Side quest Van Richten's Tower Level 8

The Drowned Library

Something whispers up the old well on the shore of Lake Baratok, from the archmage Khazan's library under the lake: don't come down.

Walkthrough

Getting the quest

Two ways in:

  • The well-head. From party level 9, an old mossy well-head appears on the shore of Lake Baratok at Van Richten's Tower, a little east of where the path comes up (Ezmerelda's camp is to the west). Lean over it and something far below whispers "Don't come down. Don't read anything. Please. Don't touch the desk." The quest starts at Asked.
  • Mordenkainen. Once you've destroyed Khazan (The Name Over the Door) and brought him Corvina's letters, Mordenkainen's next answer to "Heard anything interesting?" in The Mad Mage's Hut is a dream of a small voice coming up a well. The quest starts at Rumored.

Either way, once the quest has started, the well-head has a way down: "Down the old well-shaft".

Step by step

  1. Climb down into The Drowned Library: a long hall of swollen books under the lake, the far half flooded, with a great catalogue desk in the middle of the floor.

    loc drowned library overview

  2. Meet Xaver. Flattened against the ceiling on top of the furthest bookcase is Xaver, Khazan's last apprentice, three hundred years down here and gone to something thin and grey with one great eye. He speaks as you come near. "What happened to you?" gets his story and his warning: it's never been him you should be frightened of. Insight DC 13 ("Watch where his eye goes") shows that his eye never leaves the catalogue desk, whose brass handles are the only clean thing in the room. A miss tells you nothing and costs nothing else.
  3. The desk. Look at it and you get the choice to open a drawer or leave it alone. You can't finish the quest without opening one. When you do, every drawer opens, every one has teeth, and two reading chairs stand up.
    • The fight: The Index (135 hit points here, AC 14, CR 9) and two Reading Chairs (Mimic), 5900 XP, in its own lair.
    • The Index: it bites and lashes out with two sticky pseudopods that grapple (escape DC 16). Every so often it sprays acid-soaked pages at three of you within 30 feet (Dexterity DC 15, 5d8 acid, half on a save). It's immune to acid and has Legendary Resistance twice a day.
    • The chairs: they stick to whatever touches them.

    Spread out so one spray can't catch three of you, and keep your weakest out of the chairs' reach. Winning moves the quest to Unfiled.

  4. Talk to Xaver again. He climbs down off the bookcase for the first time in three hundred years and gives you the one book he saved, a Manual of Quickness of Action. The desk's drawers give up eleven readers' purses: 350 gp. The quest ends at Done (Wren +2, Liriel +2, Ratatouille +2, Godrick +1). If Mordenkainen is himself again, Xaver asks you to tell the old man on the mountain that he can come down now, and the whispering will stop.

Choices and endings

  • Done (success) is the only ending: the Manual, 350 gp, and a nothic who now sits on the floor reading the shelf he never dared go near.

If you're stuck

  • The well-head isn't there below level 9. Before then, the only way in is Mordenkainen's news, and that comes only after Khazan is unmade.
  • Mordenkainen gives one piece of news at a time, in order: his lost letters until you've brought them back (The Mage's Lost Pages), even if you dealt with Khazan through the hearthstone, then his thanks for Corvina if she's newly at rest, then Khazan (at level 10), then this. Ask "Heard anything interesting?" again if he talks about something else.
  • Xaver won't help with the desk. The only way through is the fight.

Rewards

What your companions think

  • Wren Featherfoot: +2 you set Khazan's last apprentice free of the furniture
  • Liriel Dawnsong: +2 you set Khazan's last apprentice free of the furniture
  • Godrick Pendlebrook: +1 you set Khazan's last apprentice free of the furniture
  • Ratatouille: +2 you set Khazan's last apprentice free of the furniture

Fights

Journal

Every journal entry and hint

Rumored: Mordenkainen says Khazan kept a library cut into the rock under Lake Baratok, and some of his apprentices went down to read and stayed. Since Khazan was unmade, he's dreamed of a small voice coming up a well, asking him not to come down. There's an old well-head on the shore by the tower.
Hint: Find the old well-head on the shore of Lake Baratok, by Van Richten's Tower, and listen at it.

Asked: Something whispers up the old well-head on the shore of Lake Baratok: don't come down, don't read anything, don't touch the desk.
Hint: Climb down the old well-head on the shore by Van Richten's Tower into the Drowned Library, and find who's whispering.

Unfiled: The thing whispering up the well was Xaver, Khazan's last apprentice, gone to a nothic in three hundred years of hiding on top of a bookcase. What he was hiding from was the catalogue desk. It's firewood now.
Hint: Talk to Xaver in the Drowned Library under the lake.

Done (the end: success): Xaver came down off his bookcase for the first time in three hundred years. He gave us the one book he saved, and the desk's drawers gave up eleven readers' purses.

Every skill check in its conversations
  • Insight DC 13: (Watch where his eye goes.)