The Tower of Azghulakarthad (Mission)

"We set out at sunrise, our group being myself, Kay, Vondal, Theodwin, Fenric and Throk. We decided to head south along the coast to the Tumblestone and then follow that to its source, which is where we heard the tower probably was. It didn’t take us that long to reach the Arbiter hill, where Kay stupidly said Ius Lex. Even though we were still a few miles away, we saw the Arbiter start to walk towards us. In a panic, we crossed the river. Once it got close, it asked us why Kay said the name, then warned us that others would come. It then recognized us and got angry since we were carrying weapons. We booked it into the woods with Kay making some fog to hide our path, but it didn’t matter. The Arbiter from the hill picked up a friend with the Arbiter from the Temple, and we basically just ran as fast as we could away from them.

Once we got into the mountains and climbed up above the waterfall where the Tumblestone disappears into the mountains, we stopped to watch the Arbiters since they stopped following us. They were circling each other and taking occasional cracks at the other but never really came to blows. The one we talked to before said “It was a mistake to come here, your order has fallen, you are forsaken.” We moved out of earshot after that. We made camp a little further on instead of continuing so we’d be fresh to tackle the tower and were attacked by duergar riding spiders in the night. We took care of them pretty easily, and managed to find a key on one of them. The next day we took that to the tower and headed inside, fighting a couple duergar on the way up. After getting our asses handed to us by some magic boxes we left for the day and returned to the same campsite as last night. At some point we investigated the cave around the waterfall and found it was grated shut, but might be a good way back into the mines under the tower later on. The guardian we met up north a while ago showed up and helped keep watch for a while, and the night was otherwise quiet.

The door was locked back up and there were traps set when we got back to the tower. Theodwin got us in after a while of turning the stone around the door to wood and burning it. When we got up to where we were before, the dwarves had blocked off the stairs, so we used Theodwin’s magic to poke holes in the floor and Kay shot some fireballs up there. Since we didn’t want to be in the tower if it exploded. Part of it did, and we eventually went back in to find they were pretty much fried. We went on and found some more duergar, stuck in these metal contraptions. They were really more pitiful than frightening, barely alive. We killed them and then the fire throwing ones above. At this point we were very high in the tower and found out from a captured dwarf that his bosses were next.

The first bunch kept hitting us in weird places that made it so we couldn’t use our muscles. Vondal and I basically sat that fight out, and it took a lot out of everyone else. We headed back after that and took one last night I think before taking on the real leader. He was this massive dwarf with a ton of magical gear. He talked to us briefly and when things got violent, he took Throk out in a couple of seconds. We got Throk back up but then he sent these statues after us while he sat behind a magic shield. I grabbed the dagger with a ruby in the blade that we were after, and it did a number on the statues, punched through them like they were paper and not metal that shook off everyone else’s attacks. We managed to take the bastard down finally, with just Kay, Throk and I still standing at the end. A fire got started during the battle, and the place started shaking like it was going to collapse. We grabbed his magical items and our allies, and got out of the tower as fast as we could. Part way down we checked Vondal and… he wasn’t coming back from those injuries. We left him so we could get the living out.

The tower hadn’t collapsed by the time we made it out, but we didn’t want to go back in for the guy we were after just in case. As the tower started to fall, he leapt out the top, nearly dying on the way down. Kay and I ran through the chunks of molten stone and iron to drag him out, and I went down from an unlucky hit. I guess Throk stepped in to help Kay bring me and the guy out, I’m not really sure.

The guy is named Tuli, and he’s kind of trapped sharing a body with a fire elemental named Volkaya. They’re a little unhinged, but are supposed to be a master smith, so we offered them a home. They didn’t want to go back to Sedition and the Abandoned, and had no people left of their own. Just keep an eye out for Tuli, apparently his people eat humans sometimes."

―Khyrim Alodan's adventure log