Amber Ablaze – blogpost 11

I’ve had a horrible night. I wake up and try to shake the horrible dream off my mind. I walk downstairs and see the party already eating breakfast. I tell them about my dream.

 Laying in your bed, you just can’t get to sleep. Your brother is such a dick sometimes! You see yourself laying in your tent. No campfire. No poetry. You see yourself screaming in your pillow. It’s memories, clear as day. You’ve been here before. Now you see it from the outside, from above. You hear your brother. You don’t remember hearing him before… You hear him singing words under his breath.
 Lock the door, blow out the light;
 The hungry oni haunts the night.
 You stand, and the chill of the ground rushed up through your bare feet. You see yourself stride towards the outside of the tent. What was your plan? Do you even remember? You stop just outside and stare into the abyss of sky and stars.
 Hide and tremble, little one;
 The oni wants to have some fun.
 You feel tense, as if something is wrong. You see yourself produce a flame to see better. You hear the soft sounds of a train in the background… padum padum…. Padum padum… padum padum… But there was no train. The soft glow of your flame lets you see a little further.
 Hear it scratching on the door;
 See its shadow cross the floor.
 You stop near your brothers' tent as you see a gaseous form enter it. You hear a short rumbling and a short scream from your brother. Padum padum… padum padum… padum padum… You want to run towards your brother, but you find yourself locked on the ground. IDIOT! You scream to yourself. You see the gas come out of your brothers then and slowly forming into a giant ogre. Blue skin, big horns on his head, long red hair, and his eyes… Red as blood. My brother walks outside of his tent and is grabbed by the creature. He isn’t even fighting back. FIGHT BACK! DO SOMETHING!! You see yourself standing there, a few feet from the monster that took your brother. Useless, just as last time. All you can do is watch from above… And then, in a flash, the red-haired creature looks up, straight at you! He smiles a tusky grin and suddenly rushes up toward you. 

Mivyre and I share a meaningful look: he understands. I feel something more is going on.

We have an appointment with the weird wizard near the inn to find the Tower of Temptation. The wizard leads us to a dimly lit forest. He tells us that no one ever comes out of this forest, but he knows we can: we will wait for us. We come to a clearing with a bonfire. I walk up to the fire and try to figure out if it is everlasting fire. I compare my produce flame to it, but Celeste puts the fire out! Luckily, it rekindles within a minute. There are three paths: one up, one down, and one straight. We take the one up.

We come to another clearing, it rains here, but it is silent. The rain flows down one path, so we follow that one. In the next clearing, we again see three roads (one up, down, straight) and a Lathander-statue. He is the god of new life and the morning sun. The morning sun comes up in the east – so we take the eastern path, level to the clearing. In a new clearing, we see a clock tower with two arched roads to the north. The clocktower is small in size and has a Po-pau-sized door on the bottom. We take the right path.

After walking for a while we see the bonfire we encountered at the start of our journey. We’re back at the beginning. Shit. Out of the fire, a Smoke and Fire Mephit immediately attack us. I get some damage from the Mephits but don’t feel as much as the others do from their fiery blaze. Tomen gets blinded but still manages to defeat the Magma Mephit. After the fight, we take the same path as before and enter the rainy clearing. Now, a Steam and Ice Mephit attack us. My fire does a lot of damage to the Steam Mephit, and Lurlille defeats it with her slingshot. When we see the statue, we also see a Mud and Dust Mephit. In a reaction to smack the Mud Mephit, I miss and he flies up. Tomen tries to stand near the statue to reach. Finally, we reach the clock tower again: out of the tiny door, two clockwork weaving spiders appear. We all had an action ready, but we don’t succeed to defeat them quickly: they are really fast and avoid our attacks. They cause Lurlille, Tomen, and Mivyre to faint from the pain. Celeste and I have had enough and she chops the head of one spider clean off. I am stressing and trying to help Mivyre, but I can’t get him to wake up! Celeste grabs some potions of healing from Lurlilles bag and wakes MIvyre up. He heals the rest of the party. Before we walk in the right direction, we take a short rest.

We walk out of the forest and see a tower, about three stories high. We all know it is the Tower of Temptation.