cinaed

Session 2 (7/28)

Yves knows that there are no passwords to calm or control these glass and metal golems currently moving to attack the archivists. It’s part of the security of the Archive that they cannot be shut down, only dismantled. As far as he knows, this is happening because either the system is going haywire because of the Puppeteer’s disappearance or something else is going on elsewhere in the Archive.

He activates his bladesong and moves to the closest one. His first strike hits, but he can feel the weirdness of the glass golem’s magic and knows it didn’t do much. He slaps it with a Shocking Grasp and sees glass shards blacken and pop.

Triss casts Crown of Stars and sends a mote of radiant starlight at the metal golem that misses. She has a moment of wishing the Puppeteer wasn’t as skilled as he is as she moves further away from the golems.

Victoria transforms into a figure composed of starlight. Two extra sets of arms appear out of her form, one holding a bow and arrow and the other holding a chalice, with a starry dragon wrapped around her stomach like a belt. She fires a radiant arrow down at the closest golem, barely managing to hit it. She follows it up with a guiding bolt that strikes it again and makes it glow with a radiant light.

The iron golem lumbers forward to Paravia and Triss. A rune flashes as Paravia instinctively defends herself while the golem breathes out a corrosive fume at them.

Paravia stares icily at the iron golem. The runes circulate around her hand before she casts a Woeful Curse on it and casts Mind Sliver, realizing belatedly that it is immune to psychic damage.

Tueni lumbers forward to flank the glass golem Yves is attacking. His claw slashes into the cracked part of the golem, shattering a good portion of its back.

Asmund sees that Tueni is defending Yves, so he rushes towards Paravia and Triss. Paravia watches as Asmund, who is the newest member of the Archive and a bit scrappy, slides in and lands multiple hits on the metal golem with radiant and thunder damage roiling off of his longsword.

One of the glass golems cracks Tueni’s bear head. Everyone watches the bear disappear, replaced by a larger goliath. He blinks down at himself and then looks at the golem, clearly ready to attack again with his bare hands if necessary.

Yves reaches into the collar of his shirt and pulls out a snake. He taps it on the nose and casts dragon’s breath on it before he attacks. His sword swings wide, but his shocking grasp splinters more of the glass.

His familiar breathes out a lightning breath, striking and damaging both glass golems.

Triss casts Faerie Fire on the metal golem and the glass golem closest to it. A purplish magic swirls around them, illuminating them both as she sends another mote of radiant light at the iron golem. This one hits, melting some of the iron of its hip.

Victoria, amazed by the others’ fighting, casts Moonbeam and sends another radiant arrow down from the roost, annihilating the closest glass golem. The pieces land lightly on Asmund as Victoria calls down that she hopes everyone’s okay.

Asmund doesn’t get a chance to respond before the iron golem hits him twice with two heavy slams of its fists. Even as he gasps for breath, he manages to get his shield up and partially deflect the fist the iron golem slams into Paravia.

Paravia immediately hits it back with lightning before she curses it again and casts Toll the Dead for good measure while Tueni sends acidic magical arrows against the glass golem looming over Yves. He pulls out his scimitar but is a little too careful about avoiding the acid and misses with his strike.

Asmund strikes out with his longsword, missing with his second attack but landing a blow with the first that flashes with radiant energy. Meanwhile the glass golem strikes Tueni with three mighty blows.

Yves casts Rime’s Binding Ice. The remaining golems’ legs are encased in ice for an instant before the glass golem shatters, splintering onto the floor. Yves runs forward and repositions himself so that his familiar Laurie can breathe out more lightning.

The lightning strikes the iron golem. Lightning crackles through its joints, making everything glow brighter for a moment before the lights fizzle out and it crashes to the ground.

Around them, the other keepers have been dealing with their own golems, but the last of the golems crashes to the floor. A few shake their hands from casting so much magic. Even the Archivist cast a few spells.

The Shade stands in front of the Archivist. She’s just finished dismantling one of the constructs. They also see another woman, one hand covered in jewelry and finery that glows with fire. This is the Golden Wolf, Lady Vors'aeva, who is always dressed elegantly. She shakes off broken glass from her hand.

As the Archivist settles himself, the Golden Wolf looks around at them all and asks if anyone knows what’s going on. No one does, even as the Golden Wolf realizes Victoria is barefoot and gets her some sandals, checking her feet over for glass shards.

Paravia knows there have been tests before for the security system, scheduled every fifty years, and then always a few years after the new Puppeteer is installed. She knows that the security has only ever been activated as part of tests and once when a stray bird got in. The memory of the bird makes her laugh despite the seriousness of the situation.

The Golden Wolf says that there’s never been a serious attack on the Archive.

Paravia says as far as they know. She points out the fact that the Puppeteer is one of the missing and the Wolf turns to Yves who has worked with the Puppeteer before. He has interacted with the Puppeteer’s inventions and been inside the Puppeteer’s workshop, but hasn’t dealt with the security before.

The Wolf asks if Paravia was close with the Curator, and she says she is, stressing that she still believes the Curator is alive. The Wolf then asks Triss if she was close with the Wanderer, and she says that she wouldn’t put it that way, but she knows him.

The Wolf says that she is going to clean up here, but she thinks that people should either interview the other keepers or go to the respective offices of the missing people. The group decides to go to the offices first, with the Curator’s being closest. The Puppeteer’s is high up in one of the nearby buildings, and then the Wanderer’s is in another building as well.

It is an easy, sloping walk. As they walk, Triss can smell the usual smell of magic, but now she catches residual magic as well. A recent bit of magic happened within the Curator’s office, either a teleportation or invisibility.

Yves puts his hand on the door and gets an immediate headache of old magic. It isn’t well-contained and smells of distant, old magic that he doesn’t recognize. It’s like knowing the taste of something in its dried form and then trying it raw.

Paravia feels the old magic as well. She knows that all magic is touched by Rova, funneled through her, but this is magic that hasn’t been touched by the Conduit.

When Yves opens the door, he expects to see a scene or obvious disruption. However it’s the regular mess of the Curator’s office, nothing looking completely out of place. When he wonders out loud if she received anything today, Paravia tells them about the manuscripts that pre-dated Rova and the Archive. She knows the Curator has a system to her clutter, and realizes that something is missing. She spots a fallen intake form under the Curator’s desk. It is dated for today, and is of a necklace, relatively unremarkable visually, but it has a dark purple unidentified gem with swirling smoke.

She hums to herself.

Asmund asks who delivered it and suggests that they should speak with the Stork, since if this necklace is missing with the Archmage’s mask and the three keepers, it seems important. Yves suggests they check on those books as well, since they seem connected.

Paravia is notorious about the sanctity of her office, and is furious when they arrive to find the books missing and her desk overturned. She rights the desk before she begins to look around to see if anything else is missing. She realizes someone rooted through her things, but only took the original pamphlet of a guide presented to new keepers.

Asmund has read it most recently. He knows it also talked about the Archmage, who learned how to channel her magic through her sword before she began to build the Archive and shortly before the Conduit was created.

Paravia knows that the Archmage’s mask has been on that wall for over a thousand years. She picks up from the floor a framed photograph of an elven man in a Valnorian military uniform and puts it back on the desk before she says that they need to go before she says something she’ll regret.

She mutters curses in Gnomish, making Asmund uncomfortable and Victoria cover her ears.

They go to Triss’ office next. Neither she nor the Wanderer try to spend much time there. Her office space seems exactly like she left it, though there is a waft of the old magic as though the person had been in here briefly.

Tueni sees that there is a goldfish in a bowl, staring at him and paddling around with unnatural arms and legs. He sighs, muttering that he hates talking to fish. He looks between a plant and then the fish and asks the group if he should ask them questions.

Triss says the plant is definitely smarter and Para says the thing with eyes, before Tueni says he could do both and casts Speak with Plants and asks what it saw in the last few hours. The plant tells him that there was a person, a thing, that brought with it a coldness that made the plant feel like death was inevitable. The thing touched the things on the desk of the one who waters it occasionally and also touched the desk of the one here who makes noises of rage.

Tueni thanks it and waters it. It thanks him and says that it’s a rarity. Tueni mutters that if the Wanderer is still alive he’s going to talk to him about taking better care of his plants.

The plant says that the person didn’t harm it but felt uncomfortable. It adds that the person took papers from both desks, flat and one bound.

Triss immediately begins looking through her desk while Yves takes the opportunity to root through the Wanderer’s desk. Triss realizes her schedule is missing, an itinerary from months ago, while Yves sees that the book missing from the Wanderer’s desk is about meetings he’s had within the Archive. There is a letter sealed and tucked away in the back of a drawer.

Yves warms the wax of the seal with Prestidigitation and breaks it open. It is an agonized declaration of love from K to G, and ends with an apology that he will never have the courage to admit his feelings. Yves knows that there was a lot of unofficial assistance from Avisrune during the war, and that the Wanderer is an Avisian. There is often an uncomfortable overlap between the Archive work and their real life work.

Yves suspects that this G is someone the Wanderer met during the war who doesn’t seem to age, a well-spoken bard tiefling who looked to be twenty-eight years old twenty years ago and still looks exactly the same. Yves quirks an eyebrow and is tempted to leave the letter open before he reattaches the wax deal and tucks it back away.

Triss knows that the missing itinerary is from when she met with a group from Previdian and Kastvar. The meeting in Previdian was about the new laws being drafted in the wake of the war, ensuring freedom of movement through the illegal and illicit teleportation circle networks. When she was meeting with Kastvar, it was about securing access to a site that several people from the Archive are interested in, the place where it’s rumored Melisandra found the sword that she used to channel her magic. The story is that she found it somewhere.

Asmund asks what became of the sword. Para and Triss know that the sword is entombed with Melisandra in the very bottom of the Archive. He says that it sounds like they’ll have to go down there once they’re done investigating and asking the Stork who brought in the stolen books. Para says sarcastically whatever gave him that idea.

Tueni and Victoria debate talking or eating the fish until Asmund shoos them out of the office and with the rest of the group heads to the Puppeteer’s office. Yves can smell the distant smell of the old magic as he walks into the Puppeteer’s office where there are half-assembled golems all around.

There are pieces of metal and scrap littering the ground. Eventually he nudges things aside so that he can investigate, suggesting to the others that they don’t touch anything. There is another roost eighty feet up in the room.

Triss manifests spectral, radiant wings and flies up to the roost with Yves in tow. This is clearly where the Puppeteer sleeps, snug and organized. There’s a table where he eats, and a slightly messy pile of blueprints and books. There are two chests pushed up against the far wall, next to the bed. They seem like they were once locked, but one has had the lock burned and broken off. The other one seems unmarked.

Yves studies the broken chest. There are burned and blackened papers there. He reaches down and finds a false bottom. Inside there is nothing except the imprint as though something relatively light and spherical was inside recently.

He looks at the other chest which is locked. He manages to get it open, and finds the security system blueprints. He looks at Triss and asks if he should bring these down or leave them here. Triss says she doesn’t know, but they seemed untouched.

Before he puts them back, he glances over the plans and confirms his suspicions that the security system activated because of an intruder. He leans over the edge of the roost and explains what they found and asks Para if she knows of anything spherical that the Puppeteer would have hidden away.

She doesn’t, but Triss once overheard a conversation between the Archivist and the Puppeteer in which the Archivist asked him to fetch the bag from his roost. The Puppeteer had asked why he needed to go there, and the Archivist said it was no one’s business but that he was free to visit whenever he chose.

When they all muse over this, Asmund posits that if it’s connected to everything else then it might be a way to access the Archmage’s sealed tomb. When someone asks why the Puppeteer would have that, Asmund says it’s probably because it’s part of the security.

They decide to talk to the Stork first. When they get there, they ask him who gave him the books and the necklace, he says that the Sea Urchin did. The group know her as a very friendly tiefling who is part of the archaeologists of the Archive. The Sea Urchin is the only one who came back recently from the expedition, the Sand Dollar, Horseshoe Crab, Minnow, and the Jellyfish all kept busy with an archival dig in a Striogian mountain.

Para asks if the Sea Urchin is here and the Stork points her out. She’s just finished being interviewed by the Golden Wolf and is currently talking to someone else in line, giving them a kiss on the forehead and chattering at them. She is in the midst of some conversation about the person’s mother before she sees the group.

The Sea Urchin says she’s already been interrogated by the Golden Wolf, who wants to get this done before she calls in the cavalry. They know that she means the Arctic Fox, who the Golden Wolf dislikes. When they ask her about the items, she explains that she bought the necklace from a small Striogian village, though it was found in Kastvar about forty miles south of Little Run.

Triss knows this is the site that she was discussing in her stolen itinerary.

It’s also where the Sea Urchin bought the manuscript. She doesn’t remember the dealer’s name, just that he was a gnome. Triss asks if it isn’t her job to establish connections with dealers, and the Sea Urchin says why would she, the only important people are those in the Archive.

Para sighs in exasperation and turns away as Asmund asks if there was anything else she bought off that same dealer. She says she got the necklace and the manuscript, but the dealer did tell her about a painting that he was still working on retrieving. It wasn’t from the same dig, but one near Oasis Village. Oasis Village is a small town in Striog that has some old ruins and an emptied dragon hoard that is a tourist trap.

Asmund says that if it isn’t here, then it isn’t important now, but since this dealer seems to find surprisingly valuable things, if he does reach out about that painting, it seems important. When she says that she’ll speak to Jellyfish about it and have him investigate, Asmund asks if anyone else knew about the purchase. She says no one, and then complains about being interrogated and insulted.

When Victoria protests that she hasn’t insulted her, the Sea Urchin assures her that she didn’t mean her. She also compliments Tueni, then adds that she’s going to leave before things get tense. She disappears into the crowd as most of the group looks at each other in confusion before the nearby door opens.

The Archivist has returned, with Sae’var beside him, an apprentice cloth mask over the lower half of his face. Sae’var is clothed from head to toe in red robes, with bandages that conceal his hands. He’s flanked by the Arctic Fox.

The Archivist says that he urges that everyone attend and obey the Golden Wolf as she investigates. He adds that if anyone has questions for him, he will be in his office. Then he walks away, Sae’var walking slowly and with pained carefulness after him before the Archivist whistles for Daveena to follow.

Yves curses in Draconic under his breath about the Archivist's terrible parenting as the Golden Wolf’s body freezes in quiet, instinctual rage at both the Archivist’s treatment of his son as well as the fact that the Arctic Fox is here, interfering in her business.