The party continued deeper into the ruins beneath the library and entered a partially collapsed chamber containing little more than rubble, a sandstone pillar, and a single damaged bookshelf.
The pillar continued upward through the ceiling, apparently connecting to the monument above that had warned visitors against stealing from the library. Each of its four lower faces contained an ancient carving: a great roc flying above a world without land, a cervidae transforming through the four seasons, Corellon bleeding onto a field of flowers, and those flowers becoming the first elves.
The nearby bookshelf appeared ready to collapse. Its feet had been worn and broken beneath the weight of the rubble, yet strangely, none of its books had fallen from the shelf. The titles appeared to document the history of the world chronologically, beginning with The First Flowering and ending with The Age of Humanity.
Fable noticed thin strips of metal between the books, and Nys realized that each volume had been bolted into place.
Fern reached for a book near the middle of the shelf titled The Days of Thunder.
When he pulled it, the entire bookshelf slid aside.
Behind it was a hidden passage filled with dust and spiderwebs.
The passage opened into a massive forgotten archive. Tables and chairs had been shattered as though a fight had once taken place there, while mummified bodies hung from the ceiling inside enormous spider-like cocoons.
The shelves, however, remained filled with priceless knowledge long thought lost to the world. The party found texts on the secrets of Elven Mystrals, Epic Magic, Runesmithing, and countless other forbidden magical traditions.
Among them was the formula for constructing a Philosopher’s Stone.
Fable immediately recognized the runes.
They were nearly identical to those her father had carved into her back.
However, hers were inverted.
Fable copied the markings and brought them to Ned. He reasoned that if the Philosopher’s Stone represented Creation, then reversing its runes might instead represent the power of the Qlippoth. However, something about Fable’s diagram confused him.
There was nothing in the center of the ritual circle.
Without an object for the magic to act upon, Ned could not understand what purpose the ritual would serve.
Fable became increasingly nervous.
She knew what had been in the center.
Her.
Elsewhere in the archive, Behzad discovered a book describing Draconic Power Words, an ancient form of spellcasting that predated the modern use of spell slots. The book explained that ancient Dragons spoke Supernal, the language of the Gods, to directly command the Weave rather than shape it through conventional spells.
Behzad attempted to quietly place the book into his bag.
His hands slipped, and he dropped it onto the stone floor.
When Ned asked what he had found, Behzad claimed that he had been unable to translate it.
Ned translated it for him.
He then tested one of the lesser Power Words, speaking a command that violently threw a nearby chair to the ground.
Ned stared at the chair.
“It’s like a Thunderwave that didn’t consume one of my slots.”
Behzad took the book back and, doing his best to conceal his irritation, thanked Ned for the demonstration.
The party also investigated the bodies hanging above the archive and discovered that they belonged to Taimavar agents.
Behzad removed one of their cloaks and put it on, complimenting its color and craftsmanship.
As the party continued searching the archive, Fern spotted a fox-like figure watching them from between the shelves. The creature whispered an incantation, and Fern felt a spell attempting to paralyze his body.
He resisted it and approached.
Fern followed the creature into a room filled with Phase Spiders, where it revealed itself as Styigan, an Arcanaloth charged with protecting the archive.
Styigan accused the party of being looters and thieves working for the Taimavar.
The party attempted to explain that they had nothing to do with them, although Fable’s enormous stack of stolen books and Behzad’s newly acquired Taimavar cloak did little to support their argument.
Styigan refused to allow them to leave with the archive’s secrets. He explained that he might permit Fable and Behzad to leave, but the elves could not be trusted with the knowledge contained there. Even if Fern and Nys had no connection to the Taimavar in their present lives, they could one day enter the Fading, reincarnate, and return as members of the organization.
The party rejected his reasoning.
Styigan burned one of his scrolls and summoned a Cambion beside Behzad.
The Devil immediately attempted to Planeshift Behzad into Hell, but Behzad managed to fight it off before he could be banished. Fern rushed to his aid, and the two attempted to overwhelm the Cambion together, but the Devil expertly parried nearly every attack they made.
Nys and Ned turned their attention toward the Phase Spiders. Nys cut through them with Sneak Attacks and Wails from the Grave while Ned flew above the library shelves, freezing groups of them with Cone of Cold.
Fable confronted Styigan alone.
Even as the two traded attacks, she continued arguing that the party was not working for the Taimavar and that hoarding knowledge of this magnitude from the world was wrong.
Styigan attempted to determine her intentions for himself.
He entered Fable’s mind and searched through her memories.
The violation enraged her.
Fable struck him with a Wilting Smite.
Styigan responded by demonstrating another unusual property of his magic. Whenever he successfully resisted one of the party’s spells, he appeared capable of understanding and reproducing it.
Fable cast Toll the Dead.
Styigan studied the spell as it washed harmlessly over him.
“Ah… Toll the Dead. I haven’t taken the time to learn this one yet.”
He smiled.
“Thanks for the lesson.”
Styigan snapped his fingers.
A bell chimed.
Fable’s own spell struck her in return.
Ned flew across the archive to assist her, but Styigan answered by speaking a Power Word and unleashing Chain Lightning through both of them. Fable survived the blast using Absorb Elements, only for Styigan to follow it with a powerful claw attack that knocked her unconscious and sent her crashing into a bookshelf.
Nys Fey Stepped to Fable’s side, cut herself, and fed Fable her blood to revive her.
Fable immediately used sanguinemancy to drain the blood from the remaining spiders, restoring herself as Ned, barely standing himself, unleashed the full force of his Evocation magic against Styigan.
The assault finally forced the Arcanaloth to retreat.
Ned turned himself invisible.
“What? Invisible people can’t see other invisible people?”
Fable stared at him.
“He’s not invisible. He teleported away.”
Ned was stunned. He had believed teleportation magic was limited to approximately thirty feet.
Fable reminded the Evocationist that Misty Step was not the most powerful teleportation spell in existence.
With Styigan gone, Nys turned her attention back toward the Cambion. Her arrow finally opened a gap in its defenses, allowing Fern to land the blow that killed it.
The party then looked down at the books they had taken from the archive.
Every page was blank.
Some magic belonging to Styigan protected the archive even in his absence, preventing its secrets from being stolen.
Determined to find him, Behzad cut through the remaining spiderwebs and discovered a collapsed staircase leading upward. Nys Fey Stepped through the opening above and lowered a rope so the others could follow.
The next chamber contained the same runes from the Philosopher’s Stone formula carved directly into the floor.
At their center sat a small red gemstone covered in cracks.
A failed attempt.
The party continued into an enormous chamber illuminated by floating spheres of moonlight. Frozen hands reached upward through the carpet, and at the center of the room rested a book larger than any member of the party.
At the far end was a desk covered in unopened letters.
Behind it sat an enormous Archfey dressed in noble robes and a moss-covered cloak. A wendigo skull concealed his face.
He was drinking a martini.
Styigan hurried toward the Archfey, whom he called Caelivyn, and pleaded with him to use his power as the Archivist to trap the intruders inside one of his Mazes.
Caelivyn looked past him toward Fern.
Then he laughed.
He asked Styigan whether he had any idea who he had just attacked.
Caelivyn greeted Fern as an old friend, explaining that if he wanted to check out a book he could simply have sent a letter and avoided all this unfortunate drama.
He then quickly attempted to sweep the enormous pile of unopened letters behind his desk.
Fern apologized for breaking into the archive and admitted that he had no idea who Caelivyn was. He asked him not to hurt the party.
Caelivyn laughed so violently that the library shook and books fell from the shelves.
“Banish you? Hurt you? As if I had so much power.”
He gestured toward the library around them.
“We’re in the Feywild! You cannot possibly steal from yourself. It’s YOUR domain, after all.”
Fern stared at him.
“What?”
Caelivyn studied him.
“You may be wearing a new face, but I would recognize your soul anywhere…”
He then looked around the room.
“Dad? You can come on out now. Your little prank didn’t catch me.”
The party stood in confused silence.
Caelivyn initially assumed the entire situation was some elaborate joke orchestrated by the Seelie Court. The idea that Corellon could somehow return to the exact place where he had surrendered his divinity with absolutely no memory of doing so was too absurd even for an Archfey.
Eventually, he realized Fern was not joking.
Caelivyn turned toward Styigan and demanded to know what he had done.
Many eons ago, Fern had been Corellon, God of the Elves.
After the Crown Wars, Corellon had come to Caelivyn overwhelmed by grief and hopelessness. He believed that he had failed his children and could no longer live with what Velatha, the architect of the Taimavar, had turned them into.
Corellon begged Caelivyn to take away his memories.
As an Archfey Patron, Caelivyn performed the same exchange he offered his Warlocks.
Power for memories.
Corellon surrendered his memories to his son.
Styigan was then tasked with making him mortal by extracting his divine essence and sealing it inside a Philosopher’s Stone.
The procedure had not gone smoothly.
Styigan explained that Corellon’s divinity had become so deeply intertwined with his being that he had been forced to “carve it from the bone with a saw.”
He defended the decision.
“A hopeless god is one thing. A hopeless Fey god is an unimaginable thing.”
With his memories surrendered and his divinity removed, Corellon entered the Fading.
Eventually, his soul returned to the world as Fern after many cycles, each one weakening his remaining power.
Styigan admitted that not all of Corellon’s divinity had made it into the Philosopher’s Stone. Some of it had leaked during the procedure.
He hoped that had not caused anything unfortunate.
The entire party immediately reached the same conclusion.
“Titus.”
Fern realized that when he had previously reached into his past life seeking knowledge about Tharizdun, he had unknowingly also broadcast the conversation through the remnants of Corellon’s divine connection.
Titus, Corellon’s sole remaining Cleric, had heard him.
This was why Titus had appeared in Wolford announcing that Corellon had spoken to him and instructed him to oppose Tharizdun.
Titus had been telling the truth.
Corellon simply had not known that he was Corellon.
The party took time to process the revelation while Caelivyn and Styigan began arguing over which of them was responsible for mutilating the God of Elves.
Fern occasionally interrupted them in a strangely authoritative, almost paternal voice.
Each time, he seemed confused by his own behavior.
“I don’t know what’s going on.”
He paused.
“I’m going to stop talking now.”
The party ultimately agreed that knowledge of the archive could not safely be allowed to reach the outside world. They convinced Ned to report to the College that the ruins had already been looted and that nothing remained worth recovering.
Caelivyn permitted the party to study his enormous Manual of Knowledge, permanently increasing each of their abilities.
Before leaving, however, Fable confronted Styigan.
She told him that they needed to discuss what he had seen when he entered her mind. After forcibly invading her memories and nearly killing her, she argued that he owed her an explanation.
Styigan stared at her in disbelief.
“WHAT? YOU FORCIBLY ENTERED MY HOUSE AND STOLE FROM ME! YOU STARTED IT!”
The two immediately began arguing again.
Before another fight could begin, Fern and Caelivyn intervened and calmed them down.
Styigan finally crossed his arms and reluctantly agreed to speak with her.