“No,” Valna responds, eyes casting about the entire courtyard before lingering inquisitively on the House of Rest, under which lies the Firefly Cellar.
“No, Gailby is the only child here. What child comes to Candlekeep alone with a book we do not already count in our collection, or, what adult, with the requisite donation in one hand, arrives holding a child by the other?,” she inquires rhetorically.
“And the Avowed are vowed to celibacy.”
“But Gailby’s father’s story is not mine to tell. It is he, the widower, a clerk for the priests of Oghma, who requested, and was granted, sole license to bring his daughter here.”
She stops speaking, for another sound is now heard. The eternal chant, the constant repetition of the prescient foretellings of Aulando the Seer, chanted by a group of Avowed at all times… you hear the chant echoing below the castle, coming up through the air vents. But it is not Aulondo’s words they now sing. It is Gailby’s song!
Valna’s eyes widen in horror.
“I must inform the Keeper of Tomes immediately of this incursion,” she hisses, casting her glance around the courtyard, at the open gate, the priests of Oghma in the tent beyond, at Bell’s web, holding now a becalmed horse and an anxiously melodious postal rider, at the temple of Oghma, at the House of Rest, and back to you.
“I command you to reestablish order here and find out what you can about this… this Shemshime’s Bedtime Rhyme!!”
With a brisk swishing of satiny robes, Valna Oxylanthrinn rushes back to the Emerald Door, passes through it, and is gone.
Meredith looked to the other two, " Do we question the girl? Or research to try and locate the songs original origin? Or something else? She kept looking at the House of Rest.....or below it....should we check there?"
( This will instead be quickly written down and displayed to the others if the Concentration Check fails).
Bell groans as she tries to keep her concentration focus while battling the urge to sing the child's song. Concentration: 15
She was finding it harder and harder to hold the web in place; sweat starting to bead on her brow as she fought the internal struggle as the main gate doors were finally being closed and bolted.
Erudisia taps her foot against the ground absent-mindedly. “The child,” she declares, as Oxylanthrinn vanishes through a grand doorway. “If we find Gailby, we might find also answers to other questions, too.”
Erudisia’s eyes linger on where the fierce warden has vanished. “Do you ever feel as if she thinks we are all dim-witted children ourselves? Don’t answer that. Let’s save our strength against this song.”
Erudisia moves to head towards where Gailby may be found if the others don’t disagree.
Indeed, the main gates are shut, allowing Bell to lower concentration and once again, stop herself from singing the rhyme. The horse approaches Meredith and nuzzles her in a friendly way before the stable hands return it to the stable. The guards bid the postman to "knock it off!," and help him up, brush him off, and sit him on a stool in the stable.
You still hear the Avowed chanting Shemshime's Rhyme. You suddenly notice that, though it is the height of summer, you can see your breath. A chill has descended upon Candlekeep, and hair-like strands of frost crinkle across the stonework all around you.
You know that the Firefly Cellar is under the House of Rest, but you’ve yet to enter it. The entrance is a small round tower, 10’ tall, adjoining to the base of the House of Rest. The tower holds a single door which, you’ve come to understand, opens onto a stairway down to the Firefly Cellar.
With Erudisia in the lead, you three approach this door. Little One follows.
A moment passes, then a number of latches and bolts are heard scraping against the door. It opens an inch, only a thin chain keeping it from opening farther.
An eye glares out fearfully, trying to see around corners. A moment passes.
“You are not singing!,” the voice says, “begone for your own sanity!,” and the door slams shut again.
Erudisia drops her concentration, letting the song come out. Her eyes signal to the others through unusually expressive and deft eyebrows that—should it not be an imposition, and if it not too untoward for her to request they make this interlocution while she is merely singing—they inform the quarantiners that their quarantine is now much larger than only the cellar.
The door creaks open again, chain still in place. The eye reappears in the open crack and balefully widens as Erudisia’s singing of the Shemshime rhyme continues. The chanting of the Avowed now gets closer too and the eye seems likely to pop.
“No…!,” the voice behind the door whispers.
The door closes again. A long moment passes until the chain lock can be heard, slowly being drawn. Then the door opens a third time, reluctantly, until the eye, then its mate, then the full face and figure of the Cellar inhabitant are in view. An elf woman, fully mature, even with some wrinkles and a strand of silver hair projecting from her temple to join the rest of her dark locks under a loose gray hijab. Her garb is that of a scribe, and she wears an old vestment which announces her as a senior among the Candlekeep scribes.
“I am Varnyr,” she says, the lines around her mouth firm and controlled. “What is it that you need, Scholar’s Shield? Perhaps you have knowledge of an antidote for this... this accursed singing?,” she asks, hopefully.
Erudisia concentrates on holding her song, but not her tongue, “Balm, elixir, dittany or antidote remain beyond us, I fear, until we understand the nature of this nursery rhyme.”
Erudisia peers beyond Varnyr’s shoulder, to see how large the cellar is and how many are huddled within.
“When did it first be sung, have any had it run its course, or otherwise been relieved of its grasp? Is singing it the only compunction, or have any suffered other compulsions — to dance or to act or some other thing?”
”Did it arrive with a seeker or supplicant, or, has it come from one of Candlekeep’s volumes, present here in the cellar or elsewhere?”
”Without full and comprehensive understanding of its cause we cannot arrive at a cure.”
“Alas,” Varnyr answers, “more questions, when I’d hoped for answers. All I can say for certain is that I heard the tune last night as I was falling asleep, and I woke up singing it while not knowing I was singing. Not until this afternoon did I finally realize. And everyone in the Firefly Cellar now suffers the same maddening malady. Come in. And tell me, why do you come to the Firefly Cellar when the song is sung throughout Candlekeep?”
You follow her down a spiral staircase which opens onto a first subterranean level, filled with books on shelves lit by jars filled with bioluminescent amber fireflies. The stairs continue down but you exit them after Varnyr onto this level:
Meredith tries to work it out, " You heard it last night........we only heard it outside today......it stands to reason it likely originated in here unless it came from outside and this is the first place whoever carried it stopped."
" Do you recall who you heard singing it?"
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“No,” Valna responds, eyes casting about the entire courtyard before lingering inquisitively on the House of Rest, under which lies the Firefly Cellar.
“No, Gailby is the only child here. What child comes to Candlekeep alone with a book we do not already count in our collection, or, what adult, with the requisite donation in one hand, arrives holding a child by the other?,” she inquires rhetorically.
“And the Avowed are vowed to celibacy.”
“But Gailby’s father’s story is not mine to tell. It is he, the widower, a clerk for the priests of Oghma, who requested, and was granted, sole license to bring his daughter here.”
She stops speaking, for another sound is now heard. The eternal chant, the constant repetition of the prescient foretellings of Aulando the Seer, chanted by a group of Avowed at all times… you hear the chant echoing below the castle, coming up through the air vents. But it is not Aulondo’s words they now sing. It is Gailby’s song!
Valna’s eyes widen in horror.
“I must inform the Keeper of Tomes immediately of this incursion,” she hisses, casting her glance around the courtyard, at the open gate, the priests of Oghma in the tent beyond, at Bell’s web, holding now a becalmed horse and an anxiously melodious postal rider, at the temple of Oghma, at the House of Rest, and back to you.
“I command you to reestablish order here and find out what you can about this… this Shemshime’s Bedtime Rhyme!!”
With a brisk swishing of satiny robes, Valna Oxylanthrinn rushes back to the Emerald Door, passes through it, and is gone.
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Meredith looked to the other two, " Do we question the girl? Or research to try and locate the songs original origin? Or something else? She kept looking at the House of Rest.....or below it....should we check there?"
( This will instead be quickly written down and displayed to the others if the Concentration Check fails).
Concentration- 2
Bell groans as she tries to keep her concentration focus while battling the urge to sing the child's song. Concentration: 15
She was finding it harder and harder to hold the web in place; sweat starting to bead on her brow as she fought the internal struggle as the main gate doors were finally being closed and bolted.
Concentration: 10.
Erudisia taps her foot against the ground absent-mindedly. “The child,” she declares, as Oxylanthrinn vanishes through a grand doorway. “If we find Gailby, we might find also answers to other questions, too.”
Erudisia’s eyes linger on where the fierce warden has vanished. “Do you ever feel as if she thinks we are all dim-witted children ourselves? Don’t answer that. Let’s save our strength against this song.”
Erudisia moves to head towards where Gailby may be found if the others don’t disagree.
Indeed, the main gates are shut, allowing Bell to lower concentration and once again, stop herself from singing the rhyme. The horse approaches Meredith and nuzzles her in a friendly way before the stable hands return it to the stable. The guards bid the postman to "knock it off!," and help him up, brush him off, and sit him on a stool in the stable.
You still hear the Avowed chanting Shemshime's Rhyme. You suddenly notice that, though it is the height of summer, you can see your breath. A chill has descended upon Candlekeep, and hair-like strands of frost crinkle across the stonework all around you.
You know that the Firefly Cellar is under the House of Rest, but you’ve yet to enter it. The entrance is a small round tower, 10’ tall, adjoining to the base of the House of Rest. The tower holds a single door which, you’ve come to understand, opens onto a stairway down to the Firefly Cellar.
With Erudisia in the lead, you three approach this door. Little One follows.
Trying the handle, you find that it is locked.
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Erudisia knocks. “Hello?”
There is no response.
”Like this, Air D,” Little One says after a pause. He gently shifts Erudisia aside then pounds his loaf-sized fist on the door Boom, Boom, Boom!
The frost etching the door’s cracks splinters into a fine web. You shiver slightly in the unexpected coolness as you await a response.
A few moments later, an adult’s voice is heard weakly approaching on the other side, singing the Shemshime Rhyme. It stops, then shouts,
”Go away!! Sickness holds us!! We have quarantined ourselves!! Go away or you will suffer the same malady!!”
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
" Does it involve singing? If so its already out here.", Meredith said loudly, waving over her shoulder to the horse.
A moment passes, then a number of latches and bolts are heard scraping against the door. It opens an inch, only a thin chain keeping it from opening farther.
An eye glares out fearfully, trying to see around corners. A moment passes.
“You are not singing!,” the voice says, “begone for your own sanity!,” and the door slams shut again.
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Erudisia drops her concentration, letting the song come out. Her eyes signal to the others through unusually expressive and deft eyebrows that—should it not be an imposition, and if it not too untoward for her to request they make this interlocution while she is merely singing—they inform the quarantiners that their quarantine is now much larger than only the cellar.
The door creaks open again, chain still in place. The eye reappears in the open crack and balefully widens as Erudisia’s singing of the Shemshime rhyme continues. The chanting of the Avowed now gets closer too and the eye seems likely to pop.
“No…!,” the voice behind the door whispers.
The door closes again. A long moment passes until the chain lock can be heard, slowly being drawn. Then the door opens a third time, reluctantly, until the eye, then its mate, then the full face and figure of the Cellar inhabitant are in view. An elf woman, fully mature, even with some wrinkles and a strand of silver hair projecting from her temple to join the rest of her dark locks under a loose gray hijab. Her garb is that of a scribe, and she wears an old vestment which announces her as a senior among the Candlekeep scribes.
“I am Varnyr,” she says, the lines around her mouth firm and controlled. “What is it that you need, Scholar’s Shield? Perhaps you have knowledge of an antidote for this... this accursed singing?,” she asks, hopefully.
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Erudisia concentrates on holding her song, but not her tongue, “Balm, elixir, dittany or antidote remain beyond us, I fear, until we understand the nature of this nursery rhyme.”
Erudisia peers beyond Varnyr’s shoulder, to see how large the cellar is and how many are huddled within.
“When did it first be sung, have any had it run its course, or otherwise been relieved of its grasp? Is singing it the only compunction, or have any suffered other compulsions — to dance or to act or some other thing?”
”Did it arrive with a seeker or supplicant, or, has it come from one of Candlekeep’s volumes, present here in the cellar or elsewhere?”
”Without full and comprehensive understanding of its cause we cannot arrive at a cure.”
“Alas,” Varnyr answers, “more questions, when I’d hoped for answers. All I can say for certain is that I heard the tune last night as I was falling asleep, and I woke up singing it while not knowing I was singing. Not until this afternoon did I finally realize. And everyone in the Firefly Cellar now suffers the same maddening malady. Come in. And tell me, why do you come to the Firefly Cellar when the song is sung throughout Candlekeep?”
You follow her down a spiral staircase which opens onto a first subterranean level, filled with books on shelves lit by jars filled with bioluminescent amber fireflies. The stairs continue down but you exit them after Varnyr onto this level:
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Meredith tries to work it out, " You heard it last night........we only heard it outside today......it stands to reason it likely originated in here unless it came from outside and this is the first place whoever carried it stopped."
" Do you recall who you heard singing it?"