Scene 4: The Tower

Firina moves forward to comfort Alax as the others putter about the statues. The dragonborn only sobs harder.

As Hindle steps back from the golden apple, having second thoughts about grabbing it like he did the lantern, he mumbles to himself and ponders the situation. At least nothing invisible is showing up with his lantern currently.

Leana looks about trying to find tracks in the dust of the floor. With her strong tracking skills, she does find feline paw prints that circle about and seemingly under the beholder statue, but then vanish into thin air, much like when she was following the tracks at Inn Plain Sight. There are no paw prints leading to or from the statue. There also appear to be a set of footprints in the same area that does not belong to any of them, but similarly disappear like the paw prints into thin air.

Brickowsky takes this time to ponder their situation and what could have happened to Pouncy. It would certainly be no problem to leave this strange room and continue up the tower as the steps up were unchanged after Hindle removed the lantern. There is definitely another floor up as indicated by the sunlight that came through the broken floor tiles. The only way out appears to be the way they came in and the door is still wide open for them to leave. It does appear though that Pouncy's last location was in this room as evidenced from the fur and Leana's investigation.

The dwarf's head hurts a bit from the disjointed situation and cannot see much of a connection at this point. However, his arcane knowledge does remind him of stories he has heard of these birds being associated with goddesses of myth. The goddesses each commanded the poor human to give them a golden apple he held, but the wizard cannot quite remember who he gave it to. The owl usually is associated with wisdom, the peacock with royalty, and the dove with love.

Fortune favors the bold! The wizard decides to use his mage hand to remove the apple from the column. Nothing appears to happen. He then moves the golden apple over to the beholder statue! He carefully touches the apple to the statue and removes it, but nothing happens. He hovers the apple in front of its eye and considers dropping the apple on top of its large head as nothing continues to happen. Finally, he decides to throw caution to the wind and carefully places the golden apple in the empty stalk of the beholder.

Almost instantaneously, the stone skin of the beholder cracks and falls to the ground. The other statues also crumble to dust.

A living purple beholder now emerges from its stone shell, still cradling the golden apple in its final stalk. Its large eye roves around looking at the room's inhabitants and a hungry look almost gleams in its eye. As Firina moves to prepare herself for what has happened, the beholder's eye stops upon the revealed dragonborn. Faster than anyone can react, the beholder zooms past everyone and pounces at Alax! Alax puts claws up in surprise, but cannot react in time! A big pink tongue comes out and licks their face! The beholder then bounces a little from side to side, staring at Alax who only stares back in shock, almost dropping the precious silvered frying pan.

After keeping Brickowsky from walking onto a trap, Leana takes a closer look at the unusual lines on the floor. She first considers this might be the results of a monster messing with the flooring, but it is not spider webs or claw marks. It is instead straight lines perpendicular to the stone and grout. With a gentle push, she finds the lines are the outlines of a trap door that has not been secured. Looking underneath, the trap door would have the person fall through a hole in the ground below and then to the deadly plants on the bottom level of the tower!