Borrowed Time

The tower’s ticking had never felt louder.

After the strange disappearance of the wizard and his apprentice, the party took a moment to search the Stasis Chamber more thoroughly. Among the scattered notes and journals left behind, they finally began to understand the grim purpose of the crystalline devices embedded within the sarcophagi.

They were not simply magical batteries.

They were Soul Crystals.

Each crystal contained condensed life force — stolen from living beings and bound into a crystalline form. When placed within the sarcophagi, that energy could be expended to restore the strength, magic, and vitality of those resting inside.

The revelation was unsettling.

The party had not created these crystals. Yet using them meant drawing upon life that had already been taken.

Time, however, was not on their side.

The tower’s countdown continued to fall, and without rest they would never survive what lay deeper within the facility.

After tense discussion, the decision was made.

They would use the crystals.

Borrowing Life

With only a few crystals remaining, the party devised an unusual solution.

Instead of using multiple sarcophagi, they crowded together into a single stone coffin, stacking themselves in a cramped and awkward arrangement in order to conserve the precious crystals.

The result was as uncomfortable as it was effective.

Within minutes, the stolen vitality of the Soul Crystal flowed through the chamber, restoring their strength as if they had slept through the night.

When the sarcophagus opened again, the party stepped out renewed — but with the uncomfortable knowledge of the power they had just drawn upon.

The tower’s timer had only seven minutes remaining.

Stolen Minutes

Armed with the knowledge they had gathered, the group returned to the central pillar.

Thomas studied the exposed gears carefully before attempting something desperate. With careful precision, he wedged a wrench deep into the mechanism.

The effect was immediate.

The endless ticking of the tower stopped.

For the first time since entering the facility, the oppressive countdown fell silent.

They had bought themselves time.

Using the keys they had collected, the party managed to feed additional time back into the system, pushing the remaining countdown back up to thirteen minutes.

But the tower was not meant to be tampered with.

When they briefly removed the wrench to rotate the chambers once more, the timer began to accelerate violently. Precious minutes slipped away before the gears could be jammed again.

The machine was becoming unstable.

And they had only eight minutes left.

The Forge of Gond

With the rotation complete the party regained access to the Forge.

When the party entered the room, they discovered two Azers — beings of living fire — tirelessly working the anvils and furnaces of the tower.

At first the fiery smiths did not notice the party.

But when the group attempted to communicate, it quickly became clear the Azers were not there willingly. Magical bracers bound them to the tower, forcing them to remain and labor indefinitely.

Through careful experimentation and a bit of creative communication, Del managed to break the magical restraints.

Freed at last, the Azers offered their gratitude.

Before returning to their home plane, they forged the final Platinum Key required to unlock the tower’s deepest chamber.

The Vault

With the final key turned, the party descended into the tower’s vault.

There they found the Heart of the machine.

The massive construct pulsed weakly at the center of the chamber, cracked and damaged from the long-ago assassination attempt described in the wizard’s journals.

Embedded within the Heart was the hilt of a broken sword.

Blaze pulled the weapon free while Thomas worked quickly to repair the fractured construct.

As the crack sealed, the tower awakened.

Its voice echoed through the chamber.

“Unauthorized presence detected.”

A towering guardian construct emerged to defend the Heart.

And the tower began a new countdown.

Thirty seconds.

Escape

There was no time to fight.

The party fled the vault, sprinting through the corridors as the tower sealed itself behind them.

Doors slammed shut. Mechanisms locked into place. The guardian construct thundered after them as the entrance began to close.

Thomas barely cleared the doorway before the massive doors crashed shut.

The tower had survived.

And so had they.

The Call from Thistlewhit

Returning to the quest giver’s tower, the party reported what they had discovered within the clockwork facility. The damaged Heart had been repaired, the tremors should cease, and the secrets of the laboratory were now known.

But before they could settle in to rest, a familiar voice reached them through their Sending Stone.

Elliot.

His message was brief but urgent.

They needed to return to Thistlewhit.