# May 19, 2025 | Dispel This [[250512 - Lightning round|↶ Last Session]] | [[Icewind Dale Booze Cruise|Campaign Home ↝]] > [!Summary]+ meta > **Role Call**: [[Broski]] • [[Brosef]] • [[Zeno]] • [[Strath]] • [[Gray]] > **Where We Are**: [[Ytheryn]] > **Tagline**: First, shield thy heart with a wand from the Nether Oak… ## This Session We fought through waves of magic-resistant Magen inside the Tower of Abjuration and began unraveling the mystery of its sentient anvil. Zeno's wand of web was sacrificed to the hammer, which seemed to hunger for magical destruction. We learned that each tower may contain a piece of a larger incantation—and possibly power some kind of greater mechanism. After enough items were fed, the tower’s defenses escalated, summoning a tomb tapper, which we barely managed to bring down. ^session-summary ### Session Log #### The Anvil Hungers We resume combat mid-fight with the spectral Magen guarding the anvil. - [[Strath]] hits homeboy with his maul and channels a healing *Arcane Jolt* into [[Zeno]]. One down. [[Brutus]] comes back to *Deflect Attack.* - [[Zeno]] goes down swinging, but gets stabilized by [[Galath]] in a surprisingly heartfelt moment of undergarment-based triage. - [[Gray]] pulls [[Zeno]] back from the brink with a _Mass Healing Word_, and combat continues with our usual blend of chaos and "strategy." - [[Brosef]] serves up some _Vicious Mockery_, and we keep pressing the attack—some hits land, some don’t, and we observe that the Magen are especially resistant to magic. #### Braining for Science We continued testing the limits of the hammer and anvil in the room’s center. - [[Strath]] takes the hammer and crushes [[Zeno]]’s wand of web against the anvil at the hammer’s psychic urging—triggering a visible magical siphoning effect. - The Magen react violently. We fend them off as we keep experimenting. - [[Strath]] grapples one onto the anvil and tried to “brain” him into magical oblivion. - [[Broski]] inexplicably snatches the hammer away and tried to play whack-a-Magen himself. #### What's in a Wand? As we puzzle over whether destroying magical items powered something—or appeased something—a line of runes overhead catches ught our attention: _“First, shield thy heart with a wand from the Nether Oak.”_ - [[Strath]] hypothesizing that each tower likely holds a phrase from a larger incantation. - You know, cuz that gnothic kept babbling about the right words - [[Strath]]’s background as a material scientist comes in handy as he identifies that the wand we destroyed was _not_ made of Nether Oak. - We speculated whether the hammer/anvil mechanism is linked to each school of magic, and whether feeding it enough artifacts would activate or empower the tower. - [[Strath]] tries feeding it a magical pebble—it calls the offering “disappointing.” #### The Tapper Arrives Just as the anvil began to hum with arcane tension, a Tomb Tapper kool-aid mans into the room - The massive, eyeless creature immediately attacks the anvil, triggering psychic feedback through the hammer. - No surprises that the squad assess a threat and starts attacking - [[Zeno]] delivered a devastating _Psychic Lance_ that hits hard and also incapacitates the big tapper - [[Broski]] manages to frighten the monster with a _Menacing Strike_, and [[Galath]] wrecked shop with a rage-fueled crit. - In the end we overwhelm it with coordinated strikes until it finally turns to stone and collapses. #### Closing Echoes With the fight over, we observed the magical energy stabilize. - The hammer craves more. “More,” it whispered. - We debate whether continuing to feed it magic was wise—or even ethical. - [[Zeno]] voices concerns: were we empowering something? Or just destroying for destruction’s sake?