The PCs showed the Lord Warden and Nimozoran around the disheveled tower, which was also new to the foreigner, Zanne. The old wizard was particularly interested in the binding circles in the basement. When he noticed the names on the statues flanking the room, he mumbled something about needing his books and rushed back to his tower. The PCs then showed the Lord Warden the lower catacombs under the island. Satisfied with what the party showed him he accompanied them back to Moonstone Keep. Once they returned the Lord Warden took audience with one of his agents; She introduced herself as Arlow to the PCs and offered her condolences to Lord Markelhay. The Lord Warden asked her to deliver a message for him to his son in Dunador. Arlow accepted but told the Lord that she would be leaving one of her associates to aid Fallcrest in her absence. She introduced her associate; a dragonborn bard by the name of Humphrey. The Lord welcomed the dragonborn to his court and addressed him with the rest of the PCs; he was concerned with the issues plaguing his city and was anxious to take care of them as soon as possible. Though he had given the PCs many rumors to look into prior to their investigation of the Tower of Waiting, he insisted that they make the Tombwood their immediate focus.
Before resting for the evening, Akriel wanted to seek out Nimozoran so that he might identify a magic map he found. Zanne joined him so that the drow might show her the sights around Fallcrest on the way. The duo was greeted at the door of Nimo's Tower by Tobolar (or "Splodey") Nimo's apprentice, fresh burns on his halfling hands. He directed them to Nimozoran who was up in his study, veritably buried in books at his desk. The first attempts to gain his attention were futile. Finally the old alchemist noticed the female and the drow. Annoyed, he grudgingly identified the Map of Unseen Lands for Akriel. He then told the pair what he had discovered about the names on the statues from the tower;
Almost 200 years ago, during the reign of Lord Markelhay II, the Lord Warden's first wife was Lady Binisara Folvar. This marriage ended abruptly after only 2 years, and until now no one had known the real reason why. Lord Markelhay II built the Tower of Waiting for his first wife, so that she might have privacy to pursue her hobbies. Little known to the loving husband; her hobbies included demon worship. Left to her own devices in the tower, Lady Binisara made a pact with Graz'zt and summoned demons to attack the town. Luckily for Fallcrest, a group of adventurers were passing through at the time and their leader, Godrick Charmine, was not one to leave the village to destruction. He and his adventuring companions ventured to the Tower of Waiting and, after many harrowing battles, cornered Lady Binisara in the hidden catacombs beneath. Despite their efforts they were unable to wholly defeat the Lady. Only through the intervention of the Lord's advisor (a powerful mage) were they able to trap Lady Binisara beneath the Tower, but at the cost of the adventurers' lives. The truth of the incident was kept a secret. Only the one remaining survivor of Godrick's Blades, the Lord Warden, and the Lord's Advisor knew what really happened. Lady Binisara was said to have died during the demon attack and Anders Gullwing (the surviving adventurer) was sworn to secrecy. But, apparently Anders did not make good on his word and wrote a chapbook, chronicling the event. It didn't sell well and only a few copies survived the years, one of which Nimozoran had within his study along with the signed, notarized documents for Anders' discretion.
Akriel and Zanne took in this information and bid the old alchemist goodbye. The drow escorted Zanne back to Moonstone Keep, but went back into the city to "look around". Coming upon his target, the recently damaged shop - Naerumar's Imports - Akriel clung to the shadows as he approached. His stealth was not good enough for the sharp eyes of Naerumar who noticed him with a start. The tiefling shopkeeper was loading his goods onto a wheelbarrow to transport them to his home, afraid that more thieves would come during the night and rob him blind. Akriel offered the use of the group's Bag of Holding for which Naerumar was very grateful. The drow delivered the goods in his bag to the tiefling's home and noticed among the goodies was a very nice rod. He brought the implement back with him to the shop to ask Naerumar about it's value. Because of Akriel's aid, Naerumar gave him a good discount on the Rod of Cursed Honor. The tiefling shopkeeper bade the drow good evening and wheeled the rest of his goods to his home. Once Naerumar had left, Akriel immediately began to search the badly burned shop. Despite his efforts he was unable to spot any abandoned goodies. He was also unable to spot Mablung entering the shop and sitting down on the counter right above him. After he finally spotted the sneaky genasi nd made a feeble excuse for rummaging through the burned shop, the drow returned to Moonstone Keep and the genasi retired to the river.
After their dawnfry and morning ablutions the PCs set out for the Tombwood. Their initial searches turned up nothing unusual. The wood was exactly as described; a fairly dense copse of trees with tombstone sparsely scattered among them. As they moved further toward the back of the wood, the tombstones got more and more ancient and the presence of cobwebs increased. Eventually they found a breached mausoleum in the cliff face far below Moonstone Keep. The doorway had intricate runes carved into it which the PCs couldn't decipher. Moving inside the darkness, the group found roughly hewn stone walls covered in cobwebs and a dusty, dirty stone floor. A few yards into the cavern it branched left and right into twisting narrow tunnels, each leading to a locked double door. They decided to leave them for now and continue down the main cavern. Shortly after walking down the tomb they were ambushed by undead and a foul smelling necromancer. The ghouls and skeletons eventually dropped. Though Cassius had declined to join them, Zanne plied her avenger skill against the undead, dealing great amounts of radiant damage.
A small pool of stagnant water stood in the center of the cave. Shortly beyond that was a massive stone slab of a door with no apparent hinges or handles. Upon searching the area, the avenger found a pair of stone gauntlets in the pool. They had odd carvings of a pair of eyes and bulbous nose on the left glove and a toothy grin on the right. Seeing no use for them herself, she handed them to the dragonborn fighter. As soon as Benjaar put them on he heard low deep chuckling, like that of an amused ogre. Thinking them cursed he immediately pulled them off. Though, if they had been cursed they wouldn't have come off. Seeing as they weren't cursed, he put them back on and began to hear the chuckling again, as did the other PCs standing close enough to him. A voice then said something in giant, which only Zanne was able to understand; "Puny lizard man. Go a-squish something. I tired of your standing talking." The disembodied chuckling voice was a little annoying, though despite their efforts the PCs were unable to silence the gauntlets. They decided to take the gloves' advice and "go squish something".
The locked doors at the ends of the smaller tunnels revealed fairly large tombs with several carved niches along the walls used to hold corpses. Many of them were empty as were to four stone sarcophagi in the center of the room. At the back of the room was a crumbled wall, behind which sat a wooden casket in a recess. Upon inspecting the casket, Mab found a false bottom and a geared mechanism hidden beneath. The PCs also noticed that the wall behind the niches at the back of the tomb was not connected to them. After some inspection the discovered that the walls were part of the stone slab doorway in the main cavern. They needed to disable the mechanism to open the door, but they needed to split up and disable both of them at the same time. This proved unlucky for Mab; as soon as they began tampering with the mechanism they were ambushed by tiny homunculi made of bits of bone, grave dirt, and other detritus. A wave of tiny bone men swarmed both groups of PCs. Benjarr and Humphrey on one side made short work of their attackers with their breath weapons, but Akriel and Mab had to pick theirs off one at a time. The drow stayed in the shadows for most of it, causing the tomb motes to swarm the genasi. Mab and Akriel eventually took down all of the tiny undead, but Mab was sorely wounded. The group decided to head back to Moonstone Keep to get the others and let the genasi rest-up.
