the clock tower

[groundrules]

Happy Hallow-elevator! The clock tower event lasts between 22 October and 8 November. ICly, the tower incursion stretches around a week, and you’re welcome to have your character investigate something else, if they finish early!

THE CLOCK TOWER

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ALL IS AS ALL WAS| TRIAL & NO ERRORS | THE TOWER

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ALL IS AS ALL WAS

Play it cool, as Serthica’s customs officers pore over your passport papers, before grudgingly allowing you overground. Minaras, you hear, is hunting a delinquent.

Both it and Eidris fare well, with no sign of the damage that preceded the Unwinding. Locals no longer behave eerily, dragons and clockwork droids roam freely, and everyone hates taxes.

Yet perfect strangers insist they know you. Your assigned address leads to a different house. The roads, buildings and architecture look ‘lived in,’ but changed.

No one remembers the Unwinding.

■ Burlap mannequins sometimes watch from mirrors, windows and reflecting surfaces.

■ You might hear shifting and scratching in Eidris walls.

■ Minaras has doubled its bounty for a man not unlike Leonard McCoy.

■ Black fungal spores are found on the increasingly voluminous experiment vials, specimens and supplies thrown out by Minaras medical facilities.

■ Frail and confused, Ellethia survivor Zenobius finally awakens. A short thread is up for RNG grabs.

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TRIALS & NO ERRORS

The guard troops that Eidris and Minaras assign to the Neutral Zone now protect King Thivar and High Councillor Arabella during the annual Sanctuary Reckoning trials. Both adjudicate cases that violate the ceasefire.

Prolonging the trials buys time for your companions in the clock tower.

■ Create a distraction — flood the judgement hall rooms? Fire? Illusions?

■ Pose as trial participants: perhaps you are of Eidris, and you caught this wicked Minaraian raiding your home? Mayhap this wretched man of Eidris stole your girlfriend? Wait, you’re a Minaraian who wants to kill King Thivar?

■ …organise breakouts, if Thivar or Arabella have your jailed. You are first imprisoned in makeshift Sanctuary cells — all but poorly locked, glorified closets. Get a trial sentence!

■ Thivar and Arabella treat the trials as a box-ticking exercise.

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THE TOWER

As Eidris and Minaras play court, you can infiltrate the Neutral Zone clock tower of Vassarizhia.

■ Only token security remains. The door is unlocked.

■ Karsa supplies paper talismans that must be burned in the watch fire at the tower’s top level.

■ Each burned talisman amplifies the reveal spell that Karsa activates. Link a finished burning thread by 8 November to help the cause.

■ A November mod post will describe how much of Serthica’s ‘undeath’ characters can see.

■ Placing Magnus’ dragon eye before the tower’s telescope will allow characters to always see Serthica’s undeath, moving forward.

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✘ ELEVATOR ETIQUETTE

Imperfect stillness dominates Vassarizhia: your footsteps do not click, words die in your mouth. The tower’s rickety gear slither silently. Your heartbeat aligns with the clock’s tick… tock.
You have the growing, gnarly certainty that you have invaded something ancient and alive.

The tower’s entryway level is large, deserted, stacked with gears. At its core is a dilapidated open elevator shaft.

A large sign says to find and pull the floor lever, if elevators stop.

■ There are two elevators. Each narrow lift can hold up to four people, crammed. The upper half of the carriage is chain-link fence, while the floors contain hatches that sometimes open mid-travel for 30 seconds. Hold on to ceiling-bound leather straps.

■ The ropes holding the elevators are thick, but tattered.

■ The elevator’s creaking squeals can awaken swarms of 1m-tall bats and bat wyverns. They rattle the lift, but ultimately withdraw.

■ The elevator can stop at as many levels as you want (or none!).

■ Beyond the second level, you feel intensely paranoid and see your companions as the persons you most hate/fear for five to 10 minutes. Reaching the top, you are tempted to cut the lift ropes of those who follow. (The ropes and elevators recover, after crashing to the bottom. )

■ On each floor, as you exit the elevator, a nearby wall shows a different scratched instruction, signed by DAVID.

LEVEL I: THE LABYRINTH| LEVEL II: THE ANCESTOR | LEVEL III: TAG! YOU’RE IT
LEVEL IV: THE ROOM WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS | LEVEL V: IT’S RAINING (AGAIN)

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LEVEL I: THE LABYRINTH
CONTENT WARNING: MINOTAUR, BODY HORROR

Step into a jail maze, flooded to knee level. Confusing corridors narrow, widen and contort, while wall torches dim.

Intermittent howling reveals you’re not alone. Hiding, you see child-like chalk drawings of forest animals on walls — and a great minotaur. Keep silent.

■ David S P’s wall scrawl says, IT RUNS IN THE FAMILY.

■ Collect some of the many discarded daggers or axes. Rope bundles float in water — use them to paralyse your captive or briefly force them under your control.

■ Don’t linger in one place: rotting, bodiless hands surface to restrain you.

■ Bad news, if you swallow water when the minotaur or dead hands try to drown you: your skin stretches and bursts, while your bones pop and extend. You mutate into a half human, half woodland creature, all bloodlust. ( Inspiration, anyone? ) Your companions should still recognise you; between hazy memories and constant pain, you might struggle to remember them and even attack.

■ Morphed characters can (painfully) return to normal within minutes of re-entering the elevator.

■ A smaller and distressed three-headed minotaur also roams the labyrinth. Two of its heads sob, while the third urges you to hide with it when brother approaches. It tries to throttle you with a noose to make brother happy, if you follow. David did say.

■ The minotaur and its sibling have poor sight. They cannot enter a corridor where you’ve drawn or laid down a line.

■ Pull the lever, and a straight corridor leads you to the elevator.

TOP | LEVEL II | LEVEL III | LEVEL IV | LEVEL V

LEVEL II: THE ANCESTOR
CONTENT WARNING: GIANT SKELETON, BLOOD DRINKING

Here, only barren stone and thin rivulets of fresh water pouring from wall fountains with sharp-tipped ornaments — your spilled blood quickly infects the basins. Knives, pins and bowls have been abandoned nearby.

High pressure and vertigo overwhelm you. Follow a rhythmic heaving to where the upper half of an enormous skeleton — the Ancestor — has broken through a wall. White, silk thread fetters it. Dried blood rims its cracked mouth. Before it, the stone floor has been tarnished, up to a 5m radius.

The Ancestor appears dormant, a crown of iron thorns on its head. It clutches the lever tightly in its right hand. Above it, an engraving urges, SPILL WINE FOR YOUR ANCESTOR.

■ David S P’s elevator scrawl says, WATER TO WINE.

■ Dally staring and you feel dizzy, nauseous, depressed and compelled to share your close-death encounters. Before you know it, you are stepping into the Ancestor’s radius…

■ …where it plunges for you, if you don’t bear a filled cup. The silk ropes keep the Ancestor from reaching beyond 5m.

■ Two carvings under his fists read HONOUR THY FATHER and DISHONOUR THY MOTHER.

■ Quickly distract the Ancestor from crumbling his captives, tearing their arms or attempting to eat them.

■ The Ancestor is instinct-driven, consumed by thirst. It cannot see or smell, and only remembers taste. Sounds divert it.

■ Improvise: there is no actual wine here. Infuse water, spill blood, or vocally pretend you are delivering wine, and the Ancestor might spare you.

■ If sated, the Ancestor releases the lever.

TOP | LEVEL I | LEVEL III | LEVEL IV | LEVEL V

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LEVEL III: TAG! YOU’RE IT
CONTENT WARNING: SCARECROW, SKINNED CREATURES

Enjoy pitch dark, dread and bile spreading in your gut. Take a candle from near the elevator and roam through small, unlocked rooms that feature tattered beds, strips of tanning leather and blood or wax spilled on the floor.

■ David S P’s wall scrawl says, O CATCHES IT.

■ Ahead, you see candle-bearing mannequins that dance a hora to the same song played by Jim Kirk’s music box: “Up the mountain, in the grove, hand in hand to Ke-Waihu, fresh harvest’s a treasure trove, each fall we feast anew.”

■ The creatures are patched abominations of wax, skinned flesh and burlap. In the middle of the hora is a wiry scarecrow, eyes blazing with candle fire as it points a large cleaver. In certain lights, the scarecrow’s face briefly contorts into that of your mother. It wears priestly robes that Arc III survivors may recognise from the House of Ravens.

■ As the dance finishes, you notice the lever in the middle of the circle, where flame spells out TAKE THEM, NOT ME. The game begins.

■ The abominations run, gleefully manic and screaming TAAAA~AAAAAG. YOU’RE IT! The scarecrow unflinchingly cuts them down while pursuing you. Hide in the abandoned rooms, or risk snuffing your candle to avoid detection.

■ Some abominations slap you, hold you, or alert the scarecrow. Others offer shelter. A few peel off wax skins from their limbs — showing black fungi beneath. They murmur, IT NEVER GOES AWAY.

■ Parchment strips fall from the scarecrow’s sleeves, reading, HAPPY NAME DAY, MOTHER KNOWS BEST, THE SIN RAN DEEPER THAN SKIN, IF YOU CAN BEAR IT, IT’S A GAME.

■ Bless David: draw the scarecrow into a drawn or makeshift circle to trap it.

■ Intense, paralysing fear arrests you, if the scarecrow catches you. The wax abominations chant, TAKE THEM, NOT ME. One might even take pity and move your numbed mouth to utter the words. Say them — and the scarecrow lands deep cuts on your arms, then pursues your companion.

■ If you betray someone, the abominations take the appearance of your worst version: whether physically mutated, with a temper that amplifies your worst features, or both.

TOP | LEVEL I | LEVEL II | LEVEL IV | LEVEL V

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LEVEL IV: THE ROOM WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS
CONTENT WARNING: MANIPULATION, MENTAL COERCION

You enter a quiet room. The lever sits on a table, beside rope and a dagger. As you approach, your surroundings transform: perhaps your dearest dead appear to warmly welcome you. Crowds of your doubters celebrate your success. Or you are in a calm oasis, where nothing hurts.

■ David S P’s wall scrawl says, THIS DREAM IS A NIGHTMARE.

■ Whatever your deepest wishes, the room’s vivid illusions provide. With time, your beautiful dreams deteriorate into horror. Sometimes, you hear whispers of, Make a wish.

■ The room increasingly drains your life force. Within half an hour, you have gaunt flesh, brittle bones and a hunched back. Or you might feel compelled to harm yourself, clawing your arms and face, or pulling your hair out.

■ The damage comes undone minutes after reaching the elevator.

■ The room focuses on one person: if someone joins you, they see fainter echoes of what the room shows you, but they are not enthralled. They must coax or drag you away.

■ If you are under the room’s influence, it forces you to make any later intruders stay.

TOP | LEVEL I | LEVEL II | LEVEL III | LEVEL V

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LEVEL V: IT’S RAINING (AGAIN)
CONTENT WARNING: PLAGUE, THE CHILD

At the tower’s open-sky top, fire crackles from a small stone pit, shielded by a familiar, immovable blood-spattered white umbrella. Nearby, discover an immense rusted telescope and other discarded astronomy tools.

You trip on rain-battered yellowed bones at every step. One skeletal hand holds a watch piece, engraved for Mr. David Sebastian Pumpkins.

■ David S P’s has only scrawled his signature.

■ You might reach the flame easily, or be overwhelmed by sickness, black fungal spores blooming on your fingers, while you cough blood and experience intense fever. The symptoms wane once you reach the fire.

■ Burn paper talismans and link finished threads to help Karsa’s spell.

■ The child with a fox mask from the Unwinding could appear. Sign up for one of three short threads, which must finalise by 3 November.

NOTES

■ Some of the bigger plot clues have been emphasised, to help navigate through the horror details.

■ You can hit up some NPCs during the trials.

■ Check out plotting posts for last-minute team-ups.

■ Back to the top.

QUESTIONS

Comments

[sansdoute]

( In his hand, the crystals gleaming, like toys you wouldn't give a pauper, fragile and cheap. He purses his lips, nodding along, tempted to cast away his gains. )

I don't know no merchant. Fat scheming and overcharging lot. Why would I try to speak to a man I don't know?

( And then, patiently petulant: ) You think I'm that desperate? That lonely?

[weifinder]

( Wei Wuxian is as patient in turn, used to worse from those older than his years, and knowing how disconcerting it is to wake and be behind on all relevant knowledge of a world around you. His recovery was... less kind, in many ways, than even this. )

Only you know how you feel. It's an option, not a demand, nor a request. He uses the name "Raven Master," if you decide to reach out.

( There, the pitcher: he shifts and slides his fingers around the handle, pulling it close. )

More water? Any other questions I might attempt answering for you?

[sansdoute]

Just the one, boy. ( If it pleases you, though it seems to embitter Zenobius to give the ask, and he delays, gathering his thoughts, filtering them of profanity or impatience.

Give him time, give him time. )

What... who do you need me to be now? Wasn't for my pretty eyes you did.... what you did. Whatever you think you did for me. You want something. I'm asking... name that price.

[weifinder]

What I said before. Later, when your memory serves, I want your insight into what happened in your institute. What you believe Matthias wants.

( a pause, and consideration. )

It's all tied in to the Brotherhood and their undead legions in some manner, the ones who summoned us here, and that really needs to stop.

[sansdoute]

Matthias... brothers...? What?

( He blinks balefully, owlishly, trying to at once order the man Wei Wuxian's demands in his mind and the sparks of stubborn, disobedient memory he stokes within Zenobius. He thinks, yes, he knows... something. Of help, perhaps, to someone. This man, maybe. Others of his kind. )

Matthias never spoke of brothers. Or sisters. Living, or dead. Or... what's that word, there? You either are dead, or you are alive. 'Undead.' Who speaks like that? You don't know words? At your age, I knew words.

[weifinder]

... Ah. Then you recall nothing about the... well, I should have guessed, with what you've said.

( He holds up the water pitcher again, eyes dropping to the cup. )

How do you like the rest of your bad news delivered?

[sansdoute]

( Blandly, balefully, yet bracing himself — tension riding his arms, his knuckles. He breathes in, then: )

Like I do my spirits. Hard and instant. Let's get this done with, boy.

now you get to see how much or accurately i remember

[weifinder]

( he inclines his head toward the older man, and so begins. )

Ellethia's institute succeeding in bringing the dead back to life. Horribly so. This, after Matthias's daughter died... if you remember that.

After Ellethia fell, the institute was all that stood. In the citadels around, armies of the once more mobile dead were lead to conquer and conquest. Unhalad was the first we met, in Sa-Hareth. The older leader of the dead there, Anurr, was displaced by Unhalad and his forces at that time, where Unhalad, youngest of the group called the Brotherhood, was also youngest to his... chokehold on his citadel.

We destroyed him. Anurr... we did not.

( he waves this off. )

There are mirrors which carry curses and compulsions, which by now I suspect started in Ellethia, but as I'm not of your world or that time in this world, I don't know. They've appeared in near every citadel or village we've stopped in, and you were attempting to placate dead mermaids with the shards of a great one, which you wouldn't let people reconstruct as whole. That you may remember eventually, or you may not. All I know is that to spirits, your institue, the lighthouse it became... ( a glance to one of the illustrations in charcoal, and a tip of his head toward it ) ... was as wrong in the magics that held it captive as the lands of Ellethia around it were wrong in the magics that cursed them.

After Sa-Hareth, and a journey through the Stair of Sighs, we encountered two more of the Brotherhood in Taravast. We learned what deals they'd been making with the Brotherhood in order to remain unconquered. Every other citadel that the man whose contact you might make through that cheap crystal had visited has been overtaken, or deeply harmed, some less obviously than others. He suspected Serthica may have fallen. It's why we're here.

But I digress... Taravast brought us the Beastmaster and the Huntress, whom he chased. She brought pestilence and rot in her wake, and he, control of horrible creatures, dead and touched by death. We learned later, in Ke-Waihu, that the Beastmaster was a man of those lands when he'd been alive, and the Huntress his wife when she lived. Their divide came during their living, when she sacrificed their son to the volcano of that island, and he was understandably not reconciled to the action. The Beastmaster was slain, during our time there. Right after we assisted in the prevention of the volcano's explosion. The Huntress remains at large.

( Giving them credit where he can: it's not. Kind, what happened, or what the effects were, but it did prevent the imminent explosion. )

Our Merchant does not wish those of us summoned by the Brotherhood to this world to be fuel and remade in parts for their armies of dead to have us. Some of the dead... some speak, as easily as we do. Others are creatures to be ordered, the spark of what lives inside them not a match to the form they take. Yet others are as if wraiths.

Your world has fallen in large parts to the dead, who do not remain dead. When I speak of undeath and the undead, it's the name some have given them. When I speak to you, it's as a strange pulled into this battle and herded by a Merchant who hopes we burn as many related to the Brotherhood, directly or not, in the process of shepherding us away from their grasp. He names you friend, Zenobius. If he's liberal in his wording, or if it's a truth you'd agree with, I cannot say.

( a pause. )

More water?

( at least it's not more dark water— )

this is far more effort than this man deserves

[sansdoute]

( He listens. To his credit, he listens until the man Wei Wuxian has done, until he offers no indication of meaning to go on.

And what a tale this is, wholly macabre. Wei Wuxian speaks, and Zenobius, watching on, can hardly blink along with his revelations. But he says, blandly: )

The work of the institute was never to bring back the dead.

( Surprising, isn't it? What he does remember. ) It was to achieve immortality. Rousing the dead would be a gamble. You don't know what they've suffered on the other end. You don't know how many pieces of the whole you're still resuscitating, or what comes back to you. No, Ellethia didn't... want 'undeath.'

sadly, it's what he gets

[weifinder]

Congratulations!

( he doesn't smile, but he sets the pitcher into his lap to clap his hands together once. )

Ellethia got what it wanted, in the worst possible way. Cursed immortality. I wonder, did the break through happen before or after Matthias's daughter died? Because whatever happened with those mirrors, whatever curse is on or within them, opened up a way for the undead to pour through. Here, now...

( he picks up the pitcher again )

It stains Serthica too.

[sansdoute]

Matthias'... daughter.

( He seems to have flickers of awareness lancing his mind, landing on something of value. He starts to wave the cup of water close once more, for refilling. )

That was... a year ago. ( A long shrug, lopsided. ) My year ago. Can't say how many of yours. It would have been a sickness of the... lungs or... one of those nonsense things a grown man wouldn't think about. But children are fragile.

[weifinder]

They can be. Was he her sole caretaker? No one around to watch for her health besides him?

( had he ignored it, what he didn't think would do as it did, or not? grief for a child is a very powerful thing. )

[sansdoute]

( He's straining, thinking, mulling over — swishing saliva in his mouth, when the water's gone. He waves for more. What'll he do within the hour? Piss himself silly, he supposes. )

Must have been a governess of some kind. Man of Matthias' coin. Liked to throw it on things. Most men would get another wife, but he never did, after the missus died.

( Here, his brows seem to perch and wriggle, tellingly. ) He wasn't one the women would have rushed to claim.

[weifinder]

( dutiful, he pours more water into the cup. the pitcher by now running dry, as his considerations increase in depth. this question that follows is the learning of a man through another man's eyes, and curious. truly curious.

who had matthias been, before the loss of his daughter? )

Why? Was he too prideful? Not handsome enough? Poorly tempered?

[sansdoute]

( More of that aged, knowing scoffing, more of Zenobius rolling his eyes. Excuse an old man his follies. )

You ask after Matthias, most men will struggle to remember him. He makes no impression. Walks into a room, same as if he's never come. Doesn't talk much, doesn't look that special. Likes to watch. Gets a bit eerie, that. Makes you wonder if you should be stabbing his eyes out.

( He accepts, at long last, his water — drinks easily, greedily, with far too little care. ) ...he's a mind, our Matthias. And most women like a heart or a body.

[weifinder]

Minds can lose themselves in their own labyrinths, ( he says, a man who is mind, heart, and body, much to Lan Wangji's lamentations. Only there's naught else he manages to say, before the door opens, and the imposing figure of a smiling male nurse inserts himself into the opening, meticulously groomed, meticulously pleasant. )

Apologies, sirs, but the patient is needing more rest still. Visits should be kept short, to not add confusion.

( Sliding inside, the nurse looks to Zenobius. )

Does the good sir require assistance with relief? It's good to see you drinking so much, ( he says, his eyes meeting Wei Wuxian's with a warned, get off with ye ) it's important for keeping a body well.

( Wei Wuxian stands, offering Zenobius an apologetic smile and a nod of his head. )

I'm contactable if you reach out for one called windstorm, and I promise to return, if you continue to tolerate company. Think about it!

( Of his returning? Of reaching out to the Merchant? Of both, or more, or what happened, or where Matthias's mind might have led them all. Men who could think themselves into labyrinths could find terrible solutions to horrible things.

After all, parts of him knows he could, with the right wrong motivations.

Then he's thrusting the empty carafe into the nurse's hands, smiling beautifully at him, fluttering his lashes for effect and out of annoyance: )

I leave him in your capable hands, ah?

( And he's swept out the door, leaving behind the faintly foreboding impression that he was watching in case those hands delivered less than their best. )

[sansdoute]

( Muttering, mumbling, a great deal of insurrection. Say what you will of an old man, but this one's still got fire to him, enough to aim explicit, perhaps ill-meaning noises at the nurses, to toss and turn and refuse their assistance, to growl he'd like his drawing supplies returned.

His visitor's coaxed out. He's coaxed gently back to bed. Despite his best wishes, he thinks on the encounter — thinks, and calls the cheap, good-for-nothing Sa-Hareth fake pendant to his chest. )