Having entered a Mist shrouded tower and defeated a creature of bone, our heroes ponder what to do next
This was planned as a one off Halloween adventure, it did not finish, partly because of other things needed sorted, partly through bits of life, but there will be some commentary on it throughout.
Our cast
- Farshad – Merchant of the Rule of Ishtir, musician and Agent of the Rule of Haraxa
- Utana – Noble of the Rule of Haraxa, Agent and Acting-Databdara (Magistrate) of the nation
- José Juan – Foreigner from the far west, warrior, healer and Agent of the Rule
- Smersh – Larcenous Priest from long time ago, and a nation long gone, Databdara (Magistrate) and agent of the Rule
- Fetnah – Shaman from a long time ago, and a forgotten and lost land, and agent of the Rule
- Smersh – Larcenous Priest from long time ago, and a nation long gone, Databdara (Magistrate) and agent of the Rule
Absent
- Jalabu – Noble of Dilmun, Merchant-Adventurer and agent of the Rule.
- Arpaesis – From the far western land of Ta-Khemet, student of Arcane Lore, and agent of the Rule, currently studying books of Lore
- Dhran the White – of humble origin in Ishtir, warrior, agent of the Rule, currently studying in the capital and trying to unionise
The ground floor of the Tower
The interior of the tower is lit by a diffuse, dim light that illuminates everything without having any apparent source. The group search the boxes, jars ans containers that form a ring around the central plinth. The majority of the contents are cheap jewellery, the sort of thing one might give a child or as worn by the very poorest.
There are papryii with an ancient script, recognisable to Utana as a scholars script, shapes recognisable to Smersh, but he never learned to read any script until recently.
Fetnah took some, and José Juan a mortar and pestle.
Moving upstairs, they found two rooms and ahead a low wall with a tree beyond. The first room seemed to be quarters, unkept and dusty. (I didn’t check my notes, the players missed out on so much quality flavour that I forgot).
There were things in the quarters that the group didn’t understand, like a wax tablet, but Smersh found, in a chest, under a stack of loincloths, more cheap jewellery. Fetnah searched the bed, and, in the bedclothes, found an ivory eye. Picking it up, it turned to face her, and she got a strange vision.
“You see as if from a single eye, to the right. In front of you are your two hands, one, the right, is made of ivory, engraved with script, though it flexes and moves almost like the left. You look up, there is a door through which a pale woman walks, the door closes. Then there is a vision of a gate, tall, the surface black, there is an inscription around the gate, you look at it, then the vision becomes a searing pain of light” There was a blink, and momentary blindness in Fetnah’s right eye.
Smersh’s tried to get the vision, but the thing was inert.
In the second room, They found the walls of the room painted with the glory of a great figure who strides across the world, a giant compared to those around them, building a city of an ancient design, there are scenes of giving justice, going to war, doing great deeds but then the figure is cast down.
Fetnah decided to reach out to the spirits of the place, only to find her mind blasted, and she drooped to the ground as if hurled. She staggered up, weary and disconcerted. Ilnbakia, her spirit ally, was uncommunicative and whimpering.
The short wall near the tree seemed to be a bookshel, containing a disarray of bronze tablets, in this ancient script that, of the group, only Arpaesis could have read. Beyond that was a garden of wan and pale plants surrounding a circle of bare earth in the middle of which was a gnarled and twisted tree
.Farshad looked at the tablets, before dropping them as he resisted a compulsion. Smersh decided to try and give in to the external will. Even though he could not read the tablets, Smersh found himself sorting and storing the tablets, heedless of anything else.
Eventually the rest of the group intervened, covering his eyes with one of the loincloths from the quarters, and pulling him back, breaking the compulsion, but without any insight into what caused it.
The plants proved insubstantial, and hands passed through the. Fetnah and Smersh passed through the circle of bare earth as the group headed to the stairs, and found the branches of the tree reach out and grab them, acidic sap burning at their flesh. The others went to rescue, only to find themselves challenged by root constructs that rose from the ground. There was a struggle, Utana skewering the tree, Farshad and José Juan slashing away, and two of the constructs fell, before they were able to free the two. Retreating out of the ring, the tree stilled and the two remaining constructs went back into the earth.
Panting, and going to the side to rest before continuing, and there we left it.