Helix: Tower of Mazzah

[OGRE MAGE]

Sven takes all the information in with a smile, wondering if Mazzah even knows who Lord Kell is.

"Okay, no problem then. I was just making sure there was no bad blood or anything like that between the two of you."

The lesser mage goes down to have another peek into the well at some point, fascinated by the strange anomaly.

[GreyWolfVT]

Dalin stops in and looks for the proprietor "Uh hello I receivedeord you have some things for me?"

[Spearmint]

The Tower of Mazzah


Dalin Silverhand
You come to the very odd building. Angled gables on a tall rickety stone tower with rooms progressively larger as it rises in storeys. Steps lead up the the front entrance, past a short 'bridge to nowhere', its two arched spans doubling underneath as stables, pigpen and chicken coup.

Some very strange fowl, certainly not pheasants peck among a scattering of pebbles and corn seed. They have long reptilian bodies and ruffled necks like frilled gecko's though squawk like most other birds.

But these are not the most eye boggling buildings for seemingly stuck in a large tree is a short tower that would look more at home on a castle's battlements than built as a treehouse folly.

The mage has a reputation of turning folk into animals to serve his experimental purposes. Or so the gossip in the Foul Pheasant blurts, though asking Pernicious', she says he is just a misunderstood alchemist that was at odds with the Collegiate. Whatever the truth, the dwarf knocks on the thick oak front door.

After several bolts get unlocked, the door is opened by a man in a suit of armour, though you can't see the man for the visit is down and he is thoroughly, head to toe to fingertips covered in platemail garb. The man bows formally, gesturing you in with a silent wave. Then it shuts the door behind you before standing silent in a corner. It seems to deliberately stand upon a calico coloured cat's tail as it sups a saucer of milk. The cat "Meows" loudly and run upstairs.

"Ah, welcome." says Mazzah, stepping in to the ground floor reception from a side kitchen. He is robed in a furry bathrobe, flip-flops on his feet. Thick spectacles on his brow. He carries a reading book in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.

"Yes, do come in. Well, you have anyway. Now I summoned or rather invited you over. And here you are.

Shame, I heard about your elven companion. They scattered his ashes at the church I heard. Terrible bonfire in the hospice. Turned all fungal. I had to wash my hands several times, just in case."

He mentions Savant.

"You ventured to the mounds together. Is that right?"

[GreyWolfVT]

Dalin respectfully returns the bow to the armored being. Then once Mazzah asks about Savant he looks saddened "Yes, we did. A good man he was we were on a second trip in when that fungiod creature infected him and one of the others with us."

[Spearmint]

The Tower of Mazzah

Dalin might be surprised to find the suit of armour is empty, no body is inside.

"Your companion brought several items to me to study. A pottery toad that exudes a deadly poison. An assassin's tool or a trap to ward away grave robbers. I have no use for such and neither should you. In line with Duchy statutes, such as destroyed upon identification.

He also gave me a scroll to study. With his passing the inheritance was bequeathed to you."

He whistles and hoots, calling a large owl to fly through a broken pane and land on his shoulder. He whispers to it and it flies away, returning a minute later clutching a ribboned scroll. It lands back on the Mage's shoulder, drops the scroll into his hand, drops a poop to dribble on his bathrobe then flies back out the window.

"Really. I should stick him in a bird cage and turn him into a parrot instead.

Fancy wings do you? Want to Fly?" he asks Dalin. He unfurls the scroll, checking the writing without casting the inscription then tying it back up and handing it to you.

Mazzah casts a Read Magic upon the scroll that was found in the urn of the coffer from the pottery mound secret room.

He finds that the wizard script on the scroll has a strange new spell and one with a specific focus in mind. It seems to centre upon creatures related to earth elements and causes them to melt into clay or fall apart. The spell needs more research but holds some power of transmutation on it.

"I would pay to transcribe this and then send my ledgers to the elders of the Collegiate Arcanium in Ironguard. This may be the rarest find though it's worth is unknown. I can offer 500gp now and in a few weeks when the report is returned, advise you of any findings of interest."

Savant to discuss with expedition group and decide

we had some discussion in Savant's private thread. Basically you have a type 'Protection from Elementals (Earth)' spell scroll that can be read and cast by any race or character class that causes a 'stone to mud' reaction.

[GreyWolfVT]

Dalin thinks the armor creation quite useful. "Hmm you mages are a crafty lot. You should make more like that armor to act like more town guards than there actually are it might work quite well." he muses. Then the question about flying "No. I rather wouldn't ever wish to fly sir. Not really my interest." the dwarf takes the scroll to keep. "I suppose that scroll may be of great use, I may well have another friend interested in it. As for that toad you are correct I have no desire to ever deal in anything related to poison unless it is curing of it." digging out the bronze key shaped like a cat he shows this to Mazzah "I wonder if there is anything you can discover about this though."

[Spearmint]

The Tower of Mazzah

Dalin's visit.

Mazzah takes the key in his hands, turning it over. "I presume you haven't found the lock it fits?"

A bronze key shaped like a cat.

His general advice is that keys are normally found within the vicinity of any lock it should open or upon guards who protect a certain area. "Cats were favoured familiars of old, not just a witch and her black cat. Certainly it has a distinctive feature." He passes it back to you.

You chat, talk expeditions and adventures, mage familiars. You come to realise that the suit of armour seems to have been a failed experiment of sorts. Certainly no person is inside the suit but perhaps the soul of someone still is.

Some geese, nesting in a cupboard under the staircase quack which takes his attention away.

Unless you have other questions, he bids you good day.

[GreyWolfVT]

Dalin thanks Mazzah and takes his leave.

[Quonundrum]

Moriartus

Moriartus raps on the tower door with the jackal's head carving adorning the top of his staff. "Greetings, Mr. Mazzah. I hope to not be intruding on anything important, but I believe you will find what I've brought to be quite interesting." He produces the bundle of long flight feathers plucked from the wings of the barrow harpy matriarch. "We found the harpies I sought and raided their nest. These, though... these are from a larger, and may I add, much more hideous harpy. I think she was the matriarch."

He offers them to Mazzah for examination. "If they interest you, perhaps a trade in kind?"

[Karaunios]

Dougal enters after Moriartus. He also has some things he wants to talk with the mage.

"Good deh tae te, Mr. Mazzah. Here I've brought tae ye some elements that I woulf lake ye tae ascertehn the natuir of." He shows him the two objects:

Unidentified potion
A Runic Rubbing of an unidentified transcript

[Spearmint]

The Tower of Mazzah

Moriartus & Dougal go to pay respects and enquire of the local mage. Invited into the parlour and watched over by the empty but animated platemail suit of armour, you breakfast with Mazzah

"Mushrooms, taken from the local forest. These fried delicious though a little heady!" He passes a plate of red toadstools, spotted with white lumps and leaking an inky stain. You can tell he 'is off with the fairies' temporarily so it takes most of the morning to break into more lucid conversation.

He offers them to Mazzah for examination. "If they interest you, perhaps a trade in kind?"

The mage takes out a wing's worth of black feathers offering them to Mazzah who fans himself out of his induced trance.

"A trade, why not!?" he whistles and calls an owl from its perch in the tree outside, flying in through a broken kitchen window. He grabs it in a headlock and plucks a dozen feathers from its body before it wriggles free, shits upon the shoulder of his cloak and taking a mouse from his sleeve, flies off in a huff.

He gives you the owl feathers, some steeping wine and a fishbowl of golden miniature carp taken from the pools outside of Helix by the Barrow Moor.

Equipped you can conduct your Identify spell on the potion while Dougal and Mazzah try out other fungal varieties to much laughter, hallucinations and the odd bout of vomit.

Hours later, many hours in fact you all break out of it the next day, the after effects of the spell casting and toadstools worn off. Strangely Mazzah is wearing Dougal's kilt and the ranger awakes inside the platemail suit. Moriartus recovers after Mephistoffol, the calico cat licks him awake. After sorting yourselves out, you take your leave.

Moriartus casts Identify spell vs 30% unidentified potion [1d100]=1[1d100]=74 [1d100]=63Potion of Undead: as per DMG 1-10, generic all undead types 11-12 [1d12]=6

The potion is identified as an elixir that focuses the mental prowess of the imbiber to speak with a greater authority and command to such that even the un-living listen and obey. Specifically it looks to charm those spectral and ethereal entities that haunt special places, those without corporeal bodies, just remnant spirits on the edge of otherworldly existence.

As to the Runic Rubbing. Mazzah puts on his glass-bottle spectacles and studies the script. Passing his hand over the parchment. "The words are an incantation to open a rift in space and time. A dimensional door into the past at the cost of some unknown future. A ' Butterfly effect'. It causes a ripple in time as one might throw a stone in a pond. The flap of a wing magnifying in ever growing waves into a storm."

He rolls the parchment up, binding it in a ribbon. "Invoke it at your direst of need but
you will repent in your leisure."

explanation given in Dougal's private forum.

[Karaunios]

Dougal

"I've a lot tae thank ye Mr. Mazzah. And yer mushrooms are specially deli-, deli... tehsty.

I wanted tae ask ye, dae ye knae of some sort of incantation that could be imbued in an object tae prevent me from being charmed? I've been already charmed three tames by thaus damend harpies, ye ken?" He says while he tries yet another type of mushroom. One of the seemingly innofensive ones.

[gurusql]

Cadeweed

Cadeweed will attempt to get an audience with Mr. Mazzah about a certain egg collected on his journeys hoping to trade for something equally interesting.

[Karaunios]

Dougal

"Eh, Kehdweed, my frend. Join us back here!" Says the ranger raising a mushroom.

[Spearmint]

The Tower of Mazzah

As more folk arrive the reception room looks a bit crowded and Mazzah, easily flustered by too many folk decides to shoo folk away, politely of course.

He has some studies to attend to, experiments in his strange tower.

"Another day, another time." he says, closing the door to the visitors.

You each return to the tavern or another location.

[Karaunios]

Dougal

"A'rate a'rate. I'll come later." The ranger will come in two days, when the mage is more relaxed.

I'll post in a couple days. Still interested in that protection against charm.

[gurusql]

Cadeweed

Cadeweed will return the next morning attempt to get an audience with Mr. Mazzah when it is less crowded.

[Spearmint]

The Tower of Mazzah

Cadeweed arrives after breakfast, having dined on a plateful of free range eggs; an omelette of choice or perhaps fried with streaky bacon or those children's favourites, soft boiled and strips of bread to dip in the runny yokes.

He carries a large sacks, stuffed with straw and old rags, nestled within the fragile shell containing a newly laid harpy. Yet to hatch, he has incubated it under his mattress for a few days.

The tower and grounds have a zoo like aspect. Under the archways of the exterior 'bridge to nowhere' are some gated opens that contain a huddle of squabbling 'chizzards', feathered reptiles that cluck and peck upon the stony ground. Mazzah has an owl that comes and goes, ordered to fetch this and that from various niches and bookshelves, a Calico coloured cat that acts as chief mouser, the kitchen did have an octopus at the sink that washed dishes though too many crockery accidents put paid to that enterprise and the animal was 'dismissed' (fried calamari was served that very same night to Lord Krothos, just coincidence perhaps). Lately two fattened geese take turns incubating another strange 'barrow egg', a large ovoid with tiny fractures appearing upon its dull reddy-brown shell.

Confident then that another exotic species might not be out of place, the halfling raps upon the door and after several minutes waiting, eventually you are let in to the reception parlour.

[gurusql]

Cadeweed

Cadeweed will make his way into the parlor and will show the town expert on all strange and mysterious egg that he collected in the tombs. "Mr. Mazzah I collected this egg, moments after the mother harpy laid it and was slain. I was hoping that you might have a use for this along with all of the other wonderful creatures that you keep in your great tower. Do you have something you would be willing to trade for this one of a kind item?"

[Spearmint]

The Tower of Mazzah

Mazzah looks at the item. It is certainly very bizarre and unusual. The fact that you have brought it back into civilization too rather than destroying it upon sight. Certainly he would have no intention of giant cook-up with it.

"Do you suggest I incubate it? Good heavens, what then? Can such a feral hag-spawn be tamed?" He wonders at the wonder, taking measurements of the shells size and weight and fingering through dusty tomes that might speak on Ornithological details.

"Trade, well what does such an enterprising halfling have in mind? What do you value. An animal companion or some minor prestidigitation. You have coin enough so. I presume you want something money can't buy?"

Cadeweed, make him an offer. What is in your mind, a straight trade, some help with a skill, a potion or scroll you can use?