Lost Lore 12: Loose Ends and Deceptions
General Summary
As we left the Abbey with Salto, the aforementioned Final Hammer Kobold, to head to the Curious Word, he explained that none of the hatchlings had been observed to have the Dragon sign indicating that they would be the next Aun-Kri, but it could still manifest in a new clutchling or develop later yet. I said that we could provide them some assistance yet and there wasn't really any ill will held from our side of things, since we would have preferred that they just vacate the place, alive.
Maybe the bookstore is by appointment only?The Curious Word appeared as if it didn't get much traffic and had the closed sign up, but I did faintly hear discussion coming from the back room so we knocked on the door a bit to get their attention and Norynor cautiously answered and was surprised to see the three of us, Charity, Ospher, and I here so soon. We explained we had just wrapped up part of the Abbey and needed to check specifically with him on advice on dealing with kobolds; he said since they're a sentient species, you can't really train them, but his advice was essentially to drown them since they have little lungs and they'll fill up quickly. Disguising my surprise, we thanked him and entered the bookshop, while leaving Salto and his kin in an alleyway with some rations with the assurance we'd be back quickly.
Nobody raises kobolds, they're dangerous, destructive, cunningly intelligent.
I will be... behind the barrel.Tyrom and all the rest of the Order were in the back room as we entered, evidently they'd been out celebrating without us for a little while until they learned of Black Pudding having been released in the sewer system of the Central District of Frial and so they had stayed up attempting to deal with that. Ospher and I both commented that this was likely no happenstance as Black Pudding isn't even really common to the region, much less a well used sewer system that is regularly traveled. He immediately agreed and explained he suspected it was likely another magical group acting against them (or just Frial) or LaRoche's circle in some odd endeavor. He then offered us food from their communal source they had arrayed as, even though it was well into the afternoon, they had been up til very recently dealing with this. He then handed over a few backpacks with our official Order of the Basilisk supplies, 6 charges of Manacite, a marbled mask, a black cloak like theirs, a full strength minor healing potion, a scroll of the Darkness spell, a scroll of the Identify spell, 10 gold pieces.
A trapmaster!? It's a very rare profession among their species. Almost akin to a priest, really. And he was here in the city?We offered up some of the kobold devices to their inspection and all concluded that it was extremely unlikely that they were kobold crafted, even in light of the trapmaster assistance, but I remained unconvinced though I waited to convey that to Charity and Ospher. Finally, we explained that we should be done with the Abbey after tomorrow and they welcomed our assistance afterwards as they would likely need it for the black puddings in the sewers. We were also told that if we wanted to work on spell copying into spellbooks where, we could use their supplies as Tyrom had plenty from his parent's time that would best serve the group, I found this funny since prior to us three joining, only Neville and Tyrom had made use of the benefit, so it will be interesting to see how quickly Charity and Ospher rip through his supplies. Our time in Kint's office was well spent in reconnaissance for the Basilisk meeting, since that building would also serve a stupendous underground location for the new Kobold warren in Bell Haven, near the Fountain. The building itself had been stripped ages ago since it wasn't "haunted" and was still mostly intact. I explained that they shouldn't go out during the day (obviously, since they're kobolds) but there's still a human population in this district and they're good at seeking aid from elsewhere, so inviting further trouble wouldn't do them any good. I also warned them of the Basilisks in the area and advised no contact.
He was, and he was damn good at his job.
I don't have much to give you in return for thanks.
I don't expect anything besides your species' continued survival.
I guess this was a nice thing that we did? But also, it could probably be a problem later, maybe? Or both? Hopefully neither.
Yeah I really hope this doesn't come back to bite us.
How could it?! Even if the Trapmaster comes back he's just one guy! Those hatchlings won't grow that quickly!
And we know where the problem is, so at least we'll have a head start on it. We probably shouldn't tell anyone we did this though.After leaving, we agreed that while we could pretty much take the afternoon off, it was likely best to see what we could of the lab while we were MOSTLY healthy and flush with manacite and further agreed that the building still had a few other things we needed to get ahead of before things wrapped up tomorrow. So we set back off to the central district and got Tadlo and Lorgan and Brightshine back together to go back in one more time. Brightshine asked what specifically happened with the Kobolds since he wanted one of the babies' brains for one of his jars, in order to know what sort of knowledge is intrinsic in their birth and passed from their parents. Tadlo and Lorgan seemed to see through Ospher and Charity's poor deceit, but I don't expect them to make trouble with that knowledge.
What happened to the babies?
Drowned in the fountain.
Good good, that's the proper and nice thing. It would be nice to have one of the hatchling's egg brains to know what they know at birth.
Well, you can't get any, cause they're all drowned. I guess.As we got back to the Abbey, we saw King Nimoy and three of his buddies warming themselves by a trash fire in the late afternoon past the courtyard itself. Odd for the springtime, but ok. As we walked over to greet him, he asked how we were doing in his kingdom and explained that the Abbey had been less hungry of late and inquired as to what was left, I was mostly in-specific, but he was satisfied with that and gave us a boon that is commonly used as the marker of his kingdom, a dusty six sided die that will always roll the desired number the roller thinks of. We thanked him and asked if he or his other citizens had seen any sign of the Black Puddings, but he said not in Bellhaven, "other street king's problems" he phrased it. Nothing else being brought up we entered into the abbey.
That's for sure the truth. For sure.
Incroyable!
And you are willing to give us such an obvious magical device?
You are paladins under my protection, clearing my kingdom of threats. You are citizens.
Is that guy legitimate? is he trouble?Entering, we checked on Bernard and saw that he had been smashed to pieces and shat upon. We added that to the list of things to deal with later, and went east to the lab wing guarded by the Bat door. The key opened the dusty door with a a loud creak into a very dark hallway that is occasionally lit by scintillating and erratic flashes. Amongst the flickering light, Lorgan spotted what we knew to be animated shadows within the darkness, skulking about. We set some lanterns behind us for our jaunt to the door so we could tell the difference between them and our shadows and went to that door. There was an electrified ozone smelling crackling that grew louder the closer we came. Our key unlocked the door to the infirmary and while obviously abandoned by the living, the beds were covered in ancient dried blood and we spotted nothing in the room itself. Looking about, the notes left at the foot of each bed described the final patients having been wounded by shadows, but a-typical to their usual strength devouring powers, these victims wounds continued to ebb their strength until they (likely) died and arose as shades themselves. This was very worrying to me, and before we set to searching the room extensively, we set a couple more lanterns about and arranged a system of redundant observers. The room had a sour smell to it, and Lorgan checked over a chest in the corner of the room for traps and after satisfying his detection of traps, he opened it to reveal a medical materials; three potions of healing, 1 greater healing potion, and Periapt of Wound Closure. We handed that to Ser for the time being, since it seemed likely that he would be the first to suffer injury grievous enough to utilize the magic, and handed Charity Ospher's silver amulet that could be called upon once a week for an exerting task that would be done with more skill. Beneath the other door in the room (that we didn't come through) we saw a consistent source of light growing brighter and brighter as we stood in the room, handing out necklaces, and then it went for the door. After we backed up to the far wall, it opened the door and coming through the door was a bright, multicolored light began to enter the room. Thinking it was more of those terrible lights we first encountered in the Grand Hall, I spun the gnomes around, but it was a silhouetted humanoid shape made purely of darkness and then sort of cascaded apart into four distinct silhouettes. Recognizing that these were shadows of a different type and not the Lights, I told the gnomes that I misjudged and we made to attack these touched beings. They began a haunting inhuman screeching upon seeing us and started to advance, at which I channeled Nisaba's strength into the banishment as instructed by Sandor's holy text and was able to force two of the four of these monsters back into the hellscape in which they originated. The two of them turned very translucent and fled as they faded further and further into insubstance. As that happened, Ospher fired off a ray of frost missing one of them as it parted its own body around the ray and unfortunately drawing both of their attacks to him. They then closed the distance and slashed Ospher across his arms while he held them up in defense of his face and receded back. Brightshine then went to take advantage of their proximity but ultimately tripped and crashed right through one, suffering the icy necrotic damage as well and missing with a further blow. Lorgan stabbed the one Brightshine tripped through and Charity landed a powerful Witchbolt onto the the other one left and then maintained the coursing electricity. I then struck both of them with a Word of Radiance lancing them with concentrated light, while Ospher backed away and hit the one by Charity with his ray, destroying it, reducing it rapidly dispersing black ash. The remaining shadow went for Ospher, despite the distance and Brightshine recognized a chance to press his advantage on the creature paying him no heed, striking it twice swiftly and rendering it nearly destroyed where Lorgan was able to finish the undead-ish monster off.
No clue. We're all new to Frial. We really need to associate with a local.
You treated him really good so I was just wondering.
We had a couple issues when we first started this, so we didn't want any more trouble.
Yes, we also found some homeless persons devoured within the abbey itself by large carnivorous plant and a unique zombie, so...
Tadlo and Lorgan are shocked
Yeah.This place has seen better days.
So either he died, or it was too dangerous to come back this way and he fled. Or he was arrested?We closed the second door they entered by, and went to check out the rest of the room now that the threat had passed. The other chest in the room had slightly preserved body folded over itself into the chest, sickening Lorgan. It was wearing an old nurse's uniform on a skeleton with some burned / mummified skin. Beneath her corpse, which Ospher was able to ascertain that she was alive when this was inflicted upon her by some fingernail marks on the chest wells, we found a backpack with a lyre, a drum, some gold and parchment with a bardic scroll of Faerie Fire, as well as glass vial with a green liquid with an unmistakable skull and crossbones logo on it. Ospher was later able to determine that it was a vial of Midnight Tears, a poison that only activates at midnight after ingestian. Having had an idea of the spreading disease from prior victims, I began to monitor and Ospher's wound sites from the shadows injury and after some time had past, I could compare the healing of the site. And again, while resting, I saw Olivia reaching out from the ground towards me, though this time, i noticed more that she was reaching towards Ospher in a sort of way that indicated she was seeking permission. I spoke aloud to tell her no she couldn't take his spirit to feed her own and at that moment realized that all this time, the others couldn't see her in the prior instances. All this led me to think that she was asking either to posses Ospher or take his soul to feed her essence, the latter idea, Charity shot down pretty rationally. I then explained that this is the third time I've seen this ghost, so there's got to be something to it. After more mild discussion, Ospher agrees to go through with it, so we take all but one charge of Manacite from him, and tie him to a bed and he assents to the ghost. He later explained that he still never saw her before she got into his body, which I still find interesting, but after some brief shaking, his eyes open up and a weird un-Ospher smile is on his face.
I guess it's possible!
I don't see any Ghost, but I don't think a Ghost would ask to take his soul.
Well, Ospher would you submit to the request?
Do I WHAT??
I don't know what's going on, but Ospher, you should do it.
You copied that spell out of her spellbook, maybe that's why she's seeking a connection with you.
That's possible.
I will aim for your neck, to preserve your knowledge.So as Olivia spoke, she was relieved to "be" alive again and feel things. Her recollection of hundreds of years ago was a bit blurry, and she could recall that she was running from the lab when she died in the chapel, by whatever cause. She was gracious for the chance to feel again and while her attempts in the past to forcibly take someone's body hadn't worked, she was very new to all this and wasn't sure if she could transfer hosts. She did remember that Professor Algier Rabinger had started a process to contain the gate's unwelcome visitors, and had mentioned a Banshee? We thanked her for the information and explained that we did still need Ospher's help today and would see what we could do for her and she and Ospher were welcome to work out any sort of time sharing.
That's all I could ask for, my knowledge to live on.
I'm alive! I'm alive again! Thank him, thank him for me.
Did you choose Ospher because he is a wizard or...
Well I noticed that, but I noticed that his sense of self, his... will, is a little easier for me.
The things in the stars were never alive to begin with. The things the Professor found. He said they were born dead and hungry.As Ospher himself returned to the fore, he remembered nothing on our conversation with her and explained that he felt horrible. We discussed what she told us and strangely, he explained that he was able to recall exactly what the gate looked like from Olivia's memories. We decided that we would need to keep checking out the lab wing to the best of our ability before calling it a day, at which point Ospher again recalled that the smaller room on the east room was a storage room for student's projects and the larger room was medical storage, cadavers and the like. But before we left the room, I checked again on Ospher and Brightshine's shadow infections, I observed that it wasn't the same sort of injury we'd seen in the past from these creatures draining a person's strength. I was unsure if Lesser Restoration would relieve them of the sickness since it may have been magical in nature. We left the room and saw a wall of strobing barrier of prismatic light barring our way to where the gate is/was, but we could make out some equipment somewhat near the barrier, despite the brightness. Brightshine opened the door to the storage room and was immediately reeling from a strong acidic vapor that got into his face and door swung wide, Charity and Ospher were able to determine that the smoky sort of vapor didn't escape the boundaries of the room, and the magic of the room was a permanent Cloudkill spell to prevent unpermitted access to the room. Since we didn't see a way to deactivate it, we reasoned that the keys to the school likely conferred protection since only the teachers would have them. With all the keys to the school on my person I stepped in and was unaffected. I handed off a single Key to Charity and was still protected from the magics and then attempting another hypothesis, I handed all the keys but the Bat-key to Charity, I stepped in and was HORRIBLY ASSAILED by acid. Falling immediately out, I told Ospher to just take all the keys with and get the important stuff we could use out of the room. He reasoned that someone needs to have two or more of the keys since for the safeguard, and set to looting while I let the ring get to work and took a break and bandaged these fresh wound sites with Charity's help.
How many keys do we have?Within the room, several boxes survived; a jade statue of Wynte, Lord of the Moon, a gnomish relic a clockwork back a scroll of instructions and a wind-up key called a Clockwork Familiar, a large piece of malacite, an antique dwarven pistol (!!!!!!!!!!), and 8 milky white orbs that function as a mana battery, oddly from before the rebuke. As he brought these out, we all took a look at them to determine what they were likely made for, and it seems that it was likely for inter-planar travel, in case there were no leylines in the place they went. Having Tadlo look over the bat, it appeared that there was a tiny pistol in it's mouth, and the eyes of the bat were emeralds that could cast some sort of spell.
Four, it wasn't the bat-key.
Yes, we've ruled that one out.
I see this Cloudkill has also take your courage Brightshine.
I already stepped on one of the traps, and shadows came out!
What about... The Gun?After determining exactly how useful these items could be, I examined Ospher and Brightshine again and observed the slow spread of this infection in very dark veins at the site of the injury. Thinking that at worst, we learn my power won't heal them, I cast Lesser Restoration on Ospher and was relieved to see that the wound was immediately better with all traces of infection gone. I did the same for Brightshine and we grabbed our frightening loot and went to the final door to peek inside. Within we saw a sort of fleshy mound in the centre of the room with sorts of umbilical cords running off from the thing to a score of zombies. After some brief horror, we agreed that this was a good thing for us to leave until we had all healed up from the day and restored our spell slots. I then persuaded the group that we needed to be sure there wasn't some secret tinkering room that kobolds were using above the dorms and as we looted some of the valuables we planned on taking on the way up there, Ospher immediately spotted a trapdoor in the ceiling that would go into the spire's attic. I got atop Brightshine's shoulders and reached for the handle, and in turning it, I heard a click, and kicked Brightshine out of the way as I was again soaked in acid, Charity pulled out the alchemy jug and dumped vinegar on my to neutralize it and I sat down elsewhere to recover again. Ospher went up into the attic and saw a number of looted textbooks, a spellbook and implements and three large eggs of different colors, Red, Blue, and Gold, a couple more darkness pebbles and scrolls.
Speaking of Gods, this is my new one.
Brightshine, come here.
What are you going to do?
I wonder who's stuff this is?We took a look at the textbook and discovered ancient and forgotten instruction in how to make magical items. It appears that even the most basic of these items would baffle most wizards of the nowaday. Ospher was able to identify these eggs as actual Dragon eggs, which lent credence to the Aun-Kri's statement about this being the age of Dragons. We divied up some items and responsibilities before tomorrow, Tadlo with some gun ammunition and the Clockwork Familiar to know it before tomorrow and resolved to reconvene at the edge of Bellhaven in the morning tomorrow. Charity will research what that horrible undead linked monster is as well as working with me on ways to eject Livie from Ospher, if needs be.
Ah so you're the one that's taken up residence.
You can see me now?!
Can Brightshine have money for a room for tonight?We wrestled some barrels of pig down the stairs to be dropped off with the Kobolds and then stopped by the Curious Word again on our way back to the 12 Carrots and got Norynor's advice on the dragon's eggs and he said storing them there would likely be the safest thing to do. Upon our return, we approached Digby for additional help with the gate since we weren't sure we could shut the gate down without creating further trouble afterwards by shutting it down wrong. He said he'd come to help but didn't want to deal with anything besides the gate itself.
What? What's going on, where have you been staying?
When I went back to the Grand Order today, they disagree with my approach to making sure people can't get past the desk.
Digby's questionable approaches aside, this has yielded far more than we could have hoped for.
I'm not saying he murdered them, but he definitely didn't check out how dangerous the Abbey was before dispatching people to clean it out.Ideally, no one dies tomorrow. I don't forsee us being that lucky. Hopefully, at worst, it is Digby, reckless fool that he is.
Character(s) interacted with
Digby Sparrow - Our mad employer has agreed to to come to the abbey with us to "competently" shut down the gate. Maybe he'll perish with us in this wild endeavor.
Sebastian Pay - Frial sommelier. We sold him all the bottles and corks we could find in the Abbey for a tidy profit.
Salto - Final Kobold Hammer Brother. He is the temporary Aun-Kri of his remaining pack, and has been furnished with enough food for a couple weeks.
Charity Sparrow - Always ready to help, Charity was ready to walk into the Cloudkill room for a second today. I worry for her.
Ser Brightshine - May or may not still have a job with the Grand Order of the Lion, there was a disagreement about how his duty is best fulfilled. We compensated him a fair amount for his help and he said he would get lodgings at the Righteous Lobster. Based on what we paid him, he's set for a least two more years of room and board there.
Tadlo Lerby & Lorgan Honeysuckle - The couple's skills grow further and further! They're very helpful and I hope they agree to take a job with Digby after we finish this.
The (Collective) Order of the Basilisk - Presently engaged in dealing with an outbreak of Black Pudding in the Frial sewers. I expect that this is a feint for some action elsewhere that has been successful.
Bernard - Smashed to pieces by the kobolds during their incursion. At least he didn't go into town and create some sort of panic. I suspect he's still "alive" within his bones, but I'll let Digby sort that out. He'd probably be a good custodian. Olivia Sarkanois - Currently possessing/residing within Ospher. It was kind of him to allow it, but I think we may have to send her to eternal rest.
Sebastian Pay - Frial sommelier. We sold him all the bottles and corks we could find in the Abbey for a tidy profit.
Salto - Final Kobold Hammer Brother. He is the temporary Aun-Kri of his remaining pack, and has been furnished with enough food for a couple weeks.
Charity Sparrow - Always ready to help, Charity was ready to walk into the Cloudkill room for a second today. I worry for her.
Ser Brightshine - May or may not still have a job with the Grand Order of the Lion, there was a disagreement about how his duty is best fulfilled. We compensated him a fair amount for his help and he said he would get lodgings at the Righteous Lobster. Based on what we paid him, he's set for a least two more years of room and board there.
Tadlo Lerby & Lorgan Honeysuckle - The couple's skills grow further and further! They're very helpful and I hope they agree to take a job with Digby after we finish this.
The (Collective) Order of the Basilisk - Presently engaged in dealing with an outbreak of Black Pudding in the Frial sewers. I expect that this is a feint for some action elsewhere that has been successful.
Bernard - Smashed to pieces by the kobolds during their incursion. At least he didn't go into town and create some sort of panic. I suspect he's still "alive" within his bones, but I'll let Digby sort that out. He'd probably be a good custodian. Olivia Sarkanois - Currently possessing/residing within Ospher. It was kind of him to allow it, but I think we may have to send her to eternal rest.
