The Vagrant Tower (Part 3)

After their close encounter with a swarm of surprisingly deadly tomes, the group have decided to beat a hasty retreat back out the portal and to the forward camp. There, they have been tended to by the camp's first aider- they don't have a dedicated cleric, but a couple of the scholars there have some not entirely academic knowledge of medicine they have been able to administer. The books recovered by the party have likewise been examined and the scholars are keen to begin cataloging and transcribing them as soon as they are able. They are written in an ancient dialect of pre-Acanian which makes extensive use of Kulthian loan-words, hinting at the time in which they were written.

The portal has remained stable while the adventurers have licked their wounds, and they are now, some handful of days later, readying themselves for a further foray into the Vagrant Tower- although it's unclear, still, whether they will be entering the same place from which they left or not.

Auranar gathers her things, including a new potion for emergencies, and tucks them away into the little pack she carries for such trips. She rises to her feet, and dusts her skirts off with her hands. "Once more into the portal mmm?" She queries, looking at it with more trepidation than she had initially. "I hope that this portal leads to the same place every time, or else this is going to get very confusing. Well, either way... It's time yes?" She sighs and begins marching toward the portal.

Having tracked down a clean shirt from somewhere, Sloan has taken some time to get cleaned up and make himself presentable again. a trip around the camp has led him to find someone willing to sell him more potions as well, which is a bonus since the last trip left him close to the dead side of things. Hearing Auranar, the butler nods quietly. "I believe you are correct."

Crik has been a constant nuisance. The books and scrolls taken from the portal - he's been prodding his beak at all of them, writing up notes and idly seeing if he couldn't sneak few pages with fancy diagrams into his pouch. He couldn't. Still, the corvid egalrin had a near obsessive compulsion towards their findings.

At the last moment, the rogue remembers to pack a few healing potions and other caltrops along his way. "A new place could be a new opportunity." To pilfer, naturally. He tilts his head up, blinks a momentarily, before his cloak is pulled over him and he follows on after Auranar.

"Now I'm curious what was in the *other* door last time," Magpie says as she sidles up to join the assembling party. "If it's all different... Honestly I kinda like that, it's like reading a book where the cover's the same but the story's different every time, d'you know how much *packing* I could save with a book like that?"

Looking up at Sloan, she reaches up to pat the Aesir's kneecap. "Y'okay, buddy? Ready for another dive?"

Badu takes a deep, lung-expanding gasp of fresh air. A new recruit to help bolster their numbers, he seems eager to get into the meat of the feast. Which marks him as one of the exceptions going by the sighs from the Lady in Red and the Butler. "Haha, keep your heads high! Yesterdays may have not been the best, but today is now!" He slaps Sloan on the back, a little too rough in his enthusiasm to cheer the band. "I will take the lead, if there is no objection?"

Nodding to Magpie, Sloan offers a slight head tilt of a nod. "I believe I am well enough for once more unto the breach my friend." Adjusting his clothing and double checking his potions, the Aesir man stares towards the portal.

As the group once more approach the portal, it flares into life as before- a vortex of magical energies coalescing into a swirling pool of blue light. Curiously, the runes that circle the portal have changed slightly since their last foray- before, only one of the runes was lit at all. Now, a second room has begun to glow, but very dimly- almost too dim to notice save for the eagle eyed among them.

Nevertheless, when they press through, they experience the now-familiar (to all but Badu) sensation of weightless rushing, of timeless passage, finding themselves deposited once again into a circular stone-walled room. The door ahead of them remains open, and the drying smears of blood on the floor from their previous flight remain. All is quiet, for now.

Auranar stares down the hall at the pools of drying blood and grimaces. "So... Do we go in the first door first, or search the room we had been in before? Collecting more books might be a good idea..." Rescuing the books sounds like an excellent, safe option to her, and it's one she likes more than the idea of fighting something else that might be lurking about in this tower.

Crik, the pool of folded cloth and a beak, looks towards Auranar. "Books." He states simply. "We need more books." He turns his head off towards the door, and slowly creeps his way forward. "Books with shiny covers have the most valuable knowledge." He touches the walls, feeling for traps.

"Why would you want to walk into the unknown, and ruin it by taking the same steps?" Badu interjects, clucking his tongue against bright teeth. He will unsling his heavy club, patting it down into the palm of his hand. The unfamiliar twist and turn of the portal's magic did not seem to disorient him very much.

"That's so much fun," Magpie cackles as the group lands at the portal's destination. Brushing down her robes, the gnome pauses, tipping her head back and taking a sniff of the air. "...Huh! I think this tower literally *flies through the void,* smells like we're *closer* to the plane of Air! That's weird!"

At Auranar's question, she purses her lips, chewing on the inside of her cheek in thought. "Raiding the library sounds like a really fun way to pass a week, but... that's for fun. The *job's* to explore the tower, Auranar, and we gotta do that too."

Pausing, she looks up at the latest addition to their exploratory journey, and smiles. "I mean, if you *want* to be out front, I'm not complaining! Just be *super* careful, last time we were here the books animated themselves and almost killed us."

GAME: Crik rolls perception: (14)+11: 25

As Crik moves along the corridor, feels rather than sees something that alerts him. His feathers begin to fray, and tiny jolts of static electricity leap between their tips as he draws near to the as-yet unopened door on the left hand side of the central corridor.

Stepping through the portal once more, Sloan grunts softly and shakes his head. "I dislike that portal." As Crik moves forward, Sloan follows shortly behind him, frowning as the bird begins to crackle. "Is...This a normal state of being for you Crik?"

"It is a wizard's tower, after all." Badu says to Magpie with a wink. "The only company they seem to like is their books, so of course they'd be more lively than most." He does not take the lead, since others stepped into the role, but instead maintains an easy strolling gait behind them. "I like your tasteful use of colors! You are like, tiny bright river stone."

Crik feels the power surge in him. He feels - hold on a second. Turning towards Sloan, the hooded egalrin looks at him for a short moment. "Left." He points towards left. "Something is filled with a charge." He cannot resist the urge to flap out his wings a touch and just let that electricity crackle about him. "... anyone wants to take a crack at it?"

A moment after, the corvid rogue opens up his black beak.

Auranar keeps to the back of the group with Magpie, her forehead creasing with concern as Crik starts to crackle with electric energy. "Magic perhaps?" She murmurs to herself, and glances toward the door. She can not tell with the door as yet closed, but she also knows that she is ill equipped to handle what might well be behind the door.

Looking at Crik for a moment, Sloan moves forward and nods. "Should I perish, I would ask that someone retrieve my remains when convenient." With that, the butler licks his fingertips and reaches out to touch the door knob lightly.

"Yeah you do," Magpie says brightly at the compliment. "Thanks!"

Auranar's guess earns a clueless shrug. "Like I said, we're closer to the Plane of Air than we were before, maybe that's got something to do with it? Does someone have, like, a thing of leather, or something else that is thick but not metal? Could maybe use that to open it?"

The butler's whetted fingertips do elicit a response from the door- a sharp shock leaps from the brass fixture and into his skin, painful, but not especially harmful. A tiny blister is his reward, but the static seems to have been discharged for now, and the handle is otherwise operable.

Badu brings his club up to his shoulder as they resolve the puzzle of the door handle, lifting an eyebrow. "I do not mind taking the lead, but the courage of this one seems more than up to the task. Lead on then, and we shall follow."

Having forgotten to replace his linen gloves, Sloan frowns as he looks at the fresh blisters on his scarred fingers. They weren't the hands of a gentleman to begin with, despite his deportment. So the blisters didn't bother him much anyways. Fingers wrapping around the door knob, the Aesir man braces and quickly turns the handle to push the door open enough to peek around. Barring instantaneous Thor-inspired death, he slips into the room on light feet.

As the door is opened, directly ahead in the roughly quarter-circle shaped room is a raised platform. Upon the platform a number of glowing arcane mandalas are painted in alchemical inks, and braziers sit containing crystals around its edge. The group find their hair standing on end from the lambent energies present here, and the crystals in the brazier bowls throb and hum discordantly. Sparks leap from their tips, grounding in the metal-rimmed brazier bowls and discharging brightly through conduits that run into the base of the raised platform.

GAME: Auranar rolls Knowledge/Arcana: (13)+8: 21

Crik lets the other two go on and touch the door. While magic was fascinating, he was not particularly suited at touching magical lightning. Still, he pulled on his leather gloves. After, his head tilts in curiosity at the sights within the room... and without a warning, his hand on Sloan's back, trying to pull him back. "There has to be something wrong with that room." Beak open, he glances around the room. "Maybe the thunder is different?"

"Close the door!" Auranar cries out in alarm. "It's a summoning circle! Something is being brought into the room." There's no knowing what. Not from the distance that she's at, and even if she could get closer... She might well trigger the thing into summoning whatever it is that it's building toward.

"You are all so very careful!" Badu says with a laugh, "Very different experience." The two with knowledge says leave, so he does not advance against their advice but instead maintains his careful guarding posture over Auranar. "It could be a good thing. Could, haha!" We're havin' a good time!

Never one to turn down good advice, Sloan lets Crik pull him back. With Auranar's words following right behind, he pulls the door closed as well. "I get the feeling that this will not be to our advantage." Hearing Badu, the tall Aesir offers a wan smile. "Having nearly died previously this week, one does not wish a repeat of the experience."

Crik leans into his cloaks and then... pulls out a bunch of worn out journals and bundled up papers. "I've seen those... before... kh'rd?" Apparently, as the egalrin was thumbing his journal, he has seen _many_ lines and circles, judging from the tiny scraps of paper with symbols on them. Finally, he stops, slaps his finger in between, then looks at the others. "I know how to disrupt the ritual." A moment later, he looks down at his journal, flops it open, then shuts it off. "... or I know how to complete the ritual."

Either way, his tail was moving up and down in an excited bopping motion. "Shall I try?"

"My interest is piqued, it must be said." Badu admits. "Though to me, this is just... magic nonsense. It is like a man looking at a lion and thinking, hah, just a cute kitty cat." The big man chuckles and scratches through his beard. "It would be a sight to see!" Unsaid is, before you die. "If you are so confident, then my faith you shall have. Do it." That's one for vote let's see what'll happen.

"If you fail, you will be responsible for summoning whatever horror exists beyond that gate. Which we have no idea what it might be." Auranar warns. "It could be a balor, or... something beyond our comprehension." She looks at the door steadily "You must weigh that risk carefully, and ask yourself if you are willing to take all our lives, and the lives of everyone in that camp into your hands."

Eyeing Crik, Sloan seems to consider for a moment. "Just because you can does not answer weather you should. Do you know what might happen?" Motioning to Auranar, he adds "As stated.”

Crik quickly replies to Auranar, "Yes." A moment later, he corrects, "If that is what it takes." Nice save, he mentally fives himself. He makes a bit of a bow towards Badu. "At the face of unknown, the only path forward is to make what is not known known." His black eyes turn towards Sloan. "She has an idea." He holds up his journal. "I only know how the ritual works." And he really wanted to know what was coming from the other side.

Auranar shakes her head and moves up, reaching out to grab Crik's cloak. "You're willing to risk all those lives? For what? If it comes we fight it, but if you bring it... You're responsible! You! For all that death and destruction and why?" Her voice is harsh, her eyes wild. "You don't know what it's like, to have your whole world washed away because someone summoned something they shouldn't have."

She motions angrily toward the door. "Leave it alone! Please..." It's almost begging, her hands fall. "Don't do it. It's not worth it."

Now that Crik has edged a little closer into the room- still staying far enough from the ritual area to avoid triggering it by mistake, he has seen something else- there is a door at the far side of the room. If the group aren't willing to meddle with the ritual, it is possible they could try and sneak around it.

"Well, when you put it like that..." Badu says with a chuckle in the awkward silence. "It is hard to argue the value of curiosity against the reality of the consequences. Next time, eh?" He pats Crik, "I know dat you would have handled it." He adjusts his grip on the club and looks about, "Now, do we go somewhere else?"

Watching Auranar, Sloan leans on the door once more, not moving to open it yet. "Well, it would appear our options are leave the room alone, and leave, or we press forward and attempt not to get killed. Choices?"

GAME: Magpie rolls knowledge/arcana: (10)+10: 20

"Press forward," Magpie says, suddenly breaking her silence. "But yeah... That's a weight class you don't kick in the knee unless you're *really* ready for what might kick back. We could keep to the walls, and get to the door on the other side? Normally I'm all for experimenting, but like... Badu, you didn't see what those books did, and I'm not sure that wasn't an *accident.* This is Big Wizard Stuff, with maybe Big Wizard Booms."

GAME: Magpie rolls stealth: (12)+6: 18

Crik is shaken by the cloak, and when you shake a crow like that, you are going to get sounds. Low pitched crowl leaves his beak, along with a good jostling of everything that was strapped onto his cloak. A lot of everything. Finally, the moment passed, he reaches up and adjusts his cloak. "I do know what it is like." He glances at the door, then the rest of the group. "... it is why I should have done it."

But he bows his head, and lets Magpie take the lead with a gesture of his hand. "We can sneak around."

GAME: Crik rolls stealth: (11)+10: 21
GAME: Sloan rolls stealth: (1)+7: 8 (EPIC FAIL)
GAME: Badu rolls stealth: (16)+-2: 14
GAME: Auranar rolls Stealth: (17)+3: 20
GAME: Subduction rolls 1d3: (3): 3
GAME: Badu rolls reflex: (17)+2: 19
GAME: Magpie rolls reflex: (17)+3: 20
GAME: Sloan rolls reflex: (13)+6: 19
GAME: Auranar rolls Reflex: (14)+4: 18
GAME: Crik rolls reflex: (10)+7: 17

As the group make their way carefully into the room, all seems to be going well- at first. They manage to creep along partway through the room. But something changes, the air shifts. They find their hair standing on its ends, any metal objects they carry begin to keen and vibrate.

Suddenly, one of the clusters of crystals explodes, violently. In the same instant one of the stained glass windows in the room explodes, the shards of glass flying into the room and then suddenly changing course and being sucked back out into the void beyond.

Another crystal shatters, and thunder booms loud- shaking the tower itself, but the party manage to keep their footing. Arcs of electricity stream from yet another crystal, grounding into the stone slabs in the room and leaving black scorch marks. Another brazier begins to glow red hot, and then melts scattering its crystalline contents as the power it channels exceeds its ability to contain.

Three more bolts strike in quick succession, these springing forth from the mandalas in the center of the room. And where they strike, they leave something behind. A crackling electric cloud which begins to coalesce into a vaguely humanoid shape, no taller than a goblin, but composed entirely of translucent energy and crackling electricity.

Badu brings his club up in time for one of the shards to implant into his weapon, then gives a bewildered shake of his head as it is sucked right back into the void with the others. He drops into a ready stance as a creature's silhouette crackles into existence, giving a belly-bubbling laugh at the strange sight. All that, and it happens anyway. Sometimes it be like that. "Hello there, little Stormcloud! Friend? Haha, I hope so because if not...!" His club is thrown up into the air, spinning end over end, before he catches it with one hand and snaps a sharp fist to his chest.

GAME: Badu rolls Intimidate: (19)+11: 30
GAME: Auranar rolls Knowledge/The Planes: (7)+2: 9
GAME: Auranar casts Bless. Caster Level: 4 DC: 15

"Some kind of lightning elementals I think?" Auranar says a little uncertainly. She's not sure if they're dangerous or not, but she casts a quick spell in order to aid her allies just the same. It won't hurt the elementals, and it will help her companions, so that's the best course of action she can think of.

GAME: Magpie casts Entropic Shield. Caster Level: 5 DC: 16

Aaaaand it's -- baby elementals? Huh.

Badu's display looks quite impressive, though, and Magpie perks up a bit at them being tentatively identified as elementals. Murmuring tongue- and brain-twisting syllables, she sidles along the wall, snatching motes of freed spillover power from the air, then destroying the gathered clump with a clap of the hands.

A sphere of roiling colors engulfs the gnome, making it hard to properly see exactly where she is in the mess of distracting light, as she comes to a halt next to the rogue.

"Hey, uh, Crik? Don't Egalrin grow up learning the language of the sky, or something like? Maybe they can understand you?"

GAME: Subduction rolls 1: (17)+1: 18
GAME: Subduction rolls 1: (4)+1: 5
GAME: Subduction rolls 5+3: (19)+5+3: 27
GAME: Subduction rolls 1d4+1d3: (4)+(3): 7
GAME: Subduction rolls 1: (6)+1: 7

The elementals immediately recoil from Badu as he shows off his proficiency with that hefty club of his, backing away in inches- that is, until a flash of lightning and a peal of thunder sounds somewhere outside the tower. Reminded that they are at home in or at least near their native plane, they are emboldened- and the figures flash across the room in erratic zig-zags, slamming into Crik, Badu and Sloan.

The elgarin is driven backwards, stumbling against Magpie and pinning her to the wall in a tangled mess. Badu takes a more forceful blow, the elementals spark-clad hands coming up to slam into his chest, sending jolts of heart-stopping electricity through his breastplate and into the skin beneath. Sloan keeps his footing and holds his ground against the one which tries to shove him.

GAME: Crik rolls knowledge/the planes: (6)+3: 9
GAME: Crik rolls bluff: (19)+6: 25
GAME: Sloan rolls cmb+4: (11)+6+4: 21

Crik was looking around in alarm as the shards started exploding and the energy started spilling forward. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, trying to come up with something to try and do something against the elemantals when Magpie sneaks besides him. Stars, so many bright stars. "They-oh." The corvid's mouth opens. "Yes, they do."

Unfortunately for Magpie, the realization is followed by a sudden slam as the corvid is flung at her and up against the wall. "Sorry!" He quickly apologizes and then gets back up on his feet. There's a firm ruffle of his feathers, quiet crack of knees and he leans forward like a crotchety, angered old wizard.

<Stand down, you obnoxious experiment, or be cast back whence you came!> The egalrin bellows in the language of the bird people - whilst quietly sneaking around the elemental towards the center of the room. <By the end of this, you will not be fit to power up a light!>

GAME: Badu rolls clubbing+2: aliased to weapon1+2: (17)+7+2: 26

Getting slammed into by an elemental, Sloan frowns, his top lip curling up as he grabs the creature by an 'arm' spins it around and locks it in a choke hold. "Bad manners begets bad manners, Sir!" growls the butler as he begins dragging the elemental towards the window.

GAME: Badu rolls 1d10+6: (1)+6: 7

Badu has no witty quip about that shocking caress, grunting against the unpleasant electric touch. His club, still held in guard stance, hooks back and slams into the cloudlike opponent even as arcs of electricity pop and crackle off his metal armor.

GAME: Auranar casts Mage Armor. Caster Level: 4 DC: 15
GAME: Magpie casts Blur. Caster Level: 5 DC: 18

Auranar grimaces as things quickly degrade. Everyone is in close contact with the elementals and she doesn't want to risk hitting anyone with her spells. Which reminds her of a crucial spell which she has yet to cast. Building up magical energy within herself, her hands form a diamond shape before her, and she utters a few arcane words. A magical layer forms just above her clothes and she grins in grim satisfaction.

GAME: Subduction rolls 5+3-2: (20)+5+3+-2: 26
GAME: Subduction rolls 5+3-2: (8)+5+3+-2: 14
GAME: Subduction rolls 2d4+1d3: (4)+(1): 5
GAME: Magpie rolls 1d20+5+5: (6)+5+5: 16
GAME: Subduction rolls 5+3-2: (10)+5+3+-2: 16
GAME: Subduction rolls 6: (20)+6: 26

Well *this* is becoming a hairball of a fight in a hurry. With Badu standing tall, shiny, and probably *incredibly* attractive to lightning elementals, given his armor, Magpie hurries to the fighter's side, once more harvesting stray magic and rubbing it into what looks like a fistful of silver cotton wool?

She slaps the 'wool' against Badu's thigh, and his outline melts into a blurry, indistinct smear, as through he were racing past the eye without moving an inch.

Which is when the elemental grabs hold of her skull. The shock of contact sends the gnome's face contorting into a terrified rictus for a moment, and wisps of burnt-hair smell curl up from between the gaps in her headgear. "...Well *that* sounded purple," she murmurs, shaking her head to clear the cobwebs.

After delivering a shock to the top of Magpie's brainpan, the Elemental embroiled in Melee with Badu continues to attempt to strike him- it reaches out with arcs of electricity, but the Veyshanti is too fast for it this time and the arcs strike harmlessly against the stone wall behind him.

Meanwhile, Sloan is not having as much luck- the thing about grabbing an elemental is, their body shape is really more of a suggestion than a rule. It escapes the chokehold by having its entangled arm and head simply fizzle out into nothing before emerging once again with a crackle of sparks elsewhere on its body, slowly returning to where they ought to be once it is freed.

Finally, the one in the south that Magpie and Crik just moved away from seems to be having somewhat of an existential crisis. It stands there, head canted, staring at Crik. Not quite ready to follow his instructions, but also not /completely/ certain it wasn't summoned by him, either.

GAME: Crik rolls bluff: (10)+6: 16

Crik looks around, seeing people zapping left and right. Still doing his best to mimic a wizard of lightning, he keeps letting out those egalrin noises and sounds in rapid succession. <Now you let my guest down, or I'll bottle you!> He gestures wildly at the elemental Sloan was grappling with. <And you'll be grounded!>

Momentarily, he crouches down and falls back to his old self. "Should we retreat?"

GAME: Sloan rolls weapon0: (17)+6: 23
GAME: Sloan rolls weapon0: (4)+6: 10
GAME: Sloan rolls damage0: aliased to 1d6+4: (3)+4: 7
GAME: Badu rolls clubbing+4: aliased to weapon1+4: (16)+7+4: 27
GAME: Badu rolls 1d10+6: (4)+6: 10

Realizing that the easy way wasn't going to work well, Sloan lashes out with his bare fists, the scarred and calloused knuckles missing on jab, but connecting with the elemental on a vicious backswing. "I didn't want this."

"HAH, GROUNDED!" Badu bellows as his club disperses the stormcloud in a beautiful scattering of electric sparks, his own silhouette still buzzing with the enchantment placed on him. He liked that joke so much that he stole it shamelessly.

GAME: Auranar casts Mage Armor. Caster Level: 4 DC: 15

Noticing that Sloan is still right before her - protecting her really - Auranar realizes abruptly that he's not wearing any armor! "Let me help with that." She says with a small smile and once again casting the same spell as before, only this time, it has a different target - Sloan.

GAME: Auranar rolls 1d20+4+4: (3)+4+4: 11
GAME: Magpie casts Color Spray. Caster Level: 5 DC: 17
GAME: Subduction rolls 0: (6)+0: 6
GAME: Magpie rolls 2d4: (3): 3
GAME: Magpie rolls 1d4: (3): 3
GAME: Subduction rolls 5: (3)+5: 8

Scraping her hands down her sleeves, the little blond gnome with the smoking hairstyle seems to leach the actual color from her arms in long, streaky patches, the gathered color collecting in a wobbly lump of cacophonic light in her hands. Raising the blob above her head, she shouts something distorted and indecipherable, hurling the blob toward the poor elemental Crik had kept bamboozled.

When the color splashes across the elemental's 'face,' it bursts into a jittery, strobing mess directly into its eye-analogs, sending the elemental reeling *right* into unconsciousness.

"Oh wow, it worked!" Magpie cheers. "*I could probably write a paper on this.*"

The elemental down towards the south end of the room is not having a great time- being suddenly summoned, promptly gaslit, and now just as it was beginning to get its thoughts in order, thoroughly bedazzled, it collapses into an amorphous cloud of lazily arcing plasma.

It's comrade is not having much more luck, swinging left, and then right arm, trailing sparks, but failing to find purchase on the deft butler- not even a belt buckle or brass button for it to send a surge through.

GAME: Crik rolls stealth: (16)+10: 26
GAME: Crik rolls weapon1: (8)+3: 11

Seeing the elementals fall in quick succession, Crik changes his approach and falls low on the floor. Creeping towards the elemental Sloan was grappling with, he pulls out his knife - but his swing misses the elusive sentient electricity.

GAME: Sloan rolls weapon0: (19)+6: 25
GAME: Sloan rolls weapon0: (2)+6: 8
GAME: Sloan rolls damage0: aliased to 1d6+4: (1)+4: 5

Feeling the Mage Armor materialize around him, Sloan calls out to Auranar. "Many thanks Madame!" and then the elemental is trying to strike him. Dancing withing the creature's strikes, Sloan's own hands and arms are moving quickly. It wasn't what one expected when they thought of martial arts really, at one point, if one were watching closely enough, they might see him hold back to urge to bite the thing as he pivots on the ball of a foot and drives an elbow into the elemental's 'forehead' a follow up swing whiffing past the creature ineffectually as the thing drops to the ground.

GAME: Badu rolls 1d10+6: (8)+6: 14

"I must thank you, little Stormclouds. We had many questions you see, about the nature of the beasts you are. Now we know. You have shown us your skills and we are a little wiser, hah, and singed for the knowledge. It was a good effort but it was not enough." He grips his heavy banded club, kissing the beautiful lady painted into the wood, and brings his weapon up...

Only to axe-chop down with a thundering blow, which is appropriate execution for a stormcloud.

Badu turns to the others, "I am starving! An' blurry!"

And with the last telling blow, the Elementals are no more- those in the know will realize that this is their native plane, and so they are not simply banished back as they might if they were summoned to the material, but the stuff that makes them up dissipates, returning to the ambient energies of this place. The blue crystals which serve to illuminate this tower glow brighter, it seems, as they absorb some portion of the energy of the dissipating creatures. The sound of combat gives way to the constant rumbling of thunder from outside the tower.

"...Oh *that* makes sense," Magpie murmurs as the elementals dissolve into planestuff. ...Then a thing Badu said occurs to her, and she coughs. "Right, sorry," she says, discorporating the blurring magics with a snap of her fingers and a particularly forceful thought. "So okay! That was... huh. I wonder why it's collecting stray mana... oh man, you don't think that's how we're going to power up to jump to another plane, is it?"

Massaging the knuckles of one hand with the thumb of the other hand, Sloan looks around quietly for a moment. Finally, he begins to move towards the next door as he rolls up the sleeves on his tunic revealing heavily scarred arms to match the scarred and calloused hands. They were not the appendages of a genteel servant. At Magpie's statement, Sloan frowns deeper. "I would assume that was not the original system for this apparatus? Unless the mage in this tower was a masochist and a sadist?"

"No idea." Murmurs Auranar, looking at the remnants of the elementals. She shakes her head. "Perhaps we should return to the camp? See what has changed due to our actions?" She seems entirely uncertain. "And procure lunch." This last is said with a nod to Badu.

Crik moves to hop besides Magpie. "Another plane." He says, before he moves on by the middle of the group. His attention was on all the details of the room - quickly scratching marks into stray pieces of paper.

"Hah!" Badu belly-laughs, patting his own gut at Auranar's agreement. Magpie's musing goes over his head. He doesn't really get, or even care to get, magic. It works when other people do it and that is enough for him. "Worked up a bit of an appetite with all the excitement." He watches as Crik begins to flick about the room, recording everything he can back into his books. "So, between the little stormclouds or the books, which was worse?"

Looking at Badu, Sloan offers a bit of a wan smile. "The books, by a far piece, the books."

With the immediate threat dealt with, the group are free to double back and explore the library more thoroughly- now that one of their number is not bleeding all over its floor, they can take the time to examine the books they gather in more detail.

In particular, the writing desk- it was upturned in their fight against the animated books previously, but an unfinished letter is found amongst its scattered contents.

It is unclear who the letter is addressed to, if indeed it was ever intended to be sent to anyone. The script is ancient, like the books, and difficult to decypher even if it shares a root with the common tongue. Still, though, parts of its meaning can be decyphered.

It seems as though this tower once stood in the material plane. The letter speaks of a culmination of efforts to preserve the tower, by insulating it from the reckless ambitions of the author's Galrivian neighbors in the surest way he could conceive of; by casting it in its entirety out of the mortal plane.

-End