The Lokenvale Atheneum - Confronting Nightmares Between the Pages

Life, Education

The Path of Nightshade continues toward their destination to The Lokenvale Athenaeum. They do a lot of research in the library. They talk to Moz's and Gilly's old colleagues, retrieve Gilly's letter and help with a little problem in the restricted section.

The party decides to stay the night in The Dueling Knight, and are greeted by an adoring public. Gilly and Thuniel sign with aliases Thuniel signs as Lianala, her maternal great-grandmother and Gilly signs as Podrick Puddifoot.   The Path of Nightshade continue toward there destination on a rainy road. Creatures approach, but they keep their distance and the reach Lokenvale and the Athenaeum in a few days. Alcath notices that the city is somewhat dedicated to Aureon. The Atheneum Palisade Guard patrol around the wall of the Great Library.     Moz and Gilly suggest a Tavern, The Brazen Jester, owned by Millicent Gula, in the seedy part of town. They also inform the rest of the group of some key info about Lokenvale. General Store, Quirks and Petunia, owned by John Addler. The town ruler the elven High Priest Robin Delashi who lives in the monastery. The Athenaeum is the main power of the city much to Robin Delashi's distaste. Led by Matriach Lysse Lyrriman dSilvis.   In the Athenaeum Moz is able to talk them into letting the Shades browse and get help from the Curators in there studies. Moz is greeted by her admirer Theodoric Topos, and Gilly feeds him a bunch of BS about how Moz talks about him a lot and she likes little, skinny guys.   Thuniel does research into her parentage. She looks for elven bards in and around Blightfen 105 years ago. Several popular elven bards pop up over the course of the investigation. Erlan, Arbelladon Erlee, Rolim Venran, Ivasaur Caizana Alcath studies divine magic to find times and ways divine magic has changed. He finds mentions of a time for about a four hundred year period where is little record of divine magic. The information may not have been written at all, or it may have been redacted.   Caia looks into archmages, specifically Gotfried and she finds no record of him. She then decides to look into how magic can be channeled through multiple people. A number of times, wizards banded together to make a spell stronger. Research shows that if not everyone is in accord as to the process. Some mention that when all are not commited to the spell in the circle it fails. Most of the research happens after the times where Alcath found that there is no mention of magic. It is commonly used to build things really fast, to make it rain, to defend against an enemy attack, because those are clear and specific goals. Lower level wizards can combine to cast a higher level spell.   Gilly and Moz have to wait to see Matriach dSilvis . They both decided to explore there old rooms, which have been cleaned, but otherwise left alone. Gilly's has a couple of personal touches, but most of her stuff has been boxed. Gilly hid a dung bomb in a secret compartment in her chest, and she takes it. Moz grew up her whole life there; there’s even a clean litterbox. Her little tchotchkes are still there, and she takes one of them, and her journals. They’ve only been gone about six months.   After a while, a gnome comes for Gilly and Theo comes for Moz to take them to the Matriarch. Theo then gives Mozakosh a poem he has written with some encouragement from Gilly, which she tries to wait to read it, but Theo wants to see her reaction. Moz manages to gracefully thank him for the Poem, and he gleefully escorts her there.   Moz and Gilly meet with Matriarch Lysse Lyrriman dSilvis in her study. Gilly asks her what consequences she might see from her resurrection. She explains her death experience, walking toward a party/gathering, and then hearing her friend’s voices and knowing if she went any farther, she wouldn’t get to see her friends again, so she stopped and turned around. Silv asks if she heard the voices of anyone who has passed, and she did, including Podrick telling her that she still has something to do and she needs to go. Silv has her verify and sign the record Silv made documenting the dream, then stamps it. Gilly explains her history with Podrick.   Silv gives Gilly a letter from her mother, that her mother gave to The Matriarch on the day that Gilly arrived. She was not supposed to give it to Gilly unless Gilly asked for it. Gilly reads in privately.   Silv thanks Moz for the report and has her notarizes it. Moz updates her on everything she learned from Neville and Val about The Troupe and The Kalashtar. They talk about the war in The Brokenlands and the new composition of the party.   Lysse then asks for help with something in the Athenaeum. Curator Topos has been assigned to Moz. He was in the restricted section for his research where he found a few tomes that caused a disturbance and we haven’t been able to use that part of the library since. The palisade guards were killed and had to be resurrected. They refuse to go back.   Moz asks Silv about the Hrothbert and WInifred and Silv says there is an incomplete original copy of it in the restricted section. Moz asks for access to it after we clean out the area. She says it’s an interesting request because she didn’t take them for Hrothstorians. They convince her, they aren’t and she says she won’t tell anyone their asking.   The Party talked to the guards are scared of whatever is down there, but they won’t reveal what it is. They might tell Moz if she goes and talks to them. Theo ran the second it happened, which is why he got out. She directs Moz to the curator Willi Fiddlebit who has been assigned to study the Hrothbert story and placate the Hrothstorians who come in seeking information. Moz shows her the first three chapters, and Silv has not seen them before. She says they have the middle chapters, and have been specifically told not to show people by the tower (a long, long time ago).   Moz asks where the guards are, Todon and Mankess in the medical wing. She gives Moz wristband passes to get us into basically everywhere. Moz and Gilly update us. We go to talk to Theo first, and see if we can get some intel.   Theo is reluctant to tell the party anything, but is eventually convinced by Thuniel.   He was researching a tome about Quoribados and Kalashtar and Dal Quor - The Dreamscape. Upon opening the tome, dreams became manifest and his nightmare was in front of him. He saw Moz rejecting him, aggressively, and he ran. The guards bullied him about the thing he saw, and that he has lost face with everyone because of the incident. He is lawful neutral and being honest, but severely embarrassed and anxious.   The Guard Mankess is dumb as a stump and cannot talk, because of what happened. They hope he will recover. Todon was also dumb when he came back, but he has regained some speech and intelligence. Todon is able to say that he saw swirls of scariness and lots of eyes, and crawling “minds”.   Alcath is able to sense a planar portal within one mile. The closest one is below him and very small. He also senses aberrations within one mile.   Gilly invites us all to gather in her room so she can tell everyone what was in the Letter from Malora her Mother.   This section of the library is guarded, even Gilly and Moz have never been there. All the doors are gnome height. There’s a gnome at the door with a big key and he reluctantly lets in the party after telling them there’s been movement in there. He’s worried about the books.   As they enter Moz starts having pretty violent flashbacks of the dream she has had. It’s dark and creepy in the restricted section. Gilly and the rest of us hear her father shouting at her. A couple of the party see a brain with legs crawling on top of a 30-foot-tall bookshelf and something dragging along the ground and flumping sounds.   Moz recognizes that it’s a mind-devouring entity. Gilly spots a big intestinal tornado at the end of the hall and starts shooting at it as we kill the brain. Thuniel sees a big slug-like crab creature with eyes slide up behind Alcath, then disappear. Alcath is possesed and lost facility and function, unbeknownst to the rest of the party.   Thuniel gets encased in a Gelatinous Cube and manages to escape. Zombie Alcath attacks Gilly. Thuniel is burning up Psi Dice. Caia faces off against the Intestine Tornado. Moz recognizes some stuff from her nightmares and it’s a problem. She summons her clawfoots that destroy the hell out of the intestine tornado.   Eventually the dinosaurs destroy the tornado and as it dissolves, Moz hears a voice in a language she didn’t know she knew say, “You must be the One.”   They gang up on Alcath who eventually falls unconscious. The crabsnail reappears and takes over Caia, who is already pretty beat up. They knock her out and despatch the Gelatinous Cube (finally), then the crabsnail. As Gilly kills the Crabsnail, Moz hears the language again that says, “I think she’s the one.”   After they are defeated, Moz hears whispers in Quori language coming from a bookshelf. She finds the book open on the shelf. She can read it and it says “Portal to Dreams” on the spine. It looks like there’s a tiny pinprick portal to another realm with voices coming from it. Alcath inspects it and can see a pinprick, but not hear voices. When they close the book, the voices stop.   After a few quick moments to investigate and Caia finds the Hrothbert chapters. Thuniel also looks around and finds that there are Manifest Zones in the world that are being hidden. They are spots in the world that have a connection to an outer plane. The Dyad Thicket had a connection to the Fey Wild, the island had connections, and the cave in Ethios had a connection to the Shadowfell. During the time of Hrothbert and Winifred, the connections became thinner and creatures began passing over and wrecking havoc. That same thing is happening now, the veil is thinning out and creatures are crossing over and it’s a problem.   This knowledge was buried by the Tower during the time of Hrothbert after the tower researched it.   Alcath is looking for restricted religious tomes. He finds info about people who have worshipped the Dark Six and he learns rites and passages and info about the Dark Six. He knows how to worship them, and he knows what they can do. They are all independent of each other and all hate each other.   The Devourer - Wave and Welm- raw destructive power of nature   The Fury - Rage and Ruin, passion-driven extremes, She was the conception of a rape between Arowai and the Devourer, patron of driven craftsmen   The Keeper - Death and Decay, greed, gluttony and material wealth.   The Mockery - Dol Azur - dishonorable combat, assassins, rogues and evil warriors   The Shadow - Magic and Mayhem, corruption, ambition and dark magic, literal shadow of Aureon who is the God of Knowledge, attained sentience as a price paid by Arion for arcane knowledge. If they are ever reunited, everything will end.   The Traveler - Chaos and Change, giver of gifts, and deceptions, evolution, invention, transformation, innovation. Artificers and changelings, most mysterious and believed to be a shapeshifter, trickster, bringer of knowledge. Impulsive and unpredictable. The Traveler walks the land with a thousand faces. Its gender is unknown. “Beware the gifts of the Traveler”   Alcath recognizes that the Sovereign of the Betrayal and Bloodshed, The Mockery, had some connection to Vozgan’s Journal. The book at the Tower is connected to Mockery.   He also remembers his dreams about The Fury and makes a connection he was petitioned by her and Boldrei.