Hung, puts away his spear and staff in their holsters on his back; pacing and circling around camp; observing and listening to his surroundings as the night sounds carry on. He is on watch. Time passes with no further event, and dawn crests. His friends slowly awaken to the sound of the nearby flies as they start to lay their eggs within the gnoll corpses. You should probably get moving before the larger scavengers catch the scent.
"I feel like I’ve been hit by a cart!" Sai mumbles as she sits up holding her head and stretching her sore muscles from the night's events. She rubs her eyes and looks around, "Did we really just leave those bodies right where they fell?"
"They died in the wild, I wonder if they have gods." Hung wonders as Sai starts to move the bodies further into the tall grass and brush. "Why is she touching the hyenas?" he addresses Malkey with the question.
"Those are gnolls." Malkey replies.
"They look like wild dogs..." Hung says as he watches Sai.
"Then we're justified because I hear wild dogs steal babies!" Malky proclaims.
"A little help here..." Sai grunts as she struggles with the heavy corpses.
"What could I possibly do?" Malkey replies his arms out wide expressing his small stature.
Sai sighs, he's got a point. "Look, there's a shoe over there, I'm sure you could at least pick that up."
Malkey goes to pick up the random shoe and tells Nutbag to guide her in her task trying to be helpful as best as he possibly can. Hung looks at Sai considering helping but for some reason he really doesn't like the idea of touching dead gnoll bodies. "I will help by packing up camp." He states matter of factly.
They eventually get back on the road towards Alfield. Sai is looking at the maps that the Carver's had given them and Malkey is still preoccupied with slight paranoia when hung notices something curious. It seems there's an overgrown pathway off the road. His eyes follow it and then he sees a glimpse of what could possibly white stone through the foliage, but then it's gone. He notices a shimmering light like the iridescent sheen of a bubble for an instant and then that blinks it and he can see the stone again. He stops in his tracks causing his companions to stop and look at him.
"Look," he says pointing towards the stone. "it pulses like my spear and has the same color." Sai and Malkey follow the line of his finger and start to see what he's getting at.
They follow the overgrown path until they are close to where the barrier of the magic is. Hung takes his spear out and touches its tip to the irridescent bubble thinking that since it's the same color and has the same ebbing magic, maybe something will happen; but nothing does. Malkey sends his Nutbag to go check it out. "Tell me what you find,iridescent" he tells the mechanical beetle telepathically and they all watch as the automaton flies into the overgrowth, appearing and disappearing with the ebb and flow of whatever that bubble is.
After a minute or two, Nutbag makes a round of the area, scanning for magic along the way until Malkey hears within his mind, "Fallen stones, old building. Seeing magic on doors, protection magic on doormat stone. Big bubble illusion/protection but not know, not whole."
Malkey, being concerned that maybe this magic field could possibly hurt them or worse yet take away his magic, fires a firebolt into the blinking illusory underbrush. It sails through the barrier without issue just as Nutbag was able to. Malkey takes a minute and really studies the bubble when it blinks on, it's definitely illusion or protection magic losing its potency. He turns to his friends, "Well, it looks like that magic is broken like Hung's staff." He looks directly at Hung and says, "Let's see what happens when you cross it." He gestures for Hung to lead the way.
Hung makes his way along the path and Sai goes to follow when Malkey holds out his arm trying to hold her back. She hesitates, looking at him questioningly as he gestures for them to wait and see what happens to Hung but she pushes through him, "Come on." she says in a stop fucking around kind of tone and they all press forward. With a collective sigh of relief, they cross through the barrier and take in the ruins of what seems to have once been a beautiful ancient courtyard; though nature has taken over and it is in decay. Stepping over the rubble of nameless fallen statues and among the carved monoliths, some still standing, you all see the building that Nutbag had told Malkey about. They all conclude that it must have been some kind of a temple at one time. Made of white stone the structure has two stone doors and seemingly no windows. Malkey sends Nutbag to do a perimeter of the building itself and confirms no other openings into the building aside from the doors.
Sai and Hung inspect the courtyard looking for any writing or symbology that could help them discern more about this location while Malkey makes a beeline to look at the doors more closely, going to the one on the right with the hearthstone first. Hung and Sai eventually make their way over to Malkey, none of them finding anything more than what they see in front of them. Sai decides to knock, not wanting to be rude in case someone may be in there. They wait for an answer but nothing meets their ears. Malkey pipes up addressing Hung, "After you pal."
Hung, seeing no lock on the door, easily opens the heavy stone door and walks in as Sai chastises Malkey, "Quit getting him to do stuff first, what's wrong with you!
"What?" Malkey asks Sai with a grin. "Oh look at that, after all these years the hinges are still intact," Malkey says impressed with the craftsmanship and engineering. "Good thing that magic didn't do anything to ya Hung."
"Thank you for checking for traps!" Sai calls out to Hung to try to kind of cover for Malkey as he walks down the short hallway. He comes to a door on the right and opens it without question, none of the magic here has done anything so far.
It opens to a dark, dust-covered study or library of some sort. A desk at the far back sits a skeleton, staring at the ceiling, jaw slack from lack of sinew. Three of the four walls have floor-to-ceiling bookshelves full of books. There is a thick layer of dust and cobwebs covering everything in the room.
They all file into the room, taking it all in. Sai goes over to the desk to see what books are in the small stack on the desk. They are probably what the person sitting there was focused on before he passed, perhaps they could gain some information; you never know. As she dusts off the front cover of the top book, Malkey chimes in, "I can help with that!" Using his size to his advantage he started dusting off the spines of the book for her. Good thing too because there was only art on the cover. "There are some words on it, but I can't read 'em." Malkey says, pointing to where he was dusting.
Sai leans over to take a look. "That's the one!" she yells excitedly looking over at Mlkey, "the one from that vision I had back in Trostenwald! The lady I was telling you about, Ioun!" Wide-eyed, she then looks over at Hung, "That reminds me, I can't believe we forgot to tell you! I had a vision back at the fight, and I was talking to Malkey about it and we were gonna tell you this morning, but it slipped my mind completely."
"What fight," Hung asks. "Oh, at the arena?"
"Yeah, you know when she was like..." Malkey says as he demonstrates a strange shaky stutter in his movement.
"Yes." Sai responds, "I had a vision about this Goddess, Ioun, that day and she told me to find the prophecy and save the queen, and after talking with Malkey about it we figured it would be best to let you know as well."
"A Goddess? I had a vision too, an Orc God. Talked about spear." Hung shares.
"Did it say a name?" Sai inquires.
"No, he did not, only said things about spear." Hung answers. "I don't know, I feel this spear makes me weaker. When in fights, I am taking more damage than I feel I should. Like it's cursed."
"Is it talking to you, or making you have some crazy bloodlust?" Malkey asks.
"No," Hung says.
"Nah, I don't think it's cursed then; maybe it's all in your head," Malkey responds.
"What he means is that maybe you're being too hard on yourself, you're a great fighter." Sai chimes in.
"I hear voices in my head, but not from spear." Hung states.
"Is it you that you hear?" Malkey asks.
"No," Hung responds.
Malkey looks over at Sai, are you hearing voices? Maybe that's why you two are having visions and I'm not."
"Nope, I had stopped drinking by then so that's not it," Sai adds chuckling as Malkey climbs up on the desk next to her to look over her shoulder at the book as she flips through the pages. Elvish writing is quite beautiful even if he couldn't read it. Perhaps there are pictures.
Hung turns his attention to the desk where the skeleton hand is resting atop a letter. He carefully picks it up and reads:
He contemplates, 'who is C.I.? Over the shadows?' Seems like nonsense to him and out of the corner of his eye, he spots a keyhole in a drawer in the desk. Gently placing the letter back down, he thinks maybe there's a key around somewhere but changes his mind and takes out his spear. Malkey and Sai both look up from the book as Hung uses the spear so skillfully he unlocks the draw without even a scratch! They watch as he pulls out a leather notebook with a leather sash wrapped around it holding it closed. He puts his spear away, picks up the notebook and walks out into the hall.
"Hey, where are you going, did you find something? Care to share ... Teamwork makes the dream work!" Malkey calls after him as Hung goes through the door.
"Finders keepers." Hungs says as he leaves.
Malkey shrugs and gives Sai a confused look before asking her, "find anything?" and jumping down to go get a closer look at the skeleton.
"Well, kind of, it's the 'Biography of Ioun' and apparently she's all about knowledge, prophecy, and skill so I'm sure there is stuff of interest in here;,, but I'll probably have to actually read it to find it, not just flip through it," Sai responds with a sigh. "There's also these other books here: 'Late Stages of the Age of Arcanum', 'Magic Tricks', and a really old one called 'Astrological Events of the Future'."
"We should probably take them all with you having visions of prophecies and all." Malkey offers, "Can you fit them in your pack?"
"Yeah." She packs the books neatly in her pack until the next time she has a moment to look into them.
Out in the hall, Hung unravels the leather sash and opens the book ... only to find blank pages, the whole thing! Except - In the top left corner of the inside cover, he reads in Elvish, 'Ostende Mihine', hmm. He closes the book and walks back into the room straight to Sai and asks, "You read elvish? What does this say?"
"It says, 'show me', why?" As soon as the words escaped Sai's mouth, the words on the pages of the book revealed themselves, chock full of writing. "Oh wow, look at that!" she says in amazement.
Hung snatches the book back from her and says, "How you know elvish, you human; how you see in this dark, humans cannot see in the dark."
Sai starts to stutter uncomfortably and automatically reaches up to her hat and tugs it down around her ears, "What are you trying to say?" Hung grunts with frustration and goes back into the hallway without another word. "I don't know elvish customs at all." she continues hurriedly, "Elvish is a common language for a traveler, a good language to know, ya' know... Besides, it's not that dark ..." She says as she produces four globules of light and sends them up to light the room.
Malkey trying to mind his business while this was going on had a good look at the cloak on the skeleton and removed the dagger from its back, but this seemed like a more pressing matter and as good a time as any. He climbs back on the desk to look Sai in the eye and grabs her hand holding it lovingly, "I think he said quite clearly what he was trying to say, and It's ok Sai, it's not your fault. It's ok to be you, whatever that is. Just know, it's not your fault... It's ok."
She thinks about trying to deny it even more and digging deeper into the lie, but the weight of it is getting too heavy to bear anymore and these are her friends. "OK fine, I'm not an elf! I'm a half-elf, half-drow to be specific, and I don't really care for my kind. At least certain ones." Her tone softens towards the end and she puts her head in her hands both grateful to get the truth out but still feeling shame because of it.
"You are of them but not down with them, I get you," Malkey says with as much compassion as he can muster. "All good, I’m not judging you or pushing you, just glad you are comfortable enough to share with me."
Hung comes back into the room, walks over to Sai, puts a hand on her shoulder and says, "Thank you for sharing who you really are. Would you like to read this together?" he holds out the leatherbound notebook.
"Yes, I would like that very much," she replies. They make themselves comfortable leaning their backs on the wall and begin to read while Malkey looks at those robes again. There is gold trimming on the garment and the shade of view is familiar to him. 'Oh, he thinks, this must be a follower of Corellon! The God/dess of Beauty, Art, and Elves.' He mentions it to the others but they are engrossed with their text so he continues to look at every book on the shelves until they finish but they're ALL in Elvish except for the one on the desk that Sai has about the magic tricks. "Hey Sai, can I have that one book about the tricks?" He asks.
"Absolutely," she says handing it over to him. Sai and Hung read for the next two hours and find that they are learning about the life of Aryn Feyra through this, his diary. They don't recognize the name and even check with Malkey but he doesn't know it either. Through his writing, they see he was a skilled, multi-faceted mage chosen by Corellon during the Calamity and the uprising. Through her, he was tasked to collect the Arms of the Betrayers, release the captured souls within, and prepare them for their final battle over evil and good. He also had to protect them with magic strong enough that only the prophesied will be able to wield them awake. So far they have successfully readied 3 of these weapons. He goes on to tell how he painfully pried off the magical bonds within the decorative gems on the weapons to reduce their hold and release the trapped beings within, yet he could not banish them, they remain by only a thread... Not wanting to stop but aware that time was still passing they decide to stop there. Getting up from the floor Hung says, "I feel this is someone that should be buried, bones not put to rest, bones will ache."
Sai and Malkey stop to consider until Sai breaks the silence, "I understand how you feel, but look at him, I think this is where he would have wanted to be anyway. He looks happy here. I think this is how he would have wanted it, surrounded by all his books."
"So this is his tomb, so shall it be." Hung leaves it like that and it doesn't feel wrong, he does look happy; well as happy as bones could possibly look that is. Hung starts looking at all the books on the shelves as he chats with Sai about how he learned elvish at the monastery because they taught of all the gods, not just any singular one, and Sai shared how her mother did encourage a fascination in the elf culture and Sai ended up being naturally proficient with the elven tongue and became fluent quickly. Later it led her and aided her in an investigation that was largely reliant on knowing it. She doesn't go into deep detail about it, but hung is just grateful for Sai being Sai and coming clean. He grabs a book off the shelf at random, 'Art and Architecture - Painting' which he finds to be quite boring-sounding, and puts it back on the shelf before they all file out of the room, leaving the study behind and going back out into the courtyard.
Malkey opens the doorway and stands looking down a similar stone hallway like what led to the study. Hung steps over him and Malkey feels a breeze as a shadow swings in front of his face before he is hoisted up into the air and carried along by Sai and they all go down to the door at the end of the hall on the left. Hung opens the door and they all look in. A large empty stone room stands before them with a large stone platform in the shape of a square/diamond in the center and what looks like could be a hallway on the opposite side. Hung and Sai hear whirring and clicking as Malkey sends Nutbag ahead and into the Hallway. They look at him expectedly, "Oh, There's a tapestry at the end of that hall over there." Malkey informs them.
Sai enters the room staying close to the wall, being careful not to step on the platform as Hung and Malkey follow close behind to take a look at the tapestry. It is stunning, An androgynous elf in Corellon blue robes and her symbol emblazoned on it. "Yeah, that's Corellon" Malkey states.
"Do you think Ioun and Corellon Know each other?" Sai asks no one in particular.
"Don't they all," Malkey replies. "I think Ioun is very important to us in the long run, not so sure about Corellon. We might really wanna spend some downtime with those books," he says as he looks behind the tapestry and finds that this wall isn't what it seems. "Something is up with this, it looks like the wall goes deeper than the floor."
Looking at the center platform, "Should I step on it? maybe it's a pressure plate?" Sai offers. "here goes nothing!" she says as she steps up on the smooth stone. A grinding sound can be heard by the tapestry wall.
Malkey looks down behind the beautiful image on the wall, "The wall is lifting, it's about an inch right now!"
Hearing this, Hung also steps up on the platform and hears Malkey shout, "Two inches! just a little more and I can squeeze through."
Hung stepped off of the platform to see what would happen and the wall did go back down. "But there is no more of us," Hung says then thinks for a moment. "we would need six more of us to get it open high enough."
"We could grab some of the stones from the courtyard," Sai suggests. They make sure Malkey is out of the way and won't get crushed by the wall before stepping off. She goes and grabs a large piece of the stone rubble and places it on the slab. Absolutely nothing happens. "Hmmm," she says as she makes a few more trips. Five large stones later... and still nothing happens.
"Perhaps it has to be us," Hung offers, stepping back on the platform, Sai joins him and Malkey follows suit. As soon as all three are on it they hear the stone rise all the way behind the tapestry.
"It'll close as soon as we get off," Malkey says.
"Can you send Nutmeg in to check it out," Sai suggests?
"His name is Nutbag," Malkey corrects.
"Yeah ... But Nutmeg just sounds so much better." Sai replies as the whirring and clicking Nutbag heads into the unknown.
"Small room, Treasure box, and lever," Nutbag relays to Malkey. From the platform, Malkey thinks for a moment and then goes with his gut conjuring up his mage hand and using Nutbag's direction uses it to pull the lever. They all hear some sort of mechanism commence before stopping and silence permeates the room.
"Wait here for a second," Malkey suggests as he jumps down from the platform. A collective sigh of relief is audibly heard as they don't hear the wall closing and move towards the small previously hidden room.
"Wow, look at the size of that chest," Hung exclaims as he takes it all in. It's the width of the room, made of booth wood and stone with decorative carvings. They approach it carefully and Sai clears the dust from the top exposing carved writing, and under the writing, ten carved recesses within the stone lid.
Sai reads the inscription out loud in perfect Elvish, "Omnia habere debent ordinem ab Alpha ad Omega." Again, as soon as the words leave her mouth, a compartment of the chest is revealed and holds 10 tiles with the numbers 1-9 on it. "Look at this," she says holding them up.
"How did you get those ?' Malkey asks curiously.
"I just read what it says here, Everything must have order from A-Z," she replies and gestures to the recesses in the lid. "I think they're supposed to go in these spots."
They all get to work trying to figure it out, first trying them in order 0-9; nothing happens. They then try odds and evens putting the zero at the end, they hear a click and notice the zero has locked into place. They are stumped for a moment and mumble the words to themselves, and Malkey starts putting them in backwards order from zero and when nothing happens he hears Hung chime in, "Each spot must hold a number, we could try every number in each spot until it locks." Malkey then switches the 1 next to the 0 with a 2 and it actually sticks!
"Wait, A-Z," Sai shouts excitedly placing the 8 in the first depression. It locks into place.
"But that is not an A, that is an 8. Does 8 stand for A? What are you trying to spell?" Hung questions confused.
"I'm not trying to spell anything, the 8 is the first of these numbers if they were in alphabetical order." She states as she tests her theory placing the 5 in the recess next to the 8, locking it into place. "Yes, I think this is it!"
Hung, still confused a little, watches as Malkey and Sai work out the rest of the puzzle.
8-5-4-9-1
7-6-3-2-0
With the last tile in place, the lid on the chest is released and lifts open of its own accord revealing the treasures within. Knowing that their attention was going to be occupied, Sai creates her echo self and sends it into the platform room to keep watch, just in case and Nutbag is sent to keep it company. One by one they take the items out and assess them. Malkey detects magic and a lot of these things are giving off a magical glow! There are quite a few potions, a large leather pouch filled with coin, well-made leather bracers, gnome-sized leather boots, a lantern, a shield with the eye of Ioun on it that Sai quickly takes, and something wrapped in soft leather at the bottom of the chest. Hung reaches down and unwraps the top layer to get a look, revealing a beautifully made black greatsword; it is stunning! Everyone stops to admire it as Sai reaches in and picks it up feeling a vibration in her hand as she does. Entranced by its beauty she sits to the side and inspects it up close. It seems to be made of some kind of spider silk and is incredibly sharp and strong. The cross guard, parrying hooks, and side rings are made to look like a spider’s legs wrapping around. She notices a setting for a gem where the spiders body would be, but it seems the gem is missing.
Seeing that Sai is busy with the sword, Malkey picks up the boots and puts them on, they are a perfect fit! "Hey hung," Malkey says as he tosses the bracers over to Hung, "Why don't you try these on and meditate for a bit, it's as good a time as any for a short rest." Hung complies and finds that the bracers do fit quite nicely unlike the uncomfortable chain shirt that has been chafing him since he put it on the previous night. Malkey then continues to count up the coins and finishes the inventory. He studies the curious jar of ointment and the potions and is happy to find they may very well come in handy. There are about 4 doses of the Keoghtom's ointment left, a fire-breathing potion, two greater healing potions, and an animal friendship potion which he divvies out appropriately. When done, he chuckles to himself as he gets an idea. Grabbing the magic tricks book he looks through it and goes over to the meditating Hung, "What's that you got in your ear? Let me help you out," he says, but Hung is too deep in his meditation to reply so Malkey carries on and reaches behind Hung's ear producing a coin that wasn't in his hand previously. "See, I told you. You probably want it back though, every little bit counts," he says as he reaches out with the coin again behind Hung's ear and this time there is no coin when his hand is retracted. With no response, Malkey also takes a rest, admiring his new boots.
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