Tower ruins

The ruins west of Daphne's hut are what's left of an old tower -and no other bits of building attached. It seems a bit of an odd place for a watchtower, too, and despite being crumbled the stonework doesn't look that old, maybe half a century at most. The tower extends up to two and a half stories - where the stonework that hasn't crumbled ends in a bizarre, unnaturally even manner, as if someone had simply chopped the tower in half and carried the rest of it away. The door is sound and unlocked - it looks like it's been slightly maintained by Daphne at least. There's a platform in the center of the room marked with arcane symbols - some study reveals that it might have had a teleportation function once upon a time, but ti doesn't work anymore. There's the remnants of an old kitchen around - nothing particularly preserved there food-wise - Daphne prepared all of her meals in her hut it seems. You do, however, find an enchanted tea kettle - long unused and dirty, but when you approach it, the kettle hops and clanks in place and opens its lid, presumably waiting for water and the infuser to be filled. Other than that, nothing particularly remarkable about the kitchen - though you see signs that whoever used to live here grew their own herbs, they've all since died. There's also a dining table, old and scratched, and a big termite eaten coat rack with a robe and wide-brimmed hat still hanging on them. Nothing enchanted, but something that definitely belonged to a wizard once upon a time.

The second floor seems to have been a study. There's a small library in here, the lot of it in preserved condition - the owner having carefully warded his books against aging, water, sun damage, and insects. There's a healthy sized fiction section, but also numerous shelves dedicated to historical subjects. Old wars, ancient burial grounds, and temples in the various nations. There's also a few old maps showing some of the nations and the borders that have been drawn and redrawn over the years - but they're dated hundreds of years apart and the most recent one was like eighty years ago. There's also a large beastiary section as well, with both general monster almanacs and books detailed and specific to particular monster species. One such book is laying on the owner's desk, a book about hags. It's opened to a page about their reproduction methods - specifically a passage is underlined about them being able to conceive children with most types of men and fey, and when they do, then storing the resulting seedlings in a dormant state. They become active on the mother's death, where her body becomes a tree and the seedlings spout, absorbing nutrients from within for several decades. They apparently absorb some memories this way as well, learning how to take care of themselves - and emerge from their mother tree in an adolescent state.

....On that note there's also a number of books about love and sexuality, especially where it involves 'exotic' partners, and books on how to improve your confidence and self-esteem.

Finally, one of the maps inside the desk's drawers has five areas circle on it - the map is of Telgard, so locating the specific areas seems to be a daunting task, but you see two circles in Ashenia, one in Khudal, one in Ora Anguis, and one in Graylight. There's a note attached -

"Eden - Should you come across this, you're probably looking for my atelier locations. This should help In return, I'd like you to make sure Eleanor's body is well cared for.- V."

On the third floor... well there is where the walls end abruptly and the sky hangs over you. Here is a garden, overgrown and wild, with a large willow tree in the middle. The tree bears an old scar across its trunk, two in fact, where it seems the wood split from within.

For loot in this place, there's the kettle, and probably anything explicitly mentioned in the study. If you're interested in a certain subset of books let me know and I'll provide a list of titles, or if you're looking for something in particular I'll say if it's there or not. You can also try and roll perception in either the ground floor, the study, or the garden to see if you can find something else, but you only get to pick one!


BOOKS RETRIEVED

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Kid-friendly Fiction
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Kinsi and the Dragon - A three volume story of a young girl who meets a young bronze dragon the size of large dog and go on an adventure together in a strange and faraway kingdom to find the dragon's clutch. The adventure starts out light-hearted and whimsical and gradually becomes more mature as Kinsi has to learn to fight and deal with more complex issues. A coming of age story.

The Clockwork Carnival - A curious take, this one - It seems to be about a world that underwent something similar to the World Break, but came back together only at the cost of the lives of the gods and most of the world's magic. As a result, the people developed in quite a different way, embracing technological advances such as great steel carriages linked together like chains and powered by steam, gliding along rails built above the tops of buildings - and flying boats, carried upward in the air with heated air blown into a canopy and false wings. But the titular attraction of the book, the Clockwork Carnival, was a traveling tent, and a marvel beyond any of these things - possessing animal-like golems, performers using strange gadgets to attempt daring stunts, and musicians playing complicated instrument-engines that took almost a room in size but made the sounds of a full orchestra on their own.

Sunchild - The story of a young boy chosen by Pelor to right wrongs across the lands - the twist being that the boy was quite frail and had no talent to fight or cast magic, and would often have to combat problems with his wits. The story's plot seems to be somewhat of a commentary on pacifism and what its strengths and failings can be.

The Adventures of Dr. Carmen Hawthorne - Not a single book but a small collection of mystery novels. The mysteries of this setting do often use magic as a medium, though they also go into enough detail that the solutions never quite feel blindsiding. Dr. Hawthorne herself is a brilliant inspector who lives in the city of Blackbaron, a hundred years prior to the current date, and a chirurgeon on top of that. She is joined by her assistant, Julian Fairbank, who is a fortune teller and arcane practitioner. Hawthorne always dismisses his fortune telling but when magic is involved usually relies on his expertise, and though his insights have the right information, his conclusions leave something to be desired and Hawthorne is the one to piece the puzzles together on most occasions.

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Monster Almanacs
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The Physiology of Dragons - An in-depth study of dragons, both chromatic and metallic, based off of decades of research, the assistance of adventurers, and at least one old Copper Dragon who willingly donated their body for study after dying of illness. The book sets out to define the physical structures of different dragon types, how their breath weapons work, and what physical differences exist between chromatics and metallics. For example, metallic dragons are found to larger and more complex brains than chromatics, more comparable to the civilized races. As for breath weapons, it seems all dragons have within them an organ that helps focus ambient magic called a saryx, connected to their respiratory systems. The dragon breathes in, elementally charges the air in their lungs with their saryx, and then screams, releasing a torrent of magic. Dragonborn have a saryx as well, though much smaller.

My Wife the Succubus - This is.... an interesting one. This is a study of devils and in particular, a succubus the author claims to have married. Devils apparently function with their desires functioning as a need as important as food and water to mortals. They draw sustenance from self-fulfillment. As imps, they merely only need to put their well-being and wishes above others. In other words, they draw sustenance from the emotional power of selfishness. The kind of devil they mature into depends on how complex or narrow-focused their desires become. Most assume succubi are devils of lust, and indeed, many act in that fashion. But through the succubus he called, the author claims to have discovered, he found out they were creatures who required intimacy, not necessarily sexual contact. The devil he courted was tired of sexual encounters and wished for more platonic romantic engagement, which the author reciprocated. It's a curious story for certain. Perhaps it's actually fiction?

Almanac Aberantium - A large compendium of strange creatures that have emerges from the dark corners of the earth. The tentacled, catfish-like entities known as Aboleths who can put intelligent races under its thrall, the vicious eye-stalked Beholders, floating eyes who can birth more of themselves through dreams. The humanoid foulspawn, who have the intelligence of man but a dark will shared amongst them. And Mind Flayers, who like the aboleth can enslave the thoughts of men but themselves are humanoid with tentacled mouths and feed upon brains. A common theme among aberrants seems to be psychic powers, tentacles, a lack of eyes, too many eyes, or general body horror. Hm.

There are more, of course, but these are the ones I felt like going into detail on right now.

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Romance Novels
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Funny enough, the wizard did have a few. Looking through them, you see the following:

The Widow of Bright Lane - A milkman down on his luck finds himself the interest of a wealthy widow in the upper part of the city of Carlima, Ashenia. Is this a dream come true, or is he going to get more than he bargained for?

Changeling - A wizard with a failed love life finds themselves the subject of a magic backlash that changes them into a woman. Now she's being approached by numerous suitors and finding she doesn't mind these changes so much. Maybe things are starting to look up... But what about her personality?

Flames of the Underworld - A journalist for the Blackbaron Gazette goes undercover to investigate a criminal organization forming in the seedy underbelly of the city, and finds himself earning the attention of competing suitors - the organization's primary black market merchant (a suave male hjuran from the south), and the boss's daughter (a tiefling with a dry sense of humor that hates to be crossed).

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Necromancy.... well, you're right, you don't find anything sticking its nose at you right away. But you do find a small catalog of the books the wizard had (perhaps reading it with Lycoris's help), and with that you notice that he did indeed have a small section of five books on necromancy - but the shelf they're assigned to is empty. Digging around a little more reveals a note that 'Eden' has borrowed a number of tomes. Hmm, that's a shame. But that seems to suggest Eden was interested in necromancy as well. You do, however, spot something left behind in the history section about one of the nomadic tribes of the Barrens of Graylight - the cover making mention of their unusual practices, including the treatment of the dead.

The Larania tribe of Graylight mummifies their dead and buries them in large, spherical barrows made of ice and snow - and if they consented during life, their left hands are removed and preserved further. The left hand is seen as the guiding hand, and it is thought spirits need no guiding, so the hands are kept with the tribe so that they be guided by their lost kin. Rituals are undertaken with these hands celebrating their lives, mourning the dead, and sometimes for oracular purposes, actually speaking with the dead and asking for guidance.  And, curiously enough, for transportation. Supposedly one of their traditional rituals 'guides their people back to their place of rest', allowing them to visit the interment sites even while nomadic.

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Lycoris finds two things of interest: The first being a book with the seal of Ioun stamped inside and a place for a library card. This book of, er, poetry, titled Mad Screams of Love, is on a list of outstanding borrows/missing texts. The current owner is not likely to be the borrower, as you recall from documents you read that this was checked our roughly one hundred and eight years ago. Hm.

The second thing is... an eye on the shelf. Not a human eye, no, but not a fake one either. This was a Pandoran's eye, colored with a gentle lavender color. As you pick it up, a rush of knowledge flows into your head. You see writings on tomes and tablets, you see passwords for doors, opening. You see hands that are not your own transcribing information quickly, effortlessly. And then the visions stop. The eye is inert, for now, but some knowledge has been passed on. Lycoris learns the Amanuensis ritual, which is At Will. She also gains Eden's Eye.... a Pandoran upgrade item with unknown effects.

Unfortunately for Cedrik, nothing relevant to what he was curious about was brought back by happenstance.