The Library
The library is a large room, stuffed with shelves and desks and alcoves, with thousands of books, scrolls, and tablets. There is no index of any kind to be found. Research might discover that the former librarian of the temple knew exactly what was in the library, and where everything is; there are a couple of former Balder priests still in the city, who could tell the group that the librarian’s name was Eratosthenes. During the time when the library was staffed by Balder priests, the head librarian could find any desired book. This man has since moved on to a temple of Ares in Folaria, which has an even bigger and more esoteric library. The current librarian is Yuan Shu, who has been attuning himself to the library, a process which he says will take many years to complete. This process gives him an improved ability to find what is needed.
The library room itself is warded in several ways. The two most important are that no fire will burn in the room, which is brightly lit with many continual light spells; and also that every item in the room, and the room itself, are enchanted so no item can be taken out of the room that is part of the library. In addition, a person can only peruse one book at a time; if a second book is opened, the first one will reshelve itself (apparently teleporting away), and require 2-8 days of searching to find again. Else, the first book can be left open and 'claimed' indefinitely (unless someone else in the library 'claims' it by reading some of it, or reshelves it physically, or reads it some and then starts another book, which would cause it to reshelve itself).
The contents of the library includes the following:
- 25,000 books, bound in everything from common leather to precious and non-precious metals, wood, and quite a few in skins that are obviously not common cowskin.
- 15,000 scrolls, ranging in size from a few inches long to some that are dozens of feet long.
- 5,000 tablets on everything from stone to metal sheets to clay.
- 2,000 other items with inscriptions on them, many of which can only be seen under special circumstances – under a full moon or the like.
- 200 crystal spheres of various sizes. These are memory storage devices, that can only be triggered if one knows the proper command phrase. These were created by various Balder priests over the years, some are centuries old. These items actually contain a sort of copy of the personality of the priest, and won’t ‘talk’ to someone they don’t like; conversation is a two-way mental connection, so the priest spirit will know alignment, religion, and other surface details of the reader.
Many of these books are magical and teach skills. These books can be left in place and read until the skill is learned; however, when the reader is done, the book will magically reshelf itself in a random place, requiring days of 8 hour searching to find again.
It will take about an hour, if the language of the item is readable, to figure out what sort of item is being read – most are old and hard to comprehend, written in ancient script, and often in poor condition.