Found: One Medusan. Lost: Control of the Situation.

Well, we did find Sorscha eventually. Or rather, she found us. We did find her pet brain spider and transdimensional doomsday machine, though.

The tower maze was, well, a maze. Mechanically fascinating, sensorily overwhelming, pragmatically rather uneventful. I stayed back as the others fought trolls and chimeras and who knows what else, and only got involved again when there were Medusan plans and plots to decipher and machines to disable. Durthen was devastated by the loss of his beloved warhammer and shiny breastplate to something Erson called a Rust Monster; I hope that the chest of coins Borrow snagged from Sorscha's boudoir will cover it!

Although I still don't understand the ultimate purpose of her tower/machine, we know much more about Sorscha's motivations after searching her third and final lab: among other books and scrolls, we found her journal, a map of the Shattered Lands, and an unsigned note. I understand the history of the Medusan lands much better now. Five hundred years ago, with the coming of Bascaron, the Medusan civilization was wracked and diminished, but not broken. For centuries, they carried on, their military barely sufficing to keep the cities safe from the ravaging monsters of the wasted. Just fifty years ago, a combined army of Nothrog, Deverenians, and Ghouls attacked Medusa (their main city), and razed it to the ground. The night before, Elven assassins had eliminated most of the Medusan leaders (including Sorscha's parents). Over the following months and years, this force hunted down and exterminated any remaining Medusans -- Sorcha's journal details endless schemes she used to elude the assassins.

Shortly after the destruction of Medusa, a group calling themselves "The Medusan Lords" claimed responsibility for the attack in a note sent to the leaders of the remaining Accordlands nations (with the exception of the dwarves): "Our day will come. All the lands of the Accord will grovel at our feet. Until then, look over your shoulder and fear. If you doubt, remember the city of Medusa. We are among you. We are you!"

Everyone found the parallels with the recent Assassin's Strike compelling. It appears that the "day" of the Medusan Lords is close at hand; given their scope and power, it seems as likely as not that they've been involved in every major event of recent days. Although I doubt that they are literally among our party, I have suggested to my colleagues that we begin to play our cards closer to our chest, even among allies. (For one thing, I didn't want news of this emerald artifact to spread prematurely; we don't know what it's for, whom it belongs to, or its value to us).

Sorcha somehow acquired the idea for this machine (there's something fundamentally alien about it, something I wouldn't expect from the mind a mortal humanoid) and patiently gathered the resources to built it. The unsigned note referred of "Cassica's trinket", "filched" and to be delivered in person by the anonymous sender. Perhaps the note refers to the fist-sized emerald gem, clearly Artifact-level in power, we found at the heart of Sorscha's machine.

But I'm getting ahead of myself again: first we had to turn the machine off. Fortunately Erson was able to help me find the right diagram amid the piles on Sorscha's table, and I was able to manipulate the levers in the control room to shut down the tower. We removed the emerald artifact, and I believe that without the artifact and some unknown triggering spell, Sorscha will be unable to restart the machine.

Peeking outside, we found the monsters no longer enthralled, and fighting each other according to their natural instincts. We left via the back route, and returned to the cyclop's village to rejoin our acquaintances there (they were fighting off some minor monsters, who we easily scared away).

Thus far, things were looking good. We entered and left the tower without meeting Sorscha herself (though I have a sneaking suspicious that the brain-spider we slew was involved in its construction -- it might have been informative to interrogate it before killing it -- but I only see that in hindsight), we dispersed her army, and we sabotaged her doomsday (?) device.

Perhaps I should have known that it was too easy. Tonight, sleeping in an unused house in the cyclop's village, we were awoken by Sorscha herself, bursting through the door in fell rage, face glowing green under her hood. She bore a staff, and before we could move most of us were webbed to the floor. I couldn't see her through all the webbing, so I opted to dimension door out into the night and become invisible. My attempt to disable her failed, though, and she has us clearly outmatched (disabling Ili with a single word of power, and seeing me despite my invisibility). Erson, shaped as an Annis Hag, almost kept her grappled, but she ported away.

Now Sorscha is speaking to me, asking why we invaded her tower and stopped her spell, and I lack any good answers.

We are caught with our hands in the cookie jar, and there's no reason for her to keep us alive whether we talk or no. Our motivations are straightforward enough (stop strange and most-likely-evil machinations involving planar rifts and armies of monsters, just in case); they just aren't compatible with a peaceful resolution to our conversation with her. I don't know if we're going to walk away from this one. I still have a spell or two, but I doubt they'll be enough to stop her. Perhaps, like Borka, she will be content to take back her goods, inflict some light punishment, and leave us humiliated. Somehow I doubt it.