The Island Library

The day started with the Runebreakers meeting up with May Ling at the guildhall as per the usual. The owner of the castle, Teahop Whisperleaf, that the Runebreakers cleared out two weeks ago wanted a meeting to personally thank them for their service. He presented each ember with 600 gold, except for Kaladar, who annoyed the halfling by continuously bothering him about selling his castle. Teahop left and Mey Ling was preparing to continue onto more important topics when the guild master appeared and hastily soundproofed and blocked windows.
 
The topic turned to current events that we found ourselves wound up in.
-imposter guildleader, hush hush honey badgers
-disappearing buildings being replaced
-Duke Tajaar-Pazel
-anchient library may have some worthwhile information.
 
Having decided to investigate the Vaharian Library in the long abandoned vaharian town on the island Dende Island first, Artemis would not really take no for an answer, the party heads to the docks to acquire a ship and crew willing to take them to the island. While Theodan and Kalanar were able to identify a lot of ships capable and willing to take us, Artemis quickly vetoed most due to various issues of nefarious dealings that would be problematic. The options were narrowed down to three, a Human, Dwaf and Elven captain. Of the three, Artemis recognized the Dwaf and Elven as individuals who have experience in archeological expeditions. Theoden decided to approach the Elf first, a man named Alred Elaynore, Captain of the Tierless Jasimine. He seems like a decent and pretty reasonable man. Originally, he was willing to do the job for 10 gold a day, due to being able to run his crew through some shallows reef training. When Theodan offers to take them on as retainers, he dropped the price to 7 gold a day.
 
With a ship procured, we endeavor to set sail in an hour, so I take the time to ensure that we have enough rations for a week, just in case. I heard thattttt Kalanar and Kaladar took the time to aquire some spell components while Ang questioned everyone in sight again.
 
The boat ride is uneventful, and takes about an hour. With Nothing else to do, Artemis uses the time to pull out the coded notebook and does a little bit of decoding. Its a fascinating cipher,, a bit of a nightmare to work through. When we arrive, Alred gives each of us a wand or prestidigitation to be used as a flare in case of a hasty retreat needed. We take a rowboat to shore while the captain takes his crew to run drills. The town is fairly intact, surprisingly for a over 2000 year s old abandoned town. The town waymarkers are even still intact and working. I take notes and create a map of the town layout as we make our way to the library.
 
We reach the library, on one side of the door is the hours of operations, while the other has a doorbell. Upon using the doorbell, a robot appears who greets up in ancient Vaharian. While Artimis responds in the language, Kaladar says hello in common. "Oh, we are using the barbarians language" is what the robot says in vaharian, before repeating his greeting in Common, making Artemis giggle in amusement. The party signs up for library cards with the robots assistence, and upon entering the building, goes to collect their new library cards. Artimis beelines for the books on the second floor to start exploring the shelves while Kalanar and Kaladar investigate the rooms on the first floor. Theodan and Pax casually follow Kaladar and Kalanar.
 
Artimis is in love with this library, It has so many interesting topics on these shelves. I get lost in the shelves, maybe there will be sometim=ng that can help me decipher the code. A short while after getting lost in a random book, I get a call from Kaladar asking If I know how to replace a server drive, which, is a fairly simple procedure, but impossible unless I have a new drive to replace it with. So, I reluctantly return the book to a shelf, and head back downstairs, only to find that my cousins were being eaten by a mimic. It gets quickly defeated. Kaladar shows off the baby mimic he has trapped and has decided to keep as a pet. Hopefully, he will well train it, or else he might get in trouble with the guild. I also take the time to cover Kalanar and Kaladar's arms in a very spicy spice incase they get attacked by a mimic again. I show Kaladar and Kalanar how to change these kind of server drives, and wanting a way to access the information, Kaladar show me to the room where a laptop is. I speak to the cleaning robots in that room, who relax upon me speaking vaharian. I send them to clean the bookshelves, since they seem to not have and voice capability. Unfortunately, the laptop in this room is password protected, and so I cannot access it.
 
We all move on the the second floor, which after a quick perusal of the shelves reveals this section to be filled with mostly fiction books of general interest. Not really what we are looking for, But will definety have to spend some time here when I have more time. With not much on this floor, we head to the next, where there are two doors, one labeled as the quiet room and another as non fiction. we check out the quiet room first, where there is another robot, who seems to be caring for some demonic abominations, probably some kind of experimentation. I order the robot to cease all care for the abominations and back away, and let the party know to have at the crimes against nature. The party is easily able to take care of them. I ask the robot about the experiments, it simply points upstairs. With that, I ask that it organizes getting the new mess cleaned up for me.
 
The non fiction room has no surprises for us. But I was able to find a couple history books, and some mechanical books that I will translate for Kalanar and Kaladar later. Placing the books in my bag for now, its time to move to the next floor. Oh, Kaladar is missing, He must have gone ahead. Reaching the third floor, I see Kaladar in a security bubble, with his wall of force blocking the drone trapping him from picking him up. I politely ask the drone to let Kaladar go (because he is "just an idiot"), which the drone complies. Adorably, the drone seems to be gloating to Kaladar over something, probably the fact that the robot is not an idiot, unlike Kaladar. Kaladar now a bit ticked off, he captures it in the bag of holding. How annoying, you can't just take the security drones from the library. I negotiate with Kaladar, if he releases the robots before we leave, i will translate some mechanical books about such robots for him (something I was already planning on doing) when I have time next. He readily agrees, and I can now investigate the computers in this room, which are all annoyingly locked with a password as well. now annoyed, we move on.
 
The next floor rooms require a special key card to enter. We enter the left one first, which contains a bunch of robots crafting some strange liquid. Kaladar says that its some sort of health/cryo flluid. something that can keep a dead body from deteriorating, or suspended animation. there's a whole shelf of vials of the stuff. Kaladar takes a few, but we leave most of them. The room on the right reveals a normal, sleeping robot, and a giant robot/golem that appears to have been corrupted by demonic forces. The robot is another non vocal one, who doesn't really know anything about the monstrosity. He also is not against us removing it. I let it know that it can leave the room if it wishes. The robot seems almost relived to be let out of the room. This demonic entity puts up a bit more of a fight than the other ones did.
 
This room had a secondary, probably storage room. Its also requires the keycard to open, which, upon the door sliding open, there are a bunch more demonic abominations. One in the corner turns into a weird naked copy of Kalanar. Another fight breaks out when Kalanar immediately charges at the one that turned into his copy. After defeating them, we conclude that they were in the gllass containers, and had broken out at most a week ago. which is mildly suspicious, as it seems mighty convenient that they broke out in time for us to come investigate the library, when they had been properly contained for over 2000 years. Theodan now also suspects that this might all be connected to the weird magic stuff involved with the cultists, and what has happened when we first got our adventuerer liscences.
 
the final floor has two locked doors at the top. I suggest going left first, out of habit mostly. This side of the building opens to a large room, with some desks, and a bunch more monitors. around the corner, reveals more experiments, and experimental equipment. There is also a man, one we encountered a long while ago, back when we were exploring our first dungeon filled with goblins. Duke Tajaar-Pazel, the individual we suspect to be from over 2000 years ago, who's main motive may or may not be to revive their very dead wife. Or, at least that is the current running theory, we may discover more about him from this. Noticing us, since we were not really being stealthy, he appears to not be surprised, but maybe a bit exasperated at our appearance. "oh its you people, you can play with these" then he disappears through the floor, leaving 2 wispy dog looking things. this must be the kind of strange creatures that have been appearing randomly on the island.
 
Yet again, a fight commences, though this one is filled with chaos as wildmagic seems to occure whenever the beasts are hit. the fight ends up n the beach when the wildmagic teleports all but Pax, where after a bit, Ang and the last beast are teleported again ( back to the top floor of the library I learn later. Ang does kill it after that.) I head back to the library when the beast and Ang disappear. not much I can do to help when they could be anywhere. I do hear on the com channel we share as a party that they ended up back in the library.
 
I can't help but feel like maybe this guys plan is to bring the entire Vaharian nation forward in time. Which would be a ridiculous feat of magic and engineering.
 
Making it back to the top floor is easy with no more monstrosities appearing. I certainly can't deny how eager I am to dig my hands into those servers, and see what I might learn. What tidbits of lost history remain in these ancient machines? Theoden aids me in seraching the Vaharan computers, with some success. We were able to find some interesting articles, detailing the end of a joint effort between Tenalia and Varhan to take down the Empire of Bhaal. We were also able to identify some emails regarding events when Varhan first began their research into demons and potential uses in a military, seems not everyone was for the plan.
 
There was also a set of logs made by one Asara Tezair, a lead researcher who appeared to be working on a project looking to explore the principals of pocket dimensions. It may take some time to fully parse the information here. It looks promising though, both for my thesis, as well for dealing with the current situation that seems to be unfolding on the island.
 
These documents, they detail events that historians have previously had no knowledge of! Its a breakthough! An allience between Varhar and Tenalia to take down the Empire of Bhaal? We had snippets of reference to this, but to now have evidence that the war happened, and for 8 years no less, is astounding! And to know that the demon corruption was essentionally spearheaded by this one individual! Fascinating. and there was even pushback againt its use. then there's the logs from the spacial magic researcher. They invented the bag of holding and Hand Havardsacks. who would have guessed that it was a Varhar technology.
 
It is also clear that my theory on what the duke is doing was almost spot on. The entire Hetki-Ajassa province was moved to a pocket dimension, he must be trying to bring it back, though I doubt he is doing so out of concern for his people, he is corrupted by demonic enerygy afterall. Perhaps I can learn more of this Tenalian tech to reverse corruption for him. It might mean a trip back home. Afterall, may of the people caught up in the pocket dimension catastrophy would have been innocent civilians. Might need a city scale corruption reversal too.
 
In any case, I have so much paperwork to do now.
 
side note, the nearby castle like building is actually a military facility, a very high security one at that. One of the highest in the area according to what I can find. Hopefully we can find information on this Jama.
 
The rest of the week is spent making our way around the island. Besides the town and military citadel, we find a decent sized public dock along the coast. One of the old Vaharen cargo ships is even still docked. Ite is fantastic shape for something so old. I even found one of the manuals for the thing.
 
We also come across a very well hidden military dock. Seriously, the place is just so well hidden, it looks like a natural cliff on the outside. I only really confirmed that there was something there by the almost rail like marks in the sea floor. It required me using the form of an octopus to get in through a grate leading to pipework in the sea floor. It was massive inside! The ship we came on fit into it with room to spare. And luck for us, the controls were not too far gone to be non functional. I was able to get the doors sea side doors open, though it was obvious that they have not been used in probably centuries. The added light only made the whole place even more impressively big. It was so big, that the Vaharans had their small cart like vehicles to travel it. There were four other dock points and doors and even a whole barracks area. We also discovered ladders up to the surface above. There was one area that was unaccessable without a keycard, probably a military one specifically. Maybe we will come across one in the future.
 
Our week of exploring pretty much came to an end after exploring the port. I let the party board the ship, and told them I would see them back in Isani. Kalanar was cofused, and was extremely concerned I think about how I would get back. he really has no need to worry, I'll make it back to town using a new spell I've been practicing. Transport via Plant, or as I prefer to call it, treestriding. Though I'm not confident in transporting multiple people with it just yet. Its a high level spell afterall. Closing the dock doors behind the ship, I find the nearest tree and utilize it to make it back to the guildhall in a matter of moments.
 
May Ling kindly lets me use her office to organize all the notes, and finish off the maps I've been sketching out of the island while we wait for the rest of the party to arrive. Upon our report though, she seems a bit exasperated with me though. Probably should report any findings about Duke Tajaar-Pazel first next time.