Hunt For The Witchfinders' Lab

They all walk out into the darkness noticing that the night is somewhat overcast, with just a thin sliver of moon showing, enabling them to move silently through the deserted streets without much fear of being seen.

They carry on, moving stealthily towards their destination until they reach the town square. Approaching from the west, they see to the south of them the municipal building where they were incarcerated upon their arrival in Dvur Kralovye. In the center of the square, they see a large pile of wood, with nine stakes rising from it, surrounded by nine gallows, serving as a sign that the Nyemetz have not given up on their attempts to find them. It also serves to remind them of the price of failure on their mission.

At the northern end of the square lies the Witchfinder Building, exactly where Viktor said it would be. The building, painted pastel blue, gives no sign as to its sinister purpose.

They carry on walking towards the building, keeping to the shadows as they approach. When they reach the north western corner of the square, they split into two groups. Winnacer, Xavier and Bennett continue working their way around to the edge of the square, while the others carry on northwards and then turn right into the street at the back of the building.

Winnacer, Xavier and Bennett reach the stables adjoining the building. Nervously, they peer over the half doors. Inside, they see that Viktor's information is again accurate, as there are three horses present, one black, one gray and one dark brown. The warriors are relieved, however, to see that the horses have no two-legged companions.

As quietly as they can, they open the half-door and enter the stables, closing the door behind them. Each of the warriors draws their swords and advance to the the door that leads into the Witchfinder Building. Winnacer presses his ear to the door, but can hear nothing through the stout oak door that is reinforced with iron studs. They remain in position waiting to hear the telltale signs of a scuffle.

Meanwhile, Julian, Darius, Faewen'il and Yaz have been making their way in the street behind the building, until they reach the northern windows. Jihan looks up to see that the windows are some six feet off the ground, higher than expected, but causing little problem.

Jihan stands on tiptoes and peers into the window. He sees that the window is made of small pieces of glass held in place by lead lattice work. He sees that there is a curtain behind the window, under which there is light.

Darius and Yaz help the elf to climb up onto the stone window ledge. He sees that there is a handle just below his eye level on the opposite side. From his bandoleer, he takes some glued paper which he applies to the glass. He then takes the hammer and hits the pane forcefully. The glass breaks with a dull scrunching sound. He backs up to the side of the window sill, with his hand on the hilt of Langzhan, waiting to see if there is any response. All is quiet, however.

He returns to his position and then gently pulls the glued paper away taking the shards of glass with it. A neat hole in the glass remains. Gently, he puts his hand through the hole and turns the handle. The window slowly swings open.

Jihan takes Langzhan from its scabbard and clasps the blade between his teeth. He then squeezes through the open window as silently as possible. He then drops down from the ledge with a cat-like grace. He quickly takes in his surroundings. As he expected, he finds himself in a wide corridor with doors at the western end and opposite him. There are torches along the wall, but the light given off from them is unnatural - the result of sorcery. There is no sign of life in the corridor.

Checking once again that the coast is clear, he bends over and pulls Darius up over the ledge, assisted by Yaz on the other side. They repeat the exercise with Faewen'il. Yaz is the last to enter, taking care not to spoil the new clothes that he is wearing underneath his borrowed leather armor.

Once everyone is inside, Jihan and Darius quietly move towards the west door, checking the floor, ceiling and walls carefully before they take each step. They reach the door without encountering any difficulties. Jihan and Darius both study the doorway intently for a couple of minutes.

'I can't see any traps' Jihan whispers. 'How about you, brother?'

Darius simply shakes his head.

The two of them step forwards to investigate the lock in more detail. Jihan pulls out the magnifying glass to check it in more detail. After a couple more minutes, he whispers again:

'Still looks OK. to me, unless it's protected by magick.'

Darius simply shrugs.

The goblin then puts his ear to the crack in order to try and listen to hear if there is anything on the other side of the door.

'Not sure' whispers Darius, 'Could be, could be not.'

Jihan tries to listen as well, but comes up with the same result.

Jihan beckons Faewen'il and Yaz to come closer. Yaz draws his scimitar.

'Let's do it' whispers the druid.

'One, two...THREE' counts Jihan, as he pulls the door open.

Darius is the first through, clutching his shortsword tightly. Immediately, he sees the bulky form of a solitary orog sat on a stool facing away from him.

Darius rushes in as quickly as he can. Too quickly, as the goblin trips over his feet, sending him sprawling to the floor. Jihan is right behind him. He bounds over the prone Darius and, as the orog turns to see what the commotion is, the elf plunges Langzhan into the beast's jugular vein, sending blood spurting as if from a crimson fountain. The orog screams in agony, clasping a hand to his neck in a futile attempt to staunch the blood loss.

The scream immediately alerts the other three waiting directly outside the door, who burst through it with swords in hand. However, it is Yaz who was following right behind Jihan who gets the next attack in.

The orog, screaming in agony and holding his hand against his gusing jugular, is in no position to dodge the blow from Yaz's scimitar, which neatly removes the orog's head from its shoulders, taking the hand that he had pressed against his neck with it.

The three warriors stumble to a halt before the body, somewhat peeved at not being able to join in the fun.

Yaz looks down at the body and notices, to his annoyance, that his nice clean white shirt is now covered in the orog's blood.

The three warriors cover the doors in case anyone has been alerted by the orog's screams, but there are no signs of any activity.

Jihan offers Darius a hand up, not saying anything to the embarassed goblin, who is cursing his rotten luck in his native tongue.

'So far, so good' says Winnacer. 'Where to now?'

Seeing as there is already a huge pool of blood on the floor from the decapitated orog, there is no point in trying to hide the body, so they leave it where it is.

Deciding to head straight for the library, the party gets into to marching order which goes:

Jihan, Darius, Winnacer, Xavier, Faewen'il, Yaz and Bennett

The party cautiously makes its way eastwards through the corridor that Jihan and Darius have already determined to be safe. They stop as they approach the double doors on their right. Both Jihan and Darius investigate the area around the door.

Once again, they spend a couple of minutes looking all around the door and conclude that they cannot see any traps. They step forwards a pace and investigate the lock more closely. Again, it appears to be untrapped and also unlocked. They check again, and are sure that it is OK. They both listen at the door, but once again, they hear nothing on the other side.

Being prepared for all eventualities, Winnacer and Xavier stand at the door and then Jihan pulls it open as quickly as possible. There is nothing on the other side.

The room is an office, with a desk in each of the four corners plus some shelves with books on some of the walls. They enter and take a quick look at the papers. They find nothing of interest in the short time that They look through the papers. All that they see is sundry paperwork. You realize that the Nyemetz are as officious as Bohavians have ever been, and that large amounts of forms need to be filled in for most common tasks.

Seeing nothing of interest in the room, Jihan and Darius carefully advance towards the door that is in the east wall.

They check for traps again and, once again there seems to be none. They advance to right before the door and check once again. Definitely no traps. They listen, but hear no noise behind the door.

Jihan investigates the lock. He spends a couple of minutes investigating before he says:

'No traps, but the door is locked. Let's see if Viktor's key can get through this as easily as it opened up the locks at the prison.'

He produces the skeleton key from his bandoleer and tries the lock. The key fits inside the lock and Jihan hears a satisfying click as the teeth find their positions. He twists the key and the door creaks open.

As expected, Jihan finds himself in another wide corridor with stairs heading downwards to the north. He beckons the others to follow him and carefully he and Darius walk up the corridor until they are standing at the top with the others behind them. They peer down the stairs and see that it twists downwards.

Taking a torch from the wall, Jihan and Darius prod at each of the stairs a few times before descending. It takes half an hour to check out each of the steps with sufficient care, but they make it the whole way without anything happening.

Jihan is somewhat surprised at the ease with which they have penetrated the building so far, hoping that their luck will hold out. He beckons for the rest of the group to come down.

They see a wide corridor stretching down to the south.

Carefully, Jihan and Darius advance down the whole length of the corridor until they are at the end. There are two doors close to them. One ahead of them, that Viktor's map tells them leads to the storeroom and another to their right, which leads to the library and, hopefully, the entrance to the laboratory.

They check for traps, but again they cannot detect anything. They advance to the door and listen, again hearing nothing. They investigate the lock again and find no traps, but see that the door is locked.

Again Jihan brings out the skeleton key and puts it into the lock. He moves it around a little, but hears no click. He takes the key out and takes out the magnifying glass, investigating the keyhole.

'It's a different type of teeth arrangement' says Jihan sadly. 'The skeleton key won't work on it. I guess that we'll have to try the old-fashioned way.'

With that, he pulls a small canvas set of fine tools from his bandoleer and begins to work on the insides of the lock. He spends five minutes trying to work on the lock, but then gives up in frustration.

'Care to give it a try, brother?' he asks to Darius.

Darius takes the set of tools and frantically tries to open the lock with them.

Jihan looks on with alarm at Darius' furious attempt to open the lock. He tries to calm him down, but he is too late. There is a gentle snapping sound and Darius pulls out the tool to see that the end of it is missing.

Jihan takes the magnifying glass and looks into the keyhole. As he feared, Darius has managed to jam the end of the tool in the mechanism, ruining the tool and rendering the door completely unopenable.

'Sorry' says Darius weakly. 'Not used to these tools.'

Jihan does not make a big issue of the situation, seeing how guilty the goblin is at his failure.

'Don't worry,' says Jihan, patting Darius on the shoulder. 'I ruined a few tools in my time when I was starting out too.'

Winnacer brings out the map and investigates the situation.

'All is not lost' he says. 'It just means that we will have to go through the cellblock and then the guardroom.'

The party turns back and stops just outside the door on the western side of the corridor.

The two rogues investigate. Again they determine that there are no traps. They advance a step and listen. Again, no sound can be heard. They check the lock. No traps can be detected, but the door is again locked.

'I thought Viktor said that they didn't trust in regular locks?' grumbles Jihan to himself.

He takes the skeleton key once more and tries the lock, praying to Prirodna that this is the right one for the skeleton key.

It takes five minutes of carefully moving the key around the lock, but finally his prayers are answered and he listens to the satisfying click of the teeth of the key connecting with the tumblers in the lock.

He summons the warriors to take up positions in front of the door and then twists the key. The heavy door creaks open. The corridor ahead seems to be empty.

Cautiously they walk into the corridor. As they do so, they hear a gruff voice emerge from the furthest cell.

'F*** OFF!' shouts the voice. 'YOU CAN TELL THAT GENERAL OF YOURS THAT HE CAN KISS ME WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE BEFORE I TELL HIM HOW IT WORKS!'

Cautiously, they advance down the length of the corridor, being careful to ensure that they are not being lured into a trap. As they reach the entrance to the cell, they peer through the viewing window.

In front of them, they see a bizarre sight. The voice emanated from a middle aged dwarf dressed in red, orange and yellow robes. His hair and luxuriant beard are both braided into dreadlocks - far from being a typical fashion for dwarves. His hands are bound in manacles.

'F*** OFF!' cries the dwarf again as he sees them all staring at him.

Jihan walks back to the others, and whispers:

"What do you make of this? He certainly sounds as if he is no enemy of ours. Should we enter and release him, or pretend we are but guards come to look in and go about our business? I cannot see leaving him behind, especially as we are planning to burn this place down. There's nothing for it but to release him I guess. Someone keep an eye out behind us."

With that, he walks towards the cell, and manipulates the lock with the key. It takes several minutes of fiddling with the lock, but eventually the door swings open.

'COME TO KILL ME HAVE YOU, YOU COLLABORATING SCUM. COME AND DO IT THEN, I DARE YOU!' shouts the inmate. They notice that the dwarf has a crazed look in his eyes, which look both glazed and firey at the same time.

Upon entering the cell, the elf replies in a strong whisper:

"Do you think you could keep it down, brother? We are attempting a heist here. There's no time for lengthy introductions, save that we are here to retrieve some things that were taken from us. You may call me Jihan. How may I do the same for you?"

The dwarf is silent for a moment, obviously trying to work out whether he should believe them or not. He obviously decides to give them the benefit of the doubt.

'Errrm...sorry' whispers the dwarf apologetically. 'Nice to make your acquaintance, Jihan. My name is Flinders, Findus Flinders. Don't laugh. It was my parents' idea. Mind you, I had the last laugh. I killed them. Ha! Ha! Ha!'

Flinders sees them all somewhat shocked at his last statement, and gets serious.

'I didn't mean to. It was an accident. Anyway, you can call me "Flint". I prefer people to call me Flint. Flint Flinders. That's me.

"Well then ... Flint," replies Jihan. 'I for one would like to know how a dwarf has ended up in the basement of the Witchfinder General. You surely don't appear to have much love for old Reinburger. This thing that you won't reveal the workings of appears the most likely cause, but how did you end up involved with such scum? Think fast brother... we have little enough time to waste as it is."

'They picked up my holy symbol with one of their sticks. They said it was an arcane instrument of witchcraft, or some bollocks. They told me to hand it over to them. I told them to f*** off. Bunch of bastard orcs went for me, pinned me down and grabbed it off me. They wanted to know how it worked. I told them, quite naturally under the circumstances, I believe, to indulge in sexual intercourse with their own mothers. They got a little upset at this and chucked me in here. They told me that they weren't going to let me out until I tell them how it works.'

While listening to this, the elf is looking over the manacles, checking to see the locking mechanism. He tries the skeleteon key, and finds that it works on the lock immediately.

Flint massages his red wrists as they are freed.

'Thanks mate, I really owe you.'

He then reaches behind his ear and produces a thick stogie, which he sticks into the corner of his mouth.

'Got a light, boy?' he asks. 'Been gasping for a drag for days now.'

Winnacer interjects at this stage:

"I am Winnacer Stradheim. A pleasure to meet you."

'Likewise, pal', replies Flint.

'This is not the appropriate time for introductions, so please be patient and quiet while we finish the task at hand. We will vouch for your safety and escape, for any prisoner of the Nyemetz is most likely a friend of ours.'

'Gonna kick the Nyemetz assholes' butts? Ha! Ha! Ha! Good on the lot of you. Soon as I get my rod, I'll give you a hand. I'm up for some serious payback' continues Flint.

Winnacer turns to the rest of the group. "We must make haste. Let us not dawdle, even in the light of this unexpected happenstance."

'Don't get too carried away now,' warns Flint. 'First thing you'll want to do, I reckon, is work out how to get past the two orog bastards sitting in the guardhouse.'

To Flint's request for a light, Yaz responds: "Yeah."

He holds his flintstones to the dwarf's stogie in a motion to light it, then suddenly grabs the thing away from him.

"You can't smoke this now," he says, pointing the cigar in his direction. "We're sneaking. They'll find us."

He hands the cigar back to him.

'Oi, you bastard!' shouts Flint, as he snatches his stogie back off the druid. 'Perhaps you might be sneaking, but I ain't no sneaker. I'll stand behind the sneakers and smoke me tab while they're sneaking. Gasping, I am. Anyway, I think better when I'm dragging on a tab.'

Darius' eyebrow rises and he looks at the dwarf.. "Rod? You witch?"

'No, pal' replies Flint. 'I ain't no witch. I'm a man of the cloth - a loyal servant of the mighty Ohen.'

'Tell us what your holy symbol looks like,' continues Yaz. 'What it's good for... and what this rod thing is you mentioned' Yaz continues.

'The rod IS my holy symbol' replies Flint. 'What is it good for? Burning things to shit, that's what it's good for!'

Yaz rubs a cannibis leaf between his fingers unconsciously:

"This holy symbol of yours... Can you smoke it?"

Flint looks back at the druid as if he is completely deranged:

'A holy symbol that you can smoke!? What a bizarre idea!' he says, laughing and shaking his head.

Looking towards Flint, Jihan helps the dwarf stand, asking:

"Are you fit to walk, or have you been manacled for too long? Will you need some time to get the blood flowing back again? Perhaps someone can remain down here with you while we go to dispatch our enemies. What say you, Flint?"

'I can understand an elf asking me that,' replies Flint. 'But I'm a dwarf. I'm bloody hard, I am! It'll take more than a few days in a cell to put Flint out of action, I can tell you. Just give me a light and something to hit the bastards with and I'm ready to do some damage!'

"Greetin's ya knobby bastard" Faewen'il says to the dwarf in his native tongue.

'Whoa, good looking!', leers Flint in dwarven. 'A human babe who speaks dwarven. There's something you don't see every day. Why, if only you had a bit of a mustache, I wouldn't mind to.....'

Faewen'il turns towards the rest of the group.

"Let's get moving. I... I should be able to put the Orogs to sleep easily enough." she says as she adjusts the breeches that don't quite want to stay snug under her belt.

The others start to move towards the door to the guardhouse. Jihan and Darius start to check for traps.

'There ain't no traps on that door, if that's what you're looking for,' whispers Flint helpfully. 'Those big bastards are such cretins that they'd keep setting them off themselves. It's unlocked as well.'

Faewen'il speaks:

'Jihan, if you could stand by the door ready to open it, I'll stand behind Winnacer and Xavier and start my casting. When I stamp my foot, open the door quickly, then Winnacer and Xavier should step aside and I'll send them to sleep.'

All nod and get into position. The others stand with their backs to the wall, ready to dash in should Faewen'il's spell not send all of the occupants to sleep and some additional muscle be necessary.

Taking a pinch of sand from her pouch, Faewen'il starts her familiar utterings and gestures. After a few seconds, she stamps her foot and Jihan flings the door open. Winnacer and Xavier part and Faewen'il throws a handful of sand into the room.

One of the two orogs in the room that was sat on a chair slumps over the table he is sat behind. The other was sleeping, but the commotion in the room brings him awake with a start. Groggily he looks up to see Winnacer and Xavier charging towards him.

Winnacer hacks at the orog wildly, but misses the figure who is on its feet now, reaching for its broadsword. Xavier's attack from his bastard sword, however, hits home, and causes a nasty gash on the orog, sending the beast screaming.

The orog strikes back aiming for Xavier, but its aim is far from true.

Bennett, Darius and Jihan all join the fray, but none are able to get shots in on the beast ,as there is very little space in the cramped space to swing properly.

Winnacer and Xavier try to swing again, but they too cannot get accurate shots on the beast.

The orog, who has no worries about hitting a comrade slashes its broadsword into Xavier, cutting a very nasty gash into the Saxon, leaving him gasping in pain, but very much still on his feet.

Bennett takes revenge upon the beast, hacking into it with all of his might, sending the beast bellowing and inches from death. Xavier shouts a curse in Saxon and launches into the orog with all of his might, but the beast's armor just saves it from damage.

The orog changes targets to Benett, but he is saved by his armor. In retalitation, Bennett hacks into the orog once again and fells the beast easily with the next blow.

'Blimey,' says Flint, obviously impressed. 'You lot are just full of surprises!'

Jihan starts to look at the doorway, trying to detect whether there are any traps on there. He spends a while checking, as does Darius.

'Looks OK to me,' says the elf. 'What about you, brother?'

Darius nods his head.

They step forwards to the door and see that the door is not locked. The two of them listen at the door, with Jihan using his brass listening cone. Jihan's pointed ears prick up.

'I can hear something heavy being dragged around the room. There's someone or something in there and it would appear that they have heard the commotions in here and are making some kind of preperations.'

Jihan looks at the hinges of the door. They are on this side, meaning that the door opens inwards. It is thus not possible to barricade the door from the other side.

'We have to go through there' says Winnacer. 'It's the only way of getting through to the library. So how should we proceed?'

Winnacer looks at the sleeping orog and hefts his sword:

"That just won't do. By Spravedelna's will, " Winnacer says, as he quickly brings his sword upon the sleeping orog's neck, executing him.

"Damn, got to him before I could," interjects Bennett, disappointed at missing out on the opportunity of doing away with another of the scum.

"Someone needs to watch the hall so no one goes upstairs to alert those two damn orogs that we should have killed in the first place," he adds. "Dwarf, are you up to it? We need all the muscle we have in charging this next room"

"Agreed, are you up to it Flint?" asks Jihan.

'Piece of piss' replies Flint with confidence. 'Just give me something to hit the bastards with.'

"Here," Jihan says, taking a crowbar from somewhere in a sheath on the back of his harness.

"See if you can put Old Bessy to use deep in the brains of these scum."

The dwarf takes the crowbar and tests it against the palm of his hand.

'Well, it ain't what I'm used to, but I'm sure that Ohen won't mind just the once.'

Looking back quickly towards the rest of the party, Jihan says quickly:

 "The screech hawk call means more than one."

With that he rushes to the other door, Langzhan in one hand and a handful of marbles in the other. Flint walks with him.

Yaz also walks with them, but carries on to take up a position on the other side of the door that Darius jammed shut. He draws his scimitar, ready in case any of the Nyemetz should find a way of opening the door and trying to get behind the party.

To the others, Winnacer says:

"No time to dawdle, they prepare for us. Get to my back and cover me."

Xavier charges to Winnacer's side, ready to attack as soon as the door is opened.

With no more space in the front line, Bennett reluctantly gets behind the two of them, with Darius close behind him and Faewen'il behind the goblin in turn.

"Get the door on three, two, one...go!" shouts Winnacer as he twists the handle of the door.

WWWHHHHAAAAABBBBBOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!!

As Winnacer opens the door a crack, the frame of it explodes in a fireball that engulfs both him and Xavier. The two burly fighters protect the other three behind them from any damage.

Xavier groans in agony as the fireball subsides. On top of the damage from the orog, he is now not in too great a shape at all. Winnacer took more damage from the fireball, but is not too badly off as a result of his not having any previous injuries.

The two fighters stagger back, but realize that they still have other foes to face in the room and charge forwards with Darius, Bennett and Faewen'il close behind.

Through the smoke, they see a table on its side on the opposite side of the study. As they enter, a brown-clad youth of 18 or 19 years stands up from behind the table and starts uttering an incantation and gesturing before the oncoming fighters.

Quick as a flash, Bennett reaches behind him as he runs forwards and grabs his battleaxe, which he hurls towards the youth with all of his might.

The battleaxe just manages to nick the youth in the arm, but this is enough to spoil his spell, sending magickal energy dissipating harmlessly into the air. The youth howls in agony and grabs hold of his injured arm as he falls to the floor, writhing in pain.

The warriors reach the table and peer over it to see the pathetic form of the youth on the floor.

'Nnnoooo', he begs, pleading with his eyes. 'Ppplllease don't hhhhurt me.'

They look around the room quickly. It is indeed a study as Viktor's map said it should be. The room is unoccupied apart from the sniveling youth in front of them.

Winnacer is about to question the youth further when Bennett punches the kid in the head. Xavier, who is far from in the best of tempers after getting well toasted by the trap on the door, is in no mood for mercy and quickly hacks the hapless youth's head off with his bastard sword.

Winnacer is speechless for a few seconds.

Alerted by the noise of the firetrap, Jihan, Flint and Yaz all rush back to meet up with their colleagues.

Flint's eyes grow even wilder as he sees the smoldering guardroom. He hands the crowbar back to Jihan and picks up a piece of doorframe that is still on fire.

He uses it to light the stogie that he is holding, inhales deeply and blows the smoke into Yaz's face:

'You should have given me a light, mate,' Flint says with a slight smile on his face. 'You don't want to f*** with Ohen or one of his followers. Where do you think the expression "fiery" temper came from?'

Yaz has more immediate matters to attend to then get into an argument with the dwarf. Looking into the study, he sees that Xavier is looking very singed.

'Just can't keep out of trouble for five minutes, can you?' the druid says with mock anger.

He then proceeds to cast a healing spell upon Xavier. Its effects are average, but take the fighter out of the danger zone.

Winnacer is still looking at the corpse of the Witchfinder and at Xavier. All can guess at the thoughts going through his head.

No one has been keeping an eye on Darius. Highly frustrated at his lack of success on the heist thus far, he is going for the door of the library. With a total disregard for his, or anyone else's safety, he pulls on the handle of the door.

Everyone else braces themselves in case he sets off another firetrap …but the door opens normally.

Darius rushes in followed by the others. As expected, the room is the library, with the north, west and south walls covered in bookshelves. They take a quick look at the contents of the shelves. The majority of the books are about the practices of witches and the danger that they are to society in general - Nyemetz propaganda by the look of it. There are also a number of tomes on the wonders of the Nyemetz empire - picture books of the Emperor kissing babies, achievements of the Nyemetz, essays on how gnomes and halflings are responsible for the ills of the world and instruction manuals on torture techniques. Faewen'il starts to look through the books carefully to see if there are any spellbooks amongst the others, but there is nothing magickal in nature. These are obviously kept elsewhere.

Flint picks up a book taken at random and flicks through the pages:

'This lot should burn up a treat!' he says with a grin.

Darius is standing facing the southern bookcase:

'Door behind books. I know it,' the goblin says with supreme confidence.

Xavier tries to tug at the bookshelf taking up the whole of the southern wall, but it won't move.

'Master Luhhan told me about secret doors behind bookshelves,' says Jihan. 'They're a common way of disguising them. We just have to go through all of the books, pulling them off one by one.'

All present start the task of pulling the books off the shelves, tossing them on a pile in the center of the room.

After just less than five minutes, Bennett grabs a book, but finds that it is attached to the back of the shelf. He gives it a stronger tug and the bookcase starts to slowly swing towards them. They move out of the way to let it open fully. As Darius thought, there is a metal door set into the wall behind it.

Darius immediately grabs the handle, just before the others can restrain him. However, it is for nothing, as the door won't budge. It is obviously locked.

Jihan produces the skeleton key and tries to open it with that. However, after five minutes of trying, he gives up, saying that the lock is the wrong size for the key.

He takes his tools and tries to open the door with them, however after another five minutes of trying, he once more has to admit defeat. Darius begs to be given a try, and Jihan lets him. The goblin, however, has no more luck with the lock than the elf.

The others are starting to get impatient now, wanting to hurry up and finish the job now that they are so close.

'Perhaps there is a key somewhere in this room,' suggests Jihan. 'It makes sense. Everyone search the room again. Perhaps one of the books has been hollowed out.'

All start to search the other books in the room. It takes nearly twenty minutes, but Yaz eventually pulls a book off the shelf that rattles a little as he goes to throw it onto the now enormous pile of books on the floor. Nervously, he opens the cover of the book to see that it is indeed hollow and does indeed hold a key - a key with a strange arrangement of teeth. He gives the key to Jihan.

Jihan offers a quick prayer to Prirodna and tries the key in the lock. It fits into place with a click. He twists the key and the door opens.

Immediately that the door swings open, a huge spear flies through the air and impacts upon Jihan with full force. The huge stone head of the spear easily penetrates Jihan's armor and sends the elf flying backwards, landing painfully upon the pile of books.

Looking into the room, they see a terrifying creature, a creature that none of them has never seen before. The huge creature stands 7 ½ feet tall so that its head almost touches the ceiling. It looks as if it weighs around 350 pounds. It's skin is a muddy yellow color and its hair is a dull, blue color. It is dressed in animal hides. However, the most notable feature of the brute is that it has but one large red eye in the center of its face. The brute is carrying a club and is starting to lurch towards them, bellowing in a deep voice.

They hesitate for a split second, all but for Darius who launches himself towards the beast with practically suicidal zeal. Seeing that the goblin is sure to get himself killed unless the rest of them join in, they run behind the mad goblin, drawing weapons and charging towards the beast.

Darius strikes at the beast but misses. Winnacer is the next onto the beast, his first shot misses, but he puts all of his weight behind the second blow which hacks deep into the beast's side, sending the creature bellowing in pain. Bennett is next to attempt to hit the beast, but both of his shots miss. Xavier, who is looking for some serious payback to avenge his previous injuries, hacks into the creature with all of his might, gauging a deep rent into the beast's flesh. The creature roars again, already very badly injured. Yaz and Flint both attempt to hit the creature, but find it hard to get blow in on the creature.

The cyclopskin tries to strike back, selecting Winnacer as a target, as it was he that caused the most damage. Winnacer, however, is easily able to dodge the clumsy blow by the weakened brute.

Darius is now a furious swirl of manic energy, determined to make up for his past failures. With all of his energy, he launches himself upwards and stabs his shortsword into the beast's huge eye with all of his might. The blade sinks deep into the eye with a disgusting squelch, taking the shortsword from Darius' hand as the beast staggers back, screaming in horrible agony as it is blinded.

The others slash at the beast, but were unprepared for the fact that the beast is now starting to keel backwards with the pain. Flint dodges as the cyclopskin almost topples on top of him. As the beast is on the floor thrashing around in fury, the dwarf takes the flaming piece of doorframe and buries it into the beast's eye right next to Darius' shortsword. As the flames of the doorframe are extinguished by the mucous pouring from the beast's eye, the cyclopskin stops moving. Dead.

They stop to catch their breath for a moment. As they look at the cyclopskin, it starts to shimmer and its body starts to metamorphosize. It shrinks to a fraction of its size. they all look on in horror as the body changes, until they recognize that it has changed into the body of a small gnomish girl, of similar age to Bekkah.

They all look on, too shocked to speak until Faewen'il breaks the silence:

'It was magecraft. They took tha body of a gnome girl and changed it into this beast, changing her mind in the process.'

They look down at the body of the gnome girl, with Darius' sword and the doorframe imbedded in the girl's face, with deep slashes from Winnacer and Xavier's swords on her body, bleeding onto the floor. The initial elation of having overcome such a fiercesome opponent so easily subsides quickly as they consider the young gnome's fate.

Jihan struggles in to join the others, badly injured from the spear, but still alive. He stands with the rest of them looking at the girl.

They tear yourself away from the sight in order to consider their surroundings. The area is empty apart from some straw on the floor. They notice, however that the room is a lot smaller than the area that they were expecting.

'There must be another secret door in the east wall. That must lead to the laboratory,' says Jihan.

They all walk to the eastern wall. Yaz discovers the door in an instant.

'Here it is,' says the half-elf, tracing the edges of the door with his finger.

'No more heroics, Darius,' says Winnacer sternly to the goblin. 'You've proved yourself by bringing down the beast. Now please control yourself, as it is not only your life that you put in danger with your actions.'

Darius nods a little guiltily.

Jihan investigates the door. He doesn't detect any traps, nor does Darius. Both of them press their ears to the wall, trying to hear if they can hear anything in the room behind. They hear nothing.

Breathing heavily, they all get into position to burst into the room. Winnacer and Bennett take up the front positions ready to burst in while Darius opens the door.

'One, two…three' counts Winnacer.

The door is flung open and they all burst into the room, expecting to see a Witchfinder in there ready to cast some death magic spell at them. But there is none. There are no opponents in the room.

They look around the room. The four walls of the room have a number of shelves running their lengths containing glass containers of all sorts of weird and wonderful items, presumably spell components. In each of the four corners of the room are statues of various nobles, similar to those which they have seen dotted throughout the building.

In the center of the room is a huge mahogany table. On one side of the table is a mass of glass containers connected by glass and copper piping. The glass beakers contain different colored liquids that contain a variety of different colored liquids, bubbling away on top of small burners. The other side of the table contains, to their immense relief and delight, all of their missing magical items. On the floor to the far side of them are their missing non-magickal items, plus the majority of Granny's possessions.