We concluded our journey preparations by visiting Satiir Thione-Hhune, the matriarch we had previously rescued from the Vanthampurs. I presented myself as concerned about her health and all, hoping for a monetary reward, but she promised a favor instead. Good enough.
Once outside Baldur's Gate, Rheia went about her charity work among the Elturel refugees. We also met another Hellrider called Bran, who told us about their order's history and his desire to rebuild it. He was also heading to Candlekeep, so we let him tag along.
Speaking of...
The first two levels of the basement were a huge library, with a huge stone book hanging on rusted chains right above the main table. Talk about safe architecture. Nevertheless, the two librarians working on cataloguing the books: Varnyr, the elderly elf and Ebder, the human, directed us on to the lowest level...
...which housed the kitchen and its kenku chef, Crinkle, along with all the sleeping quarters. We got to met Ctula, the tabaxi folk dress enthusiast. We did not see Gailby, Ebder's young daughter.
The need for all this setup became clear in the morning. As we were taking our breakfast at the main table, we noticed everybody was humming the same song. I asked about it, at which point Varnyr panicked, locked the main doors, and let us know about a singing plague that was contained and solved about 600 years earlier. We were stranded until her colleagues on the outside could research what to do, or until we solve the issue ourselves.
Unwilling to wait for who knows how long, we started by looking at possible causes. First on the list were the books consulted last, which we walked around and inspected for magical auras. Ctula brought us her own books reluctantly, as she was jittery about being locked in and angry about Daramin's owl surveillance.
As we were nosing about, Ebder suddenly started singing, then shouting a song in tune with the humming. At my Command spell, he shut up and lost consciousness. Thinking to have found patient zero, we inspected his rooms but only found a jewelry box and an empty ring box. We interrogated Gailby but she didn't know anything about anything. At least our new temporary party member, Star Child the elf, got close to her and she revealed her disturbing dreams and related drawings.
As we were digesting the creepiness, we heard a woman's voice singing our song. Rushing up, we burst into the book repair workshop and its adjoining light bug storage[2]. Searching for the source of the singing, we dragged out a cupboard and broke out the floor tiles beneath it. Lo and behold, a couple skeletons had been buried there. One had its skull caved in; the other was singing. We could finally make out the lyrics. It's the same ghost story that Gailby was illustrating in her drawings.
The skeletons also had a journal on them, detailing the way the two scribes were originally infected with the laughing plague and how they tried to hide their remains in the hopes of containing it.
Right on, we heard a scream from the library. We ran up, only to find several spirits draining the life force of the scribes. Chromatic Orb, along with the attacks of the rest of the party, made quick work of them.
The scribes were alive but drained, so I went down to get Gailby. At all the commotion, Ctula lost her nerves and tried to get out. Unable to unlock the doors, she assaulted the half dead Varnyr. We beat her into submission and chained her up.
Gailby and Crinkle disappeared again. Unwilling to let the child get hurt, I hurried down... just as she was walking up, clutching a bloody book, mumbling about Crinkle going wild. I soothed her and inspected the book: a mechanical children's tail about... you guessed it, our ghost story. But the mechanism was faulty, and the final page wasn't turning.
We gathered up our tools and tried to repair the book. I failed both my luck-assisted checks, taking a lot of psychic damage at the entity inside the book lashing out. Then it was Silka's turn. The halfling managed to repair the mechanism, and with the final turn of the page, we heard the final verse of the song. And then Shemshine materialized.
In the story, a little girl dropped a millstone on the ghost, destroying it. So we decided to drop the big stone book on it ourselves. Silka and Star Child raced upstairs, while the rest of us tried to hold down the angry ghost. Star Child leapt on to the book, swinging her greatsword in an arc to break two chains at once. I shot an orb of acid at the third one. Star Child fell but managed to evade the falling rock just in time, with the great weight crashing on to Shemshine and destroying the entity - for good?!
[1] Barely anybody, but that's librarians for you
[2] With no fires allowed, all the lighting was solved with giant phosphorescent bugs kept in lantern like cages.
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