Tag: library

Library Time

On By ravonlockeIn Journal, Quill1 Comment

Spy Master,

Just a quick note. I spent a lot of time reading at the Tower this tenday. It’s very strange when a book helps you get more nimble. But I also went to the Font of Knowledge. The Oghma priests are really nice. Have to learn about these weird groups my flock belong to before the Blackstaff gets any madder at us. She really doesn’t like Red.

Nevi says his bag worms have built a whole city and are traveling between planes. They might help us find Fistandia! He brought one back to the Cabaret and it was Awful! Invaded my mind all slippery and smooth. I do not like her!

Orange got a broom and a license for it. That sounds dangerous, too.

Red says we have to go take care of that pyramid on top of the towers. Even the Blackstaff is scared of it. The Big Guy is getting a special sword to find the dead guys inside. I think I need to go shopping for potions at least. Istrid told me where to go. I’ll let you know how it goes.

~QS

Candlekeep

On By ravonlockeIn Journal, QuillLeave a comment

Spymaster!!!!

We went to Candlekeep!!! He kept his promise and we went to the LIBRARY!!! They wouldn’t let us go in to see all the books, but then we did and it was so cool! And people go missing inside their own houses and we can read any book we ask for and they made copies of books for us, too!!! Spymaster it was so cool!!! And now we have a mage’s own house for ourselves, to take with us wherever we want, until we find her. She’s not really there, she’s left the plane, I guess. Red wants to use it for robbing places, but I just want to go inside and read all the books! And play with all the kitties! I need to learn how to make proper books and then I can just copy all her books. She has so many books and we can read them all!!! It’s like we brought Candlekeep home with us!!! Or at least part of it!

Right… proper report. Sorry.

We met the Gate Warden Callum Strongbranch, and he said our books were good enough – I gave him a book on stray cats of Waterdeep from Abena over at the Homeward Bookshop. She writes down all the cats she helps. So many cats, so I made a copy of it to take with me. They’ve never seen anything like that before.

He sent us to the House of Rest. Even their Inn is magical. It’s way bigger inside than the building is. A really friendly librarian, Sprig Summerfoot came then and asked us all what we wanted to read so he could gather all the books for us. Everybody but Red had come, but not everybody had an idea what they wanted. Some of us just wanted to see the Library, but Sprig said we weren’t allowed. So, we picked a bunch of random topics to read about and ate, drank, and went to the spa while we waited.

They wouldn’t let me take my… calligraphy kit into the reading rooms, have to pay for copies of the books, they said, not allowed to make my own. I read about Kenku myths and took notes on that weird Luskan tech for Mary Mouse. He really wants to make some of that stuff himself. But really, we came here to figure out why there are worms in Nevi’s bag of holding.

Sprig says that the book Mary Mouse needs was borrowed by a guy named Matrius, and written by a lady named Fistandia. Both of them have disappeared. Fistandia a while ago, but Matrius just a couple days gone. He says maybe we can help find him, and then we can look at the book. We agree, so after we get done reading, we go to bed to rest before going inside.

A new guy, Parmack meets us the next morning, and he lets us go inside the Library. We can’t look around too much, but it is Amazing!!! So many books, and it’s so big and pretty and… Oh. Sorry. Matrius had gone to Fistandia’s lab to try and find her, so Parmack took us there. She had lots of books and scrolls and all sorts of things in her room. Including the book Mary Mouse wanted – The Joy of Extra-Dimensional Space. It has some other guy on the cover though, Nevi says it’s Mordenkainen, or something like that. I start looking at the books, but Nevi gets real focused on Matrius’ notes and then looks up and says Scepter and a door appeared in the middle of the room.

I wrote a quick note to Parmack and slipped it under the door to him before we all went through the magic door. We found Matrius right inside, and he seems really happy to see us. He couldn’t figure out how to get back out. He has a little statue he wants to check out and invites us to look around for Fistandia. He runs out the door and we heard him scream as the door slammed shut behind him.

The tower we’re in is really cool, but some of the boys want to go outside and play in weird purple mist. That seems like a bad idea, and it is, but Nevi gets really stuck on it for a while. Then we start looking around and we find so many books and kitties! They’re really nice kitties. Well, most of them are, anyway, and… oh… Some of the books aren’t so nice either and attack us. But they figure out that she hid the keyword to get out on the spines of seven books, and this place was a gift from her goddess Mystra. There are two odd little men in the kitchen and Nevi said they should be able to talk, but they can, and they were really nice. They said the faerie dragons in the garden aren’t very nice, so we avoided them. But we found lots of cool books and tools and even a room full of monsters in jars. Orange decided to keep the biggest one to display at the Cabaret, but Nevi said we shouldn’t take too much since a goddess made this place. They still took some alchemy stuff, though.

We also had to fight a chair, and a toad demon, and a bookcase, and some hands. That was really strange, but the Big Guy said they might have animated because of all the magic. Some swords attacked us, too. It’s a strange place, this magic tower, but not too dangerous. There was a really cool room with all the stars in the sky, plus five extra stars that opened an extra door to chained books. They attacked us, too. Orange wanted to break the whole bookcase, but I wouldn’t let him. They looked like important books.

But we found the word to get out, Liberty, and went back outside. Matrius got killed while we were gone. Apparently that statue was a little demon. Silly mage, the imp was pretty squishy. Mary Mouse, Nevi, and Orange got held back as we all left the magic house. By Mystra? She told them we could borrow the house until we find Fistandia and that she’s on a different plane. The librarians were happy we figured things out, even if Matrius got dead, and offered us each any two books we wanted, too. I’m going to copy books from the magic tower, too. She has lots of good books.

Anyway, I’m home again if you need anything.

~QS

Preparation

On By ravonlockeIn Journal, TristiaLeave a comment

I teleport up to Bangoria with Nat, Maribeth and her mom, and Remy and his dad. I bring us to edge of town so we can have a nice walk up to the castle. Give everyone a few minutes to settle into the new area, especially the ones who’ve never been here. Nat sends for her parents and we go small receiving hall to wait. Her parents greet us warmly, if slightly confused by our sudden return. Nat explains our presence, and our need for sanctuary for our friends’ parents and they are happy to oblidge. I’m sure the townsfolk will be all the talk about Remy’s dad coming to visit, but I don’t remind Nat. Mr. Rathbone is excited to take Mr. Renaud hunting the next morning. Natty gives everyone a tour of the castle, and I’m reminded of when it was Vlad’s castle instead. I still wonder if my boon was used up by all the things we stole before he took it back home.

When the tour is done, we sit down to a nice dinner with the whole family. There is pleasant chat, and I remind Nat to ask about Mana. Mr Rathbone says it should be alright, but we’ll have to ask Great Grandfather to make sure we don’t take too much. Remy stays with his dad as Nat, Maribeth, and I go down to talk to the old skull. A lot of the zombies now were prisoners we fought last time we were here. He says the mine is back to full production and we’re welcome to take what we want, but no more than 500 kilograms of the stuff. We do some quick math and decide that 200 kilograms should be enough. Remy and I will have to flip for who transports the mana and who transports the group in the morning.

So, we head up to bed, sharing a room with Maribeth’s mom for one last night. After a nice breakfast, sans the older men, we make our goodbyes. Remy agrees to transport the mana, and I take the group home in time for breakfast at my house to just be finishing. Everyone is gathered up to discuss what comes next We have a lot to do over the next week or so.

Work on the Soup Kitchen/anti-mage rhetoric. Transmuting mana. Figuring out what we’re going to say at the deliberative. Coordinating with our various political parties. Scribing Spells. Checking out the One God church. And I have to speak to the families of my dead household staff.

We have to get the mages to see that the anti-mage sentiment is only going to get worse if they don’t reinvest back into the city instead of hording wealth in the petals. Places like the One God Church are only going to get bigger and worse.

Who is up for the Prime seats? Anyone beside the two people we met and our professor? Do we even know anything about any of them?

Nat ponders contacting another plane to ask questions. But she doesn’t even know who will answer, and that just seems super dangerous right now.

Maribeth suggests we head into her library and do some research.

Maybe I should check in with our friends around the world and see if everyone is still safe: Italy, Asia, and South America.

So much to do, where to start?

Everyone decides to take a day. They are just going to sit and scribe their new spells. I take this chance to grab Gerald to go deliver ashes, and money, to the families of the deceased. Crystal tries to go with us “to help,” but I insist she stay out of it since her people caused this problem in the first place.

Back together again the next day, we go over what we know about the Deliberative coming up. The Prime candidates. Professor Wiest is hot tempered and seems to be the likely successor to her father. Satiel was an apprentice of Rictus, and a powerful evoker. Neither one of them has officially declared for the post. There are no clear candidates for the Prime Conjurer, but Pendleton of the Conservative party is well regarded,. Namira is another possibiity, she was also an apprentice of Rictus, and I’m not super happy with where that is all going. The Deliberative itself is likely to cover budgetary concerns, Dalish’s report on the planes, the elections, and new laws to increase prisoners for the mines here and out west.

We have to figure out a better way to mine. We test Crystal, but she has no adverse effects to being exposed to mana. So, demons, maybe, but that’s resource and blood sacrifice intensive. Undead like Nat’s mine are just too hard to control in that quantity for most people. Constructs don’t survive the mana, either.

Then Remy runs off on a tangent about mana allergies, and why people didn’t have this problem in the before times. And it goes all overy the place, including Philomena poppig in to suggest that mana wasn’t a physical resource before the realms were split. Klyce got over his allergy by learning to convert the mana, basically a self-taught mage. There’s a lot of arguing and sniping for a while and Klyce says he isn’t going to let them take me or him into a research facility again. Philomena tries to settle everything down by suggesting Remy get Dalish and Gerhardt to help him research solutions. Dalish pipes up about fixing it by unbreaking the world, and then the door comes up and the arguments start again. Until someone remembers the library.

Maribeth reminds us all that we have to give a story to get the information we seek. She also reminds us that information about the breaking is behind the tentacle monsters, and they were not happy to see them last time. I try to get everyone to agree on a question before we go, but it seems like Remy has his own ideas, as usual. There’s a bit more sniping, until Maribeth opens the doorway.

We all write in our books and think of our questions. I write abou the lives of the household staff that have finally been fully laid to rest, and ask about the day the King fell. Most of us head off together, but Remy goes the opposite way. We eventually enter a tower full of histories and biographies, and up to a floor where we split into two groups. Klyce finds pulp novels from ten years ago about the two knights. The rest of us are drawn to a set of history books. The first is the History of the Royal Family. There is a claim here that they are descendants of the Green Witch herself. The second is The Life of King Barran. He had no heir, no wife, and was an only child. It gives detail on the politics of the time of the overthrow. Royal control over the mana supply was a large factor. He sent far fewer people to the mies, so there was always a shortage. There isn’t much on the coup itself, though it does mention Rictus killing him, and all the royal guard, including Captain Hector Renaud. Well, Remy has some questions to answer! Nat finds a page with invisible ink that simply says: King Barran Lives.

We spend a few hours looking around this tower for more information. Dalish finds a log book of the royal guards, it shows the visitor log for that morning. Declan Wiest signed in. He cannot find a listing for a squire of Hector, but the timing is off. According to the Pulps, the Red Knight would have been and infant at the time of the coup. Nat looks for the Greeen Witch’s genalogy, but finds only that the two old country noble lines died off centuries ago. Klyce posits that the Red Knight was a son of a mage, stolen and trained. I’m not so sure he had to be stolen, he could just be the Black Knight’s son. We wonder if Porter’s spell can help us find the King, or if it really is Hector, if Remy’s blood can lead us to the Black Knight.

Devils in the Library

On By ravonlockeIn Journal, TristiaLeave a comment

Breakfast is very chaotic. Marybeth says our attackers should not have been working together like they were. They’re from different factions. Warring factions, even. She hasn’t ever found information about them in the library, but has learned from her contacts. When Klyce joins us, Nat asks about using her dreams to could guide us. The Knights and Aranea attacking the clones? Or, could the cult of the not-Dawnmother have something to do with Marybeth’s Grandfather. What about the Library dream, is there something there we need to find. Is it Grandfather who burns the book, or Marybeth.

Remy interrupts, asking Dalish about getting us more mana and spell scribing materials, so Dalish and Gerhardt head off to see what they can get.

Then we devolve into discussion of our military service, the government, and what if they split us up again. But Nat pulls us back on course with her Library dream. It could be that we have to go in and stop Grandfather, or it could be that we need to go burn a book before he can get to it. We have to find him, could we scry on him without just finding Marybeth? Can we somehow break the bond between them? Marybeth wants to think about it, she’s worried about us getting hurt trying to save her.

Dalish and Gerhardt return with 20 motes of mana, but no more scribing materials. This kicks off a discussion about resources. Wizarding, as always, seems a very strange thing to deal with. Glad I don’t have to do all that.

Marybeth pulls us back to the library. She wonders if she can find a future book about how we solved this problem of her Grandfather. We have to stick together, so we decide to all go to the library. I try to convince everyone to stick together and pick one goal, but they just won’t listen. Marybeth, Remy, Gerhardt and I head off to look for the future answer. Nat, Klyce, and Dalish head off to try and specifically find the burning book from Nat’s vision. We all write in the books, and head off in two opposite directions.

We walk for a long time, and eventually come upon a tower. The pull leads us up quite a few levels, but what we find there is only soot and ash. Everything on this level has been burnt. Written in the ash are two words: Too Slow.

Then a loud shrieking noise rips through the air. I pull away from the group, looking for where the attack is coming from. Remy pulls up light to see better. Marybeth and Gerhardt prepare for an attack. Suddenly, there is movement at the windows around the tower, and purple spines come shooting in at all of us. From the stairs come two large creatures who immediately attack. Remy dimension doors away with Marybeth, and they turn on Gerhardt and me. I fall under their blows, but Gerhardt revives me inside a wall of force. The creatures are gone, and I grab his hand and dimension door us all the way back to the Library entrance in one jump.

The others aren’t there. I send to them, but somehow they’re still in the tower. Gerhardt and I wait, but I’m barely alive, we can’t go back. We dont wait long, what if the things come after us? Gerhardt and I leave the library, there’s nothing we can do to get back to them in time.

A short time later, the rest of them pile out of the Library, bleeding, but alive. Gerhardt sets to work, patching up wounds, while Remy explains that they wanted to make a deal with him. They were only after Marybeth. They didn’t seem to care if they died, as though they would just come back again. We try to ask Marybeth, but she says she can’t talk about them. Klyce asks if she could talk about a hypothetical contract, instead of her own, but she won’t. Nat says her other planar contact always tries to make deal with her, too. Marybeth says this is different because the contract was made by her Grandfather, long before she was born. Remy explains that they offered to let him take the debt of 200,000 souls, but he refused. Klyce asks if Marybeth can set up a meeting, and Remy suggests bringing a lawyer along. They’ve got to be violating terms of the contract, surely we can get them to stop?

Marybeth says she has a handler, and spoke to them the night before. Soemething is happening, some sort of revolt or civil war. There is chaos wherever they are, more than usual. We ask if she can talk to them again, we have to figure this out. Maybe we can help settle things? She says she will try.