Youth DnD: The Mage's Tower, the Griffin Ranch, and Back into the Dungeon

Catching up on what Firstborn and his friends have been up to...

After they emerged from the dungeon they took a night off, then went to visit the Mage's Tower to see if they could swap the druid's new magic dagger for something the druid would find more useful. When they got there they found Molo of the Nine Wives not at the front counter, and sounds of struggle from the back. They quickly followed the sounds, and descended...

...into some sort of magical test or training area beneath the tower. On the far side of the room, they could see Molo being dragged off by a pair of figures, down a passageway that promptly vanished. They followed, solving the room's riddle to reopen the passage, then doing the same for two more rooms until they finally caught up with the pair and their prisoner.

The pair were a wizard and warrior; they fought, and the party killed the wizard and badly injured the warrior, who surrendered. Molo, when released, cursed the name of his brother-wizard and had the party carry the body back upstairs and drop it into a sarcophagus in a rather eerie room on the second floor. He offered them 400 gp as a reward, or 800 if they would kill the warrior and place his body in a sarcophagus as well. (Barrith: "So... he's a necromancer?" OH YES, he's a necromancer.) After considerable debate, the party turned the guard loose and accepted the 400 GP, then swapped the +2 dagger for a Staff of the Woodlands. (Molo was still feeling generous.) Molo also offers Toruv membership in the Order of the Towers, and Toruv accepts; this would be more useful to a wizard than a sorcerer, but it's still got some benefits. After a failed attempt to take the druid's hand in marriage,Molo agrees to keep an eye out for some items that they'd like to acquire now that they're rich, and he copies down their lists and says that he'll see what he can do for them. (Molo is... not a good guy, but he is grateful for the rescue.)

The group retires to Aldenmier's estate for a little downtime and a good night's sleep.

The next morning they get up and head down to Lord Aldenmier's new griffin ranch, established with the help of a druid from another, more famous ranch in another county. The druid has been busy; not only have the two eggs from the spotted mountain griffins hatched, but he's been acquiring stock from elsewhere and has a whole batch of cute little chibi flying killing machines that he's starting to raise. He spends some time getting the group up to speed on how to work with the wee beasties (except for Sana, the group's halfling moon druid, who's got an amazing knack for it already) and they spend the late morning and early afternoon on familiarity, bonding, and training. After that, the druid griffin-rancher mentions that one of the farms down the way -- half-elf family, nice people -- had an issue with their hens laying eggs that hatched into cockatrices; he took care of those, but that suggests that a basilisk has been getting into the hen-house and he didn't have time to track that down.

So the group heads over to the farm, borrows a nice silver mirror, and tracks the basilisk into the woods. They find it asleep in a rocky lair, and position the mirror in front of it. Despite some difficulties, the trick works: the basilisk, furious at having a competitor near its lair, meets its own gaze and turns itself to stone. Toruv, the dragonborn sorcerer, then levitates the thing (barely) and a furious discussion ensues on whether to carry it back to Aldenmier's estate as a decoration (Sana the druid), leave it at the farmhouse (Toruv the sorcerer), or try to sell it (Barrith the Arcane Trickster). Toruv's vote is the only one that really counts, as he has the only spell they can use to move that much stone; the statue ends up positioned in front of the farmhouse. They return the mirror and head back, bringing Aldenmier up to speed and then getting another good night's rest.

This morning they headed back into the dungeon, and tried out the secret door they learned about from the dwarves. (It turns out that I had the two passages down to the second level reversed, but that's fine; it's a magical dungeon, apparently they just come out in different places than conventional geometry would require.) The nearest set of rooms were all inhabited by Grimlocks, but it turns out that even ten Grimlocks aren't much of a match for five fifth-level characters. They cleared out three rooms, crossed a pit in the dungeon floor, and are now ready to face the next room...

When they open that door next session, Sana the halfling moon druid will still have her flame blade active, Barrith the halfling Arcane Trickster will have an additional 6 HP from False Life, and Aika the swashbuckling bard will still be slightly injured (-7 hp from a lucky Grimlock).

Treasure from this session, which will need to be split with Lord Aldenmier, includes:
350 GP
200 SP
An Amethyst worth 200 GP
A red Spinel (it's a kind of gemstone, so we got to learn something new) worth 175 GP
A nicely tooled belt that the Grimlocks must have taken from somewhere else.

General Party treasure at present is:
25 PP, 3,327 GP, and 331 SP.
(Plus an ivory sheath that's currently sitting on a small table until someone can hang it on a wall.)