First MeetingMet Duilax Brandenburg, a bald Gnome, and twelve other Gnomes that just came out of the stone walls of the passage. About the Illithid he said "The Illithid's do not give up captives. They are part of the strings, but do not serve". Also made a cryptic remark about that "if we don't succeed we can wake the ice that sleeps. The coil can harm the above as well." The "big" fish seeks to enslave the world above though the sacrifices of magic users and clerics. The Quotoa (fishmen) serve these and take the prisoners via an aquatic route. Quotoa also have magic and give the prisoners to "big" fish that are controlling the Illithid. Bottom of the lake lies the path for the fishmen. Derro take a land route that passes around the lake. Both paths went through the Grell Room split apart and rejoin just before the Derro city. Need to take out this city. There is a Drow trading post on the far side of the lake.Second Meeting
Met with Stonemonger. Told us the Derro obey the Illithid who obey somebody else. Derro could be half dwarf, could have incredible magical abilities. At least three Illithids. Stonemonger also allows us to use their city as a place to rest.Last Meeting
We decide to go to Snurfzeblan (sp?) City, and we speak with Cominarin (sp? balding gnome). He says that Quotoa are back. Illithid Hwy is not used much anymore. He says that there's an air town below here (air and water), the City of the Glass Pool. Derro, Quotoa, Illithid and the Abelath all work together. Also as far as Quotoa and Quotoa City, they are very unbalanced, and we could take it out by taking out several strong social/physical points. Quotoa will tear it apart themselves if we push them to it. The Lobster is their god, Sea Mother?
Text from Medusa's diary"The drow of the far shore seem content in the pathetic little trading camp, which suits my purposes for now. Whenever the Great Lying Queen decrees me worthy, I will cause their downfall, but for now we will allow them their sport.""The two great holy beasts beneath me are completely ensnared, each believing the other to be more powerful. The wyrm of blackevildeath is, of course, the most potent, but the fool will die ignorant of this. The lightsnake may risk an attack yet, but perhaps he is wise enough not to allow arrogance to be his death. We shall see."
"I can not wait much longer, for my Queen surely will know my lies for what they are. The hateful island of ice must be dealt with, and soon. Perhaps the white-eyes could be enlisted to help? But their damnable resistance means I must snare them with fear and ordinary words...no matter, I will have allies and victory for Syrul, and soon. I fear it will cost me Gom and Petar, but I tire of them anyway. Of greater concern is the opening to the Underdark, possibly all the way to Greater Shaboath. I would hate to see another such route, especially after all my work with the two wyrms, but Syrul my Queen of Holy Deceit demands an end to the frigid isle."
Comments on the diary
The party killed the Medusa and her two assistants, Gom and Peter. The lightsnake was the lizard like creature at the Lizard Cave flux point that is accessed from going through the temple at the bottom of this tower. Also the Snurfzeblan's mentioned something about waking the ice that sleeps. That may be the same island of ice mentioned in the diary.Note from other adventurers
[Who has this note? I would like to type the text in here] Before entering the tower about a year after the first attempt we found that it had been entered and cleaned up by the other adventurers mentioned at the Keep of the First Rock. They cleaned out the Syrul temple and found a door in there that leads to the Lizard Cave. They also setup glyphs that damage creatures other than humans and demi-humans. Magnus cannot pass these safely. The other party attempted to fight the white lizard but lost two of their party and retreated.
First EncountersThis is a very large cave with connected stalagmites and stalagtights with a good size pool of water on one half of one side of the room. Killed Shadow Dragon, cleared out many coins and magic items, and Sir Errant got his golden spurs here. See the diary from the Medusa Tower about the wyrm of blackevildeath.Last Visit
About two to three weeks after clearing out all the coins from the cave was the next time we passed through the cave. At this time the body of the Shadow Dragon was gone, no remains at all. The rotting remains of the light wyrm are still in the Lizard Cave.
Last VisitThis room can be reached from the BED cave which comes in at the ground level. Against the far cliff is a large pile of bones of which items can be seen in. When approached a body forms out of the pieces from the pile and asked what we were doing. We told it we were passing through to stop a large evil artifact from being created and it dropped back down into the pile. At the top of the 60 foot cliff at the back of the room is a passageway which continues further up and down. Along the edge of the passage way along the cliff edge is a silver plating with runes on it which seem to keep undead from crossing its plane. Seems like a handy place to dump bodies off and not have to be worried about them from coming back. Also it may have kept the Shadow Dragon from coming this way.
Last VisitThis island was very cold. It is the one mentioned in the Medusa's diary and it was the prison for a priestly lich of the god ????, destroyer of everything. There are two entrances to the prison area, one from the surface of the island and another through a secret door in the back of the room. The secret door leads to Zen's room which is now empty because Zen's guarding duties are over. Now that the lich is dead, it seems that things are starting to warm a bit.
First VisitFirst time we came to this location, three magic user hostages were on the island guarded by Quotoa. One managed to get away on her own after removing the manacles, but the other two lost their lives in the battle to free them. We usually enter the room from the passage that leads to the Death Mound and the right most exit passage leads to the Guard House. The left most exit passage is bracketed by gargoyles with magic runes surrounding it and the center exit passage is blocked by a wall of force that seems to be hold back a room full of wraiths.Later Visits
There is some large Quotoa that always comes out of the water and beats us up badly. Whenever he gets badly damaged he jumps back into the water and swims out an underwater passage. This underwater passage may lead to the Derro hold that is behind the Guard house.
Last VisitWe just blew by this location because we couldn't get inside it to take out the guards. The are many murder holes that point up the passage and many if the party were hit by a psionic blast. There are trenchs on the passages around the guard house to slow people down and the back door is made of stone and is well locked. Most likely Ilithad and Derro are inside because of the psionic attacks and it looks like this is the guard post to the Derro Hold that is on a map we got some time back.