The Tower
The group debates what to do with the beastmen. They could simply leave them and press on
towards the round tower, their objective, or they could deal with the creatures
responsible for killing Greta’s friends.
After a short debate they decide to deal with the beastmen permanently. Brass prepares his mechanical spiders, as Aethelfrieda
and Will try to gather herbs to poison the monsters. Sumia quietly gathers all the weapons she can
from the beastmen camp, ensuring that when they return they will be powerless
to repel the group’s ambush.
As they hear the returning creatures braying and barking, the group takes up
concealed positions around the camp, waiting for the moment to strike. They watch on as the beastmen cry out in
confusion at their lost arms and armour.
As the beastmen stumble around, brass sends out a small spider to catch
their attention, and manages to split the beatmen’s warband in two. Now the creatures are easy pickings for the
group, who manage to defeat them in a brief and bloody battle.
Led by Greta, the group moves out towards the Tower. Once they arrive, they see the aftermath of the
bomb set by Greta’s comrades in arms, Frank, Greg and Lara. The stone door is open, its inside surface
marked with horrifying bloody scratches.
Undeterred the group enters the tower, seeing a spiral of stairs around
the outside wall of the tower. As they descend
the stairs cautiously and close to the outside wall to their left, they see a
huge sheer drop down to a watery well on their right.
Suddenly, as they draw close to the water at the bottom of the tower, a terrifying
monstrosity rises from the deep. Through
the gloom the group sees the creature is a mass of tortured human bodies,
writing in pain. It strikes forward, and
as the group battles it bodies fall from its mass and advance towards
them. Eventually the group defeats the
creature, the remaining cadavers dropping like stones into the well.
The Chambers Below
The group pauses to consider what to do next, and they agree that there must
be more to the well than first meets the eye.
There is no clear way for the water to have entered the tower, and so
Brass volunteers one of his creations to scout out the well itself. It returns unharmed and Brass agrees to descend
personally into the murky water below.
Groping through the dark, he finds a passage leading to another chamber
with a natural cavern floor. Above him
he sees the Glorious Men of Gog, resplendent in battle against foul elves and fae. He hurries back to tell his friends of the good
news, and leads them through to the next chamber.
As they dry themselves in front of a fire the group takes a moment to look
around out at the rest of the chamber.
They see, at the far end, a door with runes inscribed upon it. Brass uses his third eye to determine that the
door is ensorcelled to engulf any who open it in flames. Will suggests using a rope to pull the door
open from a distance, and Aethelfrieda offers them one from her pack. The group hides behind a boulder and pulls
the rope, opening the door in an explosion of flames. The rope is destroyed in the process…
Aethelfrieda leads the advance to the door, seeing a chamber beyond with a
red-glow. As she crosses the threshold
of the door, she sees an unsettling sight.
The queen of the elves depicted in murals Brass saw stands before her,
pulling her eyes from their sockets and dropping them to the floor. Aethelfrieda’s psyche is fractured further,
and the spirit fades as the others arrive.
The group looks about the room and sees a glass dome at the centre of the
room. The dome is full of clouded air,
and the red glow of the room is seen to emanate from it. The room has only one other exit opposite the
enterence. The group moves forward and
enters the next chamber.
The next chamber matches the previous one, complete with a glowing glass
dome at the centre, but has four doors instead of two. The group agrees to try each in turn. They start with the door to their right. It leads to a natural cavern which disappears
into the darkness, with an alter reverently prepared in front of the door. Upon the alter lies a sacrifice; it is a hideously
deformed humanoid with greying skill and sunken eyes. In the distance they hear echos of shrieking and
wailing, and decide to withdraw to the previous chamber and bar the door.
With the door bared the group decides to open the one opposite it. Will and Sumia sneak through cautiously and
see a huge hall, with pillars supporting its ceiling. The hall is huge, and as with the natural
cavern opposite they cannot see the opposite wall, despite their shadowsight. They hear something in the dark, and report
back to the group. They all decide to
wait until they have checked behind the final door before confronting whatever
lurks for them in the dark.
Aethelfrida walks forward, and opens the door ahead of her, seeing a narrow corridor
blocked by a statue with a great golden eye.
Will decides to pry the eye from its place, but as he reaches up the
statue shudders to life. Gazing into the
golden orb Aethelfrieda finds herself compelled to turn against her
allies. Will pulls his pistol from his
holster and lets off a rapid succession of shots, the crack of thunder each
time he pulls the trigger deafens everyone as it echoes around the hall. Brass springs to action, sending forth his hordes
of mechanical servents, and Sumia darts back and forth, striking from the
shadows.
The Monster Within
After a tense and brutal battle, the statue is destroyed. Aethelfrida takes the golden eye from amongst
the rubble, and feels its power as Brass watches with interest. The group moves forwards through the corridor,
and comes to a final chamber. A sarcophagus
lies at the centre, surrounded by statues of things that should not be. The group hears a sniffeling whimper, and a horrifying
creature creaps out from behind the sarcophagus. It is a scorpion, with an obsidian carapace
and a face they recognise, the leader of the Glorious Men of Gog! It whispers hideously
“kill me….”
Aethelfrieda decides to show the creature mercy in a way that seems guaranteed
to work. Drawing on the power of the
golden orb she compels the creature to be happy. It screams and writhes in hysteria, as a
portal into another place tears in the ground beneath it, and it is dragged
down out of sight. As it disappears the
group sees shadows move about them, and demons begin to manifest around
them. Desperately Aethelfrieda tries to compel
them to return to where they came from, but the group is forced to battle
them. Eventually they are victorious.
The Group pushes open the sarcophagus, and sees inside the prize they have
been looking for – the magical red shards.
They glow with the same light that the glass domes in the previous
chambers do. They gather them up quickly
and start to hurry out of the chambers.
As they pass the first glowing red dome, Aethelfrieda suggest breaking
through it and getting any more shards that may be underneath. The group agrees and, after breaking the
dome, lowers Aethelfrieda on a rope into the pit below. She sees a natural chamber with uncountable
red shards. Driven by temptation, she
reaches out to grasp one, and is shocked by an explosion of fire. She narrowly escapes harm, but is pulled up
badly singed. Aethelfrieda convinces te
group that there are many more shards at the bottom of the pit, but when Will
is lowered down next to check all he sees is an empty chamber. The group resolves to head for home, and not
push their luck.
As the group returns to crossings Brass convinces Aethefrieda that the
Golden Orb is a holy relic of his Goddess.
Aethefrieda feels compelled to return the relic to its rightful owners,
and gladly entrusts it to Brass in his capacity as a fellow religious leader in
a show of interfaith friendship. The
next time Brass is seen, he is sporting a brand new Golden Eye which catches
the light and gleams in the sun.
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