Broken Obelisk Session 15

General Summary

Session 06-07-2025

The party gets ready to leave The Cloak Tower in Neverwinter and before leaving ask Khelben if he knows anything about the location of the Keyshards. He tells them about a continent to the far south called Katashaka, where his Order of the Black Staff has an outpost in the city of Ziracos. A crashed city of Netheril is located there in the jungles and might have another keyshard. However, it is haunted by the ancient undead including some Netherese Liches.

They leave with some handy items bought in the wizard tower and set out for the Spelljammer. Onboard they meet with the captain and plot a course back to The Rock of Bral to prepare for their heist of the book.

In the planning room they start discussing the plan to steal the book and Ronaunur reaches out to the criminal network for information on the library. They find out the head librarian is an Astral Elf by the name of Draemon and his custodian is a Rock Gnome Artificer called Aelyx Tubblebabber. The talk about kidnappings and violence make Bruise and Torold uncomfortable so they head out to The Happy Beholder tavern to see if they can find some information.

Speaking to Large Luigi they learn that the Gnome does business with him and that he is a regular at the tavern. Luigi contacts him and tells him the people who made a mess in the library are here to apologize. 30 minutes later a Rock Gnome with a short goatee, multi-colored hair dressed in a leather apron with many tools strapped to his body, with a clockwork soldier made of wood marching behind him, approaches the two party members and introduces himself as Aelyx.

They buy him a few rounds and talk about how the clockwork machines are made. He happily chatters on and on about how they're made and what cog goes where and what every spring does. As well as the intricate magic that powers them, a gem that is charged with magical power and discharged by dispelling magic. After a few hours the rest of the party shows up and is suprised to see the Gnome is already talking with Torold and Bruise and they join them.

He gets the idea to go the library drunk and get some books from the dirty books section. During the drinking Kaxxa uses the Tankard of Sobriety to stay sober and pretends to be drunk. They start walking towards the library and stop for some sausage buns but Kaxxa knocks it out of his hand accidentally. He steals his keys from him when they approach the library and gets the instruction on how to open the door without setting the alarms off.

Ronaunur follows them stealthily without being noticed.

Heading inside they see a patrol of the 4 Clockwork soldiers in lockstep but they stop when they see Aelyx and move to the wall to stand there motionless. He gets the suggestion from Torold and Kaxxa to have them fight in some sort of gladitorial games which he quickly dubs Clockwork Wars. One of the soldiers that Trix bet on wins the fight and the other collapses in ruins... Ron sneaks closer and steals the energy crystal just before the other clockwork bot is repaired by its fellows.

They proceed to the back and an cheery drunken Aelyx grabs a book called 'The Encyclopedia of the Anatomy of the Species of the Planes - Volume XI: Phalli' which he calls the book of willies. He activates the mechanism that lowers the stairs to the observatory and they go upstairs to meet with the head librarian.

Draemon, the Astral Elf librarian, is dressed in simple grey robes and turns around from peering into his telescope demanding who everyone is and what they're doing in his study. The party and Aelyx manage to calm him and they talk about all sorts of subjects with the Gnome getting more anatomical and treatises on sexual positions with illustrations. Meanwhile Ron sneaks into the chamber and swipes a crystal key off the desk.

He sneaks back down the stairs and opens the inner sanctum with the key and starts looking for the book he was tasked to steal. He slowly goes along the walls and checks all the books for the title he's searching for. Finally he comes to a lectern in the center of the structure and sees this is the book he's looking for. Putting it in his backpack he looks around and picks some of the more valuable looking books. Sneaking out through the door he locks it behind him and goes out through the sewers to the ship.

Back on the ship he hires Wenumo to send a message via magic to some of the party members asking them to go back to the ship and abort the mission. They make their way back and get rid of the crystal key while Trix goes into the Pocket Plane to identify all the books. He starts with the Arcanum Mythallium:

This book contains copied and translated texts from the Nether Scrolls of an ancient Arcane cannon, constructed by the mages of the flying cities of Netheril, called The God Killer. A weapon it alleges was capable of wounding or even killing a deity but it used so much of the Weave it created a dead zone of magic miles in diameter. There is a sketch of a Black Obelisk that was used to channel the Weave into the device.   It does not mention an author nor does it list any particular sources. It appears to be a copy of another copy and is missing many parts of the required incantations and schematics. It does mention that the Netherese city of Xyntalhus had the only completed God Killer but this city was lost to history as it crashed into a distant continent.

Rewards Granted

The Great Bird Hoax
Doors That Don't Go Anywhere and Other Dungeon Tricks
Sonnets for Sorcerers
Tasha's Guide To Love and Love Potions
Encyclopedia of Giants, big and small
The Book of Cantrips for Merriment and Parties
Manual of Bodily Health
The Great Book of Hags
Recipes For Disaster: A Cookbook
The Witchlight Carnival