Erudisia looks at the mist and the further rooms hesitatingly. Still, she wouldn't have come to Candlekeep if she had the ability to resist a private collection.
"Let's check the subject matter," she says to Meredith. Mostly she will be reading the titles and perhaps flicking through a book or two of interest. At the front of her mind is the possiblity of Sheshime's bedtime rhyme being hidden amongst the shelves.
The titles most visible are scholarly volumes, including recent journals from the Vault of Sages and Blackstaff Tower and an old edition of Annals of Karsus. Leafing through several of them, you find a tight scribble on each inside front cover: “Property of Varnyr, Senior Scribe, Candlekeep.” Behind these titles are discovered many, many more volumes of, perhaps surprisingly, lots of steamy romance novels, including the complete 10-volume series by Mintiper Moonsilver.
Meredith pokes around corners and looks behind bookcases, but in only a minute or two, her Investigation roll of 20 tells us she is secure in the knowledge that there is nothing unexpected to be found in this room. Shemshime’s Bedtime Rhyme is definitively not here.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries //Dev Horndin Curious Critters
In the sterile, blue-white light streaming from Bell's upraised hand, the shadows seem to shift and move as she moves to look into the open door. A realm of spiced air and forgotten secrets slaps her in the face. The scent of dried herbs — thyme and rosemary and something sharper, like an old memory — mingled with the earthy perfume of root vegetables piled in shadowed corners. This was no ordinary larder; it was a testament to time, where every jar held more than just ingredients.
Bell looked at Ebdar, "You heard it too, didn't you?" She can not imagine anyone tucked into the dark corners as the shadows seem to slide away from the light.
The pantry is an 8’ square space with tall terra cotta crocks of grains and legumes under shelves holding spices and snacks (they seem to favor corn crisps). A water barrel stands in one corner. There is only a 3’-wide space in the middle of the pantry for one to step. The rest is all dark corners.
Bell sighs. Nooks, crannies, corners and odd angles. All filled with shadow. She will have to practically shove her clinched hand into every cobwebbed spot to properly see into the worst corners. "Ebdar, do YOU see anything or anyone? Maybe hidden treasures crammed into a corner? I really don't want to break the seals on all these jars and crocks..."
Ebdar and Bell began their search, their fingers brushing against dusty jars of unknown contents, dust kicking up with every probing touch. Crystallized ginger. A row of stoppered bottles filled with a liquid so clear it seemed to capture moonlight. With not much room to move about without bumping into each other, the duo works as best they can to see if they can find what made the noise they had heard.
Ebder nods assent to Bell, but with the young wizard’s magic piercing the darkness, it takes mere seconds to locate the source of the sound.
Crinkle and Gailby have managed to squeeze into the room’s corners. It’s amazing how little space a child requires. Crinkle, too, is all bones and feathers it seems.
“Caaaawwwoooww. My pinions are stuck,” the kenku moans in a whisper.
Gailby is still frightened and tries to make herself yet smaller, even, alas, when her own father reaches in to help her out.
“I’ll stay here with them,” he tells Bell before continuing to try to calm and coax his daughter out of her corner.
Bell joins Meredith and Erudisia as they enter the next door. This one leads to Gailby’s room. The door is partly open allowing you to see within.
Toys are scattered on an unmade bed, and piles of clothes obscure all but a few bare patches of the floorboards. Above a writing desk in the corner dangles a dragon marionette made from brass and wood, with wings of canvas dyed red. A round firefly lamp hangs in the opposite corner.
From the door, you see, on the writing desk, a thin, open book. Various brushes and pencils surround it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries //Dev Horndin Curious Critters
Bell left her waded ball of leather scraps in the pantry closet to provide light for Ebdar, his daughter, Gailby, & Crinkle. She took a moment to grab one of the firefly 'lamps' before entering the child's room. "Any clue what this thing looks like?"
Stepping over a stray paper with a crude drawing of an animal, Bell entered the room, the firefly lamp illuminating the air filled with the dust of old stories and forgotten games. She had entered Gailby's world, built from dreams and innocent chaos. Messy yet tidy; innocent yet, sending an icy dread snaking up her spine - chilling Bell to the bone.
The bed was made - as best as a youngling could do when in a hurry to escape into the wider world. Comfortable but not looking that comforting. A sparse life 'underground' in the lower chambers of this library annex. What few stuffed animals and frilly bits could not overcome the weight of the stones which surrounded this child's world. A collection of smooth, gray stones and shiny buttons and bits sat on the shelving above the bed, gathered from Gilby's excursions into the 'above ground' areas in Candlekeep.
Bell slowly turned in place; letting the firefly lamp cast it's dim light as best it could into the corners and around the sparsely furnished room. In the periphery of Bell's vision, she saw shadows twisting like spilled ink, whispering of a knowledge older than childhood. The air thickened, tasting of old paper and the metallic hint of spilled blood; the temperature dropping further. Her breath fogged her glasses as she strained to 'see' what she could see.
"Any chance that open book is it? Could we be that lucky?"
The open book is filled with a child’s drawings. At first, funny animals, and stick figures telling each other jokes. But not the open page. Here, and in recent pages, you find disturbing pictures that depict scenes from Shemshime’s Bedtime Rhyme. They’re done in brightly colored paint, the primary colors making them all the more unsettling. One of the images shows a man whose feet have been severed. Blood pours from his ankles and from the severed feet next to him. Another shows a boy underwater, grasping at his throat. The last one shows a dog with a severed hand in its mouth. A black cloud hovers over each scene.
Meredith finds nothing under the bed except a very small pink sock with tiny cross-stitched bunnies hopping along its cuff, long ago misplaced and forgotten.
Here is an updated map. 4 doors remain unopened, and the thin swirls of necrotic darkness seem to slither thicker the farther you go.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries //Dev Horndin Curious Critters
Bell does not reach in time to stop Erudisia from tearing out pages from the book. "Nooooo. We need to study....", she throws up her hands in frustration.
Perception: Nat20 + 1 == 21
"Well, so much for that. Any idea if that will stop the singing or reverse the curse? And, why are there more pages than what seems to cover the lyrics we all have been singing?"
Meredith placed the sock on top of the bed, " We need to go towards where the darkness is thicker........none of us wants to but our prize likely lies there."
“I’ll go first,” says Erudisia, feeling perhaps less brave than even her tremulous voice suggests. She leads the way into the thicker darkness, hesitantly, if the others come with her.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Erudisia looks at the mist and the further rooms hesitatingly. Still, she wouldn't have come to Candlekeep if she had the ability to resist a private collection.
"Let's check the subject matter," she says to Meredith. Mostly she will be reading the titles and perhaps flicking through a book or two of interest. At the front of her mind is the possiblity of Sheshime's bedtime rhyme being hidden amongst the shelves.
Meredith nods, initially she lets Erudisia concentrate on the shelves while she searches under cushions and behind furniture then joins Erudisia.
Investigation- 15
The titles most visible are scholarly volumes, including recent journals from the Vault of Sages and Blackstaff Tower and an old edition of Annals of Karsus. Leafing through several of them, you find a tight scribble on each inside front cover: “Property of Varnyr, Senior Scribe, Candlekeep.” Behind these titles are discovered many, many more volumes of, perhaps surprisingly, lots of steamy romance novels, including the complete 10-volume series by Mintiper Moonsilver.
Meredith pokes around corners and looks behind bookcases, but in only a minute or two, her Investigation roll of 20 tells us she is secure in the knowledge that there is nothing unexpected to be found in this room. Shemshime’s Bedtime Rhyme is definitively not here.
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters
" Moving on?", she queried Erudisia.
Her eyes roamed over the smut and smut-adjacent, " Or do you have some reading to do?", she grinned.
Erudisia blushes.
“No, no. I’ve read. Errr, I’ve read the annals of Karsus previously. Let us move on!”
Ebder nods assent to Bell, but with the young wizard’s magic piercing the darkness, it takes mere seconds to locate the source of the sound.
Crinkle and Gailby have managed to squeeze into the room’s corners. It’s amazing how little space a child requires. Crinkle, too, is all bones and feathers it seems.
“Caaaawwwoooww. My pinions are stuck,” the kenku moans in a whisper.
Gailby is still frightened and tries to make herself yet smaller, even, alas, when her own father reaches in to help her out.
“I’ll stay here with them,” he tells Bell before continuing to try to calm and coax his daughter out of her corner.
Bell joins Meredith and Erudisia as they enter the next door. This one leads to Gailby’s room. The door is partly open allowing you to see within.
Toys are scattered on an unmade bed, and piles of clothes obscure all but a few bare patches of the floorboards. Above a writing desk in the corner dangles a dragon marionette made from brass and wood, with wings of canvas dyed red. A round firefly lamp hangs in the opposite corner.
From the door, you see, on the writing desk, a thin, open book. Various brushes and pencils surround it.
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters
Meredith smirked and slipped The Dryads Peach into her pocket for later perusal.....
(Is the open and obvious book Sheshime’s Rhyme — just to check?)
Bell left her waded ball of leather scraps in the pantry closet to provide light for Ebdar, his daughter, Gailby, & Crinkle. She took a moment to grab one of the firefly 'lamps' before entering the child's room. "Any clue what this thing looks like?"
'
Remembering her own childhood Meredith immediately checked under the bed.
The open book is filled with a child’s drawings. At first, funny animals, and stick figures telling each other jokes. But not the open page. Here, and in recent pages, you find disturbing pictures that depict scenes from Shemshime’s Bedtime Rhyme. They’re done in brightly colored paint, the primary colors making them all the more unsettling. One of the images shows a man whose feet have been severed. Blood pours from his ankles and from the severed feet next to him. Another shows a boy underwater, grasping at his throat. The last one shows a dog with a severed hand in its mouth. A black cloud hovers over each scene.
Meredith finds nothing under the bed except a very small pink sock with tiny cross-stitched bunnies hopping along its cuff, long ago misplaced and forgotten.
Here is an updated map. 4 doors remain unopened, and the thin swirls of necrotic darkness seem to slither thicker the farther you go.
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters
Erudisia picks up the book. Clearly, this is not something that should be left for Gailby.
When she picks it up, Erudisia realizes that Gailby herself must have drawn and painted all of the pictures in it.
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters
Clearly, not in her right mind. Erudisia tears the pages free.
Bell does not reach in time to stop Erudisia from tearing out pages from the book. "Nooooo. We need to study....", she throws up her hands in frustration.
Perception: Nat20 + 1 == 21
"Well, so much for that. Any idea if that will stop the singing or reverse the curse? And, why are there more pages than what seems to cover the lyrics we all have been singing?"
Meredith placed the sock on top of the bed, " We need to go towards where the darkness is thicker........none of us wants to but our prize likely lies there."
“I’ll go first,” says Erudisia, feeling perhaps less brave than even her tremulous voice suggests. She leads the way into the thicker darkness, hesitantly, if the others come with her.