58th Spring 1361 D.R.
The Sunken Tower was a confusing place to navigate around in, largely because it was on it's side, so some of the doors were into the floor and some into the ceiling, but we managed as best we could, aided immensely by my tremendous climbing skills. The first floor didn't have much of interest; a few rooms, and neither was really much anything more than a furniture graveyard. Somewhat disappointed that after all the efforts required to get into some of the rooms, we'd still found nothing of interest, we followed the stairs down to the second floor instead. This promised to be a much more interesting area, since there were actually places to go! There was a room up on one wall and a ledge up on the other, and both seemed worth exploring. On a whim, I decided to climb up to the ledge first, and did so, leaving a rope behind to help the others make it up as well. As I turned to look around the ledge a little more, I noticed that there was a door set in the floor that might lead to something interesting, and of far greater interest, there was some sort of statue half buried under some rubble a ways further along! I went to take a closer look, and... it JUMPED at me!
I was, needless to say, somewhat shocked to be attacked by a statue, but fortunately, it missed me in it's haste to eviscerate me. Since none of the others were in any position to help me, I decided I would rather risk the fall than try to take this thing on myself, especially since I'd lent my armor to Sam, trusting in my agility to help me avoid attacks and gnowing that his own armor was ruined. So over the edge I went, yelling for Tolec and Prihelm to catch me, and of course, as I guess I should have expected, they missed and I landed rather painfully on the floor; I'm actually quite surprised I didn't break my tailbone!
Sam and Prihelm went up the rope to deal with the thing, and I followed them, since Tolec was staying behind to protect Haley and Al and Liss. I tried throwing a pair of knives at it (I knew there was a reason I kept those things!), but of course, they merely bounced off. Then Sam tried, for some unknown reason, to soothe the creature, walking right up to it as it looked more and more calm before it calmly proceeded to maul him! Prihelm and I rushed to the rescue and in his enthusiasm, the paladin knocked me into the creature's grasp, and it calmly proceeded to maul me as well! The next thing I remember is seeing Alamon at my side, helping me up and urging me down the rope where he could better keep me safe; I was still quite woozy from my wounds.
Prihelm and Samar finished the creature off while I rested below, but then they needed me up top again to look at something for them, so I started climbing the rope, only to swoon from blood loss and fall back to the floor again! The next thing I remember, Sam was standing over me, looking immensely worried. It was quite obvious, to all of us, that it was time to camp for the night and spend some time healing the worst of the wounded, so Prihelm and Tolec moved up to the room in the other wall and we camped inside what proved to be an abandoned bedroom for the night, healing the worst of the wounded (me and Sam) before we slept and finishing the healing up somewhat when we woke back up. Sometime during the night, Sam had managed to find a jeweled dagger which he held onto; I wish I had found it first!
Though we weren't quite sure, we think it was early in the morning when we got back to exploring the remains of the tower. The first stop was the door in the floor of the ledge; I started to rappel down inside, only to quickly notice that was covered with spider webs! I had someone drop me a torch (which I deftly snatched out of the air, just to prove that I could) and tried to light the webs on fire, but it wasn't working, so I started to climb back up only a few steps ahead of these large spiders that had crawled out of the woodwork and were glaring at me with far too many eyes. Sam came down to try to help me, though I could have told him I would be fine and it might have been better for all concerned if he'd stayed up top, since I escaped unscathed but Sam was bitten by a couple of the things! He said he felt fine, so we took him at his word, but subsequent developments told us that it might have been better had we not.
The only place that was left for us to go (aside from the spider room) was through the alcove behind the remains of the gargoyle. This proved to lead to a room with another door on the far side and a rickety ladder serving as a walkway. Since I didn't trust the ladder or the muddy floor (I have had quite enough mud for one lifetime, thank you very much!), I climbed along the wall, attached a rope to the far door, and told everyone to cross one at a time. Of course, Sam got halfway along and promptly fell, the effects of the spider venom kicking in at last, but Alamon and I were luckily able to get to him in time to keep him from dying. Still, I wish that guy would be more careful! I don't want to have to sing at HIS funeral too!
We got into the next room over, and there was sitting a robed skeleton on a throne of some sort! We somehow knew it was a female skeleton, but before we could do anything to her (she was wearing a ring that Prihelm was convinced we needed), she spoke some magic words and the next thing I knew, Liss, Sam, Prihelm, and Alamon had all vanished in little motes of light! Haley and Tolec and I promptly attacked, hoping to avenge our friends or make her bring them back or something, and after a brief but furious battle, Haley's spells were enough, with the aid of my blades and Tolec's axe, to defeat the evil sorceress. We were rather pleased with ourselves, of course, but still, we had to find the others! So we grabbed the few things we thought we might want to hold onto (the skeleton's robe, rings, and book) and promptly started to look around for our missing friends, calling out for them all the while.
Fortunately, they weren't far; apparently, they'd wound up in the spider room, and had managed (thanks mostly to Liss, it seems) to defeat the nasty overgrown vermin. Sam was bitten yet again, and Alamon did the best he could, but apparently, he's not yet skilled enough of a healer to whip up a poison antidote and the best he could do was slow the poison's course.
With this in mind, we quickly went back to town, and while the poison did make it to Sam's heart on the way, Alamon and Prihelm were able to stabilize him, so that he was okay by the time we got to town. That was earlier this afternoon, and since then, all we've done is had the items we found looked at by the guy at the magic shoppe and so forth. Seems we made quite a haul for ourselves this time!
One of the rings was we think one of the items that Prihelm needs to enter the burning tower. The other (which the shopkeeper tried to cheat us out of!) was a ring that somehow helped wizards with casting spells, so of course we gave that to Haley, along with the spellbook from the skeleton. The dagger was an enchanted weapon, somewhat more powerful than any we'd had before, so we gave that to Sam, who didn't have a magical weapon of his own and had been borrowing Tolec's backup. The robe, also, was enchanted, apparently to help people see things (the shopkeeper called it a "robe of eyes," whatever that means), and after a bunch of discussion, we eventually gave that to Tolec and sold his shortsword. So now we're better equipped than before, a bit wealthier, and eager to tackle more of the Cracked Keep! I have this suspicion that we won't be going back for a few days, because the new moon is on it's way and we don't want to be there then. Still, I can hardly wait to see what the future has in store for us!