The living water surrounded them, forming a great serpent, only to slip beneath the sturmgandr. The viscous mass rushed them into the tower’s confines, leaving the machine’s wheels as well as its riders’ feet slightly damp. Upon setting them down, the water-serpent rushed through the air in an elegant arc and flowed back into its place as the gate, freezing into a solid slab in moments. Only then did either of them manage to get a good look at their surroundings, and it sunk in that all their worries for the one to stay behind had been unfounded. The way back would be treacherous for sure, but there was no risk of Jorfr freezing to death. Rather much like the interior of the throne-fortress, so too was the tower’s environment actively working to warm their cold-stiffened extremities. Zel felt comfortable enough to pull the heat-insulating wraps away from her face. Still following the Revenant King’s blessing of guidance, Zel drove to the left through the sprawling hall, into yawning darkness. Channels which ran alongside the hall’s sides, mere centimeters from walls and pillars of ice, suddenly blazed to life with pale blue flame that illuminated the path ahead.

For nigh on twenty minutes, Zel cautiously drove the machine deeper inward, following the Revenant King’s ethereal guidance to weave through a seemingly endlessly interconnected labyrinth of empty hallways. Inwards and down, in a terribly roundabout way, until she reached a dead end with two options to go forward. Either a right turn, or a small lift that she felt in her gut would lead them back to the entrance. Making that right turn, the duo entered into a chamber with a great hole and a walkway that led to a platform of ice in the center.

“I kept track of our path thus far; we are not anywhere close to the tower’s center. This might be a trap room…” Jorfr commented.

“No, we’re here. I can feel it. The King’s blessing points here,” Zel disagreed, dismounting.

“Then why-” began the draugr, only for this chamber, too, to be illuminated by magical flame. Upon its walls, the tale of the tower’s purpose was told in ancient murals. It even spoke of the challenges which they had bypassed.

The Unending Storm. An endless, artificial cyclone able to freeze all and shred iron like paper.

The Leviathan’s Brother, a great beast once compared to the Leviathan of legend, buried beneath the ice to watch for intruders. It would shatter the ice sheet and drag entire armies or even ancient dragons under if it didn’t see the Revenant King’s mark upon them.

These two were not for men, but for creatures which had long passed into myth. The mural’s own sigils described them as a way of stopping dragons from reaching the forge of dragonkilling spears.

The Labyrinth of Mirrored Death, filled by illusory false turns and killing light. A realm of illusions so densely layered that few, if any, methods of piercing illusion could defeat it.

The Field of Eternal Battle, an enchanted killzone where endless warriors would rise to oppose anyone who might have somehow bypassed all the previous obstacles.

Then, there came the Procession of Spears. Thirty-six giants wrought by the King’s own hands. Quality to counter the previous obstacle’s quantity.

As for the tower’s interior, the mural spoke of a labyrinth truly impassable to even those who could see past illusions, and of a nebulous final protection.

As she peered down into the bottomless pit which surrounded the platform, she received the answer to her curiosity from earlier. Just below the platform, a barrier could be seen. It didn’t impede visibility much at all, being a barely-visible pale-blue membrane with a few bands of runes flowing across it. However, there were so many layers of barrier in the shaft that she could still barely see more than perhaps a hundred meters down.

Zelsys looked to Jorfr. Their gazes met.

“Go. I will be here.”

Zel nodded back. Gathering her resolve, she crossed the threshold and stood upon the platform. Everything was here, with her, bound to her back by these wraps. The talismans, their bindings, the Brass Stake, the Butcher and its parts.

The ground fell out from under her feet, or so it felt. In an eye’s blink, the platform rocketed down into the earth with nary a noise; the only hints of its horrifying velocity was the wild whipping over her own hair and the sensation of blood rushing to her head. She was certain that she would have lost consciousness if she didn’t force her own heart to beat more forcefully. Passing through hundreds and thousands of barriers in rapid succession, Zel felt and saw herself burst into a blue blaze, but it was not fire. With each barrier she passed through, it was prevented from making contact with her body by an unseen force. Each barrier flared at her passage, which tore away an iota of its power and left it with her. Soon enough, all these infinitesimal barrier-fragments collected into a runic patchwork thickly layered all over the surface of her body.

It was a terribly, terribly long way down. The lift raced against sound itself for minutes on end, possibly hundreds of kilometers into the earth. Ahead of her awaited a long hall, filled with just as many barriers as the shaft above. After a brief stop, the platform continued on a horizontal course ahead. It only stopped before an archway within which seethed a barrier so dense it could not be seen through.

Zel stepped off, and following the King’s guidance, walked through. It stripped away the cloak of warding which had formed around her, and left even the insulation-wraps scorched at the edges… And beyond it, yet further trials awaited. An octagonal chamber with an altar in the middle, and at its other end stood an imposing figure, a massive warrior resting his hands upon the hilt of an equally massive ax. He was not wrought of ice or stone, but flesh; flesh tattooed to blackness just as the Revenant King’s own, and his presence was nearly as crushing as the King’s.