Backstory

A notice on the Biblioplex board promises something a little different this term: Professor Manthrak the Meticulous, a visiting mechanomancer of some renown, will be delivering a live demonstration of his latest artificing work at a field workshop on the western edge of Neverwinter Woods. Attendance is "optional", sturdy boots are recommended, and the Professor does not like to repeat himself.
What the cohort finds on arrival is nothing like a lecture. The workshop lies in ruins, and from within comes the sound of something large tearing the place apart. There is no sign of Manthrak himself - only a half-finished, frantic note scrawled on a cracked chalkboard, and the unmistakable rumble of something enormous rolling through the trees beyond.
Manthrak's tower - his home, laboratory, and life's work - has gone rogue. A malfunctioning creation has seized control of its inner workings, and the tower is now rolling endlessly through Neverwinter Woods, venting steam and dragging wreckage in its wake. Somewhere inside, the Professor is trapped, and somewhere inside, so is the cause of it all.

Objectives

First Day on the Job

• Attend Professor Manthrak's guest lecture on the edge of Neverwinter Woods
• Make your way through the Woods as the trees react to a distant, growing disturbance
• Reach Manthrak's workshop and discover it in ruins
• Investigate the wreckage and find Manthrak's half-finished warning
• Defeat the creature rampaging through the workshop
• Recover the strange crystal among the wreckage
• Follow the rumbling sound to a clearing deeper in the Woods

Into the Tower

• Discover Manthrak's tower rolling endlessly on its side
• Find a way through the tower's only entrance as it rolls past
• Navigate the tower's interior as it continues to turn beneath your feet
• Investigate the source of an unsettling, high-pitched keening sound
• Silence the keening and put a stop to whatever is causing it

The Warehouse Floor

• Push further upward through a floor crammed with locked cabinets and bound suits of armour
• Investigate a mysterious lever sealed behind glass
• Brace yourselves as the tower's emergency mechanism is triggered
• Survive the tower's sudden and violent descent
• Endure the flooding as the tower comes to rest somewhere new

The Crystal Workshop

• Reach the tower's highest floor as the water continues to rise
• Investigate a strange console and a rack of labelled, glowing crystals
• Make contact with a small, frightened, and surprisingly intelligent teapot
• Decide which crystal might offer a way out
• Activate the console and brace for the unknown

Between Worlds

• Find yourselves somewhere that is no longer Neverwinter Woods at all
• Survive the things that live where the tower has taken you
• Endure as the tower wrenches itself from place to place, unable to settle
• Hold on as the tower finally finds its way home

Coming Home

• Watch as the tower's boiler finally gives out for good
• Meet Manthrak, alive and remarkably unbothered, waiting outside
• Receive the Professor's gratitude - and his reward
• Reflect on quite the way to spend a guest lecture

Quest Handouts

Locations

People

The following people are associated with this quest.