Our Heroes awoke in the Caer refreshed and energized for the challenges ahead. Yrso summoned a spiritiual owlbear that would serve as her mount.
Speaker Crannoc tried to encourage our heroes to remain in the caer, bribing them with fine Knucklehead trout and secure lodgings. Instead our heroes journeyed to Caer Konnig on their way to a mysterious Obelisk described by the deceased Dzaan.
Crannoc’s parting words were ‘If you see any of those bastards from Caer Konnig or Easthaven tell em Crannoc’s back.”
In Caer Konnig our heroes met the drunken speaker Torvus, who would not stop attempting to regale our heroes with tales of his heroic past as an adventurer himself. From his sober interpreter our heroes learned that the Glorious Quadrant (crawfish) had found a Duergar outpost and blown it up, before recovering the townsfolks chardalynne items.
Our heroes enjoyed breakfast at the Hook Line and Sinker Inn, where they enjoyed the hook (a free ale) and some non-knucklehead related cuisine. They also learned that the very same Glorious Crawfish had helped Easthaven, located missing fishermen in a hag’s lair and also found a cauldron that could produce everlasting food. When Easthaven couldn’t pay for the the cauldron to the Crawfish’s satisfaction, they brought it to Targos.
They then ventured into the tundra to locate the spire.
In the spire they found an upside down wizard’s laboratory, presumably fallen from a flying city.The upper levels had been exhaustively plundered, but they found some books describing among other things:
- A device that controls weather and allows a city to fly called the Mythalr
- A children’s book for children’s classrooms related to education in the illusionary arts
- A madman’s tome describing a procedure that would allow someone to live as a brain in a jar.
- An uninteligible book containing illustrations of funnel shaped monsters
They also located a seemingly inert altar of Mystral, an ancient incarnation of the god of magic.
On the third floor they found somone who introduced themselves as Dzaan – rather, a copy of Dzaan, who pleaded with our heroes to work with him and use a device that required a life-spark. This device could transform the simulacrum into a real human, which would allow Dzaan to resume his studies of Netheril.
A Simulacrum is unable to learn or sleep. A significant barrier to Dzaan’s stated goal of discovering more about the ancient empire of Netheril.
Dzaan was accompanied by an undead protector named ‘Krintas’.
Dzaan offered an amulet that could lead to a Shield Guardian as payment. Our heroes decided to play this one by ear – and Dzaan warned them that a duo of basilisks resided in the bottom floor of the tower, and that they would need to be subdued before the device could be used.
Dzaan also perhaps unwittingly revealed that he was part of an expedition comprised of Nass, Vellyne and Avarice. All names our heroes were familiar with, and Dzaan had nothing flattering to say about any of them.