Alessandra ignores the tray, since Ulrich seems to be dealing with it, and looks upwards - trying to locate the end of the staircase and any potential traps or illusions.
"I guess we'll have to keep going up..." She says, glancing at Ellie. "Right behind you."
Ulrich picks up the tray without incident. It doesn't seem valuable, but he feels like he has a keener insight as to the strange illusions that are common in this place.
The stairs are narrow and steep, making ascending them a dubious affair. You are about halfway up the stairs when Elka spots movement from an alcove just beneath the landing. She shouts a warning as a lanky ebon monster emerges! The thing has batlike wings and a long prehensile tail, yet its most unsettling feature is its lack of a face.
Alessandra races up the stairs (presumably behind Ellie?) and attempts to grasp the creature!
"Ellie, watch out!" Gabbi calls out as she raises her weapon to fire at the creature.
She curses as she pulls the string back on the weapon.
Sick, poisoned, weary beyond measure, Ellie's arms tremble under the weight of her flail and her exertions so far today. Blinking at the beast that she does not recognise, from somewhere she summons up a strength of purpose - and charges.
Elka wants to rush forward towards the beast, but finds that every step the stairway counts has already been claimed by one of her companions. So instead, she draws a javelin and studies the creature's movements. Just use those pretty wings of yours ...
Ellie's flail smashes the monster's head in as it swoops down to grab at her! It plummets to the floor below, bones crunching with the impact, and lies still.
"Remind me to never piss you off," Gabbi says, looking down at the crumpled form heaped on the floor below. She turns a crooked grin back at the Lore Warden. "I won't promise not to try, through."
Ellie smiles feebly at the joke, but gratefully accepts the healing. She shudders, still feeling weaker than normal. "Shall we continue?"
This lofty room rises 30 feet. The rounded walls are lined with orderly bookshelves and desks. A long table contains several esoteric devices, including intricate clocks and astrological models. Two short flights of stairs lead up to a platform to the south, ten feet higher than this room and supporting an enormous circular device forged from brass.
A kindly old woman busies herself here. She sighs with relief as you crest the stairs. "Oh, thank heavens! You must help me, dearies. My name is Mrs. Pedipalp. I've finally regained control of myself now that the wicked demon spider, Colulus, has been killed. That fiend emerged through the Dream Gate shortly after I took over for Salighara, and he infused the scriptorium with nightmares! You must help me close the Dream Gate before more monsters come through!"
"Uh-huh."
Ellie looks at the old woman with skepticism: nothing in this place so far has been what it looked like. "And did Colulus emerge before or after you agreed with the psychopomp lady to kill us for her?"
She looks at the others, and shrugs defensively. "It's, uh, a reasonable question, I think, isn't it?"
"Oh, and also: if the gate needs closing, why don't we ask Salighara to do that? She built it, after all."
"'Twas after, as I said. But I only agreed to help Mictena to protect my position here. I never planned on actually trying to kill anybody! At any rate, we haven't time to wait for Salighara. I feel another evil presence gathering at the Gate even as we speak. It must not be allowed through!"
Gabriella eyes the old woman suspiciously.
"We would certainly not want an evil presence to come through the gate," the inquisitor says flatly.
"So how do we close it?" Gabbi asks, looking over the mechanism.
Alessandra lets her sister do the speaking and circles around the outside of the room until she is behind Mrs Pedipalp. She then closes quietly until she's within a few feet of the old woman - who she doesn't trust in the least.
Gabby senses no alignment auras from Mrs. Pedipalp. Allie senses one magical aura on her, as well as auras on her belt and bracers.
The old woman gestures to the device. An array of machinery lines the walls of the tower’s highest level, a balcony 10 feet above the research room floor. A metal hoop 10 feet in diameter hovers vertically here, a foot above the floor. Several wires connect the hoop to the machinery. Within the hoop is a roiling surface of swirling black and gray, from which issues a chill wind and faint, distant screaming.
"You must rotate the hoop around the Gate in a clockwise fashion until it closes! But I'm not strong enough to do it on my own."
Ellie hesitates. Everything the woman is saying sounds reasonable; but... "Uh, Doctor? Any idea on how this thing works?" Meddling in wizardly contraptions is a good way to get yourself killed - or worse.
She looks at the device herself, trying to figure its workings.
"Or we could just, you know, smash it."
Alessandra stays at the back of the group, behind Pendipalp, deliberately keeping quiet in the hopes that the 'old woman' will have confused her with her sister and lost track of her.
"Or we could just, you know, smash it."
"Slow down there, Gethrina," Gabriella says to Ellie with a cautioning hand as she looks up at the device on the balcony.
Unable to determine the truth of what the old woman is saying, Gabbi looks at Ulrich for confirmation.
Elká tames her wild hair by running a set of wickedly sharp nails through them. She looks up at the ohterworldly construction and studies its mechanisms. It resembles a trap more than anything, designed to catch something and then hold on to it. "I'm ready if you are, doc. I don't know much about magic, but the wires around that hoop remind me of fancy gnomish traps. It should be easy enough to find out which are the important ones and then, snip-snap, make sure the hoop ain't getting it's juice no more."
As Ulrich approaches the Dream Gate, you can hear a foul voice chanting in an arcane tongue. Elka suddenly begins to feel revolted by the doctor's presence. Goodwill and friendship is being replaced by loathing. Unadulterated loathing.
Mrs. Pedipalp gasps. "Oh, no! A nightmare spirit is seeping through!"
Before you can react, the voice snarls and spits again, and this time, Ellie begins to feel nothing but disgust for Gabriella!
Ellie's mind starts to cloud over, but with a monumental effort of will she manages to push back against the emotions being forced upon her.
She narrows her eyes. "I don't know what's happening, but whoever is doing that is going to be sorry."
Her grip tightens on her heavy flail.
"Ellie..." Says Ulrich while his back is still to her. "Pedipalp is the puppeteer of this game. Kill her."
Ulrich snaps his fingers and suddenly vanishes.
Kamosh is not invisible, so he flies up to the top of the ceiling. He's looking around for illusions in the room.
+2 if illusions count as mind-affecting.
Without quite yelling 'I knew it!' Allie leaps on the old lady.
Elká isn't entirely sure of what's happening, but where her head is trying to get her to deal with the gate, her emotions are yelling at her to run. Why?!, Elká screams internally, but the sight of the wizard - and him disappearing right in front of her eyes - tells her exactly what is wrong: Ulrich. Reeling with disgust, Elká falls back and tries to exit the room.
The old woman squeals in surprise and just barely dodges Allie's grasping hands.
Gabbi seems to be having a hard time grasping what's happening. When Ulrich vanishes, she grasps her weapon tighter and steps back away from everyone.
Seeing through the illusion, Ellie charges at Mrs. Pedipalp. Her attack is barely deflected away by an aura surrounding the old woman.
"Oh, dearie! It seems my ruse has been thwarted! Very well, we will do this the hard way." Her form seems to shift slightly as subtle spiderlike features emerge. She steps back and casts a spell, protecting herself with mirror images.
Things seem to clarify for the inquisitor. "Deceptions and nightmares are your stock and trade, Mrs. Push-Pull. We're closing up your shop."
In her hubris, the crossbow bolt falls off the stock before she fires the weapon.
With Ellie and her trusty flail providing a good distraction Allie lashes out with a flurry of blows, intent on dispelling the protections at least.
"I don't mind the hard way. It's what I trained for."
Ellie swings her flail, with a sense of satisfaction at having a target to attack and vent all her annoyances on.
"In case you were wondering, this is personal."
Elká finds herself freed from the overwhelming sense of loathing now that the doctor is gone. She does, however, get hit by yet another wave of strong emotions as Pedipalp magically tugs at her personal fears and anxiety triggers, but Elká is simply way too confused at this point to be bothered by it. "Stop it! You're making my head hurt!"
She yells and takes a couple of steps before throwing a sharp complaint at Pedipalp.
"Ew it's hideous!" Says Ulrich even though he's invisible. Deciding not to deal with the monstrous woman, Ulrich instead opts for dealing with the dream gate.
Kamosh is too scared of the creature to do anything.
Ellie manages to hit the real Mrs. Pedipalp. She hisses in pain, but like with Colulus, the damage seems to be reduced. As he wounds regenerate, she concentrates on a spell and sends a spray of colors swirling over Allie and Ellie. "Stay away from the Gate! You will not undo everything I have worked towards here!" she shrieks as the invisible Ulrich makes his modifications.
Alessandra reels away from the lights, unable to see a thing!
Ulrich tries to disable the device, but his clumsy fat fingers get in the way. The shaking from nervousness doesn't help either.
"Kamosh really doesn't like this!"
Elká throws another javelin, but the hot mess of a melee that's going on means she overcompensates as not to hit a friend, sending the javelin into a nearby wall.
Gabriella bares her fangs as she attempts again to hit the old woman with her crossbow.
A sound very like the snarl of a beast comes from the inquisitor as her weapon strikes home and she quickly reloads.
Ellie winces as the lights blind her, unable to do anything until her vision clears.
Ellie swings at her foe as she moves away.