"Oh poor man... s-s-stand still will you? and give me a boost" says the small-sized vanara as she grabs the bag of teeth from Razka. Her feet resting on Virml's hands, one by one, she re-sockets the proper teeth in the man's gums, making sure they are the right ones.
Satisfied that the man has all of his teeth again, she uses a charge of her wand of cure light wounds to make them take root again.
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Dawn thinks up half a dozen Virml jokes, but she's trying to think up what rhymes with Virml. Squirml? Burnl? Kernel? Anything positive?
Eilanna mentions something interesting her elven ears pick up. "Yeah, that's a good point. We met you upstairs less than an hour ago. You read the poem that caused all this flooding, and then you were sent to copy some of the articles."
She looks at the locked door. "Is anyone good with keys, or do we learn the hard way to respect trees?" She looks at Lakadee. "Arbor Day is coming for ya!"
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"Oh... I s-s-see... I am sorry Sir, but there are hundreds of teeth in that bag... once we are topside and after this mess is over, I will see it properly. For the time being, let us just c-close those bleeding gums of yours..."
Vina nods to the man, "B-better?" before pointing Lakadee towards the last room, after the others.
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It does not occur to Razka to look into the bag before reaching in to see what's inside. His disgust is obvious as he sees that he has a fistful of teeth in his palm when he pulls his hand back out.
Hopefully, none of Virml's teeth are in that batch, since they get summarily dropped into the water and the bag almost follows before Vina takes it from Razka.
"So, if this is the real Virml, that means that the Virml who left is some sort of doppelganger. Which would explain why that fish thing was talking about someone who could change their face. I'm betting that the person it wanted us to stop from escaping escaped before we talked to it.
He waits, relatively patiently for someone to smash open the door, though he looks at Bob hopefully. He's heard some people with the fancy guns are able to shoot locks open and that's something he wants to see.
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"Should we w-wait to come back to this room later? if it's d-dry I mean? if the big fish decides to stop crying then perhaps the water levels will recede and we c-can then come down here to inspect the room. I w-wouldn't want to damage the Grand Lodge's p-p-property needlessly... it is our home... together! strong!"
Virml quickly begins to grow annoyed at the constant interruptions to his tale, by people commanding him to wade through high waters and little, talking monkeys sticking their hairy hands in his mouth.
Driven by their unwavering sense of uncertainty the party wades about in front of the closed door as the water slowly climbs up their chests.
Virml fills the time with his difficult to understand story, which involves a lot of something called "context". Context in turn involves a lot of "flying carpet parenting" by his mother culminating in his being accepted into the Grand Lodge of the Pathfinder Society as an initiate. Much of the pertinent parts of his story sound a lot like the account the party heard before in the lobby. On a dare, Virml had read a portion of a poem on a scroll unleashing a lot of magical energy that shredded the scroll he was holding, and releasing this rather dapper-looking, and friendly fox-headed fellow who he showed around for a little while. Virml recalls that the fox introduced himself, but for the life of him he can't remember the creature's name. Anyhow Virml's new fox friend was astonished to find himself in a library and decided to do some research. After they had collected what the fox wanted he picked up one of the scroll bits, read it aloud, and unleashed that horrible woman, and her cherubs. Then things get fuzzy. Virml thinks he fell asleep, and when he awoke found himself toothless and in the birdcage, and there was rising water everywhere.
"We should...probably try to find that fox." Dawn forgets the finer points of swimming, again. "Or at least get Virml out of here. I think he's seen enough water for a few months."
Virml only blows bubbles then he stands up a little straighter (perhaps on tip-toes) and says "Yehbus."
The party half-swims toward the stairwell. The stairwell is well named as water flows down its stone sides from above in torrents now. Even keeping to the center the characters are going to get wet going up.
Once at the elevated top of the party sees that the amount of water pumping off the mezzanine has increased by an order of magnitude. The whole area beneath the mezzanine is now obscured by a solid curtain of roaring, tumbling water.
The steel frame of the elevated part of the stairwell however is free of the torrent and is just damp from the kicked up mists.
Nearby the group spies a few low pillars of haphazardly stack books. They look like abandoned pier pilings in the surf. No human (who liked books anyway) would stack books like this. And in fact that assessment proves true as the two little bird-headed fisher men row their shelf unit past one of the piles and add their latest catch to the top.
They shouts something that is lost in the roar of the nearby waterfall, and wave happily to the party gesturing to their grand haul.
Virml's toothless mouth drops open at the sight of the abject calamity.
A stunning sight greets the little Vanara, and her mount as they draw even with the floor above. The tentacled fish creature is humming and burbling a little waltz while up on its tip-tentacles it sways and dances amid the bookshelves blasting jets of water from its top and flanks in-tune to the melody. The whole image puts one in mind of a huge, balloon creature executing a difficult ballet performance.
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"Huh. Pretty." Dawn grins and admires the dance.
Dawn lifts her pointy elven ears so they stand upright.
"Huh. Pretty." Dawn grins and admires the dance.
Dawn lifts her pointy elven ears so they stand upright.
The fishy fey creature jumps in surprise. It points an accusing tentacle at Dawn, then it points another at Elianna. It burbles on in its strange version of Sylvan, but looks confused.
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Dawn seems a bit startled (and practices a wild take- spitting up a glass of water seems the most appropriate) before continuing.
"No, not me! The guy you're looking for always has pointy ears sticking upright- they don't need to use hands to hold it upright. Also, their face is covered in fur. Kind of like hair, but all over."
Dawn fluffs her hair a bit until it covers her cheeks.
"She's looking for someone with pointy, upright ears. Like a fox." Dawn turns to Virml. "You said the scroll released someone with a fox head, right? That's who she's looking for, and she'll keep flooding the place until we find that fox!"
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"Monkey Flanker!" Razka shouts in frustration. "He left! He changed to look like Virml then left with the Venture Captains! I suppose we're still opposed to the killing the stupid fish?"
He looks around hopefully, but, assuming no one wants to have a delicious seafood meal, he start slogging his way towards the doors out, muttering to himself the whole way.
The creature burbles in a voice so deep it can be felt through the party's boots. As dawn and the grodair converse the jets of water from its back slowly subside as if someone was slowly turning off the spigot.
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"Okay, I think I convinced the fish to calm down a bit. At least until we find the fox guy. Razka, are you sure?" She shrugs. "Well, lead the way. Hopefully he hasn't escaped yet."
Razka and Dawn slog toward the exit. The two little feather-headed fisherbeings wave as they pass. Meanwhile Vina, Lakadee, and Edwin head back down the stairs for the sub-basement. Virml heads for the exit though more so for a way out than any specific destination.
The whole area is strangely quiet without the torrents of water being given off by the grodair. The only sounds being the party's splashing though the foot deep water, and dripping from the mezzanine.
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Quite taken with concern about his powder, Bob meanders along with the rest lost in his own mind.
Seeing his companions split and go in two seperate directions, he stops suddenly. "Ya dun think he's still up re-pennin them wet scrolls do ya? I mean iffen ta orignal 'Virml' were ours bad guy?"
A flash of fear crosses the mans eyes as he eyes the stairs leading downward. Petting his musket, the man coos "It's a gunna be ok. We'll getcha dry I promise."
"Sthoot yourselbs. I'ma gebbing ouwa hewe!" Virml says heading for the doors. He stops. Then he storms back and snatches the bag of teeth from Vina, sniffs indignantly, and strides through the water toward the door again.
"He's not down there, but I'm not going to go wandering around without the crunchy people," Razka replies through angrily gritted teeth, turning around to join the rest of the group.
The party descends down into the stairwell under the somewhat confused eyes of the grodair on the mezzanine, who stares down at them, tentacle on its chin, a look of vague recollection.
After what seems a long slog through heaps of wet paper and chest-high waters the group returns to the closed doorway, and its submerged and locked, butterfly door knob.
The grodair muses to itself....
The door buckles in the center and then breaks off of it's hinges and into a more, or less water-free room--or at least it was. The water in the hall rushes to fill the room beyond and will very quickly flood another room full of ancient books on bookshelves.
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Razka is somewhat mollified by an omniscient, yet not quite identifiable voice in his head that reminds him that he's not just here to stop a fox headed man.
It takes some effort, given the pressure and his basic level of strength (or lack thereof) for Razka to keep his feet when the water does what water does and rushes into a new space to equalize levels. Of course there's already so much water everywhere, it's probably not noticeably lower now that it's filling more space.
"I wasn't kidding earlier. I actually prefer the tree version of lockpicking to the other kind. Although, I kind of wish we weren't breaking our own stuff with it," he comments as Lakadee proves how effective smashing is.
He edges into the room to examine it, as well, not really looking for not-Virml, since he doesn't think he's there and can't remember a time when he was ever wrong, but really looking for The Darklands Precepts.
He edges into the room to examine it, as well, not really looking for not-Virml, since he doesn't think he's there and can't remember a time when he was ever wrong, but really looking for The Darklands Precepts.
The chamber seems to be the archive's linguistic reference room. The hall is packed full of thick dictionaries, thesauri, and language books of all types covering hundreds of languages.
Vina discovers one dog-eared volume floating about now that is apparently a early version of a traveler’s dictionary for the Sylvan-tongue, entitled Sylvan for Drooling, Mouth-Breathing, Knee-Slapping, Knuckle-Dragging, Ham-Handed Gits, a Primer to the Language of the Natural and the Fantastical.
Once again topside, the party splashes through the water and up to the double doors with a sense of purpose.
The grodair blinks at them and makes ready to ask again who they are but the fat fish creature thinks better of seeing the the steel in their eyes, and Lakadee's wooden expression.
The strange little fishermen too had seemed entranced by the party's slow, confident slog through the water to the door. They had had their spears poised to take a big open almanac through the spine, but so distracted are they by the procession that the book floated past them unharmed, and ignorant of its peril.
The party reaches the door. This they know is 'it'. They nod to one another. Razka flicks his heavy soggy cape irritably away from his hand, but it still looks cool when scene and heard through a certain mental filter, and perhaps slowed down a bit to show off the splash.