Meanwhile, at the Pathfinder Grand Lodge, sometime after midnight...
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Deluge is not much of a night person. After settling his nanny goat into a stall, he has found a room with a nice comfy bed that will comfortably support his bulk and spent a quiet evening nursing his brewing experiments and slurping fermented goat's milk. By the time mindnight has rolled around is snoring so loudly it can be heard through the walls.
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A homely dwarf woman dressed in simple monk's clothing nurses an ale in a shadowy corner of the Lodge. Occasional flickers of firelight barely illuminate her deeply furrowed brow and tight-lipped frown and glints off the bracers on her wrists. Her gaze isn't aimed at anyone in particular. The late hour and the ale have mellowed her focus. Slowly turning the tankard before her, she ruminates about her past.
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Bernard wanders into the lodge, anticipating a few days before he is called into his next assignment. He spends his days working on his fence work in the training room, sparing with whoever will entertain him. "I have gotten much better at this finesse business, but i still think my swish and flick actions are much better when i'm drunk. I guess it's time to hit the tankard." He ventures into brewery shortly after midday, for whatever he can afford at the time after a busy day of training.
He wanders around the lodge with his ale, untill he stumbles on to Yangrit. He quickly recognizes her and waves, coming over to sit with her. "Well met, Yangrit! It's been a while! Remember the time we stopped a coup by the Ghostknives and Poisoners Guilds in Daggermark and nearly died in the process? Good times, good times." He takes a swig of his ale, "You look good. Been up to much?"
He welcomes the chat with an old friend, happy to spend the evening reminiscing and catching up.
As night falls, he falls asleep in the sables.
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Startled out of her staring match with the air molecules before her, it takes Yangrit a moment to place Bernard's name with his face. Fortunately, he gives her enough information to jog her memory. She leans back as he sits at her table and replies: "Aye, that was a hectic mission. I felt like we were flailing and failing from the moment it all started."
As night falls, he falls asleep in the sables.
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SKYREACH: Student Libraries
Hannar stands to the side of the new spellcasters desperately trying to learn new spells from the dusty tomes they are looking through....Pity...all that talent wasted on trying to force what should come natural. How sad.
"See anything you'd like to check out?" says a young librarian.
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Pau strides across the campus with purpose. He planned on grabbing a brew or three and he wasn’t going to let anything or anyone delay him. He was a thick, bald headed human, with many scars of previous battles. He carried no armor or spell books, and only light seeming weapons.
Once he collected his drink, he took a comfortable seat near the dining hall, biding his time until he needed more drink.
Pau strides across the campus with purpose. He planned on grabbing a brew before mission briefing time, and he wasn’t going to let anything delay him. He was a thick, bald headed human, with many scars of previous battles. He carried no armor or spell books, and only light seeming weapons.
Once he collected his drink, he took a comfortable seat, biding his time.
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Staggering in from the street late in the night (or is it early in the morning) Xusius looks a little worse for the wear. He dabs at a winestain on his left sleeve with an equally stained hankerchief, sighs dejectedly, and then takes a deep drink from his battered goblet held in his left hand.
"I zee zere ees no meesion for us today again. Ze ladies at Roxanne's weel be happy to hear zat."
Seeing Yangrit and Bernard he exclaims, "Yangrit! Bernard! Eet ees good to zee zou again. We had zuch a great time in Daggermark last year. Eet has been far too long zince we last zaw eeech other."
He looks around for a chair. Finding one, he flops into it and begins to snore as his head droops on his chest.
His long elven ears twitch as he snores.
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An impassive mask drops over Yangrit's face as Xusius announces himself. She's not particularly fond of being reminded of that mission. A bumbling bunch of idiots we were. Too many died because we did not figure out what was going on and act on it soon enough. As she broods on the failures she recalls from that mission, her brow furrows deeper and deeper. Without knowing her train of thought, one might think that her darkened expression reflects a distinct dislike of the elf snoring beside her. In truth, she does not particularly dislike him, any more than she dislikes elves in general.
Deluge is not much of a night person. After settling his nanny goat into a stall, he has found a room with a nice comfy bed that will comfortably support his bulk and spent a quiet evening nursing his brewing experiments and slurping fermented goat's milk. By the time mindnight has rolled around is snoring so loudly it can be heard through the walls.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping....
**TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP**
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It's going to take far more than some tapping, even loud ones, to disturb his sleep.
Duluge mumbles in his sleep, his snores having blocked out 80% of the tapping sound. "Dang birds"
Subconsciously he assumes dawn is approaching and the noise is coming from some obnoxious breakfast seeking woodpecker.
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It's going to take far more than some tapping, even loud ones, to disturb his sleep.
Duluge mumbles in his sleep, his snores having blocked out 80% of the tapping sound. "Dang birds"
Subconsciously he assumes dawn is approaching and the noise is coming from some obnoxious breakfast seeking woodpecker.
"Whoo!?"
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SKYREACH: Student Libraries (moments before)
Hannar stands to the side of the new spellcasters desperately trying to learn new spells from the dusty tomes they are looking through....Pity...all that talent wasted on trying to force what should come natural. How sad."See anything you'd like to check out?" says a young librarian.
"WHOOPS! Sorry, flirting will have to wait. I just got a message from Dean Shaine on the Library's Trouble Alert system."
The librarian's eyes focus on an unseen horizon for a moment as if she was listening to someone or something. She snaps out of it quickly and looks back at Hannar. "Hey, you're a confirmed Pathfinder, right? You could help. We have to get some experienced Society members together quickly, and over to the Library's Overflow Annex. Is anyone else up besides you?"
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Yes, I came across a fellow travel companion named Yangrit. She is a female Dwarf, a bit cranky even for a Dwarf, but a strong combatant, as well as a good travel companion. Perhaps she will know of more that can help. Let us find her at once. Look for someplace quiet and a bit off the normal areas." Says Hannar, gripping his staff with resolve.
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"Those were great time's indeed, Xesius! And Hannar is here as well! My, is the crew back together already?" He finishes his ale and swiftly goes to get another one. "Well, i say we wait here, drink and enjoy eachother's company - as Cayden Cailean would have wanted. Hah, i bet the old fart brought us back not for this mission, but to drink! DRINK I SAY!" He brings another round for everyone, even if they did not ask for one.
Finding Gwendolyn, he offers her a tankard, "Oi you, librarian lady - want to join us for a drink and tell us a vibrant tale of what its like reading books all day? Hah!"
He plays jestfully with the group, ignorant of that their mission is just about to begin.
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**Click**
A young woman in a nightgown and floppy night cap opens the door.
What the heck are you doing here!?" Not waiting for an explanation she grabs him by the arm. "Come on old man, you can tell me later! Gwen says we're needed at someplace called the 'Overflow Archive!'"
She stops trying to drag him and suddenly looks a bit sheepish. "You wouldn't happen to know where that is, would you?"
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Pau’s eyes open wide in a combination of fear and surprise. ”You two? Together again? Overflow archives? What...how..what? No. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of such a place.”
Oh, please...tell me I’m not being matched up with that group of crazies again. They took years off my life last time, he thought, remembering someone of the hijinks.
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"TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP!"
The incessant tapping starts to get on Deluge's nerves. And then some owl starts screeching out there too! One would think that a Grand Loge dorm would be a safe haven from nature, but NO. Briefly he returns to sleep dreaming of owl soup with fermented goats milk simmering while the owl keeps poking its head out of the cauldron and hooting or screaming at him. The pillow over his head blocks the sound for a bit, but makes sleeping so uncomfortable that he lifts it and groggily opens and points one eye at the window.
Indeed. And owl. At his window in the Grand Lodge's dorm?
A familiar. It has to be.
*sigh*
Deluge literally drags his body out of bed. Head first he sort of slithers or collapses onto the floor with a groan. Crawling over to the door while muttering about the time, he pulls himself up by the doorknob and then opens the door.
"Please don't tell me it's another mission."
Deluge is not an enthusiastic pathfinder. Deluge is, in fact, a reluctant pathfinder. His druidic superiors have tasked him with keeping an eye on the troublesome group from the inside and to make sure their obsession with artifacts doesn't produce some world ending calamity. Like he could stop them.
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"Those were great time's indeed, Xesius! And Hannar is here as well! My, is the crew back together already?" He finishes his ale and swiftly goes to get another one. "Well, i say we wait here, drink and enjoy eachother's company - as Cayden Cailean would have wanted. Hah, i bet the old fart brought us back not for this mission, but to drink! DRINK I SAY!" He brings another round for everyone, even if they did not ask for one.
Finding Gwendolyn, he offers her a tankard, "Oi you, librarian lady - want to join us for a drink and tell us a vibrant tale of what its like reading books all day? Hah!"
He plays jestfully with the group, ignorant of that their mission is just about to begin.
"We don't have time for this, Kreighton Shaine needs us over to the Overflow Archives as quick as we can. Get your gear."
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Deluge literally drags his body out of bed. Head first he sort of slithers or collapses onto the floor with a groan. Crawling over to the door while muttering about the time, he pulls himself up by the doorknob and then opens the door.
"Please don't tell me it's another mission."
Deluge is not an enthusiastic pathfinder. Deluge is, in fact, a reluctant pathfinder. His druidic superiors have tasked him with keeping an eye on the troublesome group from the inside and to make sure their obsession with artifacts doesn't produce some world ending calamity. Like he could stop them.
Deluge opens the door on a dark, and apparently empty hallway, but somehow, inexplicably the tapping at his window continues.
{Face-wingtip}
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He brings another round for everyone, even if they did not ask for one.
Having finally finished nursing her first ale, Yangrit gladly accepts a second for free. "Ehhh, you are a declamatory fellow, but you know how to earn a friend." She raises her tankard to him and takes a pull that looks longer and deeper than it is, deeply savoring the flavorful liquid as it goes down. Her eyes close for a few moments, whether from satisfaction or the late hour one can only guess. Opening them once again, she actually contributes to the conversation (*gasp!*). "So, Bernard, what have you been hunting lately?"
Gwen leads the group (Hallar, Bernard, Yangrit, and the staggering, sleep-deprived Xusius) off-campus, and into the narrow, twisting streets of Absalom's Foreign Quarter.
She unerringly guides the party to a building a couple of city blocks away. The structure itself looks rundown, and still showing visible damage from the Earthquake of 4698 AR. It's facade is cracked. Most of the structure seems to plunge beneath street-level with only a small overlooking upstairs filled with stained-glass windows that are as dark as all the other windows up, and down the crowded street. The only light beyond the stars, and moon above comes from around the entrance way of the building.
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Assessing the facade with a critical eye (and thankful that she had been nursing her ales rather than imbibing as liberally as her companions), Yangrit gives it a curt nod of recognition. Her attention immediately shifts, as she casts an eye about the darkened streets, looking for potential trouble.
Gwendolyn opens the doors on an oval reading chamber lit by magical light.
“I have no love of puns,” announces a peeved Kreighton Shaine, the Master of Scrolls in the Grand Lodge the moment the doors open, “Yet it cannot go unremarked that the Overflow Archives have begun living up to their name.”
The pale elf gestures across the library’s stone lobby toward a pair of shut double doors from beneath which water steadily seeps.
Shaine is only one of the late night visitors bearing witness to this disaster. Next to Shaine, the ever-fashionable Zarta Dralneen stands with folded arms, glaring at an initiate whose hair and clothes are utterly drenched. Both senior Pathfinders are in their night clothes.
All three begin to speak at once, but Shaine’s shrill voice rises above the din. “Magical shenanigans in the archives are prohibited.
Period!”
“Let us prioritize,” Dralneen suggests. “Are the artifacts within the vaults in danger?”
“How should I know!?” Shaine barks back. “This delinquent initiate—what was the name? Wormwell?”
“Virml, sir,” replies the sodden initiate.
“Virml says he sneaked into the archives on a dare,” summarizes Shaine, painfully emphasizing the initiate’s name with scolding disdain. “Presumably, he thought the holdings would be harmless. Instead, in his naivete, Virml triggered some dormant curse or other. So, yes, thanks to Virml here, the archives and the vaults below continue to flood, threatening all the books therein.”
Miserably, Virml holds up an armload of soggy manuscripts. “I salvaged a few, sir.”
Sighing, Shaine leads Virml towards the stairs in the southern side of the room. “Take them up to the scriptorium. Start making dry copies.”
Then, turning to survey the rest of the room, he continues issuing orders. “The remainder of you should wade in there and plumb the origins of this deluge. Stop it, if you can. I must report this debacle to my colleagues and begin organizing the cleanup.”
Abruptly, he seems to notice the Zarta Dralneen for the first time. “What are you doing here, Zarta? Don't you normally torment Chamberlain Valsin?”
“I’m branching out.” Zarta smirks and shrugs. “And unlike you, Shaine, I love a good pun.”
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Deluge looks with horror back at his window as he realizes that he expended all that effort for nothing. His groggy brain finally registering that the familiar is at the window so to the window he must go.
With a little more energy, partially driven by indignation, Deluge stomps over to the window and throws it open, glares and shouts at the familiar, "WHAT!? MISSION!?"
Deluge is fully awake by then and realizes that, yes, there is a mission, and yes this is a familiar sent to drag him out of bed. So he dresses, don's his armor, grabs some snacks and booze, and waddles out the front door (after a few minutes), holding a vague desire that the familiar be gone by the time he exits the building so he can turn right back around and return to bed.
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Pau follows Apollyanna for what seemed like an hour. Of course she was going the wrong way!.
Nodding at Virmyl, Pau offers a suggestion, ”Anyone considered a good, old fashioned flogging? That’d make him think twice,” he added before taking in the details of the mission.
”Where exactly were you located when you noticed the flooding, Virmyl? That’d be as good a spot as any to find a possible clue to how you did all this...”
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Xusius notices that the "nightclothes" Zarta is wearing are some of the finest silk lingerie and slides over to her, offering her a goblet of Sangria.
"Eet ees indeed a tragedy for ze artifacts in ze vault. Never fear, my dear paracountess! We shall find ze root of zis problem and put a stopper een eet. I will tell you all about what we find at our dinner tomorrow night. I look forward to eet, but first duty calls!"
He clasps her pale white right hand in his, raises it, and bending down slightly kisses it while murmuring, "L'enchante."
Releasing it, he turns to the other Pathfinders, beaming to them.
"We have a meesion. Who has ze plunger?"
Nodding at Virmyl, Pau offers a suggestion, ”Anyone considered a good, old fashioned flogging? That’d make him think twice,” he added before taking in the details of the mission.
"Flogging is too good for him. Stoning is too good for him. He should be forced to apprentice for Master Zey!" No one present has ever seen the Master of Scrolls this angry before.
"Now now, let's not go overboard."
Xusius notices that the "nightclothes" Zarta is wearing are some of the finest silk lingerie and slides over to her, offering her a goblet of Sangria.
"Eet ees indeed a tragedy for ze artifacts in ze vault. Never fear, my dear paracountess! We shall find ze root of zis problem and put a stopper een eet. I will tell you all about what we find at our dinner tomorrow night. I look forward to eet, but first duty calls!"
He clasps her pale white right hand in his, raises it, and bending down slightly kisses it while murmuring, "L'enchante."
"I don't think I have had the pleasure yet, Monsieur...?"