War for the Crown Gameplay Part 1

Corey's eyes boggle at the very concept, but he keeps it together. "Ah mean, if we ain't gonna help him out, then Ah suppose we could just pay him."

”Just pay him and be done with it,” Momo says, pinching the bridge of her nose.

After a little more discussion about how to pay Viecar, the group returns. "So, you said you'd take payment in gold or in jewelry?" Adelaide repeats, rummaging through her bag. "How about in fancy golden keys?" She pulls out the ornate key they used earlier.

”Key for a key, seems fair,” Viecar agrees, still only sticking his head out of the hole. He slips back out and rummages through his magic bag to procure a shining steel key and offers it.

Adelaide makes sure she has a grip on the new key before handing over the old. "Thank you, Viecar."

Viecar just nods then slips back into his hole and climbs back up to the rafters.

On the way across the long hall to the last unexplored area on this side of the locked door, the badges chime with another message from Martella. "Away from the senate building. Guiding a dozen or so of the servants to a safe haven..."

”We seem to be under the senate building right now,” Adelaide tells her through the badge as they walk, ”along with a few others whose badges had contingencies. Finding our way up, will keep heads down when we know our way.”

After moving through a library room full of scroll cases, one of which contains several useful scrolls that find themselves pocketed, the group enters a room which towering rows of bookshelves fill the center of, separated only by a low shelf and countertop running the room’s length. A door exits to the south, while two doors exit to the north.  Four book like creatures with insectile legs and rows of razor sharp teeth in their covers spring out from the shelves, ready to fight the intruders.

Josie fires an arrow, Corey swings his glaive, and Sarina fires off a blob of acid before Adelaide is able to speak. ”Drop your weapons!” she shouts immediately, dropping her own rapier. ”They won’t do us harm if you stop threatening them!” She offers her arm to a creature that had tried to grapple her with its tongue, as if to prove the point.

The creature doesn't try to fully grapple and restrain Adelaide with its ribbon tongue now, instead just wrapping it around her wrist and opening up to a blank page inside it expectantly.

”You’re starved for new information, aren’t you?” Adelaide comments, tone softening now that the creature has calmed down. ”That’s the only reason you acted so fast, you’re not normally an aggressive creature at all. I’m sure it’s been a long time. May I look at information you’ve gathered so far, to see what I might share?”

The pages flip back to reveal remarkably meager amounts of information. There's some about the geometry of sinkholes and alchemical formulae that seems to have been recorded in one long, stream of consciousness sentence and another section with some basic information about Axis, but little else at all.

”Ah, you collect alchemical knowledge!” Adelaide reaches with her free hand into her bag, pulls out a small book, and starts speaking very quickly about her alchemical work so far.

"What are they, Adelaide?" Sarina asks. "What happens when you share knowledge with them?"

Adelaide's words are transcribed directly to the page right underneath Mimips' formulae instantaneously as soon as they leave her mouth, all the writing being in crisp, easy to read lettering.

”Gishvits seek out information so they can record it, see?” Adelaide answers with a smile. She clears her throat. ”Sometimes referred to as “lore roaches” by scholars familiar with the Outer Planes, gishvits are natural inhabitants of the lawful plane of Axis. Often associated with the native axiomites and scrivenites, gishvits occupy a mundane role on Axis, maintaining vast stores of knowledge within their booklike bodies. Transcribing knowledge from living creatures, a gishvit stores information in its body in the form of written text, preserving the acquired knowledge within itself. Because of this unique method of information gathering, gishvits are treasured by information brokers and spellcasters on the Material Plane.”

"And I suppose the easiest way to make sure they won't be a bother is to let them fill up on information?" Sarina confirms, following Adelaide's lead in offering a hand to another Gishvit.

"Oh... well shucks, Ah'm sorry fer breakin' one then," Corey says sheepishly, looking down at the scattered pages of the one he shredded.

”Yes, the only reason they leaped at us is because they saw a chance for new information,” Adelaide confirms. ”Like I mentioned, they’re not normally very aggressive at all. Gishvits are also intelligent and understand all languages, which is why its behavior changed after I called out. They’re unable to speak, though.”

The other one that isn't wounded skitters forwards and wraps its ribbon around Sarina's wrist to start transcribing some information from her, while the wounded one limps forwards but hangs back, afraid to try and use its ribbon for fear of passing out immediately.

Sarina nods, beginning to talk about the basics of magic and spellcasting to a Gishvit.

Corey looks sympathetically at the limping gishivit and approaches it slowly and cautiously, holding out one of his healing potions.

The wounded gishvit opens up its covers and clamps a couple times at Corey happily at the offer of potion.

Adelaide turns her attention back to the gishvit on her wrist. ”If you’d like, you could leave this place with me,” she tells it, smiling. ”All three of you, really, if you’d like. We could do memory transcriptions and talk of many things!”