Ninuron nods gratefully and allows you to enter the fortress. A gaping pit is located in the center of the fortress of Jorgenfist, with a set of stone stairs skirting the edge and leading down into a set of natural caverns under the fortress. As you begin to descend, you spot various researchers and scholars from different organizations who had come to study this ruin. They are frozen as they go about their daily activities, and you are unable to move or interact with them in any way.
The deeper you go into the complex, the more oddities you discover. There is a strange distortion in the air and surrounding stone. The walls and furnishings of each room flicker and shift, at one moment appearing pristine and new, at another old and caked with dust, and at yet another in crumbling ruins.
A passage of unworked stone gives way to a smooth corridor ahead as you near the entrance to the Therassic Library...
Flik will cast echolocation. (Just in case.)
Once ready, you continue down the corridor until it opens up onto another room. Dozens of transparent shades pass through one another in this large hall. Some ghostly lecturers standing throughout the room appear to be giving simultaneous speeches, though the room remains completely silent.
As soon as you step into the room, a creature manifests before you. It appears to be a nine-foot-tall giant with chiseled, muscular features and a flat, forward-sloping head, looking almost as if it were carved out of stone. The giant holds a club in one hand, and energy crackles in the other.
Flik recognizes the giant as the wizard who commanded the army of giants that attacked Sandpoint over a decade ago, a servant of Runelord Karzoug that the Sihedron Heroes defeated when they first came to Jorgenfist. It would seem that Mokmurian has returned!
Before you can react, the giant fires a green ray at Remy, striking the monk in the chest and threatening to disintegrate her! Luckily, she resists the spell, though she does still cry out in pain and cough up some blood as the magic injures her.
Borgol rushes forward, drawing his blade and doubling in size as he does, then slamming the wizard with his shield, trying to knock it back into the wall.
for
Flik will start up naturalist and cast good hope.
Fergus snarls at the giant - an old for of dwarves and double moves forward!
Remy launches herself at the giant, delivering a flying kick and following up with a flurry of punches!
Maddie taps into the surrounding mass of temporal magic, tipping her allies over to the next level.
Flik shares his insight as he gives the party good hope. Remy lands several hits on Mokmurian, and as she does, the giant's form wavers and flickers. Its true appearance is revealed--a lanky human-shaped entity formed from myriad crystal facets, each displaying an image of the past, the present, or a possible future. Flik recognizes as a rare being known as a time dimensional! Time dimensionals travel across the Great Beyond to confront and neutralize threats to the timestream. In some cases, this involves the removal of a disruptive individual or item, while in other cases it simply means delaying events long enough for the flow of time to correct itself.
Maddie uses her own temporal magic to hasten the group. Borgol rushes up alongside Remy, growing in size and slamming into the bizarre creature. Even with his added strength, though, he is unable to budge the thing! Fergus moves in as well, the speed boost from Maddie allowing him to attack.
The time dimensional continues to focus its attacks on Remy, landing two powerful hits. Its attacks slow the flow of local time around the monk, dispelling the haste effect on her.
Borgol blinks at the weird creature, "I think I liked it better when it was a giant," he mutters, as he calls on Erastil to maintain his size before attacking again, his longsword burning as he does.
for
for
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Fergus is disappointed it wasn't a giant!
Since it is made of crystal, Flik figures there is no harm in trying an ear-piercing scream on the elemental.
Maddie's invisibility shatters as a barrage of magical missiles rains down on the... dimensional.
Though badly hurt, Remy stands her ground. She spins defensively and delivers a kick, followed by two more punches to the monster.
Both Flik's and Maddie's spells falter against the creature's resistance, but Borgol, Fergus, and Remy all land several good strikes. The creature's mirrorlike body is fractured in several places, but it fights on, continuing to swing on Remy.
Its first blow cracks the monk's ribs, and as she doubles over, the dimensional brings its fists down for a finishing blow! But in a flash, the Steward of Stethelos appears out of nowhere in front of her! You first encountered this enigmatic woman when she stopped time to speak to you on the journey to Korvosa to first meet with Sorshen. She seems to have grown into middle age, and the cracked and empty hourglass she carried before is intact and still filled with glowing motes of silvery sand—sand that looks as if it will soon run out.
She lifts her hourglass to block the dimensional's fists! The attack causes the glass to crack and its sand to drain. As this occurs, the time dimensional recoils in pain. You are nearly overwhelmed by a sudden rush of unknown memories as reality itself parts and you glimpse a city rising from the horizon of an ocean, as viewed from the shore of a green meadow. The creature is hurled across time and space into this horizon before the vision vanishes. The Steward turns to regard Remy and says, “Such a fate was not meant for you, for I still await you in Stethelos,” before she once again fades from view.
The way ahead is clear..
Remy stares in surprise at the whole bizarre scene that plays out before her eyes. Once things are back to normal, she grunts. "Well, that was a hell of a thing."
The monk groans and lifts her robes up a bit to look at the purple bruising under her skin where her ribs are cracked. "Ugh. I'm going to need some healing magic before we continue."
Borgol says, "That... was.... unexpected," as he tries to catch up to what just happened. He quickly steps forward and casts a healing spell before digging out the wand to finish up the healing.
Remy sighs with relief as the magic heals nearly all of her injuries. "Thanks," she says, favoring Borgol with a quick kiss before leading the way forward.
The passage out of the lecture hall leads into another chamber. The corners of this chamber have been smoothed into rounded edges, so that the room contains no sharp angles.
Flickering distortions in the air show phantasmal heroes battling against time-hounds like the ones that attacked you in Magnimar. These must be the Sihedron Heroes, though you still can't remember their names.
Past this room, a line of runes is carved most of the way down a long hallway, while a hammer and chisel lie on the ground below a half-completed carved decoration at the western end.
As you approach the door, Flik's keen senses alert him to a magical trap! Dangerous temporal energies have infused the door. He might be able to safely disperse them through tinkering with his thieves' tools...
Flik tinkers with the magical energies.
"Stand back...no doubt some anomaly. Hopefully it doesn't blow me into next week."
Flik is able to safely disperse the temporal energies without harm to himself!
The entrances to more than a dozen tiny alcoves line the walls of this large room. Stools sit around a few round tables, each piled with strangely shimmering scrolls and several quills with dried nibs. The scrolls contain notes on the library’s contents, but they are in a state of both being written and decaying to dust, resulting in a strange sort of fluctuating manifestation. While they cannot be taken or otherwise interacted with physically, they can be read by anyone who can read Thassilonian.
Another door exits this room to the west.
Borgol asks, "Is it magical? Did you want me to help?" He frowns for a moment, then says, "...someone.. taught me how to pick locks and work with traps, but... I ... don't ... "
"No, no. It's fine. Look at these scrolls--how curious!"
Flik examines the strange scrolls, but he's not sure how long they should linger.
"Let's find the source of the time disturbance first," Remy suggests. "We can come back after that."
The next room features dusty training dummies as well as broken and empty weapons racks. These features crumble at the slightest touch, but they immediately re-form a few seconds later to their prior fragility.
Past this chamber, a twelve-foot-tall iron cauldron stands in the next room, as if waiting for a gigantic cook. A large, unfinished rune of a star is etched into the side of the cauldron, accompanied by similar runes carved into the surrounding stone walls.
As Flik approaches, he once again spots a trap, this time noticing the unstable energy within the cauldron. It seems to be triggered by proximity--as long as you give the cauldron a wide berth, the energy should remain contained, though you may want to try to disarm the trap for good measure.
"Steer well clear of that cauldron! It's rapped with rune magic of some sort."
Flik is fine with bypassing the trap, as long as it's safe to do so.
Borgol nods, "I'm wondering if these are deliberate traps, or just a measure of the weird instability here.... or maybe some mix of both -- someone building up the instability to make it more dangerous -- setting it up like crates to fall."
"Either way, we should keep moving," Remy says.
The next chamber is devoid of decoration, but the walls to expand and contract as if the room were breathing. When not looked at directly, the floor seems to be undulating of its own accord. Spending too much time in this area would likely prove to be nauseating.
Doors here lead into the final chamber of the complex. A deep well lined with books, scrolls, and tablets occupies the center of this circular chamber, which is lit from above by exquisite crystal lanterns that hang from fine chains affixed to the domed ceiling sixty feet above. Faintly glowing sigils line the walls. Comfortable-looking armchairs and mahogany reading desks surround the well. A large book on a table to the north seems to flicker and shimmer, distorting the air around it.
A lone construct stands guard here, a sleek, one-eyed clockwork that crouches, ready for battle. Its arms end in weapons—a rapier and a compact crossbow bolt launcher.
Before you can react, the clockwork fire four bolts at Borgol in rapid succession! Each one strikes the vindicator in a vulnerable spot!
Flik starts to perform and weaves a spell around the construct's rapier, trying to pull it out of the creature's grip.
Blood flowing from his wounds, Borgol concentrates, halting the flow from his wounds.... bleeding instead from the eyes and hands. With the blood flowing from his stigmata, he quickly casts a healing spell, calling on Old Deadeye to undo the damage.
"Leave him be!" Remy shouts as Borgol gets shot up. She launches herself at the clockwork, landing a few blows, though the construct is resilient against her fists and feet.
Borgol heals himself, and then draws his blade rushing forward to take up a position next to Remy, ready to engage the creature.
Maddie reappears floating close to where Remy was, a thin green ray lancing through the air. Where it strikes,
"Get away from my friends!" she shouts.
Fergus will rush up and join Borgol and Remy in line.
The clockwork assassin manages to resists Maddie’s spell, preventing it from immediately crumbling into a pile of ash. Fergus lands a solid blow. As Borgol moves into melee range, the clockwork stabs at him with its rapier hand. The damage done to it is slowly beginning to repair itself.
Fergus will launch into an attack!
Sword in hand, Borgol side-steps to give Remy support in her attacks while concentrating on the flow of his blood -- stopping the wounds from bleeding -- but starting to cry tears of blood instead. The flowing blood clings to his weapons, infusing them with a sliver of holy power.
He then swings his flaming longsword, trying to strike at the beast.
Maddie glares at the construct as it fails to wither and die, and sends a barrage of missiles at the robot.
Remy grits her teeth and redoubles her efforts against the clockwork. Flanking with Borgol, she lands numerous devastating hits!
Remy's attacks rock the clockwork. Fergus lands a solid blow, and Maddie's magic missiles finish it off! At last, it collapses, sparking and smoking!
Once the chamber’s guardian has been defeated, an investigation of the room quickly reveals that almost every object in the room and its well is locked outside of time and cannot be manipulated—with one exception. The large book on the northern table is a copy of a rare text called the Book of Serpents, Ash, and Acorns. The book is damaged; every other page is missing from it.
"Books!" Maddie's voice echoes from an empty patch of air as she darts around the room, trying to get at every frozen piece of literature within reach of a flying, invisible child. Eventually, she lands upon the one object in the room her efforts bear fruit... or perhaps nuts, on, and the tome seems to float up and spontaneously flip its pages under her scrutiny.
"I think this is it!" she exclaims, "Ooh, there's so much chronomancy here." the angle of her voice changes as it seems like she's now facing the group, "Do we have to fix it?" she whines, "I wanna study this!"
"Yes, Maddie," Remy says, her voice stern. "We have to fix the hole in time. We can't just leave things like this. Besides, we came to read the other books in the library to learn about Xanderghul and his temple, right? If we don't fix time, then we can't read those books."
"I mean I know we can't keep it like this forever," Maddie countered, "But everything's frozen anyway and I think I can learn a lot from this!"
The book tilts itself up slightly.
"Just a couple hours, pleeeeassse?" there was presumably a pleading expression on her face that's spoiled slightly by the fact she is, after all, invisible.
Remy sighs and looks to the others. "I guess we can spare a few hours. Flik, you could look through those scrolls in the other room while Maddie studies here."
She moves over to Borgol to examine his injuries. "You okay? That clockwork was rather vicious."
"Yaay!" Remy feels tiny, excitable, invisible arms close around her neck. Somehow, the book stays floating midair despite both of Maddie's hands being otherwise occupied.
The book claims to be the most complete source of written information about the Dimension of Time, but with half of the pages missing, attempting to read the book proves to be quite dangerous. Maddie feels her mind being assaulted by every single memory she’s ever had, simultaneously vying for attention. She also experiences a strange, alien thought not her own: a strong desire to exit the library.
Maddie is well-versed with confusing temporal visions, and while it's not exactly easy, she does manage to wrestle her mind into focus.
Borgol stops his bleeding with the force of his will and begins to heal himself with the wand. He nods at Remy, "It was, I agree. But other than the cheap shots to start things, it wasn't anything I can't handle -- though I do have to thank Flik, and Old One-Eye for that."
He watches Maddie for a moment, then shakes his head, "Maddie, wouldn't fixing this give us access to much more useful knowledge - and not risk more time guardians like the one that almost killed Remy?" He sighs, "Besides, I worry that only having half the story can lead us to making wrong conclusions -- only seeing part of the problem and deciding the elephant is a tree, or a rope or whatever." His face scrunches up, "Sorry, that was a favourite story of.... someone. Important. I just... can't... remember who or what - only that she was teaching me."
His wounds healed, Borgol fills himself with holy power, and pushes it into his shield once again, causing it to crackle and glow for a moment.