I love it when a plan comes together

Knowing they had some time, the heroes opted to develop a plan. Ford was able to tell them that both their equipment and the Hand of Vecna were housed in the tower Alexander had been experimented on in.

This was a pretty neat opportunity for me. I had spec'd a rough encounter at the bridge, but not much else. I wanted to let the players lead the story for a while. It was very interesting to watch them toss ideas back and forth. They still had their powers, but none of their equipment, save for Rudy's claws and Kuppies ring. They considered an arcane gate off the island, but that still left them with the potential for a tough encounter without weapons or armor. Not wanting to take that chance, they opted to use Kuppies' Mass Fly spell.

With the spell, they were able to fly off the back of the island, unseen, and make it to the top of the tower where their stuff was. As they were describing their plan, I was drawing the map in maptools. It was rudimentary, but worked. The encounter was meant to offer token resistance, and it did. As the battle raged on, three Illithid Thralls came up the stairs and after 2 of them went down, the last one retreated down the steps.