What Lies Beneath The Clock Tower: Being An Adventure Of Your Own Choosing by Margaret Killjoy

Author:Margaret Killjoy [Killjoy, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: CYOA, steampunk, fantasy
Publisher: Combustion Books
Published: 2011-06-08T16:00:00+00:00

Fifty-Eight

After several minutes, twenty guards come marching through the gates and, along with the captain, escort you into Hak’kal.

As you first walk through the gate, you realize the inadequacy of your previous comparison: Hak’kal puts Prague to shame. Here, every building bears a clock as complex and impressive as Prague’s famed astronomical clock—and every bit as indecipherable to the layperson! Some aspects of the clock faces seem to move at the speed of frightened rabbits, while others might not have moved since the day of your birth. Each clock is strikingly unique and strikingly handsome. The buildings are striking as well. In fact, it is quite something that you are not immediately bludgeoned into unconsciousness, considering how often you are struck by this city!

The architecture is ornate, in the high gothic. Buttresses fly out from tall, stone-block houses while other buildings appear to be carved out of the very earth and, thusly solid, require no such reinforcement.

From above, you hear the clear sound of a remarkable choir, singing in—and you are both stunned by and certain of this—German! You cannot see the source, but suspect the presence of massive victrolas, developed past anything available on the surface. So remarkable, then, that they reproduce the work of Brahms!

One foot in front of the other, you sleepwalk towards the center of the city, escorted by a score of riflegnomes, led at the fore by the strange figure of the captain. What a marvelous tale you will be able to spin upon your rousing, you think.

Until suddenly, it occurs to you that the gnomes and goblins might be real and not merely be figments of your powerful and drunken mind. The reality seeps in, as does your responsibility to Gu’dal, to the goblins who are mad at work building some crazed rescue device in the tower above the ground, the tower in which you reside.

That sort of makes the goblins your allies. And yet, the gnomes are every bit so civilized! Brahms! From the ceiling and sky!

Beams of light cut through the air above you and bounce around the sides of buildings so that the city, while illuminated by gas-flame, glows in bright hues quite unfamiliar and marvelous. Everywhere around you, you see construction and activity. The miniature citizens of this city are working at a feverish pace to heighten buildings, tighten valves, ascend ladders into the darkness above, run pipe and wire, and align crystals.

Even the children seem hard at work, with all of the grins and laughter one would associate with play. There are no taskmasters, no weapons. The only pugilists are the ones who surround you.

The guards escort you to a building that appears as a miniature cathedral. Fortunately, what seems massive to a gnome is sized well for your stature, and you fit through the doorway without stooping. There is no door in the entryway to the structure, and you suddenly understand that one is not necessary. The city is impregnable from external attack, and must be—you assume—situated on some kind of thermal vent, because the weather is as pleasant as a summer’s eve.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.