The Tower (Brimstone Encounter Card)

## Event

*Though no hungry gargoyles bar your way, the traps have been powered up again!*

*You grit your teeth and enter the first trap level once more.*

*You must reach the top of the tower before it's too late!*

**The player must complete all 3 Mazes within 90 seconds.**

**The player enters a Maze of Traps.**

*With no time to waste you mount the stairs to the next trap level.*

**The player enters a Maze of Traps.**

*Drawing ragged breaths you continue toward the third trap level.*

*Is it the final one? You ready yourself and run through the door.*

**The player enters a Maze of Traps.**

*Past this door you go ever upward to the next gargoyle. You find the way clear - the door is ajar.*

*You push past it, but it does not lead to another trap level.*

*A cold breeze buffets you - you are outside, being pulled this way and that by the winds. If you fell it would be your death.*

*Stairs loop around the tower, leading upward, surely to the top.*

*You reach the top to see an old robed woman restrained in ropes, Captain Hardwick holding a sword to her throat.*

**The Dealer draws a General of Steel.**

*There is no pity in his eyes as he looks to you, only wild fear.*

*"Back! you have been corrupted by mage filth. Unnatural! Dangerous! Filth!" His voice rises shrilly as he lifts his sword for the executioner's blow.*

*You leap forward and parry his strike.*

**The Dealer draws 2 more Steel Monster Cards.**

**The player enters Combat.**

*You begin to untie the old mage. She stares, unblinking. "You are the one who will kill him."*

1) Ask who she is.

*"I am the sorceress atop the tower." She doesn't appear to have anything else to say on the matter.*
2) Ask about the Emperor.

*"Emperor?" She licks her dry, wrinkled lips. "Is that what he calls himself now?"*
*The sorceress becomes frustrated at your clear confusion.*
*"The game of life and death, boy! He controls it now - and the land weeps for it."*
*"The North is burning. Peasants are forced to leave their homes and wander until they starve."*
*"Have you not seen the slave ships sent South? They creak, filled to the brim with his own children. He will force the world into submission if he must."*
*She turns to you, voice low. "...and he wants to kill you. The Reaper, this Hardwick man..."*
*"Yes, yes," the sorceress grasps your hands in hers. "He wants to slice your head from your shoulders, to flay your skin and burn you alive... but you evade him at every turn."*
*"Do you not feel it in the air! The land rebels against his iron grip." The sorceress sweeps her arms high, as a deep rumble fills the sky.*
*"The High Priestess will soon descend the mountain on the Great Beast as her people's last hope... the mages brew anarchy... the blight grows stronger ever day. Soon, the very sea will run red."*
*"This will not end. Unless he is dead."*
*Her head snaps to you, suddenly suspicious. "What will you do if you face him?"*
A) Tell her you intend to win the game of life and death.
*Her ink black eyes scrutinize you.* *"No good can come of this. No man was ever meant to command that game."*
*"Heed these words. Before Kallas, there was another, and before him, another, and another before that."*
*Her dry, wrinkled hands grab yours. "Swear to me if it comes to it..." Her eyes are blacker than night. "...smash it. Burn the throne, split the game down the middle, so none may sit at the table again."*
B) Ask what she is talking about.
*Her ink black eyes scrutinize you. "Listen closely. Do not trust the game. Do not trust those who covet the game's power."*
*"Heed these words. Before Kallas, there was another, and before him, another, and another before that."*
*Her dry, wrinkled hands grab yours. "Swear to me if it comes to it..." Her eyes are blacker than night. "...smash it. Burn the throne, split the game down the middle, so none may sit at the table again."*