Tothe Dark Tower, 6-7th December 1933
Finally, the plane was ready for take off and they set off in pursuit of Starkweather. As they flew west, they were surprised to see the Belle (Lexington's aircraft) join them. After about an hour and a half, they could see a huge, localized storm in the distance - Caine immediately realized that it was not of natural origin. Directly beneath the storm was Tower, hidden in a valley and the investigators could see the flying kidnappers make their way directly for it. As they approached an ancient dried river bed to land, a bizarre blue-white flicker hit both planes from the tower, causing them to suffer horrifying images as the landscape churned as though it was alive. The effect, although swift to pass, caused the Belle to land badly, damaging the small ski plane. The investigators landed and planned their approach to the tower - or as Piotr put it, let's go.The group split up, with the pilots of each plane staying behind to mend the planes and keep an eye on them and Baumann deciding to investigate the geology of the surrounding hills. The rest of the group set off for the tower - the investigators, Lexington, Priestley and Meyer. It soon became apparent that Meyer and Ivanoff were kindred spirits - it took some persuading from Shuttlebolt to get them to use a convenient ice ramp to enter the valley, rather than just leaping down the near sheer cliff. After an uncomfortable stroll, they reached the tower and walked round it, surveying it and checking for sign , as well as looking for an opening. It was soon obvious that the tower was ancient and badly damaged, with a partial collapse of the upper western face. It was also clear that the strange beings first encountered as corpses at the original campsite were active here - several trails lead round the tower and they appeared to have been digging in the snow in places. Impatient, Piotr and Meyer moved inside, lighting carbide lamps as they went. The others followed.
They moved down an undecorated ramp about ten yards before coming to a domed room. In a niche to one side were two of the strange tent like garments they had found before and surmised were used as clothing by the elder things. The temperature inside the tower was far higher than outside, and they began to feel uncomfortable in there heavy arctic clothes. Following a steeply climbing ramp, they came to a much larger, heavily decorated chamber where the temperature made the outer clothing superfluous. Divesting themselves of its weight, and leaving Caine to study the murals, they carried on up, much against the wishes of Lexington and Priestley, but very much in accordance with the wishes of Meyer and Piotr. An argument between Priestley and Meyer soon made it clear that Meyer had some ideas about this place, based on the Pym text. They carried on up, Following Piotr and Meyer..
Next was a chamber full of crystalline structures, over twenty feet high and filling the tower, apart from a spiral walkway leading up through the centre. Still they hurried ever upwards, with some members of the group suffering from an almost hallucinatory feeling of movement and sound within the crystalline mass.
Meanwhile, Caine was having a hard time with the complex writings in the chamber below. After considerable effort, he had successfully translated the second of the five main panels, learning of the plans of the elder race to build an immense device to lure and bind creatures from 'the chaotic angles of the outside', to aid in the ongoing war against the mi-go. Shortly after this breakthrough, he rejoined the party upstairs, taking their discarded coats with him.
The next level was another heavily decorated room, with five doorways leading off, two choked with vines. Caine began to study once more, as the others began to search the side rooms. Those choked with vines were found to cause nausea and discomfort and so breathing equipment was used to avoid any noxious gasses. They contains what appeared to be large plant pots, from which the vines grew. Meyer lead the expedition to the first of the clear rooms and leaned down to take a sample of liquid from a tub in its centre. As he did so, he was knocked stumbling backwards as an amorphous glob of stuff (or if you prefer, the contents of the tub surged forward in a thick, tongue like mass with swollen elastic pseudopods with a myriad of gravid blisters). This was seen as quite a bad thing and the party attacked, shooting wildly at the thing as they backed away down the ramp. Prof. Malcolm was struck by the thing and badly injured, finding himself unable to pull away from it. The others grabbed hold of him and managed to free him, as they hurried out of the room. Fortunately, the thing did not follow.
Caine meanwhile, had learned much from the pictures - they told the story of a great blight among the elder things, of death and destruction spreading through their world from the tower and the pit, of the rounding up of life forms to be consumed in the tubs by the amorphous things, till only the head remained, of some kind of control being exerted on the pit by a sea of human and animal faces as the elder things prospered once more. The final panels showed a camp of humans on the ice, an attack on the tower and four elder things hunting seals and penguins.
The other side chambers contained a work room of some sort, possibly for dissection, and a room of bones.
As they learnt this, Caine, Crisp and Malcolm were disturbed by the sound of something descending the spiral - an elder thing. A brief and rather nasty fire fight broke out, particularly from the point of view of the elder thing, who had only brought a knife.