Episode 2: The mystery of what ails Waterdeep continues

When last we left this party, the four of us had managed to kill off some undead and escort one of the town's wizards to Blackstaff tower. This is where we find an undead hydra skeleton trying to smash the tower down.

Since this is a new game, a quick recap on the party makeup. We have Talon the Aarakocra range-based Fighter, Luthis the Kenku Blood Hunter, Unit 2408 the Warforged Barbarian, and Evangeline the Tiefling Paladin. Lots of physical fighting, a bit light on the magical ability. Talon can fly, Luthis can not. Luthis has some ... interesting ... speech quirks. Apparently the Kenku have no language of their own, they only communicate in words and phrases they've heard.

On to the story! As this huge skeletal hydra turns its 6 heads to face us we hear this deep dwarven voice from behind us, and we turn to see a 4' tall dwarf in full plate with a war hammer and shield and the holy symbol of Heironeous. And the gentleman has a bedazzled codpiece.

But we had a skeletal hydra up close and personal to deal with. Rubis the town wizard hid around the outside of the wall away from danger. Part of what is going on includes all arcane magic is not working, so he's essentially helpless. Divine magic however still works.

First up is Luthis who activates his odd flaming arm/crossbow trick and lets loose with 3 bolts, hitting the Hydra. The Hydra then attacks Melchizador, Luthis, and Eva hitting all of us. Hydras have 6 independent heads and each gets an attack. It also let out this sickening aura and everyone near it had to make a constitution save or take damage.

Then Unit 2408's eyes switch from green to red (?!) and he strides up and wallops the Hydra solidly. Mel summons his spiritual weapon -- think a floating war hammer that acts independent of him. Mel then smacks the Hydra with both his actual war hammer and his spiritual weapon.

Talon is flying up above the combat and lets loose with multiple arrows. Eva walks up to it and smacks it solidly, unloading a divine smite dealing extra radiant damage to it.

Luthis, still using his odd flaming arm/crossbow trick has expanded it to include reducing the Hydra's ability to hit us, then lets loose with more crossbow bolts. The Hydra, while not terribly bright, did rightly judge Unit 2408, Melchizador, and Eva to be the biggest threats, so 2 heads each attacked us, but generally missed. It also does the sickening aura trick again.

Melchizedor and his spiritual hammer wallup the Hydra. Unit 2408, being still full of rage and quite the soldier, continues to wallop on this Hydra. He is not happy with us at this point.

Talon is quite the arial machine-gun, letting loose with more arrows from on high. Eva then casts Searing Smite and whacks the creature again, hitting it. So pop off another divine smite as well and hit it for bludgeoning, fire, and radiant damage all at once. The fire damage, while minimal, seemed to have caused a disruption of what is going on with this creature.

Luthis continues his odd burning arm/crossbow trick, reducing the Hydra's ability to hit us and sending many crossbow bolts its direction. The Hydra continued to try to take out Melchizador, Unit 2408, and Eva.

Melchizador then dramatically -- his codpiece is bejeweled so I'm not sure he has any mode other than dramatic -- slams his warhammer into the ground, causing a thunderous wave to crash into the Hydra while his spiritual hammer whacked again. Unit 2408 then walked right up to the Hydra and brought down his greatsword in a mighty blow, splitting it in half and killing it.

Rubis then pokes back around the corner and apologizes for not helping with the combat, but he had no access to spells you see. And then urges us towards the tower. Eva stops him and states that he is not to enter the tower first in case some evil being has laid a trap. He seems rather taken aback at that, but unlocks the tower and allows Eva and Mel to go in first.

We find the tower to be a good sized room that goes all the way up to the top of the tower -- from the outside it looks to be about 4 stories. It also appears to have random art and bookshelves just kinda hanging out on the walls. Rubis first checks on his magic to find out his arcane magic still works in the tower. He then walks up to a statue of the original Blackstaff, the long dead mage of Waterdeep. After him, wizards entrusted to protect Waterdeep are given the title of The Blackstaff. Rubis does something with the statue and suddenly a spiral set of stone stairs appear along the wall of the tower, stopping at the oddly placed bookshelves and art. He then urges us to hurry along with him.

At this point Talon goes to fly up the center of the tower, but about 15' from the floor runs literally head first into an invisible solid thing. Rubis asks him to please use the stairs. We climb up to find ourselves in a room. There's furniture in groupings on the floor ... the bottom of which is what Talon conked himself on ... and it's starting to look more like a home.

Rubis then strides over to a locked door that appears to go to the outside of the tower and unlocks it, and after allowing Eva and Mel to go in first he goes in looking for his master. He's not having much luck at that so far. What's behind the door, and logically should be hanging outside of the tower, is a large libarary sort of room with a fireplace and a exquisite desk/chair set up. There's also a stained glass window with what appears to be an artists' rendition of Castle Waterdeep.

But no Master to be found so far.

Then Unit 2408 asks "Should the window be melting?" and we all turn to look, Mel and Eva with hands on warhammers, when in stumbles a woman with two men with her. After she clears the window, she collapses. There is blood on her side. Mel and Eva rush forward to help her but she waves us off, and our senses tell us she's hurt but not dying as yet. After she catches her breath for a moment she stands up, and Rubis starts sharing everything he's found out. She states that this is the case everywhere, and one of the males with her mutters something about not for everyone.

At this point Eva's like let's double check things and senses the room. Thankfully no undead, fiend, or celestial creatures present. Well, except for her (she would ping as a fiend).

The lady hushes her companion and introduces herself as Laeral Silverhand, Open Lord of Waterdeep (think mayor of a major city or along the lines of a powerful noble). She then asks Rubis to introduce the strangers in her tower.

Unfortunately, that's when we ran out of time today.