[While Fenrir and Friends were taking the fight to the vampires in Cedarsproke, I was descending into the lower areas of the Nameless Monastery.]
DAY 533 (18th Eleasis) (August) cont ...
And so we descended into the lower levels of the Monastery.
This next small room we came to was lit by the flickering glow of two portals. A pink portal made up a significant portion of the floor, while a reddish portal mirrored it on the ceiling above.
The only other decoration was a large, faded tapestry on the opposite wall.
From behind the tapestry, we noticed a gentle orange glow. It was a third hidden portal.
Dak chucked a coin down the portal on the floor (a gold coin for some reason! He did get it back later though) and it disappeared from view. I stuck my arm in and nothing happened. I then stuck my head in.
I could see another room, but I was looking up from the floor. It was a weird sensation as I was on my hands and knees looking down. It seemed safe enough though, so I clambered in.
It was a library, wooden bookshelves surround us, but strangely, other shelves seem to be stuck to the walls of the space, as if each wall had its own gravity.
Stranger still, there are even bookshelves on the ceiling! It seemed the whole space was one giant cube, though details of any other faces were hard to make out through some sort of distortion hanging in the air.
Glancing at some of the books it looked like we were in the cookery section. Wandering the shelves we found another portal - a green one this time.
Using the same method as before we entered another area, that was totally dark. We heard a cackling sound, but the light of the Emberblade kept at bay whatever was making the noise. The light of the blade barely extended five feet, but it was enough to see the floor by and slowly we made our way around. This was another part of the library, and annoyed at us for some reason the ghost, or whatever it was, started throwing books at us with alarming force.
I'd not stolen any books so far, but the one it threw at me I decided to keep.
Eventually we made it to a yellow portal and going through it we ended up on the 'ceiling' of the cube we had been previously in. We walked about and looking at the shelves this seemed to be the Magical Book section.
In the central pillar of this area was a red portal, but it was behind shelves.
We pulled out the books, stacked them up, and pulled aside a shelf.
This portal led back to the room where we had first started, being the one on the ceiling. Dak jumped down nimbly, but I stumbled and fell into the blue portal then sort of bounced up and down until Dak grabbed me.
So that left the orange portal on the wall. This lead to a simple room with shelves of history books on the walls and a blue portal in the corner.
We were in no rush so I took some time to read through some of the books. By the time I looked up again, five hours had passed. Dak was dozing off in the corner but I had learned a lot;
- the origins of the Monks who found these portals and now use them as handy place to store magical information, relics and stuff
- I looked for books on Midpoint island, but could find nothing
- I found a book on Yacg'harr island and the evil king that was buried there
- Also a book on Oghma
I copied some of the more interesting information into my notebook on these subjects, then we moved on.
The next room seemed different to the others, and contained empty weapon racks and a pedestal with a scroll at its centre. Directly behind the pedestal was a deep purple portal.
I looked at the scroll and spectral tendrils began to come towards me. I've never had a good experience with spectral tendrils so I stepped back. It had not been written in a language I knew anyway.
Through the portal we came to another face of the cube which bore large pillars that stretched upward into darkness. Displayed on hooks and racks were various clearly aged relics. Straight ahead, a short figure sat slouched on the steps of a stone slab, cradling a jar of some kind.
Suddenly, the halfling monk's gaze snapped upward, revealing an age-lined face and eyes like pits of tar. A wordless scream echoed through the room as the ancient monk rushed at us wielding a sword that flashed blue and red.
The old fellow looked like he was under the influence of something so we tried not to kill him. Dak used non-lethal blows and I summoned an ape to help with the monk bashing.
After a lot of jumping around, Dak landed a real wallop on the old chaps head, then my ape punched him right in the chestnuts, sending him flying.
He landed on his feet though, then looked at the jar and threw it to the floor.
He then seemed to wake up, said 'Howdy!' and fell backwards, out like a light.
Dak picked up the sword to admire it and I went to look at the jar. It was of smoked crystal glass. I couldn't tell what was in it, and dared not to touch it.
It seemed like it was of no immediate threat though so I went and attended to the old halfling.
A Cure Light Wounds was enough to bring him round. This old fellow then, was Bonzu Pippenpaddleopsicopolus, one of the original monks of whom I had just finished reading, and the person that had been in that picture we had seen.
He told us that the jar was a phylactery, and he had accidentally been possessed by a lich.
He was a charming little fellow, but inquisitive, nosey in fact.
He and the other Masters of the Open hand had, long ago, protected this place from a horde of Tlincalli. He told us this interesting story which I have recorded elsewhere.
Eventually we got onto the subject of what I was looking for - the artifact that unlocked the portal on Yacg'harr Island.
It was in his collection of relics, and he was happy to give it to me as we were now considered to be good friends of the Monastery.
The key, or whatever it was, was octagonal in shape with one pointed side, like an arrow, and a handle on top for turning.
Dak wanted to keep Bonzu' sword, but the monk asked for it back. The half-orc handed it grudgingly over.
After hearing some more of the old fellows stories we headed back upstairs and were given a couple of rooms for the night. We had a good few glasses of Gibi-Gibi and Jibi-Jibi before bed.
DAY 534 (19th Eleasis) (August)
This morning we teleported back to the split tree where we had left Irritator. From there we teleported to Westgate, then had to hire a wizard to get us to Riatavin.
There we had a nice lunch and using my boots we got the rest of the way to Yacg'harr Island. I took the portal key from my pocket and went to take another look at the hole it would hopefully fit.
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