The Tower of the Sun
The party decide to rest in this large chamber with the circular stone table. They set guard shifts but leave out Farfordda as he goes back down the vast spiral stair to meditate in the hall below. As the sun goes down and the dim light fades they place their 2 Sunstones in a lantern and set it on the table. Amos takes the first shift. Norgrim and Thindra moan and turn in their sleep, the sounds echoing around the tower. This is clearly no place for Dwarves to rest.
Norgrim is exhausted when it comes to his turn, he takes some valerian to wake him. An hour into his shift he hears shrieking echoing down from above and wakes the others, but the bestial noise fades away.
As sunlight filters down through the tower they all rise. Thindra takes the last of the Valerian, and they breakfast on their final day's rations. They should fetch their horses from the forest, but the dwarves ought not to step outside until they must, so Magdalena goes down the stairs to fetch Farfordda. He is still sat on the bottom step, deep in a trance. She wakes him. He is exhausted as he emerges from a night of intense holy visions.
He tells them that this is the Tower of the Sun, it is dedicated to Asuryan, head of the Elven pantheon ('Emperor of the Heavens', 'Keeper of Balance', the creator god), it was built over 4000 years ago, before Farfordda's people became Wood Elves, before the High Elf exodus. It was built during the War of the Beard, to keep watch over the Dwarven Kingdom of Karaz Ghumzul, to send messages to Kor Vanaeth. It was built by a Dragon riding Elf couple, Eltharion Pyrehand a warrior and Bellepheron Windcall, a wizard.
Kor Vanaeth was an elven settlement on a great river, its towers constructed over a powerful Arcane Fulcrum, a site of magical research, where Altdorf now stands. He saw its glittering towers toppled by the dwarves after an awful siege and the Tower of the Sun was thus cut off. The couple build another tower, a sister to this, the Tower of the Moon, dedicated to Lileath, goddess of the moon, patron of prophets and wife of Asuryan. This tower could communicate with Ulthuan, home of the Elves.
He is in the room above, a council chamber, there are elves all around the great stone table and a fierce argument is taking place. The Dwarves of Karaz Ghumzul have ceded from the Karaz Ankor, the dwarven hegemon of the Old World. Eltharion believes it is the combined power of their two holy towers and the great Lorelorn beyond which has cowed the dwarves into submission. Belephron disagrees, she has had a vision, which sears into Farfordda's soul - the dwarves of Karaz Ghumzul have discovered a Chaos Gate deep beneath their holds, they cannot fight a war on two fronts and choose to face the greater threat. We should declare a truce and make common cause with the dwarves. The argument culminates in Eltharion banishing Belephron from the tower of the sun. It is at this point Magdalena woke Farfordda...
The pair of them leave the tower, out into a cold clear morning, the broken shape of Karak Skygg distinct and looming over the forest in the sharp autumnal air. They left the horses tied a quarter mile back in the trees, but all that's left of them are the savaged remains of Farfordda's horse (the one they borrowed from Chaplain Lader to pursue Ada's abductors three weeks ago). Farfordda intones a valediction and they return empty handed.
The party let Farfordda sleep for 3 hours before recommencing their exploration of the tower, hearing the bestial shrieking from above more than once in that time.
Up the stairs they go. The room above is the same size as the council chamber, its ceiling 20' from the ground, with a glass panel allowing light from above. The walls of the room are like a honeycomb of stones boxes or shelves. A rusted metal ladder hangs from a track above them. The lower shelves, like the room itself contain nothing but dust and the vague mulch worn down by time of whatever was once stored here. Farfordda tries climbing the ladder to look into the higher shelves, but abandons this when one of the steps breaks away.
The next floor is similar, only there are 3 stone tables here, no ladder and the shelves are not empty. Bottles, retorts, rusted metal stands and tongs pepper the stone boxes. Norgrim identifies some ancient lens working tools. There is more evidence of damp here, a little moss on the floor and walls. They decide its worth searching the higher boxes so Farfordda gets climbing. An hour or two yields a mortar full of crushed black opal and 3 rubies.
It is mid afternoon by the time they enter the floor above, the 4th above the ground. Although also 20' from floor to ceiling this one is a little different. For one the stairs do not continue on directly ahead after a 15' break, but rather start a quarter way back around the chamber and rise along its circumference with no banister or wall. In the center of the room is a shallow pool of foul smelling stagnant water, flies buzz above it, chunks of moss covered glass break the surface, and a mess of organic matter rises in the middle.
The ceiling is missing the glass panel they've seen in every other room and reveals a shaft rising to the sky overhead. There are several decayed bodies laying close to the stairs and on the other side of the room lies a grubby metal structure, a little like that found in the council chamber below. The walls themselves are covered in moss, it looks as though huge paintings or tapestries may once have hung here, around these empty patches are fine knot-work of some much tarnished and overgrown metal.
Magdalena and Thindra keep an eye on the exits as the others search. The metal structure is a large, but delicately made cage, like a bird cage, as tall as a human. Some careful scraping by Amos reveals it to be made of white-gold. Of the bodies, 2 are human and the other orc. Farfordda reckons the most recent is from the past year. Around them lie rotten rope, a crowbar, dagger, some coins and other burglar's tools. He cannot tell how they died.
Norgrim investigates the pool in the center. The water has clearly dripped down from above. A ragged set of ribs and a moss encrusted skull poke out from the organic mass. He sees an ornate but tarnished dagger in the gunge and then a ring, pristine and miraculously free of filth among the bones. Scooping it up he touches the bones, and all five of them freeze as a blood curdling howl echoes down from the shaft above. It is mid-afternoon on the 12th of Nachgeheim as some spectral shape coalesces thirty foot above them, screaming as it forms...
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