Theophilus smiles at seeing the dilapidated structure once again.
Such wonderful memories!
He cast his buffs.
Mara took out her healing wand, and cured her residual wounds.
"Shall we try the eastern doors this time?", she asked her team-mates. She walked up to the caravansary entrance; after looking into the open area, she checked the left hand doors. She didn't expect that they would be trapped, but it didn't hurt to be careful.
Mara finds no traps but lets the unseen servant Frederick open the doors anyway.
A wide doorway contains only the lower half of a door topped with a wide shelf, beyond which a cool, comfortable passageway leads into the caravanserai. A tattered curtain dangles from the lintel. The room beyond contains only a few bare tables and a narrow, barred door. Leaning against the wall is a rusty scimitar. Theo identifies the scimitar as a vorpal scimitar,
Piles of rubble block the hallway here.
"Vorpal?"
"Do you want me to start clearing the rubble away?"
Dervak will start doing so if asked.
Theophilus admires the scimitar.
I bet that I strike a handsome swordgentleman!
Kat is rather intrigued by the whole process of the dream ritual, but she sets her questions aside for later. As the "new meat" she wants to prove her effectiveness to these new comrades, so she goes ahead and drinks all her long-term buff extracts once inside.
"I'll clear it with you. I'm strong enough to hold my own in that respect."
Dervak and Kat begin moving the rubble. Without the protection of a roof to keep out the sun after about 10 minutes or so the heat starts to get to Dervak. He's out of breath and rivulets of sweat pour down his brow and soak his clothes and armor. Kat is fairing a little better but she feels she'll soon join him.
Mara said to Dervak, "Come out of the sun and cool down for a bit!"
She took out her healing wand and refreshed her friend.
"Maybe we should explore the central chamber, before we do any more rubble clearing," she suggested.
Theophilus begins to roll up his sleeves. At the delaying of the removal of the rubble suggestion, he begins to unroll them.
Good idea, Mara.
Checking the doors in the back of the central courtyard you find barren storage rooms. Rowan notices crack on the wall and wear marks on the floor. Investigating further he finds a well concealed button. When he pushes everyone can hear a latch open, pushing near the crack reveals a concealed door leading into the main hallway that snakes through building.
Theophilus sends Frederick in with a torch lit.
"Well, that's handy!", Mara declared, stepping through the doorway. "Good eye, Rowan! Let's leave the ooze creature be, and explore this side of the interior."
She continued to the east and peeked around the corner.
The door to the south is wedged open by an old ledger. To the north sit three bone dry basins. Rubble blocks further access to the north.
Theophilus sends Frederick into the south door.
The office contains a low table and several dozen ledgers. The ledgers are brittle to the touch and crumble if not handled lightly, but each contains hundreds of pages of cramped handwriting. This writing is utterly indecipherable. On the eastern wall is a steep staircase heading up.
Mara intoned a prayer, then looked around the room and scanned for magic auras.
Once she had satisfied herself that there was nothing more to be found here, she prepared to head up the stairs. She concentrated, causing her form to waver and become slightly indistinct, and then headed up the stairs.
Frederick precedes them up the stairs, torch in an unseen hand.
Theophilus follows the others.
Dervak flips through the various ledgers, tries to make sense of them, and proceeds up the stairs.
Dervak is fairly certain that the person who wrote the ledgers was illiterate and merely mimicking written text.
Upstairs
This tidy office is sparse but tastefully decorated. Framed paintings of landscapes hang on the walls, including a many-spired city with marble walls and brass gates, a windswept waste beneath a distant, ominous mountain, and a gloomy port city constructed primarily of basalt.
At the desk is an older middle aged man with a long hoary beard. He wears a nobles outfit but has made a cloak out of the frayed fabrics once used to block off doorways in the Caravanserai. You know this man, his title and name is Count Haserton Lowls IV.
He stands up smiling and says, "Visitors! I knew that someone would eventually come! Fantastic... wait, have we met?"
It can't be this easy. It look like him, but...So many shapechangers and people who lost their memory and whatever else...
Dervak's fingers itch to draw his sword, but he restrains himself.
"Maybe. Who are you?"
Mara recognized her former employer and nemesis. Killing him in the Dreamlands won't kill him in the waking world, just make him more insane than he might already be! Better to learn something.
She tried to engage the man in conversation, "If you don't recognize us, that would be ironic! Didn't you sacrifice our memories to the Mad Prophet?"
Kat's whole body immediately tenses as she recognizes the Count. She never expected to find him so soon. What would she even say to him? She thought there would be more time to figure it out.
She loosens up once she realizes the implications of Dervak's question. He is not a fool and wouldn't ask such an obvious question unless there was a good reason to suspect trickery of some sort. Knowing how slippery the Count is, he may have pulled tricks with illusions or shapeshifters in the past. Mara's leading question further cements in Kat's mind that a more circumspect approach is in order.
He claps his hands with obvious delight, "Why I am none other than the tremendous Yellow King!" He walks over and examines each of you appraisingly and points to Theo, Mara, and Rowan, "I'm absolutely certain! I know you, you, and you."
He considers Mara's question, "I should say not, I have no dealings with that ominous yet perspicacious prophet! Whatever Lowls did to you I must apologize but I am surely not responsible, after my time. However if you've misplaced your memories then I have a theory to posit. You like me were deconstructed from a greater whole."
Kat senses no deception from the 'Yellow King.'
Theophilus walks up to him and slaps him on the face!
You, sir, have been greatly misbehaving!
He staggers back at Theo's slap with a look of utter shock, "That will leave a bruise. I beseech you good sir I have done nothing to you and wish you no ill will. Why, you simply cannot hold the offspring accountable for the actions of a parent."
Mara explained to the 'Yellow King', "My apologies, sir; you look very much like another person that we are seeking. A case of mistaken identity, I suppose.
Are you saying that you are somehow the creation of another?"
"If you know the others then you know me. I am Dervak. Changed. The Dervak that I am is not the same Dervak that Lowls knew. I don't know if I am, uh, de-con-struc-ted..."
Dervak turns the word over in his head.
"Can you explain how you came to be?"
Theophilus begins to examine this imposter closely. The tailor lifts the Yellow Kong's arms up over his head. He begins taking out his tape measure, chalk, and a muffin (which he promptly shares), as he does his craft.
We shall get the truth of it. Measurements never lie. Do try a bite; that muffin was baked at The best bakery on Golarion.
The Yellow King munches on the offered muffin while letting Theo ply his craft, ”Marvelous! Stupendous!” As far as Theo can tell the measurements are the same as Lowls, if he lost a bit of weight. Between bites he answers, ”Lowls spoke to the Mad Poet, an apt appellation, I assure you, he has unimaginable power here in the Dreamlands, but he is fickle. Lowls learned some great truth from the Mad Poet; some truths so mind-shattering that I came into being as a result. I deem it serendipitous that I do not know what these truths are.” He faces Dervak and squints, ”Correct! I do know you, you are more deconstructed than most. Or perhaps broken and reconstructed with different pieces.”
The White Rabbit seems to be holding in bales of laughter, as he watches the muffin being eaten.
Mara asked the Yellow King, "Do you know where the Mad Prophet lives?"
The Yellow King titters, ”I can escort you to the Mad Poet’s oasis, and you can petition him for answers. Approaching the Mad Poet without the proper collection of gifts provokes his ire; worse, he might have nothing to do with you. Good gifts for the Mad Poet are scattered throughout the Dreamlands. They are rare, esoteric, and never easily gained. Lowls identified six or seven of these gifts. I recall writing them down on the flyleaf of Dichotomous Translations of Aklo Syntax, but I can’t recall what they were. Lowls painstakingly scoured his tomes to research each gift, learning where to find it in the Dreamlands and then dreaming of that location. I recommend you do likewise. Some of the gifts required trickery or guile to obtain; others, delicate negotiation or brute force. I don’t know the minimum number of gifts the Mad Poet will accept, but Lowls acquired all the gifts on his list. If you want to make do with fewer gifts, or if you have some problem acquiring them all, the Mad Poet might condescend to converse with you anyway. That’s up to you. Once you acquire sufficient gifts, return here.”
After finishing the muffin he asks, ”Do you have another? The mold makes it taste wonderfully feral and the crunch is sublime.”
"We have many of Lowls' tomes, and also these ledgers. Your writing? They don't seem to make any sense. I guess we should look in Lowls' book collection."
The Yellow King seizes on the ledger, "Quite the mystery wrapped in a conundrum those. I've been pouring over them trying to break their code for a year at least."
Kat's mouth turns up in disgust at the "Yellow King" describing the muffin. "I haven't had a chance to look at the collection yet, so maybe I could uncover something new."
The gentleman with serendipity reaches into a pocket, producing another muffin.
The White Rabbit looks on in shock.
Mara rolled her eyes as Theo pulled out another muffin, "The culinary delights never cease."
She addressed the Yellow King once more, "Can you think of any other books that were particularly helpful in Count Lowls' research?"
The Yellow King graciously accepts the pastries and answers Mara, "Elements through the Spirals of Time, Monuments of the Forest, The Codex of Three Prescriptions, Festival of the Snake, Atop the Valley's Soul, Emotions of the Past, Curses of the Black Lake, and more I am certain. I apologize I cannot remember."
"Thank you, sir," Mara replied to the Yellow King.
"Looks like it's time to hit the books!", she told her friends. "Shall we return to the boat?"
There's no place like home.
You wake up tired and feeling as if you have slept too much. All you want is to crawl back into your hammock and sleep for just 10 more minutes.
When you check the book titled Dichotomous Translations of Aklo Syntax and written in the marginalia with no context is the list the Yellow King was referring to:
Viscount's Signet Ring,
Feline Tail (blue and purple mottled fur),
Skull of ghoul royalty,
Green stone idol of a water lizard,
Night hag ambassador's heartstone,
Captain's tricorn,
Red webbed foot,
"I think Theophilus and Mara are going to do the heavy lifting here. Kat, are you good with books? I can try to help where I can."
Kat smiles at the question. "Books and I are very well acquianted. I am particularly good with local knowledge and in the study of nobles and alike."
Kat addresses the group. "How difficult has your reseach been in the past? I am wondering whether I should make use of my extracts or whether it would be better to save them."
Mara looked over the list of subject and told the others, "I'll see what I can find out about the red webbed foot."
Steeling herself for a lot of reading, she settled in for the day with the eldritch tomes.
Theophilus--weirdly--picks up the Captain's Tricorn.
Day 22
Skywin brings the group breakfast, the same as the last 20 or so days: Coffee and biscuits with butter and marmalade. Hopefully not a portent of things to come, Theo finds a single maggot worming through his.
Mara begins searching through texts and finds a few notes from Lowls pointing to the books: Curses of the Black Lake, Men and Vultures: Denizens of the Darkened Depths and Dead Skies, and Shards of Sight. To her dismay she finds that the latter two are written in Necril. She makes no progress in translating the strange amalgam of Aklo, Undercommon, and Osiriani but does make some progress with the first book.
Theo's research method to an outside observer would seem to be opening a book to a random page, pointing randomly on that page and then reading that sentence. Doing this this for 6 hours, he focuses on the following books: Emotions of the Past, The Shadow's Ship, and Voyages of the Rainbow Servant.
Theo discovers the following: