Candlekeep Mysteries

Erudisia withdraws her tome of shadows as Bell begins her magic, writing quickly to Little One. 

We will work on your flexibility once home. I know some contortionist tricks. Will need your help and rope or bedsheet to climb out quietly!. 

Now with some light, Erudisia will pick a path carefully through the detritus to join Bell at the descent. If there is a larger piece of mirror, hand sized or bigger, she will carefully pick up the shared and look for clues, perhaps such as an inscription on the back or a design around the frame if it’s an edge piece. 

Little One responds to Erudisia’s sending, “Yes, will find rope so you can get out.”

Near the statue the mirror shards are fine as gravel, trodden upon over years. Between the statue and the doors and windows the shards are larger and sharp enough to seriously wound uncovered feet. Yet, Erudisia finds no clues in the mirror shards. However, she does note along one wall, one of the crumpled pieces of stone on the floor at the edge of the wall. A gecko, perfectly carved in every detail. 

Meanwhile, Meredith has begun moving down the stairs.

At intervals, tiny stone figurines lay at the edges of the stairs. A mouse, a sparrow. 

Meredith’s lights illuminate a chamber equal in shape and size to the shrine above. Stone columns punctuate the space, supporting the edifice above. At the chamber’s far end is a square pool, emitting a soft white glow. Torn cushions, rugs, tapestries, and clothing have been piled in the farthest corner as a makeshift bed, while twigs and scraps of deadfall form a simple campfire, though it is not now lit. A lone figure lies beside the pool under a ragged cloak, facing away from the stairs, some 60’ away from the bottom of the stairs.

The figure inhaled slowly, then sighs deeply.

“Who have they sent this time to torment us, Ripley?,” comes its dry whisper. She is answered only by the sound of the pool’s water gently lapping its edges.

Meredith sends a single light to hover above the pool the other three she has alight on the heads of Erudisia, Bell and herself.

" We come not to torment....****y to help.", Meredith said softly as she moved a little closer not wanting to alarm.

Persuasion- 12

( That should be ' only to help'.)

Erudisia comes a moment after Meredith, taking only a moment to see if the first carved animal she sees can be pried up and carried of it is a clever working of the stone. She peers over Meredith’s shoulder as the bard begins to speak. 

One of Meredith’s lights drifts over the glowing pool at the far end of the chamber while the other three lights hover over the heads of Meredith – now 5’ within the chamber – and Erudisia and Bell on the stairway. The light over the pool reflects off of the water, though not brilliantly, dabbing the dark stone walls behind the pool with patches of brighter light. The prone form, lying on its side, facing the pool and facing away from the stairs, away from Meredith, is now backlit somewhat, from the bard’s perspective, by her dancing light. A woman’s body, hips gently curving from a thin waist. A big head of hair, heavily braided one would guess, is held within the hood of the tattered cloak, the braids filling it like sausages in a sack. 

When Meredith speaks to the figure, she hears her own voice and knows that for whatever reason, she did not sound terribly convincing.

The figure sighs again. “They come not to torment. Only to help, Ripley. Believe it or not…,” the voice whispers.

Erudisa stoops to pick up the little stone sparrow figurine. I say little, but it is the size of a regular adult sparrow, perhaps 4 inches. Its posture is odd for a statue, its wings extended but flapping downward, tail bent down as if trying to gain altitude. While examining the figurine, Meredith’s dancing light shifts over Erudisia’s head, giving extra definition to the carved bird. In the light, its perfectly carved feathers and eyes seem almost lifelike. So lifelike, one might believe a real sparrow had been turned to stone.

The figure’s voice rises and hardens phrase by phrase as it answers Meredith. “I well know that you are only here to help your masters. And here you shall forever stay, keeping me company until I cry the years away to the end of the world, the curse I bear for my folly!”

The woman rises up on an elbow and pulls off her hood, revealing not hair, but a hundred asps, the little eyes of which turn, as they are able, to face you, a hundred tiny forked tongues tasting fear in the air.

Please roll Initiative. If you beat a 21, you may act before… the Medusa!

Bell Initiative: 13