Sistri stays quiet until well out of the Council room, and she hears Irmiel's comment.  "Those are scholars?" she finally blurts out. "They are idiots!  Fools and idiots!  The only thing they got right is how fortunate we are having Learned Irmiel Nerien as part of our company."  She gives Irmiel a little smile after the remark, clearly trying to lighten the mood.

Sistri clearly had more to say on her mind, but continues walking, speaking in a calmer, if slightly strained voice. "We just have to tolerate them and focus back on our work. Now where were we in our studying. Hopefully Irony can get us more books." 

Insight Check: 13

Llwyd looks around the room as the party seems well and ready to get out of there. It's obvious to the Satyr that there are a lot of emotions in the room. The arguing they could overhear while waiting are a good indicator that there are some pretty stark difference of opinions, clearly about how to deal with the invasion. If Llwyd had to guess, he'd figured that the group and their deeds, or misdeeds don't really factor into the thoughts and minds of these council members. Despite their attempt to help, they'd not prevented the loss of the books, and hadn't really done much, despite their efforts. As such, if the group was feeling rudeness or like they were being dismissed, Llwyd would guess that likely it's the stress of the attack that is making it seem like it's directed at the group. 

Silent like a shadow he watches as the meeting unfolds, his eyes darting as discreetly as he could towards the faces of the Avowed, trying to read them like the books they loved so much. For a moment he imagined asking about what to do in order to gain definitive access to the section. Maybe even suggest help searching for the books. Charlie’s company was a mercenary group after all and that was a business opportunity or so it seemed to him. In the end his inexperience with the so-called civilization and his experience with the castle guard made he opt for the silence. Besides he had not discussed making such proposition with his friends and it didn’t seem fair to act on his own accord.

“I always heard that intelligence is different from wisdom and those readers show as much. For all their knowledge they lacked the maturity to deal with the tension and stress of the day before. They were simply lashing out on us. If we had got the books they probably would have given some reward and found someone else to bother.” He said soon after Sistri spoke, somewhat guilty for their failure. If only he had taken the risk to wild shape. Or if he at least had turned the bag upward down and spread the books. Too late to think about that. “What really bothers me is that they called us in the first place. They are worried and busy with what happened, clearly, and if they were worried about not seeing ungrateful or unpolite they would at least not mention any transgression. It is strange that they would make the time to meet us for no relevant reason. I thought they would, at the very least, ask about the Netherese attack in Suzail.”

The group is escorted back out of the huge tower, the guard nodding to you as you leave, and eventually find yourself once again in the court of air.  The air of confusion over the purpose and outcome of the meeting is palpable amongst all of you, along with an underlying sense of frustration. Irony does not return with you, having apparently stayed behind outside the meeting room and so you're left with some time on your hands to sort out your morning.  

You spend about two more hours languishing in uncertainty, and sitting at the Hearth sipping beverages and chatting, with no other options.  Eventually though, Irony appears. To your mild surprise, he has a stack of books with him.  He looks....uncertain and nervous.

"Um...uh...I'm going to take your last set of books from you and return them. Here are the uhh....the new books that....YOU requested....certainly...I hope there is something in here....uh...Teles said you mentioned asking after these."  Then he makes an exaggerated wink at everyone, in an almost comedic manner, and says, "The great reader said she'd heard these books had recently been misplaced by the library and hoped you could...um....figure out why." 

With that oddly cryptic, but also not very subtle message, he gathers up the previous set of books and walks away.  The book's you're left with are :  "Meteorologic Log : Year 3520", "Venerations to Jannath : A collection of Poetry", "The Bones of Sanctuary", and "The Lost City of the Moon: A Travellers Tale". 

The first book appears to be a book that logs the daily weather in the Netheril empire. It's extremely detailed but ends abruptly 3/4 of the way through. 

The second book appears to be dwarven poetry, with extensive writings in the sidebars. 

The third book talks appears to be an autobiographical story of man in the year 3718, talking about a trip he took down the sword coast.  

The final book appears to be another autobiographical of a man's journey across different realms of existence.  

Each book is clearly a copy, though still each is an ancient book in its own right. You figure it will probably take you a couple of days to get through the books.

Kris smiles. "Oh, thank you Irony, for assisting us with our request!  Ooo, I'll start with The Lost City of the Moon.  How exciting would it be to travel across another plane of existence, and to find a lost city, no less!"

"I can cover meteorology... If the year is the Netherese reckoning, it has to be actual −339 DR, the year of the fall. And if they indicated places as well as the weather conditions itself - and they had to! - we might get some coordinates for the cities around the day of falling." Irmiel stroked the book's cover more absentmindedly than lovingly. "Must be some internal politic we can not possibly understand. I mean Readers... But they gave us the books, guess, even if we failed to help, we left some good impression?" She clutched the book as the biggest treasure (it really was for the age alone), pushed glasses a bit higher up on her nose and went to the group's room with the look of someone truly dedicated to the art of digging needles from haystacks. Who knows, if not the writing itself, the notes on the sides could be useful.

Sistri looks very relieved when Irmiel offers to tackle the book of meteorological records.  "I think I would prefer to tackle The Bones of Sanctuary - a trip down the Sword Coast could be interesting."  She looks at Llwyd. "Hopefully you're ok with dwarvish poetry.  It isn't in Dwarvish is it? I wouldn't understand that!"  Reaching out to take up the book she indicated, she starts to give it a quick glance. 

As they head to the group's room, she looks over at Irmiel. "Are you sure you're ok just going through an old list of weather information. I mean, you are way smarter than I am! Perhaps you should be going through the travelogue? Although, you really sounded eager to look at that.  You really think those records are going to be helpful to us?" 

Once back inside the room, Sistri adds, "Wow, so evidently Teles did want our help!  I wonder why she didn't just say something earlier. I guess unless she didn't want the other folks there to know." She sounds like she's just kind of thinking out loud. "Well, these must be copies of what was taken. So, I guess we had best get to work going through them so we can maybe figure out why these were taken."

She settles down in one of the chairs and starts in on her book. 

“As long as it is not written in Dwarvish it should be fine. I don’t speak the language.” He answered Sistri noticing, for the first time, that they never did talk about which languages they knew. He suspected Kris didn’t know Sylvan, considering her first difficult with his name and her surprise with the way he used to call her back at the castle gate. Similarly he expected Irmiel to know Elvish and not only because of her appearance, but her name itself. “Actually, this is a good moment for us to share what we do understand. I know Sylvan, Elvish and Druidic. Besides common, of course.”

As he waited for his friends answers Llwyd could not help but remember Irony’s not so secretive way of being secretive. It was almost enough to make he feel good about his attempt to intimidate the guard at the Royal Palace in Suzail. Almost.

”I don’t know if would call it an offer of help as much as the question about Netherese attack I thought they weren’t doing.” The raised voices of the council came to his mind. “To me it seems like the council had not reach an agreement about how to proceed and she decided to move by herself and ask us if there is something on those books related to the Shadovar attack and to the hunt for the Mythallar. That this is her way of doing that, which should help quite a bit on our search.”

With that said, he takes his book and starts reading.

The next couple of days pass quickly. The group scours through the books.  The writing in the side bar of the dwarven poetry (which has been translated in common), is particularly cryptic and tough to read. That said, the group does find some particularly interesting gems in their books. 

Sistri's read of The Bones of Sanctuary, are from an explorer before there was much of a sword coast. The land was wild and barely settled. Certainly there was no Candlekeep, no Waterdeep, or any of the modern cities. Elves seemed to rule the forests.  As far as you can tell, the dates correspond to less than 100 years after the fall of Netheril.  The story is well written, includes some rough hand drawn maps, and details the explorers trip from a location on the coast as he travels south.  The story doesn't take long to read, but Sistri is then driven to locating a detailed map of the sword coast and tying in the traveller's description of land marks and locations, with actual locations on the map, barring settlements.  Near the last third of the book, the traveler comes upon a fallen city. It's not right on the coast, but he spots an odd landmark miles inland and follows it to find a Netheril city. His accounting describes his approach, and his ultimate conclusion that this must have been the Netheril city of Orbedal, also known as Sanctuary. This city was a beacon of hope and peace in an otherwise war torn history of humans. When she reads a comment, that the travel encounters one of the great Netheril mages....her finger taps on the name absently as she stares at it written on the ancient book.  Larloch.  By all accounts, desperately sad, depressed, who even then had been a Lich. He seemed to be drowning in grief for the loss of the empire and his own city...and the traveler felt a deep well of pity for the...even then....ancient being.  The name of the book, it appears obvious, represent the remains of the city, but also refers to Larloch as "the bones of Sanctuary".  Sistri is confident she could find the location, though....it matches to information you already have for "Warlock's Crypt" on the sword coast. However a description of the grounds as he approached it could be helpful. 

Irmiel reads through the meteorological accounts of the year, that, as she's correctly surmised, is the year that Netheril falls. In fact, she can safely assume that on the 17th day of Marpenoth...or just the start of fall, is when Karsus cast his spell, for their are no entries after this date.  However, a month before this, there were fierce storms. Specifically called out is that the floating city of Lathery, or Lachery, which usually traveled over the Narrow Sea so that they could do their fishing, was forced to travel south nearly 50 miles.  This happens just before the fall.  If this is true, then you have a much better idea of where the ruins would lie, and they'd be at the southern end of where the lake has recently formed. 

Kris reads a fantastical story about a person traveling through the cosmos. The human ends up in all sorts of weird places, but eventually ends up in a realm known as the "Gates of the Moon".  The realm, the home of the goddess Selune, was quite fantastical, but it is here that the traveler came upon a piece of his own homeworld. He encountered Selunarra, a Netheril city. Floating lazily in this peaceful realm the city was fully intact and full of people that had been living there since the fall.  Its amidst the retelling of his visit that he learns a legend that Selunarra will have a heroic return to its home world of Faerun when they are needed most, and would be called thus by "The Ritual of the Waxing".  Further it goes on to describe this ritual in detail.  Not only must this ritual be performed at a precise location, described as Elah'zad, a holy site in the Anauroch, but would require "The Eye of Selune".  A cryptic sentence states that the Eye of Selune can be found "In Selune's Smile"...whatever that meant. 

Lastly Llwyd reads the dwarven poetry book, which....by all accounts is the most dry, tedious poetry that Llwyd has ever read. They are so long that Llwyd starts to lose track of where one ends and another begins.  Though Llwyd eventually comes across one poem, a much shorter one only 30 lines long.  Scribbled amongst the sidebar is a very interesting note.  "3 miles north of Myth Drannor, great tree home, main foyer...'twelve thousand years'."   The poem is as follows: 

At the days of old there was only darkness far and wide.
And beasts ruled the void, as there was no need to hide.
The beasts, they laughed, giggled and formed their evil schemes,
entrapped and killed each other and madness reigned by all means.

Yet at one faithful day in a world without time,
from far they could perceive a sound, a soft chime.

The chime grew louder and ripped them apart in a bright flood,
and before them came a being full of light and fun.
Soon they realized they were lost, t'was Armok, god of blood,
who caught them all no matter how far they would run.

He imprisoned them deep in his heart as his veins were filled with magma.
Yet their dark hearts corrupted his and he got filled with rage.
Out of his sad thoughts formed the deities to protect him from any dark age.
And as he cried tears full of water to keep them in he fell down to stay asleep.
And asleep he stayed for a long time as the eons passed.

The deities formed the humans, the elves, the kobolds and us dwarves,
and all the other fairy creatures you on the land can see.
They lived in peace and harmony and held a party every day.
Yet they soon realized that 'tis not how it shall always be.

There were monsters coming onto the land coming from his dark dreams,
and oh they changed the world, raided city after city full of screams.
And in this chaos the beasts knew that his heart had cracks.
So they escaped to the world and enthralled their own packs.

'Tis the world how it is today and how it shall ever be and we can only hope,
that stands strong the halls of our fathers may, for ten thousand years. 

Sistri rather enjoys reading her book. And even piecing together the descriptions with the modern locations. It's kind of like a puzzle. "Well, I think we know for sure we could locate one city - Orbedal.  But I don't really think we want to go there and meet Larloch.  I guess though if he was one of the great Netheril mages, that explains a bit why he's interested in the mythllars.  Although surely he knows plenty about these things, I think?  It's more like they wanted to prevent others from learning about it rather than gaining knowledge themselves." 

She continues to go over her notes, the maps, and the book as long as she has time.  (Investigation to see if she can put together anything more from her text: 6)

At one point when the group has paused for conversation, she says, "I was thinking about these liches and it was mentioned that only magical weapons can affect them. I guess we all have some recourse to magic.  But I wonder if we could figure out a way to get our hands on some magical weapons.  Not that I think we could have done much against those creatures had they turned on us, but it would be nice to at least have a chance."

"This is so fascinating!" Kris exclaims as she reads parts of the book out loud.  "The actual realm of Selune! So, according to this, the Netherese city of Selunarra, maybe full of people, can be summoned back by a "chosen one" figure to this realm by the Ritual of Waxing.  The ritual requires an artifact known as the Eye of Selune, and it can be found in Selune's Smile."

Kris runs to Sistri's book.  "Sistri!  Do any of the descriptions of geography in your book reference Selune?  Eyes or Smiles?" 

She also re-reads the details of the Ritual of Waxing, to get an idea of what the Eye of Selune might be.

"All of these is quite fascinating indeed," (there was not a hint of fascination in Irmiel's voice, only thoughts and concerns) "but... We have to be realistic here. What is our goal? To find and secure Netheresian artifacts, right? Now, say, we can somehow summon that lost city. What would it give us? I mean, besides the title of "betrayers of the realm, who summoned more Netheresians on top of already plaguing the land"? Do not think they will allow us to "secure" anything there. Same with liches. It's bad enough with alive netheresians. If a lich, no, THE lich - most powerful among them! - wants those artifacts... He would be the last person to ask about them." She looked at her quill (the "lucky quill", an obvious goose feather but pink) and wiped up ink from it. "Do you think an undead can be still called a person? Never mind."

"Now, Lathery... That one should be empty for an obvious reason - centuries under the ice and now - underwater. Glad to know the coordinates (sort of) but still have no idea how to get to it. I say the most promising one is that spot "3 miles north of Myth Drannor". The closest one too, but... would not elves find it already?" Irmiel sighed. "More questions. But if anything, Sistri is right and we do need magical weapons. The first thing to "secure" in any treasure spot."

By the way, Irmiel did answer Llwyd about languages before. She did speak Elvish ("you can not study magic without it. Or without Draconic either") but also Sylvan and Undercommon ("you would not believe what successful commerce requires from a good trader!", besides, there are aspects of magic you can only learn from the source"). Not that it helped in any way, Dwarves are not known for their magic craft and Dwarvish never made it in Irmiel's curriculum.

Sistri gives Kris a smile, as her book sounds perhaps even more interesting than the one she read.  "Could we even just go to this realm of Selune and skip the ritual?"  She knew that was probably a tall order, but wouldn't that be exciting!

She looks at her notes and thinks through the book to see if anything might indicate what Selune's Smile would be.  "Not sure that would be on the coast though. Do we know where this Selunarra was located before it went to Selune's realm? Or... I assume it started in the regular world."

Sistri then adds in response to Irmiel, "I agree Lathery seems the best target.  Even if the others are intriguing."

 “Selûne’s smile…” He said trying to find a meaning to the term. “The only thing I can think about is the crescent moon. I mean, it does kind of look like a smile, the kind a child would draw, but I don’t think that it would be easier to reach the moon than it would be to reach the divine realm of Selûne. Maybe we should speak to a cleric who follows her?” Either that or search further for the term. They were in Candlekeep, after all. “On the bright side I think we can locate a third fallen city, but this one without name. I mean, there was this short poem in the book, which believe me, if this thing is an exemplar of how dwarven poetry is usually written, it’s a rare thing by itself, with scribbles at the side bar. 3 miles north of Myth Drannor, great tree home, main foyer...'twelve thousand years'. The verses themselves are some kind of strange creation myth. They speak of darkness and beasts existing before gods, and of the beasts being found and absorbed in the body of this deity called Armok. The poem describes him as the god of blood and being corrupted by the beasts. It says that gods were born from Armok’s sad thoughts and that he, in turn, cried to sleep and stayed asleep for eons. These gods created the humanoid races and Armok’s dark dreams created monsters who attacked the world. The last lines suggest the world of the poem is our world or that the persona narrates the poem as if speaking to someone of the same world as them. I don’t know if this is some kind of allusion to Netherese history, but considering the content of the books so far I would say that the scribbles are the location of a fallen city, though why it would be written on this page of this book I have no idea.”

The ritual seems to indicate that the eye of Selûne is some sort of item. Though it doesn't say what kind of item. Selûne's Smile seem to be a place....a place that has an "inside". Indeed finding a cleric of Selûne may grant you some insights if you chose to ask. Selunarra was definitely a Netheril city located in this world. It was one that was lost when Netheril fell, but if this legend is true, it someone ended up..intact....in Selûne's realm.  Wether or not the people who've been living in Selûne's land for a thousand years would consider them Netheril anymore, or ally themselves with the Shadovar is a question you can't answer, but...at a minimum, Irmiel's supposition is correct, summoning a floating city full of people is unlikely to fetch you the reward for securing a Mythallar. 

Irmiel nodded enthusiastically. "Whatever is there - "north of Myth Drannor" is closer than anything else and so mysterious, it's worth looking! Not saying, by the way, we should ignore all others either. Sure, the citizens of Selunarra would not allow us to get their mythallar or anything else. But they were there when the cities fell, right? They have to know where they fell. Or at least have some ideas. If we can get there (and get out too, preferably) - it's better than any library. Maybe better than asking that lich, or at least safer." She sighed. "Not saying we should not ever go to Larloch either... No, actually, we should not. Just remember how casually he destroyed part of the Cnadlekeep and killed a few people. Guess we might need to learn too all we can about that monster.... eehh... person."

“We definitely should look into how to explore underwater ruins, get more information about Larloch and speak with a priest of Selûne to look for her smile. I would also suggest we copy the poem. Something tells me it may useful to keep its words.” It was all so cryptic and mysterious that it could very well have some kind of coded message. One that they could understand better in the future. “But there is something else. Remember how we get those books in the first place? Teles will want to know what we discovered, if something, and this pose the question of what should we tell. I don’t think we owe anything to the folk here and whatever we speak may get into the ears of our competition, specially the Flaming Fist. But I would imagine these are not the only copies of the books so it is likely that the Avowed got the same information we got and being dishonest would work as a testament that they should neither trust nor help us in the future. I would think about telling only part of what we know. Sistri could do that and convince them to believe we are being honest, she is that good with people and I can bolster her ability to do that for an hour or so. The problem with that is, what if searching for information is some kind of test to us? Dust settled in the attack, maybe the Council will search allies and finding what to investigate may be what we needed to do to convince them to hire us.”

The druid felt in silence after saying his piece and casted his ashen eyes upon her companions, waiting for their opinions. Should they tell everything to Teles? Should they omit some information or tell nothing? Llwyd had no idea about what could be better.

"Yes, I am intrigued to know what this thing is '3 miles north of Myth Drannor'.  Certainly worth checking out after we go back to Cormyr." Sistri begins. "I'm still not seeing the connection with all these books and the lich - except of course for the one about Larloch."

She pauses, looking at Llwyd. "I'm more than happy to report to Teles. But I'm not even sure what all we really found. Do we go to some of these places? Or try to learn more about them? I'd think a detailed map could tell us whatever is 3 miles north of Myth Drannor."