Wishing to avoid the haughty Redguards’ judgment, Gavin sets about learning Elvish, and Draconic, from Gaius while the Witness carries on his research within his mirror. The night otherwise passes uneventfully and in the morning the five adventurers make preparations to head up to the Research Institute for their lesson and to begin their new quest.
In the morning, Gavin prepares his Hero's Feast, welcoming the regulars and any newcomers.
"We should see ourselves off to the research institute for further instructions as soon as our meal is complete."
Gavin also checks the mailbox one last time.
After some language lessons, Gaius is certainly feeling fatigued. It's not his usual role, but it is a skill with which he has at least some facility.
He decides to use a bit of his attunement to cast a spell to follow up on some of the group's most recent diplomacy. Gaius goes to chip at some of the brick on the cottage: conjured brick would probably do as well as permanent brick for this spell, especially if Gaius did not want to risk summoning any of the Tower's guardians.
Chip of brick in hand, Gaius grabs one of the chairs and enters a meditative stance, sword held out in front of him. Before he begins casting, he murmurs to the others. "I'll be blind and deaf for about a minute and a half. We should be safe here, but please make sure that I don't fall over or anything like that."
Gaius murmurs a few arcane words, waves his sword around in an infinity swish, and then stabs the sword down into the brick. The brick is instantly consumed and Gaius' breath catches. His eyes roll back in his head and he is transported into a stream of time. He focuses his attention long enough to try to gather several narratives that he may be able to share with the others. It's a tremendous amount of information to gather in such a brief period of time, but the time feels differently to his mind.
Upon coming out of his trance, Gaius begins to transcribe what he has learned so that he can share it more effectively with the group.
* * *
After breakfast, Gaius dismisses the cottage and asks for a brief favor.
"So as not to incur the wrath of the Redwatch, I'd like to stop by the guardhouse before we go to the Research Institute. I have a form to fill out."
Gaius slips into a trance but quickly discovers that the summoned brick is not sufficiently connected with the local community to yield the spell’s typical results. Instead, he sees and hears only things that have happened in the cottage since it’s summoning (or just outside the cottage in the case of the Redguard visitors).
The following morning The Witness prepares his spells and girds himself with his usual enchantments before exiting and stowing his mirror, ready to proceed.
"I've prepared some spells to attempt to restrict our quarry's ability to move; with any luck I'll have the opportunity to cast one of them before our target becomes airborne. I've also prepared a new variation on my traditional teleport spell that should prove more useful outside the bounds of The Tower. It takes slightly longer to cast, but allows me to pre-set the recipients and destination of a delayed translocation; actual transport won't occur until I trigger it, and all recipients within thirty feet of me at that time will be sent to the pre-determined location. I must, however, cast it at the intended destination location.
"I intend to cast it immediately upon leaving The Tower at whatever portal we use for egress, including all of us as recipients. This way we can instantly return to the portal, no matter how far we've traveled from it in Cardriss. Unfortunately the spell fades after 12 hours. I've prepared back-up spells in case our hunt takes longer."
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The Montoya sisters never show up for breakfast, but it otherwise passes uneventfully. After some of the group casts preparatory spells on themselves, all five explorers head up to the research institute.
When they arrive Joska is sitting at the desk where they've found Iker on both of their previous visits. She looks up, smiles, and asks, "Are we ready then?" Her question, however, seems to be rhetorical because she doesn't wait for a reply before continuing, "I'm on reception duty today, so we'll have to go over this right here, but the chances of being interrupted by a random arrival are quite low. Let's begin with the lesson on portals, and then we'll move on to what I've uncovered and deduced about the gryffons."
"As, I assume, by now you are aware, there are portals throughout the Tower of Ages that connect to different times and places, most of which, though certainly not all, connect to locations on Cardriss. You may or may not have worked out that there is a correspondence between the floor of your departure and the time in which you emerge from the Tower, each floor representing one tran of Cardriss' history and advancing towards the future as you descend, so that if one floor was connected to the year 1332 of the common solar calendar the floor below it would potentially connect to the year 1341. What, I'm sure, you have not yet discerned a solid understanding of is that portals possess varying degrees of stability. There is some degree of variability every time you enter a portal but they are each consistent in the range of their variation, barring any destabilizing events but we'll cover that in a minute. We refer to portals' stability in classes, based on the duration which they allow you to remain outside the Tower, with of Class A measured in weeks, Class B measured in days, Class C measured in hours, and Class D measured in minutes. A Class E portal would be measured in seconds; we never recorded a natural Class E portal, but it's possible to destabilize a portal to Class E and it wouldn't typically go well for anyone using it. There does seem to be some variation within these classes as well--for example one Class C portal might consistently allow one to four hours while another might allow a range from four or five to over twenty--and we're working on a system of sub-classifications but haven't solidified anything yet."
"When you destabilize a portal, typically, it moves down one class in stability. We have not completed exhaustive testing on what causes destabilization, but there are two things which are known for sure to do so. First, teleportation destabilizes portals. Each actual teleportation will destabilize the portal one class for that visit, so through a Class A portal you could teleport a couple times if absolutely necessary, but in a Class C portal you could only do so safely once. Dimension doors and similar short range effects are believed to have some minor effect on stability but do not typically cause a class shift at all. Second, while through a portal there is a tether of magical energy that keeps us bound to the Tower and anything that disrupts that tether, such as a targeted dispel magic or passing through an anti-magic field, will destabilize the portal."
"Is that all clear?"
"The portals re-stabilize on their own? Suffering no permanent damage from teleportation? Gavin asks to clarify.
”Ah, yes, thank you, Gavin,” Joska answers, “After you return to the Tower through a portal, either by choice or by being recalled, the portal will undergo a reset period, during which you will not be able to exit through it again. The length of this reset period varies as well but roughly conforms to the same durations as the portal classes, and we assign portals numbers to denote their reset period with 1 being measured in minutes, 2 being measured in hours, 3 being measured in days, and 4 being measured in weeks. So, if you were to locate an A1 portal you would be able to spend weeks at a time outside of the Tower and only need to return for a matter of minutes, whereas a D4 portal would only afford you minutes outside the Tower and take weeks to reset. After a portal has reset it should be returned to its base stability.”
"Does teleporting through a portal from inside The Tower destabilize it?"
Joska falls silent for a moment then takes the quill from her desk and jots something on a scrap of parchment before answering, "I'm not certain you can teleport through a portal from the inside out. If you teleport to a portal and doing so destabilizes it sufficiently to recall you to the Tower you will arrive in the portal and be shunted, usually unscathed, inside the Tower, but I'm not aware of any cases of anyone teleporting out of the Tower through a portal. That's not typically how the portals work."
"Have you more to share about our quarry? Or the nature of the portals? Or are you ready to tell us where to find this portal? Do you know to what time this portal will bring us?" Gavin asks in rapid succession, trying to organize the jumble of thoughts in his head.
”As this is your remuneration for our work together, I’d hate for anyone to feel rushed or short-changed,” Joska answers, “but I do feel that you’ve been fairly compensated and am ready to move on if there are no further questions?”
Gaius is mildly distracted during the meeting, still reeling a bit from the utter failure of his previous day's spell. He is also still worried about grabbing a license so that he doesn't cross the Redwatch guards again. But he nods along at the appropriate places and mostly gathers what Joska has to say. The knowledge that teleportation destabilizes the portal worries him for a moment, as it sounds like their very work puts a potential end to what can be done in the Tower, but the reassurance that the portals restabilize naturally quiets his mind.
"Have you determined how time passes in relation to the Tower and the planes to which we have access? That is, I assume that we do not return to the very same moment each time upon passing through a portal, or else anything that we would do outside could be over-written. Maximus and I met a dwarf outside who was fathered by a Seeker. Does time appear to pass at the same rate, or is there some sort of distortion?"
Since they are hunting today, the Pigeon remains even though it is a Crow day. She listens with genuine interest to the discussion, and then at the end asks "What about conjuration? Summoning creatures has always been debated as to whether you are creating an artificial copy of a being or bringing them from elsewhere. But ignoring even that, there are plenty of stories of higher level magics that summon planar beings that are known to not be copies... and summoning is a form of teleportation, one could assume." she got lost in the question a bit, forgetting she normally just lets the Witness ask these questions.
"Summoned and called creatures cannot pass through portals, but don't seem to destabilize them at all either," Joska answers Lyra. Turning to Gaius, she weighs her words and replies more tentatively, "I'm not certain temporal correspondence really falls within the parameters of our agreed upon lesson...however, since there's a chance it could be relevant to your work for me, and for the sake of starting off our working relationship positively, I can confirm that time passes inside the Tower at the same rate it does across Cardriss. If you exit a portal and spend three hours or three days out in the world, the same amount of time will have passed inside the Tower when you return; and, if you spend a week inside the Tower after returning from a portal then exit through it again, a week will have passed at your destination."
"Any final questions about portal function before I move on to gryffons?"
"I have nothing further," Gaius says, making a mental that, depending on exactly where the floor below where he entered [i]exited, he could return more precisely to his own era in another tran--if this took that long. But then the portal would still pull him back, wouldn't it? Once attuned and entered, was it possible to ever leave again for good?
"Are portals destabilized on an individual basis, or are the effects applied to all who passed through at the same time? Also has the Institute made any effort to alter portals - changing their size, shape, class, numerical rank, et cetera - and if so, were those efforts successful?"
”If you destabilize a portal it is destabilized for everyone using it, but a single destabilizing event will only destabilize it by one class regardless of how many people are effected. So, a single teleport spell will destabilize a portal by one class for everyone using it, whether it transports all of them or just one. An area dispel that disrupts at least one tether would destabilize the portal one class for everyone regardless of how many tethers it effected, but multiple targeted dispels would destabilize the portal each time they succeeded,” Joska answers. “As for what the Institute may have tried in its research, I’m afraid that is squarely outside of our agreed upon payment.”
"Then let's move on to gryffons."
Lyra finds the answer interesting, not that she could summoning angels or demons or even billy goats, but still, None of that working in the tower might have a profound effect on certain types of spell casters.
She nods to show she is ready.
Joska gives a satisfied nod and says, "Very well, on to gryffons then. I first came across the term 'gryffon' many years ago in a legend about what seemed to be a great, striped griffon and dismissed it as an archaic form of the modern word. More recently I came upon a text in which an explorer--whose accounts seemed reliable--used both terms in describing how a griffon he encountered differed from a 'legendary gryffon'. The reference could easily have been dismissed as clarifying fact from fiction, but the descriptions of both creatures were so...immediate that I couldn't help but think he had seen both firsthand. After that I began gathering legends about gryffons and comparing them. I found enough consistent elements within them to theorize that they really are rooted in accounts of creatures distinct from modern griffons, and enough variation to theorize that there were, in fact, several varieties of them in different locations. Five to be precise."
"Two of these bear enough resemblance to modern griffons that one, or both, could be their progenitors. Around the Ignis Mountains, on both sides, tales tell of gryffons with sandy-brown bodies, like a large cougar, and auburn-brown, mottled plumage, like a red-tailed hawk. Similarly, across the Midland Steppe, north of the Ironspine Mountains, the stories tell of gryffons with golden-brown, leonine bodies and deep-brown plumage that ruffles up around the back of their heads like a crown, similar to a martial eagle."
"The legends are different in the northern ends of the Bloodplains, near the south-side of the Ironspines. There they describe gryffons as having long, spotted bodies, like a cheetah, with plumage that's gray on top and a spotted white underneath, like a peregrine falcon. And, in the north, around the Icepeak Mountains, their lays describe gryffons as being almost invisible in the snow with both their fur and feathers being white with gray spotting."
"The rarest of the five, based on number and distribution of legends, seem to have roosted: on some of the larger, more mountainous islands among the Southern Isles; on the south-side of the Ironspines, west of the jungles of Tzekal where the mountains nearly touch the sea; and, on the coast of Eastwatch where the foothills of the Ironspines spill out into the ocean. In these regions gryffons are said to have orange bodies with black stripes, black-feathered wings, and heads that are mostly white with black stripes trailing back from their eyes, like an osprey. These gryffons also seem to be unique in eating marine-life almost exclusively."
"Questions?"
"They sound quite beautiful," Gaius muses at the descriptions. He really did hope that killing them would be unnecessary, though he recognizes that they may need to do so in self-defense in the process of gathering samples for Joska. "What of their attitudes, demeanors? Are they known to be generally peaceable unless provoked, deeply territorial, or inveterate hunters?"
"I can make no guarantees to their behavior, having learned nearly all of what I know from legends," Joska answers earnestly. "In legends certain liberties are often taken to suit the flow of the narrative and beasts that are quick to attack keep the story focused on the hero."
"I can say that the explorer I mentioned previously does note that common griffins are generally territorial and aggressive and he gives no indication at all that gryffons were any more peaceable. I believe it would be prudent to proceed with the expectation that they will default to violence if they encounter you, unless you are able to very quickly do something to change their minds."
Gaius nods. "That makes reasonable sense. We may be able to prepare magic oriented towards speaking with, charming, and parlaying with the creatures. Prepare for the worst, and hope for the best, or something like that."
"How late did this explorer note the existence of the legendary gryffon, and to what era will we be traveling?"
Assuming a steady decline in populations rather than a sudden extinction we may still have a difficult search on our hands, depending on the time difference...
“Well, that brings us to the other portion of your payment,” Joska replies with just a hint of a smile. “The unclaimed portal is on floor thirteen and it’s… I’m sorry, it’s on or one-thirteen as the Redguard count, and it’s a class A3 portal, so you’ll be able to teleport once and still spend days at a time in Cardriss, but you will have to return for several days between visits, so plan accordingly when you consider our one sample per week timeline.”
“The portal will place you in the Ironspine Mountains in the year 108. The explorer’s account was written shortly after that, so it’s likely that the creatures will be rare but still existent.”
After a silent moment awkwardly passes, Joska smiles and says, "Well, if there's no more questions, I'll look forward to seeing you in a week, or less."
Gaius nods. "Thank you. I look forward to a productive relationship."
"And we look forward to seeing you." Gavin responds with a slight bow before taking his leave.
Gavin and the others make their way out of the Institute and back onto the stairway. Once out there, Gavin casts Wind Walk on the group and Suggest they make their way to the proper floor before adding any further magical preparations.
Gaius tucks the application into his bag to discuss with the others when they return. He didn't want to be the only one to choose a spot. There was plenty more to do this day--perhaps multiple days if they spent more time on this particular errand.
He then takes the moment (and strange feeling) to shift into the wind form and ascend the stair with the rest of the group.
++A journey to the past: yours and ours! This should be interesting. This entire endeavor jostles of chronomancy, and I cannot help but think of cautionary myths and legends I have heard about avoiding altering the past. Do you think we will need to worry much about interacting with local denizens? Or do you suppose that our course is set, and that whatever we do in the past has already occurred and is meant to occur?++
++With the amount of people this tower allows us to interact with from different times both here and out there, I think the flow of time must be able to adjust in some way to any interference.++ Lyra musses telepathically as wind in the air.
After taking wind-form, the explorers race up the staircase. They are quickly reminded of how mind-numbingly repetitive the trek is as floor after nearly indistinguishable floor pass by. It's an hour and a half long journey before the Witness has counted off a hundred and ten floors from the research institute.
Maximus remains quiet, thinking this whole past and present mumbo jumbo is way to confusing for him to even bother with. Well there's one thing I can say about this wind business... at least it's WAY faster than walking.
++I agree with your general reasoning, Pigeon. History may not be completely immune to interference, however; at least, I assume that's what the Amaznens believe. Of course I don't know whether this belief is based on fact or on unproven fear.
++Here we are. Ready? Excellent.++
Once everyone has assumed physical form, The Witness casts dimension door to attempt to transport them all to the other side of the wall.
Upon reaching the appropriate level, Gaius quickens his stride and readies for transport. The exact nature of space and time seems more The Witness' domain, but he enjoys pontificating with the others.
++Of course I don't seek to upset the course of history! Whether there is a fixed determinism, limited mutability, or freewheeling chaos at root in the flow, I intend to take care. It is just a curiosity.++
Gaius gets a slightly mischievous idea that he is uncertain exactly how to implement given the variability in the regionality and duration of different portals. What if he were to visit one era, then return to the same region in a previous era and make a minor but persistent change, and then travel back to the original era to observe whether the change had stuck? Something otherwise unnoticeable like carving something into a isolated stone wall. It would take some planning, but it could be informative.
Clasping hands with everyone else, the Witness weaves his spell and translocates them all to the inner Tower on the other side of the same wall. The entire floor is empty save for a ten foot wide section of wall directly ahead of them, about halfway to the center of the space. From where they stand, the wall appears barren, but when they circle around to the far side they find a piece of glass, about two feet wide and four feet tall, hanging in a gilded wooden frame.
Looking into the glass, they see, as if peering through a window, a rather spartan bedchamber. Large cracks in the stone walls have been filled with new stone and mortar, a clear sign of substantial rebuilding and repairs having been carried out. A desk stands directly below the window with a bone comb and a handful of pieces of men's jewelry laid out on it. There is a banged up old wardrobe off to the left between two windows and a rustic four-post bed against the far wall. To the right, a breastplate hangs on an armor stand, with a longsword and shield on a rack in front of it. The shield is adorned with the image of red roses encircled by a wreath of green thorns; stylistically, it is quite different than the print on the dishes at Rosethorn Manor but it seems clear there must be some heraldic connection.
As they translocate, Gaius casts two spells to increase his--and the others'--ability to process information more effectively. One coffee bean and one sip of wine later, his eyes magically dilate. He passes the bottle of wine around and encourages the others to take a drink.
++Scrying, perhaps? Or a portal. You all mentioned visiting a Rosethorn Manor before Maximus and I joined you. Does this resemble what you found there?++
Despite knowing that the Witness will be conducting a more formal investigation, Gaius cannot deny his own curiosity. He steels himself and casts detect magic so that he can more effectively assess the room and then the mirror.
"I assume this is the portal Joska has pointed us to. In outward appearance it's different than the Rosethorn Manor portal - a mirror instead of a fireplace - but otherwise the mundane aspect of the effect looks much the same." The Witness also casts detect magic and attempts to study any auras through the mystic barrage of The Tower's emanations. "Though her claim that the portal is unclaimed seems to apply only to this side of the aperture."
"Any doll people?" Lyra asks, since the mirror only offers the view for so many, and the others are more inquisitive.
There are no signs of any doll people through the window/mirror, nor is there any sign of any way to open it.
Gaius works with the Witness to sort through the overwhelming auras of the Tower and they find that the whole floor, including the narrow wall and framed glass, possess a blend of all schools of magic consistent with what they've observed elsewhere throughout the Tower. There is one surprising characteristic though: the auras here seem somehow less stable, almost like they've been somehow reordered into a new equilibrium but would prefer their original configuration. They also discern that the repairs that have been made in the chamber are far more utilitarian than the original construction, and focused almost exclusively on strengthening and reinforcing the structure. They appear to make use of a strange blend of materials including damaged well-cut stones that were likely formerly used in a different part of the same or a similar building, stones of the same type that were cut very roughly, and a couple of stones that are cut in a style that wasn't used until at least the 5th century (some 400 years after where you should be looking).
They are also able to recall that red roses within a wreath of thorns were mentioned in a couple indices of ancient heraldry as belonging to an all but forgotten elven line somewhere around the Verdwood.
Gavin does his best to scan for potential threats through the glass barrier, and looks to his attunement to aid the Witness in the same.
Gavin also assists where he can with any skill checks with which he is trained.
As they continue to gaze into the glass, Gavin and others notice a shadow on the floor move into view. It has no apparent source, even though the way its oriented its source should be in plain view; and, it's moving as though it were sweeping the chamber.
"Some sort of magical sentry? Or a creature hidden from normal view? Have you ever seen anything like this?" Gavin asks the Witness.
"We should avoid conflict with people on the other side to keep from disrupting history, but we will need to return to this place to get back to the Tower. Shall I go through first to make contact with the proprietors of this place and attempt to secure safe passage?"
"I gotta say, I've been wondering if we're gonna walk through this thing. I mean, we CAN walk through it, right? And if the answer is 'yes', I think I should go with you, Gavin. Would really hate for something to go south on you over there and you be all alone. I just don't like the idea of any of us going it alone. There should always be at least two of us together. This place is just too jacked up for us to be splitting the party. Let us not forget what happened when Gaius went off by himself," he reminds, nodding firmly.
The auras here vary from those of the other portals I've encountered. Could this one be manufactured rather than "natural?"
The Witness squints at the shadow. ++Invisible but casting a shadow? Odd. It may be a function of the "mirror" to suppress the images of creatures on the other side, I suppose.
++Given our prior experience, I'd recommend a swift and stealthy approach. Vapor pouring from the mirror and dispersing may be met with less defensive reactions than a human intruder, regardless of how amiable he may be.
++Assuming, as Maximus has pointed out, the mirror is in fact a portal.++
The explorers take a moment to transform back into mist and then fly at the framed glass. They find it no more accepting than any other piece of glass and they are left floating in the same chamber inside the Tower.
++Bumping into glass as a gust of wind isn't necessarily unpleasant, but we're certainly not getting anywhere,++ Gaius observes.
Whether doll-people or no, there are certainly a series of chronological anomalies present in this place that disquiet the now-wispy bard, never mind the source-less shadows.
++So if it is not a physically-transitive portal, then perhaps it is as I said: a device for remote viewing. Of course, we could try to translocate through the mirror, but...I'm not confident that we can.++
Gaius studies and tries to follow the shadow for a few moments to see where it is coming from, or going.
As Gaius and the other misty explorers watch, the shadow finishes it’s apparent sweeping and begins moving about the chamber as if dusting as well. Dusting doesn’t take long, though, and soon the shadow moves out through the room’s only door.