Warlock! Something is Rotten in Grim Biskerstaf...

"Nine!" Lambert croaks, half cough, half incredulous chuckle.

"Ive to open the bastard thing to get us back out. Wait and see how many more that costs me, before I go getting attached to a nickname!"

He puts his head back to rest on the step, as his hand is bandaged.

"Let’s just sit here for a minute. No sense in rushing, is there?"

Inside the Spire
Two hours until the lunar zenith
It takes some time for Wolke to rise again to his feet. Losing a finger is no small thing, and while the blood flow is staunched and the wound is wrapped, there's no doubt the man is in pain and perhaps a little unable to process what's just happened.

Trusova's own wounds clot and stop bleeding, and she's feeling a little better herself by the time Lambert says he's ready to press on.

There's been no sign of pursuit from the outside, from the aggressive fish-men who were also climbing the steps... and while the air is still and stifling inside the tower... Banio believes he hears a faint sound from below. Difficult to even hear, it is some kind of clicking that plays at the edges of the senses, like the memory of a sound rather than a sound itself.

"I'm still in favour of going up," Trusova says as she pulls herself off the ground. She offers a hand to pull either of the others up.

She stretches a bit, testing her range of motion while being careful not to break open the puncture wound. It isn't feeling great, but it is what it is.

"I'll lead."

Banio peers into the shadows below, then lifts a shoulder. Whatever might be going on down there, he wants no part of it, and with a little luck he'll have none.

"Guess I'll bring up the rear," he says. "I have the other light."

It's a wash, really. Any trouble they march into will find Trusova first, and she's welcome to it, but the same approach will literally bite Phelbt on the ass should they be attacked from behind.

Lambert spots the man peering downward anxiously. He stands to his feet and grits his teeth. Time to get on with it!

"Sure you don’t want me to take that?" Lambert asks of Banio’s lantern.

"They can call me Lambert One-Cheek if anything bites us on the arse."

Phelbt flicks a glance at the thief's bandaged and bloody paw.

"In which hand?" he asks. It's a rhetorical question.

The little man shoos Lambert up the stairs with a rattle of glass and a shudder of lamplight.

"Go on now. You'll need the good one to fight."

Inside the Spire

Trusova leads the way as Banio and Wolke jockey over the question of who goes next, and the woman steels her nerves as she climbs what feel like stairs that have not been trod in an age or two. Single file they go, to the top, and there are no doors, alcoves or other features that they see as they ascend.

The road warden finally comes to some kind of antechamber, a small, simple room with collapsed bookshelves and some other wooden furniture that's mostly rotted away and fallen in on itself. There's a pile of something rank and squalid on the floor -- rotten garments or blankets perhaps -- and fragments of broken ceramics and dark green glass abound. It may have been a preparation chamber or workroom of some kind, evidenced by a stone mortar and pestle on the floor, small tools with disintegrating wooden handles, and a series of dyes or powders that stain parts of the wall and floor green, yellow, and purple.

On the other side of the room, just fifteen feet away, Tursova's lantern light reveals a doorway, and a set of steep steps leading up beyond. A stout door once sealed the way, but no more -- only fragments of that brass-bound portal remain now, piled in the doorway.

"We’re looking for an amulet. She said it would be kept in a strongbox. I don’t suppose we’d get lucky and just find it sitting here, would we?"

Banio takes in the room at a glance. There might just be something valuable in here, but rooting in the rot for it will take time that they don't have.

"Let's move on," he suggests. "We don't want to be in here when the tide comes back in."

Trusova agrees, seeing nothing of value or tactical utility. Advancing to the door, she'll give the portal a once-over. The ruins of the stout door remind her that even the strongest barriers fail in time. Trusova reflects that she usually applies more force to intractable problems, when perhaps more patience is what is most required. If everything seems normal, she'll clear a way through the debris to allow them to move forward. She leads the way up the stairs, cautious and alert.

Atop the Spire
The climb to the top of the spire is short, only another twenty steps before Trusova rises up into a silent chamber and a scene that gives her pause as the two men behind her climb to join her. The circular room extends to the walls of the tower in all directions, being some twenty feet across at the full height of the spire. It is largely unfurnished, but something about it suggests a former use as a temple or place of meditation... or ritual.

Lantern light allows eyes to be drawn to a disc-shaped inset in the middle of the floor, a gorgeously painted, slightly concave feature that has a hole in the center. Ten feet across, it is ceramic from the look of it, or at least has a clear glaze over rich, colorful and detailed paintings of figures -- elves perhaps -- living their lives at the outer edges of the disc. Traveling through woods, conversing with animals, dancing beneath great trees, playing at lutes and pipes, debating the great truths, making love beneath the moon, sailing magnificent ships across placid seas... the countless figures occupy themselves in noble and frivolous endeavors alike. Towards the lower center of the piece, though, the scenes change. The tiny elves are being dragged downward, they are falling, they are pulled to pieces before disappearing into the orifice that lies at the center of the shallow bowl.

What stands out most, of course, are the bodies. Seven of them, emaciated and long dead. All lying face down in the depression dominating the middle of the room. All of them wearing once brilliant robes of white cloth and spun gold, all of them headless. They are arranged purposefully, feet out and neck-stumps in, evenly spaced around the circle like the hands of a mechanical clock.

Closer inspection of the disc-like insert shows that thousands of cracks cover the thing, in the glaze and perhaps the clay beneath. Intact, the artifact might be worth a fortune, Wolke and Banio likely both know.

Against the far wall is an elaborately carved wooden dais, still intact despite its obvious age. The air is still and stifling, the mood of the place both somber and tense.

"Didn’t know elves did that kind of thing." Lambert says, with some surprise as he points out the shagging elves on the piece of art.

"Figured they just… well… showed up. I heard they just walk out of the ocean one day and that’s it. You’re an elf!"

He looks over the bodies beneath, straining to see anything beneath them.

"Reckon it could be down there, don’t you?" he says, as he begins to clamber for the hole.

Banio blinks slowly at Wolke. "Wait, you're not--" He minces forward a few steps. "You're not going in the hole, are you? What's wrong with you? At least stick something down there first. You want to be called Lambert No-Head?"

Betrayed by his surprise into a moment's genuine concern, Banio follows the other man into the grisly depression. He swings his lantern over the hole in an attempt to discern how deep it might be and whether there seems to be anything sinister about the rim.

Trusova is shocked at how fast Lambert just jumps for the hole. She half expects the headless bodies to come to life and pull Lambert into the hole, but it seems there's no need for such villainy as he voluntarily starts to climb in.

If there's anything she learned from fighting with the Wardens, it's that the line between bravery and foolishness is very thin.

Fortunately, Banio seems to be on top of it. Deciding to hold back on the high ground, Trusova rounds the depression to inspect the dais on the far wall.

"Doesn’t sound very elf-like to me! A decapitation’ hole like that!"

He think back to the elves doing the dirty on the artwork above.

"Still… they are full of surprises. In any case…" he says as he roots around. "… you don’t get to be however old I am by being slow on your feet in these kinds of situations. Gut instinct, is all it is!"

The badly cracked floor holds as Lambert boldly walks down into the depression, keeping his distance from the bodies as he makes his way towards the dark orifice that sits at the center of the thing. The slope is gentle and his footing is good, and soon enough Banio follows suit, bringing his swinging lantern to bear.

The identically garbed corpses were once tall and slender, and each of them wears distinctive jewelry -- rings, bracelets, necklaces that hang from or have spilled off of cleanly-cut necks. A variety of metals and gems are represented -- silver and gold, blends of both, some kind of shining alloy that glints strangely in the light. The precious stones are opals, emeralds, rubies. A small fortune, to be sure.

Trusova, ever wary, circumnavigates the bowl-shaped inset and examines the dais with the other light taken from the boat. The wooden platform is dusty, crumbling and worm-ridden, full of dry-rot. It is overall unremarkable to the woman, save one detail -- low ridges on the top of the thing that were clearly meant to hold something in place. A box, a chest -- something once perched atop the dais, like a centerpiece.

As they near the center of the bowl and indeed the entire room, Wolke and Phelbt see dark, long-dried stains connecting each corpse and the beautifully decorated hole. It's an unnerving feeling to be so low in the room and so close to the edge of the opening, but it's not so large that either man could easily just slip through. Peering down into the blackness, holding his light high... Banio sees the cylindrical walls of a shaft that leads straight to the heart of the tower -- they are standing atop a very deep pit. His light exposes perhaps thirty or forty feet, but it feels to him like the chasm descends much further.

The road warden is about to voice her finding as she turns towards her companions... and witnesses a frightful sight!

Seven elven apparitions now stand at the upper and outer edge of the circle Lambert and Banio walked into; seven ghostly lords and ladies, dresses in the robes worn by the corpses in the shallow pit. They wear elaborate, priest-like headgear and appear unbothered by the presence of humans in their chambers. Silently, they kneel as one, a motion that makes their translucent robes flow and shift like fog...

Trusova calls out to the others, voice audibly shaken: "We are not alone."

"It's a good thing I was here," Banio is saying, mostly to himself. "You might've crawled down there and--"

Then Trusova calls out, and Banio breaks off. He turns to regard the object of her warning, sees the spectral figures now quietly surrounding Wolke and himself.

The lantern rattles in his clutch; its light shivers.

"Let's see what they do," Banio manages to whisper.

Lambert digs about, sizing up the gems and treasure!

"This’ll be ours then. We’re good to clean this place out, besides the amulet." Lambert says, picking up a particularly sizable gem to look over.

"Can you hold that blasted light steady for a minute. I’m trying to…" Lambert says, turning to show Banio the gem he is appraising.

He follows the man’s gaze upwards then.

"Gods! Shit!"

Lambert screams, shrill and loud. His heart thumps but he quickly swallows it, once the ghosts don’t descend on them with curse nor blade!