Arvyx finishes studying the switch to close the door with satisfaction.
Except for the performance above, the library is quiet including all the doors Feona puts an ear to.
This long stone hallway stretches from north to south with several sets of doors along its east and west walls. The south wall bears a 10-foot-square field of carved divots that create no particular pattern. An inscription above the carving reads “The keenest eyes cannot see everything. Always remember to see the big picture.”
Thousands of books line the dozens of shelves in this high ceilinged library. Several tables and chairs near the center of the room provide a place to read quietly, and five rows of pew-like benches nearby face an immense lion’s head carved from the eastern wall. The room is 110 feet long and sixty feet wide.
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Tugo follows the party into the library. The thing what catches his awe is the shear size, that this is all under ground...spectacular, Lizelotti must see this.
He stands on a chair nearest the most open space, lifts one foot to his knee and his hands and arms out-splayed and focuses, eyes opened on the area in front of him. He begins chanting, "Lizelotti, come. I summon you," repeatedly. In seconds, his eyes and the symbol on his head begin to glow. Then the same cacophony of light out of which the Halfling fell when they'd all first met began to shine from a point in front of him. It grew into a sphere, larger and larger, until it was over six feet in diameter.
The light faded, and before all of them was the beautiful and majestic alce griffon which they'd seen him riding up earlier.
Tugo immediately hops from the chair and lands on the griffon's back, "Hey old girl, d'you miss me?" She chirped and purred in response, "Get a load of this library, eh?" The griffon looks up and around, and ruffles her feathers, seemingly unimpressed. "You never were one for books, were you?" He chuckles. "Well we'd better start looking for the records of the Shining Crusade. I know you can't read, but let me know if you see any really old papers, scrolls, books, that sort of thing." After instructing his friend, he casts Guidance on her to help her understand what they're looking for, and dismounts so the two of them can begin hunting the shelves.
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A slow blink was given when the immense library was shown to them. He wondered how the hell they were going to get their task done in the amount of time and find the books that they needed. It seemed like a mission impossible that they accepted. He would let his gaze go over the books to determine if there was any logic in the way the books were placed.
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Keia could barely contain the squeal in her throat as she caught sight of all the books. So many amazingly unedited books, if their benefactor was to be believed. There was so terribly much that she could learn in this room alone, how could she ever get all the notes that she wanted in the limited amount of time that they had available? What was a historian to do?
With an affectionate sigh she ran her hands over the books, putting some distance between her and the rest of the party so her search wouldn't overlap with anyone else and began her search. Though she was certainly keeping her eye out for anything that might be useful for Osirion history as well, important loyalties and all that.
A room this size will take a couple of hours to search, but many hands make light work. The categories are all clearly labeled with topics on nearly every subject. One just need to research the topic.*
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As the human man spoke up Keia turned to him with a smile, "Well! I'm glad you asked!" She wasn't able to completely restrain a light clap of her hands, letting out her bubbling excitement in little sounds. "History is a strong suit of mine, I'm more than happy to help out, I thiiiiink-" She does a quick spin of the room, squinting at titles on the shelves.
"-over here would be a good place to start!"
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"Yes Feona, something is and it knows we are watching it, as well."
Piper shakes her head to try to clear her thoughts so she can concentrate on the glowing dweomer.
Piper's eyes rolled into her head and she dropped the staff in her hand. She tries to respond to Feona, but only manages a garbled vocalization.
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Arvyx angles himself to be perpendicular to the big lion as he shuffles forward and backward--left and right to the feline--and observes its reaction. "Rather strange that we read books in a library, yet at the same time someone seems to be reading us. Very, ah, what's the word?" He pauses for a moment before raising in a finger to signal a eureka moment. "Metaphilosophical! Yes, that's the one." As if it had a life of its own, his arm moves has hand and finger to plant it over Arvyx's mouth. "Ha, oh right--must be quiet down here."
He hears Feona whispering fiercly and looks to Piper. "Oh, that doesn't look too good..." Arvyx scurries over to check on the lion-handler, using his not-considerable skill in the medical arts to diagnose her state.
Arvyx, you're a genius! exclaims the light-hearted inner monologue only to be reprimanded by its coarser counterpart. Ahem, right! WE are geniuses! A mental slap upside the head echoes through Arvyxes skull as one personality critiques the other's exclamations.
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Piper comes to her senses as Feona and Arvyx rush to her aid. "Thank you," she says thickly. "I am fine," looking into her companions worried faces, "Really. No damage, just a bit of brain jostling is all. That lion statue has very powerful magic, powerful indeed. T'is the strongest I have yet to sense, so bright and so loud. I am not sure what to make of it and I won't be trying again anytime soon." She shakes her head to completely clear the ringing as she picks up her fallen staff, leaning on it for a bit of support and pets Buck, as if for comfort.
I wonder if this is the relic Lady Morilla was looking for, I am not sure what magic this may have but it might be worth mentioning.
After taking a moment to settle herself, Piper starts looking around the room trying to avoid eye contact with the lion statue and reads the categories. "Right then," she states, clapping her hands (not too sharply, she is after all in a library). "Let us see what secrets of the past these books have to reveal, shall we?" She then proceeds to the Taldoran history section.
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Following the advice from the others he starts to go down the row of books in hopes of finding something. He hated this kind of ordeal with a passion but he knew it needed to happen for the society. Letting his fingers going past the covers and most likely missing the mostobvious of clues as per usual he would point out some of them once in a while thinking they are of use or being distracted by a fancy title.
Piper's recovery is soon followed by Avaryx antics moving back and forth in the library. Piper turns to the books and, like Kiea, begins to look for information that will aid the Pathfinders. Tugo continues chanting to the space beyond.
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Embarrassingly enough, Keia failed to notice any of the commotion, while she may have a sword at her hip her one true love lay in books and ancient scrolls. A true sucker for history of all kinds she had been deaf to Piper's plight. It was nothing personal, she was just-
Oh my god she had never known that the general had a son, she had always assumed he was the last of his line. That was amazing, she couldn't help but wonder if any other family had gone on to do anything as important... perhaps if she read one more chapter she would find out!
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Piper peruses the categories hoping something will jump out at her that is of any kind of relevance.
Researching in a musty old library is really not my forté. Gozreh give me guidance to find something useful.
Piper then feels the divine power of Gozreh fill her mind with Guidance as she looks among the shelves.
Tugo summons ends and soon a magnificent griffon stands shimmering alongside him.
Decado sees a book where every letter of the title has stalagtites dripping from the its fancy letters.
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When Lotti turns to look at the statue, Tugo remembers hearing Piper's recent predicament and tells Lotti not to stare as he mounts her back. She reluctantly looks away. "Okay, lets see what we can find," he says leading her to the nearest bookshelf...
...and starts to wonder if he can even READ Taldane...
The pathfinders get busy pulling tomes of the shelves, scanning indices, making notes, and cross referencing various books. Tugo finds and interesting book with a large picture on each page and the words 'A is for apple...' or something similar. Fortunately the rest of the party has much better luck and with each passing minute the information starts to accumulate and half an hour later, a small pile of organized notes sits on a central table.
The investigator and the historian pull these five facts from the multitude of notes. , EDIT:
Failed Prophecies: This text gives a detailed analysis of hundreds of proclaimed “ironclad” prophecies that have failed since the disappearance of Aroden. The author speculates that any prophecy made by Arodenites should be viewed with considerable skepticism.
Taldan Cipher: According to this text, one common cipher involves changing each consonant into the letter that comes three places after it in the alphabet and changing each vowel into the letter that comes two places before. For example, D would become G, U would become S, and Z would become C. (Since the vowels rotate backward and the consonants rotate forward, it’s a particularly puzzling cipher to break).
Taldan Cipher: This text contains an example of an encoded message that uses a common substitution cipher (in which each letter represents a different letter). It claims that “DQFIZ KPIED WZYWS QIVKO ZKXFW ZIMVT DQFXW CFPAF PDFZ VFTJF” translates to “The orcs of Tar-Baphon circle around the lake’s western edge.
Cross Reference: A book references another promising text. If only you
could find where that other text is…
Clue: You may use this clue to gain a +3 bonus on a single skill check made to find texts.
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"I have this," Feona says, pulling a yellowed piece of parchment out of her shirt. "Muesello gave it to me when we had lunch earlier. It has some sort of code on it that is supposed to be a Talidan cypher. Maybe this book will help!"
She spreads the paper out on a table, revealing the code > K-Y-V-W-K-C-E-C-O-O-M-I-M-E-C-F-G-C-Q-F-C > and attempts to translate it.
Taldan Cipher: According to this text, one common cipher involves changing each consonant into the letter that comes three places after it in the alphabet and changing each vowel into the letter that comes two places before. For example, D would become G, U would become S, and Z would become C. (Since the vowels rotate backward and the consonants rotate forward, it’s a particularly puzzling cipher to break).
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"I really should've paid more attention to my tutors in Ramgate..." Tugo sighed as he flips through the children's book. Lotti's head perks up and she gallops back to where the others were gathered, having heard their interchange. She had more than a little trouble turning on the hard floor, and it was quite comical to watch Tugo try to stay on her back, book in hand, but they made it safely.
"A puzzle! I'm not one for research, but puzzles! I'm slightly better at..." He takes a look at the cipher, then back at the encoded message and stares for a bit. He begins to scribble something on a piece of parchment.
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"Your note says, 'has the Bell of Obecience.' Seems to be the end of another note. Perhaps the translation of this other cipher is incorrect? Let me see..." He takes a quick glance at the first letters..."Well something's wrong, no letter (following this pattern) would make a D, as the third letter before it is A (a vowel), and the second letter after it is F (a consonant)."
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"Nevermind, I read it wrong, it uses a different cipher. It checks out. Here, I've written the code for each of the ciphers."
2 back, 3 forward:
found = deciphered
A=X
B=Y
C=E or Z
E=B
F=C
G=D or I
I=F
J=G
K=H
M=J or O
N=K
O=L
P=M
Q=N
S=P or U
T=Q
U=R
V=S
W=T or Y
Y=A or V
Z=W
common replacement cipher
A=W
B=Y
C=K
D=T
E=F
F=E
G=J
H=Q
I=O
J=G
K=C
L=X
M=U
N=V
O=I
P=S
Q=H
R=Z
S=P
T=D
U=M
V=N
W=A
X=L
Y=B
Z=R
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Keia flipped eagerly through the books, leaving the ciphers to Feona and Tugo since they seemed a little bit more in tune with that sort of thing, Keia was embarrassingly enough often quite blind to them. She was a historian, not a linguist, but still it wasn't something that she was particularly proud about. The more she let them handle it the less that she had to reveal about her own blindness to shuffling letters about. She was instead looking over one of the other books and frowning, "This isn't complete…" There was some other text being referenced here, that she was certain of. "I'll be right back." She nodded to the rest of the party still lurking at the table, taking the book with her to sort through the shelves.
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"Has the Bell of Obecience?" Arvyx ponders aloud. "Perhaps that's some Ye Old Taldan dialect, y'know, like 'Hear ye, oh winsome strumpet, my tale of preponderance and versectitude that hies thee hither and anon?' That kind of stuff, like what the playwrights keep putting in plays. Very popular with the Arodenites."
"I felt that was a pretty good look-around," he notes. "Anybody miss anything on their first read-through?" Did anyone miss anything on their first WHAT? exclaims Arvyx's inner critic in utter dismay at his virtually unanswerable question. Under the mental bombardment, the investigator looks momentarily sheepish before rejoining the efforts.
[dice=Cross Reference]1d20+9
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Piper is lost as to what is going on here with cyphers and puzzles and books, nothing seems to jump out at her as far as Taldan history goes, so she scans the actual room for clues, again taking precaution not to study the lion statue too closely. How did I not see these doors earlier? Looking at Decado and realizing he might be as uncomfortable in this area as she, says to him, "Decado, would you like to join me in delving further into this room?"
She then points to the doors flanking the lion statue.
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Overhearing the angel-woman. And realizing his usefulness has run its course as the ciphers have been deciphered, and the keys to them have been writ.
"Hold on you two!" He says mounting Lotti,"I'm coming too, I've burnt up my skills!"
Lotti trots over to them, little magician on her back.
He looks back at the researchers and says, "If you lot need any more help, just holler. If I don't hear you, Lizelotti will!"
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He had been trying to crunch over the code together with the rest but the letters and the combination was more mumbo jumbo then anything else When piper spoke up he gave her a nod before making his way towards the doors. He hoped that everything for the 3 researchers would go well and that they would break the code. Placing his hand on any sign of handle / bar / anything he would either try to push or pull the door open (depening on the door ofcourse) and once open he would step inside.
The doors do not open. Both the north and south doors flanking the stature are locked.