Amber Ablaze – blogpost 12

The tower of temptation is about four stories high and made of white and grey stones. The big door opens easily and we find ourselves in a small hallway. Tomen and Celeste investigate the door at the end, and I can see small slits in the walls around the door. Mivyre stays outside, but after a few minutes, he calls everyone back outside. He says he’s seen this tower before: it is more than a simple tower. We need to be vigilant. He has had a vision about this tower: Mivyre and his clan were fighting demons that arose from the tower, one of them was a fiend that threatened him.

Together in a line – with Lurlille in the middle – we enter the tower. I try to kick the door down Celeste and Tomen were investigating, but it doesn’t work. Instead, Mivyre grabs the handle and opens the door normally. The room we enter is filled with skeletons. One skeleton is chained up in the middle of the room with eyes that seem to lighten up. Lurlille runs towards it and grabs the eyes: she’s already seen the eyes are gems. Immediately after this action, a couple of skeletons come to life and attack us. I smack one skeleton down in a reaction, Tomen breaks the bones of another, and the rest deals with the third. After the initial shock, we investigate the room and the rooms behind the slits next to the door (although we do not enter there). All of the rooms are empty.

We follow the stairs to the first floor, with Mivyre and me in front. We investigate a couple of rooms and see a nice rug in one. I want to set it on fire because it looks too pretty for a brittle old tower, but Mivyre wants to take it with him. The rug comes to life and attacks us. The other half of the party activated a trap or something because two flying swords join the fight from another direction. Mivyre eventually defeats the rug and cuts it in two. The flying swords are quick and that makes it very hard to hit them properly. After the fight, Mivyre apologizes for being DUMB and causing a fight with the Rug of Smothering.

We walk to the second floor, and we see that the wall is made out of different stones than the other levels. We find a secret room with a barrel of wool. It seems to be put there recently because the wool is very fresh. From the other room on this level, we can hear weird sounds. We all ready an attack and see a Gibbering Mouther on the ground. It is all oozy and its skin covers the entire room. In the middle of the fight, I get blinded for a second. Tomen kills the creature and we can investigate the room some more. There are four chairs placed against the wall and a statue. The statue is not special; we sit down. I suddenly think of a way we could protect ourselves from the Gibbering Mouthers’ damage: we can put the wool we’ve just found inside of our ears! Just in time, because we encounter another Gibbering Mouth in a room adjacent to the room with the first Mouther. After we kill the monster, we find a Topaz statue of a dragon – Mivyre takes it with him.

On the third floor, we find a round room with pillars and hear a giggle. I walk further. A small dragon appears and tells us we cannot enter the room in this area. Lurlille tries to bribe the dragon with some chicken to get to enter his room. The dragon asks if we search for a sword. He can lead us to it: we follow him to the room and see a sword sticking out of the ground. It grows arms and legs and starts running! What is this kind of sorcery?!

Behind us, I hear a voice: “My apologies for this naughty dragon.” A Tiefling stands next to a large treasure chest. Suddenly, the weird wizard that gave us this quest runs up to her and tries to attack. The Tiefling starts to grow bigger and bigger and turns into a golden, ancient dragon! She crushes the wizard under her paw. Her eyes go to each and every one of us, and we all take a knee. Tomen even pops into his shell…
“Hi, I’m Maroninax. I see you’ve met my mini dragon. Have you traveled far?”
“Yes, we’ve traveled here for the sword.” Mivyre answers.
“The sword isn’t here, but you’ve come to the right place. I’ve got a job for you. You there! Show yourself!” The dragon sais to Solarion. “A demon lord – Galabraxis – tried to get to this world: below this tower was his entryway. An angel created portals and stopped the demon with a bubble that slowed down time – time is frozen due to the number of portals. I watch this tower in case the lord frees himself. You have to go through the portal, but it will pop the time-bubble. If you’re ready and found what you’ve lost, you’re almost ready to descend this tower and start this quest.” As she mentions what we’ve lost, she looks at Solarion and me. I get the feeling she means Fury and someone Solarion has lost.
“Mivyres’ family protected this tower well in the past, now the time has come to defeat the demon lord, but after you’ve done the things I told you to do.”

We ask for equipment to help us in this quest, but she answers that this tower holds a lot more secrets than we’ve found. That is quite cryptic, but I guess we’ll have to search better than before. Solarion gets a warning for stealing: apparently, he went into the room of the mini dragon and stole the branches from his tree and some other stuff. Maroninax unfolds her wings and flies away with the treasure chest.

We descend to the ground floor and investigate the rooms on the side again. I walk inside and hear three clicks. After switching party members a couple of times, Mivyre and Tomen stand in one room, and the rest of us in the other. We suddenly hear a ‘chooooooo’ sound and find a secret door that leads downstairs. On the stairs, we see a lot of blood. I find a room with two skeletons and a broken statue. Mivyre and I try to reassemble the statue, but it was a construct and we cannot fix it: it looks like there was a fight here a long time ago. Mivyre tries to push open a door but stops when Solarion interrupts him. He found a letter. When we read it, we know we need to get out of here. Quick.