Episode description[edit | edit source]
The party finally enters the mysterious tower on Eventide Island. Ali peeks through, hides behind, and struggles to open various doors. Jack and Art play a game of telephone with a very busy chef. Nick deals with lots of books. Austin wonders what knives think about.
Contents[edit | edit source]
Plot[edit | edit source]
After confirming that the skeleton is destroyed, the party leaves the house on Eventide Island and proceeds to the tower. There is a smaller building connected to the tower whose entrance is sealed with a heavy stone sheet, but Hella’s attempt to lift the sheet fails.
Inside the tower, they see an entry hall, once grand but now dilapidated. Lem reasons that, given his past experience with towers, the source of the problem is likely to be atop the tower or deep under it. The party begins to ascend the tower, with Fero transforming into a hummingbird to scout ahead. On a landing, they find the remnants of a huge mural depicting the tower. After realizing that the mural was painted with the same magical paints used in the skeleton’s house, the party surmises that the skeleton had been charged with caring for the mural but had shirked his duty and chosen to paint his wife and garden instead.
On the next level, the party finds a large, bright banquet hall with no tables and hundreds of place settings laid out on the floor. The “food” being served consists of ordinary objects, like furniture or flowers or silverware, chopped up and presented as food. In an adjacent room, the kitchen is full of kitchen implements, “cooking” the objects. Using a “voice that transcends language” granted to him as a boon for this quest, Hadrian converses with a chef hat, who is polite and offers them food, but does not have any helpful information. With Hadrian as a translator, the party learns that the enchanted kitchen implements are compelled to prepare meals, even with nobody to eat them. When asked what is in the sealed room on the bottom level of the tower, the chef hat responds ominously “they don’t eat”.
Proceeding to the next floor, the party hears the sound of a waltz rhythm. They enter a library full of enchanted books, floating together to form the shapes of people. When the group disturbs the quiet of the library, the books attack. Hadrian parleys with the book people and the books agree to let them pass as long as they are quiet. In return they require Fantasmo to relinquish the books he is carrying, which join the enchanted books. As the party ascends to the next floor, the books resume their waltz.
On the next floor is a hallway, with doors to the left and right leading to a storeroom and an armory. Directly ahead is an ornate bedroom, with a mural like the one on the landing just above the ground floor of the tower. Seated on a chair in that bedroom is a figure in black and gold armor. Upon seeing the players, the figure ask asks “What is it?"