After healing Jerry, Caladrel notices that Faenor is still injured. He uses his wand to help.
[dice =clw] 1d8+1
[dice =clw] 1d8+1
Feanor's wounds fade to pink scars after Caladriel heals him. He sits up and smiles
"Mah thanks, sir"
When Caladrel shakes her, Professor Laveness looks at him with wide, distant eyes. Her cheeks look gaunt and lined with care, and cracked lips hang open as she attempts to rouse from the daze. "The stars... Voices from the stars..." She begins to tremble.
Jerry rises from the floor, with a very grateful smile to Caladrel and his mystical powers. "Thank you, we'll need to find another of those if we end up alight so often." He smiles as he looks down at his ruined clothing.
Then walking over to the professor, he stands a shadowy shape above her; "What's this? To whom taught you this, or where did you study such weirdness." He asks ensuring that he can grab her arms to stop the scholar from harming herself, but not laying a hand on her yet.
After Caladrel completes his healing of Jeremiah and Faenor, he turns his attention to Prof Laveness. When Jeremiah comes over to help, he says, "Thank you Jeremiah." He then calls to the others, "Can someone bind Hinzackle so that if he revives he doesn't escape? Jeremiah and I will see what we can do with poor Professor Laveness."
Looking down upon the stricken professor, Caladrel says, "It is going to be alright. You are among friends now. Are the stars talking to you now?"
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"Bind him...?" Sylvia ponders a moment, having no manacles or rope, then springs into action. "Science to the rescue!"
Pulling a vial from her bandolier, she rolls Hinzackle onto his face, smears his back with goo from the vial, then rolls him onto his back on the stone floor.
Rising, she surveys the immobilized faculty member with satisfaction. "I always wanted to do that. How's Professor Laveness?"
She kneels again next to the mad professor and systematically rifles his pockets, satchels, pouches, and anywhere else alchemical items, money, or other loot might be stashed.
Anywhere. Else.
On his person, Hinzackle has: Goggles of minute seeing (+5) +5 Search, Hewards handy haversack , Potion of Cure moderate wounds , Potion of Blur 20% miss chance, Potion of Gaseous form , Potion of Invisibility ,
While Sylvia glues the professor to the floor, Caladrel and Jerry are seeing to Professor Laveness. Her look is confused and she croaks out, "What? No. Quiet. Very quiet... What... What happened?"
Beyond the door, you hear a rush of footsteps entering the stairwell to descend to the basement level.
Caladrel removes his waterskin and says, "She appears to be very dehydrated. She needs to drink something to return to her wits." He gently tips the waterskin to her lips and let's her drink at her own pace. "Here have some refreshing water, you will be ok, Professor Laveness."
Removing the charred remains of his shirt to reveal a well-muscled chest enhanced by a unified pattern of tribal tattoo's of thins swirls, incongruous with the general appearance of the nobleman. He stands over Hinzackle, now glued to the floor. "I take it Sylvia, you can release this glue? For I'd hate to have to pry the floorboards up to move him."
Professor Laveness drinks clumsily of the offered water, much of it spilling down her chin and rumpled academic robes. This does seem to clear her head a little, as she looks around the room with wide eyes. She gazes at Professor Hinzackle on the floor. "Is he dead?" she asks. Then she looks at all of you. "You are all in great danger. When the Speaker returns he will devour you with his thousand mouths - sacrifices to the Ancient Ones that are coming to wrought destruction upon all the world."
The footsteps outside grow louder as they near the bottom of the stair. You begin to hear shouts among them... "Be ready with water" "Gas masks at the ready - an explosion in an alchemical laboratory could release any number of noxious gases" and so on. It is apparent that the series of explosions in the basement of the Alchemy building have drawn attention.
"Ugh. Hinzackle is glued to the floor, and yes, Jerry, I have the solvent to release him. The Speaker is that jabbering thing with mouths on tentacles? That dead thing there?" Sylvia points to the carrion pile. "They killed him, though he did a good job of nearly killing most of us."
She struggles to slide the desk away from in front of the door to the hallway, knocking on the door and calling through it. "We're in here! It's OK, the fires are out! We need the department chair, though!" She tugs on the desk, muttering Where are stupid rooster mules when you need them?
Sylvia struggles to push the desk with so much piled on top of it. She will either have to remove some of the weight first and then push the desk, or else have some help from her companions to push it while it is laden.
Faenor gives Sylvia a hand, grasping the desk and heaving as best he can
Caladrel answers, "No, he is not dead. We did have to subdue him, he was so afflicted by the Speaker. But fortunately, you are both free of the speaker's influence now. These ancient ones of whom you speak, what can you tell me about them?" Caladrel is intent to gain as much information as he can before the strangers outside enter.
Laveness looks at Caladrel, struggling to respond. "I... There is something... Beyond..." She shakes her head. "I am sorry. It is so foggy."
In the meantime, Faenor helps move the desk from where it is blocking the door. As he pushes it aside, someone starts pounding on the other side. "Professor Hinzackle!" a male voice shouts from the corridor, "are you okay? We are going to enter."
There is another knock as the voice calls out again, "Professor Hinzackle? Can you hear me?" The doorknob rattles as someone tries it from the other side, only to find it is locked. "Professor, unlock the door if you are able."
"Professor Hinzackle has been struck by a malady! We are trying to get things under control! There has been some sort of conjuring gone wrong! I will see if I can get the door open! We NEED that department chair! We have wounded!"
Faenor will attempt to unlock the door and let the person(s) in
Seeing that there is no more information to be had, Caladrel, comforts the professor. "Rest my dear. Help is on the way."
As the adage goes, many hands lighten the load. You are able to move the desk from where it is barricading the door and release the lock.
Three people stand by the door, with a few more still descending. One young groundskeeper strains under the weight of a large pail of water, ready to extinguish whatever he finds. At the head of the group is Marshall Brose, who Sylvia knows to mind the facilities and grounds of the University. He observes the scene before him with utter contempt - scorched office furniture, soot on the walls, the mangled remains of an aberrant creature, a distinguished professor swooning in a chair and another glued to the floor.
"What is the meaning of this?! You could have brought down the entire building!" Then he notices Sylvia standing by. "Oh I should have known..."
"Oh, hi, Mr. Brose! Nice to see you again. I don't think anything is on fire right now unless maybe it's those homicidal mechanical men in the other room. And the building is mostly standing." Sylvia greets the head of facilities with a beaming smile through soot-stained skin. "And this time, it's not my fault! Not only that, but I have witnesses! Professors Hinzackle and Laveness had a visitor from the blackness beyond the stars--that mouthy thing there--and Hinzackle built a monster out of body pieces back in the other room. Then he tried to burn us. Right, guys?"
She looks at her fellows for backup and verification.
Faenor nods
"I am not sure what sort of learning facility y'all are ahttemptin' To run heah," The anger in his tone deepening his Elvish drawl "But I did not set foot on y'all's campus today expectin' to be cut to within an inch of mah life and then almost driven mad in the bargain"
He looks down on his soiled clothing
"And I would like to know who sanctioned such a risky summonin' so I can forward them my cleaning bill"
Sylvia pulls herself up very straight and squints in admonishment at Faenor. "Excuse me, elf, don't badmouth my alma mater. This is the finest institution of higher learning in the land. Why, I learned everything I know right here in this department!" she huffs, waving an arm around at the glued professor, the soot-stained walls, a heap of carrion from beyond the stars, and another pile of body parts stitched together in the next room.
Faenor quirks an eyebrow
"We'll that explains some things."
he turns to the facilities manager
"Mistah...Brose is it? Would you perhaps know where a man could find a shower?"
When Sylvia goes on about the prestige of the University, Mr. Brose barely stifles a smirk. "Such school spirit. One would almost forget you tried to burn these halls to the ground."
Two more personages come rushing down the stairs. One, a distinguished human man with grey hair and clean-shaven jowls wearing the robes of a dean, and the other a spindly elf woman with a crooked nose. Sylvia knows the former to be Dean Chandler, head of the faculty. The elf woman is Professor Nerella, a well-respected (and tenured) professor of Divination.
The dean rushes into the room and assesses the situation. "What is that you said? About Hinzackle experimenting with anatomical matter? Please start from the beginning." He turns to he custodian. "Thank you, Mr. Brose. Have someone fetch one of the alchemy graduates. I suspect they will need to arrange for some solvent."
Meanwhile Professor Nerella leans over Professor Lavaness. "Can you hear me, Alsacia?" Professor Lavaness regards her friend with recognition and relief.
Sylvia answers Mr. Brose quite seriously. "I didn't try, Mr. Brose. It just kind of... happened. I love this school and wouldn't do anything to hurt it. Intentionally. Usually." She glances guiltily at Hinzackle. ”He’s just glued. I have solvent if you need it.”
Dean Chandler’s sudden entrance makes her reflexively stand up straighter and chatter nervously in response to his question. ”Dean Chandler. How… how good to see you, hahahahaha. Yes. Well. You see, it’s simple. This Lord asked us to clean up his woods because people were going crazy and disappearing.” A wave of her hand includes her companions in the us to prove that she’s not, after all, insane. ”We found a cave with a hole in it to the stars and a couple of things with tentacle faces. I tried to talk to them, but they were not nice at all and we had to kill them. With fire. Anyway, since there were stars and we found some chart thingies, we thought maybe Professor Lavaness could help us figure out the charts. But she had vanished and we found a note in her office from Professor Hinzackle. And we came down here to talk to him to see if he knew where she was, but he barricaded the door and we went in a back way and his little mechanical men tried to kill us, then so did the stitched-together corpse, then this thing with mouths on the ends of tentacles! But we killed them... so they couldn't kill us. Because they were seriously trying. Then Hinzackle…Professor Hinzackle… kind of went crazy and tried to burn us, so we glued him to the floor and rescued Professor Laveness who was, like, enthralled by the thing with all the mouths. And tentacles. See? Simple.” She looks brightly at the dean, hands clasped before her and rocking up slightly on her toes from time to time, apparently oblivious to her charred clothing and soot-stained skin.
This all takes a bit more explaining, but the evidence in the workshop is plain. The authorities of the university arrange to take Professor Hinzackle into custody and Professor Nerella takes Professor Laveness to her apartment and sends for a physician. She insists that the professor be seen to, and when she has sufficient strength, you may speak with her, if she wishes it.
A crowd has gathered outside the Alchemy building, including, of course, the shameless gossip Mr. Goodwin. Everyone looks to get a glimpse of who was involved in the explosive goings on there, but somehow seeing Sylvia Pari come out of the building seems to explain everything.
Faenor brushes off his somewhat messy duster
"Well, I am no further in my explorations than I was when I came here this evening. I expect I shall wait until Professor Laveness has recovered sufficiently to speak with me. "
He looks to Sylvia
"Perhaps you would like to tell me a bit more about your adventures before you arrived? They DO sound quite fascinating.."
Sylvia looks hurt. "I... I thought I just explained them," she responds sadly, "With the nobleman and the woods and the people going crazy and the cave with a hole in it to the stars, and the weird things with tentacle faces. Then we came to see Professor Laveness for help and... well, you know the rest." She smiles and waves at a few of the staring faces she recognizes, squinting as they seem to fade away into the crowd and out of sight.
"I wonder if I need some of those fancy optical lenses or something."
The day's encounters with unnatural, mechanical beings and the mysterious creature have left Caladrel unsettled. "I need a tree under which to meditate. Please let me know when Professor Laveness is ready to speak with us." With that he finds a quiet spot under a tree, sits down cross-legged, closes his eyes and begins softly chanting to himself.
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"Under a tree? Is he serious?" Sylvia mutters to herself. As the dignified druid moves to exit, she realizes he is going to do just that and calls after him.
"Don't sit under trees! Do you know what birds do to people sitting under trees? Take a poncho, at least! Be careful! They're filthy things!"
She sighs as he gives her a stern look and departs. "Just trying to help. What an odd fellow."