Session 49: A Library of Past Mistakes Report
General Summary
Roy is experiencing a return to childhood, the group are exploring a library, and something approaches loudly from the darkness across a cavernous chamber. It's only 10:30, and already this day is getting desperate.
The party had fought massive stone statues, explored an ancient library, and just barely managed to restore Roy to sanity when they heard the echoes of massive footfalls. Moments later massive armored figures rushed out of another of the anterooms off this huge space. The first rushed forward and attacked Roy , but missed. Roy launched his signature phasing bolt, and struck the creature with a powerful impact as gears and metal shed from what it now became apparent was another mechanoid. Cigfran then took careful aim, laying on the magical floating disk, and fired his crossbow, striking the creature and knocking a few more gears loose. Jeeves rounded a corner, fired a pair of arrows, one of which hit, then prepared to help a friend if necessary. Another creature rushed out of the anteroom, followed by a third. Roisin Marshfield directed Roy to fire a cantrip, but his eldritch blasts missed and he only barely retained his arcane power after a magical backlash. Boris threw a hammer in coordination, but missed. Roisin Marshfield moved back, dodging another lash of dark energy, and prepared for more. SixofEighteen charged forward and attacked with a green-flame blade cantrip; striking one creature and mildly scorching the one next to it, but the flames did little; he then swung again with the massive sword, and impacted a second time. Boris also rushed up, and struck with his might of borelius, impacting the construct, and followed up with another strike, but the creature deflected it. The creature then slammed Boris, draining vitality and bludgeoning him; it rushed past Boris, taking another strike from his hammer, and running up closer to the rest of the group. Roy launched two more blasts of magical energy, but the creature again conjured a magical shield and deflected both. Cigfran fired another bolt, and connected again. Jeeves fired two more arrows, striking once. One of the remaining creatures completely missed SixofEighteen, and rushed forward; then the other managed to hit SixofEighteen once, then also rushed past. Roisin Marshfield ordered Boris to attack, and coordinated an attack from Cigfran . Boris struck, destroying the most injured one, but Cigfran 's bolt was deflected by another mystical shield. SixofEighteen moved into position to attack, and struck once. Boris again charged up close, and attacked without effect. Roy launched two more blasts of magic energy, but missed once again, doing more damage to the stone walls and floor than these creatures. Cigfran attacked with his usual careful aim, and struck again. Jeeves attempted to shock one of them, but missed and was struck in the back as he ran away, losing a bit of vitality to their necrotic touch. Another creature chose to vibrate so violently parts of its own mechanism flew out, striking Boris and Cigfran , before it moved around Boris and lashed out at Roy ; missing. The other moved as well, but only slightly. Roisin Marshfield ordered Boris to attack and Cigfran to coordinate, and the halfling priest struck with a powerful blow, while Cigfran used the impact to guide his own strike. SixofEighteen then moved slightly and attacked, striking twice with off-balance blows. Boris struck the same target with a powerful impact, partially caving in its breastplate and knocking it to the ground; the follow-up shattered its core, destroying the wraith within. The explosion of gears and necrotic energy nicked SixofEighteen and also severely injured Boris, leaving his vitality severely drained. Roy conjured a ball lightning, and struck the remaining creature, but discovered it could not be injured by lightning. Jeeves engaged in a series of distracting words and movements, enabling the Boris to escape close combat and move back to a safer distance, then walked down the wall into the channel behind him. The creature tried to strike Roy , but missed. Roisin Marshfield ordered Roy to attack with Jeeves coordinating, and one of his strikes connected, but Jeeves missed. SixofEighteen launched magic missiles into the creature and they tore away several parts, then remained at distance. Boris threw his hammer, the first strike missed but the follow-up struck. Roy also launched a set of magical missiles which destroyed the creature, which exploded, somewhat injuring Cigfran .
After catching their breath, SixofEighteen opened another library door, and froze. A minute later SixofEighteen recovered from his amazement, and the others entered the library. This space, sunken 30 feet, with 100 foot tall shelves wall to wall, covered every aspect of consumable arcane items. After spending the remainder of the day searching through the space, Cigfran brought a book to Jeeves , and when Jeeves opened it, he transformed to mist and was drawn into the book. Roy examined the situation, and found that this book was a powerful artifact called the Book of Infinite Spells. There followed a good deal of discussion and preparation as the group tried to determine how best to respond to this situation. Roy used a divine boon to summon a powerful celestial paragon of wisdom to answer three questions; asking if Jeeves could be restored without losing access to the book (No), how to gain maximum value from the book (copy the spells, use them as many times as possible, continue until living without Jeeves is intolerable), and how to restore their friend (place the book on a mithril stand, have both a divine and arcane caster cast Remove Curse simultaneously, and have a close friend of the lost burn the book at the same time). Roy cast the powerful spell currently on the opened page to protect the area and they then spent a night resting; when Roy awoke to a new page in the book. Roy already knew this spell, so he cast it from the book until the page turned, and found that the new page had two spells, one of great power (a deluge of prismatic energy), and one to protect the mind. Roy spent the day copying the spell into his book.
The others opened a storeroom, and found that entering the room reduced a person in size by a factor of 12 in each dimension. The room was packed wall to wall and floor to ceiling with shelves filled with general stores and equipment. As the room was effectively 840 feet tall, and 240 feet per side, this meant it contained supplies sufficient for a good sized city, and enough to fill Roisin Marshfield's purse thousands of times over (roughly 6800 times what might be found in a well stocked general store). The group spent the day retrieving as much useful equipment as possible, including substantial amounts of travel food. Boris put together entire backpacks filled with travel rations, and placed them in the purse. The group proceeded to gather sufficient materials to completely fill the purse, also spending much of the day to reorganize the materials in the purse into a few chests and barrels, as well as some packs and a few larger items kept separately, including a pit crane to lift heavy items in and out. When they had finished the purse was totally and completely filled, to the point there was almost no room left, and they had taken no more than a tiny fraction of a percent of the contents of this room. SixofEighteen also picked up a box, perhaps 12X18X12 inches, containing small leather patches, and placed this in the purse; although only Cigfran noticed at the time.
At the end of the day, Boris contributed some magic to Roy 's ring, should it be needed in the future. Boris, noticed that Roy had lost all hair, teeth, fingernails; and tried to cure disease then remove curse, both resulted in massive magical backlash from the artifact, first causing Boris to stagger, then draining his life force and causing Boris' hair, fingernails, and teeth to fall out. Over the next few days Roy copied more spells from the book, and experienced a series of unexpected events, including gaining a one-time boon to remove a single curse with nothing able to prevent it, vomiting forth a hard-boiled dragon egg, and conjuring a vat of butterscotch pudding. Ending with a magical mystical extraplanar mansion, and four days that the rest of the party spent wondering why Roy was so obsessed with this book and transcribing every spell in the multiverse.
