Mummy's Mask - Shifting Sands [IC]

[Gwynfrid]

Toilday, 28 Abadius

Having repaired to the Inn of Desert Winds for the night after their first day of research, the companions come back to the Great Library early the next morning, aware that their welcome is limited in time and that Muminofrah will expect them to come pay their respects at some point in the near future. In the Spiral Archive, they find things mostly unchanged, the daemon giving them a grudging, threats-filled greeting, and the bookish woman still at work, an even earlier riser than them.

Spoiler

Show

So that we don't spend days on repetitive rolls, I'm going to roll for the day for all characters.

Assuming same bonuses as earlier day, but improved: Each full day of research in the same library grants a cumulative +1 to the roll.

Vershab Knowledge(Religion) (1d20+20)[40] knowledge points (1d8+5)[7] - I'm going to call this a crit, and double the knowledge points acquired.
Calathon Knowledge(History) (1d20+16)[22] knowledge points (1d8+4)[10]
Turi Knowledge(Nobility) (1d20+8)[10] knowledge points (1d8)[3]
Lehasti Knowledge(Nobility) (1d20+6)[24] knowledge points (1d8)[8] - yay!
Azkin Knowledge(Religion) (1d20+7)[11] knowledge points (1d8)[8]

Calathon picks up where he left off the earlier day, and continues tracking the long line of pharaohs across the many ages of Osirion. A large collection of tablets bound in cloth marked with the Sky Pharaoh’s winged pyramid hieroglyph contains a number of transcribed recollections of several courtiers at Hakotep’s court. These accounts make passing references to the Sky Pharaoh having access to stolen Shory magic. "The Shory! Interesting..." He mutters. As his friends cast puzzled looks at him, he explains: "Yes, the Shory. That is the name. An ancient people. They traveled the world in great flying cities during the Age of Destiny. What a time of wonders that must have been! They built an empire in central Garund known for its arcane engineering and cities in the sky."

Vershab, having understood the complex layout of the library, sets out at a great speed, feverishly browsing through the endless stacks of papyrus, until he makes several great finds. A dusty, otherwise unremarkable scroll contains a lengthy passage about the burial of Hakotep I, with a remark about his tomb having wings. The scroll also contains a tantalizing fragment of the confession of a member of a group called the Sacrosanct Order of the Blue Feather, who claimed that when the Sky Pharaoh was interred, his heart and funerary mask were stolen from his tomb before it was lost to the skies. These two objects supposedly contained the pharaoh’s soul, but his body was left behind in the tomb. This confession was extracted in -1560 AR, some 50 years after the pharaoh’s death. There are also references to considerable efforts by Hakotep’s successor, Pharaoh Djederet II, to round up members of the Sacrosanct Order for questioning. The results of the interrogations were recorded on a collection of scrolls called the Scrolls of Inquiry, but this collection is not held within the Spiral Archive.

Vershab remembers having heard of the Sacrosanct Order of the Blue Feather, a secretive sect of the priesthood of Nethys dedicated to the collection and preservation of knowledge. The Order is not necessarily concerned with keeping such information hidden, but secrecy is a useful tool for safeguarding it. The order’s members are also unconstrained by such mortal concerns as morality - the acquisition and preservation of the information is paramount, not the methods used to do so.

At this point, the companions feel like they have found everything that they might be able to get in this place, but at the end, it is the paladin, stubbornly refusing to lay her bulky armor down for the purpose of research, who makes the final breakthrough. Her patience and humility are richly rewarded, when her exhaustive search for all Nethys references leads her to an old curator’s catalog. It reveals that the Scrolls of Inquiry were moved to another of the Inner Sanctum’s libraries, the Dark Depository, 103 years ago.