WARNING: Spoilers below for the Spire of Quetzel adventure site.
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Regrouping after being besieged by the feathered lizards, the adventurers take a respite from the horror of the poison garden.
Mimo — the young halting — is beside herself over her injuries. The teenage druid had never truly been in a fight before, and the reality of the danger of the tower is starting to sink in for her.
Lucia kindly heals the halfling with her magic but Mimo is unable to return the favor. Kristov, the venerable peddler, steps up to the task and bandages Lucia’s injuries.
After calming Mimo, Lucia, and Kristov search the garden for poison ingredients and are able to find enough to make a strong poison. Mimo attempts to help but injures herself during the search.
That evening Kristov determines that the blade they found outside the greenhouse is magical in nature. He names it, “The Feather Blade,” and is able to figure out that if a user were able to injure a flying creature, it would magically steal the power of flight and give it to the blade’s owner. He gives the weapon to Mimo.
The next day, the party braves the hedge maze and eventually works their way to its center. Standing there is an ancient but noble woman surrounded by fat buzzing bees.
Approaching her cautiously, they enter into a polite conversation with the woman who identifies herself as “Quet-scyre.” Lucia and Kristov quickly ascertain that the woman is quite powerful, while Mimo is entirely enraptured with her “new best friend.” Sturmberg silently keeps guard and is unnerved at the strangeness of the garden.
After much talk, the party convinces Quet-scyre to tell her history. She divulges to them that she is an aspect of the demon sorceress Quetzel that created the tower and that she and her sister betrayed and sealed the witch into an eternal slumber. She implores the party not to wake Quetzal.
Kristov and Sturmberg initially scoff at her pleas, but Mimo offers to take a task to prove their good intentions. Quet-scyre asks her to eat a spoonful of her honey and Mimo does so without question or hesitance. The honey was of course poison, and Mimo is quickly subsumed into pain and delirium. However, she survives the initial ill effects and impresses Quet-scyre.
The wise woman explains that Quetzel must be stopped for good by crushing her heart, but that it will destroy Quet-scyre and her sister, Quet-faeren. She also explains that while she is an aspect of Quetzel’s goodness, Quet-faeren represents her fear. The other sister secludes herself in a silver tower opposite the garden.
Learning that the Feather Blade is potentially a trap, the group leaves it behind as they head out to the other tower. Mimo and Lucia are torn over the sad fate of Quet-scyre, but Sturmberg and Kristov are more suspicious of what they have learned.
Heading back out into the burned-out city, it isn’t long before the group is attacked by a pack of bent-backed wolves. The gaunt creatures appear similar to large wolves but with snub faces and arched, bent backs. The pack howls and mutters like humans would, and even more disturbingly, the adventurers find that the creatures have prehensile hands.
Lucia manages to get a shot from her crossbow off, wounding the lead wolf. It responds by viciously biting her and knocking her down leaving her to moan and wail in pain. Kristov rushes to her side and kills the animal.
The rest of the pack storms in and two more attack Sturmberg. He quickly slices through one of the beasts.
Meanwhile, Mimo calls upon her magical ability and easily heals her fallen friend. Back in the fight now, Lucia runs over to the dwarf who was also injured during the initial attack.
“Don’t worry, it’s only partly my blood,” Sturmberg says in thanks.
The dwarves warrior is a whirling tornado of death and slashes all the remaining wolves to pieces while the rest of the party looks on in grim amazement.
Eventually, the group makes it to the front of the strange silver tower. Its exterior features no windows or arrow slits but a single door with a pavonated eye. Kristov moves to open the door with one of the special coins but it swings open easily.
Looking inside, the group sees a maze, the air is cold, the walls and ceiling are polished silver, the floor a sheen of rippled and continual time-frozen blood. The blood turns liquid at their steps. As the ripples radiate away, they stop in time.
Lucia is uniquely unnerved at the strange maze and determines that time magic permeates the maze. Kristov and Mimo try several experiments and learn that objects thrown into the maze or not touching their bodies seem to hang, frozen in time.
“Well I can’t recommend you use a ranged weapon in here,” Kristov grimly mutters as he lights a torch and leads his friends deeper into the dark maze.
JesseFolk.com 