TRILEMMA GAME

"A penny a day, plus food," says nose-ring-guy.

"An' healing," adds the other. His bearded face is pale and sweaty; looks like he doesn't like the motion of the boat!

"Ya, Hurry-up, n we'z get hurts, theyz pay for the doctor," nose-ring replies. ← so he's Jake.

The two men assent to Dahlia's instructions.

The largish boat pitches on across the waves. You have a good idea why this is called the Gulf of Winds. After sleeping uneasily you awaken attuned to the heaving motion; it doesn't bother you any more.

The next next dawn comes over a large and mountainous mass of land. The captain directs the boat to the left side and after a few hours you are sailing along a narrow channel of nearly-flat water with mountains to right and left. "We'z getting nyar Spittle," says Hurry-up.

By late afternoon the wind has almost died and the waters are calm. The boat glides toward a group of wharves before a mountainside town of larger, white-painted and green-roofed buildings scattered among many grim grey hovels. The afternoon sun sits just above the mountains behind the town.

"Spittle," says Jake, with an expansive gesture as if he's presenting you the town.

"We don't get off here," says Red. "Least we don't stay here. My business starts in Lastfort."

Jake looks at Dahlia and slightly toward Myrven. "Who's the boss? Lady, you're payin us."

Spittle is less interesting than it looked, and the small city called Lastfort is equally uninspiring.

The desert highlands east of Lastfort are beautiful, but as you're trekking along the top of the river canyon you're wondering, why are you here? Red seems startlingly capable of navigating with a rag wrapped round his eyes, but he seems to do so by ear and nose rather than sight and there are plenty of incidents that confirm his visual blindness.

After a couple of days you've arrived in mid-morning at a village of dried mud hovels thatched with cornstalks. Around the village are dusty fields of squash and turnips that look like they're on just the edible side of withered. The corn already has been harvested. The dry heat is not oppressive, but you feel it when you breathe. Red breathes it deeply.

"I smell turnip wine," he proclaims. "We're almost here. Let's get directions to the Tower."

It's not hard to find a villager who can point the way, though the fearful skepticism on his weary and scrawny face makes you wonder what Red wants there. "Come on," he says. Hurry-up and Jake look worried and tired.

Do you continue to follow Red?

Myrven will take a deep inhale to see if he can smell it too, then follow behind Red.

The ring seems "interested" in this Tower thing. It has been pulsing contentedly the whole trip.

The trek to the tower passes among the turnip fields, where haggard villagers pluck scraggly weeds. It leads up over a hill and then down again into a bowl of a valley with two things at the bottom: a tower about four stories tall, and a massive dead tree right next to the tower.

A strange odor lingers in the valley. It smells a little like lightning.

Hurry-up looks at Jake. "I donno an I like thees," he says.

"Come on!" Red urges. He gestures toward the tower and hurries ahead.

The sun stands just before noon.

As you approach the Tower, Dahlia feels a sense of danger. The Tower is meant slightly to keep people out but MOSTLY to keep something in.

There is no obvious entrance to the tower at ground level. The dead tree grows very close to the tower, and rises above the ramparts. Perhaps you could climb the tree and get onto the roof of the tower. Or maybe there is a hidden door.

囚禁
閃電
極度痛苦
王冠

The Tower speaks in Dahlia's mind, in visions and runes and eldritch sounds.

Imprison the Lightning and Torture the Crown it chants at her. Its stone voice throbs and pulses as colored lights behind her eyes.

Red has moved to the tree; he's kind of fondling its withered, peeling bark. He pulls off a scrap of bark and begins to chew it. A rapier hangs at his thigh, as it has this whole time, though what a blind man would do with such a precise deadly implement is not clear. He's otherwise unarmed.

Hurry-up and Jake stand uneasily, waiting for further instructions. Each man has a piratical cutlass on his hip, and wears thick leathers that would count as 2 armor pieces. In this desert heat they are sweating slightly, but their armor is easier and more useful to wear than carry. Particularly when you're about to enter some kind of weird lightning prison. Not that they know the details, as Dahlia's said nothing about it.