On the page following the second stain on his private journal, Nehl continues his commentary on the hidden lair of the beggars.
"The combat following the initial rising of the draconic golem was tense, to say the least. Aelon, having heard the commotion of our fight with the Filth King and his minions, had quickly completed what study he could and rushed to our aid, arriving just in time to see the beast take shape. Mayim went to work filling the room with more lightning than I think the heavens themselves could muster, while the Dragon and I took to a battle of the minds. Over the course of our conflict, it managed to manipulate the minds of Alin and Nathaniel (the latter more than once) to move and act as it bade. In what I thought was a just rebuttal, I locked eyes with the thing long enough to assert dominance over the construct and force it to attack its master. These sorts of exchanges went on for some time, while the Filth King tried many tactics to pierce Nathaniel's armor and remove our front line of defense, failing each time. Eventually, the golden golem seemed to sense that we would not stop attacking it for fear of both its size and ferocious form, and instead decided to detonate. Gold and small artifacts flew across much of the room, thankfully doing little harm to us, but rendering the beast -- then just a floating collection of larger items and loose coinage -- a far more difficult target. So prevented from easily striking the more dangerous foe, we turned on the Filth King, eager to get this combat over with. He proved tenacious and hardy, but eventually he succumbed to our combined strength and expired. With all other enemies soundly defeated, we turned our attentions once more to the summoned monstrosity.
While I had been hopeful that simply killing the apparent leader of this cult would be enough to call off his pet, I was disappointed. Thankfully, Aelon, having been less taken aback by the arrival of the creature due to it having already been there when he arrived, had been carefully studying the beast and its habits. He had seen, he called to us, a strange motion from the Filth King while he had been worryingly close to the thing. For no obvious reason, in the midst of combat, he had flung a small, golden object at the dragon, then ceased to pay it any real mind. Perhaps, he thought, this was a way of pacifying it or declaring yourself its ally! Bemused by this possibility, several of us backed away from the golem and tossed some of the same gold that it had violently expelled at us earlier back into what remained of its mass. The tossed gold returned to the thing's center of mass as if magnetized, and it seemed to lose interest in us. Alin, however, was not content with this result, claiming it was inconclusive. He tossed a small coin at the golem like the rest of it, and watched it calm down considerably towards him, but he followed this act up with a violent, arcane bolt. Understandably, the dragon riled up again almost instantly. "Aha!" Alin cried, apparently excited by this result. "I have verified your hypothesis with science!" His actions here were systematic and logical, I must admit, but much the same conclusion could have been drawn by simply throwing the coin and waiting. Had the creature not attacked him after that, the theory would have been proven enough for my liking! Such a risky ploy, simply in the interest of precise knowledge of something that would likely not arise a second time... The man is intelligent, no doubt, but he lacks much in the way of common sense, I fear.
However, once everyone played along, the gambit worked! The dragon, suddenly sensing no more threats nearby, returned to its place of origin and dissolved back into an inanimate pile of gold, gems, and the occasional weapon. Nothing especially spectacular, sadly, but it was certainly a bounty in terms of raw currency. The potential, in that respect, far outweighed any individual item we might have found! We reveled in our victory, it being the first major accomplishment we'd made since I had joined with the group, and we took turns keeping watch of the entrance, searching the bodies of our foes, and shoveling the remains of the dragon into a bag of holding that the party had apparently bought some time earlier. Saffron and Aelon claim with some certainty that whatever enchantment brought this treasure to life was absent now, or would at least become so upon leaving this chamber, but I remain wary. I will let the others carry the bag for a while, just to be safe...
My undead nature is a curse in many respects, but in one it has been quite a boon: Rest comes quickly and easily to me. Though I am not a sleepless, hungerless beast like the average zombie or wight, I find that I recover from fatigue a fair bit sooner than the mortals around me. An obvious advantage in many respects, it helped me once again here, as I felt fit to travel again a few minutes before everyone else was quite prepared to continue onward, giving me a bit of time to inspect the room one last time. Specifically, I chose to investigate a crudely-hewn statue of Tiamat that rested in the very back of the room, behind where the treasure pile had once been. It was large, but not particularly detailed, and it showed little sign of worship around it, and the pile of gold before it had largely hidden it from view to the rest of the chamber. This intrigued me, and it turned out that these instincts were correct, as the statue rested on an odd seam in the wall. Manipulating the statue in any way I could think of, I eventually heard the click of a mechanism and a passage opened before me! By this time, the party was quite ready to move on once more, and so we ventured into this secret tunnel.
It proved to be quite short, but the dark passageway ended in an incredibly sturdy-looking stone door. I made a quick attempt to open the thing silently, having heard nothing inside, but it was immediately apparent that moving the thing even the slightest bit would be incredibly loud and agonizingly slow. Determined not to be caught unawares once again, I alerted the party that I intended to scout ahead and utilized yet another of my helpful vampiric traits: the ability to become little more than a cloud of mist. (A note in the margins: It continues to irk me just how often my condition actually makes itself useful. Were I not an abomination before the gods, I would almost wish to remain this way, but it is what drove me to slaughter my family, and it is a curse I must someday rid myself of, if such a thing can even be done...) Slipping through the cracks between the door and its frame, I inspected what lay ahead of us in the darkness.
The scene was a sad one. This room had obviously once been some kind of study or library. Shelves lined every wall, and signs of parchment, books, and writing tools were nearly everywhere. Unfortunately, anything even marginally perishable had long since converted to dust, mold, and rot. Several bodies sat on the floor, nearly mummified in the dry air of the chamber. The remains of their clothes suggested that they were scholarly types, and worshipers of Ioun, but the bones of their fingers were sharpened to deadly-looking points. Hypocritical as it seems, I am not fond of undead creatures, and ghouls are certainly an unpleasant lot. I made special note of them before continuing to survey the scene from near the doorway. Etchings and writings covered every vertical surface in the room. Most were formulas and equations that were alien to me, as well as ramblings as to their meaning that might have helped, were I any sort of scholar, but amongst them were several journal-like entries. Their contents were too long to recall easily, and my incorporeal form lacked any means of writing them down, so I concluded that it was time to rejoin the party and enter the room physically, ghouls or no ghouls.
Excited by the mere mention of a library, Aelon was first through the door by a large margin as we laboriously shoved it aside. As soon as his light fell upon the bodies, however, the forms stirred and he screamed like a woman, running back through us and up the stairs. This made a bit more clear his obvious disdain for me, but it was still unsuited for an adventurer of his supposed caliber... Still, I will admit that I was quite surprised myself as one of the ghoul-like bodies began to glow and speak, reacting to that short moment of Aelon's presence. "Fellow seeker of knowledge and follower of wise Ioun, we leave these findings to you..." It intoned, going dark once it had completed its message and collapsing into dust. I had been unaware of Aelon's religious affiliations up to this point (and Nathaniel's as well, as apparently he had quite the pantheon of worshipped gods I was unaware of before now), but it was good to know that they were at least making themselves useful. We eventually convinced him to return to the room and investigate it with us. The writings were fascinating, though I imagine moreso to Alin and Aelon, who seemed to actually understand a few of the less direct etchings that covered the walls. I have made a note of the things I could actually read and comprehend, the latter of which appears to be some sort of prophetic message directly specifically for us:
This, as is to be expected, was quite a surprise. While I don't believe we are part of anything especially great or worthy of song in our current endeavor, to have our current adventuring be a part of something foreseen so long ago is... Well, I'm not sure if it's flattering or worrying, to be honest. Perhaps I have underestimated exactly what kinds of things this Bronze Fang gets itself into...
--
We returned to the surface some time later, having gleaned the area for yet more writings and anything else of worth -- at least of the monetary sort -- the beggars might have scavenged. Our first stop was the marketplace, where we bought several things for the rest of the party, and I purchased for myself some presentable clothes. (While I value the clothing I wear in combat greatly, I must be presentable if I am to finally mingle once more with others of my true station) Before we left the market, however, we were called to the side by a seedy-looking chap who was hocking an odd, glowing crystal. Such things are not exactly uncommon to an adventuring party as magically-inclined as ours, but it was odd to see one being sold in the town square, and Mayim seemed to take a liking for it, immediately making an incredibly poor attempt at haggling for the item. I stepped in and attempted to assist her in this. Things were progressing slowly, with Aelon also providing a few offers for the merchant, but he seemed adamant in a price that I considered unreasonable. However, Nathaniel suddenly spoke up from the back with an interesting offer. He had noted that, among various other marketing ploys and false stories about how exotic and rare this crystal was, the merchant had mentioned finding it beyond the Isle of Nefelus, a location mentioned in the scrawls from the library walls. We would pay the merchant's egregious asking price, Nathaniel stated, if the man would also tell us where he had found this crystal, as well as where to find the place and the isle he'd passed to get there. An interesting and shrewd bargain, especially from one who usually said so little. The merchant seemed perfectly willing to give up information like that, seeming to think that the lands he'd visited were dangerous enough to get us all killed, were we even willing to travel far enough to impact his own expeditions, not realizing that what interested us more was his simple landmark rather than the stated destination. We neglected to correct this false impression, instead accepting both item and information and going on our way.
Nathaniel had, among a few other things, purchased materials with which to make himself a new shield, and left us at the inn to get to work while the rest of us rested for the next day. Unlike my short meditative rest within the beggars' chambers, unfortunately, my night's sleep was anything but restful. I tossed and turned wildly in my sleep, beset by images both dark and disturbing. I saw myself fleeing through darkened streets and among shadowy, living trees, dogged on all sides by fierce sewer rats and other foul vermin that I in waking hours considered kin. I ran for what seemed like an eternity, never truly resting or finding peace, gaining little solace if I dodged a pursuer and exacerbating the problem if I attempted to kill one. Eventually, however, I crested a strangely barren hill and encountered a blinding light. The sun, rendered my mortal foe by my condition, hovered on the horizon, far larger than I had ever seen it before. As its rays fell upon myself and my assailants, I was left somehow unharmed while the shadows that had plagued me squealed and screamed, dissipating in the light. As I stood there, awestruck, the sun itself spoke: "Fear not, Nehl Brisby, son of Veracht. Your new path is a righteous one. Though all might seem lost, and your companions more dangerous than your foes, stay true to both your goals and theirs, and all shall become clear to you, in time..."
I woke then, shaking and terrified, but also suddenly hopeful. I have never been the most pious or loyal follower of Pelor, but he had seen fit to assuage my concerns with the Bronze Fang and bring me some semblance of peace. I am not sure I will ever bring myself to trust these people, Mayim and Alin in particular, but I will take solace in the fact that their cause and mine, whether they know it or not, align. Perhaps there is yet more to this motley assortment of divinely lucky psychopaths than I thought...
Nehl Brisby III"
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