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Aramil and Flash started looking through books, while Odmar was carefully opening every glass door. One by one he was approaching east section, when he saw it. Heavy folio in dark-red cover with silvered letters said: "A Silvered Horn". "Ooh!" sounds of excitement went out of him and Aramil went closer to take a look. He stretched his hand to take a precious book as lots of other books rushed over researchers.
vs DC20:
Are others in area of effect:
Other: Perception DC10 to hear strange noise, will act in round1
Flash was looking at this strange manifestation of arcane nature, that gave books unexpected behaviour.
This is swarm of tiny constructs so they are pretty much immune to mind-affecting spells. You can ask any question in private if you beat DC and extra question for every 5 you beat DC.
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Hay did you two hear that? It sounds like a scuffle in the next room.
Tatiana moves out the door and heads towards the adjacent room.
Do you want the private question to be sent as a private message, or is a spoiler ok? I'm going to roll with spoiler for now. I intend to relay what information I get anyway, so I hope this is ok.
Question: Will mundane weapons harm this type of swarm?
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Flash was surprised by books, so he just managed to grab all the records done to this point and hide those in his backpack.
Aramil moved away from strange books and Odmar ran out from the room. He saw a Hork and Tatiana coming for help. Tatiana saw books as they swarmed over dwarf, cutting his face and other areas of exposed skin with sharp corners of their pages. ( )
This swarm consist of hundreds of tiny creatures, so slashing and piercing weapon will deal only half-damage. As usually, swarm will take extra 50% damage from area-effecting evocation spells or splash weapons.
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Absorbed in a report on 45th century abjuration theories, Onyo hears the sounds of shouts echoing from down the hall. "Quiet. Trying to concentrate. This is library you know!" He turns back to his work, but the shouting continues. The Wayang's peripheral vision sees Hork make a break for the door, feathers rustling as he double-times it towards the other room. Lifitng his head to watch the man go, Onyo spies Tatiana following the gunsmith shortly.
Left alone in the library, Onyo stands still, rapidly thinking. Hmm, priority knowledge. Each of us have specialty, information and research where I can best contribute. Not combatant, not compared to others at least. If issue necessitating violence, most efficeint path leaving them to handle it. Why disrupt own efforts for suboptimal role?
Still....
With an exasperated sigh, Onyo puts down the paper he was reading and shuffles quickly towards the others.
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Hearing Tatiana's suggestion, Hork quickly looks over his belt. His bird brain focuses intently for a moment, pondering the decision he needed to make.
Suddenly, in a flash, the tengu produces a loaded pistol from his belt. He nervously waits for the percussion to strike a particularly loud beat in the music above before releasing a shot.
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Onyo rushes towards the doorway only to arrive in time to see Aramil chuck a flask of alchemist's fire at the animated volumes. As the flames seem to fail to catch, the Wayang's eyes widen in horror. "NO!!! Burning books? Are you mad?!?"
He motions to enter the room, but Tatiana's yell stops him in his tracks.
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Flash's eyes light up when he sees Aramil toss the familiar flash into the room hoo boy this aught to be good! Big flash, lots of heat...and the pretty flames..oh the pretties!
Once he sees that the flames won't catch, he starts rummaging through his satchel to see if he has anything to help poor Aramil avoid this embarassment.
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Hork's eyes go wide seeing his shot completely miss. Clearly, this called for a different approach. But Hork, being a new agent, has very little at his disposal, forcing him to rely on his old standby once again.
He reloads his pistol, waits for the music to hit a loud crescendo, and fires once more.
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Flash ran out of the room and started to band-aid multiple cuts.
Hork took his chance to make another shot, but this one went between flying folios. As Aramil ran away from angry swarm, Tatiana quickly shut the door behind him and calls for some arcane power to heal her comrades. This stops bleeding and makes adventurers to feel better, but some smoke was still coming from behind the door.
"Please, behave yourself gently. Do not shut the books and do not throw them an tables or I will ask you to leave!"
Caretaker emerged from her room: "What are you doing?" she asked surprised, "You want for Tobias to dispatch guards to investigate the noise you are doing?"
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Tatiana waits for the care taker to resign once again to her room. After the old lady is comfortably out of ear shot, Tatiana turns to the group.
"Do you guys want to finish off those animated books so we can clean that room up, or would you prefer to leave that room obviously disturbed and move on? If you want to finish destroying the animation, you will want to use bludgeoning weapons or area damage spells or effects. I suggest holding off on the gun fire until we are well away from the care taker."
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Once Aramil rushes through the door, Onyo starts lightly smacking the half-elf as Tatiana slams the door shut.
"Fire! Burn books! What are you thinking!? What could have been lost!"
He stops himself, then attempts to smooth out the ruffles his outburst has made on his clothes. Taking a deep breath, the Wayang catches movement to his right and turns to face the emergent Illyana.
"Much apologies. Assure you, had no intention of making any sort of racket. Were unaware of some of the more, aggressive, texts you stock here. We forced to defend ourselves. If you could advise of any further such dangers, we would be indebted to you, and likely minimize any further disruption to your own work."
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Iliyana "looked" suspiciously at Pathfinders:
"I am not aware about ALL different measures of precaution here... If I were, I probably could now better see you... Back than, when I only started here, I was instructed to do not open centre shelf on east wall, but I thought that those contain some precious facts."
Meanwhile, the smoke coming from under the door dissolved in the air and probably wasn't noticed by blind caretaker.
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Iliyana nodded and headed back to her room. "I don't want to be involved into any of this", she whispered, "I didn't saw nothing and they cannot prove I did". She closed door behind her for anyone not to disturb her.
Tatiana moved to eastern part of corridor and found nothing suspicious there, except locked door.
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Odmar remained quiet during the conversation with the caretaker and when she left, he went after Tatiana with intent to help with the lock. But since Aramil managed to handle it quite well, he didn't assist.
When the lock was opened, Odmar carefully opened the door a bit and made a careful glimpse in case there are dangers inside.
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Inside this small room where no dangers. Instead, two rows of tall bookshelves, full of different books and folio, maps and notes, flanked the imposing yet beautiful wooden desk. Over the room hangs a portrait of Grand Prince Stavian III, portrayed wearing an especially smug grin.
low-light
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After the alarm, brought by unexpected encounter, friends return back to their search: Onyo, Hork and Flash took back to the study chamber, where they left lot's of books spread along working desks. Most of those works, contained useful information, were selected and only needed to be copied. Several minutes later wayang finally closed a last folio, he was transcribing, to find it's name "Encarthan Maps" on cover. Meanwhile, Hork found a small note about Taldan Ciphers, that was confirming Onyo's theory about reverse reading of coded message.
Under the smug grin of Prince Stavian's III portrait, which brass plague said "A cunning lie is never told twice", Tatiana and Aramil started looking through books in administrator's room. There were plenty of old tomes, devoted to different historical events.
Tatiana was planning to take one book, when she suddenly found, that it is fake and is activating some kind of trap. Carefully, she took her hand of the binding.
While not deeply involved into research, Odmar checked out the table. It contained no surprises and he carefully opened top drawer: half-finished bottle of fine wine and two small potions were laying there along with curved pen knife, some pieces of chalk and pack of different notes.
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Onyo sighs as he finishes transcibing the last work. So much text devoted to mundane movements and military configurations. So little devoted to detailing the nature of the magic they fought against. Willful ignorance, or simply mistaking what is of greater value? Still, a task is a task.
Glancing around to see Hork and Flash also appear to be coming to the end of their investigations, he carefully checks to make sure everything remains as he found it, takes one final scan in hopes of a last find catching his eye, then moves down the hallway towards Tatiana and the others.