The Basement Library

[Patdragon]

Enjoying his time with his fellow workers, he discuses various topics with them from Who is this Stimpson character is (unless he knows)to people background and all the way to the barmaids "bounty"

After drinking his fill and maybe feeling a little worse for wear, he decides to head out after his second bathroom break when his slightly dodgey leg, becomes a little shaky. He bids farewell to each and tells Mason he will swing by his office when he has time, perhaps tomorrow evening. He did after all need to go to his normal work in the morning and if he was early again maybe his luck would continue with more useful findings.

[willpell]

Enjoying his time with his fellow workers, he discuses various topics with them from Who is this Stimpson character is (unless he knows)to people background and all the way to the barmaids "bounty"

After drinking his fill and maybe feeling a little worse for wear, he decides to head out after his second bathroom break when his slightly dodgey leg, becomes a little shaky. He bids farewell to each and tells Mason he will swing by his office when he has time, perhaps tomorrow evening. He did after all need to go to his normal work in the morning and if he was early again maybe his luck would continue with more useful findings.

► Show Spoiler

I'm going to exert a bit more control over your character's actions than I usually feel is appropriate, much as you overstepped a little and altered my plans slightly by advancing the scene time more than I had planned to. I'm not upset or retaliating or anything, I just figure it amounts to the same pacing and whatnot.

Without any advance discussion, Tarl picks the first pub, as if doing so was part of his job. Arriving at a hole-in-the-wall liquor-and-pub-snacks joint on Ransom Street, the party gets a round of beers from another dwarf whom Tarl identifes as Brubaker; the Queen doesn't bother to verbalize her earlier demand again, but simply exerts a sense of pressure. Since you're feeling flush from the payment you've already received (and the identical one yet to come), you decide it would amuse you to buy your own first drink, and when you pay the bartender for a thick brown beer with almost no head, Parmenalya seems satisfied, even though you were intentionally ignoring her demands. Apparently her belief that dwarven names are a valuable commodity doesn't strictly translate to a demand that you pay every dwarf you meet JUST for the privilege of knowing his name; you can fulfill the "letter of the law" by finding some other pretext to give the dwarf a coin (and it doesn't seem to matter which one, or whether you receive change back). Perhaps other vestiges have similar capricious demands - and perhaps they are just as easily circumvented.

The dwarven beer resembles nothing so much as an emulsion of molasses and alchemist's fire; you discover, as the others apparently already know, that a night of carousing fueled entirely by such dwarven admixtures would be a short night indeed for any non-dwarves involved. Thusly, the party toasts their first host on their way out, and crawls on to another establishment, the taproom of the local traveler's hostelry known as the Inn Souciant (according to a plaque on the wall, it is a proud member of NINI - the Network of Ironically Named Inns.) Paying no attention to a party of heavily armed religious pilgrims collectively scrutinizing a map, who are determinedly ignoring a cloaked stranger wearing an eyepatch and brooding over a steaming mug in the corner, Mason and Tarl and the others (except "the big guy", who exempted himself from this entire expedition on the basis that he couldn't fit through the doors of half the public houses in town, and had been banned from the other half because his tragically inevitable chair-breaking habit outweighs any profits, even from the tremendous quantity of booze he's capable of consuming before becoming buzzed) belly up to the bar and order a round of "cheap wine", by that exact name. The stuff is mostly water, Stormholdt explains, but that's what you all need after the syrupy dwarf ale.

You stay at this place a bit longer, long enough to have to avail yourself of the facilities (which you are gratified to note consist of reasonably comfortable enclosed booths containing large filthtrapper pots, the alchemical devices which the Empire mass-produces and sells at cost "for the health of the public aroma", rather than the mere outhouses that some of the town's older establishments still retain; having lived through the encroachment of the Imperial border from just west of the town to just east of it, you've experienced both sides of that equation, and you have no regrets). But eventually, Garth says what the others (and possibly you, or not, as you prefer) were thinking - alcohol only tastes so sweet when it isn't accompanied by some more rarefied pleasures. Thusly, you retire to the third and final destination of the tour: a place known as Jenna's Pourhouse, which is only a bar rather than a hostel or a restaurant (or any less reputable sort of establishment; the town has plenty of those if you know where to look), but one that prides itself on welcoming ambience and friendly, attractive waitresses. The Inn Souciant used to have busty wenches serving its drinks, but the "adventurer economy" has been disrupted in recent weeks by a wave of political advocacy; several women's rights groups picketed the place without any immediate effect, but over time the wealthy traveling renaissance-men who sustain the accomodations-and-rendezvous sector seem to have picked up a degree of guilt or reluctance regarding their philanderous habits. There are still no shortage of explorers and mercenaries whose first stop upon arriving in a town is the local flesh parlor (regardless of whether it openly admits to being a whorehouse or prefers to pretend it's a respectable room-and-board establishment; ultimately the difference has frequently been a superficial one), but it seems as though this is a declining practice, at least in this part of the country.

Only once the group has had a chance to settle into the admiration of the well-dressed hostesses, while sipping at complex fruit-based cocktails that taste better than the "cheap wine" but are less filling than the dwarven malt (and cost more than both put together, but still well under a full gold piece for the entire evening's amusements), does the atmosphere seem relaxed enough that you can reasonably broach the subject of who Stimpson is. A cloud passes over Mason's face, but he does set his orange-juice-and-rum-etc. down for a moment, and proceeds to elucidate. "I suppose you deserve to know; Obadaiah Stimpson's the one who's been trying to ruin my business for the past year. Miserable old codger, but filthy rich; bought out the other two construction contractors in town, and has a grudge against me because I wouldn't sell out. Now, ask anyone who knows me and they'll say Money's the only woman I'll ever love, but even I have some scruples, and that guy sets all my teeth on edge. I can't prove anything, and he'll have me before a High Justice for libel if I say anything I can't prove, but I have a theory about where his wealth came from, and that's why he couldn't give me enough of it for me to make the sale.

"So ever since then, I'd lay odds he's the reason behind damn near everything that's gone wrong in the past several months - everybody knows he's a wizard, and if he's caught casting hexes at me I can have him jailed for it, but there are a lot of ways that somebody subtle and quick to anger can mess with your life indirectly, and never leave behind a trace that a diviner can find. If he's not using spells to fuck with my fate, then he's certainly using men to spy out what I'm doing and report back, so he can show up at the worst possible moment and screw me over with one damn thing or another. I took the job we just finished from a client who was reasonable enough at the time, but I know Stimpson got to him, and is the reason he turned into such a hardass. If we'd defaulted on this job, Stimpson would make sure the client didn't cut me any slack; I don't have a mitigating-circumstances clause in our work contract, because I prefer to assume that the client and me can work things out, but since that old witch came along, it's like everybody and their cat are waiting for me to screw up. You happening to come along is the first piece of good luck I seem to have had in Rathi knows how long." ("Rathi" is probably Erathis, the goddess of civilization and commerce; it's unsurprising to find out that a man like Mason would be at least minimally conversant with such a deity.)

[Patdragon]

Having now discovered a little more about how this vestige works, he is quite eager to try out another one as this one has been oddly useful for the days events. On any other day it would not have been a good choice, but as luck would have it today was his day, even if he did get a small injury.

Enjoying this establishment and listening to this story, a few questions pop into his head like, where do you think his wealth came from and what other things have gone wrong in the last few months, but settles on saying.

"Well maybe for the next few jobs putting a clause like that in might be worth it, just to cover yourself and the like. Seems like you just need a bit more luck to outwit him a bit, but glad i could help out on this one for you."

After that If it seems appropriate he will ask the extra questions, but will leave them if not.

[willpell]

► Show Spoiler

I don't really want to answer any more questions; your first post on this page suggested that I should not prolong this scene, so shall we just move on to a new day and Vestige?

[Patdragon]

Can do after the last post seems you wanted this to carry on a bit. So he simply goes back to his previous post and leaves soon after ready for the next day.

[willpell]

It was roughly four in the morning when you struck your pact with Parmenalya last night; since then, everything you've been through has left you exhausted enough that you expect to sleep past sunrise (though the weather has been unseasonably warm and dry, it's late enough in the year that the night is substantially longer than the day, which is one of the reasons Mason Kraft has such a worry about his contract - before you and the Queen came along, of course). Yet you awaken at about three, finding it somehow impossible to get back to sleep. You mentally query the Vestige to see if she was involved in your insomnia, but she denies it. "We voyaged in the realm of dreams, even as you did; we would gladly have continued to do so, but wakefulness suits us just as well. Perhaps it was your inebriation that has upset your body's natural rhythms? Of course, if you had not sought to defy us earlier, you would be in better health, and your drink might not have impacted you with such force. So in that sense, perhaps we contributed to your sleeplessness, but we did not directly cause it, and had no desire to do so." Having little choice but to accept this, you go back to tossing and turning, sensing the possessing spirit's presence dimly in the back of your mind all the time. With the exception of your little tiff about Tarl's name, she has been pretty well-behaved; you might almost say she seems glad of the opportunity you present.

Exactly 24 hours after you completed the ritual to call her, you feel Queen Avarice's presence in your mind evaporate, swiftly and without preamble. With her gone, you also lose the mild sense of malaise that represented her displeasure with you, as well as the sensitivity to material weaknesses which was the sum total of her benefit to you. You are now your old self again, for better or for worse - and you are due at Greborsks's in two hours. You could try to snatch a bit more sleep, but doing so risks being late; perhaps it'd be better to show up early again. It would be quite a strech of your already-impressive luck to find the secret library open again, affording you the opportunity to study another vestige in detail (your quickly-scrawled notes after the first binding were hardly sufficient); still, you definitely can't enjoy that little bonus if you don't get over there while the window is open.

[Patdragon]

The absence of the Vestige feels both good but also like a piece of him is missing. Maybe it he did lose a part of his soul...or maybe it more like his soul was enlarged by the vestige and now the empty space is what makes it feel odd. Shrugging these thoughts from his mind and looking at his notes, he scans them to see which one sounds the most interesting/useful/easiest to try next if he gets a chance, but as he did do the writing in a haste some bits are not clear. like a small part on requiring extra materials.

A little tired but feeling better after some breakfast and drinking some water he gets ready and heads into work with his head and leg only throbbing a little. Before he goes he first remembers to pop his newly acquired money in his secret spot in apartment and takes a few coppers ready for food later.

[willpell]

Your hopes of having any spare time are quickly dashed; you arrive to find Greborsk sitting in the main room of his library, engaged in a study which is not so intense that he fails to notice you. While it becomes obvious over the course of the day that he did not notice any intrusion into his private sanctum, and doesn't seem annoyed about the damage you caused yesterday while still learning to control the Queen's destructive aptitudes, he also shows no mercy for your obvious sleep-deprived condition, and sets you busily to the day's assignments. He clearly spent all of yesterday catching up with the menial tasks that he usually leaves to you, and so there's a lot that's left undone today; you won't have any opportunity to sneak away until after he dismisses you tonight.

[Patdragon]

Working away doing whatever tasks he was set upon his mind finally click on about 10 o'clock and he remembers he was going to ask Greborsk a question but didn't get a chance to. So when there is a pause between jobs and Greborsk is there he asks.

"So when i dropped off your delivery the other day, Mistress Kylara mention something I wanted to ask about. She said some words in a language that was packed full of information and it sounded quite angelic but it had to many clicks in it to be that i think. It sound something like elisha timat cripiyar thakan tachasar (deliberately wrong)
and meant the black dragon flies at midnight, so that none may see his coming in time to escape. Said you had taught her the language and i was wondering what it was"

If nothing else of interest happens during the work hours he just waits it out thinking of how he is going to proceed.

[willpell]

Greborsk's eyes go wide and he appears to be on the verge of shouting at you, but firmly clamps his jaw shut and constrains himself, though a vein in his forehead throbs visibly from the effort. After a moment, he speaks slowly and deliberately. "That is the...language of my homeland. I would appreciate it if you avoided mentioning it to anyone. I did teach her a few phrases, but not that one. Clearly Kylara has been snooping into my affairs, and wanted me to know it. Some gratitude for my generosity, hmph. I will be speaking with her about this little jackanapes, but not today. For now, return to your work."

[Patdragon]

Hmm... that was unexpected, retreating from his masters pulsing vein, he leaves the matter be but does begin to wonder why his background is such a secret.
He then proceeds with his work diligently for the rest of the day, or until such a time he is relieved.

[willpell]

A day of typical drudgery passes with an agonizing lack of incident, and when you get back to your quarters that evening, you're eager to attempt another "binding ritual". From your fragmented notes, you are able to piece together just one other complete seal, which is associated with an entity known as "The Grinning Hound", who has a half-dozen different names associated with his history, none of them definitively known to be his actual moniker. Navras, Severus, Kebress, Elbruz - the various aliases all fit a loose pattern, but all of them are said to have come from antiquity (or so you think you remember the text saying; you just jotted down the names themselves, but you can vaguely picture the paragraph they came from), and none are acknowledged by the spirit when he is summoned today. From the description, he seemed like a worthy candidate, perhaps a better choice to have summoned first than Parmenalya; he's described as clever and talkative, although not always honest about it, so perhaps your hope to garner some information about this new science will bear better fruit from an encounter with him.

Clearing some space on the floor of your quarters, you draw the complex, vaguely claw-like (or perhaps resembling some sort of intricate crossbow with hooks on the stock) symbol which constitutes most of the seal, finishing it up with the same kinds of curlicues and tiny circles that decorated the much less ornate sigil of Queen Avarice. Enclosing the whole thing with a circle, you check it against your sketch, which you were very careful to get right down to the smallest detail (saving your haste for the surrounding text, which you could afford to merely summarize), and then kneel down to touch the icon and call the Hound forth.

Nothing happens.

[Patdragon]

Having finished his days works he nabs a bite to eat on his way home, a delicious meaty bread thing with a variety of spices that made it a little hot to and then retires to his room for some extra circulars.

Hmm...not even a wobble like when he had tried it on the wall. Maybe the the pattern was wrong, maybe it was a fake, or maybe he needed something else. Double checking his notes one last time he will try once again if he finds something new or that he was missing; If he does not find anything he can change he will decide to head out if if not to late and swing by Masons office to pick up the extra gold he was offered.

[willpell]

Having finished his days works he nabs a bite to eat on his way home, a delicious meaty bread thing with a variety of spices that made it a little hot to and then retires to his room for some extra circulars.

The thing you ate was a kind of spicy sausage called a "hellhound".

If he does not find anything he can change he will decide to head out if if not to late and swing by Masons office to pick up the extra gold he was offered.

No change, so you head out.

(That's all I got for now.)

[willpell]

(You still here, Patdragon?)

[Patdragon]

still here.

[willpell]

Alright, enough delays, I'm gonna try to hurry this along. Having failed at the only vestige you have access to besides Queen Avarice, you summon her and try to get some answers out of her before concluding negotiations. Succeeding brilliantly through a combination of premeditation and luck, you learn that the other vestige, The Grinning Hound, is at least partially formed of the soul of an ex-sorcerer of scholastic inclinations, who refuses to answer the call of anyone who cannot impress him through either erudition or deceptive talent - "either truth or lies, but not the wasteland between", is the peculiar way she quotes him as addressing the topic. While you're fairly knowledgeable compared to the average commoner, you apparently don't live up to this individual's expectations, so he simply ignored your summons, possibly not even having perceived it. You'll need to progress further in your studies before you'll be able to command him.

The question-and-answer session complete, Parmenalya brands you again, and this time you've managed to convince her to share another aspect of herself with you, for whatever good it will do you. You are now virtually fireproof for the next 24 hours, in addition to having regained the ability to perceive structural weaknesses in inanimate matter. While the Queen will grumble if you fail to remunerate every dwarf who shares their name with you, you've established yourself as the dominant partner well enough that she won't be able to impair your activities on the basis of that dislike.

(The next time you end up binding this vestige, you'll be able to gain all of her abilities as a full binder, but you still function as using Bind Vestige the first time you bind one of them, and Practiced Binder the second time, until you've run out of low-level vestiges to affect this way.)

So, you still believe there's more information waiting for you in Greborsks' library - for sure you could break into his private study again, but he doesn't seem to be suffering any more of the lapses in concentration that let you do it the first time. So you'll either have to attempt some clever stratagem to bypass his defenses, or else scour the main collection in search of any more cross-references that might be related to this strange new science. You may learn of the existence of more vestiges this way, but it's unlikely you can summon them without actually finding their seal pictured somewhere. How do you intend to proceed?

[Patdragon]

few quick questions that i might know before hand then before i act

Where does Greborsk keep the key for the lock(always on his person?). Do i know?
Is there another way into the room like a window?
Does Greborsk do much work in that room? and would it be possible to jam the lock open without being to obvious, so when he leaves he can't lock it? (this is my main idea currently)
What in the past has made Greborsk leave the library on other duties?

[willpell]

Where does Greborsk keep the key for the lock(always on his person?). Do i know?

I have no idea, therefore neither do you.

Is there another way into the room like a window?

Definitely not.

Does Greborsk do much work in that room?

He disappears sometimes, and you don't know where he goes - possibly there, possibly elsewhere. Usually he says when he expects to be back, but it's rare for him to tell you where he is or how to get in touch with him.

and would it be possible to jam the lock open without being to obvious, so when he leaves he can't lock it? (this is my main idea currently)

You would have to find it open sometime, but once that's done, it probably wouldn't be too hard to wedge something in there which would keep the lock from catching. If he was in there at the time it'd be hard to do this without his noticing, but if he were to leave the place in a hurry, you might manage a few minutes to mess with the lock before he noticed.

What in the past has made Greborsk leave the library on other duties?

He never tells you. For a scholar, he's actually rather secretive. About the only clue you have is the selection of people he authorizes to access his collection, even in his absence. And about the only thing any of them have in common, beyond intelligence and scholastic interest, is that a plurality of them are bald and that they frequently wear makeup, regardless of gender in both cases. You generally don't know who they are, but have managed to pick up about a half-dozen names, four of whom fit this profile.

[Patdragon]

For the mean time he goes about his daily duties and tries to research as much as he can on vestiges and any links that might lead him to information, whilst he watches and come up with a plan to get into the room again. His mind goes over lots of possibilities, from trying to pick or jam the lock, to making a copy of a key, that he didn't have.... then an idea does pop into his head if he jams the lock when its closed it would cause no-one to be able to get into the room, and he "might" be the one to have to go to the locksmith to get it sorted, if he could get the whole process to be timed perfectly so he was there when the locksmith fixed it and Greborsk wasn't so he could get into the room, and perhaps if the lock needed to be replaced, he would simply get an extra key made for himself at the same time.


OOC: Hmm... ok so it seems unlikely to swipe a key, or get into the room via other means, I'm to unskilled to pick a lock, and I'm not sure when Greborsk goes to the room...hmm... ok the people that he allows to access his collection, do they go into this room and therefore have their own key?

[willpell]

As far as you know none of the other trustees are allowed into Greborsk's private room. But clearly someone left the door open for you the other day, and it's unlikely the Master did so himself (he's fastidious about such matters), so it seems likely at least one other person has access.

[Patdragon]

Given his nature at some point during his day he will examine the door a see how easy it might be to crudely force open. Perhaps he could get a knife into the gap between the door a wall to open it without a key. if that's not possible he would look up a book that might assist him gaining entry, before deciding enough enough on this route and going back to research vestiges, the ordial plane, and even the story that sounded similar to a vestige from Kylara's place. Whilst he wanted to learn more he did not want to be kicked out from this place by going directly against Greborsk wishes.

[willpell]

You manage to get into Master Greborsk's study at last, where you are greeted by an even more curious sight than the last time. Finding a highly unusual book laying out on the table unattended wasn't that far from the pale, even if it was definitely a lapse in the scholar's usual tight security...but what on earth could he be doing with a quiver of arrows? As far as you know he's never shot so much as a crossbow in his life, and those are easily manageable devices; true archery is a sport for those who fancy themselves the genuinely elite, for one or another reason, as the average man on the street us lucky to be able to so much as bend a bow, let alone control it well enough to send a fletched shaft anywhere in particular (other than perhaps into his own foot, if he's careless and/or cursed with ill fortune). The missiles look expensive, with decorative symmetrical filligrees carved into the wood, and are neatly racked into rows of five; the slim container would originally have held twenty, but one is conspicuously missing.

Circling the table, you are startled to find a complete summoning circle, vaguely akin to those you've created recently, "drawn" by sprinkling powdered salt upon a huge cloth bedsheet, as might be fitted to the matress of a giant among men. Nearly twenty feet square, the textile offers plenty of room on which the circle can be laid out with great precision despite its unusual material. It forms an image symbolically similar to a shortbow, dotted with an assortment of small circles and bearing a pair of curves at the midpoint of the "string", resembling the number 2 and its mirror image abutting against a small open-sided rectangle, whose missing side bridges the gap between the "top" of the two 2-shapes (if you read one of them as being the actual number, the semicircular arch of the "bow" points straight up).

You think you remember an article in the book you skimmed, something about archetypal duality and the symbolism of broken promises, discussed in the context of the elven mythic hero Eshmertual Hastarmeiren and his doomed romance with a maiden known only as Brightflame. You don't recall the details, but the author said something about it reflecting "the fall of the Dark Mother" - as if everyone knows what that meant - on a more localized scale.

[Patdragon]

Having come this far he'd best use his time well and quickly. Seeing an alternate way to make a circle was a new thought and he would have to experiment with different forms to see if any worked better, or worse, or not at all. Though powdered salt and a blanket is a good way to erase the circles quickly, all you need to do is stand up with it in hand.
He copies the circle down from the ground and then searches for the book that he skimmed so he can confirm it is accurate and the calling name, though dark mother might be a good start. He examines the arrows more closely before looking perhaps for the missing one in the room. All the while he does this he keeps near the door just in case someone comes so he can get out quickly.
(I think you said i'm already bound today so i want enough details so i recreate this later, He will not take an arrow though as that would be too obvious to take.)

[willpell]

(Assume that you pacted with Queen Avarice but that it's been almost exactly 24 hours. You'll be able to use this circle, though copying it for later reference is smart.)

You are unable to find the binding book from yesterday, but eventually you do turn up the missing arrow - it's been snapped in half, and your Break-Stuff-O-Vision confirms that this is easily done to the rest of its set, even without the Queen's guidance - they almost seem to have been designed for it.