The Seekers
After engaging in the debate at the gate--which was a more important quality in an Avowed: curiosity or discipline?--they turned over the requisite work of knowledge, something rare Safad had picked up in Dragonspear, and they party was admitted into the Court of Air.
It was a dream for Safad and Rya. They could feel the buzz of knowledge and intellectual curiosity in the place. They had to hold themselves back from stopping every passer-by to simply inquire about them and engage in intelligent conversation. Not that they didn't find that on the road with their companions...just, well, nevermind.
The party asked where they could begin their research and quickly learned most of the library was off limits, locked behind the Emerald Door. They would need to engage the employ of an Avowed to conduct research on their behalf. They hired Fembris Larlancer, and sent the young scribe off to find research on a long, extensive, long, elaborate, long, nigh exhaustive, long, painstaking, long, challenging-for-the-DM, long, long, list of topics. These included:
- “Jeremius Mason” and “The Monarch”
- “Platinum Mine of Innesbyr”
- “Platinum Mining Trends”
- “Metals industry trends and commodity cycles past 50 years”
- “The Lords Alliance”
- “The Druid Neervala”
- “Melarn”
- “Bedouir Coulain”
- “Mootscarp”
- “Bhin, Evil Thief”
- “Mind Flayers and Elder Brains”
- “Road Building Techniques”
- “Fraz’Urb’Luu”
- “The Demonomicon of Iggwilv”
- “Vallzan”
- “Telloux the Pious”
- “Talos”
- “Chaosborn and the Kulius of Calimshan”
- “The Planes”
- “Faerun world axis cosmology”
- “Religion in the realms”
- “Magic in the realms”
- “Proportional Faith Theory”
- “The Illithid Mind”
They also asked about Arumbelle. Fembris told them they were likely to find their best chance down in the Flooded Stacks, plenty of content on old or forgotten gods. Problem was, people hadn't been able to access it in years on account of the flooding. And then off he went.
The Flooded Stacks? They decided to settle in to the House of Rest and think it over while Fembris brought them their reading. On their way over, they head a not-so-subtle, "psst." It was another avowed, an elderly human who introduced themselves as Orrin Glass.
"I can show you where the Flooded Stacks are, and if you go check on them, I'll get you beyond the Emerald Door."
Orrin explained that around five years ago he had lost an Avowed apprentice after sending them down to the stacks to check it out after a rogue storm flooded it. The poor lad must have drowned on the way, and the Great Readers and the Keeper of Tomes all agreed the place should be off limits until they had time to investigate and make it safe. Given it was rarely-frequented anyway, they never got around to it. Orrin was stripped of his privileges and sent to be an Avowed Helper again. If the party could just help him clear his name, he'd get them a letter to pass into the Inner Ward.
Fine, Falka agreed.
Orrin explained the entrance had been on a trail outside the keep around the crags but that the door had sloughed off the rock face in a storm and the entrance was now buried in the sea. He pointed it out, and the group got ready to go for a swim.
Dala'gse offered and without much warning slipped into the water, shifting into a very medium-sized octopus once in the water. He elegantly went down to investigate, while the others maintained contact with him through their message spells. He explored a ruin of caverns in darkness and when he was out of sight and out of range of the party, he lost track of their messages, and jetted contentedly along, enjoying the feel of the water as an octopus; the lovely wetness of water.
Suddenly, out of the darkness, a diabolical set of eyes locked on to him from the murky gloom. It reached out with many-barbed tentacle-like claws and slashed octopus-Dala'gse, who inked in extreme pain. This was no normal underwater creature.
Dala'gse bolted back from whence he came. But the creature was faster than he. Still, Dala'gse put every ounce of octopus into his movement and even while sustaining more of the vicious claw attacks, he made it gasping to the surface. He had sustained enough damage to be forced back into his dwarf form. The party reconnected with him at once, seeing the wounded and splashing dwarf in the water, and a terrifying creature emerging after him.
Rya, quick-thinking, misty-stepped to him, grasped him, and then Dimension-doored back to safety. Before the creature could figure out what was going on, two of Falka's arrows had landed. It slinked back into the depths.
They party retreated to safety.
Back inside the walls of Candlekeep, they told Orrin Glass what had happened. He summoned the Keeper of Tomes, Janussi, and the First of the Great Readers, Bookwyrm. They would know what to do.
The party explained what was waiting for them at the entrance to the Flooded Stacks, and after consulting their specialist, they decided it was a some kind of water demon called a Wastrilaz. They fancied a hunt, and wondered if the party would join them.
Fine, Falka agreed.
With an archmage and a master sage leading the way, the party returned in force to the sunken caverns that led to the Flooded Stacks. This time, Dala'gse decided to go as a giant octopus, and Falka went in hybrid wolf form (something that attracted a great deal of attention among the seekers and Avowed). With the combined might of the underwater strike force, the demon was slain after barely an exchange, and the party gained entry to the half-forgotten Flooded Stacks.
There, they found a thick layer of dust coating the ancient floor, only disturbed by a slightly-more-recent set of minor impressions that must have been footsteps. Interesting.
They set out to look for anything they could find on Arumbelle. After a short while, Ironica came across an old text titled, “Deities of Faerûn: A Nontheist’s Guide for the Undecided,” by Lazlo Klen, written in 856 DR. They flipped through the pages, finding chapter-long entries, each on a god or goddess. They quickly arrived at the entry on Arumbelle: finally some clarity about this goddess! They gathered around and hungrily read the chapter which began...
ARUMBELLE
The Homesteader, Lady of the Brook, the Joyful Toil, Lady Savor, Clearheart
Arumbelle is the goddess of nature and homesteads, dedicated to self-sufficiency and a life spent in harmony with nature—and delighting in it. Her followers carve out a lifestyle reflecting her ways wherever they find themselves but most often live near wild places on the borders of civilization. For it is there they more readily find Lady Savor reveals the joys of the quotidian, and faith is found in the simple wonder of existence...
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They looked around at each other: so this is who had been reaching out to them. But what did she want? Was there no longer or more recent work? This said nothing of her history.
They also came across another entry -- only noticing it because it was the only page that had a portion ripped out, one of the few sacred prohibitions at Candlekeep. It was on an evil god called Felak'Doun.
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FELAK’DOUN
Felak’Doun is the god of vileness and villainy, a dark deity dedicated to depravity. Those devoted to the Vile Lord are vengeful, full of spite and malice, and often bent on sowing chaos and destruction wherever they go...
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The missing excerpt was on the last known location of five artifacts called "the Rites of Felak'Doun."
The party read all they could in the Flooded Stacks, before returning to Candlekeep's courtyard. They seemed to have found more mysteries. Orrin Glass gave them a letter as promised, but the Avowed at the Emerald Door told them they would not be allowed in until the were-wolf gave an interview for posterity on her order, the Blood Hunters. Nothing she wasn't willing to share, just for archival knowledge.
Fine, Falka agreed.
She sat for the interview with one of the Great Readers and then the party passed through the Emerald Door to where the great and more controversial knowledge in Candlekeep was kept. Maybe here they could uncover more than surface facts about this Arumbelle.
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