Date: 12/16/09

XP Awarded: none

Start: The Shadow Clock in Magnimar's Underbridge section, early winter.

After discussing the option of returning to the townhouse to find Kiria for some healing, Signore realizes that he knows a street medic nearby who might be able to help the party. Preferring to keep the momentum in their assault upon the Shadow Clock, the group walks through the run down streets of the Shadow to nearby pub, trailed by a small gang of street kids. Inside Signore finds Gilda, a contact from previous business transactions, who he bargains with for healing for Deivon. In exchange for some money and the promise of work a little later, Gilda uses several spells to bring Deivon back to health.

Leaving the pub, the party again sees the street gang who follow them at a distance. Nearing the Shadow Clock, the adventurers spy Kiria walking through the streets of the Shadow, followed by two thugs intent on attacking him. Getting the drop on the muggers, Signore wounds one with an arrow and Gob finishes the other off with a bolt of magic. Deivon lumbers down the street to engage the remaining attacker, but Kiria kills him with a rapier before he reaches the battle.

Back at the Shadow Clock, the party finds nothing has changed inside the enormous base of the tower. Starting up the weathered timber stairs that wind along the inside of the stone tower, the party quickly learns to space itself out carefully to avoid overloading the creaking and groaning steps. Peering upwards into the dusty gloom, the party catches glimpses of the large dark shapes of enormous bronze bells hanging near the top of the tower. When the adventurers reach the halfway point to the bells above, they are almost deafened by a booming gong as one of the four bells lurches to one side, then tears free with the sound of snapping rope. The bell sounds again and again as it tumbles down the central shaft of the tower, splintering sections of the stairs and network of support beams and causing sections of the stone wall to explode into clouds of rubble and dust. Deivon and Signore realize with horror that the bell is heading straight for them and the section of stairs they are standing on, but at the last second it ricochets off a thick support beam and smashes through the stairs between them. The staircase shudders violently and sags, but the characters manage to hug the walls of the tower and hold on for dear life. One last bellowing gong sounds out as the bell reaches the bottom floor of the clock tower and splits in two, and the tower is filled with the sounds of groaning wood and falling bits of plaster, stone, and timber.

Looking upwards to see if any other bells are about to plunge downwards, Deivon glimpses a shadowy figure darting into hiding near the bells. Using most of their length of rope, the party ties it off over the gaping hole in the staircase and one by one carefully make their way across to join Deivon on the upper section of stairs. There is a moment of terror as Gob's feet slip off the knotted rope and he dangles by his hands for a moment, but he manages to get his grip and climb to safety. Gob sends his owl Lemmywings off to investigate the tower above and the party anxiously awaits his return. When he does, the party listens as Gob interprets the owl's coos and screeches to reveal that three shadowy figures are in hiding at the level of the bells, but none of the other bells look in danger of falling.

Coming to a second gap where the falling bell destroyed a section of staircase, Deivon removes his armor in order to get a better grip on the wall and shimmies his way around the missing steps. Once on the other side, Signore tosses the last of the party's rope to him and it is tied off to create another makeshift rope bridge. Now nearing the bells, Signore tells the party to wait a few minutes before proceeding, then slips up the stairs, soon disappearing into the gloom.

After waiting the specified amount of time, Deivon leads the rest of the adventurers up the stairs to the massive beams from which the remaining three bells hang. As he nears the steep ledge at the top of the staircase, three of the wrinkled, misshapen creatures the party fought in the Foxglove townhouse rush forward from hiding to attack him. As they run past Signore, he also darts out from the shadows and strikes one, standing at the intersection of support beams to prevent the others from reaching Deivon. But the creatures unnaturally stretch their rubbery legs to leap across the gap between the supporting beams to surround Signore and attack Deivon. On the stairs below, Kiria moves to get a clear shot from behind a support beam and hits one of the creatures with two arrows. Gob summons a wolf to attack one of the creatures from behind Signore, allowing the gnome to leap off the beam and tumble to safety on the stairs below. Deivon cuts the legs out under one, who goes plummeting down the center of the tower, and clambers up onto the thick support beam. The creature being threatened by the wolf spins and dispatches it with one blow, and the summoned creature disappears in a cloud of smoke. Gob retaliates with a barrage of magical missiles to the creature's back, and it flies off the beam to plummet into the shaft of the clock tower. Kiria fires another volley of arrows, killing the last of the creatures.

Once the party examines the rest of the area around the huge bells, they find that the wall in one corner of the room is missing, and a rickety wooden frame anchored to the stone facade of the tower winds upwards around the outside. Signore cautiously, silently slinks up the hoarding and finds another, smaller opening in the roof of the tower. Inside is a timber cabinet with a wire mesh door holding a solitary raven, and a boarded-up door. Peering through gaps in the door, Signore can see a room full of silent machinery. The rest of the party enters the room and Kiria uses magic to speak with the raven. He finds that the bird is basically a messenger trained to carry notes to the burned-down lumber mill, and once the questioning is finished, he releases the raven into the sooty air.

Signore once again leaves the party behind to slip up the external hoarding and comes to a hollow space under the roof, where the enormouse onyx statue of an angel stands on a solid stone pedestal. As he pads around the roof, he spies what appears to be a nest made of cushions, silk sheets, and other incongruously fine bits of decor. He also learns that the roof seems to be enveloped in a field of magical silence, and he picks a shadowy niche to watch from as the rest of the party climbs the wood scaffolding below.

Deivon is the first to appear, and walks forward onto the roof into the zone of silence. Kiria follows, arrow nocked and ready in his bow, and he quickly slips to the other side of the roof, covering the towering black angel above him. As Gob finds the field of magical silence, an alarmed look crosses his face and he leaps back to the wooden scaffolding next to the roof, but his adventuring companions cannot hear his shouted warning as he hears spellcasting coming from somewhere above the roof.

In a cloud of sulphurous smoke, a large, black demon appears and flies in slow circles above the rooftop. Kiria and Deivon fire arrows at this new threat, but miss. Gob attempts a dispel magic on the demon, but fails to overcome its powerful magics. He hears more spellcasting, but since the demon is still flying in slow circles around the rooftop, he can tell there is another hidden spellcaster. Signore slowly picks his way towards the low-flying demon to position for an attack if it dips low enough.

Suddenly in mid-air, an enormous snake-woman appears, wearing an ornate mask and wielding a huge, wickedly barbed trident. As she glares at Deivon, the eyes on the golden mask momentarily glow a bright green, and Deivon feels his body stiffen. He resists the magical attack and lunges to attack with his greatsword, but with lightning reflexes the creature dodges out of the way, higher into the air above the tower. Kiria looses another pair of arrows at the circling demon, but when he spies the arrows pass through the creature's body with no obvious reaction, he realizes it must be an illusion. Unable to communicate this to the rest of the party, he moves back to the wooden hoarding outside the area of silence. Gob summons a sphere of flame to strike the creature, but it easily dodges out of the way. As Signore continues to maneuver himself into striking position, the creature notices him and jabs him through the chest badly with her huge trident. She then hovers over Deivon and stabs him many times in rapid succession, and he stumbles from the pain. Signore moves to flank the creature and hits with his flaming rapier, but another volley of arrows from Kiria goes wide. Gob finishes the words to a summoning spell, and an eagle appears to attack, but it is quickly dispatched by the creature.

Deivon lunges for another attack, but the creature again spins clear of the flashing blade. Landing lightly on the rooftop, she drives the trident through Deivon's chest. Wrenching the weapon free from the now-lifeless body, she spins to face Signore threateningly. Seeing what happened, Gob takes of running down the stairs, followed closely by Kiria. Signore tries to tumble across the rooftop, but the creature again strikes with the barbed trident, impaling the gnome's legs and bringing him to the ground where she administers the death blow.

Below, where the bronze bells hang, Kiria catches up with Gob and they hurriedly make plans. There are no sounds of pursuit, so Kiria cautiously picks his way back up the wooden hoarding to see if he can help his fallen comrades. As he rounds the outer curve of the tower, the flying serpent-woman spies him and rushes towards him. Kiria spins and runs back down the rickety boards, and fortunately for him the creature misses with the trident as she tries to catch him before he ducks back inside the tower. Gob and Kiria run down the wooden stairs in a near-panic, carelessly making their way across the ropes bridging the missing sections of stairs, and don't stop to catch their breath until they're back on the ground.