Evanicea Campaign

A bit of sweat dripping from his brow Usul leans back with a smile and sigh after finally cracking the lock and says, “We got it! And now we’re sure we could do them all. But they are TOUGH!” Pulling the book out and setting it on the ground next to him with a thud, he adds, “And check this out!”

Silthras gathers the other items into a sack, examining each as he puts it away. "Odd collection indeed. We should check these other items when we next rest."

He looks at the book over Usul's shoulder, "That star again...this time with the addition of a snow flake. Every damned turn, another damned mystery."

"What does it contain?" (( he helps Usul with whetever he does with the book, and with luck they can also investigate the horn, ring, figurines etc together ))

"All that trouble for this?"

Velyra crouches down, flipping the front cover of the book to start leafing through the pages.

Kal walks up and down the room, checking the sarcophaguses for any sort of writing. Afterwards, he'll meander back into the other room with the others. "Velyra, you said you were from a research team at the Astrium...In your time there did you learn anything about any of the old Starlight Court orders?"

Kal: There's writing in a script you can't read on the front of each, though it looks similar to the writing on that page of Velyra's.

Opening up the book, the pages are yellowed and weathered. It's written in Common, but in such an older form that you can't figure out what it's saying at a glance(think trying to read Old English). Being in and around history-buff circles, Velyra would have seen enough old texts in her lifetime to realize this is far older than anything she's seen before.

Going back to the first page, looking over the large lettering taking up an otherwise blank page, to get a sense over what the book is actually about. It's easy to separate name from common word, and the rest of the words are closer enough to the modern form that it's not too difficult to puzzle out.

Aiken Flueri, the Lady of Winter's Fourth Watcher.

(( Silthras is trying to determine the nature of the book: is it a trashy romance novel, a learned history, a technical manual, a spell book, a history. If possible, he would also like to garner some of the content, given time etc ))

After spending a little time examining the book Silthras sighs, and glances at Velyra, "A team of archaeologists could spend months here and barely scratch the surface. Does this make any sense to you?" he asks.

Stay on mission. He shakes his head and continues before she has a chance to answer. "But irrespective of that, we now have to ask ourselves why are we here, and what do we want to achieve? This place..." he waves his arms around the room, "...is fascinating, no doubt. But it is not likely to be the source of the undead attacking the town. If anything this might be the reason for the attack. So...do we want to investigate here, or..." he points out the large door, back to the tunnels, "...out there?"

“Out of here.” Usul says, looking around. “Getting here was easy, and kinda fun. But we don’t know how to get home yet.”

Silthras nods, "I am inclined to agree. Perhaps we should quickly see if this place extends as far as the map suggests, before trying to make out way out..."

"I think we're exactly where we need to be. There's too many coincidences lining up for this to be the wrong place." Kal says, gesturing towards the map.

"Think about it, a few months ago, around the same time the other map table back at Velyra's Astrium site lights up, undead activity starts ramping up here. At a hastily abandoned home in Feycrest, we find evidence of a group of people investigating this exact place,  until some absolute horror murdered them all, and a portal dumped us right on the doorstep."

He looks around, back towards the room he just came from. "There was another hallway down there, and maybe you two were right. This place could have functioned as a prison, until those people in the manor set something off and triggered this whole thing."

"Depends on the specific order, why do you ask?" Velyra says, looking back up at the knight. 

Looking over a few of the pages...It is just really difficult to read Common this old, and Silthras would be having a difficult time deciphering what exactly it's saying. He can definitely tell this isn't a trash romance novel, nor does it appear to be a book of science or spell work. In the early pages of the book, he can glean that it maybe appears to be talking about the place someone or something came from...So perhaps a form of history text?

Velyra would have a general knowledge base of some of the orders that made up the Starlight Court. Depending on what you're trying to find out would change the DC of the History check.

Silthras looks up from the book, "I have no idea what this is, except it's probably the most valuable thing we've found so far. It seems ancient, and is miraculously preserved. The language is common...but old. Very old. It took me a while to even recognize it."

He hands it over to Velyra, "This seems more like your area of expertese....what do you think? History, religion, both?"

"There's a mausoleum, or crypt back that way. Filled with knights. Give how old this place seems to be, I was thinking we might have stumbled upon one of the old orders." Kal says, pointing back from the room he just came from.

"An order of knights, with a relation to Amah perhaps?" Velyra says absent mindedly, wracking her brain for a connection.

Whether or not that turns something up, her eyes will go wide with wonder as Silthras passes the book to her. "This is...Not to be dramatic, but I believe earth-shatteringly huge." She says, running a finger across the title. "I'll be quick, and then we can move on." Anticipating the difficulty of reading the old dialect, she sends a silent prayer to Sandail for Guidance as she tries quickly to get a sense of what the book is about.

The Nemoral Knightly Order would come to Velyra's mind - not a lot of specific information, but she would recall that most of their monuments or other archaeological findings were typically related to nature, winter, or Amah directly in some fashion.

As for the book, she struggles just as much as Silthras. The first page begins talking about the person named in the title, Aiken, and you can tell that it speaks of a village(Irilstadt) as his birthplace. You could go further and really dig into the text, but it would take time to get used to reading the Old Common.

"There's one." Velyra says, flipping the book back over to the cover, raising an eyebrow at the eight pointed sun with a single snowflake. "It's possible we've found a structure built by the Nemoral Knightly Order. But there's just so little information about any of them..." she shrugs, "who knows?"

"As for this book? I have a theory, but the implications frighten me. When we have some spare time I'll try to make more sense of it." Standing up, she quickly secures the book in her pack, gesturing towards the cabinet. "If any of you wish to take any of that, now would be the time."

"Shall we take a quick peak deeper into the ruin?"

Usul simply nods and starts to follow Vel, sending Dib on ahead to quickly, and quietly, scout.

Silthras stows the sack with the assorted other items and follows. "Next time we rest, we should open a few more..."

Resolved to push deeper into the ruin, at least for now, your group gathers the items you've found so far and head down the short hallway into the next room. You find yourselves in the room Kal had been in a short while ago:

emerges into a grand hall, about fifty feet long and twenty feet wide. Torches bearing blue fire line the walls, making the marble inlay design on the floor sparkle with icy blue points of light. An arrangement of statues line either side of the wall, five each, with a much larger and more ornate facing down the hall on the far side. At first, they appear to be the same, but upon taking a closer look, Kal would notice subtle differences. They all bear the exact same sword - but there are minute differences in the armor they wear, and more noticable differences in their overall figure. Some are tall and broad, others slightly more lithe.

At the foot of each, a stone sarcophagus, decorated with carvings of warlike scenes are the base. The only exception being the larger statue at the end of the hall, which stands without a sarcophagus.

With Velyra now in the room, she would easily be able to read the Celestial carved into each, beginning at the far end of the hall they read 'The Second,' and the one on the opposite wall reads 'The Third,' continuing down the line in such a fashion until ending at 'The Eleventh.'

Entering into a hallway leading out from that room, you shortly find yourselves turning a corner. Up ahead is another sealed stone door, decorated with a carving of the fey-like woman seen earlier in the stained glass. As you approach, the temperature quickly drops as you near the door, and the hall almost seems darker. Quickly glancing over the parchment with the diagrams, Velyra finds the appropriate phrase, speaking "Sorrow of Emel'ohríw" in Celestial. Grinding stone echoes throughout the hall as the door sinks into the ground. The next room is not lit, save for a deep violet glow emanating from atop a small pedestal further in the room. The darkness in here almost seems to be encroaching, darkening the hallway further as you stand just outside the entrance to the room.

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