There was a calamitous creaking from the scaffolding that was now bearing more of the tower’s weight than it was designed to bear. Rubble began to spill from the tower’s uppermost level as it continued to shake and sway on its rapidly-crumbling foundations. Above the tower’s ruined upper reaches glowed the dead white orb of the planar beacon, seemingly suspended in the gap between the Prime Material and Border Ethereal that was rapidly thinning. “Erwen, why?” Siegfried said under his breath. He regarded the tower and, in his opinion, nothing short of magical intervention would save the tower from destruction. The deteriorating structure had no more than ten minutes of life left. “You fools,” Gallio muttered. “What have you done?” “Gallio cannot help us with this,” Siegfried said. “Gallio needs to be put to sleep and Thalivar needs to be awoken and questioned. Now, this is going to get spooky,” he said, holding up his ethereal venomizer . He worked the weapon’s safety catches and disabled the gnomish lockouts, then inserted the nozzle into his nose and fired a concentrated stream of phase spider venom into his system. “Holy-” Varien cursed. Siegfried staggered back, shifting in and out of phase like a strobing light. Then, the half-orc disappeared from view entirely with a blipping sound. “That’s contra-indicated on this device’s instruction manual,” Theryn observed, holding up his own ethereal venomizer. Siegfried found himself standing within a realm of swirling mists, a fog that washed over his vision that left him cold. The geography around him matched the geography of the Prime Material – he was still standing on a rocky plateau with the shadow of overgrown grass drifting in the foggy wind. If he concentrated, he could dimly make out the shapes of his companions standing where they had stood seconds ago. Looking down, he saw that his flesh had become ethereal, and he was outlined in a faint aura that pulsed with his life’s blood. That’s not air I’m breathing , Siegfried realized. The fog was slightly viscous and cold, giving him a clammy sensation as the clouds swallowed him. He took note of his ethereal elfbane cutlass that glowed in the semidarkness, with its broken shards now inverted. He did see before him the faint outlines of a tower’s shape within the gloom. He found that moving through this realm was done through sheer force of will rather than actual movement, and that he had a sense of up and down, gravity was more of an abstraction of his perception rather than a reality in the Ethereal Plane. Before him stood the intact portico of the Tower of Thalivar. Its ectoplasmic walls appeared to be made of sterner stuff than the continuous fog that rolled through its surroundings. “Where’s my money, Thalivar?” Siegfried shouted, and realized that the fog had a severe muffling effect on sonic reverberations. He looked up at the face of the tower and spied a window several levels above. He dashed upwards through the clammy, cold clouds, which took more effort than walking, but soon found himself standing at the window’s threshold, peering into a corridor. He could make out the form of a stairwell to the north, and several doors along the corridor’s length. He could hear a deep bass thrumming sound coming from somewhere above, a low background hum. As the clouds and fog met, there was a shearing sound, and there was the occasional crackle of electrical energy from within the fog. Siegfried misty stepped further up the side of the tower. If this tower is merely a form of a tower having no real substance, perhaps I can force myself through it. Alec ventured into the tower, dodging falling rocks. The ceiling above him was 20 feet high and vaulted. He stepped through puddles of standing water. There appeared to be a stairwell to the north, as well as chambers to the north and west. The air was gloomy and oppressive in the tower. Alec moved into the chamber to the north. This room was lined with bookshelves containing musty scrolls, books and journals. On a writing desk was a lamp that illuminated scattered pages of parchment and a large open tome. The handwriting in the tome was completely indecipherable to Alec’s eyes. Judging from the angry scrawls on the parchment, it looked like Gallio was attempting to decipher the script in the tome by using various cryptographic techniques, but he was having a difficult time of it, it seemed. “I like your words, magic man,” Alec said. “But I do not understand them.” Outside, Gallio turned and looked up at Varien. “You fools! You’ve destabilized the beacon! But there’s still time. I can help you enter the Ethereal Plane like your friend. I can get you there.” Theryn raised an eyebrow. “I have been studying this tower for months,” Gallio continued. “I can be a great asset. If you do not stabilize the beacon, the creatures within will once again be unleashed upon this plane. We don’t have long. I can help you stabilize the beacon if you’ll just give me a chance to make things right. If I have truly been misguided by nefarious spirits, I must make amends. I swear by the Order of the Many-Starred Cloak. I have a spell prepared that can take you to the Ethereal Plane.” One of the felt stars on his robe peeled off and fell to the dirt. “You will be able to move through the Border Ethereal. I cannot set things right alone, and though Lance-Captain Elsendre is a powerful woman, her forces are not equipped with what terrors might be breaking free from their planar prisons at this very moment.” Theryn and Bob both frowned. They could tell that Gallio was speaking truthfully about his ability to get the party to the Ethereal Plane, and he was not lying about the planar beacon being destabilized. He also seemed to truly fear the wrath of the creatures trapped by the beacon. That said, he was definitely speaking from a self-serving position. Theryn looked at Varien. Varien cast zone of truth . A spherical aura of enchantment appeared momentarily around the party members, Skraper, and Gallio. Varien pointed at Gallio in a silent warning as he knew that his magic had penetrated the wizard’s mental defences. “No falsehoods, mage.” “Skraper no tell lie!” the liondrake suddenly blurted out. “Skraper want eat badgers!” “Nobody asked you, Skraper!” Bob said. Varien squatted down next to Gallio. “Tell me, mage. Your intentions are what, to banish us to the Ethereal Plane and then effect your escape?” Gallio made as if to respond, but his face twisted as he appeared to be stymied in his efforts to speak. His jaw creaked and he bit his lower lip until fresh blood welled up and spilled down his chin. Veins in his neck throbbed. “Your curse is afflicting you?” Varien asked. “Yes!” Gallio managed to blurt out between clenched teeth. Bob presented his holy symbol and unleashed a draconic roar with his breath of life . Gallio’s face twisted further, and suddenly he was displaced by a ghostly apparition that unleashed its horrifying visage upon the party members. Varien raised a gauntlet. “Fear not,” he said to his friends, his voice booming. Seeing that its attack had made no impression, the ghost of Thalivar wailed and disappeared from sight into the Ethereal Plane. In the Ethereal Plane, Siegfried suddenly heard an anguished wail from outside the tower. “Thalivar!” Siegfried called. “Get yourself up here!” Gallio slumped back, exhausted. Lance-Captain Elsendre kept him from falling over. Theryn looked at Gallio. “Now, mage, answer my friend’s question.” Gallio nodded. “I do not wish to banish you to the Ethereal Plane, but merely give you access to it.” “Do you think it wise to insult my intelligence?” Varien said, standing up to his full height. “Clearly not,” Gallio replied, giving Varien with an appraising look. “So once you send us to the Ethereal Plane, you’re not going to try and leave? You’re going to wait right here patiently, under guard, until we return?” Gallio shook his head. “My intention was to travel into the Ethereal Plane with you,” he replied. Varien looked at his friends. “That seems fair enough. A little different than what I was expecting.” “So, we’re just going to ride the wormhole?” Theryn asked. He shrugged. “Okay, I say we go for it,” Varien said. Gallio raised his shackled wrists with a metallic clink. “What is the somatic component of the etherealness spell?” Varien said. “Well,” Gallio said, “You don’t look like a wizard, but I would trace a magical rune on each of your foreheads as well as my own and draw upon the nascent power of the planar beacon,” he indicated the dead light hovering overhead. “And then all we would do is make as if to ring a silver bell, and you would thusly be invited into the Border Ethereal.” He suddenly broke into a smile. “Ah, I see what you’re getting at; you wish to ensure that I actually cast such a spell once freed and not try to betray you! Is that it? Ah, you’re a quick one,” he chuckled. “I would never attempt to insult your intelligence in that way .” Lance-Captain Elsendre looked uncertain. “We will bring him back,” Varien told the Lance-Captain. “I would entrust him to your care, would that I were certain you would uphold your promise,” Elsendre replied. “Milady, even if I were not within a zone of truth, I would not lie to you about my intentions,” Varien said. Elsendre smiled and produced the key to Gallio’s manacles. She began to unlock the mage’s bonds. “Back to work, boss?” Foreman Socks asked Erwen. Earthwen peeked out from a hole in the tower’s walls. “Yes,” he thundered. The badgers continued to dig. Earthwen continued to slam his rock-like fists against the tower, knocking down whole sections of wall. He bashed his way westward. In the Ethereal Plane, Siegfried cast protection from evil and good on himself. He then drifted upwards along the edge of the tower to one of its higher levels. Through the gloom he could see the uneven pulses of a dead white light in tandem with the low-frequency rumbling. And here and there, shrouded in the mists, he knew that creatures were prowling, edging ever closer. They moved as shadows within shadows. The tower’s surface was a solid, yet swirling mass of ectoplasm. Cut into the grey expanse was a framed aperture. Siegfried moved through it, realizing that there was some enchantment on the portal, but one that he was able to withstand. He found himself in a simulacrum of a bedroom, with the pencil-like outlines of a bed and writing desk before him. He turned to the wall. Let’s try something out , he said to himself. He forced his way through the constantly forming and re-forming ectoplasm, and successfully found himself on the other side of the wall. His clothing was now covered in a grey, slippery slime. Behind him, a Siegfried-sized hole in the wall began to slowly refill in grey drips and glops. He was now in a corridor, with a stairwell before him. He began to mount the stairs. “Thalivar!” he called out. “I’m taking your stuff! All your life’s work is mine to destroy!” Upstairs, he could hear a horrible squelching sound as though something was moving wetly around the floor above. Outside, Alec realized that the tower was coming apart around him. He whirled about as he saw the earth elemental rampaging through the ground floor of the tower. “This looks important” he shouted, grabbing up an armful of documents from the study. He rushed out into the main room and carefully edged his way around Earth-wen, running out the entrance of the tower, trailing papers in his wake. “Look what I found!” he called out to his companions. Lance-Captain Elsendre continued to unlock Gallio’s bonds. Gallio looked at Varien, Theryn, Bob and Alec. “I think the barbarian should stay here with the Lance-Captain,” Gallio said, rubbing his jaw sulkily. He cast Etherealness on himself, Theryn, Bob, and Varien. Curious purple sigils appeared on their foreheads as they phased out of the Prime Material and found themselves on the Border Ethereal. They now stood in a misty expanse of dark fog. In the distance stood a grey shape that generally confirmed to the dimensions of Thalivar’s Tower. “I know the way, fellows,” Gallio said, a new confidence like iron in his voice. He began to glide towards the tower. “Follow me.” Lance-Captain Elsendre moved a safe distance away from the tower, regrouping with Forewoman Grizzelda Copperwrought. “Forewoman! I believe the tower is unstable and we should move to a safe distance until it either stabilizes or collapses.” Forewoman Copperwrought shook her head. “And to think that paladin told me he could handle trouble.” Suddenly alone, Alec stood with an armful of papers, scratching his head. “I guess I’ll just stay here?” he asked to nobody in particular. The tower appeared more complete in the Ethereal Plane, and certainly more imposing. 80 feet up, from its topmost level, ghostly brilliance shone out from two apertures, like a flickering lighthouse beacon. Theryn moved to the base of the tower and began to run up its sheer, slippery walls towards one of the exposed apertures from which the dead white light shot out. He arrived at the northern aperture and peered inside. Shielding his eyes against the stuttering white light, he could see that the room was dominated by a 5-foot-high, egg-shaped geode mounted on a rotating bronze pedestal and enclosed within a crystal cylinder. A large silver bell was mounted to a wall bracket near the room's entrance. Eight barred cells lined the chamber’s walls. Five of them were occupied by horrible creatures that bore no resemblance to any monster the monk had ever seen. Two appeared as walking piles of flesh studded with cut crystal shards, while another was a writhing mass of limbs covered in eyes and mouths. The fifth had a long proboscis, the end of which terminated in a single, glassy eye the size of Theryn’s head. These must be aberrations, Theryn said to himself. Perhaps star spawn. The beacon in the centre of the room seemed to be phasing in and out of reality, and with each phase, the creatures slowly freed themselves from their prison cells, pushing their flesh through the solid bars. Theryn also saw a ghostly humanoid figure circling the beacon, hands wringing as it bobbled a spellbook before it. “Why isn’t this working?” the ghost cried out, tearing out strands of hair in panic. “Why does my magic fade? This is a nightmare!” the ghost screeched. Then it set eyes on Theryn and howled. “You there! You must trap these creatures in their cells before they doom us all! We will be doomed!” There were horrid squelching sounds as two creatures tore themselves free from their cells. The other three appeared to be paralyzed within their cages. The first creature screamed from a dozen mouths that split open across its pink flesh, accompanied by crazed eyes that rolled in their sockets insanely. It began to glide towards Theryn as it screamed. The second creature was a mass of muscle, bone, and crystal shards. It made a grinding noise as it too lumbered towards the monk, claws of crystal opening and closing menacingly. Theryn unlimbered his lightning bow and fired quickly, striking both targets. An eyeball on the shoulder of the screaming creature burst in a spray of white fluid. Bob looked around at the grey surroundings in the tower’s entrance hall. There was a table and chairs. Its vaulted ceiling was supported by ectoplasmic pillars. He saw a stairwell to the north. He began to climb the stairs. He could hear a deep magical thrumming sound. He called down to Varien. “This way! The fourth floor!” The crystal star spawn creature attacked Theryn, snarling in Deep speech as it clawed at the monk in a flurry of attacks. Theryn dodged the first four slashes, but the final two struck home. Theryn reeled under the slashing and psychic attacks. As the screaming creature glided towards Theryn, the monk was buffeted by a shrieking wind as the very mists around the star spawn began to cry out in agony. Theryn’s head felt like it was about to burst from the strain. Downstairs, Varien put a hand on Gallio’s shoulder. “You’ve taken us far enough,” he said, casting banishment . “What!?” Gallio shouted as he cast counterspell , which Varien countered with a counterspell of his own. “You treacherous bas-” There was a faint popping sound as the enraged mage was banished back to the Prime Material. Varien smiled darkly. “There was no treachery here, friend. I always said I’d return you to Lance-Captain Elsendre.” Erwen’s badgers continue their undermining. Earthwen could feel the vibration of their tunneling efforts beneath his feet. He could also detect the tower’s swaying. He looked outside the tower and saw Alec standing alone. Suddenly there was a popping sound as Gallio Elibro appeared in the tower’s entryway before him. “-tard! I will have vengeance!” the mage was shouting. Then he looked around at his surroundings, and then stared up at the earth elemental. “No! NO! What are you doing!?” Earthwen raised his boulder-like fists and slammed them down on the wizard. Gallio fell back, bloodied and battered. The wildshaped druid loomed over him, murder in his stony expression. Siegfried stepped out into the chamber and took in the sight of the fluctuating planar beacon in the centre of the room, the hysterical ghost of Thalivar shouting orders at an unseen ally, and the inexplicable creatures caught half-in and half-out of planar prison cells. “You there!” Siegfried shouted at the ghost. “The crystal! What happens if I destroy it?” “Destroy it?” the ghost shouted back. “Destroying it will release these monsters from their prisons and unleash them onto the Planes.” “And killing the monsters?” Siegfried asked. “That would…kill them,” the ghost said uncertainly. “And killing you?” “Killing me ?” the ghost said incredulously. “Would that end my nightmares? I know not!” A look of utter confusion overtook the ghost’s face. “I must consult Soapwort! Soapwort? Why have you forsaken me? Help me, Soapwort! Help me awaken from this nightmare!” The ghost began to swirl about like a dervish, heedless of Siegfried or anyone else in the chamber for that matter as he babbled in a mixture of Deep Speech and an ancient dialect of Common. “And if I reach these creatures, they will be unleashed on the Prime Material or the Ethereal?” The ghost of Thalivar stopped spinning and gazed curiously at Siegfried. “It’s possible they will stalk both at once, or neither! Why are they not in their cages? What has happened to my beacon? Trap them! Trap them again!” The ghost’s crazed expression did nothing to instill confidence in Siegfried. Siegfried heard the sound of violence to the north and turned about to see two misshapen star spawn attacking Theryn at the edge of the tower’s opening. Siegfried brandished his ethereal elfbane cutlass and slashed at the nearest star spawn. To his dismay, the creature suffered no effect from his stabbing attack. Siegfried spun and swung his cutlass at the second creature, again, failing to wound the creatures. “Well, that’s science being done,” Siegfried said. “Immune to psychic damage, are you?” The eyes on the howling creature’s back turned to regard Siegfried. The half-orc activated his A rmour of the Dawn Titan . Ash began to swirl around Siegfried and then ignited into a fiery protective shroud that covered him and his gear. Alec dropped his papers and pointed at Gallio. “You were supposed to be in chains! You’re back under arrest!” he shouted as he tackled Gallio and put him into a restraining arm bar. “Not this again!” Gallio moaned as his joints creaked. Lance-Captain Elsendre shook her head at the proceedings. Inside the tower, a desperate Thalivar glided towards the nearest creature, attacking it with a withering touch that caused necrotic damage to ripple across its eerie flesh. Theryn unleashed a series of kicks at the star spawn creatures, stunning them and sending them into a dazed stupor. He followed up with a flurry of unarmed attacks for good measure. Bob rushed up from the stairwell and saw Siegfried and Theryn engaged with two horrifying creatures. A ghost appeared to be fighting alongside them. He twinned a fire bolt and sent two magical bolts of flaming energy towards the creatures, blasting them. The Planar Beacon began to flicker at an increasing rate. As the strobing intensified, Siegfried watched as one of the stunned star spawn’s multitudinous eyes suddenly froze mid-roll as the creature appeared to be momentarily paralyzed. Three other creatures were likewise frozen in place. From behind him there was a crashing and slithering sound as another creature broke free of its bonds and began to lurch towards him. It was vaguely humanoid, with wrinkled rolls of greyish skin like an elephant, through which a scattering of suppurating boils and pyramidal extrusions of bone erupted. Its misshapen head featured vestigial ears and two eyes that were clenched shut, but was dominated by a long, thick proboscis at the end of which gazed an all-seeing eye. The creature turned its disgusting eye towards Siegfried and fired a beam of light at the half-orc. The beam struck the crystal cylinder, which refracted the attack and redirected it in a random direction, striking Bob instead. “Sorry, Bob!” Siegfried called out. “I think he was aiming at me!” “I will remember this,” Bob said, reeling from the psychic attack. Varien rushed into the fray, seeing the lumbering star spawn and several other aberrations frozen in place. He drew Fiendsbane and cast Steel Wind Strike , vanishing as he struck the creatures like the wind, blasting several of them with force damage. He reappeared close to Siegfried, his sword ringing with energy. Varien called upon his divine reserves and increased his magical power. “Badgers!” Earthwen called out as he pointed at Gallio. “Attack!” There was a rumble from beneath Gallio as the badgers began to attack the restrained mage. In shock, Alec let him go and scrambled out of the way as a furry wave of badgers washed over Gallio, who screamed in agony for a mercifully short time before he was torn limb from limb. “Hmm, I probably should have questioned him first,” Earthwen rumbled. “Alec, what was that all about? Where are our friends?” Alec shrugged. “I don’t know, they disappeared right in front of me a few moments ago!” He regarded the bloody remains of the wizard that the badgers were dutifully burying. “But Erwen, you’re going to go to jail for assault and badgering!” Erwen dropped out of wildshape. “I need a tuning fork,” Erwen said. He grabbed a small shard of wood and cast locate object . He was suddenly seized by the certainty that there was a tuning fork located several hundred feet to the immediate northwest. “Alec, we need to go to the northwest!” Erwen said. “Foreman Socks!” There was a rumble as the hardhat-wearing giant badger came up from under ground, blood frothing around his mouth. “Yeah, boss?” Socks said. “Cough up his finger,” Erwen said. Socks saluted and dove back into the bloody rubble, and them came back up with a severed finger, upon which was a gaudy ring. Erwen added it to his collection of dismembered body parts. “I’m traumatized,” Alec muttered under his breath. “Hop on!” Erwen said to Alec as he hopped onto a moving carpet of giant badgers that began to run in unison towards a shoppe to the northwest of the tower. Siegfried struck the paralyzed wailing creature with a booming blade , turning it into bloody gobbets and gouged eyes that hung suspended in the misty fog. He turned to Bob. “Destroying the beacon unleashes these creatures. We need to find a way to destroy it after we kill them!” In the swirling expanse of mists outside the tower, something enormous was moving inexorably towards their position, looming like a great bulbous shadow blacker than the space it moved through. A malevolent presence drifting from a realm far beyond space and time, it silently drew its plans against the tower’s occupants as the beacon lured it closer and closer.