February 23, 118
The party awaken the next morning and begin making their plans to contact Zorlac and gain access to his knowledge. Ash-Daughter knows a bit about the secretive wizard and she shares her knowledge with the party. She tells them that he lives in a large complex that consists of five towers, with no obvious entrances anywhere near the ground. The only visible doors are high up the towers, where bridges link the towers together. Zorlac himself is rumoured to never leave the tower; instead, he employs several librarians, who seek out and acquire new tomes and knowledge for him. She doesn't know who the librarians are or how they get in and out of the building. The party decide to split up and pursue several different avenues of investigation.
Ellyanna returns to the College of Celestial Thaumaturgy and spends the morning asking the various wizards and scholars whether they know anything about Zorlac. Unfortunately, she is not able to gain any useful information - the people she talks to don't seem to know much about him.
Ash-Daughter heads to the area around Zorlac's home, accompanied by Grrrr Yip, and asks around with some of her contacts to learn about the Undercity in this area, as she is not familiar with this part of the Undercity. Specifically, the party are wondering whether the entrance to the towers is actually somewhere in the Undercity. The two adventurers spend the morning asking around, but learn nothing of value.
Calanon begins canvassing the city's bookstores, asking if any of them know about Zorlac or his librarians. During the morning, he does not learn anything more than what Ash-Daughter told the party, but many more stores still remain to be investigated.
Finally, Dark Star and Elvish decide to set a trap for Zorlac. Elvish heads out to the streets of Vornheim and starts spreading rumours about a powerful tome of eldritch knowledge recently acquired by Demon's Gift. At Demon's Gift's shop, Dark Star places the book that he traded to the shopkeeper earlier in a prominent location and keeps an eye on it. A few customers do come in and take a look, but none of them decide to buy it. Dark Star memorizes their faces just in case.
During the afternoon, most of the party continue the same avenues of investigation, except for Ellyanna who decides to return to studying Kaplan's tattoos at the College. Elvish continues spreading rumours, and Dark Star continues keeping watch at the shop, but there are still no bites.
Ash-Daughter and Grrrr Yip are more successful in the afternoon, eventually learning about the layout of the Undercity in the vicinity of Zorlac's home. They learn that the area directly underneath the tower, spreading about 100 meters in every directly, does not seem to contain any Undercity tunnels, except for very deep ones. Essentially, there seems to be a roughly hemispherical area underneath the towers with no Undercity. This supports, but does not confirm, their theory that Zorlac has his own tunnels that he uses to enter and exit his home.
Calanon also manages to gain some potentially useful information. Asking around some of the more minor, obscure shops, he talks to a herbalist who sells field guides and books of herb lore, who mentions that several similar stores have been robbed recently. The shopkeepers compared notes and discovered that the same woman was seen in the vicinity of the burglarized stores shortly before each was robbed. He describes the woman to Calanon as a tall, thin human who is always seen in the company of a white cat and goes by the name of Bridgit. Calanon realizes that this is potentially one of Zorlac's librarians.
Finally, in the evening, shortly before the store's closing time, Dark Star and Elvish's trap yields results. As he has been doing all day, Dark Star is lounging in the store near the book that they're using as bait, keeping an eye on it. Suddenly, he hears quiet footsteps moving across the room, even though he sees no one but himself and Demon's Gift in the store. Realizing that this is most likely an invisible thief, he makes his way towards the source of the sound and lunges towards it.
He manages to grab hold of the figure, which seems to be humanoid, but it slips out of his grasp and runs for the book. When the figure grabs the book, it vanishes as well, but Demon's Gift casts a spell which dispels the thief's invisibility. With the spell gone, they see that the thief is a young woman, dressed in a hooded cloak. Dark Star and Demon's Gift attack her, and she responds with a spell directed towards Dark Star. The effects of the spell cause him to become tired and drowsy, but he fights it off.
Dark Star realizes that the woman will most likely attempt to flee, so he moves to block the door, using his Eldritch Blast spell to knock her away as she approaches. Realizing the she can't get past him, the thief switches tactics, and pulls an alchemical concoction out of her robe and declares that, if they don't let her out, she'll burn the whole place down.
Dark Star and Demon's Gift both try to talk her down, Dark Star by intimidating her and Demon's Gift by reasoning with her, but she is unmoved. She lights the top of the flask with a match and reiterates her threat. Dark Star shoots another Eldritch Blast at her, hoping to knock her away from the flask before she finishes priming it, but he's too late. As the woman goes flying back from the force of the blast, she drops the flask, which hits the ground and shatters, spreading flame all over the room.
Demon's Gift screams and runs forward, attempting to save his books, while the woman vanishes once more. Dark Star holds his position in front of the door, reasoning that, even invisible, the thief will need to get through him to escape. He casts Armor of Agathys on himself, anticipating a coming attack.
Dark Star is correct; the woman reappears in front of him with a dagger in hand, and thrusts it into his chest. Fortunately, his spell absorbs a large portion of the impact, but from the part of the knife that does manage to get through, he feels a numbness radiating throughout his body. However, he manages to fight through it and remain standing.
Demon's Gift finishes casting a water spell that puts out the flame, as the thief, incredulous that Dark Star is still standing, flees towards the shop's back room, hoping to find an exit there. As she fumbles with the door, Dark Star and Demon's Gift keep attacking her with magic, and finally, badly hurt, she drops to her knees and surrenders.
Dark Star ties up the woman and sends a message back to the Greasy Thatcher, requesting that the rest of the party come to the store. Several hours later, once they've returned from their various tasks, they join Dark Star and interrogate the woman.
With her hood off, they realize that the woman she is actually very young; a teenager, in fact. She introduces herself as Corsica Nyne, one of Zorlac's librarians. She pleads with them to let her take the book, as Zorlac is extremely intolerant of failure and could very well kill her for her failure and capture. The party suggest various ways she could avoid his wrath, but she explains that all of the librarians are placed under a series of spells that allow Zorlac to control and monitor them, and she doesn't think she'll be able escape or trick him.
Finally, the party decide to let her return to Zorlac with a book of lesser value in return for her help. Corsica is still worried that Zorlac will be very upset with her, but given that she's the party's captive, she has little choice but to agree. She explains to them that she doesn't know much, as Zorlac's spells cause her to forget any details about the other librarians. She only really knows how to get into the library that she manages, which is Zorlac's magic library.
The party agree to release her, and in exchange she will show them how she gets into the building. She leads them across the city, back to Zorlac's tower, then begins climbing, explaining that her entrance is not on the ground floor. She climbs about 100 feet up and opens a secret entrance, which the party make a note of. She disappears into the entrance and closes it behind her, and the party head back to the inn, intending to return the next morning.
February 24, 118
The next morning, the party return to Zorlac's complex and prepare to enter via the secret door that Corsica revealed. As she is the best climber, they send Ash-Daughter first, who ties ropes behind her as she goes so that the rest of the party can climb more easily. Grrrr Yip doesn't want to climb and stays behind, but the rest of the party make it up without difficulty.
Through the secret door, they find themselves in one of the towers, in a huge cylindrical room that's about sixty feet from floor to ceiling. The walls are covered in bookshelves and books, and a giant rolling ladder allows access to them all. The center of the room contains a desk and some chairs. They see Corsica in the room; she is huddled against a bookshelf and seems to be moaning in pain.
They talk to Corsica, and she is able to respond, though only slowly as she is clearly in great pain. She explains that she is being punished for her failure to return with a tome of value. They ask her how to leave the room and find Zorlac, as there are no obvious exits, but she reiterates that Zorlac's spells cloud her mind and prevent her from remembering anything except how to get into this specific library. They decide to investigate for themselves.
Elvish tries making the loudest possible noises that he can, in order to attract Zorlac's attention, while the rest of the group search the room. Eventually, Dark Star discovers a switch on the bottom of the desk. When he flips it, a section of the bookshelves slides open, revealing a secret door. The secret door leads to a brief passage that opens into a different tower in the complex.
In this tower, they enter what appears to be a lavish sitting room, furnished with fine chairs, tables, rugs, and other furniture. A reading desk near one of the chairs holds a few open books. Two doors exit the room; one of them opens into a spiral stairway that leads up, which the other opens into a passage that connects to yet another tower. They decide to follow this second passage.
This passage leads to a large entrance room, mostly bare except for a few coat racks, hat racks, and floor mats. There are three exits from the room. One of them is an exit from the entire complex, although just as high up as the spot the party entered from. They mark the outside of the building with chalk so they can find this entrance from the outside if they need it. The other two exits lead to stairways; one goes up and the other goes down. They decide to take the downward stairway.
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