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Ebonwolf steps into the room stowing his 'Dwarven Waraxe' standing in the room he is aw struck at the sheer 'volumes' of linguistic knowledge present in here. Not even paying attention too his immediate surroundings he picks up the Traveler's Dictionary, replaces the spectacles on the bridge of his nose and begins reciting a few words.
"Being a Polyglot this room intrigues every fiber of my being at this moment. I did not know the Dark Archives had this kind of treasure trove of language knowledge. I could get lost in her for hours on end." seeking out a chair to sit, Ebonwolf snags a few others books on Terran, Undine and Grippl and sits down to study.
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Seeing Ebonwolf looking like he intends to spend some time in study, Lady Catherine points out "We still have the flooding to take care of. If the archives are to continue, it would be best to resolve this situation in a timely manner."
"We simply must find the villain who caused all these books to be damaged!"
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“I bet that Kreighton Shane would let you borrow those books to study, later!”
Nixie gently picks up the dead mantaray. “Oh that poor Mantaray! How interesting though that it is still magical... Shall we take it with us? And shall we just keep going in the same direction that we were, in order to explore all the alcoves?”
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With a nod to Corona, Lady C says “The plan was to always go left. I see no reason to deviate from that plan.”
Lady C herds the rest of the group ahead of her, then makes sure that the door to the Dictionoriam is firmly shut behind her. There! I can come back later to retrieve my blanket. At least one area down here isn’t flooded!
The party follows their counterclockwise search plan, eventually stopping before another closed door. It's marked "Taxidermy Storage."
A dagger pins another fey scroll fragment to the door's exterior.
See Player Handout #4.
The casters detect a faint conjuration aura on the fragment, and you conclude it's already been used to summon something.
Kaya moves up to take a closer look at the door.
"Someone disabled the door's lock." She turns the knob, pushes and pulls, but the door doesn't even budge. "One of you strong, talkative types want to give it a try?"
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"Strength, you say?!" Tiffany heads to the door. "Bebop, you take one side, I'll take the other!" The tiny toad begins to jump against the door while Tiffany pushes with all of her regal might.
Her waxy skin goes crimson as she struggles for a few minutes and eventually gives up with an angry sigh. "Damn it! Guys, it's stuck!"
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Muttering a small prayer to Torag a suttle glow envelopes Ebonwolf. His muscle expand and contract his size grows ever stop slightly with the increased strength granted by his God.
"Oi I think i got this. And i got just the right tool too." pulling a crowbar from his pack Ebonwolf sets it against the door and pulls hard once given the ok from the others.
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Corona blinks with bemusement as they discovered the lifeless manta ray wrapped around some of the books. Unable to resist (and because it hasn't gone rancid yet) she picks it up and drapes it across her head and shoulders.
"Hee! Look at me! I'm a-"
*bloop*
There's a sound of a splash as Corona trips and faceplants in the water...and then where there was Corona, there's now a manta ray zipping about in the water. After a few moments the manta ray suddenly sprouts arms and then seems to peel its own skin off...
*bloop*
...and then the manta ray vanishes, leaving Corona looking even more wet and bedraggled.
"Awesooooome! It's not a dead manta ray, it's...it's like a cloak! That turns you into a manta ray! How cool is that???" she beams.
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Corona watches with interest as Ebonwolf attempts to force the door open. Just as she's about to offer her help, she notices that it seems to finally give under her companion's efforts and she smiles.
"Good job, New Friend! I wish I were that strong!"
She studies the newest fragment of paper they'd found and then looks up, frowning. "Who's Gormandelle? Sounds like she's got a good set of chompers on her. Maybe we should introduce her to the Worm?"
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Ebonwolf pries the door open, and a thin waterfall drops from a grate in the ceiling fifteen feet above, creating a curtain in the doorway to this flooded room.
Beyond, mounted animal heads glower from virtually every inch of every wall. Stuffed specimens also lurk beneath the dark water, their antlers, horns, and claws breaking the surface here and there. In the eastern corner, a large gilded cage sits mostly submerged, its waters thick with embalmed birds bobbing at the surface.
There are no shelves here, but you can try to scale the mounted heads . It looks like those handholds can support a creature weighing about 350 pounds before they'd tear free.
Three diminutive gaunt creatures with tattered ears, black eyes, and huge mouths filled with mismatched teeth carry oversized pairs of pliers. They're busy tormenting something or someone in the mostly submerged birdcage.
A fourth creature, their leader, perches on a stuffed gorgon’s head mounted near the ceiling. She's a small green-skinned woman with webbed hands and feet and hair the color of seaweed. Her gown is decorated with odd bits of shells.
She flashes a hideous grin, her mouth crammed with a full set of mismatched teeth.
“Come, Daughters, we should greet our new playmates!”
The tiny trio replies in a cappella chorus, "Yes, Lady Gomandelle, let's say hello. They have such pretty smiles. Rock, paper, pliers! Who wins their teeth?"
Nixie Attwater
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The Three Daughters
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Ebonwolf Metalbender
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Lady Gormandelle
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Corona Merrion
"Princess" Tiffany
The Lady Catherine de Bourg
Kaya Yoshida
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“Cover your teeth! Those are tooth fairies and a bog nixie... but NOT related to ME!”
With a hand clasped tightly over her mouth, Nixie hums to inspire courage.
♩Mmph-mmph-mmph
Mmph-mmph-mmpi-mmmmmph ♩
It’s hard to make out the words, but the effect is still invigorating.
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Nixie recognizes that Lady Gormandelle is a bog nixie, a small fey with the aquatic subtype.
She also realizes the three "daughters" are tooth fairies, diminutive fey with the extraplanar subtype, with several special attacks. Their bite can paralyze , and they can employ sneak attacks . A tooth fairy has a few other special attacks:
Afraid to flash her pearly whites, Nixie hums like an undine kazoo, and you're all filled with liquid courage.
The daughters rush into midst of the party, seeking out the prettiest smile. They fly right past Ebonkolf's half-orc scowl, "What a sour-puss, bummer!"
But an excited squeal follows, "Holy molars! Check out the fangs on the pretty little hummer!"
Like bees to honey, they buzz past Lady Catherine, too.
"We must extract more gifts for Lady Gormandelle!" The three wicked and capricious fey gang up on Nixie, trying to bite and paralyze her. In their scuffle to apply their fang-injected local anesthetic, they get in their own way. "Move over!" "Your big lips are blocking my light!" "My lips?! What about your hips?!"
Nixie Attwater
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The Three Daughters
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Ebonwolf Metalbender
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Lady Gormandelle
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Corona Merrion
"Princess" Tiffany
The Lady Catherine de Bourg
Kaya Yoshida
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Swarmed by a posse of crazed dental hygienists, Nixie tries to keep her chompers, swinging her rapier like a flyswatter.
The Albatross and the Owl, having found a likely spot atop the stacks, cast their lines and watch the show. "Thank goodness the Green Mother gave us nothing in our cheeks but these toothless beaks! Nothing to fear, we're just fishin' over here."
Ebonwolf Metalbender shakes his Guardian-of-the-Forge stick and everyone's morale improves a notch.
Ebonwolf peers into the room and spies Lady Gormandelle, perched on the stuffed gorgon’s head mounted on the wall up near the ceiling. The bog nixie's irises take on the shape and shine of two neon-green Valentines as she swipes her long, dark green tongue over her assortment of makeshift dentures. She twirls a lock of hair near her floppy left ear and calls to the half-orc in a husky, seductive voice, "What's your Tinder handle, Big Boy?"
Nixie Attwater
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The Three Daughters
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Ebonwolf Metalbender
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Lady Gormandelle
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Corona Merrion
"Princess" Tiffany
The Lady Catherine de Bourg
Kaya Yoshida
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Nixie takes a five foot step forward, figuring that the cloud of pesky fairies will have to follow her. She maintains inspire courage as a free action. Also this will provide a flank to Kaya.
“Mmmmm-mmmmph!”
Take that!
Alas, she uses the rapier as a fly swatter again when they come attack her.
Click. Whirr.
With the flank provided by Nixie, Kaya strikes a tooth fairy!
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Field Marshall Lady Catherine uses her command presence to inspire her fire team to exploit the enemy flanks. Glancing down at the mostly submerged cage, she realizes it contains a drowning young human male!
Nixie keeps humming, steps away from the fairies, and pierces the green tooth fairy like a water pick.
Kaya's cold iron dagger proves particularly effective agains the fey creatures, and with ruthless precision, she takes out the green tooth fairy.
In her death throes, the green tooth fairy explodes into a cloud of sparkling white fairy dust that clings to everyone within five feet. The glittery substance has a stench so foul, it's sickening.
Corona recognizes that Lady Gormandelle was using her charming feminine wiles to hook up with Ebonwolf, but the half-orc shrugged it off, repelled by her nip 'n' tuck smile and his own high personal standards.
Corona drives her cold iron longspear into the pink tooth fairy, leaving behind bleeding gums. Pink screams, and an incisor falls out of her mouth, plopping into the water.
"Princess" Tiffany tosses her net, but even flanking with Corona, the net lands with a light splash, missing the pink fairy.
The two surviving daughters are determined to please their mother, and so they chase after the undine. "Don't let her get away!"
As they get within the reach of her rapier, Nixie takes a wild swing but misses her target.
The tooth fairies try to bite Nixie with reckless abandon. Pink shouts, "Hey, you almost bit me!" Blue giggles, "Yeah, just missed you by the skin of my teeth."
Nixie Attwater
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The Three Daughters
Green
Pink
Blue
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Ebonwolf Metalbender
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Lady Gormandelle
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Corona Merrion
"Princess" Tiffany
The Lady Catherine de Bourg
Kaya Yoshida
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Ebonwolf tries to swing out but in vain as he realizes he is not armed at the moment Looking onward though he notices the golden cage and the drowning human man inside. Running forward to assist in bringing the cage above water enough for the young man to catch a breath. "Don' ya be dyin' on meh now. I'll make sure you breathe ta day!!!"
Kaya is sickened by the fairy dust from the exploded green tooth fairy.
As the tooth fairies pursue Nixie, Kaya stabs at Pink and at Blue with her cold iron dagger.
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As the two surviving tooth fairies provoke Nixie, Corona hits Pink again with her cold iron longspear. "Princess" Tiffany swings her net at the pair, but it's just not her day. Kaya has better luck, missing Pink but stabbing Blue with her cold iron dagger.
Ebonwolf stows his wand and pushes through the water, moving up to the drowning man in the cage.
Lady Gormandelle, a woman scorned, points her light crossbow at the half-orc that spurned her come-hither command. "No man says no to Lady Gormandelle and lives to tell the tale!" She closes her non-shooting eye, stills her breathing, waits for the pause between heartbeats, and squeezes the trigger.
She misses!
Nixie Attwater
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The Three Daughters
Green
Pink
Blue
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Ebonwolf Metalbender
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Lady Gormandelle
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Corona Merrion
"Princess" Tiffany
The Lady Catherine de Bourg
Kaya Yoshida
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Looking towards the cage, Lady Catherine says to Ebonwolf “Kaya may be able to open that faster than I.”
Then she looks at ‘Lady Gormandelle’ and announces “I am Lady Catherine de Bourgh of House Arpador and I challenge you! I will show you what a true Lady’s scorn looks like!”
With that she makes a series of jumps and climbs over to the creature. Once there, she attempts to cut out it’s tongue!
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Lady Catherine challenges the bog nixie, leapfrogs to the wall, blade in her teeth, and climbs hand over hand up the wall of taxidermy trophies. Her powerful blow cleaves into Lady Gormandelle's slender thigh, but not as deep as expected.
Corona thrusts her cold iron longspear deep into Pink, staggering the tooth fairy.
Nixie Attwater
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The Three Daughters
Green
Pink
Blue
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Ebonwolf Metalbender
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Lady Gormandelle
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Corona Merrion
"Princess" Tiffany
The Lady Catherine de Bourg
Kaya Yoshida
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"Princess" Tiffany swallows hard, her resistance to the fey enabling her to keep her lunch where it belongs. She throws a conjured knuckle-snowball at Blue, and her pitch nails the tooth fairy in the temple, staggering the creature.
Kaya jabs at Blue with her cold iron dagger, but the lucky fairy evades Kaya's blow.
Nixie heaves a bulemic prayer, but her rapier's thrust slays Pink. In its death throes, the fey erupts in a cloud of fairy dust, coating Nixie, Kaya and "Princess" Tiffany in another layer of putrid powder.
Blue tries again to bite Nixie, and this time the fairy's teeth sink into the undine's shoulder.
Nixie Attwater
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The Three Daughters
Green
Pink
Blue
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Ebonwolf Metalbender
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Lady Gormandelle
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Corona Merrion
"Princess" Tiffany
The Lady Catherine de Bourg
Kaya Yoshida
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Nixie does not succomb to the poison, mainly because she is puking it up. “Bwwwwaaaah!” She vomits, all thoughts of protecting her teeth GONE. “Oh, that is VILE. They are kind of pretty when they explode like pinatas into sparkly confetti, but then they smell like a combination of tooth decay and halitosis!” Then she pukes again, trying to aim it at the remaining tooth fairy. “Bwwwwaaah! You deserve this, you deranged dentist!”
With his companions slowly gaining the upper hand against Lady Gormandelle and her tooth-thieving daughters, Ebonwolf focuses his attention on trying to save the man trapped in the cage. Grabbing the bars in both hands, he gives a mighty heave as he attempts to bend them or maybe hoist the cage up a little higher to buy some time!
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Ebonwolf grips the bars of the cage, squats down and thrusts his hips forward, executing a perfect deadlift, hoisting the large birdcage out of the water. A dozen stuffed birds drop to the bottom of the cage, and the young man trapped inside coughs up a lungful of bloody seawater.
Ebonwolf is astounded to recognize the now mostly toothless Virml, the initiate you'd only recently encountered upstairs.
The Owl and the Albatross deliver a catcall. "Caged by the catdog. Prisoner of the nixie bog. Saved by the orc. Toothless dork!"
Clinging to the stuffed gorgon's head, Lady Gormandelle drops her crossbow with a splash, opens her maw, and her teeth snap shut on the air near Lady Catherine's neck. The haughty nixie screeches, "I am not having a good day!"
Nixie Attwater
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The Three Daughters
Green
Pink
Blue
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Ebonwolf Metalbender
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Lady Gormandelle
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Corona Merrion
"Princess" Tiffany
The Lady Catherine de Bourg
Kaya Yoshida
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Lady Catherine's sword separates Lady Gormandelle's head from her shoulders, and the bog nixie crashes into the water below.
The blue tooth fairy looses a cry of angry anguish and tries to flee. Nixie, Kaya, and "Princess" Tiffany slay the poor fey in another burst of fairy dust.
The three hapless allies spend a half minute gagging and coughing.
You search the flooded taxidermy storage room. You find a waterproof bag of gold and silver teeth, worth several hundred gold. Lady Catherine notices that one of the horns on the nixie-blood-spattered mounted gorgon’s head doesn't match the other. "Princess" Tiffany recognizes one of the stuffed birds, a soggy meadowlark, in the bottom of the cage is magical.
Virml watches all this with abject misery, but he's amazed and grateful to be alive.
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"Hey neato! This's a horn of fog," Corona exclaims as she studies the magical items they'd recovered. "It does just what you'd think it does! They sure do keep all sorts of neat stuff down here, don't they? Don't know what the token does though."
When Ebonwolf and Nixie point out that they'd left Virml upstairs, Corona gives him a puzzled look and then looks back in the direction they'd traveled from. Then she looks at the bag of gold and silver teeth. "Um...I think some of these might be yours. Want me to see if I can put them back?" she offers.
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Through painful, swollen lips and bleeding gums, Virml tells his story, struggling to form the words without most of his teeth.
"I was in the Understacks, looking for a few items for the Master of Scrolls, when a kitsune appeared from behind one of the stacks. The creature started telling me some jokes. They weren't really all that funny, but I felt somehow fascinated anyway. He kept me close, while he searched the vaults for some books he said he needed.
I heard him say something about trying to contact the fey from the First World who had imprisoned him. He said he was going to demand a rematch.
Once he found the books he sought, he locked me in that horrible cage. Then, somehow, he made himself look like me! Before exiting the archives, the kitsune cast cast some sort of spell that made the disguise seem even more convincing."
He looks at you with tears streaming down his cheeks. "Could one of you offer me some healing? I've had a really bad day."
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"Listen, buddy," Tiffany says, casually tossing her arm around Virml's shoulder. "Don't sweat it. Haven't you heard? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Clearly the fox man wanted to be like you, even if he was a big jerk and locked you in a cage." She helps Nixie with the teeth. "Just relax. We'll have you good as new in no time!"
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"I find it concernin' that the fox is loose in Lodge above. Although we should be continuin' with the mission." looking at the poor state of the initiate Ebonwolf pulls out his healers kit. "A scouts always prepared." helping assist corona with placement of teeth and sewing the gum lines
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Ebonwolf whips out his little black bag and does his best Doc Holiday on Virml's gaping gum-holes, while Corona and "Princess" Tiffany hold him down in lieu of novacaine or nitrous oxide. Nixie expends a charge of her wand of cure light wounds to add a layer of bubblegum flavored fluoride, caulking the ragged edges.
The Owl and the Albatross inspect your dental damage control. "Let's take a peek. Just about like new. Not as good as a beak. But it'll have to do."
Then you bid adieu to the fey corpses in the Taxidermy Storage Room and resume your search of the Understacks, following Corona's Counter-Intuitive, Counter-Clockwise Compass.
Moving into the northeast quadrant, you eventually come upon a room marked "Cartographium" on the impressive brass plaque on the door.
The door to this room is open, the flood forming a deep bog like the nearby corridors. The water’s surface is carpeted with cartographic flotsam, maps made of silk, vellum, birch bark, and sundry other materials.
Encountering no opposition, you begin your search of the floating debris.
You also find a strange bookmark bobbing in the water.
a scroll of dimension door.
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Nixie gets very excited as she looks at the map and the floating bookmark. “Oh that pretty silk map is a scroll of dimension door! And this bookmark is super cool! If we stick it in a book, it will disguise that book as another book entirely!” She picks the bookmark up, looking for a book in here that she can try this out upon.
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Ebonwolf trudged into the mire of the cartographium. Picking through the random pieces of geographic nature Ebonwolf pulls out a silk map boasting "I be thinkin' this shows Tian Xia and Avistan gettin' closer than they be now." pulling out his glasses and donning them he grabs a bookmark floating by. Ebonwolf then points at certain parts of the map.
"The book mark seems magical but it eludes me."