The party entered the tower, finding a large circular room made of polished white stone, with great carvings lining the walls. Words and pictures surrounded them in every direction, broken into sections and separated by scenes of creatures building the city, fighting different horrible beasts, creating a wave that washed the beasts away. Paz walked around the room, running her hand along the carvings and reading everything she could. It confirmed what the Bureau suspected based on the ruins found on the surface; that the precursors who lived here before the coming of the gods found a way to reach in to the dimension of the Elder Ones and pull out relics to help increase their already substantial power. This had the unintended effect of bringing creatures from said dimension to this world, quickly causing a global conflict for their very survival. A weapon was created, this city they now stood in, that could erase the very existence of these creatures and anything from their dimension. Tests of this weapon proved to be incredibly successful, leading to a much larger one being built on the surface, with some unintended consequences. The larger weapon caused some kind of reaction that not only erased all the Elder One creatures from the surface, it scoured all life from the surface of the planet. The powerful blast weakened the very fabric of reality around this solar system, leading to its slow slide in to the Elder One dimension. The few survivors hid underground, some retreating to a third location. There they began work on another device, one that could anchor the world in this space. It would not reverse the slide, but it might be able to stop it. The writings ended with no word on if the device was ever completed.
Paz relayed this information to the party, leading to an argument between her and Edward over if using these devices was a good idea. Paz was in favour of using it to eliminate Maynard and his hive crew, Edward felt that using a weapon that basically destroyed the world would be a very bad thing. Edward also implied that Paz may be withholding information from the carvings to persuade them into her idea.
As this argument dragged on, Reith searched his Bureau guide for the language of the Precursors. To his surprise, he found it at the end of the language section and set to work decoding the carvings himself. A quick study, Reith was able to learn the basics of the language and backup what Paz had told them to Edward. This did not end the argument.
Eventually Paz told Edward to stuff it up his non-existent ass and headed to a large stone dias in the center of the chamber. The round, flat stone table was covered by a carving of the maze-like city outside. Walking around the table, Paz ran her hand along the edge, reading the writing contained there. When she had walked the full length of the table, the outer ring lit up with a pale blue light. Slowly a three dimensional image of the city rose from the carving, lining up with the pattern below. Standing at a small panel that seemed to be its controls, Paz was able to rotate and zoom in and out on the city. They could see the three towers that pointed at the center, the one they were in now had a large empty square over it. The one without the webs all over it had a blinking square and the one in the webs had a solid square. Looking closer, the party could see three small red marks on the map, one over in the webs and two very close together in the tower they were in. They realized that the maps could show them relic locations, and when Paz discovered that Edwards soul was contained within a shard of one of these relics, she did not take it well.
The party had two options to proceed in the tower, up or down. They headed down in to the lower reaches, finding another circular chamber. This one contained great machines that were buried deep in to the mountain, built to collect the magic energy of the planet itself. They were still capable of collecting but the large crystal pipes that carried it up in to the tower itself were all shattered. Edward decided to finally pull his weight and used Hammer of Mending to repair the pipes, leading to magical energy flowing up to the tower above. Heading up to the top of the tower, they found what must be the control room for this part of the device. A huge open window showed the city before them, smooth white stone buildings lit in the cold light of the giant white crystal in the center of the dome. A control panel was lighting up as they entered, presumably as power flowed up from below. Paz and Reith worked it as best as they could, sending power from the tower to the center of the city. With that, they moved on, checking the map as they left. This tower, Tower One as they called it, was now had a blinking square as well. They figured this meant it was charging, hopefully it would be ready in time if they needed it.
Paz used a notepad to make a quick map of their route to Tower Two, the non web tower, so they could see if they could make its square solid as well.
The streets were empty, as were the houses. Everything was covered in thick layers of dust with most wood and cloth rotted away completely. They found nothing of note as they worked their way through the buildings. As they approached the second tower, they heard yipping and barking on the rooftops above them. Suddenly a six legged giant black dog dropped in to the street in front of them. It howled loudly as a second one dropped in to the street behind them.
Combat ensued.
Early Frost Warning 