I do not own Dungeons and Dragons or any of the characters.
Tower
Jasper narrowed his eyes as he walked away from the portal to the Plane of Water. The tower around them was truly massive. The ceiling above them was fifty feet high, everything was made of the same, smooth, black stone, and the passages were about four to five people wide and were long. The tower seemed to be truly massive. They started into it silently, only to find a pair of gargoyles sitting in the passageway. Both shrieked angrily, turning and leaping at them, their stone wings flapping, only for Holga and Kromlech to lunge forward, smashing their axes into the gargoyles and smashing them against the floor. Both began to rise again, only for a second blow to each to shatter their cracked bodies. Jasper frowned, brushing their remains aside with his foot. The stone of the tower was undamaged. He narrowed his eyes. That wasn't natural. Something was protecting the tower from damage.
"Come on," he said. "We've got quite a ways to go."
The others all nodded, and they made their way into the tower together, Holga and Kromlech in the lead. As they made their way through the tower's maze of passages and enormous chambers, more and more gargoyles ambushed them, but they weren't alone. Repeatedly, they were joined by automatons. Hulking machines formed in the image of humanoids with weapons for arms and gears running all through their gold bodies.
As Jasper fought the third he personally had to deal with in the thirteenth enormous chamber they'd been in, this one with a large, rectangular pool of water taking up the majority of the room, he swore as his Ironwood Sword sparked against its metal plating uselessly, barely scratching it and doing nothing to stop it from functioning.
"These things are annoying!" Jasper shouted over the cacophony of the automaton's parts moving and grinding from the little damage he'd managed to do by sending half a dozen Flame Arrows into a few of the exposed sections of its bodies, warping a few of the gears, though not enough for any decent effect.
The automaton lunged forward a step, its right arm, which had a greatsword blade for a hand, slashing a vicious arc down through the air, narrowly missing Jasper. As it turned to swing its warhammer left arm at him, he lunged, slashing it across a pair of exposed gears, only for his sword to deflect off of it before he ducked under the automaton, allowing the mallet to swipe over him. Finally, he snarled in annoyance, extending his left hand and chanting. A split second later, half a dozen bolts of lightning formed above the Automaton, crashing down on it and shearing through its metal body, sparks and smoke spewing from it as it finally crashed to the ground. Jasper sighed, lowering his arm. The last two he had fought he'd managed to dislodge a gear and it had been enough to jam their mechanisms and break them, but it had taken a lot of force, repeated attempts, and luck to catch a gear right. However, he actually preferred that to having to resort to using magic. He abhorred using his magic, with the exception of Flame Arrow, and he made a special exception to use Sunbeam when fighting undead.
"So you really can use more Druid Magic than Flame Arrow and the occasional Sunbeam," Edgin noted, walking over from where he'd been distracting a group of gargoyles for Holga to destroy.
Further back in the room, Simon and Adrianna were both just finishing off a pair of automatons while the others all dealt with more spread out gargoyles, though they were all finishing up now.
"Don't," Jasper said flatly. "Leave it alone, Edgin. There are reasons why I don't use more magic."
"But you're a Druid who fights like a Ranger, or a-" Edgin began, only for Mia to punch him in the gut.
"Drop it!" Mia snapped, then walked over to hug Jasper. "You okay?"
"I'll manage," Jasper nodded.
"Why are these automatons so hard to break?" Aranea asked, walking over. "I've seen both of your swords, and Edgin's too, cut through steel armor like it was nothing."
"They're protected by the tower," Jasper said, glaring up at the ceiling. "This place is an abomination for several reasons, but it makes the weapons forged here excessively dangerous. We have to destroy it."
The others all nodded, and they all continued deeper into the tower's maze of corridors. They met a handful of automatons and dozens of gargoyles, but this time, Jasper greeted the automatons with repeated uses of Call Lightning, as he had the last, everyone noticing that each time he used the spell, the blasts grew successively more powerful, and Jasper's face successively more strained. Finally, as they found the stairs up to the next floor, they stopped for a moment to catch their breath after a particularly large group of gargoyles.
"You need to stop," Mia said, holding his hand in hers. "Let us handle the automatons. You help with the gargoyles. Your blade can still cut them."
Jasper grit his teeth, but nodded, struggling to ignore the roaring in his ears and the pulsating in his neck. Mia leaned forward, kissing him, and slowly, the strain eased from his face. The others remained silent, allowing Mia to help Jasper, and as he finally relaxed, he pulled back, reaching up to wipe the moisture from his eyes. Finally, he stood, nodding. The others all stood as well, but before they ascended the stairs, he gave Aranea a reassuring kiss, able to see how worried she was. He looked to Adrianna, and she stepped forward, kissing him as well. Doric blushed instantly, apparently being the only one to have not realized that Adrianna was a part of Jasper's slowly growing harem, for lack of a better way to describe their relationships. As Adrianna pulled away, Jasper walked past her, leading them up the stairs.
They reached a small room with a single door, but on the opposite side of the door, Jasper breathed a sigh of relief. There was an automaton in the large room ahead of them, but it was joined not by gargoyles, but a half-dozen minotaurs. Jasper all but launched himself at the flesh-and-blood monsters, happily tearing into them in a spinning, leaping, twirling frenzy of stabs and slashes, Aranea and Mia joining him instantly as Adrianna and Simon sent a pair of lightning bolts into the automaton, blasting it apart just as Xenk decapitated the one and only minotaur Jasper and his other two intimate companions hadn't all but shredded.
They continued through the floor quickly, finding that there were few automatons and no gargoyles. And while there were many, many minotaurs, Jasper seemed to have regained all of his stamina at seeing an enemy that he could fight without having to put all his strength behind his blade and slaughtered any and every minotaur he engaged easily, not even having to trick them into ramming the wall, most of the time. And with he, Mia, Aranea, and Xenk leading the charge against the minotaurs, the others were allowed some semblance of rest, managing to regain a fair bit of energy by the time they reached the next set of stairs.
However, at the top of it, they were greeted by a swarm of gargoyles. They dealt with them quickly, but no sooner had they finished did a new type of automaton charge into the room. Whereas all previously had been gold, these were black steel and considerably more durable. However, there were only two, and Simon and Adrianna instantly blasted both, destroying them. Jasper narrowed his eyes, and they all continued on together, Holga and Kromlech once again taking the lead. As they traveled through the winding maze of corridors and chambers on this level, more and more gargoyles ambushed them, and were frequently reinforced by the larger, back steel automatons and a handful of minotaurs. However, together, with Simon and Adrianna focusing on the automatons and the others dealing with the less durable enemies, they slowly progressed.
Any wounds they suffered, Xenk healed for them, and at several points, Doric proved that an Owlbear was more dangerous than a minotaur. Shadow proved himself truly indispensable by destroying an entire swarm of gargoyles alone, then driving himself into an automaton before ripping it apart from the inside. And then on the next floor up, they found another new automaton. A massive, black automaton sculpted as a humanoid in a full suit of armor armed with a massive, black trident. And it took several blasts from Simon and Adrianna to destroy them, because they stood twenty feet tall and were much more solid than the previous versions. And there were so very many of them. As they wound their way through the tower, they met more than a dozen of the metal goliaths, along with several dozen golden automatons and a dozen of the black steel ones and nearly a hundred gargoyles. Finally, they reached the next set of stairs up and all leaned against the wall, wiping sweat from their brows. Adrianna and Simon's staves were both out of power again, and they had no idea how many more floors they had to traverse.
"This tower is insane," Edgin growled.
"It's at least as big as a quarter of Baldur's Gate," Aranea said. "We're about to go to...what, the fourth floor?"
"I think so," Mia nodded, glancing at Jasper.
"I'm good," Jasper said. "I promise."
The others nodded, and they took a couple more minutes before continuing up the stairs. As the crested the stairs, Jasper swore harshly, recoiling as a few dozen giant spiders swarmed toward them. As the others all rushed forward to meet the spiders, except Vahn and Simon who fought from a distance, Jasper shook his head, forcing his instinctive fear under control and following the others into the swarm of spiders. It took them only a few minutes to slaughter them all, and Jasper sighed, gripping his right wrist to steady his trembling sword hand.
"It's getting worse," Aranea observed. "Is it me?"
Jasper shook his head. "I'm terrified of the thought of fighting you again, but you yourself don't scare me. The fight just left a wound that hasn't scarred over yet."
Aranea nodded, and Jadper kissed her reassuringly.
"You have nothing to feel sorry about," Jasper said. "I'm sorry for offending you."
Aranea shook her head, smiling. "It's okay."
They all headed further into the tower, finding that this floor was interspersed by pools of lava and molten metal, patrolled by Fire Elementals and spiders, and had pieces of unassembled automatons lying abandoned around the chambers. They fought their way through the chambers and corridors rapidly, Simon and Adrianna using ice spells to deal with any of the Fire Elementals they met, and tore the spiders and gargoyls apart rapidly. However, finally, they stopped, staring at the automaton before them. It was enormous. It was easily twenty five feet tall, its four massive, blocky limbs were easily five feet thick, spikes decorated its upper arms and shoulders, and it carried an enormous, curved sword in its right hand. As they stepped into the chamber, it emitted an echoing, shrieking noise and began to stomp forward, its steps shaking the ground.
Everyone swore and scattered. Shadow shot forward, lashing out with a set of massive claws, only for them to shriek against its thick plating, failing to break through, and a moment later, it stomped on Shadow, doing no damage, but forcing it to have to move out from under its foot. Jasper fired a trio of Flame Arrows as Vahn fired several explosive ones, but none of them did more than scortch its plating, which was more than Adrianna and Simon's Lightning Bolts did, both of them dispersing harmlessly against the automaton. Doric exploded into the automaton's back as an owlbear, only to yelp in pain and bounce off. Mia loosed quicksilver arrow after quicksilver arrow, only for them to stick into its plating barely an inch deep, then fall apart a moment later.
Jasper grit his teeth as he dove aside from the automaton's sword, which bounced off the ground with a thundering crash, but did no damage. Jasper's own blade sparked along the automaton's side harmlessly before he shifted into a Tabaxi, leaping out of the way of its foot just before Kromlech and Holga's axes sparked off of its plating. Xenk's own sword carved a centimeter-deep scratch in its shell, and he retreated as well, narrowing his eyes.
"Damn it!" Jasper growled as he watched Edgin and Mia's strikes fail as well.
As the automaton turned toward Adrianna, Mia, and Aranea as Adrianna was preparing a larger spell, his arm rose. Adrianna swore, abandoning her spell to flee from the automaton, but a moment later, Jasper roared in effort even as he chanted the strongest offensive spell he knew. Instantly, dark clouds filled the ceiling of the chamber a hundred feet above them and several bolts of lightning flashed from above, crashing down on the automaton and scattering, but leaving the impact points steaming as a frigid rain began to fall. However, within seconds, the heavy rain began to be tinted green just as everyone managed to escape the spell's range, watching as the acidic rain hissed and smokes as the automaton's plating began to warp and deform as it dissolved. A moment later, six much, much larger lightning bolts flashed down from the clouds, shrieking as they sheered through the automaton's weakened plating and gouged at its mechanized innards. Smoke began to rise from inside as metal shrieked against metal, but then the rain, no longer acidic but more frigid than ever, befgan to be joined by massive chunks of hail and sleet, the fist-sized chubks of ice slamming into the automaton with a deafening roar of impacts, any that slipped through the openings the lightning bolts had made smashing gears and pipes and hoses inside. As the hail and sleet began to slow to a stop, ice began to form over the automaton's body, creaks and groans filling the air. Finally, just as the storm began to thin, Simon and Adrianna both raised their staves high in the air. In response, a total of eight enormous fireballs, each ten feet wide, formed in the air above the automaton and fell. The resulting explosion from the pair of max-power Meteor Swarm casts filled the room, hurling everyone backward into the wall and blasted the automaton apart at last.
Jasper groaned, curling into the fetal position and clutching at his sides as the ground around him began to grow blurry. The others, except for Mia, all stared at him in confusion, but just as Mia pushed herself to her feet and took a step toward him, he groaned again, louder this time, just as dark mana erupted around him lije a raging fire, reaching nearly two feet of the ground. However, as it burned, lights flashed through it, far too fast to distinguish, though the others could swear they caught flashes of some kind of images in the dark flames. Jasper scrambled to his feet, the flames reaching knee-high, but as he moved to try to flee, the circle of flames shooting out from below him and forming a circle nearly six feet across moved with him.
Before he could break into a run, Mia stepped into the flames, which parted harmlessly around her, and wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly. Tears of sympathy rolled down her cheeks as Jasper's face shone with tears, his expression twisted in terror. He writhed within her grip, scrambling to escape, but she held him all the tighter, refusing to let him go as she spoke, whispering into his ear, reassuring him that he was safe and struggling to calm him. After a moment, Adrianna and Aranea both joined her, also holding Jasper, though shey remained silent, allowing Mia to speak alone, and only they hearing the reassurances she whispered. The surprise that played across their faces was quickly hidden, and though their faces paled, they closed their eyes and held Jasper's trembling body tighter. Slowly, the raging Mana around them began to quiet itself, slowly shrinking down and receding. Then, finally, it had vanished and Jasper's knees sagged, his three lovers gently lowering him to the ground, kneeling around him and continuing to hold him.
"He's a Chosen of the Oak Father," Mia said at last. "His connection to nature is more powerful than any other Druid we've ever met, making his magic more powerful, too. But it's also as wild and dangerous as nature is, too. At times it cooperates, and at times it destroys everything. It's tied to his emotions, too, but the first time it happened, he was a child. It turned an entire town into a ruin and a sea of corpses. It terrifies him."
"And since he must be calm to control it, he instead suppresses it," Xenk reasoned.
Mia nodded sadly. "Losing control is his greatest fear. The first time, he lost his family, his friends, his home. He spent years living alone while he learned to supress it, until an ancient Druid taught him to control his magic enough to supress it. And then taught him to use cantrips and a habdful of spells safely. But he never allows himself to risk it being unleashed in full." She looked to Aranea. "It's why the fight against you terrified him so badly and allowed it to scar him. He almost llst control against you, and that fear compounded with the fear you inspired, and now spiders have been equated with him losing control."
Aranea's eyes widened, but she nodded, holding Jasper tighter. Finally, his trembling eased, and he pushed himself up, taking several steadying breaths before nodding. He wrapped an arm around Adrianna and Aranea and kissed Mia on the top of her shoulder, and after another few seconds, they all released him. He took a steadying breath, looking around, only to stop, frowning at a weapon rack he'd landed next to. He walked over to it, and lifted a pair of longswords out of it. both had brown handles and gold guards curving down toward the wielder's hand with a spike in the middle of them, then a long, pitch black blade. Jasper could sense the same magic as in the tower in the two blades.
"What are those?" Edgin asked, frowning.
"Swords forged in the tower, using the tower's own power," Xenk said. "These could be incredible weapons. If they are protected by the tower's power, they would be nigh unbreakable, and the tower's creations, these automatons, and the tower's own master would be unable to defend against them."
"I can't wield them," Jasper said. "Mia, Xenk, you'll have to take them."
"I cannot wield it," Xenk said. "It's power is impure."
"I'll take it," Vahn said, accepting the second blade. "I'm down to three arrows, anyway."
The others all nodded, and they walked over toone of the remaining pieces of the massive automaton, Mia and Vahn experimentally striking it with their blades. With a pair of piercing, deafening shrieks, the blades rent the metal cleanly, everyone nodding approvingly.
"Alright," Edgin nodded. "Let's go find this tower's master."
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