22. Romancing the Stone

Hamidal Eltorchul in “Romancing the Stone”

Summary

The party attempted to question their prisoner once again but had little luck. Hamidal was able to get some glimpse of her meeting whereupon she received the stone and her task of delivering it, but was able to discern little detail. Vevette resisted his attempts to push further and so they were unable to gather than name of the person who’d given her the stone. Recognizing her building resistance to their questioning, and having no further directions to take questioning, they desisted - delivering her back to the basement.

Veldrin got back to the tavern while the rest of the party was debating what to do with the stone. Before deciding on what to do next, Veldrin and Hamidal both left to do some research on the stone to see if they could find anything else about it that might help in deciding. Veldrin spoke to some of his underworld contacts but couldn’t find anything regarding it, so he decided to stop by the Cassalanter’s villa. Lord Cassalanter didn’t have anything to add about the stone and Veldrin demurred on telling him any details about it, saying it was something he’d heard rumors about.

There was also the matter of the unresolved contract with the Lord regarding the false maps. Veldrin didn’t know about the letter signed by Jarlaxle that Footsteps had handed over to the Masked Lord during their interview, so he told Lord Cassalanter about the drow they’d discovered in the sewers below the Ship’s Prow and said it was a splinter group of the Bregan D’aerthe that were responsible for spreading the maps. The Lord was glad that it was not a targeted attempt, but was still upset that it had aroused the attention of a vampire. Veldrin took payment from the Lord for completion of their contract with him and headed home.

Hamidal did some of his own sort of ‘digging’. He headed back to the Eltorchul Academy to search their library for some sign of this stone. He plumbed every piece of text they had on magical artifacts but could only find general information or things about other artifacts. He did find some references to a Stone of Golorr that seemed to fit the description of the stone in their possession but could glean nothing more than they’d already discovered about it.

Reassembled in the tavern, the party further debated who should attune to the stone. There was some discussion of Grick being better able to resist any mental effects the Stone might attempt to deploy, but the final vote rested with Hamidal. The party figured that Grick probably had the best chance of finding healing they might need in the event something untoward were to become the attuner. Footsteps was not happy with this outcome, and mostly threw curses and pouted in the corner drinking while Hamidal sat and attempted to attune to the item.

The night was getting late. Everyone sat mostly doing nothing, waiting on Hamidal to report something. Finally he did - “My tea is bad”. A voice was speaking to him in his head. A strange voice that said “You’re welcome”. It was some kind of intelligence that inhabited the stone. It asked Hamidal to feed it knowledge, and in return it answered his questions. When asked, it said it knew about the secret vault wherein Lord Dagult Neverember had hidden his gold dragons. It said that three keys were required to open the vault: a unicorn, a large ruby, and the most treasured possession of an enemy of the city.

It told them that it knew what the keys were, but not where the keys were. When asked if the Stone would have try to do anything to Hamidal’s mind, it said that it already had, that it was inside of his mind already. Hamidal was slightly spooked by that idea, but didn’t feel any ill effects - and could seemingly remember everything with no cloudiness. For safety, they decided to place the Stone into the bag of holding for the night. It objected, wanting to experience and see things, to absorb knowledge, but didn’t resist. It only told Hamidal not to leave it in there long, as it bored easily.

The following morning, over breakfast, Hamidal discovered why his tea had gone bad the night before - he no longer had any sense of smell. After breakfast, Grick decided that he was going to go stake out Yellowspire Tower to try to learn something of its new inhabitants. He was very pleasantly surprised to discover that the rest of the party agreed to come along and help him. They took turns switching off watching the tower for anyone entering or exiting. They could see the smoke of a fire coming from the chimney, but no one came or went.

Veldrin’s patience wore thin and he decided to take the initiative to knock on the front door. Hamidal had Gozrien climb up into Veldrin’s cloak while he waited, but there was no reply. When he tried the door, he found it unlocked, and so he pushed it open to see what was inside. It was a small vestibule not original to the tower, but still very old. Frayed and rotting tapestries hung from the walls, and opposite the door was a much larger door that entered into the tower itself.

Gozrien entered the vestibule to check the tower door, but couldn’t find the room to push himself under, so Grick pulled the tower door open for him. Inside were stairs and a fireplace, but an otherwise unfurnished chamber. From up the stairs Gozrien, and thus Hamidal, could hear the sounds of human voices chanting something. Everyone retreated from the tower to regroup outside, where they decided that they didn’t like the sound of someone chanting and it might be in their best interests to retreat for the time being.