Welcome back. When last we met, the group had been fooling with a trick door. The trick was pretty simple to figure out, and the only door they didn't explore led to Narnia. And the Cupcakes still weren't going there. Spoil sports.
But that left two equal options. Follow the left hall, or the right hall of this T intersection. By a mental flip of the coin Hazel chose right. (Not sure when she became leader. Perhaps the Cupcakes just take turns?) That corridor led to more of the same until it too came to a T intersection. This time the wall it ended against was filled with windows looking out on that most attractive bog they'd sludged through for next to no reward. Again she chose right.
{Player's Note: I think she's just afraid of going wrong . . .}
Again, the doors on the right side of this corridor led to the most mundane (read: not profitable) rooms possible. Eventually the corridor ended with only a possible turn to the right. Looking out over the bog the Cupcakes were able to see the legs of some creature lying on a bridge extending below them. As if sunbathing in the lovely shadows. With no way to open the windows, the only way to go ask it 'what the fuck' would have required a level of vandalism.
For once they restrained themselves, instead turning to the right again and following the corridor. And again, they found nothing of value. However, this time they did find a stair that led to the next floor.
And they did what any reasonable person would do when finding a stairwell leading to the floor they needed to be on; they checked the broom closet under the stair. In their defense, they did find a movable wall leading to a large store room that apparently ran between all of the bedrooms they'd been finding. With peep holes. Because, of course this place was built by perverts.
The room itself was full of boxes and crates of clothing. Nebula managed to find herself some nice riding leathers. Loki came out of it with a nice top hat, cloak, and cane. Everyone else seemed content with their current hodgepodge of clothing. Else, they suspected all the clothing there to be cursed. I suppose we'll find out.
After that unexpected clothing shopping trip they trundled upstairs, finding themselves back stage of a large theater. As they came on stage Loki bowed majestically, gaining a clap from an unseen figure in the upper balcony.
This of course piqued their curiosity, but they could find no way up to that box from inside the theater. And Loki didn't feel like being thrown three stories up, particularly with Thor's track record at such maneuvers. So they explored the entrance doors. This led to a hall with a single story ceiling. Directly across from them was a double door that just beckoned them.
And you know this group, temptation is their bestest friend. They run towards it like long lost lovers. So they opened the door.
And found the library. At that point the Gnome remembered Maipherre's special request; namely slight renovations to the extent of allowing vertical transport from his traditional abode to this seat of learning. And like Thor won't take any excuse to smash stuff right? So he enlisted Steve into his smashitty smash smash party and off they went.
Of course, they weren't exactly sure where to smash the hole, and the idea of just smashing the entire floor was immediately vetoed. Hazel solved that impass by asking Maiphere, through his skull, which she was still wearing like a helmet. Not really sure if that's the female part of her or the witch part, or some unforeseen unbalanced combination of the two that caused that perversion, really.
{Player's Note: It's actually just the derangement of the Beth creeping through.}
After a short conference, an illusory shaft of light erupted from one section of the library floor. Thor and Steve got to work.
By that point Loki had already found half a dozen books of interest. Hey, knowledge is power. In this case the power he was interested in involved anything about the building of this Lovecraftian Island of Doctor Moreau, any books he hadn't read on illusions and, once he'd realized some of the histories he was seeing were from the future, any sports almanacs he could find. Because that never goes bad, right?
To save time he'd been pulling the books partly out of the shelf to mark them. But, unbeknownst to him, an invisible force was going along behind him, pushing them back into place. He was able to find several histories -none even touching on sports, though he did find a rulebook for an interesting looking game called quidditch-, several books on illusions -though all far too advanced for his class level of 2- and nothing about the building of this labyrinth. Even asking Maiphere for the name of the place (through their communications officer, of course) didn't help. Particularly since Maiphere's cryptic response was that it had had many names, and he didn't know the original.
While he worked on that, Hazel and Nebula explored the library for the goal that had brought them here, one armchair. As it turned out, the library was enormous, filled with book case after book case (fortunately, organized in Dewey Decimal), interspersed with reading tables, desks, and even a lounge.
They found the armchair behind a desk meant for a large creature, with an ominous set of large sized spectacles sitting on top. And no, the arms were not the arms of the chair. They were to the right of the desk, outstretched with palms facing each other. And in between those palms was a floating blue-tinted orb.
Which was when Hazel forgot all about the reason they'd come; shiny blue ball, must have! After some fiddling she realized she couldn't remove the ball from whatever force held it between the two hands. Instead she grabbed the arms, taking the entire assemblage. She immediately attached the arms to the appropriate joints in the Dragonkin's skeletal structure, at which point she was able to take the orb from between them.
Experimenting with her new toy revealed very little. She could set it on any part of her body and it would remain there of its own accord. If thrown, the ball would come back to her hand. Repetitive throwing would increase the distance it traveled successively. Basically she'd found a magic yoyo.
By this point, Loki had come to realized that his marked books had been unmarked behind him. In frustration, he set upon locating the main desk, arriving shortly after Hazel's experiments. Once there he knocked on the side of it, demanding service. He had a complaint.
A massive ghostly kraken (see above) rose from the desk, picked up the glasses, and peered at him. He immediately decided to drop the Karen act, instead asking for access to the restricted archive. The ghost asked for a pass. He asked where he could find one, at which point the librarian gave him instructions for the headmaster's office.
{Player's Note: This place is so convoluted and warped that, at this point, we've all lost whatever mental map we'd been working on. At this point we're acting more like drunks hailing a cab; tell the DM where we want to go, then take a little nap.}
By then, Thor and Steve had finished their demolitions. After breaching the fourth floor, Thor had sent Steve down to collect the biggest pieces of rubble. Said pieces were then tied to a rope and hauled back up, to be thrown back down through the hole to the third floor. One can imagine that this created quite a racket.
{Player's Note: The DM confessed that, when Thor and Steve had done their construction worker without a union thing, he'd rolled a secret check to see how the librarian would have acted. Apparently, he'd rolled a most unlikely result on the table he'd constructed: the assumption that they were authorized to do this work by some higher authority.}
With the hole built, and locations to the headmaster attained, the group decided to call it a day. And not just because they'd leveled. (DING!) Hazel and Nebula curled up in the Library's lounge. Steve and Thor sawed logs in Maiphere's apartment. And Loki fell asleep face first into a book.
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