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Grand Towers

Summary

Grand Towers is the central wizard-tower complex behind much of the Barrier’s history, tied to Everard Browning, Brutor Ruby Eye, Lady Evalina Hartwall, wizard bargains, Grand Towers bargain trinkets, and hidden passages. Browning’s pre-Dome map records the site as the singular Grandtower; within the later complex, schools, apartments, administration, prison controls, memory systems, laboratories, and teleport routes occupy different levels. Four new towers later rose around it and formed a second barrier, while the original dome and control systems began to fail.

Known Details

  • On day-36, Mercy led the party through a passage into Grand Towers, emerging through a broom cupboard and robe room.
  • The Grand Towers passage from Brookville Springs was lined with pictures of The Guilt staring at the party; one wall was false, with void beyond it, before the route folded through more corridor into the broom cupboard.
  • Floors 70 to 90 were schools of magic, floors 60 to 70 were storerooms and administration offices, floors 0 to 60 were apartments, and floor 74 held enchantment classes plus the private mage area where Mercy’s contractor wanted the Jelly Fish Broach retrieved.
  • The Grand Towers rooms reached on Day 36 were dusty, little used, and oddly free of animal presence such as spiders or rats.
  • Floor 65 contained a central pillar and shelves of memory orbs like Ruby Eye’s lab, with an elevator room, teleport circle, maze of ropes or workings, and glimpses of a chair and people tinkering around an old man.
  • Orb visions showed Icefang in human form, black snowflake tabards, wizard bargain trinkets, Browning using Pride’s power, Garadule trapped downstairs, Hartwall disappearing after Browning activated a device, and Browning contacting a giant green dragon.
  • Geldrin reached floor 98 and found Browning before alarms and golems forced the party to flee.
  • Browning’s pre-Dome map labels the same site as Grandtower; at the time the map was created, it was a singular tower.
  • On day-41, The Basilisk reported that four towers had sprung out of the ground around Grand Towers, making a new barrier.
  • On day-43, all wizards seemed to have been recalled to Grand Towers, the Grand Towers dome later went down, and Cardonal’s teleport-circle list included the factory, control room, and meeting lounge.
  • On day-44, Principal Grey’s old-school letter from Browning, dated 47 AD, ordered the school closed and students transferred to Grand Towers.
  • Old-school books and visions suggested Grand Towers used god-language texts, gnomish technology, automations, emotional elimination, memories, tower tunnels, and possibly the same hidden routes later used by Browning’s group.
  • The Riversmeet old-school material gave Grand Towers a school-origin texture: transferred students, god-language books, tower visions, janitor-broom routes, dark corridors, brass rooms, black crystal doors, power armour, automaton cores, and an astronomy room whose telescope showed lunar truths different from the visible sky.
  • On day-56, the party teleported into an elaborate Grand Towers room and reached a control room with eight statues, prison runes, Salinus intact, Garadule and Valentinhide unlit, other systems flickering, and a Merikok face carved into a mouth.
  • The Day 56 approach included many doors, possible guards, a tapestry of five wizards and an invisible woman, a spherical room with four doors, and Humility fragments that had disarmed traps and taken the control room for the party.
  • The same exploration found 27 Humility fragments, parts of Thomas removed so he could become Ennui, a black shard claimed to be an elemental of Void, a Frost pole ball, Juticars arriving through tears, wizards reconfiguring a map, and a Browning table trap.
  • Side rooms included a thorny brush or briar, a box that put Geldrin and Morgana to sleep, Humorous the old Riversmeet headmaster waking in 3740 AC, and a Barrier trapping Trixus, Benu, Garadule, and Bynx.
  • Day 56 Grand Towers internal locations include the elaborate teleport room, spherical Humility room, prison-control room, dusty circle room, sleeping old-man bedroom, dormitory, bookcase bedroom, teleport-room access, and related control-room side rooms.

Map-Derived Road Distances

Approximate adjacent road distances from the Pentacity Road Distances reference:

Open Questions

  • What exactly is Browning doing on or near floor 98?
  • What do the new four towers around Grand Towers protect, trap, or power?
  • Which Grand Towers systems are controlled by Browning, the wizards, Excellences, gods, automatons, or prisoners?
  • What happened when the Grand Towers dome went down on Day 43?
  • How much of Grand Towers originated in Riversmeet school, gnomish technology, and Browning’s student-era discoveries?
  • What do the day-56 control-room statue states mean for Salinus, Garadule, Valentinhide, and Leedus?
  • Why were Trixus, Benu, Garadule, and Bynx behind a Barrier inside the control-room side area?