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

(Oh noooo. Also. Mirror! Mirror! Mirror!)

Erudisia initiative: 8

Meredith Init- 12

Without another word, the medusa stands up and moves toward Meredith, picking up a short sword from the floor beside where she had lain. She ends her turn 5’ from Meredith, sword raised, the asps forming a black, shifting corona around her face. She is 10’ from Erudisia, and 15’ from Bell. She turns her gaze toward each of you, and you each feel your entire body beginning to lose its suppleness and indeed, any ability to move…

(All: the medusa forces each of you to make a DC 14 Constitution saving throw at the start of your turn. If the saving throw fails by 5 or more, you are instantly petrified. Otherwise, if you fail the save, you begin to turn to stone and are restrained. Alternatively, you may avert your eyes to avoid the saving throw. If you do so, you can’t see the medusa until the start of your next turn, when you can avert your eyes again. If you look at the medusa in the meantime, you must immediately make the save.)

Meredith Saving Throw- 12

Meredith feels herself begin to turn to stone and immediately calls all the lights to go to into the pool of water hoping to diffuse them enough that her friends can only see a silhouette of the cursed woman.

Stiffening into stone quickly she keeps herself facing the snake haired woman, " Sorry, may I know your name before I go...."

She summoned the Quill into her hand but knew it was unlikely she'd get to use it before the inevitable occurred.

(Is averting your eyes an action, just to check?)

(It does not require an action to avert your eyes. However any attacks you make while looking away will be at disadvantage, while any attacks it makes will be at advantage since you can’t see it.)

Meredith’s dancing lights all drift quickly into the pool, which had already given off an arcane dull white radiance. With the submersion of Meredith’s lights, the pool now gives off 10’ dim light. But the room is some 50’ across, meaning the medusa, Erudisia, Meredith and Bell are now in darkness.

Testing the weight of her blade as if she has all the time in the world, the Medusa replies to Meredith. ”I am she who built the temple from which your masters’ webs of bondage now extend. The three must love you but little, for they knew the fate you would suffer coming in here.”

Erudisia’s eyes dart to the ground as the Medusa reveals herself to them, the power of the evil monstrosity’s horrific visage something she recalls instantly, from bed time stories sung to her by her father and brother. 

This wicked thing has killed the beautiful living creatures of the world; has defiled the temple, broken the mirrors and the mosaics, a wicked servant of a hag coven, its petrifying appearance only equal to the ugliness that lives within.

So it is that the storm begins to stir within Erudisia’s fingers, and elemental invocations begin to gust towards her tongue, to save her friends and slay this monster … and it is then that her brain catches up with her ears. 

“You built this temple?” asks Erudisia. “And you dedicated to Sune?” As she asks, already her doubt leaving her, the sparking between her fingers lesser than sparking in her mind’s eye. No evidence of Sune covering a darker god and older dedication have they seen in their climbing down, and a daughter of Sune lives in the spring not 100 yards away. Truly, this place is a place in which Sune should receive worship and in which her power should be felt.

Though she knows little of Medusa other than those her father has defeated or charmed, those medusa were victims of divine fury — sometimes just, sometimes not.

A Medusa cursed by Sune, or any other god, in fact, coming to pray and to work for the Lady Fireheart is not the slightest bit difficult to believe.

A desperate Medusa making a bargain and suffering for it, if her toil led her to a crisis of faith and in a moment of weakness she were faced of delicious fey promises? Well, Erudisia is from the isles, where fey tricks are traversed three times before breakfast.

And, of course, how could she forget their recent adventure in Baldur’s Gate and the werejackals and their love of their teacher. She knows better now, than to assume all that is raised to evil must remain evil.

“You are not a servant of the coven? Neither are we. We come to restore this temple of Sune and undo their ugly works. Advance on us and I will know you a liar, seeking only to confuse us while you work to get us within your sword’s range, but parley with us and tell us your story and hear ours and if it is true then know your salvation has come today.”

[Erudisia tries to reason with this Medusa for her action.

Persuasion: 17

She would also move to Meredith’s back so that she is stood right behind her as the bard stiffens, and if able to, then put her hand over Meredith’s eyes from behind? Otherwise perhaps next turn?]

Bell, with eyes squeezed shut blurts out, "We are three scholars from Candlekeep!  We came to try to rescue a friend and jumped into the deep end of a Hag Pond.   We had hoped to find an ally or divine guidance in taking down the hags and their minions.  Please help us."

Persuasion:  Nat20 -1 == 19   (( all praise to the Dice Gods!!!!!!! ))

A woman bears an incredible curse for a decade. She is at intervals, over years, tormented by beguiled allies of those who cursed her. She is imprisoned, and fed only with leftovers dropped through a hole in the roof of her cage. Her fury, her shame, her never ending torment all fuel a bottomless thirst for retribution. And then, an object for her fury to act upon encroaches upon her solitude. Naturally, she attacks. And now... her blade is raised, her appetite for revenge whetted by the easy dominance she extends by force of will. It would be so easy to bring the blade down, to slice her visitor from stem to stern. To taste a portion of the cruelty to which she has been subjected these long years. But the words of the pair on the stairs are convincing. Very convincing...

It is many heartbeats, many seconds, that Meredith stands there as if glued to the ground, unable to feel her feet or legs, her heart thumping like a troll attacking a drum. Erudisia and Bell remain on the stairs, eyes clamped tight, turned away. The only sounds in the cool, wet darkness of the ancient chamber are the hissing of the tiny asps, and the gasping breaths of the medusa, her sword hanging in the air above Meredith, ready to strike.

But then, the medusa steps back, lowers her blade. Lets it clatter to the floor as she turns listlessly back toward the pool and begins to return to her cold stone bed. When she speaks, her voice sounds distant, weary.

"My enemies are yours too. So. I will not slay you. But you cannot defeat them. They are plainly beyond your powers" she says, drained.