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

---

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

Image source.

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.

Image source.

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.

Image source.

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.

Image source.

✘ 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)

Image source.

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

Image source.

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

Image source.

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

Image source.

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

[spoilers]

[ She doesn't have the energy to fight him, even if she'd wanted. She's tired, weak, and why hadn't she noticed that before?

But she doesn't want to fight him. The solid presence of him surrounding her is the only thing she's properly convinced is real. They've taunted her with him before, too, but not like this. He wasn't alive, but then she hadn't been either. Is she alive now? Oh, she just isn't sure anymore.

With her head resting on his shoulder, pressed close against him, she can faintly feel his hearts, synced to the same eerie ticking as her own, as if they're both mechanical toys. The sound that leaves her throat, muffled against the fabric of his jacket, is something between a laugh and a sob. And so she lets him half carry, half drag her away from the room and its whispers, the promises she knows it can't keep. ]

She doesn't need me. But she's still just a little girl.

[ A little girl who had been just as lost and lonely and afraid as River ever had in her own life, a little girl who needed someone. ]

[thedreamer]

[ The loss of Amy and Rory had broken him in ways that felt beyond repair for a long time. So broken was he then that he forgot his own promise to himself, to the universe, caught up within the darkness of his own pain. River had lost just as much - more even - but because it was a loss they'd both felt, naturally the Doctor's own pain had eclipsed hers. This is the first time he's been with his wife and had a moment to step outside of his own pain to actually comfort her. He's never done it before, and she's more than deserved it. Call it old age, weariness, an accumulation of pain upon pain, his hearts scarred sometimes beyond his own understanding, but now it's just made him...a bit more reflective than he's been in the time she's known him.

And when a man like him reflects, well, it's not that he's ever lacked the awareness of just how dreadful he is and can be sometimes, but he struggles to take that awareness and make it into something useful. Losing Amy and Rory changed a lot of that in him, he thinks, he hopes. Something good had to come from that, and from losing River. Could it make him kinder, as Amy had once remarked? Make him more loving? What does that word mean, loving. Is it this? Is it just being close to his wife and holding her through the pain? Could it be as simple as that? Has he run all this time from the simplest of moments, trying to stall the pain that's going to come. What a ridiculous notion, really. There's no stalling it, no delaying it. It will come because everything ends. All that he's done is made the choice for both of them and deprived them of so many good things.

He'd told Clara only recently that he wished he could be better at not running out on the people he cares about (loves). Can he put that sentiment into action? Can he be what his wife needs most? He hasn't done so far, not even close. He's not sure he could ever be what she deserves, because she deserves so much better than him. There he goes again, lost in his own inner turmoil.

For once - for maybe the first time - it can and must be about her. Not him.

And so, what does she need from him? Words? Hope? Truth? Touch? All of it or none of it. How does he do this?

With her head still against his shoulder, the Doctor acts with his first thought, which is to cradle the back of her head, pressing his own face a little bit closer.

River was a little girl stolen from her parents, her whole life written for her. Alone, abandoned. He thinks back to her rot - solitude - and his fingers curl into her hair a bit, in a way that might almost be soothing. He's comforted so many friends just like this. Why is it with River that he questions himself? He knows; she's so important, he'll muck it up somehow, he always does, so he fears himself with her sometimes. But she deserves better than that, too. She deserves him trying. ]

We all need someone, no matter who or what we are. What happened in there, it was a trick. [ On some level, he knows she understands. It's not to patronize her, but to reinforce that it wasn't real. ] You are her mother, River, she knows that, you know that. Nothing can take that away from either of you.

[ It's important, because that part is real. What she feels for Charlotte is real and will always be. ]

[spoilers]

[ She'd said something to another little girl once, a long time ago now. It isn't fear in the end that haunts you. It's loneliness.

In a way, Charlotte had been loved as River had, quietly and with so much pain it blinded those who loved her to her reality. In their inability to let her go, they'd condemned her to never-ending childhood. Alone.

Of course River hadn't been insulated by happy memories or fairy tales. She'd been alone in the dark, surrounded by madness. And when they told her stories, she woke crying from nightmares. But she felt no less sympathy for Charlotte, for her daughter. ]

I'm fine, Doctor.

[ It's a reflex, to reassure him, even as her words fall flat between them.

The moment she'd found herself again in the Library, all she could think about was the Doctor. How he was still her husband, would always be her husband, and she would wait as long as it took for him to come back. Now he's here, right in front of her, and what she's missing most is being dead. Someone else should certainly appreciate the irony of that. But River can only let the tears fall. Even as her tears slow, stop completely, she clings to him no less tightly.

He's always loved hugs, this one, but he's rarely held her. His affection is reserved for others. She's an exception to the rule in a completely opposite sense for his future self, and the reminder makes her eyes sting all over again.

As long as they're like this, she knows she's safe, she's alive, breathing in the familiar scent of him. It's funny how he can be so different and still always the same. It doesn't matter if he's wearing celery on his lapel or going around calling himself professor, desperately running from the war or living in the shadow of its end. She's been with him in so many of his lives, loved him through all of them.

Had he been anyone else, she isn't sure she could have pulled herself away, to leave Charlotte again, to leave the family she knew was indisputably hers. ]

I am, you know. It wasn't intentional.

[ But it is something she'd wanted, once upon a time, being a mother. She'd even thought about asking him once. She'd been younger then, still working out what it meant to love him when all she'd ever been taught was how to hate him. ]

We should go, Sweetie. It isn't a good idea to linger.

[ Her mind is clearer now, but it will take much longer for the deep longing in chest to fade. ]

[thedreamer]

[ They shouldn't linger, of course not. They both know that she's lying about being fine, but he won't push her right now. This isn't the time or place to have that conversation. He's not entirely sure he even wants to have that conversation, he's not good at those and what he knows is to come, but it's unavoidable.

A moment ago, he'd wondered if he could be the better man she deserves. Now, he's not only uncertain he can be, he's not entirely convinced she wants him to be. Their marriage has never been conventional, by any standards. He knows that she loves him and he's equally aware that he's never made any attempt to assure her of the same. He's not even sure how he feels. He loves her, yes, cares about her, most certainly. But does he love her? It's not so much a question of if he does, but if he can let himself. It all comes back to being terrified of her and what she represents, a love that never had a chance to even get started, that started at the end.

Yet, she had a marriage, a real one, with his future self, the one who cried their last night together on Darillium. That's the man she really loves, the one she really deserves. He made her feel loved, for the first time; he could see it in her eyes in that horrific delusion she was trapped in. She was happy. Some version of himself that he doesn't recognize made River feel happy and loved, and he's quite sure she'd prefer to be trapped here with him instead.

Where does that leave them, here and now?

Or perhaps, she'd prefer to be back in the Library, with the family she'd built there. He can't be hurt about either scenario; well, he can be and he is, but he buries that very carefully. What use is that pain? Nothing about it can be changed. Being trapped here together suggests that something about both their futures has shifted, perhaps irreparably, and he doesn't know what that means and he worries about the implications on their timelines and the universe itself. For the man who believes there's always hope, it's hard to let himself feel it.

She loves him, yes, but does she love him? Can he be that man? Every moment with her hurts, it always has, and it blinds him to anything else, to the ways he might be able to make her smile and laugh, in a real and lasting way. All the ways that he could and wants to love her.

Maybe it isn't possible with them at all. He's terrible at all of this, she knows that. Why should she let herself believe anything else?

It's selfish; what he wants, what he imagines their marriage could be. What does she want? He's never asked her. How does he do that? It should be a simple question, but like everything with River, it's anything but. He'd kept it a secret all that time, her death, the way they ended, trying so hard not to hurt her, trying not to hurt himself. He couldn't protect her from any of it, and he'd been afraid every step of the way to ever fall in love. How could he let himself fall in love when he knew where she'd end up? So he's built a wall so carefully around himself, and he's hurt her in the process. It was inevitable, perhaps, but if he'd done things differently, maybe he could have made her happy, too. There should be a chance for that here, but he doesn't trust himself. ]

Of course you're fine. You always are and so am I.

[ This, at least, they've always been good at. ]