Chapter 27: The Tower of the Ancients

[jemmus]

Torix readies the ancient spear and prepares to follow through the trapdoor. Sunshine and clean air had been good while they lasted.

[hedgeknight]

Asterion

The ranger nods and walks over to the revealed slab, torch held high. With his hand, he wipes the dust away, tracing the outline of the slab. "Wonder how it opens?" he mutters, looking for a latch or handhold.

[ChubbyPixie]

“Perhaps it opens the same way as the one above,” says Kiri. He stows the vessels in his pack and prepares for whatever lies on the underside of the trap door.

[Inferno]

The Ancient Marble Tower, The Ruins of Thracia, Pictland, the World of Hyboria
Day Twenty-five. Late Morning. 3rd day of the month of Ublex, 1280th year of the Age of Aquilonia







The trapdoor has the same design as the one above, and the explorers of ancient history haul it up and descend another winding stair deeper into the marble tower!

Three levels below the harpy-plagued roof, they encounter a strange sight.

A windowless tier whose entire floor is covered in broken statues.




Actions?!


Tower Map:

Tower's diameter is 35 feet.



PC Status:

Amethu: Verulian Grand Magus Cleric/Magic-User 4/3: Move: 9", AC: 4, HP: 14/17, Spells: 6/8 1st lvl, 5/5 2nd lvl
Asterion: Argosian Atlantean Ranger 4: Move: 6", AC: 4, HP: 34/34, Torch
Cruloc: Cimmerian Northman Barbarian 4: Move: 12", AC: 4, HP: 41/54
Kiri Khutan: Kambujan Easterner Fighter/Magic-User 4/3: Move: 9", AC: 3, HP: 16/25, Spells: 3/3 1st lvl, 1/1 2nd lvl
Torix: Pict Savage Barbarian 4: Move: 12", AC: 2, HP: 37/38

PC Magic:

None currently.

Player Resources:

The Struggle To Survive (the story so far)
Mysteries Strange and Deadly (player clues and notes)
An Age Undreamed Of (maps and realms of the World of Hyboria)

[hedgeknight]

Asterion

Torch in one hand, spear in the other, the ranger steps into the room and listens quietly for several seconds, searching the floor and looking to the ceiling. If he senses or sees nothing, he turns to check the alcove on his right.

[ravenn4544]

Amethu will calculate the distance travelled from the roof and share what level they should be on relative to the ground.

[Yrkoon]

Cruloc

"Yes," Cruloc intones thoughtfully, mindful of what can happen. "Look up. Look down. Look out. Look around."

[ChubbyPixie]

Stuck on the darkened stairs, Kiri wonders what new deadly obstacle is holding them up.

[jemmus]

Torix prods the pieces of broken statues with the butt of his spear, wondering how they broke. Earthquakes over the ages? Or the acts of some living thing?

[Inferno]

The Ancient Marble Tower, The Ruins of Thracia, Pictland, the World of Hyboria
Day Twenty-five. Late Morning. 3rd day of the month of Ublex, 1280th year of the Age of Aquilonia







Breathless, the invaders of the Ancient World cautiously edge into the silent, pitch black chamber.

His torch the only light, Asterion the Atlantean leads the way. The ranger's every step makes the shadows writhe and grow as if they are alive.

Learned Amethu silently calculates behind his mask that they are still two or three levels above ground.

Asterion and Torix enter the stale air with trepidation, scanning in every direction. The pair creep among the shattered massacre of strange, abstracted violence.



With little experience in large stoneworks or earthquakes, Torix the savage cannot determine the cause of the surreal dismemberments. But from what the Pict can discern from the fragments, most of the statues were of beautiful young women, and all of them had borne a countenance of fear, sorrow or regret.


Actions?!


Tower Map:

Tower's diameter is 35 feet.



PC Status:

Amethu: Verulian Grand Magus Cleric/Magic-User 4/3: Move: 9", AC: 4, HP: 14/17, Spells: 6/8 1st lvl, 5/5 2nd lvl
Asterion: Argosian Atlantean Ranger 4: Move: 6", AC: 4, HP: 34/34, Torch
Cruloc: Cimmerian Northman Barbarian 4: Move: 12", AC: 4, HP: 41/54
Kiri Khutan: Kambujan Easterner Fighter/Magic-User 4/3: Move: 9", AC: 3, HP: 16/25, Spells: 3/3 1st lvl, 1/1 2nd lvl
Torix: Pict Savage Barbarian 4: Move: 12", AC: 2, HP: 37/38

PC Magic:

None currently.

Player Resources:

The Struggle To Survive (the story so far)
Mysteries Strange and Deadly (player clues and notes)
An Age Undreamed Of (maps and realms of the World of Hyboria)

[Yrkoon]

Cruloc

"It's as black as a witch's hate in here!" Cruloc grumbles, and he strikes a torch.

The splintered countenances of the statues cause a cold prickle to dance up the back of his broad neck. They watch blankly with eyes that never lived, yet he feels their gaze, serene and subtly malign. Some primitive voice within him growls of danger, but here is beyond the borders of Cimmeria and of reason. What form doom will next assume is beyond his ken.

He holds the sputtering brand high while his eyes hunt the gloom for nightmares come to life.

[hedgeknight]

Asterion

"Dark horrors surely await us in this hole of tarnished beauty," the ranger mutters, checking floor, wall and ceiling for something unnatural to detach itself and attack! Finding nothing in the first alcove (?), he moves to his left, circling the chamber, stepping lightly, if possible, so as not to make a lot of noise among the shards of the statues.

[ravenn4544]

Amethu is also cautious to enter letting his comrades with the gift of combat lead the way. He mentions that another exit is likely to be found as they are still a level or two above the ground floor.

[ChubbyPixie]

Descending the stair and approaching the doorframe, Kiri gives a low whistle as he takes in the unusual and foreboding scene before checking the floor for the next presumed opening to the floor below.

[jemmus]

Torix also searches for a way to exit the room, checking for concealed features in the walls as well.

[Inferno]

The Ancient Marble Tower, The Ruins of Thracia, Pictland, the World of Hyboria
Day Twenty-five. Late Morning. 3rd day of the month of Ublex, 1280th year of the Age of Aquilonia







The raiders of the ancient tower enter the gallery of sundered sculpture, wide-eyed and ready for anything.

Cruloc gets another torch alight as they search among the unreal slaughter.

Unlike the tower itself, the life-size, lifelike statues are not made of marble. And despite being depicted in ancient Thracian attire, their mien is markedly different from the towering idols of Atlantean culture:

Among the peerless architecture that survived ravages of time without measure, so too endure many masterful sculptures.




To judge from their art, the legends of the Atlanteans are true. They held mankind as the center of the universe. And that is how they depicted themselves: idealized, perfect, enlightened, proud.

Believing themselves the apex of all creation, the Atlanteans were the first civilization to depict their gods in their own image.

Instead, all of the shattered visages here are rendered in dread, anguish and misery.

Beyond the splintered sculpture, the explorers find only the next trapdoor down, in its customary position.


Actions?!


Tower Map:

Tower's diameter is 35 feet.



PC Status:

Amethu: Verulian Grand Magus Cleric/Magic-User 4/3: Move: 9", AC: 4, HP: 14/17, Spells: 6/8 1st lvl, 5/5 2nd lvl
Asterion: Argosian Atlantean Ranger 4: Move: 6", AC: 4, HP: 34/34, Torch
Cruloc: Cimmerian Northman Barbarian 4: Move: 12", AC: 4, HP: 41/54, Torch
Kiri Khutan: Kambujan Easterner Fighter/Magic-User 4/3: Move: 9", AC: 3, HP: 16/25, Spells: 3/3 1st lvl, 1/1 2nd lvl
Torix: Pict Savage Barbarian 4: Move: 12", AC: 2, HP: 37/38

PC Magic:

None currently.

Player Resources:

The Struggle To Survive (the story so far)
Mysteries Strange and Deadly (player clues and notes)
An Age Undreamed Of (maps and realms of the World of Hyboria)

[Yrkoon]

Cruloc

"One glance, and all thy wars are done, o granite night-son," half-sang, half-croaked Dagda on the day Cruloc departed the village, before a wheezing cackle whistled between teeth as jagged as the surrounding peaks. He had paid little heed, for her enigmatic warnings were seldom understood until what they foreshadowed had come to pass.

Like fire from a dry flint, her cryptic prophecy blazes suddenly to life in his mind as he regards the agony etched on the fractured countenances scattered about the stone floor. Wordless, grim, he digs into the pouch of rags at his belt, pulls one out, briefly doffs his great helm, and ties the cloth above his eyes. One tug, and his eyes will be cloaked. One tug, and fate might flinch.

[jemmus]

Torix wonders what Cruloc might be doing with his rag. But then he remembers the stories of creatures that turn one to stone with a look, or if looked upon. Too proud to directly ape the Cimmerian, he ties his own rag around his left wrist for quick access. I open this door now, he says and moves to pull the trap door open.

[Yrkoon]

Cruloc

Cruloc readies his small silver mirror.

[ravenn4544]

Amethu can't help but agree that these are not natural statues - natural in that they were created. These seem to have been 'made'. "Preparations are indeed warranted here before proceeding. Perhaps we take a moment to investigate the next level down.."

With time permitting, Amethu will cast ESP and probe the next levels below...