Vala, Delta, and Tanyl set off to look for the sewer grate.  Grate number 767, the number found encrypted on the amulet that was stolen and recovered, once held in the skeleton remains of tiny dragon, said to have belonged to Felix, the advisor to one of the early rulers of Stormhaven.

Traveling to the Northern point of Oldhaven, and trying not to look too obvious about it, the three adventurers begin canvassing the areas sewer grates.  There are not many of them in this old part of the city, and they are farther apart.  You find a lot in the 765,  771,  763 range, but no 767.   By use of your wits, you narrow the search down to a single block where it seems it must be, and yet, no grate can be found.  In fact, the block you circle the narrow roads is entirely built over by old stone buildings.

"It's either hidden magically, or in a building . . . or both."

Lacking any means of dealing with the first possible obstacle, Tanyl tries to determine which building might house the elusive grate.

Delta examines the area looking for any signs of an illusion. Even though it is the day, she has her lantern lit.

"Let me look closely here, maybe a slight discrepancy in a shadow or something like that might help."

She creeps low and slow, and has her rat on the ground, sniffing for anything that might hint at the holes in a sewer grate.

PM

Despite rat noses, gnome and elvish senses, there appears to be nothing strange about the block of buildings.   During their investigations though, they notice the sounds of birds, starlings maybe, coming from, the middle of the block of buildings.

Scooping up her companion and slipping them in to her pouch, Delta examines the side of the building they can see.

"A garden maybe? Let's walk around the building, see if there is an alley in, or a gate of some kind."

She turns to the others to see if they have any better ideas.

Tanyl shrugs.  "We're here; might as well."

He leads the way.

Delta follows...

It takes a long time, circling, prodding, pressing, puzzling, before Vala notices something on the stonework of one of the buildings.  Pressing on a stone that just looks a little off, there is a hiss, and being as strong as she is, the force applied the stone actually makes the whole building move an inch.  Surprising as it is, she pushes again and it moves another full foot, opening a gap between it and the building next door.  An opening into a hidden courtyard!

Tanyl pauses a moment to see if he hears anything reacting to the party's discovery and opening of the door.

"Well, isn't that a neat trick." Delta rather wished she could learn how that was done, it would be a nice way to protect the future house she keep planning/hoping to build.

Turning to face Vala and Tanyl, she bowed low, waving her hand like a butler or a stage magician. "Shall we proceed?"

"I think so," Vala answers and grins at her friend's performance, displaying her perfect white teeth. The warrioress pats the hilt of her trusty sword as she moves forward,

Giving her tall, brave friend a smile, Delta stepped out and down the newly opened passage.

Vala moves forward into the open courtyard, surrounded by buildings, it is nearly constantly in shadow, but not dark during the day.  It is clean, stone floored, and there is a sewer grate at the far end.  It is nearly empty but for a small figure sitting near the grate.  They appear to be hunched over, wearing an old robe or cloak, and don't seem to have noticed you.

Delta points, just in case the figure hasn't been spotted by her friends, but waits to see how they want to proceed.

Tanyl shrugs.  He realizes that there is no reason to treat the figure as an enemy at this point.

He deems it best to just approach, quietly.

As Tanyl approaches, the figure stands, still with hooded, it is a small figure, maybe a child.

"If you are here to steal, you are too late, they've robbed everything, and left nothing behind but traps and monsters".

"What was there to be stolen, stranger. And who was here to steal it?"

Not exactly a giant herself, at three and a half feet, Delta tries to determine which of them is the shorter.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:13, Thu 14 Oct 2021.

Tanyl continues until he's close enough to investigate the grate himself while waiting to see if Delta's inquiry is answered.

The figure is only about a foot taller than Delta, but concealed within the robes.

"It was an important library, a trove a precious books.  All gone, all stolen, I was created their caretaker but now have nothing left to do.  Many seasons ago, men in red robes came, took a few of them, and burned the rest.  I tried to stop them, but failed"

Tanyl finds the sewer grate to be what is expected, nothing unusual to see about it.

"Books!" Delta is clearly distraught, for the burning of pages is so much more than just that, knowledge is destroyed as well. "If only we had found this place sooner."

Sure. they would have probably sold the books for a profit, but at least the books would still exist.

Delta's natural paranoia took over though, what if this guy was part of the defenses, deigned to stop people from finding the books.

She examined him closely, his movements, the shadows, etc., to see if he might be some sort of complex illusion.

Does the men in red mean anything to her? Should I roll something?

Sensing Delta is using her cunning to sort through this business Vala stands close to her friend, silent but protective in case things turn nasty.

Delta does not believe this cloaked figure to be an illusion, but after careful consideration, believes it may not be entirely nature either, perhaps a member of the fey, or a ghost, or a creation.

The red cloaked reference does not set off any special warnings.  The plans discovered recently mentioned a blood cult, maybe they wear red, maybe not.  Other groups certainly do, its a common color.

What Tanyl smells at the top of the grate wafting up from below reminds him of the Troglodytes and does nothing to improve his appetite.

Looking to the others, Delta considers what to do. She wishes they had a moment privacy.

"So who are you then, and what is your relationship to the library, and why it is down there?"

"I am the caretaker of the library, or used to be.  I could move books, and dust them, but little else.  The master built this place as his refuge and place of study, a hidden home within the center of the city."

"The master?" Tanyl inquires, as that is the obvious question.

Delta absorbed the response, a magical being, very interesting.

At the follow up by Tanyl, Delta nodded, an excellent question.

"He who created me.  I guess.  He was a scholar, an advisor, I don't know, it was a long time ago...I'm sorry you wasted your time finding this place, you seem much nicer than the theives who came last time".

"Oh I think I'd still quite like to explore the library, who knows, maybe they missed something. It was quite the effort finding the place. "

Delta tries to hide her tenseness, as part of her suspects the tale of being robbed is a layer of the places defenses.

"Would you like to come with us?" Tanyl invites.

The figure steps away from the sewer grate, "No thank you, be careful".

"Before we go: Did you or your masters have any traps in place?"

The small figure answers "I would expect he did".

Opening a sewer grate isn't usually easy but the group found a sewer tool when they fought the ratman in the crypts.  It turns out to be very effective at opening this grate.

Looking down, about 20 feet below, is a wide landing of stone with a curve end.  It is bordered on one side by the sewer itself, with slow moving murky water.  The smell is worst here than in any of the sewers you've seen before.  It does not look inviting.

"Do we really want to do this?" Tanyl asks Delta, knowing that she's the most likely one of the three to insist.

"I do, but I don't want to go alone, so you do have the power to veto the decision. Still, seems pretty exciting to me. Want me to make a few of those perfume masks I used when faced the stinky lizards?"

"Yeah, the masks would help.  Some."

Wrinkling his nose beneath the mask, Tanyl descends to the landing.

Putting her own mask in place, Delta also hands one to Vala, then follows Tanyl down in to the mysterious, long lost lair.

Tying off a rope, the three adventurers descend into the sewers.  Even with the masks, the smell is nearly overwhelming.  The floor is slick with a thin coat of moisture, and mildew, like trying to stand on melting ice.  Moving carefully toward the sewer channel, they are startled when a deep voice asks with some authority.

"Password".

"Well crap. That's odd, if this place has been looted already. Should I go back up and ask that guardian for the password? Or do we already know it somehow?"

She thought back over their efforts to find the place...

"There was something. Let me try to remember how to pronounce it. I don't really speak the tongue of the Celestial's."

She tries to remember it phonetically, if she heard it, the word for 'creation'. If her effort fails, she will turn to Vala and Tanyl, asking if either speak Celestial, which if I understand it correctly, is also the alignment tongue of the Lawful Good?
This message was last edited by the player at 17:37, Fri 29 Oct 2021.

Tanyl shrugs his shoulders.

"I haven't the foggiest idea.  Maybe we should go back up and ask?"

"Let me try this, I think it's something like... crayon? No," she drops her voice an octave and calls out is a strong voice, "Cray-Shun!" Then waits to see if she gets a reply.

There is a tense moment, but the voice responds, "You may pass".

Which way do head?

I will defer to Tanyl's intuition, but if he has no opinon I would suggest we start to the right.

Do we want to search the landing?

Tanyl will give the landing a once-over, though he suspects there is little of note.

That done, he shrugs and says: "Right is as good a guess as any when we don't have any information to go on."

Onward, to the right we go.

Crossing the "water" to the far side walk, you turn towards the right.  The "water" turns out to be not too dirty looking, and only a few inches deep but is, like the walkways, very slick.
About 20 feet along, the passageways split to the left and right again.  To the right, the water continues about 10 feet before pouring down a large hole, disappearing into darkness. To the left, the passage continues to the edge of your light.

"Seems like this place is really a part of the sewers. Funny, we already passed at least one ward, I expected to be in his lair already. We should keep our eyes open for secret doors and passages."

Pulling her rat out of it's pouch, she asked it if it would like to help. If so, she places it on the ground, but reminds it to be careful.

Using what she knows of subterranean construction, Delta examines the walls, feeling for anything unusual, or any walls that might be unsafe.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:30, Thu 04 Nov 2021.

Tanyl was inclined to go to the left (if only to avoid the hole on the right) but waits for Delta's efforts to bear fruit.

Vala looked around the sewers, trying to quench her own nausea in the hopes of spotting any useful doors. The barbarian had grown up in the open air and was the tallest of the trio into the bargain. This wasn't exactly her place.

"I don't think I've asked before but what is your rat friend's name Delta?"

Delta replies, but it's in Rat so it sounds pretty much like a pair of squeaks, "I call her Angel Eyes, myself though."

Vala couldn't help but giggle at that, an only girlish gesture for the tall, armour clad warrioress. "Well," she said, smiling, "it is a cute name for a cute rat."

With a smile, Delta beams at the praise, and she shares the compliment with Angel Eyes, squeak, squeak, squeak. The rat preens as well.

Angel Eyes scampers off down the left passage. Not surprisingly, a rat has little problem moving through the sewers.  She is gone for awhile, leaving the party to listen to the sounds, dripping, water running down the drain, the occasional distant scream.

Time passes and Delta begins to get a little worried but then her little friend is back. She's soaking wet and smells bad but is unharmed.  With a long series of squeaks, she communicates that the passage goes 2 ways.   One ends in deeper water flowing through a grate.  Beyond that grate, it gets deeper and deeper and faster, too fast so she turned and swam back. The other passage makes a few turns and then comes to a big hole where water flows down.  Beyond the hole, the passages are dry.  She heard something moving in that direction so came back.

Drying off her friend, Delta chitters a bit of chastisement mixed with worry about her going too far away, but gives Angel Eyes a big hug and a piece of cheese as she puts her back in her pouch.

Sharing what she learned with the others, she suggests they seek out this place with the passages that are dry.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:12, Wed 10 Nov 2021.

"I agree, but let's be on guard: we don't know what was moving down there."

Following the instructions of the rat, the three adventurers carefully move along the sewers, past another grate (this one rusted and breaking in the middle), and finally come to a dry hallway.  It goes only a short distance before ending in a doorway.  It was once ornate and locked, but is partially knocked in.

Beyond it lies a huge room, maybe 40 x 50, that is crisscrossed with solid wood and stone shelves.  The shelves turn the room into a near maze, and once must of housed many thousands of tomes.  The shelves are now barren, with only dust and spider webs as their occupants.

The far corner of the room, the shelves create a small 10 x 15 room with a small gap leading into it.   A once comfortable bedroom lies in shambles.  A desk, a bed, a table and chest.  Here on one shelf of a book case, is a shelf clean of dust and webs, with two books on it.

One, on magical theory, the other, a dwarven book on tunnel designs.

Looking about, Delta thinks it is pretty sad how poorly the place was treated, and wonders how hard it would be to fix us as a place to live, because finding a place of her own is on her mind a lot of the time.

Glancing at the books left behind, Delta opens each, and gives them a glance.

"What do you think Tanyl, maybe secret doors around or something?"

Had she noticed any broken or opened secret doors?

She makes a partial effort to neaten things a bit, tugging up the blankets and such, then pokes around the desk, table and chest.

"No dust, no spider webs . . . either magic, or someone's been here.  My money's on someone being here."

Tanyl begins looking for more evidence to support his theory, including secret doors.

"They were probably reading these books," Vala says, glancing at the two surviving copies. "Dwarven tunnels and magical theory? Magically hidden or trapped doors maybe?"

There are a lot of walls, shelves, and floor to search. I quick search finds nothing, but if dwarves hide a door, and mean it, it's likely not easily discovered.  Despite its sad state, you quickly realize there is no sewer smell here, it is not humid, but comfortable, you could well imagine it was quite a nice place long ago.

During you search, you suddenly feel a deep cold settle into the room, so cold your breathe billows out in pockets of fog, and a chill of fear flows with it, it comes from where you entered and is coming toward you.

"Well crap, is this another guardian? I wonder if those who really pillaged this place had to deal with it?"

Retreating to the bed, Delta hopped on the mattress and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, keeping her arms free for casting.

"Who goes there?" she called out.

She was going to feel a fool if this was just magical central air conditioning of some time-and-place appropriate nature.

Unable to locate the threat, Tanyl tries to melt into the darkness.

For all the good that will do him. . . .

As the group hides, backs up or stands their ground, a whitish ghostly apparition glides down the hallway to stand at the entrance to the door. It is roughly human sized but cold and fear flow from it.

"Who disturbs my home, have I not suffered enough?  Prepare to join me in the afterlife!".

Standing firm, and hoping Vala has something to deal with the likes of the apparition, if it were needed.

"Don't blame us, we didn't loot this place. We just got here, your stuff has been gone awhile. We might help you get revenge though, if you want."


OOC: Delta attempts to discover if this is an illusion, looking for any telltale signs of her style of magic.

Delta is pretty sure she is looking a real live (well not live) ghost.

"Revenge, too late for revenge, but you could help me, how did you find my library?"

Stunned that the ghost still had intelligence, she marveled at what kind of mind and will had managed to retain itself so well on the other side of the mortal veil.

"It was a long and complicated tale, and I don't even know all of it, but I will share what I know.
"We were working to protect some tombs from being looted, and we found a bauble, an amulet, which showed what looked like one of the sewer openings I assume you designed, and a number that did not seem to exist.
"We managed to find this location thru a friend, a woman who is by her own admission, a good researcher. The number was not on the map, but she extrapolated when it should be, and we came here.
"Searching the area, I found a stone that opened a path, where sadly one of your servants was morning the destruction to the library.
"I hope you can help him, or release him from his task, by the way.
"Anyway, we followed the path of the looters, hoping to find, I mist admit, some missed bit of treasure or knowledge.
"But I, for one, am certainly willing to help you, if it is within my power."

The chill air had her clutching the blanket closer for warmth.

"Too late, you say?  How long ago did you . . . pass?"

The ghost shimmers, and anger flows from it, "Someone stole the amulet I left for Ph'Eilquex Silvertongue, are there no end to the depravities of your time?  The heartstone, it was at the head of my bed, if it was returned, my library would heal itself in time.  Do this for me, and I will rest at last.  Unlike the books, it was made to look rather ordinary, but it is not. "

"My time was when the City was young and the first Lord sat upon the throne".

"You library can heal? I am impressed. And I would gladly aid in the return of your headstone. Do you think I could perhaps visit your library from time to time, if we succeed, oh wise adviser of Timiteus?"

The last bit slipped out, and she hoped it didn't offend the ghost.

"Uhm . . . if this heartstone looks ordinary, how're we supposed to know it when we see it?"

"I will tell you where it is, and if you return it, I can rest again, and you may take this place as your own if you wish".

Heart veritably leaping into her throat with joy at the though of owning the place, Delta leaps at the opportunity.

"Well we shall certainly do our best to deliver you the rest you so justly deserve deserve, won't we guys?"

Looking to Vala and Tanyl she hopes to find them in agreement.

Tanyl isn't a fan of dank, cold, underground places -- and this is all three.

But he can see the value in having a place, any place, and a place that may hold some lore at that.

Plus, Delta's excitement is irresistable.

"Yeah, sure," he agrees.  "We'll give it a shot."
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 20:33, Tue 30 Nov 2021.

The ghost seems rather surprised by your answer, but the fear and cold emanating from it lessens considerably.

"Decades ago, a troll known as Bonegnasher led a gang of ruffians.  They were the scourge of the eastern road for miles, attacking caravans, stealing goods and eating those they captured or killed.  They did not ransom prisoners.  As fate would have it,  this band of terrors killed several of the men who robbed my home.  The Hearthstone passed to them.  As their fame grew, so did interest in ending their reign.  Infamy has a  price, and one day, Bonegnasher and his motley force paid it.   The troll was cut to pieces and while they set fire to him, his followers fled, and the warriors went after them.  Hunted them down and killed them to the last.  The fire they set thought was not large, and did not completely destroy the troll, who regenerated enough to crawl off.  Not completely whole but he fled into a lair of caves where to this day he mostly hides in fear and hatred of mankind.  He still has the Hearthstone though he rarely hunts and only against those alone and lost and easy pickings.  The ruins of a seaward watchtower, two days east of the city, you find entry to his lair.  Do not go lightly, he is still dangerous and who knows what else lives down there, you may want to hire a healer before you attempt it.  Bring me the stone and I will do as I have said".

Delta stood absorbed in the tale, and it seemed likely that some portion of such a riveting story would end up in one of her song.

"Decades? I had no idea. How you must have suffered, you poor thing."

She looked to Vala, then Tanyl.

"I agree, we needs must hire a healer. We should be able to head out as soon as that has been accomplished?"

Vala looked thoughtful. "I agree about the healer but perhaps one who can fight too? We're going into dangerous territory."

"The healers I know of won't fight. We would have to hire a man-at-arms for that. If you think it necessary."