Silver Tower

The Silver Tower is an ancient tower on Evercrest's campus, and also the home of the Sorcerers.

Description
When the ruins on Floyd Peak were discovered, there were already some structures there. What became the sorcerer tower as we know it today was one of those. It is known on campus as the Silver Tower, for the outside is marbled with veins of silver put there by a head at some point. Time has not been kind to this millennia old tower. It has suffered the effects of the weather and disrepair. The sorcerers have done their best to keep the tower as together as they can, but some things can’t be stopped. When sections fell off, rather than trying to reattach it, the sorcerers just patched up the hole and used magic to permanently levitate the fallen sections. They altered them a bit so they weren’t exposed to the elements on the inside, but as a result of this, the sorcerer tower is orbited by several sections of tower. The tower itself is tall and tapers to a point. It was solid at one point, but as pieces broke off, it left the top of the tower in a point with chunks floating by it. There are rings and platforms that float around the tower. Different things are on these platforms, mostly training grounds. Some of the landvættir prefer to make their homes on the largest floating platform rather than in the massive dragon keep. The bottom of the sorcerer tower actually isn’t really a bottom of a tower. Five massive arches make up the “walls” of the lower eighth of the tower. There are a mixture of ancient, barely visible carvings and newer, sorcerer-themed carvings decorating the arches. There aren’t rooms inside of this area. It’s more like a massive, open pavilion with thousands and thousands of weight on top and formed by the arches. A column descends from the middle of the tower. Massive stairs spiral around the column, providing access to the tower form the ground. However, the stairs have broken and been repaired in places, but some of the magic used to conjure the new steps was done incorrectly, so some steps are only an illusion and you can fall through them. The sorcerers themselves don’t usually use these stairs, so they haven’t really bothered to fix them, as doing so would require a lot of work to identify and then reverse the spells used. The only people who really use the stairs are non-magic people who can’t teleport into the tower. The fake steps makes it kind of treacherous for non-magic species to climb, so the tower isn’t often visited by non-mages or people who can’t teleport into it, unless they arrive on dragon back. Sorcerers do have to use these stairs until they learn the spell for teleporting into the tower.

As one enters the tower on the bottom floor, one will find a massive welcoming hall. This is where the sorcerers hold parties. Sorcerer parties aren’t anything compared to the parties erasers throw, but few parties on campus are. Sorcerer parties usually have a more traditional atmosphere, more like a grand ball than a crazy dance party. The head, Kalall, thinks that these are the superior types of parties, because it is so much easier to see her when all of the lights are on. Food floats by on magically levitated silver platters, and all the wine pours itself. The sorcerers use these parties as an opportunity to show off their impressive magic skills, so there will be all kinds of fun things going on and cool things to look at. The ceiling of this hall is made up of a magically enhanced deep red ruby that is carved in the shape of a landvættir’s head roaring down towards the ground. This somehow magically produces its own faint light, bathing the floor below in a soft red light. This floor is one giant room, and along the walls run a grand wooden staircase that lead up to an upper balcony that creates a ring around the top of the room. This balcony has access to the outside onto another balcony. There are hundreds arch shaped double doors all around the wall. These doors are opened for parties and lead out onto the outside balcony that circles the outside of the tower. The floor of the welcoming hall is inlaid with many hundreds of different types of wood to form the image of a rider on a massive landvættir. Magically lit sconces line the wall, providing a source of light.

Above this floor, you’ll find the dorms for the students. Each room has two occupants, a kitchenette, a living room, and a bathroom. Like the rest of the tower, these rooms are a mix of modern and ancient. Everything is carved out of stone worn smooth by thousands of years of wear from the students, but the furnishings of the rooms have been updated periodically and sporadically. Kalall is in a continuing process of bringing the whole tower up to snuff in terms of looks, but not everything has been redecorated yet, so some rooms are really new and others are stuck in earlier centuries. Which room you get is really luck of the draw. Some dorms have a more modern feel and have hardwood floors or carpet or actual not-stone walls, but others are still pretty bare. These rooms take up several floors. Above this are the mentor’s rooms. All of these have been updated and have a single person bedroom, a full kitchen, a place to host small parties, and a bathroom. The rooms have large floor to ceiling windows. Each mentor is free to decorate their dorm however they like.

The kitchen and common hall are above the mentor’s floors. Above this is the library. The sorcerer library isn’t the most extensive library on campus, however, it is still well equipped and stocked with whatever types of books the students may need. Most of their collection, however, is made up of books pertaining to magic. The floors above the library are reserved for training. There are several large, domed rooms which have special protective barriers to prevent the tower being damaged by errant spells. Each room is well stocked with weapons and mats for practicing physical combat, as sorcerers are expected to be practiced in magic and melee combat equally. Several smaller rooms are set aside for those who wish to study in private.

The next several floors are taken up by the Commons. These rooms are decorated in a modern way, with lots of large windows for natural light and many synthetic materials. There is a full kitchen in each one as well as comfortable, geometric couches and chairs for people to relax on. Several different parlor games are available for the students and mentors to play. There are several magical fireplaces that are always burning with a cold flame. The Silver Tower is magically insulated so it remains a comfortable temperature all year round, so the fireplaces are more for decoration that actual purpose. There are several different lounges in the Commons, and they vary in size. Some are smaller, and only comfortably fit a loveseat and a table, where some are large and can accommodate may people. Since the halls are always shifting, there are some long forgotten rooms up here. Who knows what you may stumble across in the Commons? There have been many rumors about insane things being discovered, but it would take a long time to try and explore them all.

Above the Commons is what is called the Pit. There are rings of elevated seating, like bleachers, all around a circular dirt floor. This room doesn’t really have walls, and is open to the air. Arches support the weight of the rest of the tower above the Pit. The sorcerers hold a monthly tournament here where all the students and mentors fight one another for prestige. The winner of each tournament gets lovely prizes and bragging rights. People can hold their own competitions here if they wish to and there is usually something going on here. There are food stalls around the top most ring for those really long skirmishes that can happen. Sometimes, when she is bored, Kalall will make her way down here to either watch people or participate in the fights herself, though that is a rarer occurrence.

Above the Pit are some floors that are closed off due the sheer instability of them, both structurally and magically. These used to be where the men slept, however, ever since the men were allowed to live on the same floors as women, these floors have fallen to a state of disrepair. Eventually, they had to be closed off due to the amount of injuries that overly brave students sustained. Breaking into these floors will result in punishment. These empty floors are referred to as the Prisons.

Finally, the rest of the tower, a good third of it, is dedicated to the dragon keep. Landvættir are so massive they require equally massive amounts of space to live. There is no way to get to the dragon keep other than on dragon back or by teleporting, as there are no stairs that directly lead to the bottom of the dragon keep. The dragon keep is open to the air, supported by landvættir-sized arches. It is a massive open floor that is several stories tall. The ground is made of diamond and coated in spells to prevent it from being damaged by the landvættir's massive claws. The rest floors above the dragon keep were excavated and opened up and turned into hundreds of massive rooms for the landvættir to make their homes in. The smaller the dragon, the farther up into the tower it goes. The only entrance into the dragon’s living areas is from the bottom floor of the dragon keep, the one that is open. A column of empty space ascends to the top of the tower and the dragons’ holes leave the surface pockmarked. Each room has a large, glassless window to let in air and sunlight, but have spells to keep the elements out. The rooms are cozy and spacious, even for the largest landvættir.

The broken sections of tower, or “planetoids” that hold floors that orbit the Silver Tower are mostly uninhabited and restricted. Some, however, have been reclaimed and are used as research labs for new types or new techniques of magic. The other planetoids were left open to the air and are used for flying practice for landvættir and their riders. Some dragons have left the dragon hold and made their homes in the cavities of some of the planetoids. There are two different types of things revolving around the Silver Tower; planetoids and rings. The rings are open platforms that were created by various heads and are used for training.

Every floor, especially ones with a lot of hallways, are more like a maze than anything. The hallways can fit two people side by side and wind every which way. A lot of the hallways end up in weird places, like several floors above or outside or simply at a dead end. There is a lot of lingering magic in the less-used passages, so one should navigate them with caution. Some sections can transport a person to an entirely different floor without them realizing it. The sheer amount of magic that the walls have absorbed throughout the years have imbued with the inclination to randomly shift at times, so the layout of each floor changes. Take care when walking anywhere in the Silver Tower. Each floor has maps that show the current layout of the hallways.

The entirety of the Silver Tower seems to be suffering from an identity crisis. It is a mixture of old and new in terms of technology and furnishings. However, no matter what era the Tower is living in, the decorations and art are always very, very lavish. It is a tradition that started with the original matriarchy of the sorcerer class, and each head after has seen that it remain that way. Sorcerers are fond of finery, and it is reflected in the way the Silver Tower looks. Tapestries and banners and all sorts of precious metals and gems adorn the exterior of the Silver Tower. The hallways are extensive and confusing, but even the most forgotten hallways have art and mosaics and fancy inlaid wood and tapestries and comfortable furniture.

There is a chunk of land with a house on it that circles the very top of the tower. It is called the House and is where the head, currently Kalall Formeweaver, lives. The floating piece of earth has plenty of space for a large house and a fancy garden. There is a very old, very large tree growing from the side of the airborne island. It has several platforms and swings in its branches so that one may enjoy the magnificent view of Evercrest it gives. Kalall has furnished the House with literally only the finest things. Velvet, ivory, ebony, precious metals, expensively dyed fabric, ancient art, literally everything that is coveted and considered rare and precious. She decorated the place with an overall color scheme of deep ruby red, like her hair and bird forme, a gentle cream, and deep royal purple. To some, it may seem ostentatious, but to Kalall, it is perfect. How could it be anything but? She did choose everything herself, after all.