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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 448924" data-attributes="member: 8530">Chinese Take-outChapter 24, “Information from the ancient archives”  September 17, 1018, 12:45 P.M.  The guard unlocks the door to the Clan Ming Records Vault, and gestures for the party to enter.   The room is a massive stone library, with hundreds of stone shelves of books mounted to the walls.   In the center of the room are oak bookcases, filled with books and scrolls.   At the far wall are tables with piles of animal hides, which also appear to have writing on them.   Three dwarves are within the magically lit room, an older man by a desk near the door, and two younger men hurrying around the room.  “It’s a good thing that Cassie isn’t with us, we’d never get out of this place” Lannon comments. Kim starts to hand the written information request to the older dwarf, but he just puts it down on the desk and doesn’t even bother looking at it, recognizing her as the Chief’s granddaughter.  “Hello, I am Tse-Long Ming, Please tell me how can I be of assistance to you, Kim-Sung Mitsubishi-Ming?” he asks.   She explains how they are looking for information about the construction of the castle once known as the Summer Palace of the Giants.   “I think we may have something on that,” he says.The man pulls out two long drawers and places them on top of the desk.   In the drawers are thousands of pieces of paper, organized in a particular manner with markings in both Dwarvish and Chinese.    He soon pulls out seven different papers, and starts barking out orders to the two workers, apparently named Pang and Fung, who quickly begin looking for specific texts and scrolls.  Once found, they bring them to the older dwarf.   He begins to look through them, opening to specific pages.   One volume is strapped shut and locked, and Tse-Long has Pang retrieve a key to open it.  He yells to Fung, who is having difficulty finding a particular record.  This takes a while and Tse-Long notices that some of the Silver Moon are looking impatient, and says that he now has most the information they seek, and will give it to them in chronological order. Tse-Long Ming begins by reading to the party from a book with leather binding that has many splits and cracks on it.  The book’s yellowed pages are also beginning to crack.  He reads, “During the Reign of Giants, the Giant King Hachou-Chu-Kwen commissioned that the palace be built.   Clan Ming was hired to quarry the massive dark stones for the structure, obtaining them from mountainside cliffs at the Go S’tenai Quarries, several hundred miles west of Chunming.   The stones were loaded onto barges, where they were sailed up Xogai Lurr Bay, through the Straits of Va’Shung, and onto the opens sea where they headed south to the coastal city of Keeling, well to the southeast.   From there, the giants transported them in secret.   Although many dwarves were said to have assisted with the castle’s construction, they belonged to the distant Yang-Ton Clan, as the Giant King did not wish any of the local Clans to know of the castle’s secrets.”  He closes that volume, handing it back to the boy Pang.   Tse-Long then reads from another text, a massive leather and metal bound volume, paraphrasing a few pages that tell how the giants were forced to abandon this castle when the Dragons moved in to rule the land.   He then reads “A dragon named Cryomantipelica used the palace as his headquarters, making its Forge Tower his personal habitat, and using its vast central hall as an audience chamber.    This dragon ruled the castle for over a century.  The dragon was later slain by the great dwarven hero Huang-Din Ming.”   Kim-Sung tells the party that she has heard of this hero, as he was one of her more famous dwarven ancestors.  “Indeed, this particular volume is actually a biography about him,” Tse-Long states.   The book is handed back to Pang.Next he reads from a scroll, written on some sort of animal skin.   “This short note tells that the castle became home to Varalla, a lich queen that defeated the Mongols who had lived in the castle.   She defeated them around eight hundred years ago.”  Next he reads from the volume that had been locked, stating that “This book once belonged to the Zhentarim, the evil mages and priests who ruled this land five hundred to seven hundred years ago.  They were the ones who defeated Varalla.”  He quickly reads a couple of chapters to himself, then turns back to the where he started, stating that “Most of this is about internal Zhentarim issues, but I’ll paraphrase for you the information that references the castle itself.”    He tells the party that “The Zhentarim called the castle Darkhold, and it was during their reign that they commissioned Clan Ming to make extensive repairs to the structure.   Three-dozen dwarves spent the better part of their lives on this task, after which these dwarves returned here to Chunming.  The Zhentarim placed a magical curse on the dwarves to prevent them from being able to tell any details about the castle itself.  Without the curse the Zhentarim would have felt the need to kill the dwarves, to keep their knowledge secret, however preferred to keep them alive in the event that future repairs on the castle were needed.”   Tse-Long stops, and yells at Fung in Chinese, which Kim-Sung translates to the party as “Haven’t you found that yet, I need it now.”  The boy hurries over with another book, this one with the binding falling apart, and pages only pressed together.   Tse-Long carefully turns to a particular page, and tells the party.  “This is a journal of the High Priest Jang Ming.  A parishioner of his, named An Chen Ming, was one of the construction workers.   An Chen had been sought for information regarding Darkhold by an adventuring team from a distant land, where the Zhentarim had originated.   They asked Jang Ming to use his clerical magics to lift the curse.  He was mostly unsuccessful at this, but alleviated the curse enough for An Chen to share one piece of information regarding the castle that the Zhentarim was also unaware of.   He told them of the location of a secret wall that the dwarves built, to hide themselves in if the Zhentarim had sought to kill them.  Unfortunately, this journal does not state the specific location of this wall.  “I’m not sure how any of that information actually helps us” Serita comments.“Ah, but I’ve saved the two best for last,” Tse-Long says.  He holds up a scroll, saying “This is an inventory of the paintings currently at the Chunming City Hall, one of which is described to be a painting of Darkhold Castle, painted during the reign of the Zhentarim.”  “And this”, as he opening another book, “tells of a journey by a trio of dwarves who visited the castle during the time of the Zhentarim’s successor, a druid-mage by the name of Li-Tak.”  This causes the group to perk up and play close attention.“This record begins three-hundred-and-twenty-five years ago.   At that point Li-Tak had lived at the castle for nearly two centuries.   He contacted Clan Ming in Chunming, and asked for that a specifically named trio of dwarves come to the castle.  Two of these dwarves, Han-Che Ming and Tu-Huang Ming, were the last two surviving members of the Zhentarim’s construction group.  The third was a cartographer and mapmaker named Yin-Ywe.  The three spent a year at the castle, helping with what were mostly just minor repairs to the structure.   They describe that the castle was inhabited by hundreds of Hengeyokai, human animal hybrids, who waited on the very elderly Li-Tak.    Following their return from Li-Tak’s castle the three dwarves looked decades younger than when they had left.   Shortly thereafter, the wives of both Han-Che Ming and Yin-Ywe also looked younger, and gave birth to children, even through they had both previously been thought to be past child-bearing years.     Tu-Huang Ming later became active as a priest, but he had his own radical interpretations of religion, which led to his being declared a heretic.  He, and his eighty followers left Chunming, and were never seen again.  There were rumors that they founded a  monastery thousands of miles to the west.    Both Han-Che Ming and Yin-Ywe later fought as soldiers with Clan Ming during the Great Orc Wars, along the western coast.  Han-Che Ming was slain at the Battle of N’Tumi, and Yin-Ywe lost a leg and an eye during this engagement, which ended the war in favor of the dwarves.    It says that Yin-Ywe returned to the city as a hero and was then formally inducted into Clan Ming.  His life then took a turn in a different direction, as he then became the founder and headmaster of the Yin-Ywe Ming School.”   Chin-Tang interjects “I know of that school.  It is one of the more prominent private schools within the city.   I would occasionally bring the Mitsubishi-Ming children there to participate with special activities or to attend a guest lecture.”“Is there anything further information about the Castle?” asks Narg.  Tse-Long says “There should be.  The record states that Yin-Ywe Ming was in possession of an actual diagram of the castle, but was forbidden by Li-Tak to share it.   Upon his death it was to be placed here in the Clan archives, but I can find no listing that we have received it.  Maybe it was misfiled.”  He calls to Peng to find the records of Yin-Ywe Ming’s death and estate disposition.  After a brief while Pang says that he can find no listing for this.   Tse-Long then has both younger dwarves check the tax records, to see when Yin-Ywe Ming stopped paying taxes.  They report that the records indicate that Yin-Ywe Ming is alive, and resides at the school.  This shocks Tse-Long, as it would mean that the dwarf is now 711 years old, more than two centuries beyond the maximum age for a dwarf.   The party thanks Tse-Long for his time and leave.  [DM’s note: Much of the above information about the castle was modified from that provided in the Darkhold supplement in the Forgotten Realms Castles boxed set.]</blockquote>

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