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Episode 41 – A New Friend

Our Heroes continued their explorations. All of them including their Arcane Brotherhood companions managed to shake off a mysterious Arcane Blight caused by long exposure to the energies in the city.

The Tower of Necromancy

The collapsed tower of necromancy was crawling with severed gray hands inneffectively attempting to excavate the rubble. They led our heroes to a forlorn ghost who lamented the collapse of his tower and the state of Ythrn. He introduced himself as Cadavix and continued to moan about his bad luck while our heroes removed the rubble covering his dessicated corpse. Below the corpse was an inscription of the Octad. Cadavix seemed satisfied that he’d been unearthed and his spirit vanished, but not before explaining that the Octad must be performed to gain entry into Yriolarthas’s tower. Our heroes intended to use Cadavix’s corpse as the dust required by the Arcane Octad ritual, and handed it to Gupe for safe keeping.

The Wellspring of Answers

This ominous black pit was surrounded by meditation benches carved from crystal. An obituary on a plaque nearby read “Herein lie the immortal remains of the Telepathic Pentacle. Sit, meditate, and learn.” Our Heroes decided to follow this advice and began meditations guided by The Professor. They felt their minds connect together and with the latent Pentacle below. The Pentacle consisted of five minds who filled our heroe’s head with memories of the days of Ythrn’s height.

  • Ythrn’s mages could live indefinitely by preserving their brains in jars. Some jars still reside in the city
  • The city’s elite wore robes fashioned at the Hall of Silk, where our heroes outfitted themselves earlier.
  • By law, a mage’s civic duty included cleaning the streets with the Prestidigation cantrip.
  • Yriolarthas spoke of using his Staff of Power in conjuction with the recovered Obelisk in order to turn back time. The Pentacle had no memory of this occuring successfully.

Stirred by the sudden access to their minds, the Pentacle released Lynaea from meditation before rumbling deep within the pit. Our heroes made haste away.

The Tower of Divination

This tower was missing the top floor, and the Inscription carved in it, but did contain an artifact of immense power. An Orb containing floating eyes like fish in a bowl that could be used to divine the location of any object, but at a cost. Our heroes convinced Dzaan to use the orb to divine the location of the scroll of Tarrasque. With the orb’s help he was able determine its location in the central tower high above in Yriolarthas’ library. However, the Orb’s terrible cost became apparent when Dzaan’s eye was plucked from his head and deposited with the others, suspended in the orb for all time. Our heroes decided to search for the Divination inscription themselves rather than subject themselves to the possible loss of another eye.

The Arboretum

Our heroes approached the city’s arboretum, where trees continued to grow in stark contrast to their bleak surroundings. They met the Nether Oak, who conversed with them, reluctantly. It refused to allow them to make a wand from its branches, but confirmed the baton would be a fine wand made from nether oak. Admitting this seemed to annoy the tree, and it closed its eyes to return to sleep.

The Library

Our Heroes came to the ruins of Ythrn’s library, which once housed an impressive collection of rare tomes, now mostly rotted away into dust. They came across a strange creature named ‘Scrivenscry’, who identified himself as a Yugoloth. He was candid about his goals in the library: to find a tome containing the true names of his Yugoloth Kin, with which he hoped to use to dominate them into servitude. Scrivensry insisted on referring to himself in the third person, and refused to believe our heroes could be anything other than the librarians. He demanded their assistance in finding this tome, sending a penguin named ‘Kingsport’ to assist them.

When Scrivenscry was out of sight, Kingsport quietly begged our heroes for assistance. Kingsport was forced to use the orb of divination and had been rendered blind. The book Scrivenscry sought was not in this library or even on this plane but he refused to believe it. Incensed by this injustice our heroes attacked the Yugoloth, catching him flatfooted. He was soundly defeated and threatened our heroes before disappearing back to the hell he came from. A problem for another time.

Kingsport offered our heroes some scrolls and other items he could recover from the dilapidated library, and for now, he follows them for safety in numbers.

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