The party rests the night @ the Forgotten Worm, then wakes early for adventure. They head next door to Oogy's Curiosity Shop, where they buy some supplies, as well as quiz Oogy about the scholar who apparently lives here in Moor's End. Oogy proves to be a wealth of info & directs them to where they can find the scholar's "library". The scholar's name is Karvu Naudra, & Oogy says no one has seen him for a few months. Grego Flunk, curate of the Great Church, seems pleased w/ this information & along w/ the party, forges forward.
It is around 8:30 AM when they see the stone structure back from the road, mostly hidden by surrounding alder trees. The entrance is like the opening of a cave, & looks to go back for some distance; after some speculation, the party enters, moving down the corridor, noticing the suddenly polished marble floor & stone walls paneled w/ dark, exotic wood. Though Gileegan, hobbit thief, does notice what looks to be a uniform crack in the marble floor, he isnt able to determine exactly what it is, & as half the party has successfully passed it w/ no problem, they move on into a small semi-circular room w/ two iron-bound wooden doors carved w/ scenes from both fiction & history, battles, scientific achievements, magicians, etc. The doors open easily & the party funnels into a room of similar make. There is a bowl on a stone pedestal, & as the party nears it, some passing, a reddish-black liquid swirls inside & a magic mouth appears, saying, "Present what you wish to borrow, & place your hand within to pay for privilege." The party discusses what this may mean, & then pushes through the next set of double doors after noticing, but not being able to read, a magical script above them.
As the party enters the next chamber, they see it is a large, circular, high-ceilinged room padded w/ 20' high bookcases, books & scroll cases about the walls. Then suddenly, their lantern goes out. Also, though they are all speaking, they dont realize they cannot hear one another until one of them, speaking of "relighting" the lantern, on the speaking of "light", small orbs up near the ceiling of the chamber become dimly lit, then growing in luminescence until the room is fairly bright. The party goes about inspecting the shelves of books.
After just a cursory glance, Grego is convinced the book he is looking for is not in the room. The others, however, all seem to find something to be interested in, if just for a little while. Take for instance Jin, who peruses the section of Puppetry, & finds a book titled,
Master of the Puppets: Making Men Your Puppets. Jin starts to shove the book into his bag, but next thing he knows is struck by something w/ extreme force, crashing into him from above. He drops the book, after taking 1 damage. Guerrand on the other side of the room finds interest in a volume titled
How to Change a White Widow into Black, and appears, like other books in the section, concerned w/ the Cult of the Black Widow. Though he wishes to consult the book further, he leaves it here for now. Jin, on the other hand, decides that to "check the book out" he will need to go into the room w/ the bowl. Therefore, he goes next door, puts his hand in the bowl, & holds up
Master of the Puppets. Next thing he knows, he feels drained of another HP, as well as 1 INT point. He seems a bit overwhelmed by the experience, & not so pleased w/ this library so far, sounding off comments like, "I go to libraries to gain knowledge, not lose it." His rant becomes silent again when he walks into the main reading chamber. It is @ that moment that Renfro, who was first studying the section on Planar Exploration, has crossed the room, now looking @ the books on Flowers, when he notices a book that seems out of place, titled,
Seven Gateways to Inner Knowledge. He tries to remove the book, but it seems attached to something, & when replacing it, something snaps & a section of the bookcase swings open to reveal a hallway behind.
The party moves into the hallway & sees that it is a curving passage that follows the circular wall of the reading room. Noticing various doors on the eastside, they travel all the way down the passage until it ends & a door is on what is now the west wall. Hearing nothing, they bust into what appears to be a laboratory of sorts, several long tables covered w/ beakers, alembics & other alchemical equipment. They also notice several large cracks in the west wall, in the stone, which allow cool air to faintly filter through. As the party "lights" the room, & inspects closer, they notice a number of large, glass jars upon a table of the north wall containing various specimens suspended in liquid. On a nearby table are a number of thick opened books. Both books are thick bestiaries & are turned to pages detailing "Brain Moles" --- after seeing this, it seems clear that two of the jars contain Brain Moles, & after messing w/ the jars, it appears that one is alive, though the other dead. Next to the books lies a crumbling treatise about the "training & experimental use of Brainworms to aid exploration." Clearly, the other jar contains six Brainworms. The party decides to open the jar of Brainworms, & they hold one up next to Link, who is a bit frightful when the worm jumps to his ear, slides inside & disappears, his face wrenching as if hit by terrible blow, then shaking his head & standing straight up as if forgetting the incident.
After this hasty action, focus turns on the books & treatise upon the tables once more. The party learns from the bestiaries about how Brain Moles bore into psionic & magical energy. Renfro also reads enough of the treatise on Brainworms to notice magical writings about, & surmises that w/ much study, this treatise could teach one to
train Brainworms. Next thing they know, Guerrand has moved the jars, picks up a table & slams it into a crack in the west wall. A large chip falls from the wall, however, nothing is seen through the crack as it weaves left & right through the stone, presumably. The party decides to exit the room, & Renfro grabs the treatise. They walk out into the curved corridor & move north to the next door on their left, where they listen, hearing nothing, then push through.
Here they find a sparse living chamber, just a single bed, night-stand dresser, table, chair, & small hearth. First, Gileegan checks out the dresser & realizes the drawer is trapped, though when he tries to unlock or disarm the trap, he is not able. Next thing, the drawer is on its side & gets pounded by Guerrand & Clone. This busts one of the sides to where Gil can see into the side of the drawer, noticing the mechanics of a poison dart trap & disarming it. They then bash it down again to open it. Inside is found a small, green box holding a Monocle. Also, there is a golden locket which contains the faded portrait of a youngish woman, next to a handsized book of handwritten, trashy poems. When Guerrand reads one of the poems aloud, Grego shuts him up quickly, irritated. Gil grabs the book & stashes it away in his belongings.
It is then that Guerrand looks to the bed, "I think there's something under there," he says. He then kneels & looks under the bed. Something strange begins to happen within the room. The sound of rain, & from under the bed, sand, as if blown up from below, begins forming into two Sandmen on each side of the bed. Most everyone finds themselves groping for the floor & wall, falling asleep, except for Guerrand, Link & Gil. Both Guerrand & Link slash into the beings, but watch as their weapons simply move through the sand like a finger, the sand returning... Before long they are both asleep. Gil who fired a missing cross bow shot, bolts out the door & up the corridor a bit. A few mins later, he moves back to the room, looks in, sees that the Sandmen are gone, though everyone is asleep, some snoring, he moves into the room & shuts the door.
It's roughly 30 mins later when Gil is able to roust the others from sleep, & coming to Guerrand remembering a dream of slow motion, not being able to move correctly, finds himself in a slow daze, the party groups up when Guerrand says, "I wanna look under the bed again," and kneeling looks under, when suddenly, the same thing happens, the two Sandmen funnels up into the air, & folks start nodding out, & again Gil is able to get outside into the corridor, this time noticing 3 Brain Moles scurrying his way. He moves back into the room, everyone is asleep, & the Sandmen are gone. He closes the door, waits upon the others to roast. This time Guerrand wakes speaking of a fascinating dream of Utopia, everything was grand, he's ready to go, face the world... At this time 3 Giant Dust Mites come dropping from the cracks in the walls, & are surprised by the party. Gil makes them quick meat. Everyone rallies & they move out into the corridor & continue north, stopping @ the next door, which is directly north...no sounds, they bust in to find a Scriptorium. A small chamber w/ several writing desks, a bunch of boxes, plus a small chest. Also, in the NE corner is a machine of some sort, w/ a keyboard showing common letters. The party opens one of the boxes which is full of parchment. The chest they open has a number of compartments, & all said, contains 5 gp of gold dust & 5 gp of gold leaf. The party circles around the computer & first, Guerrand types a few letters into it, but nothing happens. There is a white, sideways triangle blinking atop a black screen. Gil suggests that Grego type in the name of the book he is looking for. Grego, paranoid, does so, hits enter, & the next line reads, "down the stairs". Grego quickly finds his way to delete what was previously typed, though Gil is able to spy the word
Genesis among about three to five other words regarding the title of the book Grego typed in. Grego, now paranoid a bit, groups the party together & preforms a
Bless spell, saying he felt they would soon need it.
The party moves back into the corridor & moves to the next door to the SE where they locate a Bookbindery. Though the equipment appears to have been used recently, there is no one there. Among the looms, racks & equipment tables, they spot two huge leatherbound volumes ornamented w/ semi-precious stones & gold leaf, empty of writing. Clone puts them in his bag. Gileegan searches the north wall & locates a hidden panel holding a cache of semi-precious stones & two boxes w/ gold dust & leaf respectively. There is a door on the south wall. The party moves through the south door, where they comes upon some stairs leading downward & ultimately into what seems to be a Storeroom. Many boxes stacked about. The first box looked into contains paper. Gil peering over a few of the boxes, notices a number of Giant Silverfish behind. Signalling to others, he is able to dispense of one easily, & then the others are destroyed in tandem. Among these boxes of book leather & bondery materials, the party is confused.
5:40 PM, Saturday, 16th day of the month of the Hummingbird, Moor's End, Furthermoor
