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Message: <blockquote data-quote="haiiro" data-source="post: 2182013" data-attributes="member: 1891">After a few minutes with Marduke absent, the rest of the Follies head through the portal as well, weapons at the ready.As soon as you touch the portal, you're sucked through to its destination: a large room shaped somewhat like an upside-down wine glass.You immediately feel a soothing tingle throughout your body -- very similar to the sensation of being healed by clerical magic. There is also something calming about the room itself; the place feels very peaceful.The chamber is widest at the point of entry, and the portal opens out onto a walkway that encircles the whole room. The floor is only a few feet below the walkway, and the room bells out from there -- and then tapers up from the walkway to the ceiling (where the wine glass comparison comes from).The walls are made of a pale blue stone, somewhat like marble, while the floor and walkway are made of the now-familiar pinkish stone used throughout the tower. Glowing purple motes can be seen on (or in) the floor -- along with small protrusions of metal -- but from this vantage point it's hard to guess at their nature.Right next to the entry is a slender stairway that ascends steeply up and around the wall to the top of the room, and then descends again to the room's central feature: a tapered pillar the hangs from the ceiling, supporting a flat circular platform with a railing. This platform would give you an excellent view of the entrie floor of the room, which is perhaps fifty feet in diameter.Across from the entryway, runes four feet high run in a wide band around the wall; the whole sequence is about twenty feet long.Marduke is standing on the small platform that is suspended from the ceiling. Seeing no obvious threats, some of the Follies join him.The stairs follow the curve of the wall as they spiral up towards the ceiling (and the room's narrowest point), taking you about 90 degrees counter-clockwise from the entryway. Then they spiral down around the hanging pillar, ending up at the level of the second walkway -- suspended about thirty feet off the floor.On the wide circular floor is a map of Sembia, showing only it's geographical boundaries and features. The lines of the map are made of the same incredibly bright metal you saw in the room full of rotting spears -- it looks new-forged, despite the carpet of dust covering it. Glowing motes of purple are scattered across the map, and these twinkle softly in a random fashion, much like stars. There are perhaps two hundred of them altogether.One of these spots is much larger and brighter than the rest, and it does not twinkle. This larger mote is exactly where the tower should be.Also present are tiny, exquisitely detailed models of cities -- little collections of buildings and towers that look somewhat archaic in style, but are clearly much too modern to be Netherese. It looks as though they were added long after the tower was built -- and perhaps long after the map was created, as well. The models, too, are covered in dust.</blockquote>

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