You retrace your path up the stairs and back through the secret bookcase door into the parlor, which is quiet and unchanged. The homunculi and cats have perhaps returned to the kitchen, its doorway just beyond the artfully curving staircase to the left.

Otherwise, everything is as you last saw it. The garden gnome statue still stands haughtily in its corner. The bouquet of fresh-cut peonies freshen the still air, and beside them, Matreus, his shoulder-length white hair falling out of its loose bun. His face and bare feet extend pale and bloodless from his brown and mustard toga and cloak. His breathing is so slow, his heart barely beating one would guess.

The trophy wall where jade-inlaid, silver-edged short sword and rapier remain, propped on pegs — Meredith having helped herself earlier to the short bow and quiver of arrows which had previously hung there.

Directly ahead, in the vestibule across the parlor, the big double entry doors. On either side of the doors, the tall windows with sumptuous dressings, purple light from the exterior pocket dimension curling mysteriously beyond the glass.

"To get in we had 'lock the door to unlock it' and the door itself as well as 'the trigger word'.   We MIGHT have 'the exit word'... but what is the hand gesture or body movements to open the exit?  What if we NEED all seven books as the 'key' to get out?"  Bell is visible shaking as she lists all the variables yet to be pegged down.

Meredith just shakes her head, she has no answers to give....

"Let us say what words we can guess with the four letters we have, and if it is not enough then let us search on," says Erudisia, frazzled and pessimistic also, in front of the door. Time is ticking and if they cannot find the word then they must continue to search. If there are components other than verbal to the spell, unlike in their ingress, they must continue to search. She looks at Matreus on the chaise longe sorrowfully before she begins. 

"Liberty! Ability! Inkblot! Citable!" Her arms stretch out in front of her and she says each word like they are an eldritch rite of summoning, the full effort of her inflexible spirit straining against the reality of this place as if it is an occult spell of force and violence. 

Erudisia, knowing instinctively that the trigger word will have to be spoken close to the locus of the entryway enchantment, will have stepped across the room to stand between the two tall windows, facing the portal. The others watch as purple light beyond the glass flickers and curls to either side of her.

 “Liberty,” Erudisia begins, raising her arms… 

… and instantly, Voooommm, the portal cracks open and Bell and Meredith see the Moonshae lady’s elegant dancer’s form framed and backlit by the bright light that now shoots inside.

The light subsides to a dull glow, through which all three of you can make out the vague outlines of Matreus’ study chamber back in Candlekeep.

In the parlor’s corner at Bell’s elbow, the little garden gnome’s head turns a full circle and it pipes, “Well, all right!,” giving a general thumbs up to everyone, then quickly de-animating once more.

“Oh!” says Erudisia. “Err. Well. Alright. Then.” 

(I really didn’t think it would just be a guessable word! I thought we’d have to take on the swords or the quasit or find out something secret about Fistandia!) 

Meredith helps to try and get the old man up and through the gate...

Bell runs over and tries manhandling Matreus... but she is NOT built to lift an unconscious body.   She will do what she can to move, roll, lift, drag Matreus thru the portal.

"As soon as we get across, one of us MUST run to the Keep Head and get a healer here."

With a grunt and a heave, she will get a leg onto her shoulder.

".. and, well done, Erudisia.  That was marvelous to watch."

The half elf gives a small smile to Bell, brushing one errant strand of hair back over her ear, then watches as two of her companions begin to carry Matreus to the study through the door. The moment they and Rogi are through the portal she joins them then runs from the study rooms towards the nearest Avowed she can find, calling for help as she runs. 

Through the portal you pass, carrying Matreus between you, back into his study chamber, where perhaps you lay him upon his desk, so that you may plan. The portal closes behind you a moment later.

The study chamber door remains unlocked, you infer, for the automatic silence spell which enchants the study rooms remains inactive and you hear each other speak.

“I don’t think we can risk carrying him all the way outside,” Rogi says. After struggling to safely move the old scholar only a dozen yards while exiting Fistandia’s Mansion, you would be hard pressed to disagree with the artificer.

“He’s frail. There are stairways we have to go down. We’d as likely drop him as not, and in his condition… that could be fatal. I can wait with him. Get help.” (Erudisia already posted that she is running to find the nearest Avowed. Are Meredith and Bell with her?)

Bell will stay with Matreus and wait for help to arrive... though she might go out and ask for some water and a mug to be delivered to the room.

This gives her time to get their story straight for why they ended up in Matreus' study room... without revealing Fistandia's Secret Place... though explaining how Matreus got stung by an imp or whatever it was... might be harder to handwave away.

She will alternate between sitting and jumping up and pacing during all this.

Meredith follows Erudisia with the other two watching Matreus....

ERUDISIA and MEREDITH

It is well into the night, and the sky is pitch black velvet sprinkled with diamond dust, when Meredith and Erudisia rush out of the study room-filled Pillars of Pedagogy, and into the Court of Air. The silence is broken only by the plangent ocean waves breaking against the rocks below the keep and, barely heard, The Endless Chant, which echoes softly from a distance.

(Copied from a prior post: “A chosen group of Avowed maintains a constant recitation of the prophecies of Alaundo the Seer. The Endless Chant, as it is called, travels throughout the keep day and night.”)

Where do you go for help? You know that guards should be on duty at the castle gates. There is also the Temple of Oghma across the Court of Air. And you see The Keeper of the Emerald Door standing at her post, guarding entry to the inner keep. Although there is a rotation, it seems, among the Avowed who act as Keepers of the Emerald Door, the same elf woman is there now whom you met when you first entered Candlekeep nine days ago. 

(Copied from a prior post: …you notice that her staff, almost ten feet tall, seems to be planted into the ground, for roots reach out from its base, lending the appearance and stability of a long, branchless sapling. At its top, a gonfalon showing the sigil of Oghma: a partially unrolled blank scroll. Behind her, the fifteen-foot tall glowing door separates the Court of Air from the rest of the fortress, where rise the tall towers which give the keep its name.

The Keeper of the Emerald Door wears vestments of black and green, embroidered in fine white crystalline…)

BELL

After a few minutes, Rogi breaks the tense silence. “That was… unexpected. All of it.” A note of sadness enters his voice when he later picks up again. “I guess, after today, it’ll be good-bye. For me at least.” His gray-green eyes evade Bell’s.

Meredith points towards the temple reasoning they are the most likely to have someone with healing skills.

Bell looks at Rogi.  "Why good-bye?  I am sure the Keepers won't kick us out once Matreus explains things.  We still have a few days left..."

She looks into Rogi's eyes,  "Candlekeep hasn't answered your questions, has it.   And, we didn't help at all, getting you into this mess."

BELL

“Yeah, well… I guess it turns out I’m not so good at… research?,” Rogi begins reluctantly. “But the main thing is, I…,” he takes a deep breath. “I lied when I got here. That pamphlet I used as my entrance fee? The authors… don’t exist. I made the whole thing up. And the Keeper of Tomes? He’s onto me. They’ve been trying to corner me but I’ve been one step ahead. But yeah. I can’t keep running and I decided already. I’m gonna come clean. So. No entrance fee, no entrance. I’ll be outta here.”

The young artificer offers a wry smile and a shrug, seemingly well used to disappointment. 

Bell lets out a sputtering retort, "But, you saved me... all of us.. more than once.  And that device you used to mend the back of my head is amazing!   I will give them a piece of my mind (since you saved any from falling out) if they threaten to send you away!   Why, even if they DID try to run you off, perhaps we can make arrangements with Matreus where you are his apprentice and work in one of those labs in Fistandia's mansion.   We never got much of a chance to go through all those books... there has to be SOME that show how to make things."

She is close to giving Rogi puppy dog eyes when, out in the hall...

Unaware of all that happens where they left Rogi and Meredith, Erudisia begins to run towards the Keeper. As a guardian, surely they have some way of quickly rousing help if required -- or else what if they were to come under attack?

Now that they are out of that dangerous space, she also feels there is no use in a 'dont split up' rule. "Bell, you should go to the Temple, or some other place you feel is sensible! A wider net means more chance of help." 

Quote from NycrolB >>

Unaware of all that happens where they left Rogi and Meredith, Erudisia begins to run towards the Keeper. As a guardian, surely they have some way of quickly rousing help if required -- or else what if they were to come under attack?

Now that they are out of that dangerous space, she also feels there is no use in a 'dont split up' rule. "Bell, you should go to the Temple, or some other place you feel is sensible! A wider net means more chance of help." 

 (Meredith is with Erudisia, while Bell is back in Matreus’ study room with Rogi.)

ERUDISIA and MEREDITH

Erudisia asks the Keeper of the Emerald Door for aid, and we’ll say Meredith runs into the Temple of Oghma. The Keeper of the Emerald Door casts an incantation and then holds up a finger for silence as the muscles in her jaw and throat silently move in the shadows. 

She turns to Erudisia a few moments later. “Help is coming,” she says, not moving from her post.

Meredith must run into the temple — whose doors are always open — past the set of now-empty pews, and to a doorway in an alcove behind the dais, downstairs to a large wooden door. Not locked, she finds. She enters, awakens an acolyte she finds sleeping in an open-doored chamber. The acolyte throws on a robe and grabs a healer’s pouch then runs up after Meredith to the Court of Air. 

Meredith and the acolyte arrive just as the Emerald Doors open and Shadi, the harengon who greeted the party when they first entered Candlekeep, comes out in a cotton shift and sleeping cap, one rabbit-ear flopped over one eye, the other falling back like a pony tail.

…and BELL

Two minutes later, Erudisia, Meredith, Shadi and the acolyte — Annadote, she says her name is — find Bell, Rogi, and Matreus in Matreus’ study room in the Pillars of Pedagogy.

“Imp poison!,” Annadote hisses. She searches in her pouch, casts an incantation to create water in a bowl, another incantation to cause it to boil, and then dissolves a pellet of dung in the steaming water while sprinkling herbs into it, and calling once again upon Oghma.

“Hold his head!,” she finally directs, and then, pours the elixer, through a tiny funnel, into Matreus’ ear. (!) Matreus, who by now, seems as much dead as he ever seemed alive. There is no response. 

Annodote curses, then casts another incantation and her voice takes on a booming, echoing tone. “AWAKEN!,” she commands.

The old scholar’s eyes flutter. And then, though just slightly, they open!

“Vhat happened?,” he asks in his Yartari accent. Shadi and Annadote seem equally curious to hear the answer to this question. “Yeah. What did happen? Is there an imp in the keep??”

Erudisia sighs in relief and her eyes sting suddenly, as she tries to blink a sudden blurriness away. All this trouble, all this horridness, but it was not for nothing. She thanks Annadote, she thanks Meredith, and Bell — then thanks Meredith and Bell once they point out she has had their names confused. She can only blame the stress. 

She will thank the keeper, once they have removed Matreus to a more appropriate locale. She hopes the questioning on their adventure can wait till the morning and Matreus’ recovery, but for now, she needs something cold, effervescent and golden served in a tall glass. 

She has an inkling that her Patron may come to her own extra dimensional space tonight, and tomorrow may have its own challenges. For tonight, however, she wants only to pretend that she is a scholar in a keep full of books; all unexpected danger behind her now.