Session 79

As the group prepares to leave to go in search of the next pylon, they realize that, having smashed the air crystal in Nola's laboratory, the breathable air in the room would run out if Calantha and Evaryan tried to stay there. So they gather the device and some of Nola's research notes and decide to bring Calantha and Evaryan to Kira's laboratory since it's on the way to their destination. After dropping them off, they head further into the aristocratic district of the city and see the walls surrounding a large building that would appear to be the statehouse. They begin searching, and after a while, Summer catches a glimpse of a small sliver of light coming from an alleyway. She swims over and checks where she saw it and finds the outline of a square in the dirt, and as Dain gets closer to investigate, he sees the very faint glow of familiar runes surrounding the square, indicating a spell to repel water. Wondering if it's an illusion or something, Dain attempts to swim down towards the square and bumps into the ground. Summer brushes the dirt away to find a metal hatch. Dain decides to open it and sees a ladder going down into a room with stone tiles with a faint blue glow.

Feeling the water resistance disappear as they descend, they reveal a small room made of stonework with a single door that is covered in magical etching that Dain recognizes as the same type of spell that was protecting Nola's laboratory from intrusion. Summer attempts to pick the lock, but accidentally sets off a trap that causes a green gas to billow into the room, filling the party's lungs with poison. Prenna, thinking quickly, uses a Gust of Wind to blow away the gas, allowing them to breathe freely again. Dain moves to the door and attempts to pick it, just barely succeeding, before opening the door. Peering inside, he reveals a short hallway leading to a room with a fireplace, various crates full of preserved food like the meat they found in the "icebox" in Nola's kitchen, a stove and oven, a bookcase, and a table with some books and papers scattered about, as well as a half-empty cup of coffee and a half-eaten pastry. Inspecting the books, they find them open to passages describing a period of Aellorah's history called the "Age of Darkness", during which dark creatures invaded Aellorah and wrought havoc on civilization, before Astix created the Aasimar, and subsequently, the Sentinels. The passage is obviously talking about the arrival of the Voidspawn. The book notes that the period lasted for about 500 years before the Sentinels were able to secure Aellorah. Then Dain notices notes on the table next to it with a diagram drawing lines between several keywords, including "darkness bringers", "sentinels", and all leading to "Seryndor", implying that whoever lived in this home believes that the Voidspawn would attack, or DID attack Seryndor. The rest of the notes seem to be stained by spilled coffee. There are other notes on the table in which the occupant wrote an unhinged rant about his research into attempting to render Eskite inert via some sort of alchemical process, mentioning how he had been attempting to do so for 1,300 years. The notes devolve into angry words that don't seem to make much sense. Finally, the notes mention this person was involved in the development of some sort of Elixir, but it does not go into detail what the elixir was meant to do, and that his role was in predicting things that could go one, and using his abilities to foresee those problems. That and the presence of a Crystal Ball on the table seem to indicate that the occupant was of the Divination persuasion.

Moving on through one of the doors in the room, the party finds another room at the end of a hallway with more crates, full of alchemical reagents and random junk, as well as a desk and a chest. The chest has several potions and some gold inside, and upon investigating the desk, Summer finds an extravagant looking book encrusted with gems and decorated with gold. Dain puts the book in the Bag of Holding for later. The party does not seem to notice anything else in the room despite the hum of the pylon being strongest in here, and decides to investigate the rest of the home in case there's another door leading to it. They take the other door from the study area and end up in the occupant's bedroom. There isn't much to see beyond a book with a bookmark in it, and upon opening the book and reading the passage, Dain discovers that there was once a Wellspring eruption that created an event known as "The Long Night", in which thousands of undead rose from graveyards around Arak and assaulted nearly every settlement near and far, killing many times their number before a woman named Thea Blackbane led the charge that defeated them, alongside a large order of holy warriors and clerics that would later come to be known as The Dawnstar. Dain gets frustrated not seeing a way forward and begins to go from room to room using his Wand of Secrets to try to unveil a secret door or passage, but doesn't get any response from the wand. With that, the party decides to try topside, hoping there would be another entrance hidden in one of the buildings above.

Outside, the party investigates the two homes directly above the hidden hatch home. The first turns up nothing, but upon searching the second, the party runs face first into a group of phantoms and ghosts that assault them. The party is able to defeat them without too much difficulty, and explore the rest of the house, finding nothing of interest. Summer has the idea to investigate the city wall near the homes, as they are directly above where the room where the hum was the loudest would be up here, but after searching around, they find nothing. They spend some time thinking and conclude that it must be down in the home under the hatch. They return to the room where the hum was loudest and begin a more thorough search, and eventually Summer notices a shimmer along one of the walls coming from a particular brick. She and Dain take a closer look and realize the brick is an illusion. Dain thinks this must mean the entire wall is an illusion and attempts to walk through, smacking his face into the wall. Ignoring snickering from the rest of the party, he reaches his arm through the false brick and moves his arm around, finding a lever of some sort. Upon pulling it, the wall slides sideways, opening a hidden room where they spot the pylon humming and glowing softly in the back amidst some rubble with a collapsed ceiling in the rear of the room.