The Thieves of the Library
"You have passes the test" the angle stated in her musical voice. As she spoke, a beam of light shown down from the heavens above her, somehow piercing the rock ceiling, and illuminating the perfection of her perfect visage. Her mighty wings stretched outward, and grasped the air. With the sound of mighty wings, she flew upward into the light and vanished.
As the white light of the angel's passing washed over them, the party found themselves healed. Wounds closed, burns vanished, they were made whole again. The only evidence of the terrible trial by fire was the melted metal of The Sturg's helmet. While it was no longer glowing cherry red, the metal had bent and twisted in the heat. Tello examined it, and pronounced it still functional, though visibility was somewhat limited where the visor slot had deformed.
No one wanted to think what it had been like, being inside that helmet as it glowed red-hot, or the kind of man that would rather endure that then expose his face to the world.
"One more Trial to go" Whisperleaf observed.
Dakhir nodded. "One is more then sufficient" he replied tiredly. "Those flames hurt, even my demonic flesh was singed!
"That big Golem is gone." Ricmo observed. "He turned around and walked into through that doorway on the right, after the angel left."
The companions took stock of their choices. The small stone antechamber on the other side of the bridge didn't offer many options. Other then the large brazier that illuminated it, it was empty, save for a pair of large wooden doors, one leading right, one left.
"Well if the Stoner went right, how about we go left?" Freddy offered. Ricmo snorted. "He was a big, mean looking bastard" Freddy replied lamely.
"Excellent logic friend Bard" Tello grinned.
"Left it is" Dakhir agreed, and nodded to Ricmo. "If you would be so kind as to check the door for unpleasant surprises?"
For once, there were none. The door opened easily into a pillared hallway. The white marble pillars extended forward about fifty feet and then turned left, out of sight. From around the corner a light pulsed, first white, then green, then red cycling through all the colors of the rainbow.
Ricmo turned to his companions. "Let me take a look around that corner, quiet like. See what waits for us." The small halfling vanished into the shadows of the long corridor, and a long, quite, interval passed before he returned.
"It's another crypt, this one is the biggest we've seen. There is some kind of huge crystal, taller then The Sturg pulsing away, that's where the light is coming from. There aren't any obvious threats."
"An obvious threat, that would be a nice change of pace. Oh well, let's go." Dakhir groused.
"I see a plaque on the door" Whisperleaf stated, as they carefully approached the crypt, weapons at the ready.
"St Ursula of the Hammer, friend and companion of Blessed Mithra"
he read aloud.
"That would be me" a voice came from inside the tomb, elderly and somewhat cross. "And who might you be?"
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"She was actually a quite pleasant old woman" Ricmo observed as the companions strolled back through the stone antechamber to take the left hand door. "For a Ghost-saint anyway. Really quite helpful."
"I'd say more supportive them helpful" Dakhir replied. "She is clearly supportive of our mission, and I guess our motivations passed her test of Compassion. But she also clearly expects us to step up and get the job done ourselves. She warned us the Library can be quite dangerous but didn't give us much in the way of information about those dangers."
"And that was a difficult geas she laid on my Sister" Lightbringer replied. "Reform the Hammers of Mithra, that order of Paladins that have been vanished from this earth these last seventy five years. Seek out the remains of the fallen Captain Ava, from wherever she fell, and return those remains to be interred with her sisters. Not an easy task, though certainly a noble one."
Sister Clara nodded, looking a bit shellshocked. Not surprising given she had gone from a being a lesser nun of no great importance, to the divinely appointed Captain of an extinct order of Paladins in under twenty four hours.
Lightbringer patted her on the back comfortingly. "You get used to this kind of thing." he said soothingly.
"Door looks clean" Ricmo and Whisperleaf reported back from examining the left hand door. Whisperleaf looked positively giddy at the prospect of the finally seeing the Library. While Druids often had a reputation as being illiterate savages, The Circle of the Northmost Groves went back for a thousand years and were highly erudite. They possessed ancient libraries and stores of knowledge hidden deep in their forests, from millennia past. Whisperleaf had always loved to walk though ancient halls, and had always loved a good book.
The door swung open under Ricmo's ministrations.
The large pillared chamber reveled was clearly the Library. The end of their quest was at hand.
Near the doorway a tall stone ossuary filled with bones guarded the entrance. Standing next to the ossuary was their friend the Golem, motionless, taking no interest in the door opening, or the party peer5ing through it. Across from the ossuary, a grandfather clock ticked the time.
The library was large and L-shaped, the heroes could see it opening up to the right further in, but couldn't clearly see into that section from the door.
Off to one side, right next to the entrance to the chamber, a low arch lead to a square room, a sign hanging above it, read The Old Reserve."
Immediately across from the entrance, on the far side of the room, an oaken door, strongly bound with iron bands, hung open.
"Jackpot" said Ricmo happily. "Let the looting begin."
"Carefully though" replied Dakhir. "God knows what traps are guarding this place."
Ricmo nodded. He carefully eased into the room, keeping a close eye on the Golem by the door. The golem stood there impassively, not moving an iota. But from the tall ossuary next to him, came a rustling and a cold breeze, laced with the sound of many voices, incredibly far away and barely audible.
"This place has its guardians" Tello remarked gravely.
The Sturg nodded and walked over to the big stone statue, sizing it up. He cracked his shoulders and placed his hand on his sword hilt. The stone golem didn't move. Neither did The Sturg. They both stood there, like statues, staring into each other's eyes as the rest of the party carefully explored the rest of the room. Ricmo idly wondered which would blink first.
Ricmo reached the center of the room without anything attacking him, and took a good look at the section that had not been visible from the door.
Many bookshelves lined the walls of the library, but one alcove of shelves near the back was set apart, caged and locked behind a strong iron gate. It contained only two shelves, one a wrought iron shelf of books and the other a barred display shelf. Ricmo could make out a sword in a scabbard mounted in the display shelf.
A iron plaque read
“The Restricted Section. Do not enter on the peril of your immortal soul."
Ricmo took a practiced look at the gate in front of him. He counted four locks, two on the gate itself and one on each pillar that framed it. He also noticed faint silver tracery extending out from the gate on the left side, running along with a pair of slender rods and gears. These odd mechanisms entering the wall to the right of the gate and vanished.
"Pretty decent set of locks here." he reported back to his companions. "Gonna be some work for me to get this thing open." Ricmo cracked his knuckles.
Dakhir and Whisperleaf who were both standing by the summoning circle and the corpse, simultaneously called out "Not yet!". "Let's move carefully here" Dakhir continued. "Something did our friend here in, best to try to discover what that was before we rush straight at the most protected part of the whole place."
"This is quite an interesting clock" Dakhir could hear Tello announce. The Tortle had not made it much past the entrance before becoming entranced by the large grandfather clock. He already had the clock case open, and was carefully studying it's innards.
Whisperleaf rolled his eyes. "What do you make of this circle, Dakhir?" he asked, raising his oaken staff and summoning light from the tip of it to better illuminate the corpse. Both the Druid and the Warlock took great care to not step into the circle or take any action that would compromise it's integrity, even in the slightest.
Dakhir squatted down and carefully examined the runes that ringed the circle, again being very careful not to touch anything or to allow any part of his body to pass the perimeter. "Not a summoning circle, or on to bind the supernatural." he said confidently. "You'd certainly see one of the Lesser Key's at least, if that was it's purpose." He looked closer. "At least not primarily a binding, though some of these runes might be loosely related to that."
Whisperleaf nodded. "Some kind of conjuration magic though. That's clear. from this triplet here. Also some divination woven in. Very odd. Never seen anything like it. Freddy, come take a look at this will you?"
As odd as it seemed, before his career as an entertainer, Freddy had been classically trained in all manner of arcane lore by the Valerian Ensemble. The two other magic users were often surprised by the depths of the knowledge he had soaked up (despite his best attempts not to, from hearing Freddy talk about of his college days).
Freddy sauntered over, looking at the runes. "Looks like a Sorcery to me. Dragon sorcery, but of human origin." he stated. "You know I am almost certain I've seen or read about something like this, but I am sorry, it escape me. Looks inactive though, I think it's safe to cross the circle and take a look at the body."
You didn't have to tell Ricmo twice. He left off examining the gate, strode over and started looting the corpse.
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When they had heard of the great wealth of the Abbey of St. Ursula, they had decided that wealth would be much more productive in their pockets then locked up in some nunnery, and decided to make a visit to the Northern Reach. How hard could it be to steal from a community of nuns after all? Easy pickings.
The Sisters of St. Ursula had never even discovered the two had arrived, such was their skill. They had easily penetrated the pathetic defenses of the above ground Abbey, and like shadows had silently slipped into Undercroft, none the wiser.
In those days the spirits of the Undercroft were much quieter and the defenses of the Three Trials were inactive, so the pair had found penetrating the Undercroft a relatively easy task. Killdori had researched the Abbey extensively prior, and knew the passwords and how to avoid activating defenses, so no flaming Angels barred the way. Since the two moved as quiet as shadows, they penetrated into the deepest part of the Undercroft while the defenses slumbered.
They might well have accomplished their goal, been in and out, and none the wiser, if it had not been for one factor that even their cunning and carefully planning had not properly taken into account. Madora the Mad Abbess.
Anaru had expressed a bad feeling to Killdori about breaking the seals and opening that particular crypt. All their intelligence had told them the score was in the treasury off the Library. But Killdori had been adamant there was magic locked up in that tomb. And he'd broken the seals and opened the gate. And died.
Anaru had escaped by running away, he had fled even before the short and extremally lethal magical duel between Madora and Killdori had ended with the gruesome death of the Wizard. He knew a loosing proposition when he saw one, and felt no particular loyalty to his partner of a dozen years. He had called on the magical speed his armor could impart, had run, and run fast, down halls and across narrow bridges, the screaming banshee in pursuit. But he had his tricks, and eventually he'd lost his pursuer. Only to discover, to his horror, that Madora had, in her rage, activated the Three Trials behind him. Trials he had no chance of overcoming by himself. Backward was no longer an option, so he had no choice but to go onward.
And eventually, in a bout of irony, he had found the source of their quest, the Library of St. Ursula. "Perhaps this expedition will turn a profit after all" he had said to himself, after opening the door to the Treasury and gazing on the gold he had come for. As he prepared to unlock the four locks that guarded what was clearly the most valuable treasure in the place, he smiled to himself. "And no need to split the take with anyone, either."
Anaru had always prided himself on being prepared, in addition to the tools of his trade he had plenty of supplies and water. It took him a long time to die.
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