The Tower

The Tower / Grand Halls
(Credit to Chris for most of the work)

Physical Description / Layout
You are currently in the first floor of the Tower, where much of the proceedings of the day to day activities of the court go on. However the Abyss has pretty much claimed this area much as it has outside – but in a curiously odd way. Rooms are in a variety of states; some are in near-perfect condition while others are barely holding together with broken pillars, tables and decay.

This will be a largely interior area. The player enters at the great halls, which lean down a large corridor towards a long set of stairs at the end. These stairs are blocked by debris, but the direction indicate that they go higher up into the tower and up to the Throne room, the Governor’s quarters, etc. To the north-east corner of the great halls is an entrance into the Kitchen.

To the South-East are stairs leading down to the Dungeons but is currently locked. The door to the North-West (which leads up to the Governor’s Quarters) is blocked, as is the one to the South-West (which leads to the library). The main objective here is to get to the dungeons, the South-East door. The door can be picked if the player has a high enough lock pick skill or simply bashed open if he has a high enough strength stat.

Alternatively, he can go to the kitchen and encounter a creature – one of the older royal guard that have been changed by the Abyss and is patrolling it randomly. The kitchen has a chest which has the key to the dungeon. The player can either, sneak get the key and get out of there, thus avoiding the creature entirely or fight and defeat it.

Mood, Lighting, Look & Feel
The entire mood of the area is dark, damp and decayed. Lots of dramatic lighting in terms of making things seem creepy, along with sound triggers within areas of shadow suggesting footsteps and that the player isn’t alone.

Important Locations
The Kitchen:

As described above, the kitchen is somewhat large for a room, with dozens of messed up tables and knives *everywhere*. The front area near the hall is basically just wide entry way with several carts littered about – but as one goes further and to the areas where food were cooked, things get far darker and creepier. At the very end of the kitchen a creature lurks on a patrol route, guarding the kitchen from intruders and a chest at the far end. It will only engage enemies within a certain distance though, so if the player can be patient and sneak around it, he can get to the chest (and the key for the dungeon).

The Silent Room

The Silent room basically exists near the entrance to the library and is a secret area that is only accessible should the player have visited the abandoned Relicway in the Garden. The Silent Room is essentially a bright, gold room that is well lit and seems surprisingly intact and well-furnished compared to the rest of the collapsing tower around it. It’s made of mostly magical materials and there are the remains of a single individual here.

They will have left behind a journal entry – essentially the team from earlier almost all died except for this one man and one other when they couldn’t get the elevator to work at the dig site. However, what they discovered was that the source of all of this wasn’t from the machine – the entire thing was too wrong, but rather a source opposite to that. They returned to the tower to find a magic ring that would help them track the source; but only one of the two actually survived to reach the silent room.

The other went into the kitchen – possibly becoming the creature that we see there now. Greviously injured, the last individual has pretty much left the journal to whomever comes in next, also giving a tip and a map of the bunkers below. It also provides a key to a desk and mentions to the player that he should search the storage room for a weapon more appropriate to deal with the creatures that are lurking in the abyss.

Major Events
The player will be unable to leave the tower once he’s entered. It’s all or nothing from this point onwards.