The Tower, finally

Okay. Not to bad so far. Maybe. On second thought...
 
We finally entered Ald Tower today. Rei (the sergeant commissioning us to join him in the tower), Reynold (his captain), Fingers and Squeezy (soldiers), as well as a warraptor (?) joined us in the tower, and to be honest I am not entirely certain this is a good idea. They seem sketchy - I believe they have only hired us because this tower is scary, and they want someone to take the casualties for them. Kurra keeps saying "These guys can at least soak up some arrows on the way down." in Rei's voice.
 
But, we went anyway. Leaving some sort of godly weapon in the control of a corrupt military does not seem like a good idea.
 
Before we went in, Ganoes gave me a huge diamond. It was very sweet, really - he said he thought I might need it for my spells, which is true. I wish I could believe he did it entirely without any ulterior motives... No, he seemed honest. Perhaps he is just trying to make amends. I mean, he did kind of screw up with Kez and the Worry-reed yesterday. But still... He is possessed by his own admission, and regardless of his own motives, how can I trust he is in control of himself? I should take a closer look at the diamond when I have time... Caba Viva, I hope it is just an expensive diamond. I want to trust him.
At least he apologized, even if he didn't really mean it.
 
We did get our advance payment from Rei, though. Which Kurra wanted to carry in a surprisingly small pouch with no problems... Wonder where he picked that up? And where I can get one?
 
Fingers did drop some interesting information on the way down. He said something about "a bunch of bloody yellow folks ran out of the tower the other night" and that they "looks a bit like the ones we're fighting at the western front, The Dreaded Cult of Green", but that they "didn't cause any trouble, but left quietly". That does seem like that annoying Cult of Yellow we've been looking for, and it fits with what Theodore told us previously. So maybe the rest of the info he gave us is good too? At least not entirely unreliable...
The Tower backed up the assumption that the Cult of Yellow stayed there at least. Every single carpet is yellow. Seriously. Like, not even a little blue.
 
As we moved further through the Tower we found several things indicating that this has indeed been the place the Cult of Yellow has been staying. Some correspondence indicated that they did indeed have a new getaway in the Mountains of Biv, under the Great Oak Tree (?). It also seems like the Cult of Yellow are at odds with this Dreaded Cult of Green the military have had trouble with. It said something about the Cult of Yellow trying to stop the Cult of Green from "rolling back human progress".
 
We also found a mummified giant (at least larger than human-sized) with runes on it. I didn't precicely recognize the runes, but they seemed to have something to do with keeping the dead dead. Which seems reasonable. I find myself sceptical to the notion that anything this cult does is reasonable...
 
Then there were the summoning circles. Plural. Though to be fair, the first one was hardly on the same scale as the second. It wasn't even active, and I think we managed to disable it by scratching out a few of the lines with a crowbar (thank you for being brave enough to do that, Zarruk!). (If you'll ever read this) (Which I hope you do not, because this is my private journal, so please, have some respect.)
 
The second one... May Caba preserve us. I do not know what that was. Zarruk, Kurra and Ganoes seemed drawn towards a chest placed within it, and had it not been for Rei's quick thinking I shudder to think what would have happened. Zarruk actually managed to get the chest fully opened and seemed set to jump in. I am so glad I managed to close it before he got that far. Damn. The inside of that chest was not the inside of any chest I have seen before - stars and darkness and what seemed like another dimension entirely. I shudder to think what would have happened to him had he jumped in.
 
And then the doors locked and the Cookie Monster appeared. I am not sure why we keep calling it the Cookie Monster - it has a mouth wide enough for many cookies, I suppose. Zarruk seemed to understand it, and it seemed like it wanted us to put things into the chest. So... We did. A gold ring, Violin (poor thing) and a fire apple. The three magical ingredients that managed to RELEASE THE FUCKING THING!
 
Fuck, are we stupid.
 
At least it didn't attack us. It left us around 50 000 pieces of tracked gold that Kurra put in his pouch, gave us a thumbs up and left. It only seemed prudent to wave at it as it left us alone, really.
 
Caba preserve us all, I do believe we have released something horrible on the poor sheep of Andelford. Anything the Cult of Yellow was trying to summon can hardly be good. As Rei put it: "Those 50 000 gp will come in handy when we have to pay off the families of those that thing kills." I feel so bad now. We will have to find and send that thing back to where it came from.
 
And then, THEN, Rei tells us that we've just been searching the abandoned corridors next to the military keep. We haven't even entered the Tower proper, and we've already set a demon/fey/cookie monster loose. I am having severe second thoughts about this. Should we even continue? We've screwed up so badly, perhaps we are not quite the right group to search for the Numbers of Heaven and a celestial weapon that can wipe out a civilisation in one go.
But I hardly think the military is a better choice. And this Tower surely has some clues to the Cult of Yellow and why they kidnapped us, and what on earth they are trying to do. So we will persevere, for the time being. We just have to make sure to keep those numbers out of Ganoes' hands.
 
To be honest, though, the military have so far seemed entirely incompetent. Sergeant Rei is the only one who seems moderately interested in doing his job, while the Captain Reynold, Fingers and Squeezy have just... I don't even know where they were when we were all trapped in that room with the summoning circle. They seemed to hang back, talk amongst themselves. I do not trust them. Not at all. And after Rei told them about the Cookie Monster they decided to leave to do paperwork. I mean, not that I do not want the common folk to have warning of and protection against what we've unleashed, but to just leave us to traverse this Tower without any high ranking military in place? They must either trust us enough to hand over the Numbers of Heaven if we find them (doubtful), believe Rei strong enough to take us all on if we should betray him (doubtful) or not believe we will get far at all. If we clear a level, perhaps even two before we die, that is work done for free with no risk for them.
 
If that is indeed what they are thinking, I feel sorry for Rei. And also wondering who he's pissed off and what he did.
 
But, eventually, we do make it below. There were some armoured, six legged creatures with children there, and now I feel bad about killing their family. I mean, they hit hard and did not seem interested in negotiation, but... They had children. And this was probably their home before we barged in and killed them all. I wonder how many other things have made their homes down here.
 
No, these are maudlin thoughts right before sleep. That last fight took a lot out of us, and we are resting before continuing tomorrow. I should rest as well.
 
I just want to make one last note before I sleep: Kurra asked me a question on the way down. He said "Who do you pray to?" in Captain Boromir's voice. An apt question, and especially ironic considering the voice delivering it. Caba gave me a chance to start over and put my past behind me, after all.
I don't want to talk about it, but perhaps I should. If Kurra has been talking to Boromir, I'd rather he heard the real version from me instead.