— Antheia of Stone Lilly Cove —
After leaving the castle, Antheia made her way directly to the nearest transit hub. She’d lived in the city for almost two years. For several months early on she frequently traveled from the temple she’d been living in to provide what help she could with negotiating the trade deals and early assistance needed to found the village. While the deals that helped build the village were far too routine to actively involve the royals, the negotiations were often done in the castle so Antheia was very familiar with the journey between the castle and the temple academy of Syliantha.
The journey was largely uneventful but the few annoyances were made all the worse as the sun rose far overhead. Even deep beneath the earth, she could feel the sun like fingernails gently scraping against her mind. The steadily growing hunger she’d felt building over the course of the journey didn’t help her mood. She wasn’t starving but she definitely felt she’d skipped at least two meals.
Fortunately the worst annoyance Antheia encountered was one she’d come to expect living in the city as a gorgon. The transit carts were not built for people with a large serpent body in place of legs. She not only had to use a larger and slower cart, she had to position herself somewhat uncomfortably.
As she’d hurtled through the transit tunnel she tamped down her irritation, instead focusing on the sights revealed by her undead vision. She also reminded herself even if it took a bit longer the ride was still substantially quicker than the multiple hours she would have taken to slither the streets to her destination.
Much of her annoyance was put out of her mind, even if not completely forgotten, as she stepped out into the temple district. Stoneshield was first and foremost a city of craftsmen and there were few places that showed that more clearly than the district she’d just entered. Almost every deity was represented by intricate temples crafted by masters and often further enhanced by the power of the deity channeled by their most powerful followers in the city.
As Antheia slithered along she took in the sights of the more impressive temples on the way to her destination. The temple of Emtharm, the god of metal and blacksmithing, was not only one of the largest, it was a true masterpiece of intricately forged metal of all types, ranging from raw iron filigree to clear windows forged from incredibly rare and valuable diamond mythril. Equally as impressive, if not as readily noticeable, as the metal work was the wind based enchantments that allowed it to function. Countless vents decorated with dragon, fire elemental, and other fearsome fiery creatures took in air to feed the many forges and vented the hot steam filled, but otherwise purified, air.
The temple of the goddess of the sea Bathylia was fairly small but it was also one of her favorites. The pillars of the temple were formed from coral and the foundation and ceiling were polished sandstone. What really drew the eye and made her love the temple were the actual walls. They were formed from several meter thick walls of water with a thin layer of coral and kelp at the back to provide privacy. Swimming through the water was all manner of ocean life.
She didn’t pass directly past it but even from a few streets over the temple of Ammolithen, the god of crystals and light, was obvious. The carefully carved and deceptively strong crystalline lattice it was formed from as well as the impressive illusions of light were hard to miss. She especially enjoyed it when she saw a massive image of a crystal scaled fish that transitioned into the form of a mighty dragon.
Antheia did have to give a wide berth for the scale carved white marble temple of Ilthianid the serpent deity of venom and healing. It was the holy water of that deity that was used in divine healing potions and even from across a fairly wide street, the building made her skin feel tight like being submerged in just below scalding temperature water. The healing magic clearly reacted poorly to her undead state, even as diffused as it was.
Except for hurrying past the temple of Ilthianid, she’d been moving at a fairly leisurely pace but she soon found herself just outside the temple academy of Syliantha. The polished gray and white stonework were masterwork quality but were easy to overlook compared to the tens of thousands of arcane glyphs and runes that formed even larger enchantments that themselves formed incredibly complex runic formations.
She only observed the arcane formations for a few moments before walking through the always open pair of large polished magewood doors. The heavy enchanted doors were only ever closed when it was needed to protect the people and contents of the temple from disaster.
The interior of the building never failed to impress. The majority of the four story tall building was mostly an open space. Four floors made of polished rune carved mage wood protruded from the gray and white stone walls, each floor extending further than the one below; creating the illusion of a dome. Extending from the doors to the middle of the open room was an area dilled with comfortable reading areas with a large reference desk just in front of a large statue of Syliantha situated in the center of the implied dome.
The statue was an almost two story tall living coral encrusted pillar carved from black sandstone. The merfolk deity was carved from almost pearlescent limestone. Her leviathan serpent like tail was coiled around the coral coated pillar and she stood tall enough to look onto the top floor. Instead she was depicted reading a seaweed scroll. Like most merfolk her hair was slightly shorter than mid back and worn in a simple braid with coral clasps holding it in place. She wore a fairly typical tight jacket-like short robe worn by merfolk mages. Such robes were typically made from shark skin with turtle shell or giant crab carapace used to decorate and reinforce it.
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The rest of the main area of the library was packed with tall shelves holding every kind of repository of the written word, only broken up by the occasional half hidden reading area.
When she got her fill of looking around the interior of the temple Antheia made her way to a female kobold with silver scales who wasn’t helping anyone at the reference desk. The kobold looked up from the scroll she held and said “Welcome to the temple of Syliantha. Do you seek or bring knowledge?”
Antheia retrieved her sigil of The Library of Stone and Tide and said “I have come to seek knowledge. May I request a private reading room?” She paused debating simply finding her own reference material, but decided against it. The clergy of the temple had far more potent skills to search through the massive library for knowledge needed by a supplicant. After that moment of internal debate she continued “I would also like to request books regarding Mortis; especially any information about her connection to undeath and her interactions with other deities and their worshipers.”
A faint glimmer of mana flash in the reptilian pale blue eyes of the kobold as she confirmed the authenticity of Antheia’s credentials. Apparently satisfied she retrieved a small rune etched brass key from below the desk and said “Of course. The relevant texts will be brought to reading room ninety seven.”
Antheia took the key and said “Thank you. Also before I forget I should add; If an elf by the name of Keira comes looking for me please direct her to me.”
As Antheia left the vast open space behind for the complex warren of tight hallways and all manner of rooms she wondered about the logistics of the space. She’d never been completely sure if the twisting nature of the space, where even finding a room on the floor you started on often required going up and down multiple flights of stairs, hid the fact the space was actually contained in the quarter or so of the building not taken up by the main library area. It was also possible that it instead concealed the fact the temple was enchanted to be bigger on the inside.
Like she always did she tried to mentally map out the path she took to compare it to the physical space of the temple but she eventually lost track after five flights of stairs and at least thirty turns. As she walked, she passed private reading rooms next to simple living spaces and in use lecture halls next to heavily warded reliquaries guarded by golems, elementals, and even stranger things.
After almost two years spent living in the temple she wasn’t surprised that by the time reached the private reading room with a brass ninety seven on the door, there was already a stack of books and scrolls waiting for her.
As she tapped into her skills to speed her rate of study and increase her retention of information she quickly found that even in a temple of the goddess of scholars, concrete facts about the ancient goddess of death were scarce. She was slightly surprised that there was a fairly clear, if equally surprised, consensus that there seemed to be no particular bad blood between Mortis and Ilthianid despite the well documented negative reaction the undead had to her powers.
It was, admittedly, less surprising when one considered her other aspect was venom and to some extent poison in general.
Antheia was well over three quarters of the way through the documents, having found mostly speculation and the information she learned from her own books restated in a dozen or more ways, when she came across something potentially useful.
A well regarded scholar made an apparently off hand observation that the scarcity of information on Mortis and the Veil she guarded was likely a result of her close ties to Lunith, the deity of the moon and secrets. The scholar also briefly made reference to a primary source that wasn’t among the documents present that apparently indicated that temples of Lunith often held small simple shrines to Mortis and might also have more information on the illusive goddess.
Fired up on a half dozen skills geared towards finding facts she almost jumped to her feet to go directly to seek out the temple of Lunith she knew the city would have. Fortunately logic prevailed and prevented her from wasting her time. She might have reason to suspect that Lunith had friendly ties to Mortis but she knew for a fact that Lunith was definitely actively and perpetually feuding with Syliantha. It didn’t take a scholar to see that the goddess of acquiring and sharing knowledge would not get along with the deity of secrets.
Followers of Lunith were typically allowed within the temples of Syliantha but they were closely monitored and only allowed to access texts when multiple copies were present in the temple to prevent obfuscation or alteration of the contents.
Temples of Lunith tended to skip the pretense and simply barred entry to those with Syliantha’s attention or favor. Even if Antheia went and found the temple the only thing she would see was the outside of the building.
Antheia slumped back in her seat, in so far as could, in a seat made for a gorgon. It was possible, if unlikely, she would find more information in the last handful of texts. Regardless she was frustrated that when she saw Keir she would have to say she found a lead but couldn’t even attempt to follow up on it.
Thinking about the impressive elf she was reminded of the clear signs of Mortis’ favor she carried with her. The followers of Lunith might not even allow Antheia in but if they were allied with Mortis they would probably roll out the red carpet for Keir.
Antheia had barely had the thought when she acted on it. She quickly pulled out some paper and a dwarven ink pen and wrote a quick message to Keir, asking her to follow up on the lead when she finished with her own business for the day. Note in hand she walked over to the door and retrieved the small crystal hand bell sitting in an alcove there. The temple was too large and convoluted for it to be practical to go to the front desk every time a supplicant wanted to make a request. Instead bells like the one she held would summon a lesser air elemental when rang.
After Antheia rang the small bell a section of air twisted and writhed forming a twelve inch tall spindly harpy-like figure that was barely visible as a distortion in the air. She handed the figure the rolled up piece of paper and said “Make sure this message gets to the undead elf Keira as soon as possible.”
As both the figure and the note it carried shafted into a formless breeze and swept out through the cracks in the door, Antheia returned to the remaining documents.