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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Haraash Saan" data-source="post: 3194420" data-attributes="member: 46615">We wandered hurriedly through town. There were still no villagers. Perhaps they had been all taken to be sold on the slave blocks in some distant port? After another hour, it was now past midday, we arrived at the Abbey. There was immediate and gruesome evidence that the brigands had called here too. The doors  hung loosely on their hinges, smashed and splintered. The first signs of true violence were revealed, three corpses lay in the courtyard within the compound. The monks of Laster did not seem to have given any fight, yet they were slaughtered mercilessly. The earth was soaked with their blood, a deep, dark stain. The Abbey was a simple complex, with gates, now broken, that allowed access to an outer wall, and then the main building itself, again with shattered doors.I swallowed deeply, trying to avoid looking upon the grisly sight, and once again, as was becoming habit, called out “We are Baron Yorath’s representatives and seek to aid you. If you need our help or protection, please show yourselves.”For the second time my call was rewarded, this time by a nervous young monk who was preceded by the sound of his shuffling sandals. He appeared from within the Abbey and stood by the doorway, fear etched upon his face.“It is alright my fine holy friend.” I began, “We are in the service of Baron Yorath and are here to help.” As he left the shelter of the doorway he began to introduced himself as Brother Jessop, but then saw the grim sight of his brothers. The young man ran to them, hoisting his robes up his legs, slid on his knees to halt by one of the bodies and clutched it to his chest. Tears streamed down his face. He sobbed uncontrollably for a time, repeating “Not you too Carmichael.” I left him in the company of the others and headed into the Abbey. I had no interest in the dead and doubted that Jessop would have had anything useful to say for sometime. I lit a lantern that was hanging on a hook inside the door and moved down the corridor. “Wait for me!” Mortec cried out. I had no doubt that he was keen to delve into the store house of knowledge that was the Abbey. The first library we found had been violated. Books and scrolls lay strewn and ruined all over the floor. Bookcases themselves had been up-ended. The scene did not improve as we went into the lower levels of the Abbey. Every floor held another library and they were all in the same state. As a lover of stories, tales and history I was seething at the crudity of the brigands. Mortec was worse. He was openly furious, cursing in his Gnomish tongue. The little fellow had been teaching me his language as we travelled and I was rapidly learning it. He may have come from a well off family, but he had certainly seemed to have mastered how to cuss and swear. A good student always knows how to listen and learn from example.We both thought that it was odd that the library had been ransacked, concluding that there was something very unusual about bandits, common thieves and murderers, scouring a library. By the look of it, they had been searching for something specific. We started lifting bookcases and replacing the manuscripts on the shelves in hope that we could find some pattern. Soon after we commenced, Morgan brought in a consoled Jessop who retold us his tale, having already explained it to the others.Jessop had been deep in the bowels of the Abbey, on the very floor that Mortec and I were tidying, when he heard calls for help from his fellow librarians. Fearful, he crept upstairs to the fourth level and there he heard his fellow monks, Brother Goethra and Brother Tom, being interrogated. From his vantage point he overheard vicious threats accompanied by hard slapping noises and thuds of impact. The questions that were intermingled with the violence and threats all related to the Brothers’ works. The pair were forthcoming with answers, and those answers lead the Brigands to the fifth level. As soon as Jessop heard them coming, he ran downstairs, to the bottom level where, as luck would have it, the monks had been reorganising, and hid himself within a pile of scrolls that had not yet been sorted.The Brigands came down to the lower level shortly afterwards and sacked the place, searching for what they were after. Precious tomes of knowledge were thrown about in complete disregard of their value. Scrolls were torn, bookcases overturned, and from his concealment Jessop saw it all and prayed to Laster that they found what they wanted and did not search through the pile in which he hid. Every now and again one of the thugs would take a book or manuscript and shove it in a sack before continuing his search. After about twenty minutes they seemed satisfied and left. Jessop was alone and he stayed that way for several hours.Morgan joined us with the news that Argonne and Moxadder had gone to get the woodsman, Maron Devlis to see if he could help find tracks. He, Stravarious and Jessop stayed and helped us with straightening up the overhauled library.It took many hours but eventually our efforts were rewarded when Mortec noticed a pattern. He discovered that there were no volumes regarding recent history of the region and none on unusual or mythical creatures, yet a catalogue he had browsed indicated that there should have been. He questioned Jessop about it. The monk was surprised but then suddenly exclaimed, “That’s why they took Brother Goethra and Brother Tom!” we never had found the bodies of those two and neither had Jessop when he had searched the Abbey prior to our arrival, “Their works were predominately about both unnatural creatures and recent history.”None of us could understand why Brigands would want such things, but all agreed that it had obviously been a targeted attack. They were most likely in someone’s pay, rather than as we had previously thought, the perpetrators of a random attack.Once finished, Mortec and I chose to wait for the others by studying in the fifth level library. The Gnome and I certainly had a mutual affinity for knowledge. His was more for the sake of having it, and mine was more to gather and tales and stories, but I think it was at that stage that we realised some strange sort of kinship. It was one that I had not expected to acquire, although I must admit it gladdened me. I was not as alone as I had thought.</blockquote>

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