Eldred's Pool

Most long-time residents of Stormreach know their city was a thri-kreen colony centuries ago, but almost no traces remain. The mysterious thri-kreen relic at the center of Locksmith Square is one of the few remnants of that time. Locals refer to it as Eldred’s Pool, after a sage who garnered notoriety for his fascination with and later hatred of the object. Historians relate that Eldred was an antiquities scholar who arrived in Stormreach in the early years of the first Storm Lords’ reign. The arrival of a wizened bookworm in this pirate boomtown was made all the more strange by his immediate obsession with the centerpiece of Locksmith Square. Reports came in about how he was paying individuals of low character to conduct experiments for him, from attempting to carve pieces off the thing to bringing him samples of the water that collected within its basin. Eldred’s tale culminates in him approaching the Storm Lords with a demand that they destroy the object without delay. When asked why, legend tells that his only reply was, “Because it endangers us all.” In the absence of corroborating evidence, the Storm Lords refused and sent the “mad” scholar on his way. Within a day, Eldred had vanished without a trace.

Eldred’s Pool resembles a circular fountain seemingly carved from a single piece of a dark green stone. It measures 24 feet in diameter, with an outer rim that rises 2 feet off the ground. At the center of the pool sits the object’s most unusual attraction: a sculpture depicting two six-limbed figures standing back to back. Each figure balances on one leg, and the first of two pairs of arms meet in the center of each figure’s torso, palm flat against palm, as if in prayer. Each figure’s other two arms are raised skyward, palms to the sky, as if hefting a great weight, and each one’s head is a shiny stone that seems bowed low, as if in supplication.