4.2 Time for the Tower

Our
party begins planning for their assault on the Tower of Apotheosis.
While the Arch Bishop of Bartos raised worthwhile concerns over the
trustworthiness of the Archivist, it was agreed that recovering the
original stone used to summon the voidspawn was a goal they could all
still work towards as Karhanza worked to verify some of the
Archivists claims. The Archivist mentioned that it and therefore
Cara, would need to accompany the party to identify the stone they
would need. After some deliberation on the pros and cons of bringing
Cara with them, the party put it to a vote, in the end deciding to
bring Cara with them. However, because the Arch Bishop did not trust
the Archivist, he demanded to come along as well. This was also
agreed upon and the party was left to make their final preparations.

 While
the Elfatina soared towards the fabled tower, Wrynn and the rest of
the ascendant discussed with each other, trying to predict what the
party should expect upon entry. Thain informed the party that
Sajaina's pregnancy was progressing at a geometric rate, likely
resulting in her giving birth by the end of the week. However,
despite her showing very obvious signs of mid-term pregnancy, Thain
suspected that she would have no loss of dexterity and that the bay
would be harder to kill than she would. Perlapae, worrying over the
potential consequences of Sajaina giving birth to a partially
Laputian baby, began researching the possible side effects and
counters of emergency procedures to save her life in the event she
might suffer a Laputian-mother's death during pregnancy. Baygrith
used his time to continue work on an enlarged version of his portal
device, with some help from Sajaina. Timmeron spent time with his
wife, but found a few moments to ask Wrynn to alter the illusion ring
so that he could at least look like his old self. Sal played his
music for Cara and tried to teach Flynn how to work some basic magic.
Grukk brooded and Caerean practiced her swordsmanship. Travize flew
down into the ocean to collect shark, whale, and squid forms in case
he needed their versatility in the confrontation to come.

 Finally
the time came for the group to ready themselves for the tower. Wrynn
explained some of the tower's defenses, suggesting that the party
should expect immediate magical attack upon entry. She had also
devised several teleportation stones that would allow the party to
teleport back to the ship if they needed to, but also created a
master stone that would teleport all of them at once- which she gave
to Baygrith who had the Anti-Magic cloak. As they prepared to go, the
party turned to the issue of Thain, still under the control of
Mui'thel. They again employed the Skein Of Soul Sight in conjunction
with Dal's time-reversal to fill in missing information from his
previous answer. Apparently- and grimly- his willingness to assist
the party was contingent on it being unlikely to result in his death-
and also working to his gain- unless Sajaina's body might be
unrecoverable if he didn't go. Unaware of this drawing of
information, Mui'thel listened calmly as Sajaina persuaded him to let
the party borrow Thain. He agreed, but said he would call Thain back
if he felt his own life was in danger.

 Finally
the party cast their teleportation spell to enter the tower through
back-doors in its defenses. But what they found awaiting them was
destruction. The walls and floor were damaged, covered at every turn
in signs of magical battle. As far as they could tell, some extremely
powerful mage had worked its way into the tower by force. Probably.
Exiting the foyer, they found their way blocked by a vortex of
chaotic energy. Karhanza was able to dismantle it, but warned that
the ripples might unleash strange effect- or even time loops.
Wondering what on earth that might mean, the party pressed on.

 Soon,
however, the party found themselves re-living their own deaths again
and again as time twisted upon itself. The effect proved fortuitous,
however, as they were able to use it to plot the safe course through
the towers various traps, chaotic magics, and pathways until they
finally found the location of three keys they needed to unlock a
central door. Recovering the keys successfully seemed to wipe away
the time-anomaly, opening a hallway of light the ascendant referred
to as the “Hall of Knowledge.” The party had no idea precisely
what the keys would open or where the hallway would lead but, with no
other options presenting themselves, they took a few minutes to rest
before they pressed on.