Campaigns

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Ex Libris, Parts 2 & 3

Players/Characters Present:
John Sikking - Basil Amantes (Ftr5)
Bruce Barnett - Bonzimir Amantes (Rog2/Hlf3)
Barbara Muth - Nereida Amantes (Clr6)
Chris Wood - Felix Amantes (Psi5)
Peter Drake - Demetrios Amantes (Ftr2/Wiz2/Hum2)

The last session had left off with the Starborn facing Khossack, the undead high priest who had sought to take over Anushirvan sixteen centuries before. Although the early battle had gone poorly because so little seemed to harm the vile creatures, the later battle turned quickly for the living as magic and the mighty thews of Basil began to take their toll. With it's minions dead, Khossack tried to flee deeper into the underground complex, but was pursued and destroyed. The corpse was relieved of its plate armor, but all agreed that needed to be cleansed of its unholy taint before any would wear it. Some further exploration revealed the undead form of the guards who had failed to support their high priest so long ago. These were dispatched more easily, as were the last undead priests who had hidden in their chambers rather than confront Khossack's rebellion in life.

Eventually, the group came upon a large empty chamber with a single spiral staircase leading down. This was definitely the source of the powerful magic which Nereida had detected from the ground level. Suspiciously, the Amantes roped themselves together and began to descend the staircase, which quickly led to a region shrouded in mist. After much cautious testing, the group descended to the bottom, another large, bare room. Eighty feet across, it had four doors, one in each wall. 

Opening each door, the Starborn found that two of them led to blank stone walls, but two others led into large rooms (each also eighty feet across). Thus, they entered the moving library of Anushirvan. Each room they came upon had a number of doors leading elsewhere, but the rooms about with respect to each other every ten minutes. In this way, paths were closed off or created, and the group explored the ancient library nearly at random. A large variety of rooms were found, such as a smithy, a reading lounge, a scriptorium, etc. In each room there were books on a great variety of subjects. Some of these were quite ancient and valuable, while others were merely early copies of now-standard works. Through it all, the two books they most hoped to find, The Prophecies of the Burning Star and The Book of Inverted Darkness, eluded them. 

Many of the books were magically trapped. Early on, this caused a great deal of damage to both books and Bonzimir as he triggered Glyphs of Warding, Explosive Runes and Sepia Snake Sigils. However, once clued in to their existence, Bonzimir's great skills allowed him to discover and evade these precautions. It also became clear that significant number of books in the library were guarded by demons (bound by the power of Borlamnos that gave the god his eastern name: Oghma the Binder). These were "abishai", demons who partook of the various attributes of evil dragons. Some of the Abishai were quite easily destroyed while others (particularly those with blue or red skin) were quite difficult. 

Lastly, a series of small silvered plates had been secreted in books throughout the library. Each bore a letter in the old High Conorrian tongue. Each had been hidden in a book whose title was alliterative and corresponded to the letter (the letter "A" was found in "Ahuran's Arms and Armor", "B" in "Beholders and Beholder-kin", etc.). 

In the smithy, the Amantes discovered several ingots of precious metal, including gold, silver and electrum and three ingots of a magical alloy Demetrios identified as "dlarum" which he believed would make weapons and armor of excellent quality. There, too, the party found a beautiful ancient hauberk of chainmail which was amazingly light. This was given to Nereida to wear.

In the Scriptorium, they discovered a series of magical scrolls, including many whose titles had been lost to the modern world. Demetrios happily took charge of these. 

In the Laboratory Storage, Demetrios experimented with some stoppered vials labelled "Dangerous". One bubbled over, staining his entire body (skin, hair and eyes) a dark forest green.

In the Sleeping Quarters, they discovered the withered corpse of Daedelus, a monk. Under his arm they found a silver metal plate bearing the inscription of the Open Scroll symbol and his diary, labelled "Daedelus's Diary". Inside, they found the silver plate bearing the "D" rune and a partial explanation of Khossack's heretical takeover and the High Priest Min's resulting destruction of the Tower. Daedelus himself had determined to keep Khossack and his heretics out of the library, so he had broken the "Control Book" and hidden the pages in various books around the library before sitting down to await death at this very table.

In the Reading Room, it was decided to examine the book "Beholders and Beholderkin". This book did produce one of the silvered control book pages (the "B") and it also produced one of the abishai guardians, a blue. Like the others, this demon was aggressive and arrogant, but unlike the others, it managed to get off a spell before the Amantes could close into melee with it. The terrifying visage it was able to create sent Basil and Bonzimir fleeing in horror, and left the battle to Felix, Nereida and Demetrios. During the battle, the rooms shifted, cutting Basil and Bonzimir off from being able to return to the fight. The abishai slew Nereida and shrugged off Felix's stream of psionic assaults. Demetrios was forced to use up the ancient scrolls of spells found in the scriptorium to defeat the demon.

[GM's Note: The demon had Damage Resistance - DR 10/+1, Spell Resistance 14 and Regeneration 6. It was a tough monster, but only Bonzimir did not have some way to attack it. Everyone else had spells, magic weapons or psionics.]

[GM's Note: The first run-through of this battle killed Demetrios, Nereida and Felix, and all agreed that Basil and Bonzimir were goners as soon as the rooms shifted again. But then it was noted that there had been a misunderstanding about a rule I had announced and we agreed, given the TPK, to back up time three rounds and continue. Nereida still died, unfortunately.]

In the wake of Nereida's death, Demetrios and Felix held a lay service for their sister and waited for their brothers to jon them. Basil and Bonzimir continued to explore the moving library, discovering several room they did not enter, and spending much time smashing open a cabinet locked with Arcane Lock. Although some potions were destroyed in this way, more were recovered, along with some books. One room they did not enter was another reading room, filled with books. The other was not a room but a portal to a strange desert island, complete with sunny skies, warm breezes and an ocean to the horizon. The island was dotted with large tanks filled with all manner of interesting plants.

Eventually, the team was reunited. They discovered a shrine to Borlamnos and they reverentially left Nereida's body there on the altar.

A bit of further exploration brought them back to the Island Portal. And there we stopped...

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Forward to Ex Libris, Part 4 and Start at the End, Part 1