Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="LordVyreth" data-source="post: 1485479" data-attributes="member: 9626">You have to be sharp for this riddleMeanwhile, Flix, Tal, Tsine, and Raz were getting impatient.  As they waited by the front gate, there was no sign of their friends, or of Olivia.  Meanwhile, they still had to get past a pair of guards at the front door.  Finally, they noticed that one of the guards had fallen asleep, and were tired of waiting.  “Let’s just go,” Raz insisted.  “We can take this one guy out without doing him any permanent damage.”  Tsine gave a half-hearted protest, but the others quickly acquiesced.  Speaking of the other guard, he wasn’t exactly a normal guy either.  His name was Deladane, or just Dane for short.  He transferred here as a guard a few months ago.  Up until that point, he was with the border military, and had seen more than his share of fights in his days.  However, a few months ago, he had a strange dream involving a mysterious woman called the Lady of Memories.  Haunted by the dream, he decided to try and find answers at the library.  He hasn’t been able to get the forms completed to explore it personally, and he has never had much of a heard for research anyway, so he took a job that would let him stay close to the library, and hopefully something will turn up.  He’s already aware there is something strange about the library; weird sounds emerge from it some nights, and Olivia Neddle almost never has been seen actually leaving it.  So he wasn’t too surprised when an elf, a human, a half-elf, and a halfling suddenly leapt out of the shadows and charged at him.  They, on the other hand, were more than a little surprised to see the conscious guard suddenly turn and whap the sleeping one on the back of his head with the flat part of the blade, ensuring that his sleep would be much longer and much deeper.Tal was the first to recover.  If you could call it that.  “Yeah, um, what?”  He stammered out.  Dane shrugged.  “Look, I remember you guys from before.  Outlanders who were doing research from the library, right?  I’m guessing that you are here looking for answers, and I’m hoping they’re the same ones that I’m looking for.”Tal decided to trust his gut on this one.  “You didn’t happen to have a strange dream about a mysterious woman recently, did you”“How did you know?”To make a long story short, Dane introduced himself to the rest of the growing group, and they discovered that they all (except for Flix and Rudyard,) had the same strange dream on the same night.  Now more curious than ever, Dane agreed to help the party discover what was going on in this library.  About this time, Rudyard and Quercus returned, and led the party (plus one) down to the secret room they discovered.  While walking, Quercus explained everything that they’ve seen to the party, and Tal explained the rest of the party’s recent activities, except for anything about Bas.Soon, they returned to the secret passageway, and began to study the ancient texts once again.  Suddenly, Tsine keen elvish eyes noticed something odd about the north wall.  “There is something here,” he whispered to the others.  Flix and Rudyard began a more careful investigation, and discovered a secret passageway leading into a new tunnel.  This area looked different from the last room, as if it was carved more recently, and by a different worker.  At the end of the tunnel, six swords of masterful craftsmanship and ornate design hung on the wall.  There also was a short poem carved into the dead-end wall.The armor here honors loyal guards;But not all of the guards obeyed.Six guards were corrupted by dark promisesAnd through them the others were betrayed.The first guard stood watch at the library’s entrance.He was silent as the invaders passed, but was betrayed himself by one of them.Stabbed through the heart by the last of the invaders; show his memorial the same respect.After reading it a few times, Quercus spoke.  “So, what does this mean?”Tal reached into his repertoire of storytelling and poetry, and stumbled upon an idea.  “I think I have it.  Those ceremonial suits of armor around the library are supposed to be arranged based on the actual position of guards who died when this library was attacked a long time ago.  If this poem is right, then six guards that died were actually traitors.  If we stab the right suits of armor, we should get a clue as to what to do next.  And since we have six swords as well as six suits of armor to stab, we’re probably supposed to use those.”Quercus gulped nervously.  “But aren’t the statues supposed to be trapped?  If we damage them, we could set off alarms.”Raz glared at him with scorn.  “And I suppose you have a better idea on where to go from here?  Now that we found this secret passage, I don’t entirely trust those books we found earlier.  I want to know the truth, and I’m not about to abandon that quest because we might get in a little trouble.  Besides, whoever set up this puzzle probably knows about the alarms, and as long as we only stab the right statues, we should be fine.”Quercus was still reluctant, but he was easily out-voted.  The clue suggested that they stab the first statue from the entrance, so they decided to give that a try.  There was a brief argument over which sword to use and where to stab it, but the swords all look identical, and after seeing the statue, there was only one small hole in the armor that looked like it would fit the sword, so they inserted it there.  They were rewarded by two more secret doors opening, one in the west wall, and one in the north wall.  They decided to try the west wall opening first, but found it was only about five by five feet in size. Flix cautiously entered, checking for traps as he went, and found the room appeared safe, but there were a number of buttons on the wall next to the door.  They were labeled “1,” “B1,” “B2,” “B3,” and “B4.”  At the moment, only the 1 and B1 buttons were lit up. After a brief conversation, they decided to try the B1 button.  After Flix pressed it, the wall that opened up to reveal the secret door suddenly closed again, and Flix suddenly felt himself sinking with the entire room.  Just as he had time to start getting worried, the south door opened, revealing a twisting passageway made out of metal.  Not especially eager to explore that way by himself, he pressed the “1” button, and was relieved when it caused him to rise back into the library.  “Um, guys?” Flix said.  “Why don’t we forgo tactical advantage just this once and go together?”The others agreed, and piled into the elevator, which took them again into the first basement.  After following the winding tunnel for a few minutes, they ended up in a water-filled room.  Actually, they were on a metal walkway that was above a pool of water.  A waterfall was pouring into the room from above, but it was also apparently draining somewhere, as the water level wasn’t rising.  The entire room looked man-made.  At the end of the metal walkway, there was a strange kind of machinery made out of metal.  The party headed towards it to investigate, but as they did, the water itself suddenly rose up around them!  It soon coalesced into a pair of vaguely humanoid forms, which began to pound on the party!  Tal was the first to be targeted by the creatures.  Both of the elementals pummeled him mercilessly, causing him to crash to the floor in a heap within moments!  The others were finally able to respond.  Quercus, Rudyard, and Dane drew their swords, and even Raz realized this might not be the ideal time for long-range combat, and drew an axe.  Tsine, however, had no real choice, but he was able to carefully prepare one of his bolts of acid without letting his guard down, and let it fly at one of the elementals.  Quercus and Rudyard attacked the same one, while Dane and Flix focused on the other.  Dane revealed for the first time exactly how he survived on the front lines as long as he did.  Effortlessly lifting his massive blade, he hacked at the elemental with such skill and ferocity that it barely could hold itself together.  However, both survived the party’s initial volley, and while one grabbed Tsine, and began to tear him limb from limb, the other punch Flix with such force that he went sailing into the water!  It was about to submerge and go after him, when Rudyard changed targets to attack it, and another barrage from Dane caused it to collapse in a heap.  Meanwhile, Tsine tried to shut out the pain by thinking of his father.  If he faltered now, he would be embarrassing his father and entire family name!  With that thought as his focus, he cast a spell that sent a volley of missiles at the other elemental, and coupled with Raz and Quercus’ attacks, it also collapsed backing the water that spawned it.OOT Notes:  This is an earlier indicated that technology would have a roll in this campaign; the mechanical disease and Tanos were other early signs.  This library gets a lot more complicated from here.  This Story Hour is making me dig out my old notes and try to figure out all the puzzles for a second time!</blockquote>

Verification