In the square at the center of the town of Fallenstone stood a bell tower, taller than any other structure in town. It was an oddity, part of an ancient ruin of perhaps a once massive complex, now only this one bell tower remained. The tower, overgrown with vines and avoided by most of the townsfolk, was a startling sight to newcomers and passers by. Its bulky form seemed to grow up out of the ground as though the vines entangling it had pulled it up from beneath the earth. What should have been the color of cool gray stone was instead a soiled black as though evidence of its subterranean origin. Imprisoned within the vines on every outer wall were the stone figures of men armed with sword, spear, axe or bow; From within the walls of the tower they fought against creatures of unknown origin. These latter figures were more animalistic in nature. Some stood like men but had the horned head of an ox; wielding large double-sided axes these massive beasts bereaved many contenders of their heads. Other smaller creatures had devilish faces and deep sunken eyes; with sharp bony teeth and razor like claws they tore flesh from bone and rent their enemies to pieces.
The stonework of the tower figures was explicitly detailed. In every face the terror of war and death was real, and to those who beheld the images it was as if these were the true faces of once living beings turned to stone, waging a war that would never end, forever dying yet never dead. It was these faces which were most horrifying to onlookers and which bade most to avoid the square. At the top of the tower in the belfry still on its headstock hung the bell covered with the dust of a hundred thousand windless nights. The perpetual silence of the bell was the only consolation given to those who feared the stone images of the tower; so long as the bell hung silent, so long as the dust of ages past remained unstirred upon its bow, the stone figures would remain imprisoned within their vines and the horrors of the bell tower would remain within the square. But even outside of the square the tower was a symbol of some unknown fear. At dusk the shadow of the tower would fall upon the nearby houses and from there would seem to spread its blackness across the entire globe as though it were the bringer of night.
