Upon entering the seventh floor of the Wizard’s Tower they are met with a bit of a mess. There are papers and coins strewn all over the eastern end of the room. In the middle of the room is an electrical apparatus. There are three separate beams of lights crackling from panels in the middle out to the edges of the room. Heading north they see a red beam, to the east a green beam, and to the south a blue beam.
After some investigating the Party discovers three buttons along the floor by the staircase to the west. They have their companions stand on the buttons and the beams dissipate. Diz immediately runs forward to grab the coins and is surprised to find that the piles of coins are actually Mimics! The Party quickly dispatches the four Mimic’s and upon finding that there are no real coins to be had, they head up the stairs.
The eight floor of the tower seems very eerie. It is quiet, almost too quiet. It is almost completely bare save for a circular stone table in the middle of the room inset into the floor. Traveling down the stairs they discover that the table is covered in blood in varying states of drying, leading them to believe that multiple sacrifices have been made here. At a table they find a recipe to call a Fiend:
Casting time: 4 hour. Must maintain concentration the whole time. If the summoning fails all sacrifices and components are lost.
Environmental conditions: Must take place after the sun has set and be completed before the sun rises.
Focuses: A fiendish mask made of animal bones and gems worn by the ritual leader (worth 4000 gp), a brazier made of a pure gold washed in the blood of fiends (worth 4000 gp), a set of unholy handbells forge from cold iron and rubies (worth 1000 gp), an unholy dagger carved from the bone of a fiend (worth 1000 gp), and the written unholy incantation for this ritual (worth 5000 gp)
Sacrifices: 13 candles made from wax mixed with fiend blood (worth 100 gp each), 13 sticks of incense made from an awakened venus fly trap (worth 200 gp each), a cask of celestial blood (worth 1000 gp), and a goat, pig or similar animal
Recipe
1. The ritual leader begins chanting the incantation and name of the fiend being called forth. If the ritual leader does not know the fiend’s name, instead the name of a specific type of fiend (e.g. yochlol) is chanted. This fiend must have a challenge rating 10 or lower.
2. Light and begin burning all the unholy candles in a 30-foot-radius circle. These must burn during the entire ritual or it fails.
3. Light the incense in the unholy brazier. The incense must burn during the entire ritual or it fails.
4. In the circle of candles, draw the unholy symbol indicated in the incantation using the celestial blood. The creature who does this must succeed on a DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check. If the creature fails this check the fiend summoned as normal in step 7, but can escape the circle and is not under the ritual leader’s control. The fiend is hostile toward the ritual leader and its allies.
5. Ring the unholy handbells in the exact sequence indicated by the incantation. The creature ringing the bells must succeed on a DC 10 Charisma (Performance) check. If the creature fails this check, it can try again one more time. A second failure means the ritual fails.
6. Inside the circle, kill the animal using the unholy dagger. Leave its body there and the ritual leader should continue to chant.
7. After three hours of chanting, if the other steps were completed correctly, the fiend should appear in the circle. If the circle of celestial blood was made properly, the fiend cannot leave the circle of candles. The ritual leader must continue to chant the incantation for one more hour. something disrupts the caster’s concentration, the circle of celestial blood, the candles, or the incense during this final hour, the fiend is able to leave the circle and is not under the ritual leader’s control. The fiend is hostile toward the ritual leader and its allies.
Effect: Once the ritual is complete, the fiend is friendly to the ritual leader and its companions. Roll for initiative for the fiend, is has its own turns. It obeys any verbal commands the ritual leader issues to it (no action required by the lead caster) as long as they don’t violate its alignment. If the ritual leader issues no commands to the fiend, it defends itself from hostile creatures, but otherwise takes no action.
As an action the ritual leader can release the fiend from its control and return the fiend to the place from which it was summoned.
Every 24 hours the fiend is under the ritual leader’s control, the ritual leader must make a Constitution check (DC 10 + the number of days since the ritual was completed). Failing this Constitution check means the ritual leader suffers one level of exhaustion, which cannot be restored in any way until the fiend is no longer under its control.
If the ritual leader dies before dismissing the fiend, the fiend does not return to the place from where it was summoned and becomes hostile toward the ritual leader’s allies (and the ritual leader if returned to life).
In a chest by the stairs they are able to find 13 candles, and two casks of blood. As the Party rests Kali calls to her new Patron to see if he can tell her if the blood in the casks belongs to Celestials or Fiends. He agrees to tell her but requests that she place an ominous box somewhere in the tower that the Mage won’t find it. She agrees and he lets her know that one cask is the blood of a Celestial and the other is the blood of a Fiend. Diz also takes this opportunity to ruin back down and grab some of the Venus fly trap remains to use for incense.
After resting the Party heads up to the ninth floor which appears to be as dungeon. In a room with two torture devices, they are able to find a brazier of pure gold and in one of the cells they find a fiendish mask made of animal bones but the gems are missing from it. Near the stairs they come across a door that they cannot open. After attempting to use her thieves’ tools to no avail, Diz realizes that this door is locked by magical, not mechanical means and they decide that should they need to, they will come back to it and head up to the tenth floor.
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