Huc taps his way forward through the glare. Nothing attacks him, and after 25 feet or so he emerges into relative darkness. It takes a round for his vision to fully clear, and when it does he sees that he's at the end of a corridor filled by the light. There's a bright metal gate etched with more arcane symbols, beyond which is a small room whose spare furnishings suggest a prison cell.
Within the cell is an amorphous cloud of shadow. As the hunter watches it sharpens in form, resolving into a mostly humanoid shape of apparent feminine contours. It (she, really) speaks in a pleasant if husky contralto. "I do not recognize you. Are you a minion of the petty human?"
"We are auditors in employ of the human's estate," says Temperance. "And you might be?"
"Oh yes, I do have it.It is right here." Rowane pulls the charm out of his chest pocket. "What may we have here?"
When Huc passes beyond the light, he pauses at the revelation of this ‘hallway’s’ details. Everything he notices — the blinding light, the the metal gate, the arcane symbols, and the shadowy creature beyond – raise his hackles.
Temperance’s answer surprises him, though he does his best to hide the reaction. Keeping his eyes on the … woman, and not trusting his ability to adequately describe the situation, he calls out to his friends. ”Y’all should come see this.”
As he waits for the team, he responds to the shadow-woman. ”Tell me what human yer talkin’ about. Name and description.” He squints at her and her cell, ”And while yer at it, what you are and why yer stuck in there.”
"He had some misguided notion of the power of such things, and did not provide his name when he summoned me. As to his appearance...." The shadow woman describes Hunclay in a way that clearly communicates her distaste for the wizard. "His rationale was likewise misguided, for he thought that creatures of the Shadow Plane such as myself knew of a connection between my home and the Dark Tapestry. When I told him what I thought of his ignorance, he imprisoned me here."
"The Dark Tapestry?" the woodsman asks, trying to remember anything he'd ever heard of it. "Why would he be asking about that? What did he seem to want?"
Arien, the creature is a shae, a native of the Shadow Plane. Her kind tend towards neutrality. The only ways you know of to return her are beyond your capability--spells such as plane shift and others.
"I do not know the details of what he sought, for after I mocked him for even thinking there was a connection he did not pursue the matter."
"And he left you trapped here? Did he fear retaliation?"
Though it's hard to tell with the blurring of shadows around the shae's face, it seems to you that she curls her lip. "He left me here because I wounded his pride, nothing more. And he crowed so in his power over me. That light keeps me bound here, and the last time we spoke he showed me a small vial of powder that he said would snuff it out. He held it up, as if encouraging me to fix it in my memory, and then he put it away, laughing. 'You will never see it again. Unless you can take it from my secret cave without leaving here!' Those were his final words to me."
She snorts. "Of course I can. It may take a little time, but once free of this place I will be able to return. Things cannot have changed that much since the last time I was on the Prime."
Huc considers the situation. This creature made him uncomfortable, but Arien was right ... they had no beef with this shadow-woman if Hunclay trapped and kept her against their will. That didn't seem right.
"And if we can get you out. You will go home? Or, at least, leave the people of the town outside these walls alone? They ain't got nothin' to do with Hunclay's choice to keep you here. Neither do we, really. We're happy to help set a wrong right, but we gotta protect this town. No offense intended, ma'am. We just don't know you."
Huc does not detect any duplicity in her responses.
"Of course. There is one other small thing I would ask of you, though. If you should happen to find my arms and armor in your searches, I would be most pleased at their return."
"Describe'em?" Huc asks, though he has an idea of what they are.
She describes the leather armor, the shortsword, and the scimitar you found.
Huc shrugs, holding out the shortsword for her to take . "Yeah, we got'em." If handing her the equipment is possible, Huc whistles for Fynn, who reluctantly but stubbornly walks through the blinding light. The woodsman gets the equipment out and hands it over.
"We'll see about gettin' you out." He turns to the assembled team, "but let's make that a priority. I don't wanna explain lettin' her go to anyone. I don't exactly trust this community's open-mindedness too far."
Before turning to leave, he looks back at the woman, "Any other information you might have that could help us find whatever it takes to get you out?"
"He seemed to have done this sort of thing--calling outsiders up to question them--before. He was prepared to write down my responses in a small book." She laughs. "He was *not* prepared to write down my actual response, though."
Huc pauses at that, then looks at the team. "I reckon we need to find that book."
Huc pauses at that, then looks at the team. "I reckon we need to find that book."
"I wonder if he had any plans to travel to a particular plane. So far we've found someone from the Hells, and someone from the Shadows. Er, Shadow?"
Temperance nods in agreement to Huc. "People are not property," he says in affirmation.
Temperance follows Arien, backtracking all the way back to the secret door.
It takes Arien about a half-hour to figure out Hunclay's note-taking schema and get at the information he recorded in the journal. This is, as already noted, a journal of his most recent summoning activities. From the dates, it only includes those creatures he summoned once he'd moved to Belhaim and had the manor built.
However, the notes on the appearances and behavior of the outsiders he summoned to the room containing the accuser devil are extensive, and include the services he secured from them. Most were summoned purely for questioning. Only the accuser devil and two others were kept for any length of time. The journal describes his plans for those two; one, a schir demon, was summoned to serve as Hunclay's bodyguard at a meeting with someone named "Barlau," and the second was the shae you already met.
As to the rest of the creatures, they were residents from across the aligned Outer Planes--devils to demons, azatas to archons. His research topics included the creation of constructs and homonculi, the history of Belhaim, various historically-significant magic items, and spell research, but far and away the most common topic was the Dark Tapestry. Time and time again, the notes mention a failed binding of a "representative of the Dominion of the Black." Hunclay conjured it only to have to kill it when the binding spell failed and it attacked him. This conjuration apparently took place not in the manor, but in Hunclay's "safe cave." From various clues in the text, it sounds as though the cave is north of Belhaim, and about a mile from the town.
The information in the journal would be invaluable to anyone interested in conjuring outsiders, because the names and offering preferences of a good three dozen such creatures are recorded within.
Huc listens with a bit of incredulity as Arien translates the little book. "This guy was into some dumb stuff. What if any of those things had gotten outta here? People could'a been hurt."
At mention of the 'safe cave', Huc tries to think if he's ever seen the location.
"He may not have been the wisest person in regards to practice methods. But, spending the time and resources to further identify that of the little known dark tapestry is a actually a great endeavor. Many planar scholars would love to go over this book" He ponders for a moment, "Imagine what this book could go for by those scholars..."
The notes leading up to the shae's summoning are clear--that Hunclay hoped to find a connection between the Dark Tapestry and the Shadow Plane. Following the summoning, though, is only a curt notation about no longer pursuing that line of inquiry.
Huc shakes his head at Rowane, "I don't know. Still sounds like playin' with fire." When the Abadaran mentions the worth of the book, Huc chuckles, "I'm guessin' they'll find out when they sell it off as part of the estate." He shrugs in a 'not our problem' kind of way.
"So, let's find the shae's vial of powder, deal with that devil, and finish our sweep."
"Sounds good."
Temperance nods. "That is our primary task, in any case."
You return to the final door in the basement. As far as Arien can tell it is untrapped. When the elf essays the door, she finds that it is also unlocked.
It opens onto a small antechamber. The north wall is another gate of the same bright metal as that imprisoning the shae; it opens onto a larger chamber beyond. The walls of the larger chamber are covered with more strange glyphs and runes, including one long word scrawled in one-foot-high letters across the north wall. It is in a language none of you know.
The gate is locked.
Huc looks uneasily into this larger room. "So this would be Hunclay's bodyguard? Barlau?"
"Right," Huc resounds distractedly, "So what do you know of shir demons? Any way to convince it to go back to ... wherever it came from?"
"Would any of these books work? Otherwise, fists are usually convincing," says Temperance.
Arien is aware that schir are lesser demons, also known as spite demons.
While the party debates and considers, a guttural voice comes from inside the room. "Here to gloat over me some more, wizard? And without your usual greeting? You'll play that game once too often, and on that day I'll enjoy supping on your entrails. If you're lucky I'll kill you first."
"Someone beat you to it," Huc responds as he squints into the gloom, positioning himself between the gate and his teammates. "Come show yourself. We ain't him."
The creature says nothing further, but Huc hears a scraping sound from around the corner.
Huc looks over at Arien, pitching his voice as low as he can, "How do we kill this thing? And how will it try to kill us?"
Rowane thinks back to his teachings that reference outsiders.
Arien's education on outsiders is broad but shallow, at least in this case. Rowane, however, has been trained on those outsiders that present a threat to good order--a category that the schir proudly occupies. Like all lesser demons, they resist damage from weapons that are not good or cold iron. They typically fight using halberds, which they gnaw on with their disease-laden saliva. They can inflict terrible damage with their goatlike horns; are immune to disease, electricity, and poison; and resist damage from acid, cold, and fire.