(What was the name of the society and invitation Erudisia received and missed while away? Where she was invited to give another recital of her own work? (I will start making proper notes!))
“From a previous episode”
(…The priestess, with her milky contralto and round, androgynous face, her blond curls just hidden by her mortarboard cap, is of indeterminate age. 40? 50? 60?
“I am called Tona. My area of research is dance and culture on the Sword Coast.
“Lady Erudisia, I – several of us – would be so very delighted if you would consider sharing your talents once again… We have a parlor, you see, for music and poetry, and with room for dance.
“We meet twice a month, in the afternoon. Tea, chatting, and then sharing, whoever has something new… Our next meeting is in two afternoons, in the Parlor of Observance. Will you come?... And share your Perspicacity and Passion, in the Aulë…?”)
The flickering lamplight cast long, dancing shadows across Bell's study, illuminating scrolls stacked precariously. She leaned back in her high-backed armchair, a half-empty goblet of spiced cider clutched in one hand, the other resting on a weighty tome filled with arcane symbols. Her brow, usually furrowed in concentration, was now smooth, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. The recent 'trip' to Baldur's Gate, a heist at a devil's casino, and so much more replayed itself in her mind's eye like a vibrant tapestry of triumphs and near-disasters.
"We really needed a cleric or a couple dozen healing potions," she murmured to the empty room, a faint chuckle escaping her lips. "If only we had a cantrip or spell to cover emergencies in the thick of things!" Her voice, normally precise and melodious, was raspy with the remnants of her latest attempt at a healing spell.
The history books spoke of wizards with healing spells even the use of a Wish spell but, those were very high level and a bit of overkill in most instances. It was why she finally ended up speaking to the clerics at the Temple of Oghma for some insight and information. According to the clerics, arcane and divine magic traditionally have distinct origins from their power. The primary source of arcane energy was the Weave, a cosmic force that permeates the multiverse. Accessing the Weave for arcane magic is a matter of the caster's will and learned skill. Divine magic typically stems from a connection to a deity or strong belief which grants spells and powers to the disciple.
This was reflected in the spells available to each type of spellcaster, as wizards tend to have spells focused on manipulating the physical world or elements, while clerics focus on healing, protection, and directly invoking divine favor. Brute force versus sustained precisionand finesse. That explained why Bell had been failing at 'simple healing' spells. Pouring massive amounts of power into a wound did not make it heal; typically, it made it worse. Like trying to pack a wound with a fire spell; it was too disruptive. It also explained why, when attempting a Sacred Flame cantrip, the bloody thing kept turning into her well practiced Light cantrip. And the one pass at Healing Word ended up being a mucked up Mend spell. The worshippers of Oghma said it would take more than 'reading books' to learn those simple cantrips and spells. They suggested finding some sick farm animals to work on for 'hands on' experience. Bell still was not certain working on a farm animal would be the same as a person bleeding to death but, the clerics seemed resolute in their approach.
With a sigh, Bell took one last sip of her cider and got back to her notes. She was attempting to break down the clerics' cantrips and spell into its component parts: the specific words used, the hand gestures, and even the emotional state the cleric adopts, hoping to find a pattern or formula that can be replicated. She had even gone so far as to substitute arcane components for divine ones and making etched runes to replace a holy symbol. She knew she was getting closer to a breakthrough with her last attempt at Healing Word, even though the manifestion of the spell was not like what she had witnessed at the Temple. Instead of a warm, golden glow, Bell's casting manifest as a pale, ethereal light, accompanied by the scent of ozone rather than incense. Still, it was a start. The spell, Sacred Flame, was a real frustration. Instead of some celestial light from above, she was near to calling down a column of fire. She knew she had spent too many hours memorizing attack spells involving fire and fire projection. Now, it was coming back to haunt her. She sighed as she moved her notes aside and made room for a stack of tomes.
She glanced at the titles as she rearranged them for the fifth time this evening.
The Reluctant Healer: An Arcane Guide to Averting Death (and Sacrilege) A no-nonsense wizard's attempt to bridge the gap between complex arcane formulae and the seemingly simpler (and often maddeningly faith-based) principles of divine healing.
Sorcery and Sanctity: A Wizard's Heretical Journey into the Healing Arts Charting the trials and tribulations of a mage seeking to understand and harness the power of faith-based healing, much to the dismay of both his peers and the deities involved.
The other two tomes she shoved over to the other side of the table. They were just a bit too 'Dark' for what she wished to accomplish.
Infernal Healing: A Wizard's Pact with the Less-than-Divine to Mend Mortal Flesh A darker take on the concept, where a wizard, perhaps lacking true divine connection, turns to alternative, morally questionable sources for healing power.
Soul Splicing and the Healer's Hand: A Necromancer's Guide to Restoring the Living (and the Undead) An unsettling look at how a wizard specializing in necromancy might adapt their knowledge of life and death to the practice of healing, perhaps blurring the lines between restoration and something far more sinister.
Bellcould almost swear those two books were taking sips of her aura whenever she touched them. "Those two go back to the Front Desk tonight!", she muttered as she delved back into her research.
(( So, a long short story to say, Bell will be resting, studying, and trying to learn some basic cleric cantrips and a healing spell... after she kept muttering how those would have been handy on their trip to Baldur's Gate. ))
A letter for Meredith: a response from Prysqis. Teasing, wise, pleased and pleasing in tone. She requests another poem of Meredith when she next writes.
A letter from home for Bell, catching her up on all the goings on of the Whether household. “Oh, and these came, letters for you from the Tower. Love, Mom.” The enclosures, 3 letters, are from the Tower’s Dean of Students, reminding Bell that “she graduated with a contract that stated she would send monthly payments of coin and/or any new books and scrolls she might come upon until such time as her debt was repaid” to the Tower (cribbed from your character backstory). The tone of the first letter is a reminder that alumni are always welcome to visit. The second letter says, “just wondering if you got my first letter,” and the third one is a bit snippy. Bell’s mother left them sitting on the counter unopened for many a tenday, it seems.
Erudisia receives a letter from Alana Silvershield whose words are blotted with tears, telling of how her father insists she be more social and join a young women’s club, whether she wants to or not. Alana can barely stand the likelihood that she will face mortal embarrassment. The final page is plainly written a few days later, and in it, her tone changes a bit. “Finally, a kind voice – other than yours, my dearest older sister, if I may call you that, and I know I can, for you are so generous,” et cetera, “a kind voice have I found to turn to when I feel smashed upon the rocks of society…”
Meredith spends an inordinate amount of time squeeing and pushing the letter into the others faces with a stupid grin on her face..........then writes more poems.
( We'll assume her admission on the road was not understood or simply ignored.)
When our tale continues, it is early in Kythorn, “The Time of Flowers,” the sixth month of the year 1492DR, and the land of Faerûn is at its height of glorious beauty. Springtime has matured like a benevolent conjuring whose magic, rather than spending itself, grows with each passing moment. Even in Candlekeep — a place of study and asceticism rather than Dionysian joys — the courtyard structures are draped with wisteria and clematis, and the buzzing of bees and chirping of sparrows in their nests animates and enlivens even the dullest afternoon.
At least, it does so for those who are out of doors and at liberty to breathe the fresh air. Of this fact the three of you may be particularly conscious at this very moment, when you are sequestered in a study room in the Naturalist’s Annex, continuing your dogged and relentless search for references to, authors concerned with, and/or enchantments requiring as spell components, magical mushrooms.
“I awake,” says Little One, snapping to wakefulness. The ogre has just nodded off a few minutes ago, then commenced snoring too loudly for anyone to concentrate and thus needing to be poked. It was Erudisia’s turn to do so, “Am sorry, Air D. But I rather be outside. I notice many things there now I not notice before headband. Is like my first speingtime. Study movement of bees. Think may be interesting maths to describe patterns.”
He sighs, returning to the huge tome lying open before him.
(Everyone please roll Investigation to see how your research is coming, tell us how you are dressed, and join conversation (or not :).)
After the chill of winter, spring’s warmth is a welcome change, or at least it would be, if they were not in the Naturalist’s annex, where the air is humid and the books sticky. It is a wonder that the preservations of the avowed can know any success but the endless parade of pristine books is testament.
Erudisia is quite sure, wiping one sweaty forearm against her slick brow, that the books will outlast her. The air is still, the drone of insects and the hotness of her own breath (an unknowable quality, excepting in illness and ill-use on pleasant days) roasts her throat with her inhalation.
She swallows thickly.
“Not the bees. Not the bees, Little One. We are due to be working, and I do not think the Keeper has much tolerance for us left in her. I would rather not make a reason to find ourselves under her scrutiny again. We are in short supply of support at present, for this Scholar’s Shield venture.”
And indeed, the last little while for Erudisia has been testing. Eagerly she awaits further correspondence from Alana, whose tone and choices and penmanship so markedly changed mid-letter. Bell she has barely seen, and Meredith is entirely in a land of her own creation, that admits only one other, but publishes regular periodicals. Of the Sage, Tona, she has had no response to her missive, and has not seen her, even when searching the places a sage ought to be.
Indeed her only success in recent times was a perfunctory interaction with the book binder who with grunts conveyed as much as your average editorial, or a foreword for a high concept and little read fiction. She wears now at her hip her Tome of shadow and air, integrated with the peculiar book of magic plucked from the casino.
Erudisia inhales air like a sinusitic dragon, and growls at the inward flame. “Fine. All endurance has limits. What have we found, then we call it even-time.”
Merediths field of research had narrowed somewhat, though still broadly based in cataloguing every feline creature within Faerun she was currently writing a paper on Lions as a Keystone Species of the Sword Coast and how their presence benefited and added to the entire regional ecology. To this end she had dispatched a number of letters to landholders and other interested parties along the Lion Road asking for first hand accounts of environmental and other impacts on the region in recent times.
She was also in very regular correspondence with Prysqis, though she tried her very best to be less effusive around Erudisia and Bell she did spend her spare time pouring through tomes regarding the Feywild and means of traversing there.....though dur to Erudisias at times concerned looks she also perused some volumes on the dangers of the Feywild. She also did her best to keep an eye on Bell, she was unsure if she had been fully forgiven and it weighed heavily on her heart so she was always sure to enquire how Bell was and how her studies were progressing.
Today she was dressed in a light pair of white cotton shalwar paired with strappy rattan sandals and a fitted vest....technically the vest should have had a blouse under it but, unlike Bell, she was extremely unlikely to spill out of the vest once fastened and the warm spring air on her bare skin reminded her enough of home to ease any longing.
She kept her eye out for opportunities to visit Baldurs Gate or put her Feywild knowledge to use....
She passed Erudisia a Prestidigitation chilled damp cloth as she noted her discomfort.
The silence of the Naturalist’s Annex is, perhaps to your relief, broken when a child is heard coming down the hallway, humming as they skip. A minute after the sound passes, it comes back, and if you happen to be facing the door, you see a face peeking around the corner, searching the room curiously. Soon, the face’s attached body comes into view too, and the child, a human girl, perhaps 8 years old, with well-brushed straight auburn hair hanging neatly to her shoulders, enters the room. She seems to rein in her energy, purposefully pushing her lips together as she approaches your studious group.
“Is this the Naturalist Annex?,” she asks, curtsying in a single quick bounce, and pulling errant hairs away from her face. Although her question is directed to the women at the table, her eyes are mostly on Little One, although she doesn’t seem particularly surprised at his presence.
“From a previous episode”
(…The priestess, with her milky contralto and round, androgynous face, her blond curls just hidden by her mortarboard cap, is of indeterminate age. 40? 50? 60?
“I am called Tona. My area of research is dance and culture on the Sword Coast.
“Lady Erudisia, I – several of us – would be so very delighted if you would consider sharing your talents once again… We have a parlor, you see, for music and poetry, and with room for dance.
“We meet twice a month, in the afternoon. Tea, chatting, and then sharing, whoever has something new… Our next meeting is in two afternoons, in the Parlor of Observance. Will you come?... And share your Perspicacity and Passion, in the Aulë…?”)
(The group seems to be without a name.)
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
The flickering lamplight cast long, dancing shadows across Bell's study, illuminating scrolls stacked precariously. She leaned back in her high-backed armchair, a half-empty goblet of spiced cider clutched in one hand, the other resting on a weighty tome filled with arcane symbols. Her brow, usually furrowed in concentration, was now smooth, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. The recent 'trip' to Baldur's Gate, a heist at a devil's casino, and so much more replayed itself in her mind's eye like a vibrant tapestry of triumphs and near-disasters.
"We really needed a cleric or a couple dozen healing potions," she murmured to the empty room, a faint chuckle escaping her lips. "If only we had a cantrip or spell to cover emergencies in the thick of things!" Her voice, normally precise and melodious, was raspy with the remnants of her latest attempt at a healing spell.
The history books spoke of wizards with healing spells even the use of a Wish spell but, those were very high level and a bit of overkill in most instances. It was why she finally ended up speaking to the clerics at the Temple of Oghma for some insight and information. According to the clerics, arcane and divine magic traditionally have distinct origins from their power. The primary source of arcane energy was the Weave, a cosmic force that permeates the multiverse. Accessing the Weave for arcane magic is a matter of the caster's will and learned skill. Divine magic typically stems from a connection to a deity or strong belief which grants spells and powers to the disciple.
This was reflected in the spells available to each type of spellcaster, as wizards tend to have spells focused on manipulating the physical world or elements, while clerics focus on healing, protection, and directly invoking divine favor. Brute force versus sustained precisionand finesse. That explained why Bell had been failing at 'simple healing' spells. Pouring massive amounts of power into a wound did not make it heal; typically, it made it worse. Like trying to pack a wound with a fire spell; it was too disruptive. It also explained why, when attempting a Sacred Flame cantrip, the bloody thing kept turning into her well practiced Light cantrip. And the one pass at Healing Word ended up being a mucked up Mend spell. The worshippers of Oghma said it would take more than 'reading books' to learn those simple cantrips and spells. They suggested finding some sick farm animals to work on for 'hands on' experience. Bell still was not certain working on a farm animal would be the same as a person bleeding to death but, the clerics seemed resolute in their approach.
With a sigh, Bell took one last sip of her cider and got back to her notes. She was attempting to break down the clerics' cantrips and spell into its component parts: the specific words used, the hand gestures, and even the emotional state the cleric adopts, hoping to find a pattern or formula that can be replicated. She had even gone so far as to substitute arcane components for divine ones and making etched runes to replace a holy symbol. She knew she was getting closer to a breakthrough with her last attempt at Healing Word, even though the manifestion of the spell was not like what she had witnessed at the Temple. Instead of a warm, golden glow, Bell's casting manifest as a pale, ethereal light, accompanied by the scent of ozone rather than incense. Still, it was a start. The spell, Sacred Flame, was a real frustration. Instead of some celestial light from above, she was near to calling down a column of fire. She knew she had spent too many hours memorizing attack spells involving fire and fire projection. Now, it was coming back to haunt her. She sighed as she moved her notes aside and made room for a stack of tomes.
She glanced at the titles as she rearranged them for the fifth time this evening.
The Reluctant Healer: An Arcane Guide to Averting Death (and Sacrilege)
A no-nonsense wizard's attempt to bridge the gap between complex arcane formulae and the seemingly simpler (and often maddeningly faith-based) principles of divine healing.
Sorcery and Sanctity: A Wizard's Heretical Journey into the Healing Arts
Charting the trials and tribulations of a mage seeking to understand and harness the power of faith-based healing, much to the dismay of both his peers and the deities involved.
The other two tomes she shoved over to the other side of the table. They were just a bit too 'Dark' for what she wished to accomplish.
Infernal Healing: A Wizard's Pact with the Less-than-Divine to Mend Mortal Flesh
A darker take on the concept, where a wizard, perhaps lacking true divine connection, turns to alternative, morally questionable sources for healing power.
Soul Splicing and the Healer's Hand: A Necromancer's Guide to Restoring the Living (and the Undead)
An unsettling look at how a wizard specializing in necromancy might adapt their knowledge of life and death to the practice of healing, perhaps blurring the lines between restoration and something far more sinister.
Bell could almost swear those two books were taking sips of her aura whenever she touched them. "Those two go back to the Front Desk tonight!", she muttered as she delved back into her research.
(( So, a long short story to say, Bell will be resting, studying, and trying to learn some basic cleric cantrips and a healing spell... after she kept muttering how those would have been handy on their trip to Baldur's Gate. ))
The mailman cometh!
A letter for Meredith: a response from Prysqis. Teasing, wise, pleased and pleasing in tone. She requests another poem of Meredith when she next writes.
A letter from home for Bell, catching her up on all the goings on of the Whether household. “Oh, and these came, letters for you from the Tower. Love, Mom.”
The enclosures, 3 letters, are from the Tower’s Dean of Students, reminding Bell that “she graduated with a contract that stated she would send monthly payments of coin and/or any new books and scrolls she might come upon until such time as her debt was repaid” to the Tower (cribbed from your character backstory). The tone of the first letter is a reminder that alumni are always welcome to visit. The second letter says, “just wondering if you got my first letter,” and the third one is a bit snippy. Bell’s mother left them sitting on the counter unopened for many a tenday, it seems.
Erudisia receives a letter from Alana Silvershield whose words are blotted with tears, telling of how her father insists she be more social and join a young women’s club, whether she wants to or not. Alana can barely stand the likelihood that she will face mortal embarrassment. The final page is plainly written a few days later, and in it, her tone changes a bit. “Finally, a kind voice – other than yours, my dearest older sister, if I may call you that, and I know I can, for you are so generous,” et cetera, “a kind voice have I found to turn to when I feel smashed upon the rocks of society…”
(I’ll start the next story chapter tomorrow.)
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Meredith spends an inordinate amount of time squeeing and pushing the letter into the others faces with a stupid grin on her face..........then writes more poems.
( We'll assume her admission on the road was not understood or simply ignored.)
Chapter 5: Shemshime's Bedtime Rhyme
When our tale continues, it is early in Kythorn, “The Time of Flowers,” the sixth month of the year 1492DR, and the land of Faerûn is at its height of glorious beauty. Springtime has matured like a benevolent conjuring whose magic, rather than spending itself, grows with each passing moment. Even in Candlekeep — a place of study and asceticism rather than Dionysian joys — the courtyard structures are draped with wisteria and clematis, and the buzzing of bees and chirping of sparrows in their nests animates and enlivens even the dullest afternoon.
At least, it does so for those who are out of doors and at liberty to breathe the fresh air. Of this fact the three of you may be particularly conscious at this very moment, when you are sequestered in a study room in the Naturalist’s Annex, continuing your dogged and relentless search for references to, authors concerned with, and/or enchantments requiring as spell components, magical mushrooms.
“I awake,” says Little One, snapping to wakefulness. The ogre has just nodded off a few minutes ago, then commenced snoring too loudly for anyone to concentrate and thus needing to be poked. It was Erudisia’s turn to do so, “Am sorry, Air D. But I rather be outside. I notice many things there now I not notice before headband. Is like my first speingtime. Study movement of bees. Think may be interesting maths to describe patterns.”
He sighs, returning to the huge tome lying open before him.
(Everyone please roll Investigation to see how your research is coming, tell us how you are dressed, and join conversation (or not :).)
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Investigation: 9
After the chill of winter, spring’s warmth is a welcome change, or at least it would be, if they were not in the Naturalist’s annex, where the air is humid and the books sticky. It is a wonder that the preservations of the avowed can know any success but the endless parade of pristine books is testament.
Erudisia is quite sure, wiping one sweaty forearm against her slick brow, that the books will outlast her. The air is still, the drone of insects and the hotness of her own breath (an unknowable quality, excepting in illness and ill-use on pleasant days) roasts her throat with her inhalation.
She swallows thickly.
“Not the bees. Not the bees, Little One. We are due to be working, and I do not think the Keeper has much tolerance for us left in her. I would rather not make a reason to find ourselves under her scrutiny again. We are in short supply of support at present, for this Scholar’s Shield venture.”
And indeed, the last little while for Erudisia has been testing. Eagerly she awaits further correspondence from Alana, whose tone and choices and penmanship so markedly changed mid-letter. Bell she has barely seen, and Meredith is entirely in a land of her own creation, that admits only one other, but publishes regular periodicals. Of the Sage, Tona, she has had no response to her missive, and has not seen her, even when searching the places a sage ought to be.
Indeed her only success in recent times was a perfunctory interaction with the book binder who with grunts conveyed as much as your average editorial, or a foreword for a high concept and little read fiction. She wears now at her hip her Tome of shadow and air, integrated with the peculiar book of magic plucked from the casino.
Erudisia inhales air like a sinusitic dragon, and growls at the inward flame. “Fine. All endurance has limits. What have we found, then we call it even-time.”
Meredith Investigation- 9
Merediths field of research had narrowed somewhat, though still broadly based in cataloguing every feline creature within Faerun she was currently writing a paper on Lions as a Keystone Species of the Sword Coast and how their presence benefited and added to the entire regional ecology. To this end she had dispatched a number of letters to landholders and other interested parties along the Lion Road asking for first hand accounts of environmental and other impacts on the region in recent times.
She was also in very regular correspondence with Prysqis, though she tried her very best to be less effusive around Erudisia and Bell she did spend her spare time pouring through tomes regarding the Feywild and means of traversing there.....though dur to Erudisias at times concerned looks she also perused some volumes on the dangers of the Feywild. She also did her best to keep an eye on Bell, she was unsure if she had been fully forgiven and it weighed heavily on her heart so she was always sure to enquire how Bell was and how her studies were progressing.
Today she was dressed in a light pair of white cotton shalwar paired with strappy rattan sandals and a fitted vest....technically the vest should have had a blouse under it but, unlike Bell, she was extremely unlikely to spill out of the vest once fastened and the warm spring air on her bare skin reminded her enough of home to ease any longing.
She kept her eye out for opportunities to visit Baldurs Gate or put her Feywild knowledge to use....
She passed Erudisia a Prestidigitation chilled damp cloth as she noted her discomfort.
The silence of the Naturalist’s Annex is, perhaps to your relief, broken when a child is heard coming down the hallway, humming as they skip. A minute after the sound passes, it comes back, and if you happen to be facing the door, you see a face peeking around the corner, searching the room curiously. Soon, the face’s attached body comes into view too, and the child, a human girl, perhaps 8 years old, with well-brushed straight auburn hair hanging neatly to her shoulders, enters the room. She seems to rein in her energy, purposefully pushing her lips together as she approaches your studious group.
“Is this the Naturalist Annex?,” she asks, curtsying in a single quick bounce, and pulling errant hairs away from her face. Although her question is directed to the women at the table, her eyes are mostly on Little One, although she doesn’t seem particularly surprised at his presence.
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Bell Investigation: 15