Glancing around the room Thora knew that they had a lot of work ahead of them. Carrying the bandit’s body up the stairs and flopping it down next to the old man’s body was the easy step, now the hard stuff was going to begin. This room was apparently filled with magical items, and probably many traps. The old coot seemed out of his beard enough to have made if difficult for any would-be thieves to get their hands on his precious treasures. The only question was: where were they?

Eyeing all of the floorboards around him with suspicion, Thora retraced their steps back to the top of the stairwell, being very careful to only step where the others had already stepped. Any plank or rug or wall could be trapped! Now it was Thora’s turn to be the paranoid one! The dwarf slowly crossed the room to a small stepping staircase on wheels. Feeling around it, Thora checked for any hidden devices or wards that had been placed upon the wooden surfaces, but it seemed clean. The soldier did note that there was something odd with the side panel on the stairs. Knocking it lightly yielded a strange sound that didn’t match the other parts of the stairs. Sure enough, a hidden compartment! It was only a small pouch of gold, but it would help with the costs for their travel to get away from here.

From across the room, Thora heard some strange noises. Looking over, the dwarf noticed that the rest of the group was congregated around some potions on a table.

“What do you have there?” inquired the dwarf, curious as to what had caused them ll to be so fascinated.

“Some sort of puzzle, or trap, or lock, perhaps?” answered Alandal, watching the others with interest as he examined the table.

Duanne’s large shell blocked a lot of the view as he shuffled around the table, the wizard busy peering at every surface in the room with a strange gaze on his face that told Thora the wizard was up to magic stuff again. The dragonborn bard, meanwhile, was explaining to them all that there was something strange about the magics on the bottles and desk and that there was a puzzle to solve. Thora hated puzzles. Uncle Belgar had always quizzed on common riddles and puzzles, stating they would come in use some day. Thora loved Uncle Belgar, but his adventuring training often felt pointless. If only Thora had paid more attention!

Letting the others get back to their puzzle and turning attention back to the task at hand, the soldier slid the rolling stepping staircase out of the way to get at the large chest against the wall. A big crate with eggs in it was in the way, seemingly placed in the area at random. So far, no traps. The dwarf’s face drooped as the chest’s surface came into view. On the side of the chest was a puzzle lock. Thora was fairly certain that answering incorrectly was not going to end well. The dwarf was going to need a minute.

Not wanting to deal with this right now, Thora crossed back over to join the others as they examined the table covered in colourful vials. There seemed to be every colour of the rainbow represented.

“Is it a colour puzzle?” asked the dwarf, remembering one of Uncle Belgar’s demonstrations. “You know, ordering like the rainbow?”

“Possibly” said Zearach, sniffing one of the bottles. “They also have a distinct smell.”

Thora’s mind could only focus on asking “why?” Why all of the complexity? Why lock your table with something that would be so irritating to open yourself? Either there was something incredibly valuable in there, or this Kranz fellow had lost a few marbles.

It didn’t take long for Zearach and Duanne to figure out all the odours in the bottles and reverse-engineer the solution to Kranz’s mechanism. As the blue bottle with the scent of black licorice was placed into the last slot, the vials suddenly drained out. A dramatic, if complex, locking mechanism. It must have taken some time to build! Inside the desk was a large pearl, nearly the size of Thora’s fist, sitting in a velvet box. The box sat next to a black and crystal syringe, filled with some sort red liquid. Seemed like wizarding stuff to the dwarf, things better left alone as far as the soldier was concerned.

Reading time

Turning attention back to the chest, Thora kept searching for a way to crack the old man’s code. What could be the passcode? Was it something related to the perfumes? Or perhaps something valued by Kranz above all else? There might be a clue somewhere in the room, but they hadn’t really taken a full look around.

A sudden shout from across the room got Thora’s attention. Zearach and Duanne had gone to check on Kranz’s library collection only to find the tomes had taken flight, surrounding them and flinging themselves at their heads. The wizard and elf ducked and dodged, defending themselves, but they were surrounded. Alandal rushed to their aid, his long legs taking him quickly across the carpet, until that very carpet suddenly swallowed him up! The bard caught himself, grasping the floor and carpet around the hole, narrowly avoiding whatever death awaited at the bottom of the trap.

Thora fired on the crowd of advancing tomes, cringing at the thought of destroying a book, but seeing no other option. Ducking behind the small rolling stairs, the dwarf tried to keep out of sight and take cover. The others drove their blades deep into the many thrashing volumes, trying to keep them at bay, while Thora provided ranged support from cover. This wasn’t working. They were too outnumbered.

An anguished cry rang out from the elf went as the books battered at his skull, seeming to feast on his mind. Thora watched in amazement as the blank pages of the monstrous thing began to fill with words and pictures of the elf’s memories. The elf seemed taken aback, still slashing away in defense, but with a look on his face that seemed unlike him. Duanne collapsed to the ground, a group of books beating against the tortle’s shell and head until he could no longer stand. The party’s combined efforts were reducing the horde’s size, but there were just so many of them!

After taking out yet another book, piercing it through, Thora decided to change tactics. Fumbling around in their pack, the dwarf grasped onto a torch and pulled it out. Lighting it quickly, the dwarf leapt up onto the stairs, charging down and then pushing off into the air. For a moment, the dwarf was airborne, flipping over the short shelving unit standing in the way. Thora stabbed downwards with the lit torch, using one of the books as leverage to clear the shelves and land near Duanne’s prone body. The soldier waved the torch menacingly back and forth, trying to keep the monstrous tomes at bay. Flames still flickered on the one Thora had poked on the way over, and the books held at bay for a moment as the dwarf positioned closer to Duanne’s prone form. Still holding the flame defensively in the air, the dwarf routed around in the tortle’s pack, trying to find the syringe they had seen earlier. Thora couldn’t be certain, but there was something about it that the dwarf felt might be helpful.

Not knowing exactly what the magical syringe would do, Thora plunged the entire contents of the red liquid container into the wizard’s neck, pumping life back into Duanne before it was too late. The others closed in around the tortle, forming a defensive circle around the wizard as he recovered, fending off the flying shelf-dwellers. Alandal bent over in anguish as one drained the memory of the first drum he had ever played, the book filling its pages with the precious memory. The dragonborn fought on, standing nearby his allies, though clearly affected by the invasion of privacy. Back-to-back, they hacked and slashed and spun at the creatures, trying to keep the hungry devourers from stealing more from their minds. Together, they destroyed the last of Kranz’s cruel trap, splitting the last of the tomes down the spine with a heavy swing.

Alandal and Zearach, however, had lost something precious. Searching through the now-inanimate books, they found the ones filled with their memories, reading them back to themselves, trying to take back what was stolen from them. At first, it seemed as if nothing was happening, but gradually the words on the page faded as their beautiful memories were returned to them. Had Kranz used these on himself? Is that how he was able to do what he did? Or was this a torture device used on those that would cross the old man? How many memories were locked in these creatures? How many people had lost something dear to them?

Three imps in a trenchcoat

While the ranger and bard were recovering, Duanne and Thora took the time to wander around and search through the rest of the living space, careful to avoid traps. It was starting to get late, but the pair of them had managed to locate most of the hiding spaces Kranz had used to squirrel away his collection. They were odd things, unique, possibly even valuable. The music boxes, in particular, caught Thora’s attention. Such a skillful piece of fine mechanics!

A trap door led to the shop below, filled with musty antique furniture and a smell usually reserved for a mausoleum. If there were any customers who bought something here, Thora would have been surprised. Kranz was likely using it as a legitimate business front to cover for his less legal activities. When the shop didn’t open in the morning, would anybody notice?

The real puzzle in the room, though, were some small boxes on the floor that seemed to go into the dark depths below the apartment. They each had a specific smell and as the dwarf fingered around the edges of the boxes carefully, something snipped at him, nearly biting his finger off. Grabbing an egg, Thora placed it in one of the boxes and heard slurping sounds as it was sucked into the floor and devoured. The sound was unearthly and reminded the dwarf of things that were better left forgotten.

A sudden grinding noise caught Thora’s and the others attention. The water basin near the boxes seemed to be rotating, as if it was lifting itself off the floor. Looking about, Thora searched for anything else to feed the boxes. Kranz had still left out some leftovers from breakfast, so the dwarf grabbed a sausage and a pancake, bringing them over to the boxes. Feeding each one in turn led to the same unnerving chewing and smacking sounds, but also led to the basin continuing to turn, eventually revealing a hidden room below the basin.

It was the smell that assaulted the dwarf first. A combination of sulphur, fat, and cooked meat filled the small, dark, chamber. There was something else, though, a scent that seemed unnatural. Thora soon found the source of the inhuman sounds and the unnatural smell as the dwarf noticed three cages placed in the chamber underneath the boxes above. Inside each cage was a small monstrous creature of some kind. They seemed to have claws and very sharp teeth, with thin bodies that were hunched over. In Beka’s books Thora had read about devils and demons and these little things reminded the dwarf of those fables… but surely those were just stories?

Whatever their origin, hellish or natural, the creatures were hungry. Duanne pointed out the symbols beneath all the cages, likely some sort of binding that was keeping them here. The wheels inside their cages operated the mechanism for the basin… quite the complex door lock, but this Kranz fellow seemed to enjoy complexity. These creatures might be useful, yet, though.

It took some time for the wizard to figure it out, but Duanne studied the containment sigil’s until he could figure out a way to modify them to release the creatures safely. Once out of their cages, it didn’t take long for the three imps to turn on each other. Claws and teeth gnashed as they tore each other apart, tiny bodies falling to the floor in their new contained area. One demonic creature remained, the victor, staring up at the party members with defiance. It tried to launch itself out of the hole but Duanne’s containment held.

“Tsk tsk tsk” he reprimanded, waggling a clawed finger. The tortle managed to get it back in a cage to take it along with him as a pet, but there was no saving the other two.

In the end, the imps were useful with the cover story they decided to draw out in the room. They imagined the scene as a deal gone bad, and some imps had gotten loose. Forcing bite marks onto the two human victims, the crew set the stage of the brutal scene. After it was set, even Thora had to agree that they had done a good job with faking the scene. It was far-fetched, but as far as cover stories went, they had set it up as well as they could with what they had to work with.

“We need to get out of here and make sure we get the wagon and horses.” suggested Thora. “Unless we should get passage on a ship? In any case, we need to get back to the inn before somebody gets suspicious.”

The crew took turns slipping out into the back alley behind Kranz’s place, making their way back to their rented room at the inn. Thora had a hard time getting to sleep, at first. The dwarf had a feeling that if they hung around here much longer things might get dicey. In a few hours, their gear would be ready and then they could find the fastest way out of town, hopefully without anyone noticing. While the soldier would miss getting a second chance to view the stars at the Telescoparium, it was time to move on before something even worse happened!

Credits

• Cover image: “Devilish imp in a running wheel”, generated by Jason St-Cyr using NightCafe