Sarah seems calmer as the party enters the structure.

"So will I," Valthur concurs, lowering his new axe slightly, but still having it ready should there be trouble. "My new axe is more than ready, but it won't go looking for any unnecessary trouble."

The party follows the trail up the hill toward the mausoleum and soon discovers the source of the tapping noises heard previously. Just beyond the threshold leading into mausoleum they spot a man kneeling over a loose pile of parchment, papyrus and a few ratty tomes. The man appears quite disheveled in his soiled and tattered tunic and is either completely oblivious or indifferent to the party's presence just 10 feet distant.

The man mumbles incoherently to himself as he sifts through the assorted papers, seemingly looking for something within the text but not finding it.

Beyond the man in the antechamber the party can see into the mausoleum. The interior appears rather simple: a rectangular chamber with flagstone floor and ceiling, plastered walls, and minimal ornamentation. A flight of stone stairs descends away from the chamber's far wall.

Aldara is the first to speak to this, erm...well, hopefully he was a scholar like Sertieren said?  "Hello, there." The adventuring mage slowly steps forward.  "We were wondering if you could help us out?" The book is held a little closer, and her eyes go from it, to the strange man's hands, to his eyes.  "Favour for a favour?"

The kneeiling, disheveled man startles at the sound of Aldara's voice. He spins around on his haunches, an armful of loose sheets of parchment in his hands, with eyes set wide.

"Gah!" he calls out. "Heavens! You scared me!"

Now seeing the man fully for the first time, he appears to be anywhere from his 20's to late 30's, it being difficult to discern actual age due to his incredibly doughy baby face. Despite the baby face, he is a bear of a man, standing over six feet tall and quite stocky of build. He wears the clothing of a farmer or rancher.

He tilts his head sideways while considering Aldara's words and then his eyes rest on her book.

"You too have come seeking audience with the Insatiable Savant?" he asks dumbly, his mouth hangs open revealing a huge gap between his front teeth large enough to pass a sword through.

"At first I thought he was the savant," Valthur mutters to Marklin through clenched teeth. "But I'm glad he isn't. He doesn't look like he can even read."

He wonders for a moment what the unkempt youngster might want of the mysterious savant. What could this two copper farm hand want with the savant? I don't expect he has any mysterious runes that need to be translated. And where the savant, anyway?

The baby-faced man stares dumbly at the assembled group of adventurers, his expression more confused with each passing moment.

"Now I'm wondering the same," he responds to Aldara to break the silence.

OOC: The party has indicated they are confortable with Aldara handling negotiations with the man, but now she has gone comm silent.  :\

"So what are you here to ask the Savant about?" Eoni interjected, seeing Aldara at a loss for words.  "We have some papers we hope to have him translate."

This man didn't seem like the type to visit a scholar for advice.  Unless the Savant was also a barman as well, serving ale with advice on the side.  A dwarven Savant, perhaps.

In reply to Valthur Ironhelm (msg # 45):

 A smile came to the Warrior;s lips, in response to Valthur's comment. He whispered back." He looks more like a village idiot,then a Savant."

The man loosens his grip on the handful of loose parchment he had been cradling in his arms and they fall to the floor all around him. Looking up from the ground, he responds a bit shakily, "I came here looking for someone quite dear to me... but it went all wrong..." His tone is sad and dejected.

He further explains he already attempted to gain audience with the Savant, him and another companion. They followed a darkened passage and entered a chamber which no light could pierce and heard the Savant's voice. They pleaded with the Savant to help and the voice began to laugh hytserically. A moment later, the man claims to have heard his companion cry in alarm and the next moment he woke up on the ground, back here in the tomb's entrance, amidst the pile of parchment.

"Then you came..."
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:20, Thu 23 Feb 2017.

"My name is Eoni," she replied.  "I'm a Sister of Avandra and these are my companions."  She included the others with a wave of her hand.

"What do you think happened to your friend?  Is he still down there?"

She glanced at the others and hoped that the manner in which he'd described his meeting with the Savant was not lost on them.  Already it sounded as though the Savant was the capricious sort to toy with those that sought his wisdom.

"Hail, Eoni...and companions," the man responds. "I'm Ebermund of Brindol." Ebermund shrugs his shoulders while contemplating his companion's fate and says, "I have no earthly idea. I called for him several times but he didn't respond."


Ebermund goes on to explain he and his companion, Byron, traveled here all the way from the city of Brindol. They had heard rumors of the Savant and brought shards of information they hoped to trade in exchange for information on the whereabouts of a loved one. "It all went wrong though," he admits.

"Now, not only is Sharlayne gone...but so is Byron."

Eoni was beginning to understand the situation and hoping to help.  Perhaps they could recover Byron when they met with the Savant themselves.  She wasn't sure what she could do about his question.  About Sharlayne.

"Aldara, Charlotte," she asked of the others, "take a look at his papers to see what he had to trade.

"Ebermund," she continued, "Why were you looking for Sharlayne?  What makes you think you needed the Savant to find her?"

"Because she came here before us. We warned her not to, but she wouldn't be convinced. We had heard stories and knew the risks. But now she's gone. Myron too. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't at least try to find out what happened to them."

Ebermund goes on to say he and Byron belong to a troupe of performers, "The Good Baron Hobnobble’s Beguiling Court of Merryfellows and Gentlewomen," he adds in with a bit of theatrical flair. Sharlayne too is one of the performers.

Sharlayne had hoped to learn about her bloodline. Her stage name is the Demon Lady, though she is in fact, not a demon, Ebermund says.

"We'll see what we can do," she offered.  "We've never been here ourselves.  Where did you go down to find him and was there anything else you remembered about what happened?"

She was hoping that he might remember some clue, a sound or a smell, anything that could give them an edge in their negotiations.  She was not optimistic.

They did have the history of Rhestilor the sage had given them to exchange for translating the runes of the Old Ones, but this was not theirs to bargain with.  If the Savant would not release Ebermund's friends in addition to translating the runes, they would have to find something else to bargain with.  She feared that what he most desired were those never seen again.

They would not be trading another for the success of the mission.  Even Marklin was too high a price to pay if the Savant fancied the blundering armsman.

Valthur, only moments before mocking the large oaf in their company, finds himself now saddened by Ebermund's tale. As large as he is, he is still barely an adult, and his naïve search for his friends down such a treacherous path is tragic.

"Poor kid's scared half to death," he mutters to Marklin. "What kind of mage treats people like that?"

 The Warrior whispered to the Dwarf. "The kind that needs killing,Valthur. Odds are, this beggars friends are corpses."

Stunned that she almost gave something of value to somebody that she should not have offered something of value to, Aldara can only keep from gaping.  She draws the tome closer to herself, and appears very surprised, if not intrigued, when certain things are brought up about this visit.  In particular, the use of magic to deter trespassers, and the possible heritage of this "Demon Lady".

While gathering the loose leaves of stationery, she replies to Valthur, "One that has something to hide.  The right knowledge is as much a treasure as a stack of freshly-minted gold coins, and like a stack of freshly-minted gold coins, you'll want to keep others from getting them." She sounds very matter-of-fact about all of this.

"We went down these stairs here," Ebermund responds. "They go down some way and open into a large chamber. Very dark. Unnatural like. Lamp light didn't pierce it."

He further explains he didn't get a chance to explore very much. They stumbled around in the darkness for a bit before a voice addressed them. He also doesn't know where all the paper and parchment came from.

"When I woke up, I was buried beneath it," he says.

The text on the parchment is all quite old and written in an unknown script.

"Why don't you wait here and stack these papers," Eoni advised Ebermund.  "We know someone who might be able to read them back in Terrelton.

"We'll go down and speak with the Savant and see what we can do."

She turned back to the others and proposed their approach.  "If it's magically darkened beneath, a torch won't do us any good but we should have one anyway in case we find a way through.

"Valthur," she asked turning to the dwarf. "Do you think you can lead us in?  Marklin to watch behind us.

"How does that sound?"

She wasn't thrilled about the possibility of losing someone in this magical darkness but hoped that the dwarf's intuition would keep them from going astray.

With eyes wide open, Sarah looks to the west, then into the darkness ahead.

She does not look happy (which is normal); she actually looks a little scared.  She closes her distance to the nearest party member to half a step.

 Marklin looked at the dipping sun. " Right, let's be about matters then. Ye want me as rear guard, so be it,"

Valthur spins his axe in his hand nervously. "I'll be honest, I don't like what I'm hearing about this sage." He takes a deep breath, then exhales. "But we came here for his council, so let's get it over with."

Slowly the dwarf approaches the stairs and begins his descent.

Following in her place, Aldara takes her silver dagger out and puts it in her left hand, with one of her throwing ones going into her right, ready to be thrown.  She knew mages who set traps like this to be a little less reasonable than others.

Valthur leads the way down the darkened staircase. The darkness is most certainly supernatural, as it completely blots out all sight--including Valthur's infravision!

This conclusion only takes a few steps to ascertain and should the party members continue their descent they will effectively be walking blind down the stairs into the unknown. That is, unless they can figure out a way to counteract the magical darkness.

No sound is heard down below...