A Spire Amongst The Thorns - 2 Report

Rescuing Gladwyn

As the bramble squid monstrosity drags Gladwyn away from the safety of the corridor, the party leaps into action. Rorra uses well-practiced and preternaturally augmented encouragements to boost the team as Euric and Forgin land difficult but precise hits against the creature with their scythe and revolvers. Gladwyn manages to evade being pulled into the squid's grinding maw by its face tentacles. Forgin's steel defender also lands some hits but becomes paralyzed by fright at the unnatural presence of the bramble berries.   As Rorra flies above the brambles to provide air support, the party chases the squid-beast back out through the hewn path in the brambles into the clearing. A second bramble squid can be seen tearing into one of the fallen Induku from the last encounter. Bloodied under the persistent onslaught, the first squid-beast releases Gladwyn and tries to flee, climbing away into the brambles. It does not get far however before Rorra psychically inflicts a mortal wound courtesy of hallucinatory birds. As the fleeing bramble squid roars in fright and falls silent, the second peels away from its goblin prey, roars in answer and throw's one of the Induku's harvested berries towards the party. Most of the party succumbs to the fear projected by the fruit and the last remaining bramble squid, somewhat satiated from its meal, chooses to flee the scene.  

Traversing the Corridor

The party re-enters the metallic corridor within the brambles and securely seal the door behind them. As if activated by motion, some studs along the ceiling of the corridor begin to glow a dim orange and light the way. Eventually, the corridor widens to allow the party two walk two abreast and thin rectangular windows appear on either side of the corridor to reveal the thick tangle of brambles that exists around the corridor, even growing over top of it and blocking much of the blue sky. Down below, the ground appears to fall away in a moderately steep slope and the corridor adopts a gentle slope downwards as well. At one point they cross over a river flowing beneath them.   Eventually, they reach another sealed door with a small control panel. Euric sees no reason to stop his momentum however and chooses to ram the door with a crashing sound and enough force to press it open against its stiff hinges and sealing mechanisms. The next room still has metallic walls but elegantly tiled floors, is more brightly lit with ceiling orbs, and seems to have cabinets or similar storage lockers around its perimeter. A large set of seemingly sliding doors are also present opposite the door the party just burst through. Concerned about the noise from their entrance, Rorra went over to the sliding doors to listen for anything that might have heard the noise and be drawn to them. Gladwyn searches through the storage lockers and finds some damaged bodysuits (no sleeves), boots that would fit some kind of humanoid, and broken respirators or similar expeditionary-style equipment. Forgin puts their extradimensional engineering skills to work and figures out how to manipulate the sliding doors' controls. Only hearing small patters or squeaks periodically interrupt the silence from beyond the door, Rorra determines it should be safe to proceed. Forgin inputs the commands and the doors slide open. As the light of their current room pierces the darkness of the space beyond, the party comes face to face with a creature.  

Enter the Tower

It is a rat.   Standing on its hind legs, the rat appears to look quizzically at the group. Euric extends an insectoid hand in friendship which the rat seems to examine and then accept, giving what look like slight nods and happy squeaks in response. As the party enters the larger room, it begins to light up in their vicinity, now a bluish tint. They appear to be in a mostly open space that contains the aged and somewhat broken remnants of furniture such as couches, chairs and low tables. The room has very high ceilings, possibly 30 feet or more. There are some solid walls but also many partitions that appear to be made up of heavy, purple curtains that seem to reach up almost to the ceiling. Additionally, much of the space appears to be covered in thick cords of webbing.   Forgin investigates the webs. The web generally appear to be massive extrusions of conventional spider silk although he does spot a few sections of web that seem to periodically become translucent, shift slightly, and then reconstitute themselves in a new position. Additionally, the webs appear to be concentrated along the walls and support structures, sometimes spreading out across the floor, but never attached to the curtains. Forgin loses one of their styluses to the web during their investigations. Gladwyn speculates that the curtains are resistant to the webbing somehow and she and Forgin are able to test and confirm this hypothesis.   The rat seems to be leading Euric down one of the web filled halls between curtained off "rooms" so Euric follows and begins slicing away webbing with his scythe. Rorra chooses to investigate what is within one of the curtained sections and finds a creature wrapped in tight webbing hovering a couple feet off of the floor, suspended by a long strand of web from the ceiling. The creature appears to be unconscious and of an unknown species with smooth white hairless skin (think the general appearance of a Meseeks from Rick & Morty with the skin texture of Baymax from Big Hero 6). Gladwyn reluctantly enters the room to take a look and confirms that this creature was not one of the scientists the party is looking for. Amid the debris of the room (a destroyed cot, wardrobe, and some other small furnishings) there is an elegantly gilded end table that is almost entirely covered with a moldy smelling fungus. The party cuts down the unfortunate creature and frees it from the web but it does not move, giving all appearances of being dead but not deathly cold and not "rag-dolling" as one might expect a limp body to do, instead having some of its joints locked in unnatural and unmoving positions. It is clothed in a simple outfit that's not a military uniform but contains similarly patterned bands on its arm and shoulder that might indicate some status.   During this process, Euric calls out (possibly when cutting the creature down) and the call echoes throughout the tower's chamber. A few moments after the echoes subside, the rat seems to get extra excited (not panicked though) and begins squeaking cheerfully at the party. They continue to carefully progress down the hall and investigate the next curtained room. This one contains five creatures suspended from the ceiling: fish-like creatures up to six feet in length but with hundreds of tiny centipede-like legs running along the underside of their bodies. They give off an unpleasant fishy smell that might indicate they are dead. Amid the broken furnishings of this room is another low table that holds a pot with a small, bonsai-style tree: mostly a gnarled, knotted trunk with twigs branching off, few leaves, but seemingly still alive despite no obvious windows. Gladwyn, always eager to use her plant whisperer skills, tries a few methods of communication with the tree and it seems to respond to her blowing at it as the tree's branches seem to subtly curl towards her breath rather than being blown back by it. She reaches out to pet the tree and suddenly its branches snap forwards and try to grasp her hand to pull it towards one of the trunk's knots which seems to widen and snap at her like a mouth. Gladwyn wrenches herself free, decides this isn't a plant she'd like to be friends with, and the party continues on.