The Star Tower

[Nellie Duncan]

Frowning at the remnants of her father's proudest work, Nellie shuts and locks her chest. Her father's best hammer now shattered to scrap, and twice in less than an hour she had passed into the Great Halls of her Kin, only to be turned away both times with harsh rebukes of her dishonorable and untraditional conduct. There is much she has to rebuild for herself- both physically and emotionally.

But armed or not, emotionally prepared or not, there are still problems to solve, and knowledge to share and gain.

Standing up, Nellie slaps the dust off her skirt and leggings. Leaving the inn she heads in the direction of the nearly completed Star Tower, searching for Gossan.

[GM-Brad]

You find Gossan in a small wooden shack next to the nearly completed star tower. He’s poring over some papers laid out on a workbench, and as you approach it startles him. He yelps and freezes as still as a statue. Familiar with his eccentricities, you wait, and after a few minutes he comes back to himself and moves freely again. “Sorry, you scared me. I’ve….(a few minutes more of silence)… heard too many ghost stories over the last couple days.” He takes a few breaths to calm down. “It’s good to see you.”

“People keep saying the tower’s haunted, and no one will go near it now, even after all the work we put into it! Not since George and Cory Marlow…(a few minutes more)…sorry, not since they died. We buried them last week and even so, people say you can still see their ghosts lingering around the tower.” He shivers.

He digs around until he finds a box and opens it. Inside is a purple, crystal orb. “They died trying to place this, one of the last pieces, at the top. It’s supposed to power the astrolab. Simon –he’s the foreman- found their bodies up there, like all the life had been drained out of them. He brought them down for burial and the orb back too. My father designed this tower to help people. It’s supposed to help us study the stars in new ways. It’s supposed to bring enlightenment. Make the wise wiser. I mean, sure, I don’t understand how it all works, but it’s not supposed to hurt people. Which is why I’ve been looking over these blueprints. We must have built something wrong. I wish my da were still around to guide us…(he freezes again for a moment)…but he disappeared years ago. This was his legacy, and it’s a testament to his skill that even though no one liked him –or me- a whole lot, they knew he had power, knew he was good, so they agreed to build it from the blueprints. We were so close…”

[Nellie Duncan]

"I'm sorry for your loss," she speaks sincerely, patting his arm. "But I doubt it was caused by the building of the Tower itself. With the magic of the area in such chaotic disarray, that's the more likely cause than your father's plans. If it would put your mind and those of your work crew at ease, I would like to look over the Tower's schematics and the materials you've been using in it's construction to definitively rule them out as the cause of death."

"As for the spirits of George and Cory Marlow, have they shown any violent tendencies in these sightings? If not, we might be able to approach them to find out why they linger here instead of returning to the cycle. If they are violent, I could leave and return with Sir Marcus and others who are skilled in battling threats of such a nature."

[GM-Brad]

Gossan turns to you. “I haven’t seen any g-ghosts…but I h-hear things our here. Voices…I can’t make them out though. And maybe it’s just my imagination...”

He hands you the plans. You look at them, and most of it seems straight forward enough to you –classic circular stone building, lime mortar, wooden accents, five floors- until it gets to the top floor where things suddenly get…weird. The materials mixed into the mortar are more exotic (quartz shavings, medellium, irgosore), and many of the parts to be installed here are referenced as being prebuilt by the designer (“arch B12 insert into arch B9, position directly above plinth A4…” type of thing) without further description.

The roof appears to be made of glass, and the plans detail both a telescope and a miniature model of the “heavens” in the top room. Oddest of all, there is some sort of machine here with gears made of clay. Clay doesn’t seem like the best material to make gears out of, to you, but you check the blueprints twice, and sure enough you’ve read them correctly. It must be some sort of special clay, but the instructions are frustratingly lacking in detail (and, to your mind, proper scientific nomenclature). There is only a note that the clay would be supplied by the designer, and Gossan indicates that it was. Jars of the black mud were left behind –and used- for the tower, and none of the material is now left, the jars long since washed.

As for what the machine does…you’re not sure. Some of the reference books you keep on hand tell you that Irgosore (here mixed in the mortar) is a metal that has been known to cause telepathy in a small number of people. How that fits into the tower’s purpose, though, is a mystery. One that will take time to solve.
You suspect it might be wise to study the plans further for some time before anyone goes into the tower again. Gossan lets you keep the blueprints.

[Nellie Duncan]

Before Nellie rolls up the blueprints, she asks Gossan if he has anything he's seen his father write for himself currently on him for comparison, references how to spot handwriting forgeries in suspected documents and looks over the blueprints as minutely as possible.

After rolling up the blueprints for storage in her bags, she gives him a nod of thanks. "Do you mind if I look this orb over as well? I'd like to see if it's of magical origin, and perhaps to see what it's true function is."

"Also, I'm not surprised you and some others are hearing things around this tower, if you mixed this irgosore metal into the mortar. If my books are right, it's presence causes latent telepathy in some people. Have there been any actual sightings of a ghost or specter by your work crew? Or just sounds? If so, I'd like to question them."

(OOC: Mimic Necropsy and use it to determine if the blueprints are a forgery. Mimic Spot to see if there's any hidden writing she's missed on the blueprints, or missed details on the orb if Gossan allows her to look it over. Then Mimic Sense Magic and check both the blueprints and the orb (if allowed). Finally, Identify Magic Item if she's allowed to look over the orb and it is magical in nature.)

[GM-Brad]

"Some people said they've seen ghosts...I haven't, but I swear I heard whispering..."
He hands you the orb to keep and study (we'll give it to you -and let you know what you find- at the event). Gossan pulls out his diary, and inside he has a few scraps of his father's writing. Mostly lists for materials, "Be home by dinner" notes, that sort of thing. You compare the writing, and the blueprints seem authentic, with no hidden information you can find other than what's plainly there on the page.