"That's enough for me!" the Paladin declares and strides into the room with his sword drawn and heads straight for the chair with the robed skeleton.

If it was a living person, he'd give it the chance to surrender, but a skeleton is nothing but evil, created by evil necromancy.

Even if it hasn't moved by the time he reaches the chair, he swings his sword at where he thinks the neck would be. Beheading a skeleton wouldn't normally stop it unless he does enough damage to destroy it.

15:55, Today: Elwood rolled 21 using 1d20+7 ((14)).

Probably a hit... unless it moves at the last second.

15:58, Today: Elwood rolled 8 using 1d8+4 ((4)). Okay damage, plus the sword is flaming... if that matters.

 "What a negotiator...!" Anneth says under her breath. She FINALLY puts her lantern down, maybe on a spot on the shelf or on the floor, and draws her sword to accompany her wand. She otherwise stays her hand, watching the skeleton's reaction before discharging her wand or anything like that.

Rodrigo sighs and circles forward trying to give things a wide berth so he can react appropiately. If that was a just as skeleton and the library lights on fire that will be perfect.....

Elwood's swing is unimpeded and hits what would have been the neck... and the cowl of the robe falls down as the skull goes flying off and clatters to the floor... not quite breaking but definitely cracking.

Nothing else happens, though the robe doesn't catch fire.

"That can't have been the sorcerer, could it?" Umbro asks in astonishment.

"Has he been dead for years and just his reputation has kept people away?"

"The library was always in the dark... and now it's not!"

"What does it mean?"

"It means we got a mystery on our hands, but we have a higher priority than solving it," Gierdon answers.

"Anyway, that might not have been the Black Sorcerer. It may have just been a decoy to find out what our abilities our. Even if it is... was... that doesn't mean there aren't any other threats here. So everyone stay alert!"

He started walking around the room, looking for any secret doors, hiding places, or even a book that jumped out it him.

He had to bite his lip to keep from swearing--it wasn't Paladin-like to do so. He was more annoyed than frustrated that he'd attacked a skeleton and not an actual enemy.

"It might still have been a skeleton that animated and attacked us," he consoled himself.

"Gierdon's right, though. Beware of more enemies, even traps. And start looking for the Secret of the Seventh Magic... though it does occur to me that it may be linked to the mystery of this place anyway."

Rodrigo watched a moment to see if there was any further reaction from the skeleton before he approached the table to purview what the skeleton was looking at.

Mort gives a snort, and walked over to the batted skull.  Gives it a light prod with his hammer before reaching down and picking it up.  He looked it over.  "So what was so important that you died in this place."

"Does anything around here radiate as magical?  I could use the slate to see if it can tell us what it is."

Rodrigo shrugs his shoulders at Mort's question "I do not have that knowledge in my spell repetoire. Though this may help..." as he grabs his amulet and begins to shine its invisible light about the room, starting with the table and skeleton first.

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This message was last edited by the player at 17:05, Wed 01 June 2022.

Anneth, as always, attempts to find something in the room with her lantern.  She shines each part on everything she can, and can reach, and slowly examines things...

 "Now's your time to shine..."

After prodding the skull and getting no response from it, Mort picks it up and examines it. For the most part, it looks like a human skull... except for the two small horns on the forehead. As far as Mort knows, horns have only two points of significance: demons or animals. Well, and Minotaurs. He's not aware of any other species that has horns, but he doesn't discount that possibility.


Neither Rodrigo with his amulet nor Anneth with her lantern are able to detect anything invisible.

Anneth does detect a few 'trapped' books on the shelves.

And while she doesn't exactly detect any alignment on the place or objects, she does pick up a 'darkness' to the whole library... not quite evil, but more like it's been 'contaminated' by the presence of evil.

She also detects around two dozen magical items. Some are books (3), some are bric-a-brac (5) on the shelves, and the rest is the furniture. Plus, the whole library has a magical feeling to it.

Clearly, nothing in here is a 'lie' as far as Rodrigo's amulet reveals, but it does register the presence of a 'hidden' object--the floor. It takes him a few minutes to figure out just exactly what that means. Just as clearly, the floor itself isn't 'hidden', but that means there's something hidden in, on or under the floor.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:04, Thu 09 June 2022.

"The importance of any library, Mort," Umbro chooses to answer the Minotaur's question, "is knowledge."

"This is a far larger library than any that I've ever seen or heard about. Even the descriptions of this one always seemed exaggerated. The size has to be seen to be believed, if you ask me. Who knows what secrets are hidden amid all these books?"

 Anneth wags her finger, as if she's found something.  "Some of these books... and these..." She points at the bric-a-brac and furniture.  "Are magical in nature. How, I don't know."

 As she retrieves one of the books to examine it, she says, "Let's see what you have to say..."

"Careful with magical tomes. They could be cursed and trap you." Rodrigo answers as he looks about "The Floor, something is hidden beneath it" moving closer to the floor to examine it.

Tom continued to stay by the door to guard the party's back while they searched the library.

The large gray-bound book Anneth selected was titled Arcanus Maleficus. It wasn't one of the trapped books, but a quick glance through the pages seemed to indicate it was full of spells that looked to be aimed at dealing with evil creatures.

The fact that it is magical tells her that the spells in it have been charged with magic to preserve the writing. That makes each page like a scroll--the spell can be cast from it at the expense of the spell disappearing permanently from the book.


Rodrigo examines the floor more closely expecting to discover some sort of trap door or secret compartment, but after several minutes of searching, he finds nothing. As he stand back up, he catches a glimpse of a pattern on the floor that looks kind of familiar.

Between the furniture and bookshelves hiding a lot of it, it wasn't until he saw it from the odd angle that he realized that the entire floor was a giant magic circle.


Tom continues to guard the door, but there's no indication that anyone or anything is out there.

"Ha! Eat any good books lately?" Gierdon speaks a well-known Dwarven joke.

"So, my friends, what do we do with this place? Did this library belong the Black Sorcerer? Or was he just a squatter claiming it?"

"It seems like it's an awful difficult route to get hear for any ordinary person to use. Then again, why would ordinary people want to use it? I don't consider myself 'ordinary', but I have little use for a library. Not that I discount its value, but I have no interest in perusing a lot of books."

"So, Umbro... know anybody up here on the moon that would be interested in becoming a librarian? Actually, 3 or 4. This is a big place!"

"If it wasn't for the inconvenience of getting here," Umbro replied, "yeah, I can think of a few."

"Maybe a better of getting here would help. After all, there's the matter of supplies. I'd think this should be a small community unto itself. One person could go stir crazy, four or five could start to get on each others' nerves. Know what I mean? We all have good days and bad days, mood swings and other problems."

"We need to finish exploring this place first, though."

"I'm a fighter, not a librarian," Anya comments a bit sarcastically. "But my first question is why was it put here in such an out of the way place, and the second question is how was it done? Third question, who did it?"

"It does seem like there should be more to it than just a bunch of books. Shouldn't there be sleeping quarters? And a kitchen and pantry? Sure, the Black Sorcerer might not have need all that, but the original curators should have, shouldn't they?"

Tom continued to listen to his friends talk amongst themselves as they searched around the library as he continued to guard their backs.

Anya, for the same reasons why anyone start a town or build a fort in some way out of the way place back home.  Get away from those they don't like or to be left alone?

 Giddy, Anneth bags the book... and any other one that looks enticing.  "Souvenirs."

 "Those do sound like likely reasons.  But, maybe he had servants who didn't have mortal needs?"

"If we're talking about the Black Sorcerer," Elwood adds, "then I'd expect those servants to be demons. I still don't trust that the skeleton was the Black Sorcerer. If it wasn't, where is he?"

"I'll look around a bit more. Unless Rodrigo found something on the floor there?"

"Let's keep in mind why we're here," Mista reminds everyone. "We're here to find the Seventh Magic in order to restore the Radiance."

"Anneth, have you found anything that might help us? Surely with all these books there must be something here about the Seventh Magic."

"I mean, we were sent to the moon to find it. I suppose there's no reason to think that it has to be here in the library, but if not, then where do we go? Where do we look?"