This location presents some story opportunities for adventuring parties.  First, it's a place where advocates and other NPCs related to the law show up to study the Vast Codex or to have a legal document copied or printed.  Next, there's what sometimes goes on at night a mere giant's stonethrow from the City Court.

The Careful Scribe

The Careful Scribe sits on Justice Lane just east of Denoss Firth's office (see map, page 313) in Oldtown.  It is one of two linked locations.  The other is Thumble's Bottles, located in the South Market.

(Note: Justice Lane is the name I gave an unmarked street on the map.  The building is just east of Denoss Firth's office, detailed on page 337, on the corner of High Road.)

This building contains working scribes in a small, enclosed upper loft, a small legal library on the main level and a printing shop in the basement.  Sitting at the front desk during normal business hours (and sometimes afterwards) is Tam Kaneen, a mute gnome artist, who is more than he appears.  Kaneen is usually drawing on paper with charcoal pencils or reading a book.  He is detailed below.

The library (simply some shelves and a few tables and chairs to sit on while reading) contains all twenty-three volumes of the Vast Codex as well as some important case histories.  Advocates who do not have their own copy of the Codex or access elsewhere frequently come here to study the law.  Sometimes they will ask for pages or other legal documents to be copied by the scribes occupying the loft area over the library.  If many copies of a document are needed, then the task is relegated to the printing press team in the basement.

What is perhaps more interesting about this location, however, are its connections to the Longfingers Guild.  The printing press in the basement is sometimes used at night to publish The Midtown Partisan (p. 166).  Another use for them is that the building also serves as a trap for anyone the Longfingers Guild or their backers find too troublesome or curious about the business of the oldest Guild in Ptolus.  Trusted members of the Guild are told to use the location only as a last resort, either inviting the intended prey to a meeting there, or to subtly refer to it as the guild headquarters, or some other location that the target seems interested in.  In any case, the victims are told that there is a place under the building accessible through the basement's trapdoor.  Once there, the Guild can more easily capture them and transport them where they want them to be.

In an alcove in the basement of The Careful Scribe is a wooden trapdoor with a large iron ring handle leading to a long spiral staircase.  The steps are roughly 5' wide.  At the bottom of this nearly two hundred foot stair is a recess in the floor and another trapdoor, this one made of metal (an Appraise check DC 15 reveals it that it is made of adamantine).  It has a locking mechanism, but is unlocked when first encountered and appears to lock from the inside.  Opening the door or entering the hallway below it sets off an alarm, alerting Thumble to the intruders' presence.  For more on the trap, see Thumble's Bottles.

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