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Samen can't help himself and grins silently. "Hello Abby."
And then the presence is gone, perhaps a hint of laughter...
Marianne leads you through the streets, her ranger movements serving her as well in the city as in the wilderness. She pulls sharply on Wamblee's shoulder at one point as he almost walks into a group of streaking sylphs holding fire bombs above their heads.
"Sky's Tears, Wamblee, I can't even move you! Just watch where you're going, alright?"
A few more blocks of madness, and you come to the center of town, the seat of the Mithril Makers. Traditional brick buildings give way to to blue and purple ceramic spheres, like eggs left behind by dragons or gods.
Marianne points to one, a smaller sphere about one story tall. "That's where he went in. The door just opened for all the sylphs in the mob as they walked up. Probably magic?"
"Rentwryth mentioned that this new material makes Sylphs a little crazy. Its possible we are seeing some after-effects, or alternatively, just Sylph's being Sylphs" she remarks casually, before heading towards the building that Marianne pointed out.
Marianne rolls her eyes. "Not-crazy sylph standing right here..."
You hear a vaguely female voice in your head. It mechanically says, Do you have the curiosity?
Wamblee replies by thinking:
Yes. I have curiosity.
He certainly is curious about this entire matter.
The door opens noiselessly, sliding to the side.
The door closes behind you, shutting out the noise of the night. Inside, you see a hallway made of the same smooth blue ceramic, with doors on either side. Sixty or seventy feet away, you see a central chamber with more halls diverging, like spokes on a wheel. Immediately to your left, one of the doors is open, and you hear excited murmuring.
Marianne holds her bow ready. Her face shows a hint of nerves, but her hands are steady.
Wamblee enters the door then readies himself to resume moving quietly. Assuming nothing jumps him.
Samen likewise prepares his weapon, readying for a grim evening.
Closer now, you hear the conversation. An el is talking.
In a singsong voice, "...mealtime, darlings! It's not the sweetest, but we must see, we must see...!"
Wamblee looks at his siblings, then seeks a glimpse of what is going on.
Wamblee, you see a lone sylph, hair sticky with poor hygiene, cavorting around a small lab space crammed with bird cages. He appears to be feeding them. He coos, whistles, and caws to each in turn, calling them by name in a continuing singsong voice.
Wamblee moves his head back into total cover then whispers to his siblings:
"One slyph. Looks only somewhat insane. I say that we should speak with him."
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"Well if we're talking instead of smashing, it should probably either be me or Iniga doing the talking. What do you think, cousin?"
Marianne hardly waits for you to answer, and just decides to go in herself. "Hey! Weirdo! What are you doing?"
At first eager to share his curiosity, the sylph says, "Oh! Just feeding the birds, as they say." He seems distracted by something, head turning this way and that, not focusing on you. "Have to see how they'll fare against the Dark, you know!"
But now, suddenly suspicious. "Are you...an alchemist? Do you work in one of these labs?"
Umm..." She looks behind her, unsure what to say.
Samen raises an eyebrow at Marianne. "Sure, let me do the talking."
"No, but we know one, and we'd like him back. It's a little nuts out there. Any idea why the alchemists are going mad?"
Wamblee stays out of the room for now, judging that his presence would do more harm than good.
He does keep an eye out for trouble.
"Mad? Mad? What are you talking about?" His complexion is going red now, odd to see on a sylphan face. "Maybe you're the mad one! Maybe you are insane! You stupid--!"
The birds squawk madly as he takes a deep breath to continue his diatribe.
Samen runs his hand down his face in frustration. "Alright fine. We're collecting blood samples to test for cwmwl poisoning. Care to volunteer, or shall we take it by force?"
The sylph howls, muscles suddenly bursting through his white labwear.
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"Oh, you're one of that kind of alchemist."
Samen doesn't really want to kill this guy because he doesn't seem to be in his right mind. He chooses to do a simple double attack.
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Wamblee rushes into the room to see his siblings, a downed slyph with torn labwear, and many freaked-out avians.
"Silence the birds or leave swiftly. We need to move away from here."
Marianne coos, imitating the sylph. The birds quiet down, but still seem watchful, on edge.
Iniga:
You have been carefully scouting a nearby corridor--seeing nothing--while this was going on. You walk in the scene, and Marianne is performing a frenzied, somewhat effective quieting of the birds. She looks at you and freezes, then stands up straight, trying to look as though nothing has happened.
"I didn't see or hear anything cousin" Iniga replies to Marianne with a quick grin, tempted though she was to make a quip she felt it would be a little mean spirited considering how self conscious Marianne looked after Iniga had interrupted.
"Right, good! So, are we interrogating the birds, or moving on?"
"Do it quick then."
Marianne raises an eyebrow. "I was kidding. I haven't been able to listen to birds since I lost my scroll." She looks around. "Only thing I can see is that this food looks weird, kind of like sand more than seeds. And that guy did mention "feeding the birds", so maybe they're trying out cwmwl on other forms of life?"
She shrugs. "We should probably keep moving. We're here for Samoon, not the latest birdfeed trends."
"Agreed. I wish I could recognize cwmwl on sight. This stuff seems dangerous as Dark, and I don't want you getting dosed with any of it and going batty on us, Mar."
While looking around, Samen will turn on Detect Elementals to see if anything, perhaps the cwmwl, has an elemental signature.
Marianne spins at random, and ends up pointing toward the center chamber. "If Samoon was part of a mob, maybe he's in the biggest part, surrounded by lots of people still. Let's try the middle next."
You follow the hallway down, ceramic unnaturally smooth against your boots, toward the center of the hemisphere. The rest of the lab doors are closed, and you hear nothing from the well-insulated rooms.
You reach the central chamber. It is empty. You can see a balcony that shows access to a small second story in the top quarter of the hemisphere. On the walls, you see long lists of words in Maker Script, bright silver lettering flaring proudly upon the dark blues and purples.
Disappointed at the absence of Samoon, Marianne says, "Or not." Even these quiet words make faint echoes, the curved walls and ceilings making the acoustics looping and strange.
You sense a hollowness beneath your feet, right at the center of this chamber. You are sure there is some way down, continuing to the rest of the sphere, but you are unable to see how to open it.
Wamblee looks down, and then circles around until he senses solidity beneath his feet again.
He points towards the spot where he was standing.
"There, at the centre. There is hollowness, and for a long way down. I see no means to open it. If none of you can find one, I will attempt to smash through."
"Samen, can you read this on the walls? It looks more like a math class than a language."
"I can try." Samen takes a closer look at the writing to get an idea what it's all about.
The lists are rather mundane - just listing of offices, personnel, and areas of study.
However, with Wamblee's hint in your mind, you look for a pattern - and you see that certain letter are suspiciously capitalized where they shouldn't be. These letters are a scrambled mess, but you have had your nose in linguistic puzzles before you were ten, so the cipher falls quickly to the power of your mind.
The result - a few sconces pulled in a specific order to open the area Wamblee mentioned.
"Ah yes, it's a simple substitution code. They even highlighted the key markers. Some architect thought they were cute, but they probably had to make it simple enough for people to remember how to use. It should be as simple as..."
Samen clicks the last sconce into place before listening for the dulcet tones of mechanical grinding.
"..that!"
With a slight creak of gears to start, a corkscrew pattern slides of out place, revealing a spiraling set of stairs descending into lurid, celerity-etched darkness.
"Too slow, brothers." Marianne goes down first.
Wamblee smiles ever so slightly as he offers a fist bump to his brother.
"Good job, Samen. Let's move."
Wamblee then makes for the stairs, attempting to be quiet.