Once again in the daylight, on the grounds of the Ducal castle, they find a guard and make him call for the Duke. Once the Duke arrives they tell him that the cistern issue is now solved. The Duke seems wary but thankful. Princess Elora tells him they might need a mason, or two or ten. There is a lot to repair below. The Duke begins to realize the extent of the danger the city was in. He shares his frustration in that the city wizard, Delfen, was of no use when the city needed him. In fact, he hasn't been seen in at least a couple of tenday.
The Ducal Offer
The Duke then offers the group the same position that had been Delfen's for several years, that of city protectors. It would come with some pay, resources the city could provide, meals and supplies, as well as full use of the Delfen's tower. The group seems not to be too interested in the position, Messick tosses handfuls of copper coins on the ground, as a display of his wealth. Several of the castle staff pause and watch eagerly waiting for their chance to "clean up" the mess. The Duke implores the group to not dismiss the offer to quickly. To see the city and take in its simple pleasures and treasures.
Gunter, tells the others that he is excited to just go see Delfen's castle and Eda, who was previously distracted perks up when she hears that she might have access to a wizard's castle. Who knows what new spells she can acquire. The group leaves the Ducal castle.
Messick grins, when he hears behind him, the Duke sigh and tell his staff to go ahead and "clean up" the coins. Then a rush of staff descend upon the mess of coins.
Azula remains behind the group, and approaches the Duke. She has seen the plight the city suffers from. Demon attacks upon its people both within and without its protective walls. The city lacks in resources: food; water; and now guards, since the last attack. She is willing to provide a solution.
A Trade Agreement Offer
A trade agreement between the city and her drow house. The drow can provide protection and resources from outside the city, while the drow would have access to new trade partners, through Daggerford. The Duke is dubious. Drow are merciless and untrustworthy. Why would he entertain such an offer? Why would he allow an army of drow inside his walls? He is thankful for the assistance Azula has provided but he is wary. Azula reminds the Duke of the hardships the city will soon face as winter approaches. The Duke concedes and agrees to hear Azula's offer, which he tells her he will review formally the next day.
Meanwhile, the others approach Delfen's castle. It is easily the tallest structure besides the castle in the city. It is build joined with the western wall, near the farmer's gate. It towers above the city wall. The group approaches to find the large double doors standing ajar. Inside is only darkness and quiet. They each draw their weapons and carefully open the door and move inside.
Delfen's Castle
Once inside, they see an open main room. A large wooden table occupies most of the space. A dim torch flickers dimly in the far wall. From the faint light they can see the form of a body sitting in the far chair, its chest and head draped face down upon the table. Wordlessly, Messick and Gunter gesture and they move in unison, each around the table in opposite directions. Messick approaches the figure from behind, while Gunter approaches from the front, the loud groan of floorboards betraying his movements. Their blades drawn. Gunter clears his throat. There is no response. Gunter then smacks his sword, flatly upon the table.
The loud metallic clang, awakes the young man from his deep sleep and startles him awake. With a jolt he sits upright and bleary eyed, takes in the armed group standing in front of him. Calmly, he begins...
The Tour
"Welcome to the Castle of Delfen, the city protector, the mage of endless age. Feel free to move about the main floor as you wish. Please refrain from entering the locked room", he gestures to the door behind him. "And please obey all the rules clearly posted. Oh and tips are accepted.", the young man removes his hat and places it upside down in the middle of the table.
The group stows their weapons and curiously move about the main floor.
The castle is a simple affair. The large table taking up most of the main room. In the corner below the stairs leading up is a large stone statue of a knight. Messick closely inspects it, looking for movable joints. The others move room by room, discovering the young assistant's quarters, a kitchen, a pantry and service steps. Beside the locked room is a room barricaded with vertical metal bars. Inside this prison might be blood stains, but it is hard to tell due to the amount of filth within.
Finally, Gunter approaches the locked room. Noting there is no key hole, he pulls out a scroll and reads from it. The scroll lights up and gently disintegrates in glowing fragments as the spell is released. The door clicks open.
Inside is a nicely furnished room. A comfortable bed and side tables. A bureau of drawers and a work desk.The group immediately begins to rummage through the desk finding several magic items which they quickly stow away in backpacks.
Please Keep Library Books in the Library
Moving upstairs they discover the castle's library. It is a vast library with bookshelves taking up almost the entire floor of the castle, save for a large table with an ever glowing bright candle upon it. At the top of the stairs at the entrance to the library stands a small metal sign post. It reads: "Please keep library books in the library." Books are strewn everywhere as the shelves are no longer sufficient to house them all. They are stacked in ragged towers on the floor, on the top of shelves, and in chests. The group immediately begins perusing the shelves.
Azula grabs book after book, tossing some upon the floor while keeping others.
Eda finds a spell book sitting upon the reading desk in the middle of the room. She begins flipping through it. Some spells she recognizes, some are new to her, while others seem incomprehensible, the script and designs completely foreign to her. She pulls out her scholarly equipment and begins to find which spells she wants to copy over to her own spellbook.
Princess Elora, meanwhile, flutters above the floor looking around and suddenly feels a gust of wind blow by her wings. She quickly glances around and notices nothing to explain the source of air movement. Thinking quickly she produces a dandelion seed. Holding it in her hand she encourages the magical growth, as it spouts, grows, blooms and then goes to seed, all within seconds. She holds the dandelion, a grey ball of seeds up and the trail of the puff of wind pulls the seeds. They flow towards the stairs and then slowly fall to the ground. Odd she thinks.
Gunter, wanting to test the rules of the library, grabs one of the books and walks towards the stairs. As he approaches the sign post, a blinding bright white light glows from the signpost, it then shoots out, arcing electricity towards Gunter, striking him in the chest. The thunderous sound leaves the group suddenly and temporarily deaf as they all turn to see Gunter, with a large smoking hole in chest fall towards the ground. Just as his body would have hit the floor, Gunter disappears.
Acting on a hunch, Messick rushes back downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs he sees inside the small prison, the body of Gunter lying lifeless upon the floor. The young tour guide, sighs heavily as he gets up from the table, "I told you to obey the signs." He moves towards a hidden compartment behind the statue and retrieves a vial of red liquid. Messick recognizes the potion of healing and grabs it from the young man. Messick also looks into the compartment and takes the remaining other 3 potions.
He then approaches the cell in which Gunter lies and is able to touch the bard's forehead. He heals him bringing him back to life...at least somewhat. Gunter stands and nods. He tries his strength against the bars and finds them unmovable. In fact, he discovers they are in fact immovable rods, all except two. He sets his pet ooze, George to them. Very soon George has dissolved the metal and the two bars fall with a clang upon the floor.
They return back upstairs.
Together the group decides to move further up the tower's stairs. Eda though doesn't wish to abandon her new trove of magic and decides to try and take the spell book. After performing dispel magic upon the signpost, she slides the book along the floor past the signpost. Just as the book would have past the signpost it is halted and the same arc of lightning burst forth from the signpost and strikes her in the chest. It would seem her dispel magic wasn't quite powerful enough.
The group rushes back downstairs to the prison cell. There they find Eda, with a still smoking massive hole in her chest. She is near death. Almost beyond the point of healing. But they are able to revive her and they continue own. Eda though decides to use her time to remain in the library and continue her transcription of at least some of the spells.
Delfen's Favorite Memories
The floor above the library is a richly furnished banquet hall. The light here is dim, provided by small torches along the wall. The torches illuminate 4 beautiful and detailed tapestries hanging upon the stone walls. In the middle of the room are two large banquet tables and several ornate chairs. The servers entrance on the far side shows where the small circular stair well goes back down to the kitchen.
Gunter moves from tapestry to tapestry looking at the intricate weaving of details scenes. One depicts a small simple farmhouse beside a large wheat field. Another shows a picnic scene upon rolling hills with a small stream beside which dozens of people of all ages enjoy a warm summer day. Another shows a desolate dark night scene of a destroyed and burned forest surrounding a castle upon a summit, its walls crumbling. And the last tapestry shows a desert with endless sand dunes below a huge red sun.
Home Sweet Home
Gunter approaches the farmhouse tapestry and finds he can enter it. Inside the tapestry he steps into a warm summer day. The wheat in the fields gently sway in the warm breeze. He steps into the old farmhouse. Inside he finds himself in a delicious smelling kitchen, food still stewing in the pot over the stone oven. A small human woman enters the kitchen and her face lights up with joy.
"Delfen! You're home! Oh it's been so long. You look like you need to eat.", the short stout woman says lovingly. Dusting her hands on her apron she pulls down from the shelves a large wooden bowl.
She ladles heaping amounts of thick stew into the bowl, placing it in front of Gunter. She then cuts thick slices of fresh bread for dipping into the stew for him. She peppers him with questions of his well being and his adventures. She shouts for "Father" to come in and see their boy.
Outside the tapestry, Messick watches as a woven version of Gunter moves slowly into the farmhouse. The tapestry weaving and re-weaving to move the figure slowly, as if in a slow flip-book animation.
Finally, Gunter re-emerges from the tapestry and greets the others with a huge grin. Reaching into his backpack to show them the amazing amount of awesome home cooked food he has brought with him. His smile slowly fades as he realizes that his backpack no longer contains the trove of bread and meats it did, when he was in the tapestry. With that he also realizes he is really hungry now. The food eaten within the tapestry not really being of any substance.
Hearing this Messick is eager to enter another tapestry.
Delfen The Saviour
Together, Messick and Gunter enter the dark castle tapestry. Once entered they are soon greeted by an armored horseman, who beckons for Delfen to follow. The troll army is almost through the line. Gunter jumps on the back of the horse, the knight not seeming to notice. As the horse begins to run, Messick finds himself racing through the air, as if he had cast fly upon himself.
Soon they arrive at the front of a battle. Mounds of dead soldiers are used a defensive barriers to the dozens of trolls who attack with impunity. Everyone they pass implores Delfen to save them. Messick orders the men to use fire as their weapons! Soldiers begin to douse their swords in flaming tar and arrows are lit. Soon the troll attack line is hit with fireball after fireball and finally a meteor storm slams into the trolls from above.
As the trolls fall beneath the firestorm, people begin chanting, "Delfen! Delfen! Delfen!" As Messick is hoisted upon shoulders as he is celebrated for saving the kingdom.
Moving back out of the tapestry they decide to try one more tapestry.'
A Love Remembered
Inside this one is a beautiful spring day. The grass is green and soft beneath their feet as they walk slowly down the slope of the hill towards the picnic beside the river. Families and lovers abound. Games are played and food is passed around. As they descend the hill people begin to part in front of them, waving joyously at the adventurers, calling them "Delfen." As the crowd moves before them, a lone woman is revealed. A young plain woman in a simple plain dress stands waiting for Delfen. The sun seeming to shine on her just a bit more than the rest of the scene. She smiles and it is plain to see upon her face, the love she holds for the wizard.
The day is passed with food and friends begging for Delfen to come join in a game of rounders, but the Gunter and Messick, spend it beside the young woman who has eyes only for Delfen.
Leaving the tapestry, the darkness of the tower's banquet room seems all the more sad.
They decide to steal the tapestries.
A Glimpse of the Invisible
Princess Elora meanwhile has felt the gust of strange wind again upon her sensitive wings. This time she is ready. She holds Messick's Lantern of Revelaing. Moving its light, directed by its shutters, she scans the room. She gets a brief glimpse of what might be and arm, but an arm made up of air itself. It immediately, escapes out of the light and Princess Elora is unable to find it again, even after giving chase.
A Corruption Of Nature
Moving on up the stairs they come to a large open area. Upon the floor are several arcanic circles which glow slightly. On the far side of the room, vines have begun to encroach into the castle. Oddly they grow and spread but avoid the arcanic circles upon the floor.
Princess Elora, feels a shudder of revulsion as she enters the room. Something here is not right. Nature itself is being corrupted and defiled.
Gunter notices, underneath a viney growth, a worktable. A worktable in a wizards tower has to have something powerful. He rushes across and pulls at the vines covering the table.
The vines pull back.
They move and twist together. In second they have twisted and pulled together to form a creature which then attacks Gunter. Without enough time to react, Gunter is hit and some sort of maddness or delusion afflicts him and he stands, unmoving, unable to attack.
The others push into the room and begin attacking the creature. Princess Elora summons giant rats which swarm the creature. Azula and Messick hurl spell after spell but little seems to affect the creature. Meanwhile, Gunter mumbles to himself about the voices.
Eda, still downstairs in the library, calls back to the group, via their sending stones, as to why Gunter is talking gibberish. They explain they are being attacked and she runs to join them.
Soon the swarm of giant rats is destroyed by the vine creature so Princess Elora summons wolves to attack.
Gunter eventually regains movement, but uses it only to flee across the room, still under the effect of the madness.
Finally, with Messick's spiritual weapon the creature is destroyed.
Gunter, having his emotions calmed by Messick, during the battle, rushes back to the table to pocket whatever magic items he can find. Eda returns to her transcription work.
All in a days work.
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