Fallen Branch
The Fallen Branch (often referred to by Jim Carter and his wonderful dulcet tones as And So, The Legendary Fallen Branch, The Focus of the Earl's Obsession, Lain Undisturbed for Over Two Hundred Years, Chained in this Vault!, and by the Earl of Shrewsbury as Betty) is a large twig that used to grow on an oak tree. It is well-known for its strange ability to make rooms spin around and flash, as seen on Hex - The Legend of the Towers.
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Origins
Legend has it that Charles Talbot, 15th Earl of Shrewsbury and at one point occupant of the Towers, came home one day after a good night partying with a curse cast upon him. To cut a long story short, he put some chains on an oak tree after a branch fell off and a member of his family suddenly and mysteriously... DIED. Seemingly a bit miffed about the whole affair, he took the branch home and locked it in his Vekoma Mad House, where it stayed for over two hundred years. It was this branch that became known as the Fallen Branch, and stayed in the vault for over two hundred years.
Discovery
Two hundred years later, the Fallen branch was rediscovered by God. It was after accidentally pushing over a few bookcases during a spring clean in the Octagon that he noticed a curtain hiding a secret corridor. However, it took several days before Alton Towers could be bothered to get the curtain effect working so his exploration was delayed. He found out that the corridor lead into the Earl's ancient Vekoma Mad House, and more importantly to the Fallen Branch that had lain undisturbed for two hundred years.
Use in Hex
Jumping at the opportunity to get more credit to his name, John War... I mean, God... used his discovery to open Hex - The Legend of the Towers, which soon became a massive hit with chavs. However, it was not known then exactly how powerful the Branch was. Shortly after opening, Hex suffered major technical difficulties because the Branch was somehow making the vault spin upside down, injuring guests as they madly tumbled around the room. Lap bars and anti-gravity transfusers were installed in order to fix this.
Furthermore, the colossal amount of energy created often caused lights to black out; strobe effects to flash; dramatic music to play; random root demons to appear; fibre optics to glow. All of which were unintended. On rare occasions, riders' heads would even melt/explode/implode under the awesome power of the Branch. God became so obsessed with these inconveniences that he became locked in a furious battle of science versus the supernatural, in a desperate attempt to finally banish the evil power of the curse... FOREVER.
Temporary malfunction
At one point in mid-2010, all the effects on Hex ceased working. It was previously thought that the error was due to a programming malfunction. However, this actually happened because God, after ten years of being locked in a furious battle and conducting strange and bizarre experiments, had succeeded in finally banishing the evil... etc, etc. God was so pleased that he had cleared the ride of all its magic that he accidentally opened a freak wormhole in the space/time continuum. This meant that all of his efforts were reverted, and the Branch went all sudden and mysterious again. Silly branch, eh?
