Castle Whiterock 6 March 2023: Attic thoughts

The murderhoboes

Garreth, half-orc swordsman
    Bleu, droning elf wizard
Zaber, suave and debonaire man
    Logan, wolverine
Polly, cute and deadly elf archer

Stonemaul, dwarven cleric of Danethar

What they did

We go upwards into a loft that's about 20 feet athwart, and we have to crouch to keep from hitting the ceiling. Light comes from magic lights above the plants below us. A hallway leads out. Among the junk here is a suit of plate armor, a coat rack, and a brass cage. A magic voice says, "Time to clean out the attic, don't you think?"

Fluffy tells us, "I tried to clean out the attic once and Master Pelltiar threatened to feed me to a Sphere of Annihilation."

I ask, "Oh, where is the Sphere of Annihilation?"

Fluffy says, "I do not need to clean the Sphere of Annihilation. Master Pelltiar never fed me to the Sphere of Annihilation." Good thing she cleared that up!

Garreth bids Bleu to pick out the magic items, and she says the armor, black bag, gaudy gold bottle, and gauntlets are magic, among the stuff in plain sight. We take them, and start cleaning. I sit down to keep from doing the work, and pick up a box with the label, "Powdered Toadfish Eyes." I open it, and inside is a lone boot with arcane stitching. I hold this up. "Is this like a Michael Jackson boot?"

Garreth digs in his Bag of Holding, and finds a matching boot from the derro loot. He claps. "I knew it would come in handy one day!" Bleu says the boots are Boots of Teleportation, letting the wearer teleport thrice a day. 

The armor looks like it would fit a female aasimar, with fancy mithril trimming and a sigil of Justicia. "I bet I know who used to own this." Then, Garreth asks Bleu to tell him about the armor.

"Ah, it is cursed. It appears that a halfling blew up the wizard while he was working on it, causing him to create this Wizard's Redoubt. If it could be uncursed it would protect might paladins and speed them up." Bleu thinks the curse can be removed at a holy font of Justicia.

Bleu says that the bag is supposed to be a Celestial Bag of Tricks but the magic of the demonhold corrupted it. "Instead whoever draws forth an animal will receive a diabolical animal, that will immediately attack them." Garreth asks someone can fix it, and Bleu says, "It is possible, were Logan to defeat the animal and eat the bag he would gain part of its power, or it might be possible to uncurse it."

We all look at Logan, who gnaws on some old furniture. "Logan needs to fight the animal first. He can't just eat the bag."

Bleu tells us that the gloves are enchanted to look like Gauntlets of Ogre Power, but someone cursed them to be Gauntlets of Pixie Power. If someone were to get rid of the curse by wearing them and beating a worthy foe, the wearer would gain pixie-related benefits instead. The bottle, she says, is an Efreeti Bottle, but houses an insane Efreeti.

Having checked out the loot, we go down the hallway to another spherical room about 15 feet athwart. In the middle there is a big stone bench with dusty glassware. Along the far wall is a chalkboard with a mahogany frame on a stone stand. There are three notches carved into the lower rail of the frame. Along the left wall is a lead cabinet with shut doors. The magic voice says,  "Remember, safety never takes a time out. Please don protective gear."

Fluffy lets us know that Pelltiar was upset when she tried to clean the chalkboard, and instead cleaned a lot of broken glass and ashes here. "I think Master Pelltiar enjoyed broken glass. Master Pelltiar was not happy when I helped him by breaking glassware for him ahead of time."

Garreth tries to open the cabinet, and finds it to be locked. After donning the Gloves of Dexterity and drinking an Agility Potion, I fumble with the lock. It's tricky, and I can't get it open right away, but I do find a charged Fireball Gem with Construct Bane while checking the lock for traps.

After telling Fluffy that her primary purpose is no longer dusting, which she is trying to do, I get the cabinet open. Inside are many rare magical ingredients, like dragon tongues, powdered stone giant bone, harpy lung extract, and otyugh eyes. There is also a small silver box with five doses each of Sovereign Glue, Universal Solvent, and Salve of Slipperiness.

Garreth takes the blue sapphire from me and puts it in the leftmost notch of the chalkboard. Words in Draconic start to show up on the chalkboard, with the tell-tale scratching of chalk.