Warlock! Something is Rotten in Grim Biskerstaf...

Trusova knows she's becoming a liability and falls back, up the stairs, trying to get to an elevation where the harpooners can't reach them easily.

His prey escaping, the larger fish-man growls as he reels in his weapon, then sinks beneath the waves of the river...

"Keep low!" Lambert whispers as they keep heading upwards. "Banio! Banio!" he stage-whispers up ahead. "Find the blasted 7 yet?"

High on the Spiraling Tower
Round and round the trio goes on the slightly luminous, half-visible stairs, up and up. Past six graven stars and the eerie landscape they preside over, past the side of the tower they fear will expose them again to missile fire from below... all the way around to where they find seven stars, arranged in a circle. A dark, twisting tower is depicted in the middle of that formation, a three-foot tall carving of the very same structure they have been climbing.

Below come the wet sounds of flippered feet flapping, of gills wheezing. Of their foes taking up terrestrial pursuit.

Lambert, huffing and puffing, puts a hand to the tower, in the center of the whole illustration.

"Anyone know any fancy elven words then? Quickly, mind."

"Fancy words, perhaps, but not elven," Banio answers. He closely examines the figure of the tower and the seven stars. Presumably the 'indiscernible door' is around these parts. Hoping that the name is an exaggeration, Phelbt looks for any crack, seam, blemish or depression that might suggest a mechanism or the outline of a portal.

"I don't speak elven," Trusova says plainly. She is trying not to bleed all over the stairs, holding the wound that the fishman's harpoon opened in her flesh. It would be an understatement to say she was eager to be away from their piscine pursuers, so she earnestly examines the miniature version of the tower, especially in their current location, to see if it might contain some clue might point the way.

At the Indiscernible Door
Croaking, burbling speech comes from below, sure sign that at least two of the fish-men warriors are coming. Breaths are held as Trusova peers while she bleeds, and as Banio finds the outline of what might be a door. It is an egg-shaped groove that -- that Wolke proves is the edge of a hidden door as his first instinct is the correct one. Just enough pressure on the carving of the tower activates gears, and what sounds like chains and pulleys... and the oval portal recedes into the tower, reverberating the entire structure and staircase as it goes.

In seconds the way in is revealed -- but the way in to where? It is pitch black inside the tower, but the moon's silver light reveals another set of curving, winding stairs inside. Up or down, the trio will have to choose if they enter, and while there is little to suggest which direction is best, all three companions are struck with a smell and a sensations of ancientness as dank and fetid air escapes the place. It is damp inside, but does not look as though it has been submerged in water for hundreds of years. No seaweed or other sea life is present; no clinging pink slime from the current state of the river can be seen.

Above the tower, the moon continues to climb. There are still hours until its zenith, but time is wasting...

Banio jerks chin and jowls toward the rising stairway.

"Your trinket is more likely to be up there than down below," he reasons. There's also the fact that harpoon-wielding fish-folk are less likely to descend from the air than to crawl up from the watery depths.

While he awaits assent or disagreement, the wee fellow squats and rummages in his pack for the lantern he liberated from Foghorn's boat.

"Get it lit, and let’s get inside, quick." Lambert says, stepping between the injured warden and their pursuers.

"In, up, and pray to the elves that it shuts behind us! Doubt they’d want fish men wandering around in there, in any case!"

Trusova doesn't need telling twice. She is also in the process of lighting her lantern, and advances with her spear at the ready. "Up it is." She agreed with the others. It seems obvious to her which way to go in a tower to find its valuables. "If something's worth putting in a tower for safe keeping, you'd keep it in the most secure place - the top."

Inside the Spire
Lanterns lit, all three adventurers slip inside the tower. The flicking yellow light illuminates the damp stairs, the smooth, red stone walls, and the elaborate mechanism that opened the door. The door which does not close behind the trio.

It is quiet inside. Every step echoes, and the sound of hard breathing dominates the senses along with the gloom and the ancient rot that seems to waft from below. The interior is a claustrophobic space, and there is room for only one person at a time to ascend or descend the steps.

"Go on! Reckon you’ll know the thing when you see it. I’ll try get this here shut."

Trusova stays to guard Lambert, and to provide light for the operation. It seems like it's taking a while, but she'd rather fight the fishmen in this doorway where she knows they're coming. Maybe a good shove could send it back into the river.

Lambert beckons Trusova closer. He fiddles with the mechanism with one hand, bracing himself against the spiral stairs with the other.

"Elves don’t make it easy!" he says, tongue sticking out with concentration.

"Bring that light closer. I reckon this thingy here is the bit that’s stuck."

Lambert cranes himself in close. He stops his work to take a quick peek at the approaching enemy.

"Buggering elves! Too fancy for their own…"

And he trips the holding mechanism then.

"… good!" he says looking up at the warden, as the door starts to shut. It’s fast. Faster than he anticipated. Maybe it was his human meddling.

The door resumes its place in the wall before the man even has time to pull his hand back from where he had been bracing himself at the opening. Before he even knows what’s happened his wrist is wet with blood, which runs down the inside of his shirt all the way to his elbow.

He holds his hand up to the light that the warden holds, and find himself missing the fourth finger on his left hand! Heavy, dark bloody continues to coat his hand and clothes.

"Shit…" he says weakly, or maybe only thinks, as he slumps down onto the staircase, cradling his ruined ‘finger’ up to his chest.

Trusova, who has seen some shit in her time, doesn't flinch when light spills onto Lambert's red hand and illuminates the finger. She does give him a sympathetic grimace, at least.

"This night just gets better and better. Here, let me see it." She pulls out a knife and cuts a strip of fabric off her cloak, and wraps it around Lambert's hand in a way that puts pressure on the wound without making the rest of the hand useless. "That's why the gods gave us ten, right? Only really need five or six." she says, trying to apply a little gallows humour to lighten the situation.

Then she slumps down beside him, and tends to her own wound. To both companions, she says "Might be worth it to wait for a bit, catch our breath and patch ourselves up. That door should hold. Work for you two?"

Phelbt raises his lantern as high as he can and surveys the damage. His fleshy lips pancake with disapproval, but not disgust. It isn't the first time he's seen someone lose a finger. Maybe by accident, but the upshot is the same.

"Probably for the best," Banio grates, in answer to Trusova. There's an awkward pause, and then he says, "If you live, we'll start calling you Lambert Nine-Fingers. You know. Makes you sound tough."

Not his best work, that.

"I'll just, ah-- keep watch, shall I."

The little man descends a few steps, still well within sight of the others, and listens for anything that might be approaching from below.

"Lambert Ninefingers," Trusova says, sampling the words aloud. "Fearsome. Sounds like a hero out of the stories, the kind with a magic sword and a tragic past. The girls will flock to you like bees to honey with that kind of name."