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

[clavesregni]

[Caitlyn stares down the barrel of the gun, breathes out softly. Though she's tense, her stomach clenching in fear, the rifle is perfectly steady in her hands. Her trigger finger doesn't waver.

She frowns at the stranger, though she's not afraid of him. Not with the gun in her hands. Unless he's got some magic up his sleeve, she knows her bullet will strike him before he could possibly get to her with the sword.]

You're with the Merchant?

[She doesn't know what sorts of guards or traps await in this tower, and she's too on edge to risk trusting a stranger in this place until she knows what side he's on.]

[downswing]

( The 'gun' lingers drawn, taut, waiting. In his chest, Lan Wangji's heart's a frail and tumultuous thing, stormed. More than the white sound of his hurt, he recalls anticipation: when the bullet hit and its horror spread, and how it reduced him, from man to child to a gaunt and fragile trinket, on a cold, cracked floor before Wrath, recounting his nightmares.

Perhaps there is a frenzy of cruelty in other worlds, and they think so little of it, to take a weapon born of hate and proliferate its use. Perhaps this girl is simply — inured to that which her metal stick can steal from a man: with his safety, his dignity. )

Past a year's service. ( There's the exhilaration of the cold weeping by his feet, swallowing and drenching his silks, when he is still. His body succumbed to the elements, alongside inertia. He holds the sword drawn, more for the formality of the exchange. )

You wield a weapon that wakes terror. ( One utilised by monsters. ) Take a blade. Culling suffices.

[clavesregni]

[With a curt nod in acknowledgement of his allegiance, Caitlyn lowers the gun slowly, trusting he'll do the same with his sword.]

It's not meant to wake terror.

[She knows a gun can mean different things, depending on whose hands it's in. But so can a sword. So can the hands themselves.]

It's a tool, like your blade. [She nods to the sword.] And right now, it can protect both of us from whatever it is that's roaming around this labyrinth.

[downswing]

( Lip snarled and thin and the strip of his sharp teeth white, animalistic. Writ large on him is the calligraphy of ruin, of fear and distrust of her weapon — now cast down.

He hesitates. At war, on open field, in a conversation of equals, this would add the insult of foul play to the injury of his request. He knows so, hand trembled, as he finally — carefully — begs his blade Bichen down, to sleep silent and still and unfettered at his side, swinging slowly in the water's currents.

Faith is a simple word for a terrifying prospect. When he glances up to the girl, he feels raw, disconnected, unfurling. As if the gun might rise again and husk him anew. He starts, wading slowly, to walk towards her, the labyrinth's waters rippling in his wake. )

Apologies. ( Perfunctory, as if he accepts if she chooses to dismiss his words. ) The last gun beheld expelled projectiles that harnessed the terror of the wounded.

( Presumably, this one does not. ) Shall we advance?

[clavesregni]

[A rueful expression, not quite a smile, crosses Caitlyn's face. That explains why this man dislikes guns so much, if the last one he encountered had magical fear-inducing properties.]

I assure you, this gun only fires regular bullets.

[She steps back, giving him space to move beside her, as she nods again in response to his question. Her rifle is down by her side, ready to swing back up in na instant should she hear the creature that stalks these corridors.]

Let's find the lever and get back.

[downswing]

( The lever, and their return thereafter. Easily spoken, swiftly done. He remembers: the slow, melancholic wading through water, how his silks hang and whisper behind him like a spider's web.

He is slow, slowing. A treacle. The girl offers him shielding, and he must watch for her back in kind — and it strikes him, not for the first time, that he is bereft the easy coordination that comes of a man found so often in battle among strangers. That he has grown foolishly, indulgently accustomed to the shape of one man to his back, to Wei Ying's speed and tremors of movement.

In the spreading pools of the corridors, widening, he sees first the girl's reflection, pale, then his own, wraith-like. Sees the hasty rippling of drips from above, and dark silhouettes beyond —

And stops at the first start of sobbing, at the end of a corridor. A hunched creature, wailing, wandering. He wavers. )

You see him? ( Three heads, one body, a wealth of anguish. Too much of this place is illusion, not to ask. )

[clavesregni]

[Caitlyn wades after the man, shuddering quietly at the feeling of the cold water biting at her legs, sighting along the barrel of the rifle. It would be easier to walk with the rifle lowered, but this place has her too on edge, stomach clenched too tightly and heart in her throat, to consider it.

She hears the sobs before she sees the shadow at the other end of the corridor, but she quickly spots the source. A small, wailing creature, strangely proportioned and distorted, but clearly in distress. The rifle lowers.]

I see him. [She says it quietly, not wanting to disturb the sobbing creature.

But despite how low her voice is, the creature's head looks up. Or rather, one of the heads looks up. The other two continue to weep.

Come with me, the creature says, his voice urgent. Hide with me. He's coming.]

[downswing]

( Come with him. Hide with him.

...only, this is not Lan Wangji's first dalliance on foreign land, not his first encounter with a creature at a crossing of roads. Hand slow, he passes it over his brow, removing the sheen of cold, callous sweat that's trickled down despite the chill.

They both see the — thing, then. Monstrous, aberrant, strange. Pleading with them, and this, above all, gives him disquiet. )

Perhaps a victim. ( One head torn or divided, leading to the beast's contorted, corrupted appearance. Surely, nothing about its presentation is... natural. This creature could be a dead thing, haunting the grounds of its murder. The minotaur's hands did not appear blood-dry. ) Or a thief.

( Is this not how it is done, at mountain pathways? One paltry, downtrodden man or a helpless woman serves as bait, leading travellers to where their companions wait to pillage? )

[clavesregni]

A thief? [She glances curiously at the man. Nothing about the creature makes her think he'd try to steal from them. Everything about him seems pitiable, in need of help.

Hurry, he's coming! the creature insists. Hide with me.

Caitlyn turns back to the creature. Her rifle is down by her side now, held loosely in one hand as she reaches the other hand out to the creature, trying to reassure him.]

It's alright, we can protect you.

[downswing]

( ...protect it, a creature that seems, for all it's slight bent, as if it might summon the height and width and brawn of a cart or a monster, once it unravels. Lan Wangji trickles slower than the girl, sword teased back into its sheath, fettered strong.

They have no time to barter his cooperation, not if the minotaur truly comes, and there is the heft of drumming, storming steps, the urgency for cover. He waves the girl and her — companion to shield themselves in the alcove, rushing to join them, while the minotaur's shadow spills dark and long like burnt, cloying tea leaf.

If it were to look, to peer, to catch the scent of them — if it were to flinch and stare right. Only it doesn't. It walks, not stomping, not vigilantly, not with purpose, but with a shallow lack of any care beyond a perfunctory watch. And he passes them by.

Lan Wangji prepares to assault, to jump, to seize him. Draws a long bind of diamond-dusted cord from his sleeve and anticipates, hairs raising on his nape, when he might jump and throttle — only to find his wrist held by the three-headed beast. He gazes down at the claw, how broken and coarse it is, how ruined. As if it exerts itself with crushing and slamming and hard hits, often. He hisses, more for the girl's sake: )

Release me.

( And the creature's three mouths all glisten in a grin. )

[clavesregni]

[Caitlyn hears the heavy footsteps of the minotaur stalking towards them, and quickly folds herself into the alcove alongside the others. She's tall but lithe, easily able to hide in the shadows. Certainly more easily than the three-headed creature.

Her jaw clenches as she strains to keep her breath steady. Her finger remains on the trigger of her rifle, ready to raise it and fire if necessary. But the minotaur passes by, seemingly oblivious to their presence. She's peering out of the alcove after the retreating minotaur, allowing herself to feel a moment of relief that it didn't notice them, when she hears the man behind her hiss.

She whirls around, aiming the rifle at the three-headed creature.]

You heard him. Let him go.

[But she's not fast enough. The creature lashes out with its free hand, slamming her into the wall hard enough to knock the breath out of her, before reaching down to its belt to draw out a noose.]

[downswing]

( Stories say, this is the work of crossroads: meet a woman weeping, a man distressed, a beggarly child. A crone, peddling strange wares, begging the help of your hand in her misfortune-struck home.

Then, encounter disaster, when you trail after them. Sabotage, cravenly assault. The work of a crowd, or a stronger man emerged from shadows.

This is no different: the woman turns her devilry weapon on the creature, and it retaliates, serpent-fast, as if the noose were a natural extension of its contorted body. It's in the twisting, flexible pallor of the rope's slithering shape that Lan Wangi knows it. He seizes, leaping on the creature's hunched back and drawing out his cord to wrap against one of the heads — to hiss when the mouth of the second bites into the string — and strangulate it, threatening to cut.

Owning three heads, it turns out, enables the beast to keep shuddering, trashing, throwing itself each way. Where one head suffocates, the two others breathe in their fill. Lan Wangji only slows, rather than stilling the creature — and shouts at the girl, while he lingers half-straddling the hunchback and attempts to keep the beast distracted with the cord: )

Injure its limbs.

( If she is as keen and dexterous a hand with her 'gun' as was master Wrath, she may yet make quick work of the creature. Damage to its knees, its arms, perhaps even one of its heads might stall its progress. )

[clavesregni]

[The force of the blow has knocked the rifle out of Caitlyn's hands, and she finds herself desperately fumbling for it in the water. There's no time to waste, her ally needs help, and without the gun there's little she can do.

Finally, her fingers brush against metal beneath the murky water, feeling out the barrel of the rifle. But as she grasps for it, something reaches out to grasp at her. She yanks her hand back with a startled cry, scrambling backwards away from the rotting hands.

The rifle's lost, for the moment. The hands are far too eager to grab hold of her and, she fears, pull her under. Instead, she continues to move away, hoping to spot something, anything, that can aid in the fight against the three-headed creature.

Her eyes land on a bundle of rope floating nearby. It's easy enough to unfurl, and she runs up behind the creature and loops the rope around one of its legs before giving as hard a tug as she can, trying to pull the creature off balance.]