WARNING: Spoilers below for the Spire of Quetzel adventure site.
==========================================================
Rising with the hazy sun, Lucia Talene the druid, Kristov the Peddler, Sturmberg the dwarven warrior, and Mimo the halfling druid, break bread under the looming shadow of the magical spire.
Still distrusting the dream figure that enticed them to find the tower, the group weighs the risks but decide the potential treasure inside is just too tempting.
Walking up to the door, Kristov presses a pavonated coin to the silver entrance once more and the door opens wide, revealing the eerie scene therein.
Gloom. A spiral stair of gilded bone leads up. A keening wind echoes down from the stairs and pale light gleams. Long-dead bodies are strewn across the floor and hung like pennants on the walls. Two huge and iridescent forms shift in the dark. Withered voices speak.
Kristov throws a torch into the gloom to try to illuminate the large chamber. It allows him to see that the strange figures are two large bird-like creatures that stare back at him with grim amusement. Mimo steps quietly to the doorway and slides in a piece of bark with crumbs from the meal on it hoping to show the creatures they aren’t a threat.
Seeing no movement, Kristov steps into the room to talk with the figures. Sturmberg steps in to block the doorway and protect the women.
“Hail, good fellows,” Kristov said. “We are travelers and were told to come here. Who might you be?”
The peddler is aghast when the two creatures step into view. Now in the light, the party can see the beings are a pair of mummified bird demons. The giant demons continue to look at the adventurers with amusement.
“We are Grumis and Nachtrapp,” the demons reply. “Have you been invited?”
After asking the question, the demons enter a ready stance and are clearly ready to fight.
“Indeed we are,” Kristov replies and pulls out the pavonated silver coins. The demon birds get close and look over the coins with dire scrutiny.
One of the demons begins to chuckle and dryly says, “Well, well. It’s not often that Quetzal gets visitors who bear an invite. You can see what becomes of uninvited guests.”
Lucia gulps in fear as she can see the heaps of dead adventurers. “Why do you two guard this tower,” she asks.
The demons tell how they were tricked into coming to the tower by the demon queen Quetzel. That she plied them with a seductive song and tricked them into these forms. Now the demons are bonded to her and required to guard the entrance of the tower.
Mimo asks them, “What happens if you become free? What would you do then?”
The question sends the demon birds into fits of laughter. Finally, one of the demons says, “We are not freed from service until the queen’s heart is crushed or our bodies destroyed. And as you can plainly see, that is no easy task.”
Chewing over that knowledge, the party tries to salvage what they can from the remains of those before them. The demons continue to watch with a detached gaze and occasional chuckle. All the group can find is an iron cauldron and nine silver coins.
Leaving the demons to their duty and the macabre scene behind them, the adventurers trudge up the gilded-bone stairs and into a strange new realm.
The stairs rise into a ruined red-brick tower. The roof is gone, the heavens above are an opal haze. The tower’s bronze doors are black with smoke and hang from melted hinges.
Kristov clambers up a broken wall to get a look outside. All around the tower are miles of burned-out buildings. The air is thick with ash and stinks of iron. About a mile away in two directions he spies a silver tower and a large greenhouse.
The group decides to visit the greenhouse first. Hiking for about a half-mile, they stop when Kristov spots a strange item on a wall of a ruined home. He finds an arcane symbol sculpted and painted into a clay circle, with a crack running almost to the middle. Right beneath the object on the ground he finds three dirty silver coins.
As the peddler inspects his find, a gush of wind rises up and is followed by an ethereal howl. Turning around, the foursome sees the dust seem to coalesce before their eyes and take human forms. Eventually the beings solidify and become blood red clay and ash shapes. The beings try to hide their faces with their arms or a hand. Eventually, six of the creatures rush toward the party.
Everyone turns to run but only Sturmberg, Mimo, and Lucia are able to escape. Kristov scrambles to get away but his old legs seem to fail him and he struggles against two of the creatures. Sturmberg rushes back into the fray, throws Kristov onto his shoulders and races to catch up to the druids.
The group runs to the large greenhouse with the ash-ghosts close at their heels. Once the adventurers step onto the greenhouse’s yard, the creatures give up the chase and fall back, vanishing back into the wind. While catching their breath, the party spots a gleam of silver from across the road. Kristov walks over and after digging through blackened bones, finds a well-crafted silver dagger. The weapon has the pavonated eye on the hilt, and the blade is a single silver feather. He tucks it away into his belt for later use.
Opening the doors and stepping through, the party finds themselves in a completely new realm.
Hot, heady air hums in the golden-stained light. Fat bees buzz and crystal chimes ring. Boldly banded flowers and ripe plants of a thousand colors pack fenced banks, separated by narrow paved paths leading between.
The entrance to the maze offers the adventurers several paths forward but the group is uncertain which to try first. Mimo suggests she get on someone’s shoulders to see their way to the center of the maze, but the plants react strangely when she does. Every time she tries to see over the hedges, the splendorous plants grow to block her view and she eventually gives up.
Meanwhile, Lucia carefully inspects the plants and determines that every flower, vine, mushroom, and leaf around them is poisonous. She quickly tells her friends not to touch anything. Unfortunately, both Kristov and Mimo are trained in the ways of poisons and are excited to learn that a bounty of reagents is all around them.
The duo quickly start inspecting plants further along the paths until the group starts to move away from the entrance. It’s not long before the group hears rustling all around them though. Seconds later, three feathered reptiles burst out from the hedges and surround the group.
Lucia shoots one lizard-bird with her crossbow but the recoil throws her to the ground and she writhes in pain. Rushing in to block the monsters from attacking her, Kristov knocks one of the beasts over with his hammer and then stabs it with his feather blade.
Mimo turns and races to Lucia’s side, quickly bandaging her wounds and getting her back on her feet. Guarding their rear, Sturmberg unleashes his full fury on the third lizard-bird and cleaves it in two with his longsword.
Whether it was from the dwarf’s rage, or a summons only the monsters could hear, the lizard-birds then retreat back into the hedges leaving the party to lick their wounds…
JesseFolk.com 