Borovik scratched his chin and said, "This portal is the only way I see that might get us into the tower. Let's step into it and see what happens."
They stepped into the circle and instantly found themselves in a large chamber, presumably inside the tower. Curiously, although the tower seemed to be rectangular from the outside, the chamber's walls were round, forming a circle about 60 ft. in diameter. The ceiling was about 10 ft. high and narrow windows let in sufficient sunlight for it to be well lit.
Looking around, they immediately saw the dead body of a cultist lying in a pool of blood off to one side of the room. Given that she was dressed in purple, the party guessed that she was a high-ranking official of the Cult of the Dragon. Mara and Talis went over to examine the body.
"It looks like she was stabbed to death with a dagger, although I don't see the weapon lying on the ground here," said Mara
"Judging by the shape of the wound, I would say that it was a Dragontooth dagger," Talis added. "And if so, the murderer would probably have taken the dagger with them."
"Stabbed by a ceremonial dagger normally carried by Cult of the Dragon members?" Kellen asked. "That implies she was killed by another cult member."
Talis nodded sadly, "It's not at all uncommon for a cultist to murder another cultist in order to increase their chances of attaining a higher office."
"Honey!" cried Mara. "Were you ever targeted by assassination attempts?"
"Yes, but I foiled them all," said Talis. "I always had to be on guard and be very careful about whom I trusted. Although, my guess is that this was not an assassination. This cultist may have died trying to stop Iskander from escaping."
The party examined the body further to see if it held any clues or items that could prove useful to them. The cult member was wearing a cloak, which Borovik recognized as a Cloak of Protection. He stashed it in Bree's Portable Hole. Aside from a coin purse containing several coins and gems, there was nothing else.
They then began to explore the room itself. There was a large table in the center of the room with several chairs set around it. Couches lined the far wall.
"Looks like some kind of meeting room," observed Borovik.
The room was silent, and no sound was heard from any level above or below this one. Bree looked out one of the narrow windows and realized that they were on the first floor of the tower. The walls were decorated with relief carvings of geometric designs representing feathers, eagles and snakes. Kellen studied the carvings briefly.
"These carvings seem to be in the Maztica style," he commented.
"Maztica?" asked Neega. "What's that?"
"It's a continent far to the west of Faerûn," answered Borovik. "Few people have visited it, but a small number of traders bring back exotic imports from there."
"I guess Xonthal was interested in their culture," continued Kellen. "He is rumored to have traveled the world extensively. It wouldn't surprise me if he visited Maztica."
No exit from the room was found during their search, nor any stairs that might lead to other levels. There were a couple of balconies about 4 ft. above the floor. Guessing that any exit door would have to be accessible from the balconies, they had Bree climb up into one, since no stairs led up to either. Once in the balcony she saw another teleport circle taking up the entire floor of the balcony.
"No door out of this area," she called down. "But it looks like it's supposed to be accessed by a teleportation circle, since there is one on the floor. I'm going to look around and see it I can figure out how to activate it."
The rest of the party heard some shuffling around, and then Bree announced, "Aha! There is a metal plate with a chair symbol engraved into it, just under the railing! It's well within reach while you are standing in the circle. Let me see what it does."
Kellen yelped, "Wait, Bree! Don't touch..."
"Oh, look! The teleportation circle is beginning to glow!"
A few terrifying seconds later, the party saw Bree reappear in the main chamber teleportation circle. She was grinning from ear to ear.
"I think we have our answer," she beamed. "Let's look for a metal plate next to the teleportation circle on the main floor of this chamber."
Sure enough, there was such a plate on the wall behind the main teleportation circle. But this one has 9 symbols, rather than the single one for the teleporter in the balcony. The symbols, from the bottom to the top of the plate were: hourglass, right triangle, chair, 2 chairs side by side, an upside-down "L", rectangle, flame, square, star.
"I'll bet that the hourglass goes to the dungeon, since it looks like the key that Iskander showed us," speculated Preston "Let's try standing in the circle and pressing that symbol."
They did so, but nothing happened. The circle didn't begin to glow, and they were not teleported.
Mara frowned, "I guess that's why he said we needed the key. We probably have to touch the symbol with it"
"Great!" complained Neega. "Now we have to hunt through the tower to find where he left the key!"
Talis looked intently at the panel of symbols. "If Bree said that there was only one chair shaped symbol next to the balcony teleportation circle and it brought her back here when she pressed it, I think we can assume that the chair symbol denotes this room. That eliminates one possibility."
"Then let's see what the next higher symbol does, the one showing 2 chairs," suggested Neega.
They all squeezed into the circle and pressed the double chair symbol. After a few seconds they teleported up to one of the balconies.
"Now we know that tower guests had a more genteel way of getting into the balconies than climbing," laughed Neega.
They teleported back down to the main floor and tried the next higher symbol, the upside-down "L".
They were teleported into a small circular room lit my magic lamps and whose walls were made of steel. A steel door led south out of the room. The room was very small, and they were all packed tightly together. After some grunting and shuffling, they managed to space themselves so everyone could breathe. Frostbite had to hover over the heads of the rest of the party to fit in the space.
Voices and noises of more than one person moving around could be heard outside the room. As the party rearranged themselves, one of the voices called out in Draconic, "Hey! Someone is in the teleportation room! Maybe it's Iskander!"
The door to the teleportation room was yanked open and a cultist peered in. The first thing it saw was Neega and Frostbite flying over her head. It shrieked and ran off into a door just to the east of the teleportation room.
"Intruders! The tower has been invaded!" it shouted.
A more confident sounding voice ordered, "Get to the teleportation circle and go to the Lounge level for reinforcements!"
"But the intruders are occupying the teleportation room!"
"Then we'll just have to fight to get past them!"
Borovik, Talis and Frostbite all knew what the cultist said, and they translated it for the rest of the party.
"We need to form ourselves around the door to this room to prevent them getting the teleportation circle," Talis said.
Borovik took up a position in the doorway and Kellen stood in front of him, just outside the door. Bree stood to Kellen's right and Preston stood to Kellen's left. Neega, Mara and Frostbite took the front of the line, Mara in front of Preston, Neega in front of Kellen and Frostbite in front of Bree. Talis stationed herself just behind Bree.
"There's an open door to my left," called out Preston. "I see a cultist through the door."
The shuffle of feet running could be heard and a cultist came running around a corner to the NW of them. It ran up to Talis and attacked with its scimitar. Although she had no shield, she attempted to parry the blow with her spear. The scimitar slipped past her block and found its target, although the injury was small. The cultist who had originally spied the party re-emerged from the room to the left and attacked the nearest party member, who happened to be Preston. It hit with its scimitar and Preston sustained a small amount of injury. Furious, Neega then pulled out her longbow and aimed at the cultist who had injured Preston.
"By the Sword of Tempus!" she yelled. "You will die for hurting my man!"
She let loose the arrow, which went right though the cultist's chest, protruding out the other side. The cultist instantly fell over dead. Bree moved to a position next to Talis and used her Dagger of Venom to stab the cultist who had just attacked Talis. She hit and got sneak attack damage. The cultist fell dead, blood flowing from its mouth and a stab wound to the abdomen. Talis cast Bless on some of the party members to increase their chances of hitting the enemy. Because her magical energy was running low, she could only cast it on Neega, Mara and Frostbite.
More footsteps sounded in the room to their right, moved north, then turned into a hallway and ran to the corner near the party, where it finally became visible as a 3rd cultist. It wasn't near enough to be able to take an attack, so it stopped at the corner and prepared to attack with its scimitar in case anyone got within melee range. Kellen stepped a little to the right of the door to get a line-of-sight on the cultist at the corner. He cast Blindness on the cultist, but it dodged out of the way.
A 4th set of footsteps sounded to the NE and moved south into the room to their left. Seeing that it couldn't get close enough to the party to attack, the cultist stopped in the center of the room and prepared to attack anyone getting within melee range. Neega fired a second arrow at the cultist who had just run into the center of the room to their left but missed.
Freed from the cultist menacing him, Preston grabbed his Wand of Magic Missiles and aimed at the cultist Neega had just unsuccessfully tried to spear with an arrow. Four darts of force slammed into the cultist's chest, leaving it pale and shaken.
The voice of a fifth cultist shouted from within the room to their left, apparently the leader of the group, "You idiots! Do I have to do everything myself?"
The leader cultist appeared in the doorway. It held up an arcane focus and cast a spell at Preston. Preston briefly froze in place, but then shook off the effects of the spell. Mara ran up to the door to get a line-of-sight on both cultists in the room and cast Ice Storm. The cultist already injured by Preston fell over dead, and the magic user cultist directly in front of her was battered and half frozen by the falling rain of ice.
Borovik wanted to stay in the doorway to prevent any cultists from coming in, so he held his position and readied to cast Scorching Rays at any cultist who came within his sight. Frostbite flew up over the heads of the party members and landed next to the cultist at the corner just to the north of Talis. The cultist used its prepared action to attack Frostbite with its scimitar, but the injury was minimal. Frostbite then did a nasty bite on the cultist. Bleeding heavily and suffering severe frostbite, it died instantly.
Bree aimed her shortbow at the final cultist, the magic user. She hit and got sneak attack damage because Mara was within 5 ft. of it. It groaned as the arrow penetrated its abdomen and fit fell unconscious. They looted the coin purses of the cultists and retrieved several coins.
"Let's search this level and see if we can find Iskander or the key we need," suggested Borovik.
They were currently in a 20 ft wide hallway running north-south. It ended on the south end at the tower wall. Turning around, they saw that it ended at an interior wall about 5 ft. north of the teleportation circle room. They guessed that the teleportation circle room was in the center of this level. There was an unbroken wall to the west that went up to a corner, and a wall to the east that went up to the interior wall behind the teleportation circle room. There was an open door in this wall, leading into a room, so the party went in.
In addition to the interior wall through which they had just come. There was another interior wall to the north. The rest of the room's boundary was formed by the exterior wall of the tower. The cult was using the room as a sort of barracks. Six bedrolls lay in the room, each with backpack next to it. They were unable to find any evidence of Iskander having been there, nor did they find the key to the dungeon. To Bree's dismay, the backpacks held nothing worth looting. Bree looked out one of the narrow windows and discovered that this chamber was not at ground level, but rather about 10 to 12 ft. above it. An open door stood at the north end of the room.
They went through that door and found another barracks room, also with 6 bedrolls. It was about the same size as the first one and had interior walls for the southern and western walls. Nothing worth looting was found in the room. The only exit was the door leading into the room to the south.
The party returned to the hallway and went north along the unbroken western wall. At the corner they saw an east-west hallway about 10 ft wide. There were 2 doors off the hallway to rooms on the western side of the level. The room to the SW was a little smaller than the 2 they had already explored, and it contained only 4 bedrolls. The NW room was quite small and contained 2 bedrolls. No sign of Iskander, the key or of any lootable items were found in either room.
"What a bust!" griped Bree. "How dare they not have nice little piles of coins hidden around for us to loot?"
"It wasn't a complete waste," pointed out Neega as she dipped Hazirawn in the blood of the dead cultists. "At least we got something for Hazirawn to eat."
They once again crowded into the teleportation circle room and pressed the next higher button in the control panel, a rectangle. The circle glowed and they found themselves in a new room with a stone altar in the center, upon which rested the skeletal limbs and claw of some large creature. Unfortunately, there seemed to be several cultists in the room, all of whom turned to face them when they appeared in the circle.
One of the cultists, who was dressed in the robes of a mage, was standing near the altar and screamed a command word. The skeletal limbs and claws rose into the air, animated by magic. Talis noted with dismay that they were the same size and shape as the appendages of an adult dragon. She also noted that all the cultists wielded daggers and carried arcane foci. All casters! And two of them wore the distinctive robes of mages. What rotten luck!
"Take out the mages first!" she shouted.
The 2 sets of animated dragon limbs were ordered by the mage cultist who had activated them to attack the party members nearest the altar. One set went after Preston and the other after Bree. Both animated dragon parts sets hit, but neither did much injury.
Neega went into a barbarian rage and ran up to attack a second mage, who was standing in the NW quadrant of the level. In doing so, she ran close enough to a cult fanatic to get hit by an attack of opportunity, although it did very little damage. Neega attacked the mage and hit with one of her blows, leaving a nasty gash on one of its thighs. This second mage didn't want to be standing next to a raging barbarian, so it used a bonus action to cast Misty Step and teleported to a spot 20 ft to the east. It then cast Magic Missiles at Neega. The spell hit, but Neega had resistance to force damage, and she suffered little injury.
The mage near the altar then cast a fireball at the party, almost all of whom were crowded in the teleportation circle. Placing the center of the sphere so as not to burn the animated dragon limb sets, it threw the flaming sphere into the group. The sphere exploded into a 40 ft. diameter ball of flame and engulfed everyone except for Neega. Bree's roguish evasion allowed her to completely dodge the flames, and she received no injury. Talis, Frostbite and Preston did some quick footwork and avoided some of the damage from the last. Borovik, Mara and Kellen all shrieked as they took the full blast and suffered significant burns.
Talis wanted to cast a Mass Cure Wounds to heal everyone at once, but she didn't have enough magical energy left to do so. Instead, she cast Cure Wounds on Mara, who was close enough for her to do a touch spell. Most of Mara's injuries were healed and Talis delivered a small amount of healing to herself. Mara cast Cure Wounds on Borovik, who did a sigh of relief as most of his injuries vanished.
Preston then cast Shatter and placed it to hit as many enemies as he could. He got the set of animated dragon limbs attacking him and 2 of the cultists very close to the east side of the altar. All targets took full sonic damage from the blast of a loud thunderclap.
Borovik threw a Fireball spell of his own, positioning it to envelope the maximum number of enemies. He managed to target one set of animated dragon limbs, as well all the cultists in the chamber except one on the far west side. Using his sculpt spell capability, he carved out pockets of safety to avoid burning Preston and Neega. He cast the spell using additional magical energy so as to do more damage. When the smoke cleared from the Fireball, the mage facing Neega was unconscious, as were all the other non-mage cultists. The animated dragon limb set was also severely burned, scorched and smoking. The mage near the altar sported very serious burns. Additionally, it lost its concentration on the animated dragon limbs. They returned to the altar and became inert.
Bree then stepped forward to get a line-of-sight on the remaining mage and fired her shortbow. She hit and an arrow through the throat rendered it unconscious. Kellen followed up by moving to where he could get a line-of-sight on the last remaining cultist on the west side of the room. He hit with his crossbow and the cultist cried out as its primary casting arm was cut by the grazing passage of the bolt.
The last remaining cultist frantically cast Hold Person on Neega. However, Neega was too strong willed and avoided succumbing to the charm. Frostbite next flew up over everyone's head and landed next to the cultist. He slashed it with his claws and it stumbled as it sustained even more injuries to its casting arm. Neega rushed over and finished the cultist with a jab to the chest from Hazirawn. Talis embraced Mara, comforting her after the fire damage she endured.
"Baby, are you okay?" Talis asked through tears.
"Yes. Thanks for the heal, Honey," Mara replied, leaning heavily on Talis' shoulder.
"I just couldn't bear it when I heard you cry out in pain."
Mara and Talis then did healing on the remaining injured party members. When everyone was down to no more than a small amount of injury, they stopped in order to preserve magic energy for healing if there were further battles.
With the cultists defeated, they looted the coin purses on the bodies, gathering a good deal of coins and gems, as well as 2 Potions of Greater healing. Borovik grabbed the spellbooks of both mages, No other lootable items were found on the bodies. They distributed the coins among the party.
Examining the room, they found that the walls were lined with painted depictions of dracoliches.
"Looks like the cultists occupying the tower are old school," remarked Talis. They're concerned with convincing old dragons to become liches and they don't support the effort to summon Tiamat. I wonder why Severin was willing to loan the Blue Dragon Mask to them?"
"We'll have to ask Iskander when we find him," said Mara.
They found several notes and scrolls about dracoliches, but nothing else. Borovik gathered the notes and scrolls, which he thought might be of interest to arcane scholars. These went into Bree's Portable Hole.
Bree looked out the narrow window of this level, and saw they were another 10 to 12 ft higher than when in the barracks level they had just left.
"I'm beginning to think that the that the order of the symbols on the teleportation circle control panels indicate which floor of the tower they lead to," she remarked.
"Well, we want to get to the top floor, since it looked like that's the floor Iskander hailed us from," responded Kellen. "If you're correct, we should press the topmost symbol on the control panel."
Everyone thought about that and decided it was a good guess. They crowded back into the teleportation circle and pressed the topmost symbol, a star. The circle glowed and they found themselves in a room with an enormous lens mounted into the ceiling. There were massive tomes of astronomy and astrology on a table in the room. A ladder allowed a user to get close to the lens to make observations.
"Oooo!" cooed Borovik. "An observatory! I would love to return here at night to see the stars through this instrument!"
"Let's stay focused on the mission, shall we?" grunted Neega. "We have to find Iskander and that mask."
"He said he was going to leave the key behind," said Bree. "It would make sense that if he teleported from this room he would have left the key here. Let's look for it."
They began searching for the key. After a few minutes a door on the western wall flew open and 4 cultists burst out, clearly ready for a fight.
The first to emerge was a mage, dressed in the purple robes of a high-ranking member of the cult. Being averse to using Fireball spell, which could destroy the valuable documents on the table and shelves, he launched a Cone of Cold spell at Mara, Talis and Neega. Neega dodged away from the full effect of the spell, and her Barbarian resistance ensured that she took little damage. Mara also managed to dodge and got somewhat more injury. Talis didn't dodge, and was hammered by the spell. Despite being injured, she ran up to Mara and cast Cure Wounds, relieving most of Mara's injuries.
Next, a magic using cultist came into the room, turning just inside the door to step to the north. It cast Inflict Wounds on Borovik, who took a surge of necrotic damage. Another magic user cultist ran through the door and took up a position against the wall just past the first cultist. It cast Inflict Wounds at Bree but she dodged out of the way. A third magic user cultist ran out and stopped just inside the door. It cast Spiritual Weapon and placed the weapon next to Preston, The Spiritual Weapon attacked and left Preston with force damage wounds. At this point, the cult members were spread out along the west wall.
Borovik chose the cultist who had just tried to attack Bree as his target and cast Scorching Rays. Three flaming rays slammed into the cultist and its burned, smoking body dropped unconscious. Bree took aim at the cultist who had just injured Borovik. She hit it in the shoulder with her arrow and it nearly dropped its arcane focus. Kellen ran up next to the cultist whom Bree had just hit with her shortbow and attacked with his rapier. He hit and the cultist cried out loudly in pain.
Neega went into a rage and ran up to the mage. She cut one its legs badly enough that it dropped to one knee. The mage used its bonus action to Misty Step away from Neega and get closer to its allies. It then cast Magic Missiles at Neega, using additional magical energy to throw 6 darts of force damage. It grimaced when it saw that Neega's Barbarian resistance reduced the force damage to half, and she suffered little additional injury.
The cultists were now all bunched together, so Preston cast Shatter and managed to target all the remaining cultists at once. All the cultists took the full thunder damage, with the mage and the cultist who had attacked Borovik barely alive. The Shatter spell also hit the door in the western wall, blowing it off its hinges.
Mara cast Moonbeam and she also managed to enclose all the cultists in the spell. The mage and the barely alive cultist fell unconscious from radiant damage, while the final cultist took only a little damage. However a delayed damage effect of the spell soon fired off and now the final cultist was scorched with serious radiant damage.
The final cultist used a bonus action to move its Spiritual weapon next to Mara and attack, missing it's target. It then moved about 15 ft. to the north to get out of the Moonbeam spell, stopping directly in front of Kellen. It fired off an Inflict Wounds spell at Borovik. It hit, and the effects of 2 consecutive necrotic damage blasts left Borovik staggering.
Frostbite flew up over everybody's head and hovered 10 ft above the final cultist. He did a bite attack and hit. The combination of piercing and cold damage did the cultist in.
When the heat of the battle was done, Mara saw Talis wincing at her serious injuries. She stroked Talis' hair as she cast Cure Wound and gave Talis a Potion of Healing to drink.
Tears in her eyes, Mara said, "Oh. Honey! I'm so sorry I didn't see how badly hurt you were! Are you okay now?"
"Yes," Talis whispered, burying her face in the side of Mara's neck. "Thank you, my Love."
The remained in an embrace for a few minutes, Mara gently rocking Talis and whispering encouragements to her.
Borovik also had significant injuries and Mara cast Cure Wounds on him, as well. After the healing spell, Borovik drank one of his own Potions of Healing. By now, only Neega had noticeable injuries. But she declined healing in order to preserve healing magic energy.
After the Moonbeam spell ended, they looted the coin purses and searched the bodies for any other lootable items. The mage was wearing a helm made of black metal inlaid with gold and bronze. It had a strange symbol like an inverted A on its frontispiece and seemed to exude magical energy. Borovik put it in the Portable Hole to examine later. From the coin purses, they obtained a large number of coins and gems. They also found a dungeon key on the person of the mage. Borovik grabbed the mage's spellbook, as well as the tomes and notes on astronomy and astrology. These he put in the Portable Hole.
Curious as always, Bree went though the damaged door and found herself on the balcony from which Iskander had called them.
"Oh, look!" she exclaimed, as she poked her hand through the barrier that had prevented Talis and Frostbite from entering earlier that day. "You can get out, even though you can't get in!"
"That's nice!" Neega replied sarcastically. "We have the key now. Let's get down to the dungeon and find Iskander."