

"Rrrrreally very unpleasant," the feline Jeojand growls, skulking atop a jagged rock. He alternates between cleaning his fur and being revolted by the salt water that coats it.

"We must find a place to camp before any further expeditions are conducted. That statue looks prrrromising." He stalks up to the ruin, looking for a way in.

[ChubbyPixie]

Fiefo looks sideways at Maskelyn and wonders, not for the first time, if there really is some rat in him, as unlikely as that seems. No self respecting rat-person would ever... surely they would never... but you never know, he supposes. In truth, the hirsute little gnome looks uncannily like his cousin Fortew.

[SpinwardMarch]

Tullia

She brushes off the sand and picks up her pack and gear, which somehow survived the shipwreck.

Let's get into the shade, rest, eat, and decide what we do next. I hope we can find drinking water soon.

[wolfpack]

Not to worry Tullia if need be I can call on the blessing of TMZ and make any tainted water perfect for drinking. As my father always taught us water purified with the power of TMZ always tastes great and is less filling.

[Inferno]

Eastern Coast, The Forbidden Island of Xygax the Wizard
Land of One Thousand Towers
Day One. Mid-Morning. March 25th, 912 CY





Shipwrecked and stranded on the enigmatic island of the dead wizard Xygax, Ko-Nan the barbarian stalks south along the shoreline, hunting for food.



The only game he finds is Maskelyn's mutant lizard. But the savage outdoorsman believes there are fish in these waters, and coconuts and fruit in these trees. Then he discovers tracks in the wet sand. Hoofprints, moving south down the beach, being rapidly consumed by the rising surf. Other tracks are visible, footprints perhaps, but Ko-Nan loses their trail at the water's edge.

"There." Chaka points west, to the distant glimmering spire and the tempestuous skies roiling above it. Suddenly the Ape-Boy witnesses two lightning strikes hit the tower!

Jeojand the drenched Cat-Man sorcerer wishes to set up camp on the beach. The feline conjurer pads north on the sand to examine the half-buried copper monument from out of time immemorial.



Jeojand locates no entrance at beach level. But 50 feet above, the strange goddess' spiked crown seemingly has windows woven into the lost majesty of its corroded ruin.

Chaka the simian, feeling the rising heat of the mid-morning sun, knuckle-walks to the tree line to seek shade. The near-drowned Rat-Man Fiefo LaBratt is resigned to join him. Buck, Maskelyn and Tullia also follow Chaka into the shade. And the two surviving sailors, Arto Hobbs the halfling and Switch the dwarf, soon follow them.

"Beggin' your pardons," says Arto, wishing he were taller, "But wh-what now?"

In the sheltering shade at the threshold of the jungle, the trees rises like an emerald wall.




Actions?!





PC Status:

• Buck Russellswart: Mole-Man Cleric 2: Move: 9", AC: 3, HP: 18/18, Spells: 4/4 1st lvl
  Chaka: Ape-Boy Thief 3: Move: 12"(6"), AC: 6, HP: 17/17
  Fiefo LeBratt: Rat-Man Fighter 2: Move: 9", AC: 1, HP: 20/20
  Jeojand: Cat-Man Magic-User 2: Move: 6", AC: 7, HP: 10/10, Spells: 2/2 1st lvl
  Ko-Nan: Human Barbarian 2: Move: 12", AC: 4, HP: 32/32
  L.L. Adrock: Half-Elf Cleric/Magic-User 1/1: Move: 9", AC: 2, HP: 6/6, Spells: 4/4 1st lvl
  Maskelyn: Gnome Illusionist 2: Move: 9", AC: 8, HP: 10/10, Spells: 2/2 1st lvl
  Tullia Galena: Half-Elf Ranger 2: Move: 9", AC: 5, HP: 24/24

PC Magic:

• None currently

PC Resources:

• End of the World (game description)
  Strange New World (maps and realms)
  Memory Tapes (the story so far)
  Viewscreen (the story so far in images)

[Urson]

Maskelyn

Ah, Arto- do be a good fellow and look about for some firewood, eh? No sense in trying to get dry and warm without a fire. Does anyone have a tinderbox? I seem to have mislaid mine.

[ravenn4544]

Ko-Nan stares at the tracks to remember them. He bends down and sniffs a few to catch any sense of scent or familiarity. Watching the waves erase most of the prints he re-focuses on food and peers into the trees to find the ones with the coconuts on them. He collects them from the ground, climbs a tree if he is able, and if that fails will fell a tree and be done with it.

[SpinwardMarch]

Tullia

I'm not sure we will need a fire unless we need to cook something. It seems to be warm enough here to grow jungle plants, so we should dry out soon. Fires and smoke attract attention.

She rummages around in her backpack.

Yup, I still have the tinder box. So we don't need to worry about that for the moment. Food on the other hand... I hope Ko-nan finds some coconuts or other edibles. We should take care, some things that might seem edible may be poisonous.

[wolfpack]

Jeojand if you have rope mayhap we can enter the great monument, but hark what light through yonder window breaks

[ChubbyPixie]

"I've got rope," says Fiefo, sullenly, "...but what good will that do us? We need a climber to get up 50 feet and attach it. Not my thing, really." He goes back to quietly dripping and gazing into the forest, looking for signs of danger - it's just a matter of time before everything goes to hell again, he's sure of it.

[OGRE MAGE]

Buck has been silent up to this point, feeling out the others to discern each of their agendas. He has noticed that so far none of them have brought up the most important thing that he can think of. How will they ever be able to return to the mainland without a means of transportation. The tiny mole-man seems nearly as perturbed as Jeojand about his fur being coated with salt and sand.

He listens to the others, sniffing pretty much everything and twitching his tiny facial whiskers as he finally speaks in his usual high pitched, squeaky voice.

"Well, we definitely need to find one thing here on this island. A MEANS TO GET BACK OFF!

Going through his gear to see what he could salvage from the wreck, he whispers a silent verse to Starrk, the Iron Lord, for guidance. Failing that, he leans towards the hunched cat-man's idea first.

"We may be able to find something interesting at the top of that spiky headed statue. What did they use to call that hair style, L.L.? Punk rock? Pet rock?"

"I don't think we can just ignore that door. It is almost as if it is calling out to we poor, tired, huddled masses. So, who's up for a quick climb?"

He looks towards Chaka and squints his eyes at Fiefo, sneering at them both for no real reason.

Looking lastly to the pair of sailors who are apparently shipwrecked with them. "Well, what skills do you 2 possess? Or, are you just sailors? Do you fancy a climb, by any chance?"

[SpinwardMarch]

Tullia looks at Buck and nods.

Getting back to the mainland is going to get interesting, but there is the possibility of making a raft of some kind.

She silently thanks her parents for being so practical in her upbringing: "Look at the problem from all sides, then try to figure out the best resolution."