Session 2 - The Arcane Hourglass

This session began with the party just having found the ruins of a town within the Deadwood.

The party snuck through the rest of the ruins with the use of a few distractions.

A buttcheek-delivered thunderclap here, some faerie fire there, and lots of dashing and sneaking later, the party was holed up in the wizard's tower with the door closed and barricaded from the zombie onslaught.

The tower was mostly empty, with a crumbling staircase and full of decayed books and destroyed furniture.

Topknot revealed a hidden door under a rug, and the party struggled to get it open, even with the use of a pulley and some rope. They eventually succeeded and descended to an empty hallway leading to a small room.

Upon entering the room a glyph of some sort was triggered and the ceiling far above opened up letting in natural sunlight, and revealing the presence of a zombie ogre, a pedestal with a strange object on top of it, and some bookcases.

The party proceeded to fight the zombie ogre, and in the meantime, the newly opened hole topside allowed many other zombies to shamble in and fall mostly to their deaths, adding a bit of excitement, but not a significant amount of danger to the encounter. Ultimately the party prevailed and began to search the room.

A few books and a skull were found on a nearby bookshelf, Theodore grabbed the skull and put it directly in his backpack.

The party inspected the item on the pedestal, and some hi-jinx ensued. As soon as Topknot touched it, he froze completely. Theodore took out his hand pair of lead gloves given to him by Dr. Naznarth and took the artifact from Topknot, at which point Topknot immediately shook his head confused, said "hey!" and took it back, at which point he was frozen in place again instantly. This cycle repeated a few times until finally Theodore took it away, Dae slapped Topknot while Theodore put the artifact down, and handed Topknot the gloves.

The artifact was made up of four interconnected globes, with sand magically cycling between them, and not knowing what else to do for the time being, the party put it into their Bag of Holding.

Topknot proceeded to examine the books found on the bookshelf. One seemed to be some sort of spellbook from the Wizard, and the other was a wizard's journal which hinted at a possibly important location in the Barrier Mountains.

Topknot also discovered a hidden door in the room which uncovered a strange, sealed suit of armor. Thorough investigation reveled a sealed panel in the back, as well as an interesting round impression, but the party basically gave up trying to figure out how to interact with it.

Before leaving, Theodore produced the skull he'd taken from the shelf and the party examined it. As Topknot was about to put it into the bag of holding, the skull suddenly screamed and protested being put in there.

The skull revealed itself as Bob, the spirit of Knowledge. He claims that if the party frees him, he'll do their bidding, and return to the skull at an appointed time. He told the party that the artifact they found was indeed the Arcane Hourglass and a bit about its power and dangerous history. It was apparently the source of all the undead, its power having been warped over the years. He also told the party that they'd need an Arcane Battery to power the Sealed Suit of Armor.

Topknot agreed to let Bob out (with a little less deliberation than maybe should have occurred) and we will see if we ever hear from him again. His instructions were to check out the Museum and return to the skull the next night.

-- Session Ends --

notes for next session:

maybe we can convince Dr. Naznarth that we found the tower but need an arcane battery to access the room.