Mr Lumens thinks on that point, and responds 'I have had a few discussions on it...not every resident would have encountered it, of course, and the Balowang tends to leave it's beholder with very lacklustre stories, considering they won't remember much details at all. However, I can recall three tales on it, along with the features listed in them, which all seemed reliable enough. One Elven fighter, Cassidy Clantalin, says she saw it up in the high reaches of the Brackleben Forest one day, and although she didn't come face to face with it, she believes the fact that she can only remember it's bipedal form means it's evidence enough for it to be the Balowang. Colwick Tharmay, a human sorcerer, says he once had it crash a magician's show of his in Melwarth, claiming it rampaged through but didn't leave any footprints, and although he can't describe what it looks, smells or sounds like, he swears something must have been there, else how would his wand have been snapped and the audience scattered? Finally, Zmane Law'Taj, a Githzerai Paladin, had it fly over her when in battle with a manticore, and she swore it had wings like a dragon. Other than that I don't remember any of the other residents bringing the Balowang up when I spoke with them, but again, they all likely have much more grandiose stories to relay that aren't just a simple anecdote. Perhaps prompting some of the folk directly on the matter rather than their whole adventuring career overall will yield better results.'

Aralia listens carefully, mentally cataloging the Balowang’s described traits—bipedal, leaving no footprints, and wings like a dragon—while noting the fragmented nature of the stories. “Even vague accounts like these are valuable,” she says, her tone thoughtful. “They confirm the creature’s ability to obscure itself from memory. That's the most frightening thing about it, in my opinion." Her crimson eyes narrow with determination as she adds, “Yes, we need to interview the elders directly. Even the smallest clue could help us prepare to take it down.”

Qualksander bobs along as Aralia says this (the closest thing he can get to nodding in agreement), though his wide brow furrows over his central eye at the last part of her statement. 'Take it down? What do you mean? I thought you were after details on it just for a book!'

Recognizing the change in the beholder's demeanor, Abishai quickly adds, "She means take the notes down in detail so Brimbul can accurately quote them."

Deception: Nat 20+11=31

He then telepathically communicates the same message to each member of the group. "If Brimbul kept secret our mission from this creature, perhaps we should as well."

"Ah, forgive me, Mr. Lumens. I should've explained more clearly. I'm just so eager to get started, you see."

'Ah, of course!' Qualksander chuckles, rolling his many eyes in spite of himself, 'My imagination is far too vivid! I always expect some deeper and exciting meaning behind the most mundane of phrases! Well, if you're all sorted on the briefings, Nurse Hackley outside should be able to show you to your rooms. Oh, and don't worry about the stairs up,' he says, looking to Silvosh and Ssha, 'In a castle filled with the elderly, it would be borderline cruelty to have them go up so many flights of stairs each day, so you'll find ours are a bit more unique, for their convenience.'

 Abishai smiles as his deception appears to have worked on Qualksander. He wonders if the beholder would be upset if he knew the truth that the group intends to hunt the Balowang and hopefully capture the creature alive. Either way, Abishai is confident he'll be rich in telling the story of this grand adventure. His attention shifts back to Mr. Lumen as he describes the stairs as unique. "Thank you for your time Mr. Lumen. We'll get settled in then."

Abishai heads out the door and introduces himself to Nurse Hackley. "Hello, I'm Abishai. It's nice to meet you. Mr. Lumens told us you could show us to our rooms. I appreciate you taking the time to do that as I'm sure you must be quite busy being the nurse and all. You know, I've got a bit of healing talent myself. Perhaps we could exchange notes sometime."

Silvosh wasn't worried about getting up stairs. As a ranger she could even scale shear cliffs! Stairs would be no problem. Still she was interested in seeing what accommodations for the mobility impaired elderly were in place here. 

For now she followed the others to see which room she was assigned, before she went to talk to the people staying here.

“Nurse Hackley,” Aralia greets with a slight incline of her head. "If there’s any specific advice you can share about the residents—or anything unusual you’ve observed—we’d be glad to hear it. We'd like to avoid upsetting anyone by accident."

Abathax says back to Abishai "Nice save"

After which he joins the others to find their rooms, wondering what Beholder golf enfolds.

Wendell will head to his room, at which point he will summon his familiar from its pocket dimension (which I will claim it has been in for a while as I forgot I had a familiar....) and then he will cast detect magic (its not prepared so it is as a ritual so 10 minutes) making sure there is no magical sensors in the room spying on them.

You leave Qualksander's office, finding a nurse waiting in the hall, in similar uniform to the one you saw earlier. She's a human girl with long blondish hair, and glasses with lenses the same thickness as her clipboard. She gives you all a smile (particularly Abishai with his charming remarks) and takes you down the hall towards the northern turret. On the way she tells Aralia that you should treat the residents with 'Respect, patience and awe. The last thing they want is someone to find their stories uninteresting, so I'd recommend you just sit tight and listen close.' The stairs in the northern turrets are curious things. As you would have expected, they're plain stone steps surrounding a central column, though as the Nurse demonstrates, as soon as you step on, the stair begins to grind upwards like a corkscrew, and if you step down a step, it begins to reverse downwards again. 'It's an easy system since you just have to stand still, but gets a little trickier when there's a whole host of people trying to go up and down it, so you may have to wait your turn at times like that.' 

Once you have all stepped onto the magical stairs and taken the spiralling journey up to the top floor, you find that it's entirely empty, apparently being a dormitory dedicated for guests and visitors, although it isn't often used. Once Nurse Hackley has made sure you're settled, she leaves, and Wendell takes some time to cast some routine rituals, including detect magic. He finds no magic throughout the ward, which could be seen as lucky or unfortunate, depending on whether he might have also been after any lost property from past residents hidden under beds or in cupboards.

Silvosh looks around the room to find a place where she would be able to sleep without being in the way of everyone else.

Silvosh easily finds enough room within the dorms to lay down, and she can gather blankets off the free beds to make the ground far more comfortable to sleep on.

Abishai gets settled into his room and quickly finds himself bored after laying down on his bed for only a few minutes. He then goes to each member of the party and asks if they would like to join him on a little excursion. "I'm going to try and find the area that was damaged by the gnome. would anyone like to come?" He then heads back down a level to where they saw the gnome escape by destroying the wall of the castle. 

If he gains access to the area, Abishai offers to assist in the repairs of the building through his magical prowess.

[[ OOC: Abishai uses mending to help repair the damaged wall. Persuasion roll to help get past any hesitant to let him pass.]]

Persuasion: 24

"That sounds better than staying here," agreed Silvosh.

Aralia agrees as well, not quite ready to go to sleep yet. She will accompany Abishai and Silvosh, helping out with the repair efforts using her skill in acrobatics and athletics to reach difficult places and lift things if necessary.

Abathax happily joins aswell.

The nurses gladly let Abishai down into the ward, especially as the residents haven't quite returned yet, and he finds them already at work on repairing the hole. Even though his  mending spell can only piece together some of the cracks on the outer edges of the walls, seeing as the central bricks were truly turned to dust, and each crack takes a minute's casting to repair, the nurses have already got bricks and mortar to repair the worst of the damage, so are very grateful to have him and anyone else with repairing capabilities make the edges of the crack back to whole bricks again so they don't have to tear them out to rebuild.

Abishai is glad to occupy himself with helping repair the damage and is happy some from the group came to assist as well. "It's not much, but better than nothing." He says to the nurses as he works. While working alongside them, Abishia attempts to probe for information. "Say, have any of you heard of the Balowang? If so, what can you tell me about it? And what about Mr. Lumen? Working for a beholder is interesting."