"Huh..." says Ringlerun, reaching out to examine the sphere. "Clearly a human boy trapped in some sort of stasis. Curious! Where did you find this? 'N' and 'S'. Clearly a compass of some sort. Too bad there are no compass points in the fey. I wonder if we looked like this, when we were frozen? Were we trapped in little spheres? No, I suppose we were not," he adds, looking around at the frozen courtiers. 

Mercion shakes her head and shrugs. "I'm sorry, I don't know. I suspect Zybilna may have the power to undo such evil. But first we must unfreeze her. And you must also be prepared to pay some sort of price... I don't know how Zyblina treats such requests."

(If Ben wants to look for the Library, in which direction does he want to lead the group?)

Ben:

”If I recall correctly, the path to the secret library is downstairs and to the southeast—where we saw the heads that teleported us to the central tower and the boat in the creepy canal.  We can certainly explore rooms we did not enter on the way too—it might be interesting to see if putting our names in that book make the doors unlock for us without having to use the chime,” says Ben, once people are ready to start moving.

Horatio replies to Mercion, "Wait, doesn't the cauldron have eight ornament things each like that? There were eight cats, skulls, chicken feet legs, and so on. You sure taking a look at it won't jog your memory? It sounds like they were just making up a rhyme that described the thing." 

"It didn't seem made up; it was more like a spell, or a pass-phrase." Mercion pauses to think. "'Eight cats perch atop eight dead attending. Eight lizards...' ...something something something... I don't remember the rest. It was rather long, and I was quite distracted. We were being ambushed! They were holding that horn to it, I remember. Where did you get that, anyway?"

"A unicorn gave it to us," Titaani answers, matter of factly. Walking up to the cauldron she holds the horn up to it to see if it does anything.

The horn does nothing. The cauldron continues to simmer and bubble.

Pud is at a loss for ideas.

“Guys, I dunno. There are some places that we haven’t explored in the castle. And there’s some stuff outside too. There’s that giant beanstalk thing. The hedge maze. There’s kinda a lot of places out there now that I think about it.

Anyway, ’m gonna go check out the queen. Maybe she has a key or a book on her.”

Pud walks off to check out Zyblina. He talks to her, just in case she can hear him. 

“Hi, queen. My name is Pud. We’re trying to help you. If you can hear me, please don’t be mad at me. I’m just gonna look for anything that can help us.”

Pud walks around her, looking her up and down. He stands on his tip tows carefully and respectfully.

Perception check: 4

Pud examines the time-frozen queen. She wears an ornate amulet and long, flowing, white robes, but its pockets are sealed and time-frozen. Her hands, reaching desperately toward the cauldron, are empty. She does not respond to Pud's introduction.

Ben begins to lead the party southeast. Opening the door, he finds a circular chamber (mirroring the one they earlier traversed on the other side of the ballroom) similarly decorated with sculpted reliefs depicting humans and demons partaking in grotesque revels. A spiral staircase with a golden handrail stands in the middle of the room, leading up, and a hallway on the far side connects to another, previously explored, marble hall.

Titaani, following Ben, begins to climb up the staircase. 

And Matilda follows her Sis.

The party, led by Ben, Titaani, and Matilda, climbs the stairs. Floating about ten feet above the top of the staircase is the unsettling, frozen elven figure you saw earlier. Her luminous form is clad in wispy rags, and her face is wreathed in a wild tangle of time-frozen hair.

Ben:

”Does anyone know her?” asks Ben of the members of Valor’s Call, prepared to lead onward to the south if no one responds.

"Not I," replies Strongheart. 

"I don't care for the look of her," adds Mercion.

The party continues on, southward down the marble hall. You pass the hallway leading east toward the broken tower; you swear the giant beanstalk has grown slightly since you last passed this way. The Hall of Hatches remains as you left it – with four decapitated heads in four hatches. The doorway south remains open, revealing the eerily flooded hallway lit with flickering blue flames, and the waiting sailboat.

Ben:

"I know this is creepy," says Ben, "but we need to be brave if we are going to get to that library."  He steps onto the boat and holds out his hand to see if anyone will join him.

The boat is quite sturdy. 

Peering into the water’s depths reveals thin, pale faces staring back, dark monsters swimming past, and glimpses of distant realms.  Lanterns lit with flickering blue flames hang from the ceiling thirty feet above by short chains. They produce eerie, ghostlike reflections off the water.

Matilda gets in holding tight onto Titaanis hand, " I will kill anything that tries to hurt you.....even if its already dead."

Titaani gulps, gripping onto Matilda's hand. What was it that Ben had said? That she needed to be brave? She forced herself to look away from the water and up into her friends eyes. She could be brave, for them. They would keep her safe.  

Hesistantly, the little gnome steps onto the boat, Tiny alongside her, and with her free hand grabs Ben's. Sandwiched between the two humans, Titaani feels a little better, their presence anchoring her and soothing her nerves. "Let's just get this over with as fast as we can."

The last of the party boards – it's a tight fit. The capacity is about eight, but the diminutive nature of some (like Titaani) make it possible to squeeze all nine of you aboard. The sailboat, powered by an invisible, undetectable breeze, sails smoothly and silently south. It pauses in front of a set of double doors, as if inviting you to debark here, if you choose, or sail onward to the west.

Ben:

”Let’s check every door as we go by,” suggests Ben, “for I recall the private library is supposed to be in this area, but I know not exactly where.”

At the front of the boat, Ben reaches out and opens the door, but he doesn’t disembark just yet—he wants to see what is in the room before leaving the boat.

The door swings open...

Flies buzz throughout the chamber beyond, and the grimy marble floor is crawling with maggots. Eight wicker cradles stand upright in the filth. Lashed to each cradle is a three-foot-long, curved wooden pole with a mobile consisting of three ornaments dangling at the top of it. Each ornament appears to be a triangular piece of white wood with an Elvish letter carved into it. You can't see what's in the cradles from your vantage point... but as you watch, a small, misshapen, clawed hand reaches toward the symbols, but can’t quite grab it.