Lions of Leilon
Session 66 — The Weight of Knowledge
The deeper they descended, the older the Vault became.
The polished halls of the House of Knowledge gave way to forgotten chambers where the mountain itself had been carved around ancient caverns. Here, books and stone had coexisted for centuries, and the line between library and dungeon had long since disappeared.
Knowledge, they discovered, was not always stored on shelves.
Sometimes it was buried.
The Lions continued their exploration of the Vault, searching for answers about the mysterious shard they had taken from the lich Regatta.
Instead, they found echoes of ordinary lives.
A scholar’s desk still held magical tools left behind in haste. A sealed letter, never delivered, spoke of love abandoned in favor of duty. Nearby lay the unfinished beginnings of a Fireball scroll—as though its owner had fully expected to return the following morning.
Forty years had passed.
No one ever had.
Beyond the library, natural caverns twisted beneath Neverwinter.
Warm water flowed through ancient stone, carrying with it the smell of the deep earth. There the party fought swarms of vicious stirges before discovering creatures that had crept into the forgotten reaches of the Vault—things that had no business existing in a place built to preserve knowledge.
The mountain had slowly begun reclaiming what civilization had abandoned.
Returning to the archives, the Lions discovered something stranger still.
Constructs—small modrons—continued their endless work among towering bookshelves.
They sorted.
They stacked.
They cataloged.
Over and over again.
Decades after every librarian had vanished, they still carried out the duties they had been created to perform, though the signs of neglect were becoming impossible to ignore.
Without maintenance, even perfect order eventually begins to fail.
Not every book wished to be read.
One volume, innocently titled Dining in Hell, revealed itself to be a hungry mimic, erupting into violence the moment it was disturbed. Though dangerous, it proved no match for the combined strength of the Lions, and the strange guardian was swiftly destroyed.
Among the surviving volumes, however, the party noticed a pattern.
Certain embossed books seemed deliberately placed.
Killing Thoughts.
New Beginnings.
Excelsior.
One by one, the scattered titles began to fit together like pieces of a forgotten puzzle.
The final chamber lay beyond a temple dedicated to Oghma.
Within stood a mirror unlike any ordinary reflection.
Each member of the Lions gazed into its surface and saw not themselves…
…but the thing they desired most.
No two visions were alike.
The mirror offered no answers.
Only honesty.
Beyond the temple waited the oldest part of the Vault.
There, the party witnessed a ghostly struggle repeating itself without end.
The spectral form of a white dragon and the spirit of a long-dead loremaster clashed again and again, trapped in an endless cycle neither could escape. No matter how the Lions intervened, both figures simply returned to begin the conflict anew.
Only by uncovering the true source—a magical tome titled Monsters of the Mind—did they finally break the cycle.
When the book was destroyed, the dragon vanished.
For the first time in decades…
…the ghost remained.
The loremaster introduced himself as Atlavast.
No longer trapped within the endless battle, he spoke calmly with the party, confirming their growing suspicions about the shard.
It was never meant to wander the world.
It belonged within a greater system.
A stabilizing anchor that should not remain in mortal hands.
Atlavast urged the Lions to seek answers at the Order of the Many Starred Cloaks within Neverwinter’s Cloak Tower before attempting to return the shard to its proper place beneath Blacklake.
He also gave his blessing for the Vault to be reopened—carefully.
Knowledge deserved to be shared.
But only with those wise enough to preserve it.
The Lions emerged from the depths carrying far more than books.
They carried responsibility.
Where Things Stand
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The Vault of Tomes has been cleared, and its greatest threat has been ended.
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Atlavast has been freed from his endless battle and remains as guardian of the Vault.
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The Modron constructs continue their work but are slowly failing without proper care.
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The party now knows the shard is part of a larger system and must eventually be returned beneath Blacklake.
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Before doing so, they intend to seek guidance from the Order of the Many Starred Cloaks at Cloak Tower.
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Krum also plans to seek divine guidance through Commune, hoping his deity can reveal where the shard truly belongs.
Some knowledge changes history.
Some knowledge changes the future.
The Lions now carry both.
