The Library of Lanthorn: Session 2

Delgal Haberkorn, Roddy Applecreek, Breadrick Bravebelly and Shahid the Adjudicator took care of some housekeeping on the surface before re-entering the Library. Breadrick snuck into the soldier camp to supplement the squabs from the roof with some stolen food. As he pilfered cheese and pemmican he overheard the officer of the watch yelling at a subordinate who had found a magic item. The Halfling sent Delgal over to investigate. Private Patrick of the 11th Parliamentary Sappers had found a weird little sculpture of a fort that he thought may have supernatural powers. Delgal conned him into paying 150 silver to identify the trinket. Delgal couldn't immediately identify it and pocketed it for further analysis.

The adventurers elected to explore the top floor of the library before returning to the depths. The back office had a records room dating back to the Monarchy, with a second staircase leading down into the dungeon. Breadrick sifted the records and found blackmail materials implicating the Lanthorn Council in the escape of petty nobles sentenced to death for crimes committed under the Hanged King. An adjacent antechamber yielded a big key with bladed teeth and metal cylinders with letters. Next came an abandoned office, completely trashed. The Adjudicator dug up al-Sirr's old diary, filled with rambling half formed thoughts about how the library was alive and the Caretakers were its slaves. al-Sirr came into the chamber, for a moment convinced he still lived there and the Adjudicator had broken into his house. Shahid left before the situation escalated.

Further into the dungeon they found a half-finished temple cut into the rock, with a domed ceiling and an infestation of rats and slimes. Breadrick chased off the slime by throwing debris at it and started looting the bodies. Giant rats came into the chamber and Breadrick befriended them with squab and black rice from the kitchen. Private Patrick came in looking for Delgal and Breadrick """recruited""" him to come dungeoneering. The east passage out of the temple was unfinished but oddly inclined. The west was full of rubble but clearly went somewhere. There was a heavy locked door locked with a mysterious crest. The ceiling of the chamber was cracked as though there was a chamber above it.

Breadrick took a mattock and one of the construction ladders and climbed up to the ceiling. He broke through the clay ceiling with a single swing and found himself in a basement filled with barrels of water. The Halfling thief climbed the stairs to investigate the sounds from above and found a family of refugees from the Sanctuaries, occupying an apartment excavated out of the cliff face. He was concerned that the cliffs might collapse and kill all the refugees if they kept tunneling, and enlisted the Adjudicator to help. The unimpeachably honest Librarian went into the apartment and told them their basement had collapsed into the library. The whole place was structurally unsound and they needed to leave, and to tell their neighbors to quit burrowing as well.

Breadrick explored the collapsed tunnel and found a drain going down to a cistern on the level below, where a cracked wall suggested a new shortcut could be opened up. The group decided against squeezing through the narrow passage and potentially becoming trapped. There was a perfectly good staircase in the records room to explore.

The chamber below was full of shelves which were full of books. A dead guy lay next to one of the shelves, covered in pages covered in viscera. Patrick identified the dead man as Private Jermain. The dead guy had a worm in his belly that spat out printed pages containing his life's story. The worm had clearly been incubating in the book the dead guy pulled off the shelf. The adventurers gave the corpse a wide berth. The next room was a scriptorium, where the explorers looted a half-finished propaganda manuscript: THE VICTORY OF THE GREAT KING OVER THE FOUL EMIRATES OF THE EAST.

 

The gang went back upstairs. Delgal prepared a Scroll of Continual Light and cast it on his dagger to create a permanent light source that wouldn't attract the cloak creatures. Patrick left to fence some treasure he found and didn't come back. The gang debated cleaning out the bookshelves on the lower level, but decided to wait until Delgal had Unseen Servant castable and automate the process. The Caretaker the adventurers destroyed the day before was slowly reforming on the bier adjacent to the down staircase. They took the candle holder and cloth scraps to prevent it from regenerating.

The stairs went down a long way and led to a large room with a high ceiling. There were a bunch of doors attached to levers, ten in total, each with its own lectern and blank scroll. The adventurers experimented with the levers, which opened the doors and revealed various sights and sounds. Some released smells and sensations that only the user could see. Others opened to other libraries, or the void of space. There seemed to be some connection between which adventurer used the levers and what happened, with Delgal consistently getting the most spectacular results while he had his Continual Light dagger in hand. The lecterns yielded information when scraped with charcoal to reveal what was previously written on them. Chaos Exploration, Flatland Exploration, Higher Realm Exploration...

 

A Caretaker emerged from a side passage and began scrubbing down the scrolls. It gave a cryptic explanation of their function as planar gateways, which would only open to scholars bearing keys - pointing to Delgal and his dagger. The adventurers noted square indentations above the doors, all empty, indicating they were still missing a piece of the puzzle. They went back upstairs to plan their next move.

 

The key with the rings of letters turned out to be useless for solving the cipher of the puzzle journal. Breadrick ate a snack and had more success removing the delicate tomes from the shelves on the first floor, extracting some choice loot without damaging it.