CKM C1E3: Settling Inn Report
General Summary
Jayce awoke early and prepared himself for a day of research, then headed to The Hearth in search of a light breakfast. Arriving, he seated himself near the fireplace and began reading a book, though he spent more time people watching over it's cover than he did consuming its contents.
Bardak could not sleep past the rising of the sun given the amount of activity in the common room at the House of Rest. He decided he might as well get an early start to his first day of studies anyways, so he grabbed his things and headed back next door to The Hearth for some breakfast. As he entered, he noted a priest wearing a white cloak was now seated near the fireplace reading - an odd echo of Little One from the night before. The room was not crowded by any means, but it did contain a fair number of Avowed and Seekers alike breaking their fasts before their days began. He decided to sit at the bar and ordered an ale and a platter of eggs, sausage, bacon, and eggs.
Lyra had been up for several hours before dawn. She had hoped to record and note the positions of the stars as seen from Candlekeep, but the weather had not cooperated. It was cold and a freezing sleet blew in off the ocean outside her window. Eventually she moved on with her morning routine and then steeled herself for meeting with Fembris Larlancer once again. She found him as she descended the stairs into the House of Rest's main common room; he seemed as though he had spent the night sleeping at one of the long tables. His eyes popped open as his head slipped from its perch atop one of his hands and as he startled awake he caught sight of Lyra and eagerly greeted her; offering to carry her things, or her, or oh my that may have been inappropriate to offer. Instead they agreed to walk next door together and break their fast at The Hearth. Lyra and Fembris Larlancer sat themselves at a table and Fembris Larlancer waved a bar maid over with overly exuberant gestures. Introducing Lyra , he told the bar maid that she would like to try some of everything but most especially the potatoes. Seeing that Lyra seemed to be getting railroaded by the young Adjutant, the bar maid looked pointedly at the Gnome and sought confirmation that this was truly what she wanted. Lyra nodded, eager to sample local customs. Some time later all of our heroes had their food, save Jayce who had not yet ordered any, and Lyra was trying to follow the example of an 18 year old human male - which is to say shoveling food into her mouth with abandon while simultaneously trying to converse and record the experience of the various foods in her memory for later documentation. Jayce and Bardak were each, by now, watching intently with a strange combination of fascination and dread embarrassment. As it became more and more obvious that the poor druid was not really managing to swallow any more of the food and was instead chipmunking it away in ever more full cheeks, each of them moved closer to the table where Fembris Larlancer and Lyra were sitting. This welcome interruption provided a break in Lyra 's perception that she was expected to continue eating as long as her host was doing so. Unfortunately, it also provided her an opportunity to fully appreciate the growing pain in her stomach from having eating the equivalent of a week's worth of food on her normal diet in one sitting. Jayce offered to use his divine powers to alleviate her discomfort and the four began talking of their respective areas of interest and study. As it turned out there was a great deal of overlap; with the common themes being cosmology, astrology, the planes, and planar travel. Fembris Larlancer offered that, if they were all amenable, he could pull together an initial collection of materials for them all to study and discuss together. Once they agreed, he suggested he could enlist the assistance of their respective Adjutants as well. Jayce informed him that his Adjutant was Sprig Summerfoot, and that he would be glad of her assistance as well. Bardak informed him that his Adjutant was Orrin Glass, and that he would prefer the aid of Fembris Larlancer and Sprig Summerfoot for now. Fembris Larlancer smiled, knowingly. With that, they all agreed to meet an hour later at the Pillars of Pedagogy. An hour later, they did just that and were joined by the Halfling, Sprig Summerfoot. She shared that there was another Seeker, named Matreous, who had been assigned to her and who was also interested in the planes (though more so in extraplanar spaces she thought). She had just that morning pulled together quite the collections of materials for him, and she offered that maybe he would be willing to share them so that all four Seekers could collaborate together. Everyone agreed this seemed like an excellent idea and so Sprig Summerfoot led them through the maze of corridors and catwalks of the Pillars of Pedagogy until they arrived at a study door. She knocked politely and waited for a response. There was none forthcoming. She announced herself and opened the door slightly to peek in. "Hmm. He's not here," she said as she swung the door wider. "That's odd, I only left him about a half an hour ago. Where could he have gone? All his things are still here." "Maybe he's just stepped out for a moment?" Lyra offered. "It's likely that," Sprig Summerfoot replied. "I'm sure he won't mind if we just wait for him inside." So our heroes and their Adjutants waited, but quite some time passed and Matreous did not return. In the meantime, the three began to look about the room and investigate the various materials that he had been studying. Most seemed to be authored by someone named Fistandia, though many other authors were represented as well - including many titles by Mordenkeinen. In fact, one such tome was open on the desk and the pages had notes scribbled in the margins in the same hand as the works of Fistandia. Looking more closely both Bardak and Jayce saw, at the top of the opened page, a particular note written in a combination of shorthand and the strange script of magic. It read "sceptre". Jayce began to scan the room, looking for a sceptre or rod, while Bardak simply said out loud, "Sceptre." Immediately, a pair of translucent, glowing doors popped into existence in the middle of the room. Extremely interested in them, Lyra walked over to investigate. She noted that the doors began to very slowly fade as soon as they became visible. She was certain that in a matter of minutes they would disappear entirely. She tried to discern if there would be any danger in touching the doors, and concluded that it would be safe to try the handles. As she did so the doors silently swung open. The trio looked at each other, nodded in agreement and stepped through. On the other side, they found themselves standing in some kind of foyer that was occupied by a middle-aged man in grey robes. At first he looked startled, then relieved, "Oh, thank goodness. You figured out how to open the door!" "Are you Matreous?" our heroes asked. "The same!" he replied. "I have spent the last half hour trying to figure out how to open that door from this side - it would seem it requires a different command word to the one that is used from the other side!" The four Seekers turned to look at the fading doors in quiet alarm. "If...if I could suggest?" Matreous began. "In my studies I learned how to keep the door open from the Candlekeep side. What if I went back through and held it open while you three investigate this magnificent mansion further? I'm sure it must be full of wonders! Just look at this fantastic onyx figurine that I found as I sought the command word!" He held up a small figurine that was intricately carved into the shape of some kind of creature with bat-like wings, a hooked nose, and a long tail ending in an arrow point. "You mentioned that Sprig Summerfoot was with you in the study? I can send her to fetch one of the Master Readers as well. I am certain they will want to get the Avowed mobilized to catalogue anything you find." And so it was agreed. Matreous stepped through the portal as our heroes prepared to investigate the mansion. However, as the sage crossed the threshold two things happened. First, there was a blood curdling scream that ripped from his throat; second, the doors winked out of existence once again. "That did not sound good," the three said in unison. They waited a few minutes in hopes that Matreous would reopen the door and all would be okay. That didn't happen. The door remained aloof. The party quickly decided to begin exploring in hopes that they would return to the doors having been opened to free them. They headed to their immediate left where a door was slightly ajar in the wall that faced the foyer. Opening it a crack, they saw a small study packed with books and a few comfy looking arm chairs. Upon one of which lounged a black cat. As they entered the room it sat up and eyed them, then jumped down to the floor and walked over. Bardak gave it a little scratch between the ears and it immediately hopped up onto his shoulder. There it stayed until Lyra offered it a leftover sausage link that she had stuffed into her sack earlier. The cat gleefully took the offering and ran underneath the arm chair to consume it - occasionally looking over its shoulder towards the open door suspiciously before returning to its meal. The trio spent a half hour or more exploring the study, lifting up various books and leafing through them before placing them back down. By the end of their exploration they had found that most of the books were authored by Fistandia and that many were journals or diaries, while some were her own published works. They learned some details of Fistandia herself, such as the fact that in addition to being a powerful spellcaster she was also a priest of Mystra. They also learned, importantly, that the mage had been concerned that guests may become trapped in the mansion and as such had hidden away seven books throughout the mansion, whose spines held contained information related to the command word for opening the portal back to Candlekeep. Jayce found one such book on the arm of one of the chairs in the study. It held a title on its cover, "Interesting Facts About the Planes of Existence," but held only a single embossed letter "I" on its spine. Pocketing the book after announcing his discovery and belief that it must be one of the "puzzle" books mentioned in the journal entry, he continued his exploration and eventually found a secret door built into one of the bookcases on the back wall of the study. It opened up onto a small corridor with a set of stair leading down. The party decided to complete their survey of this floor before taking the stairs, and so left the room and continued further down the original branch of the main hall. The next door they approached was closed, but opened easily to Lyra 's hand. The interior contained a training dummy, some weapon racks, a window through which was streaming an eerie indigo light, and a large number of scorch marks on the ground and walls. Moving into the room excitedly she bolted for the window exclaiming her desire to chart the stars from this strange mansion that they assumed existed in some kind of pocket dimension. To her disappointment, all that was visible beyond 20 to 30 feet was a strange, undulating, indigo mist. It was impenetrable to the eyes. Bardak quickly explained that extra dimensional spaces do not have skies. Lyra 's hopes were dashed. Finding nothing of particular interest in this room, they moved on to the next doorway down the hall. This one Jayce opened up and peaked into. It was a library of modest size, crammed full of books and bookshelves and furniture for sitting in or at while studying books. Entering the room, Jayce approached one of two freestanding bookcases in the middle of the room, standing in the 10 foot isle between them. Just as Bardak and Lyra followed him through the door, they all heard an ominous creaking sound and noticed, too late, that the bookshelf Jayce was standing next to was toppling towards him. It landed squarely on top of him, knocking him to the ground and pinning him there but, luckily, not causing him any injury. Behind the bookshelf...floated...a stack of books. It lunged at them and the party entered battle for the first time together, thinking that some knowledge could apparently be very dangerous indeed. The fight that ensued was a bit harrowing, as none of them had had any inkling that there would be dangers to face when they began the day planning to study. Jayce had already spent some of his divine energies simply helping Lyra with her stomach ache, after all! In the end, however, Jayce landed a final blow with his Sacred Flame and the three could catch their breath for a moment before continuing to explore the library and the remaining rooms in this mysterious mansion.
Character(s) interacted with
- Fembris Larlancer
- Sprig Summerfoot
- Matreous
