Turning to the tower, the adventurers examined it. Three stories high, and tapering slightly, it was made of aged iron, dirty, dented and holed but not rusted. The ground floor was unpierced except by the double doors facing them; the second floor had the rails supporting the transport system joined to it, and the top floor had great gaping windows.
The doors appeared not to have been opened for some time, as dust and rubble had piled up in front of them. Despite this, they were not locked, and a little effort succeeded in pushing them open.
Inside was a plain, empty room, with two lesser doors in the far wall. All the walls were made of the same strange iron as the tower itself, and the doors too were metal. To the right of the main entrance, an open-work spiral staircase ascended towards the next floor.
Sack carefully studied the dust on the floor; while thick, it lacked the stone pieces that had fallen from the roof outside over the centuries. He found some tracks; two sets of small booted feet, and one set of large ones, from different times, all so long ago that they had started to fill up.
The left-hand door opened into the orc equivalent of an office. Scraps of parchment, with designs and rough calculations, were scattered across the desk, but the slightest touch broke them to dust.
Examining the desk, Sack observed a secret compartment built into the underside on the left side. Carefully approaching it from the side, he triggered the trap, and smiled as a sadly worn spring dumped the crumbled remains of the mechanism at his feet. Inside lay two keys about 4" long, and a scroll, the script on which he didn't recognize. He handed this to Hildraft, who almost dropped it again as he felt the power radiating from it. Cautiously examining it, he read the Fae Mhor inscription. The scroll contained only one spell. One was enough. The spell was the dreadful Lord of Nightmares, a terrible and forbidden magic spoken of in whispers by maddened students of dæmonic lore. Opening a gateway with the caster's body, the spell would unleash a creature of unbelievable power to ravage and destroy for nearly half an hour, after which the caster would be returned to himself. Hildraft tucked the scroll away.
Passing through the door on the far side of the office took the party under the centre of the tower. As they listened at the door, they became aware of a faint, steady rumbling sound, originating above them somewhere.
Beyond was a larger room, at first glance littered with swords, spears, axes and parts of siege machines. The party's interest was soon dampened as the smith-trained among them recognized the objects as templates. This was the forge's pattern room, where the standard objects defining the shape and size of the products made in the forge were kept.
As they looked around, they became aware of a spectral figure drifting towards them. It was another ghost, and in life had clearly been a large, strong orc, probably the overseer of the forgeworks. It moved towards them menacingly, and Surya lifted the Sword of the Dead Legions to restrain it, focussing his will through the sword's power.
The ghost stopped, plainly pinned, but struggling to move forwards. Surya questioned it, asking what it wanted; in a dry, racked voice, it told them it needed to feed. He tried to persuade it to leave them alone, but it seemed to be bound to the location and too desperate for life energy to back down. Trying something new, Surya advanced on it and demanded it begone. Twisting and agonized, the ghost pleaded with him to desist, but he bore down, and with a flicker it winked out, banished from the world. Pleased with this new-found power, Surya hefted the Sword and chuckled.
Ascending again, they reached the floor from whence the rumbling came. The whole floor was one open area, with great axles leading out through holes in the walls to the transport system rails beyond. Each axle had a huge gear at the end, and a mechanism allowing that gear to engage or disengage with the central drive. That drive was a simple affair; a short pillar, about waist-high, topped with a revolving disc of iron. This disc was turning, slowly but steadily, which was causing the rumbling sounds, although none of the gears were currently engaged. Hildraft could clearly feel magic and evil radiating from the moving machine.
Deciding they wanted nothing to do with the thing, the party proceeded up the stairs again to the top floor. There they discovered the lair of the Beholders; a single room again, pierced by huge gaping windows on every side. The ceiling was very high and crowded with crude wooden rafters; giant iron bells could be seen in the dimness above, though the ropes had long ago rotted away.
Dotted around the floor were the Beholders' collection of trophies; victims they'd petrified and brought home to admire. These the party examined carefully [Click here for the list]. As they did so, it occurred to Hildraft that one of his God-granted powers might well be powerful enough to reverse the stoning enchantment.
With this in mind, he went back out to the scene of their recent victory, and experimented with Sigred. It was a struggle, but finally his power prevailed and the priest of Aderra was returned to normal, a bit shaken but otherwise unharmed - and very grateful. Confident now, Hildraft returned to the tower, and the group set about selecting the statues they were going to "thaw". They decided on the dwarf, the human and the two elves.
That done, they moved the ones they didn't want out of the spell's area of effect, and secured the ones they did with several lengths of chain obtained from the rusting transit rails outside. Sack stood ready to relieve the rescued of their weapons while they were disorientated, just in case they turned out to be less than friendly. As he did so, he noticed that the wand the robed elven woman was holding was not stone; somehow it must have resisted the magic that defeated its' owner. He prised it out of the stone fingers and quietly pocketed it.
Hildraft then disenchanted the four statues. The people they'd rescued turned out to be very grateful and very confused. The human - a Trialtan named B'zorchak - had been captured by the Beholders in 940, at the height of the Dragon's war with the Elves, and long before they migrated here. Norkil the dwarf was a Koisin Vuran Death Priest, and was somewhat unforthcoming about how he happened to be here, though he did volunteer the information that he'd only been a statue for thirty years. The two elves - Xanasial the Adept and Qillalia her bodyguard - had set out from Viridor 150 years ago on the same quest as the band themselves - searching for the sword Mergil. Mistakenly believing it to be hidden in the ruins of Gadûhvrás, they had entered the orc-hold, and been captured by the Beholders fairly early on.
All were fulsomely grateful to the companions for rescuing them (Xanasial inquired after her wand, but didn't press the point after Sack shrugged ingeniously), and, having recovered from their ordeal, set out together for the surface. It was only long after they'd faded from view that it occurred to the Sack to wonder if they should have told them about the spiders who'd moved in to Gadûhvrás and its' environs since their time.
The temptation was irresistable. Everyone wanted to see what would happen to the statues if they were pushed out of the invitingly large picture windows of the tower. The answer was that they shattered like glass, transforming them from incredibly lifelike humanoid shapes into sad heaps of gravel. It was during this entertaining process that Sack's sharp eyes caught a movement away at the far end of the cavernous forgeworks. He alerted Kobort, who sent Nosebiter winging silently out from the tower, high up near the cavern roof. The little owl reported twenty or thirty Fae Mhor troops moving up the cave on both sides, using the cover of the broken terrain near the walls, and a small party of five approaching the tower directly - and openly - in the centre.
The group sprang into action. Surya strung his bow, and lugged chunks of furniture up from the ground floor to provide a makeshift shield to shoot from behind. Sack dashed down to the main doors and locked them with the key he'd found in the Overseer's office. Hildraft laid a powerful Glyph on the first stairwell, enspelled to go off the moment a Fae Mhor started up the steps. Kobort polymorphed himself into a Beholder (though perforce slightly smaller than the originals) and, casting Fly, soared out from the tower window in an attempt to scare off the Fae Mhor. Strangely, they seemed unbothered; maybe they could see the smashed corpses of the originals scattered across the cavern floor beyond the tower.
His bow poised, Surya watched the five Fae Mhor approaching, as Sack joined him at his window and readied his bow. They were walking openly, without using cover, and with their weapons sheathed; it looked like they were preparing to parlay for some reason. Sack snarled and muttered, clearly yearning to rain arrows onto the hated elves below, and Surya realized that he was going to have to go out of the tower if he was going to talk to them in relative peace. He set off down to the ground floor.
Voiceless though he was, Sack managed to make it quite clear that he was not - repeat not - making any deals with elves - any kind of elves. He proposed to go under cover from the start, therefore, and requested Kobort to make him Invisible, which he did. Hildraft topped this off by Imbuing him with the spell Zone of Silence so that he could use it when he wanted to. Thus enchanted, the half-orc went quickly down the stairs on stealthy feet, and caught up with Surya just as he reached the Fae Mhor delegation.
The Dark Elves seemed to know a great deal about the party, naming them and quoting the Prophecy to show they had deduced their mission. Sack grinned silently; the Fae Mhor were also aware of the names of Prophecy the others had been given by the Goldeneye of Gloiran, but he himself had declined to meet the Oracle, and so was not mentioned and would not be missed.
The leaders of the delegation introduced themselves as Silustriana, priestess of Lolth, and Launcivos, wizard, both members of High Clan Tormtor. They explained that, far from being here to stop the companions, they'd been sent by the leadership of Clan Tormtor to enlist their help.
Clan Despana, part of the Kilsek-Despana-Noquar-Everhate-Godeep political faction, had hatched the Kingmaker and Darkening plots, partly to reconquer the surface world, but mostly to topple Eilservs and make Despana top clan - possibly with a view to creating a Queen of the Fae Mhor. Tormtor, learning of this, feel it to be a bad idea, as it will bring down the wrath of all the surface races and the Fae Mhor will be annihilated. Aware of the Prophecy, they feel it to be in the best interests of the Fae Mhor as a whole - and Tormtor specifically, naturally! - that the Prophecy succeed and the Kingmaker fail. Hence this attempt to ally with and assist the Instruments of Prophecy.
Surya expressed serious doubts that there could ever be trust between the party and the Fae Mhor. Hildraft, who'd just joined him, suggested negotiating within the effect of his Zone of Truth spell. With a small superior smile, the priestess acceded to this, and the spell was duly cast.
Hildraft and Surya then pelted her with questions;
- Did she speak for Clan Tormtor (maybe not all, but she had been sent by the leadership and spoke for them);
- How was the sun to be darkened after Kingmaker had succeeded (Clan Despana do not share their secrets with Clan Tormtor; she doesn't know)
- What defends the Kingmaker and where is it? (It is in the very deepest region of the Underdark, and is defended by fire, water, magic, demons and blades.)
- How can we get there? (various options, including shape-change to Fae Mhor, and posing as slaves/prisoners [Surya and Hildraft were sceptical about that one!])
With the magic preventing her from answering falsely, Surya was grudgingly satisfied by these answers. Agreeing - for the moment - to work with Silustriana, the party left the tower and prepared to follow the Dark Elves.