The Library of Lanthorn: Session 1

The City of Lanthorn. Founded by the Old King during his border war with the Djinn Potentates after the discovery of its enormous self-healing lantern, which he took as a sign of favor from his patron deity Oil Lamp. Since the fall of the Monarchy the city is overwhelmed with refugees from the endless war between the Djinn and the upstart Sanctuaries of Mercy. The Djinn may be confined to their fortress at Shrine of Storms, but the Sanctuaries' conscription of every able-bodied man, woman and child for futile assault after futile assault has created a flood of draft dodgers uninterested in an ignominious death. And the lantern is dimming. Without a stream of captured genies to fuel it the light must be fed an endless stream of oil, flickering feebly against the neverending storm on the horizon.

But all that was irrelevant to the adventurers who assembled outside the Great Library of Lanthorn, lured by the promise of payment.

• The Halfling Accordionist Breadrick Bravebelly
• The Halfling Alchemist Roddy Applecreek
• The Yeti-Man Sangyal the Lesser
• The Journeyman Mage Delgal Haberkorn
• The mysterious Adjudicator who hired them.

The Librarian Al-Sirr went over the terms of the contract with the hired adventurers. Someone broke into the library and their job was to go inside and apprehend them by any means necesssary. They had reached the "old floors" and there was a risk they would try to open The Lock, which was very bad. The adventurers could have anything they wanted from the library if they got rid of the thieves, as long as they didn't try to open The Lock themselves.

 

Sebastiaan Vrancx

The adventurers tried to get information out of a nearby company of sappers from the Commonwealth, whose demolition of the library to make room for additional construction to support the Lantern was on hold as a result of the intrusion. The guy in charge, Lieutenant Giraud, was absolutely useless and provided no information. Rather than waste more time canvassing worthless idiots, the adventurers entered the library to find someone worth talking to.

The library was a two story stone structure, set into the canyon wall below the big Lamp. Drippings from the insects endlessly gnawing the magically replenishing Lantern up above fell to earth to be collected by scavengers. The library lobby was filthy and filled with baboons, who scattered when Delgal threw a Light spell up into the rafters. Breadrick climbed up and retrieved a fistful of silver from the objects stolen by the monkeys. He had some choice words regarding humans and their propensity to live in their own shit, nevermind the rest of the group's insistence that the rampaging papionins represented a separate taxa.

A set of glass doors led into the library's main reading room, full of tables and chairs and baboons dangling from chandeliers in a desperate attempt to escape the encroaching humans. A cloaked figure held a candle in one hand and wiped monkey shit off a table with the other. Breadrick went to discourse with the man and found he had no face or extremities, only the cloak and candle. Delgal approached to investigate the magical construct and a baboon jumped on his head. Sangyal quickly dispatched it, along with three other monkeys infesting a nearby reading room.

The group went up to the second floor and went through the supplies in the kitchen. There was a barrel of "black rice" - insects harvested from the giant lamp. Breadrick and Roddy used the bugs to set traps for pigeons while Delgal went through the couch cushions for change. The Adjudicator found the librarian al-Qatib and got some more information about the thieves from her. Or rather, information about the Commonwealth goons outside. They had a courier two nights ago, one who came by stealth without light. The Caretakers might know more about what went on, and about the intruders below.

Roddy disassembled the door to the special reference section, earning a disapproving stare from the faceless caretaker. The room had a bunch of silks and books in poor condition, which the adventurers couldn't move without damaging. Beyond that was an office full of logbooks and a black bound volume written in code, which the adventurers couldn't break. Roddy disassembled another door and found a mysterious cell with a table coated in wax, along with a staircase downward. He reassembled the doors to placate the spirit and the group went downstairs.

The basement armory was full of shattered metal pieces and ancient weapons. The doors were heavy and reinforced with iron. Breadrick peered through a door and attracted the attention of a group of slithering cloaks, making noises like shuffling papers. The entities resembled the Caretakers from upstairs, but were attracted to light and froze anything they touched. The adventurers barred the door to stop them from getting in and went upstairs to buy candles. They noticed that one of the Caretakers on the ground floor was lying on the wax table with the candles. The candle melted endlessly, never diminishing but coating the table in more wax. Outside, the Commonwealth goons looted ruined buildings and pretended to work.

Equipped with a heap of candles and candle holders, the adventurers went back into the basement to parlay with the strange cloak creatures. A swarm of dark tendrils almost overwhelmed the lit flame but was turned away by Breadrick and the power of Natural Justice. Four cloak things furtively approached the flames and answered questions as the library and the thieves. The cloaks were former Caretakers, banished to the basement. There were five thieves trying to open the Lock in the ruins at the bottom of the library. The cloaks shrieked cryptic warnings about the Old Masters and the Deep Stacks. 

Further exploration of the basement uncovered a Monarchist altar to Oil Lamp and Iron Hand. Sangyal fed it lamp oil and it lit up the room. Roddy used explosives to breach a locked door and found a stairway down to the next dungeon level, festooned with lavish dinnerware and protected by a Caretaker that still seemed to have its wits about it. It used those wits to attack the group and battle was joined. The Caretaker sucked energy out of the Adjudicator but succumbed to fire damage and magic weapon attacks. It dropped a set of keys, which the adventurers grabbed along with the finery from the table settings before retreating back upstairs.