Tests and Trials Game Thread

Jaq and Kroshav (at least) head up to the top floor and find the stairs up filled with snow, a good sign for Jaq's bet. It is also notably cooler on the first floor compared to the fifth floor.

A pair of golems flank the snow, one partly covered. The snow is fairly loose, becoming looser the further up they dig, and it doesn't take much to dig a path up and out. One of the golems animates during the digging and helps move the snow to the side and through it the Librarian comments tonelessly,

"This is concerning. This entrance was sealed off last time I was able to check, which was likely several hundred years ago. This opening now not only allows in roaming creatures seeking dens, but more discerningly allows in the elements. Based on what you've described, the archives will flood unless this is blocked before the spring run off begins."

Despite the lack of inflection, the Librarian's concern for her books comes through.

After a half an hour's work the path is clear and late afternoon light shines down on the diggers and as cold as it was down on the first floor it is far colder outside. The day is clear, a few clouds stuck around the peaks, and the party can see that the forest stretching south below them is as white as the mountains are to their north. The washout area they found the library basin in has, unfortunately, less than 3 feet of snow everywhere but there are areas where the snow has drifted around the stones that used to be the cork to the entrance and a few other larger boulders. A constant, biting wind down from the mountains creates small flurries every couple of minutes that blow past.

The golem exits with the party and makes a slow, silent circle before returning below. A few minutes later the Librarian herself emerges from the hole, blinking. She does the same slow twist as the golem pausing once for several long seconds. She says quietly, almost lost under the whistling of the wind,

"The sun..."

Shaking from whatever held her the Librarian looks to those assembled outside,

"I admit I had difficulty believing your claims that - was gone, but there is nothing left." She points up the slope and says, "The Monument of Peace, visible for leagues, stood there. There was the Hall of Council. The Spring Gardens..." She trails off before restarting in a thoughtful tone, "I have outlived other cities, I have outlived other civilizations, but never has a city simply vanished in a night."

Looking again to the south treeline, the ever narrowing Cut clearly visible in the distance, the party realize that anyone looking to the north, to this scoured slope could see them.

((You have a couple hours of daylight left, doing anything with them? The Librarian would lead the party, with a golem, to where she believes them to be.))

If Kroshav was to be shoving snow then Cladmir will definitely be there helping out as well.  

See outside landmark clearly and the librarian referring to structures at different locations, Cladmir will try again to recall if in all his travels he has recall seeing any maps that had topology that may match what he sees and what may have been drawn on those maps.  Hopefully the magic of the knowledge of the location would not extend that far from this place.

History:  19

Cladmir is also somewhat eager to explore after being underground for a while, and while he will not vocalize this is body language is pretty clear in his eagerness.

Cladmir does remember this area from some maps he has seen of the Duchy, the narrow and deepening ravine that is the Cut is what really sparks the memory. That map wasn't that old, at least the guy selling it said was from the newest sources. Based on the sun and location of the mountains along with his memory of that map, Cladmir realizes he is a large distance south east of where the Drow ambushed him.

Cladmir doesn't recall seeing any thing like the Cut on any of older maps the old guy had in his books about the squabbling kingdoms of the south, but there were a lot more lines on that map. He also is pretty sure this area was all forest, no city on the edge of the mountain range.

If asked about the Cut the Librarian,

"It is new. Or rather, it wasn't there when I last went down into the archives of library. The mountains also look different."

Her head turns to consider the mountain range looming near and large above the party.

((Intelligence check, advantage if anyone with geology knowledge/experience!))

Kroshav: 14

Kroshav doesn't know much mountains but now that he is this close and they are covered in snow something hits him - a gust of wind blowing snow down the sides of the nearest mountain. All the wind is kinda of being forced to go a certain way through the mountains, so it is like it is all being pushed to right where they are, where the city was. When that snow melts, all that water is probably gonna come here too. His brain churns for a second at the thought that air and water are kind of the same in lots of ways and maybe they interact in the same way to stuff in their way but 'cus both are hard to see most of the time people don't really understand it! He shakes that silly thought off and instead focuses on what is important.

Real dumb place to build a city...unless maybe the mountains haven't always been that shape? Hard to tell with the snow, but maybe?

"Did -- flood in the spring when things melted? Seems like a not good place to put a city if it can't handle water.", the dragonborn moves his mouth about but doesn't say anything when skipping the name of the city.

He thinks for a bit.

"Cladmir, you've campaigned before, ever had to dig earthworks? If you're setting up a camp where you think you're gonna be for a bit, you can get soldiers to dig up dirt and make a big mound. Can put pointy sticks and the like on it too, to make it harder to get at. But if it's raining, you can make it so it keeps the water from flooding the camp. Got those diggin' claws, can build up earthworks around the entrance here, so the water goes that way. Dig down to any other basements too."

((He's not enough of a smart guy to come up with the military engineering for stuff like that, but he's seen it done!))

Intelligence: 13

intelligence: 10

redo!

Jaq asks the librarian, (Do we know her name?) "Which way is the building you think might have had the deep basement?"

"And do you have anything down in the library that we can transport up here that can work as a cover for this entrance?"

Jaq also takes a good strong look at the Cut.  Does he see anything moving around down there?

Perception: 7

The Librarian shakes her head to Kroshav's question,

"There was no significant flooding here, I am not sure of the Dwarven engineering details but most of the water was directed into canals. Everyone was aware of the spring melts starting as they were gathered and then used to flush the city sewers. They called it the 'Spring Cleaning'. The smell that followed was heralded as the arrival of spring in -."

Jaq looks to the mountains and doesn't see anything that seems different from any other but does see the wisdom in Kroshav's suggestion about not building on a flood plain.

The Librarian answers Jaq by bringing a golem up to point north, towards the mountains.

"Both the buildings, the Council Hall and Hall of Record were on Monument Square."

She closes her eyes and takes a few breaths before opening them,

"It has been a long time, and the mountains don't look like they did before and everything else is gone but they should be there."

The golem adjusts its pointing ever so slightly.

To Jaq's question about items to cover the entrance,

"My resources are limited to whatever the Drow had and my books. I presume you don't mean we should place the Drow's desks and beds here?"

While he thinks on the options, Jaq looks south into the forest and the Cut. The setting sun glints off the snow as it swirls around him before racing away to join the drifts against the treeline or continue down the empty beginnings of the long ravine. Nothing else moves or catches his eye.

Should Lurn come up (with his sky high passive perception), he notices a few locations with light, nearly invisible, lines of smoke rising. The owners of these fires are, at best, a couple days travel away.

((@Spider and Cladmir, The miles wide area that the library archives is situated in scoured nearly completely clean of soil. Under the snow it is mostly just bare rock so building earthworks will be more difficult than piling dirt.

@Jaq, she'd forgotten the name she had first been given and was mostly just know as the Librarian.))

Kroshav pokes around a bit, and finds/remembers that is rock beneath the score.

"Oh, it's bare rock... Those claws should still work though, right?"

((It'd be a project, but the claws could borrow at a good clip through solid rock, Kroshav would likely need the librarian or someone to lay or a course for him, but he'd be willing to umber hulk his way around, trenching the place. 1 ft per round is still 10 ft a minute through solid rock...))

((The claws make it possible in an afternoon, depending on how ambitious you're getting and how deep you plan to trench.))

Cladmir will assist with the trenching, of course, glad to be of any help to Kroshav and happy to put his skills to use.  Since the goal is to also to also divert he water from getting into the library he would assist with arranging the trench and placement of the displaced rock and whatever materials that can be spared from the library to maximize the effectiveness and minimize work.  it will still take an afternoon to do, though.

Kroshav starts trying to figure out where the library below would be relative to the snowy and windy expanse, but his brain starts hurting, so he turns to the Librarian.

"We can dig down so that any water would go around and out that way, but don't want to dig a hole into some other part of your Library and have the same problems. Suppose it doesn't have to be today, but if you can pace--- errr... have your golems pace off where to put the trench so it protects your library and doesn't harm any other places? We can see about digging into other basements too."

He frowns.

"Could - have gotten washed away by a flood years ago? What's downstream that way, any one been there, any ruined cities you've stumbled across?"

The Librarian looks over the snow,

"I will need to confer with the plans. I have no good way of knowing for sure where the library is under the stone without measuring. Perhaps channels further to the north diverting the flows would be preferable? It seems I have some research to conduct, this is a first."

The Librarian lowers herself to eye level with Kroshav and asks,

"Do you believe you are saying something when you should say -? Because you are not, you merely look like you're holding your breath. It is fine to call...the city something else if you'd prefer."

She then straightens and looks south,

"I was there before but there was no ravine then. I have not heard of a city immediately south of this one, lost or otherwise."

((Everyone but Cladmir has been south of here, more or less. It is forest and ravine, but potentially something could still be hidden there.))

"No, I know I'm not saying it, I'm just making it sound like what we hear when you say it. Was this top level of your Library right under the ground, or are there a few levels of basement already missing from the Lost City of... wherever this is?"

"No, the first level of the library archives is still here. The stones haven't yet worn away, though that is disturbing to contemplate."

"So if it get washed away or whatever, it was just the aboveground stuff. Weird.", Kroshav shrugs as his mind flees from thinking too hard about how long it would take to wear away stone.

"Well, whenever you're feeling good about where to dig, I can get started. We want to check out other maybe basements in the meantime? If they connect to any of the drow tunnels, it'd be good to know before they just pop out of the snow. Speaking of, where'd the part we caved in be? Did that sink lower up here?"

((I don't think Lurn did opt to go up, focused on his book copying project, and since it's all stone there wouldn't be much point asking him for help with digging, unless Mould Earth would treat the broken stone as "loose earth" those shove out of the trench.))

((Guess it depends on what the claws leave behind? If they allow someone using them to tunnel ten feet a second through solid stone, I'd imagine the material being heaved out the back end must be fairly fine to be able to keep progressing?))