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Ada feels the shard pulling her in a direction. "Let's see where it leads us."
Zev nods and dutifully follows behind the Shamaness.
When Ada approaches the archway, the space between folds, ripples and then tears into a violet portal identical to the one the party previously used.
Stepping through transports them back to the underground library with a rush of air and static electricity crackling across their scalps. Curiously, the faceless stalker, Vell, is nowhere to be seen.
"Vell?" Zev calls out when the librarian doesn't make an appearance.
Ulfr looks around for their faceless friend. He takes out the waterskin of blood he purchased from a very confused butcher on the way and sloshes it.
"Yes, yes! Coming!" A young woman's voice comes from the room to the east.
A few moments pass before the faceless stalker emerges from the eastern room, looking a bit scratched. "Had to deal with a couple of spiders. Nothing serious." It says in the voice of a young woman.
"...what's that sloshing?"
"We brought you breakfast." Zev happily replies, relieved to see their friend. "They didn't bite you did they?"
Vell snakes out an arm and plucks the waterskin from Ulfr's hands. "Oh, they didn't bite me too badly. Just an annoyance."
Its tongues extrude from where a human mouth would normally be and it sticks two inside the waterskin's neck. It sucks up a bit of blood, then pauses.
"Hmm. Cow's blood. It was fat and ready for slaughter, from the taste of it." It says before drinking the rest of the waterskin dry.
"Thank you very much."
"They carry a nasty poison, so be careful please." Zev adds.
We'll be around if you need us. Probably slaughtering more things that mistake us for food.
He pauses, then adds, No offence.
"Well I did let them drink from me so not really a mistake," Zev says.
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Uflr nods. Right. Bad example. Killing things that are trying to return the favor. How about that. He smiles at his attempt to fix the situation knowing full well that he had his foot well and truly planted in his mouth at this point.
Zev gives the Skald a smile and a thumb's up.
Azura grins at the banter.
"Anyone else come by? Any local news?" she asks the friendly stalker.
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Vell lets Ulfr's comment pass without comment.
"Well, a bunch of mites came by and barged into my library. They begged and pleaded with me not to hurt them when I found them--they said they were 'delving into the great Crow at the behest of King Dog."
The ugothol scratches its head in confusion. "I suppose I should be relieved that Zugga is dead. Though I don't know for the life of me who this 'King Dog' is..."
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"Sounds likely to be our next problem." Ryn says. "If someone's ordering them to delve here, they're looking for something."
Zev sheepishly scratches the side of his face and holds up a lumpy bag. ”Yeah, that’s probably me. I told them I’d bring them food if they helped us explore.”
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"Oh! That was pretty clever. Did you remember to bring something?" says Azura to Zev.
Zev smile and shakes the bag. Got some loaves and dried meats.”
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Azura grins. ”Good show. Let’s go find your subjects, o king.”
Zev gives Azura a smug smile at the jab before heading off towards the Mite's home.
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Ada has wandered over to the books shelves again. She hums to herself as she starts rearranging them.
"That one goes here. That is not where I left that one the other day. How can anyone find anything in here without some semblance of order."
She pays no attention as the group starts to head out continuing to look over the tomes.
Azura pauses and tugs at Zev's sleeve. "Ada's doing something, hold up a sec."
Ryn grins as she sees Ada unable to resist sorting books again. She glances at Cell, wondering if anyone else noticed that the ugothol's voice was feminine now, where before it had seemed male.
Zev's ears twitch when Azura stops him, he had a guess but he couldn't help but smile when he turned and saw Ada going about the books.
Ulfr also stops and grins. Of course she was. The only question now is how long it would take her to snap out of it.
Azura nudges Ryn and whispers, "Do you think this is gonna take a while?"
The gladiatrix smiles, glancing over at the preoccupied Ada. "That depends on how much Vell managed to rearrange things since we left."
"You think he might've done it on purpose, knowing that it would make us loiter around longer?"
"Hmmm... it's possible I guess, he seemed to enjoy the company....speaking of which, you notice the feminine voice this time around?"
"I thought it was just a pitch shift. I wonder who it was?"
"No idea. Maybe it has something to do with whoever's blood they had last?"
Ada continues to organize the books to her satisfaction. ”This one should be in ancient Thessalian section not in the modern Varisian section. What were they thinking? She mutters and continues to rearrange. It looks like she’ll be here for a long time unless someone reminds her they have other things to do.
After several minutes, Ulfr finally gives up and clears his throat at her.
Vell turns its head towards Ada and approaches her. "Excuse me, miss Ada?"
"Why are you fiddling with my books?" It asks in its feminine voice.
"She's a librarian, like you." Zev happily offers.
She's also a little obsessive. Ulfr adds quietly. It's never a good idea to anger your medic.
"Ada dear?" says Azura. "We need your help to find the next fragment. We could take some time when we get back and you and Vell could talk about book organization."
"Speaking of which..." she says, and digs through her pack, then hands a small leather-bound book to Vell. "One for the collection."
"Oh" she looks up with a start. "I'm afraid the organization of this library was all wrong. It didn't make any sort of sense. I like this voice by the way." she says to Vell.
"I guess we do need to go." she smiles at Vell. "I'd love to come back and finish organizing this and catalog it for you." She is oblivious to whether or not Vell wants the books rearranged or not.
She moves away and ready to leave. She touches the shard to see if it sends them in a certain way.
Vell takes the book Azura offers it. "Thank you!"
Then it turns back to Ada. When she explains why she was reorganizing the books, the ugothol pauses.
"...it made sense to me..." It whispers, sounding rather chastised.
Ada pats the creature on the shoulder when she hears the whisper. "I'm sorry. That was very rude of me. I'm a librarian, and I want beings to be able to find their books easily. I guess I made it worse."
She looks to the group. We need to head to the Southwest, and you need to stop me the next time I start arranging other people's books. Unless they don't mind or the books are really unorganized, or in really bad shape or..." she continues on as she heads out the door.
Shaking her head in amusement, Ryn flashes Azura a grin before following Ada's lead heading southwest. "And away we go!"
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Azura hands over a book with a whimsically-illustrated cover of a traveling minstrel-woman, titled "The Improbable Illustrated Adventures of Isadora Icygarter," which details the increasingly-salacious humorous happenings of a good-natured young bard who travels from town to town hoping to see sights and learn about the world while playing her mandolin and singing, but winds up accidentally falling into a variety of rather titillating situations.
"It's a personal favorite," says Azura with a smirk. "One might say inspirational and aspirational."
Once Ada's released from her book daze, Azura nods and says, "Right, chief! Lead on!"
Smiling at Azura's literary recommendation, Ryn follows after Ada, staying near the front to face any danger first.
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The party follows Ada as she leads them from Vell's hidden library, their footsteps echoing off the surrounding stone walls. Aside from their movement, the dungeon level seems to be remarkably silent.
After reaching the stairs down to the next level, the sound of mites chattering approaches the party. A group of mites, about six in number, climb up the stairs looking rather haggard and twitchy.
Their expressions change when they see Zev. "Great King Dog!" The mites all fall to their knees and bow before him. "We have done as you have commanded!"
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Azura nudges Ryn with an elbow and says, "I'm really curious to see how this plays out."
”Really? Thank you!” Zev greets the Mites by holding up the bag full of bread and dried meats he had stocked up on as he walked towards the Mites. ”What all have you found out?”
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"I know, it's really pretty cute!" Ryn says with a smile.