Rowan's verbal musings are answered by the Endelyn-shaped door-face saying: You know, it's considered rude to speak about someone when they are right in front of you! The door's reaction to Rowan's shove is simply a half-suppressed and taunting chortle. The elf's continued musings are answered again with: Look, it's obvious you don't belong here, so shove off! Rowan pulls out the short staff, and the door-face eyes him with amusement. He earns another derisive chuckle as he waves it around, ineffectually.
Greginald receives the staff from Rowan and looks it over. It seems too bulky for a wand, which are usually more slender and delicate, and too large to be a magic staff. Perhaps a rod: historically, those are usually thicker and heavier than wands, are associated with some kind of authority, and are sometimes used as simple weapons. However, they generally require attunement, and Charmay did imply that obtaining the staff was sufficient. The gnome searches his memory for other similar items relating to doors and such, and then remembers reading about an organisation called the Golden Vault, who specialise in infiltrating secure locations. One of the heists described a kind of key in the form of a handheld rod-like item, which would unlock the door by contact. Maybe Rowan's suggestion isn't too far from the truth. The goblin who owns it certainly seems to have a proclivity for bashing it against things...
The gnome reaches out and touches the staff to the door. The door-face speaks no further, but opens its mouth wider and wider until an 8-foot-high, 3-foot-wide archway forms in the space.
Stepping through the open-mouth archway into the room, there are four stone doors branching off the main chamber. Each doorway has a stone lever jutting from the wall next to it. Each door has a small window through which the room beyond can be viewed, however three of the doors hang open revealing unoccupied cells. The fourth door is shut.
Peeking through the hole of the closed door reveals a pale-skinned female elf, curled up on a divan, reading a book, and sipping wine from a crystal goblet. She is dressed in a decorative and somewhat revealing acrobat leotard, and wears a crescent-shaped headdress reminiscent of a moon. A small table beside her contains a crystal decanter of wine and a bowl of figs. The wall behind her is decorated with a large gold-embroidered tapestry depicting a wooded elven realm, and on the floor beside the divan is a porcelain chamber pot decorated with gold filigree.
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How does a red dragon blow out the candles on its birthday cake?
"I bloody knew it!" G'Reg states pointing at the now open door with a self satisfied look that one might wear when saying 'i told you so' to another.
As he walks in he paused for a moment, and mutters to the others, "with gleam there's five of us not four. If the darklings come we need to keep her separate from the fighting or one of us will get burned..." He offers no more elaboration on the subject before turning to gleam and tapping the bars with the staff to get her attention.
Rowan looks through the bars at who he presumes is Gleam. He's not going to ask G'Reg for confirmation as he's pretty sure where that conversation will go now. Instead he raps on the bars and waves inside.
"Hi. We're here to rescue you." Rowan says. He turns to go to the lever but stops, looks back inside and asks "You're Gleam, right?"
Then he moves over to the stone lever next to the door and pulls down on it.
During all this, Mulligan finds himself curious about G'Reginald's hands. He had never noticed anything about them in particular but now that Rowan has made such a fuss about them Mulligan finds himself trying to catch subtle peeks at them to see if they're as bad as Rowan said...
As he steps through the mouth of the door he is about to mentally suggest G'Reg stay behind and keep the wand/rod/phallic symbol held against it so it stays open but the gnome is hopping through before he can mentally mention it. Well, he hopes, maybe it stays open?
Say it... Say it... C'mon, say it! Mulligan pleads to himself silently. He cannot help but hope Gleam looks at G'Reg and says he looks pretty short for a... well, prison guard. (She wouldn't know what a Storm Trooper is, I suppose.)
Greginald and Rowan tap on the small window set into the closed stone door. Greg has to stand on tip-toes to see through it, and Rowan has to crouch a little, but the she-elf turns and spies the two strange faces peering in through the window. As Rowan pulls the lever, the door opens, revealing the elf maiden reclining on the divan. Her form-fitting outfit is stretched over her body, and her bare legs slide lazily across each other as she rolls over slightly and places her chalice on the table. With the book still in hand she replies softly:
Rescue me? From what?
She doesn't immediately answer Rowan's question, but her face is the uncanny resemblance in female version of Glister.
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How does a red dragon blow out the candles on its birthday cake?
"your shadow is out galavanting and stealing stuff for a hag whilst you sit in a prison cell. You can ask stupid questions or we can reunite you with your Glister. Perhaps you don't care, perhaps that was a twisted part of the deal that you made with her, it doesn't matter to us, but we need you so you're coming with us." Greg grumbles at who he assumes is gleam as he hops down from his tiptoes and smacks the stone door once more with the staff, as though force was the things stopping it from working. "Can someone get this damnable door?"
Barria stands in wonder at the talking door then the fact G'Reg figures out how to open it so fast. Well, he's good for something, she supposes.
They all head to the acrobat's cell and after the door is open, she smiles, relieved that they found her already, but that smile turns into a frown when the elf responds. "Don't you want out of your cell? Don't you want to be joined with your brother and go back to the circus? We're here to help you." She tentatively walks into the cell as she talks to the woman.
”It is open. Are you okay?” Rowan says to G’Reg. Then he waves again at Gleam. “Your brother is worried about you. Or is acting like he’s worried about you. But I’m leaning towards that he’s genuinely worried about you and wants you rescued. Anyway, we know where he is and need to get the two of you together.”
Then he looks around and asks the group.
”I haven’t heard any voices or seen any recipes or hoes, but should we be looking for those next?”
G'Reg steps out from behind the door as it swings open and clears his throat "Ahem, yeah I uhhhh... Anyway, I already searched for my hoe, it's not within 1000ft of the theater... and i have my doubts that motherhorn is bigger than that"
Forgive us. We're a bit of a motley group of fools but we are well intentioned. We all lost something to the circus and, in searching to get them back, found out three hags were taking advantage of the proprietor and his workers and customers. We believe one of them stole our stuff as well. In investigation we stumbled across others in similar dire circumstances. One was Glister. We believe he is your brother. He was dead set on rescuing you and believing ourselves better equipped, we are here to do it for him. We shall not force you to come with us. We could tell your brother you refuse to see him, if you like?
He offers the words to her telepathically, without tone or inflection or judgement. Nor explanation. People just need to figure it out for themselves...
Gleam sits up, looking dumbfounded at all the wild stories and suggestions that are coming her way, and it is plain to see now that she does indeed cast no shadow, just like Hurly. Her wide eyes flit back and forth from face to face as she absorbs the information, then replies in a voice like something from a theatrical play... a classic damsel in distress, a helpless princess locked in a castle tower...
Glister? Here? No, that can't be right. Lady Endelyn told me... she showed me the future. She said that disaster would befall if we stayed together... That I had to leave and never return... She gave me a home here. It's lonesome, but... she makes me very comfortable. Oh dear, Glister is here? I'd dearly love to see him again... to return to the carnival, but... What if she's right? What if disaster will occur? Oh, I know she's right!
Gleam's voice, her exaggerated hand motions, her over-the-top facial expressions... all appear as melodramatic as if she were in a pantomime. And yet she seems genuine in what she says.
I know. I read her mind and saw them. The lies. Oh her brain is a dark and dingy place full of spiders and crawlies and everything wrong, but when it comes out her mouth it is all covered in shiny and happy and lies, lies, lies for days. Trust me, I know brains and thoughts and such...
Ok, sure, Mulligan was lying. But he was lying telepathically. And his lies felt true. They contained a certain truthiness that was hard to really call a lie. At least so he believes.
Greg frowns, "There's more to this than you know, several things actually but it takes connections between all the information to figure it out... So I'll explain it, you see this hag who feeds off despair, telling you something that would put you in a position of longing for an extended period of time, and in the process of this deal to 'keep you from disaster' she also gets your shadow? It all sounds very very one sided to me, and all she had to do was tell you one lie... Well not lie really, it was a lie of omission, just as cruel and manipulative. There will be disaster if you two meet, but she never divulged for who this meeting would be disastrous... See this is how she works, there is apparently a prophecy of her own downfall caused by the two of you reuniting, it was her disaster, so that was yet another benefit for her, in fact I'm glad you took her deal because if you had refused it, I doubt she would have let you go, not with all of that at stake... You did well, to be detained in such comfort, but if you remain here you only enable her to make such deals and treat others with the same twisted cruelty... That is the only truth you need to know and consider." With that the gnome steps into the room and takes a seat, looking over his glasses at the acrobat and awaiting a reply expectantly.
Gleam looks at Mulligan dubiously as he speaks into her mind, then turns away with a sniff. Only Mulligan hears her telepathic response: You're wrong. She showed me other things too, and they all came true.
Greg delivers his more reasoned response, and Gleam seems to consider the possibility a little more. Almost as a challenge, she recites what she remembers of the prophecy:
"When sun and moon unite as one / The final curtain shall be spun." How does that relate to Lady Endelyn? We are performers, you know... Glister and me.
She turns away again, talking now to herself a bit, and reciting other lines:
"Keep the silver, bar the gold / Let no eclipse these lands behold. / For should the borrowed darkness fall..." how did it go next? "The stage stands bare: the end of all."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
How does a red dragon blow out the candles on its birthday cake?
“Oh, more riddles. Hmm. When you and your brother get together, do you make bright light? He has that glowing hair thing going on so I assume that has something to do with light. And your names are Glister and Gleam. So maybe you two make enough light to get rid of all the darkness that seems to like this place.”
Rowan looks around for a moment then frowns.
”Do you think they need to meet on stage? On stage while Lyn is watching?”
"it will be the end of all for her, her stage will lay barren, her twisted displays will be at an end. So she keeps you, the silver moon, and Bars you brother, the golden light. Thats all is costs her to keep her power. Your imprisonment and separation." He thinks reflectively for a moment, "I'm sorry gleam, I know that it is frustrating to learn that you have been tricked and misled. But your brother is waiting, and the only one who has something to fear from that rhyme is your captor, but that's not something you need to deal with, we'll handle that"
Gleam covers her mouth and giggles at Rowan's comments.
No, silly. Glister's hair doesn't glow. Tee-hee.
Rowan however is certain that it does, and in fact that during the encounter with the leprechauns that he even emitted a beam of blinding light from his hair.
--------------------------------
Gleam sighs upon hearing Greg's rational argument, and although she doesn't appear entirely convinced, he can tell that some of what he has said has swayed her. Rising from her divan, she straightens her clothing and says:
Hmm. In any case, if Glister is here I would dearly love to see him. But if what you say is true, then Lady Endelyn will hardly appreciate me leaving my room. How do you propose to escort me from here without offending her? She has many strange creatures who serve her in this place, you know. Goblins and such.
----------------------------------
Barria and Mulligan are close enough to the main prison door-mouth to see it slowly close shut, obscuring them for now from any casual observers from outside.
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How does a red dragon blow out the candles on its birthday cake?
The tension Barria didn't realize she was carrying in her shoulders slowly release as Gleam finally starts to realize what they are saying is true. "We have been given total run of this castle, well other than the library and we can stay away from there, so I feel that would include requesting your company as we move about the castle, don't you? She never said anything about you or others that are in the castle and to leave you be, so come on! Do you know much about this place? I would love to hear about it as we take you to see your brother."
Another thought pops into the dwarf's head, "Oh! Do you know the bugbear Hurly? I met his brother in the carnival and he misses Hurly so. But Hurly.. he is so depressed, I wish we could help him too."
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Rowan's verbal musings are answered by the Endelyn-shaped door-face saying: You know, it's considered rude to speak about someone when they are right in front of you! The door's reaction to Rowan's shove is simply a half-suppressed and taunting chortle. The elf's continued musings are answered again with: Look, it's obvious you don't belong here, so shove off! Rowan pulls out the short staff, and the door-face eyes him with amusement. He earns another derisive chuckle as he waves it around, ineffectually.
Greginald receives the staff from Rowan and looks it over. It seems too bulky for a wand, which are usually more slender and delicate, and too large to be a magic staff. Perhaps a rod: historically, those are usually thicker and heavier than wands, are associated with some kind of authority, and are sometimes used as simple weapons. However, they generally require attunement, and Charmay did imply that obtaining the staff was sufficient. The gnome searches his memory for other similar items relating to doors and such, and then remembers reading about an organisation called the Golden Vault, who specialise in infiltrating secure locations. One of the heists described a kind of key in the form of a handheld rod-like item, which would unlock the door by contact. Maybe Rowan's suggestion isn't too far from the truth. The goblin who owns it certainly seems to have a proclivity for bashing it against things...
The gnome reaches out and touches the staff to the door. The door-face speaks no further, but opens its mouth wider and wider until an 8-foot-high, 3-foot-wide archway forms in the space.
Stepping through the open-mouth archway into the room, there are four stone doors branching off the main chamber. Each doorway has a stone lever jutting from the wall next to it. Each door has a small window through which the room beyond can be viewed, however three of the doors hang open revealing unoccupied cells. The fourth door is shut.
Peeking through the hole of the closed door reveals a pale-skinned female elf, curled up on a divan, reading a book, and sipping wine from a crystal goblet. She is dressed in a decorative and somewhat revealing acrobat leotard, and wears a crescent-shaped headdress reminiscent of a moon. A small table beside her contains a crystal decanter of wine and a bowl of figs. The wall behind her is decorated with a large gold-embroidered tapestry depicting a wooded elven realm, and on the floor beside the divan is a porcelain chamber pot decorated with gold filigree.
How does a red dragon blow out the candles on its birthday cake?
"I bloody knew it!" G'Reg states pointing at the now open door with a self satisfied look that one might wear when saying 'i told you so' to another.
As he walks in he paused for a moment, and mutters to the others, "with gleam there's five of us not four. If the darklings come we need to keep her separate from the fighting or one of us will get burned..." He offers no more elaboration on the subject before turning to gleam and tapping the bars with the staff to get her attention.
(Sorry, no bars. No cages. Just stone doors into stone rooms, with peepholes in the doors.)
How does a red dragon blow out the candles on its birthday cake?
Rowan looks through the bars at who he presumes is Gleam. He's not going to ask G'Reg for confirmation as he's pretty sure where that conversation will go now. Instead he raps on the bars and waves inside.
"Hi.
We're here to rescue you." Rowan says. He turns to go to the lever but stops, looks back inside and asks "You're Gleam, right?"Then he moves over to the stone lever next to the door and pulls down on it.
During all this, Mulligan finds himself curious about G'Reginald's hands. He had never noticed anything about them in particular but now that Rowan has made such a fuss about them Mulligan finds himself trying to catch subtle peeks at them to see if they're as bad as Rowan said...
As he steps through the mouth of the door he is about to mentally suggest G'Reg stay behind and keep the wand/rod/phallic symbol held against it so it stays open but the gnome is hopping through before he can mentally mention it. Well, he hopes, maybe it stays open?
Say it... Say it... C'mon, say it! Mulligan pleads to himself silently. He cannot help but hope Gleam looks at G'Reg and says he looks pretty short for a... well, prison guard. (She wouldn't know what a Storm Trooper is, I suppose.)
Greginald and Rowan tap on the small window set into the closed stone door. Greg has to stand on tip-toes to see through it, and Rowan has to crouch a little, but the she-elf turns and spies the two strange faces peering in through the window. As Rowan pulls the lever, the door opens, revealing the elf maiden reclining on the divan. Her form-fitting outfit is stretched over her body, and her bare legs slide lazily across each other as she rolls over slightly and places her chalice on the table. With the book still in hand she replies softly:
Rescue me? From what?
She doesn't immediately answer Rowan's question, but her face is the uncanny resemblance in female version of Glister.
How does a red dragon blow out the candles on its birthday cake?
"your shadow is out galavanting and stealing stuff for a hag whilst you sit in a prison cell. You can ask stupid questions or we can reunite you with your Glister. Perhaps you don't care, perhaps that was a twisted part of the deal that you made with her, it doesn't matter to us, but we need you so you're coming with us." Greg grumbles at who he assumes is gleam as he hops down from his tiptoes and smacks the stone door once more with the staff, as though force was the things stopping it from working. "Can someone get this damnable door?"
Barria stands in wonder at the talking door then the fact G'Reg figures out how to open it so fast. Well, he's good for something, she supposes.
They all head to the acrobat's cell and after the door is open, she smiles, relieved that they found her already, but that smile turns into a frown when the elf responds. "Don't you want out of your cell? Don't you want to be joined with your brother and go back to the circus? We're here to help you." She tentatively walks into the cell as she talks to the woman.
Rowan gestures at the door for G’Reg.
”It is open. Are you okay?” Rowan says to G’Reg. Then he waves again at Gleam. “Your brother is worried about you. Or is acting like he’s worried about you. But I’m leaning towards that he’s genuinely worried about you and wants you rescued. Anyway, we know where he is and need to get the two of you together.”
Then he looks around and asks the group.
”I haven’t heard any voices or seen any recipes or hoes, but should we be looking for those next?”
G'Reg steps out from behind the door as it swings open and clears his throat "Ahem, yeah I uhhhh... Anyway, I already searched for my hoe, it's not within 1000ft of the theater... and i have my doubts that motherhorn is bigger than that"
Mulligan offers a friendly smile.
Forgive us. We're a bit of a motley group of fools but we are well intentioned. We all lost something to the circus and, in searching to get them back, found out three hags were taking advantage of the proprietor and his workers and customers. We believe one of them stole our stuff as well. In investigation we stumbled across others in similar dire circumstances. One was Glister. We believe he is your brother. He was dead set on rescuing you and believing ourselves better equipped, we are here to do it for him. We shall not force you to come with us. We could tell your brother you refuse to see him, if you like?
He offers the words to her telepathically, without tone or inflection or judgement. Nor explanation. People just need to figure it out for themselves...
Rowan pauses, unsure of why Gleam is hesitant to follow.
Then he snaps his fingers.
"Are you missing hope too?" Rowan says. "No worries. We have loads of hope. Maybe too much."
Gleam sits up, looking dumbfounded at all the wild stories and suggestions that are coming her way, and it is plain to see now that she does indeed cast no shadow, just like Hurly. Her wide eyes flit back and forth from face to face as she absorbs the information, then replies in a voice like something from a theatrical play... a classic damsel in distress, a helpless princess locked in a castle tower...
Glister? Here? No, that can't be right. Lady Endelyn told me... she showed me the future. She said that disaster would befall if we stayed together... That I had to leave and never return... She gave me a home here. It's lonesome, but... she makes me very comfortable. Oh dear, Glister is here? I'd dearly love to see him again... to return to the carnival, but... What if she's right? What if disaster will occur? Oh, I know she's right!
Gleam's voice, her exaggerated hand motions, her over-the-top facial expressions... all appear as melodramatic as if she were in a pantomime. And yet she seems genuine in what she says.
How does a red dragon blow out the candles on its birthday cake?
Thing about Endelyn is... She lies.
Mulligan retorts telepathically.
I know. I read her mind and saw them. The lies. Oh her brain is a dark and dingy place full of spiders and crawlies and everything wrong, but when it comes out her mouth it is all covered in shiny and happy and lies, lies, lies for days. Trust me, I know brains and thoughts and such...
Ok, sure, Mulligan was lying. But he was lying telepathically. And his lies felt true. They contained a certain truthiness that was hard to really call a lie. At least so he believes.
Greg frowns, "There's more to this than you know, several things actually but it takes connections between all the information to figure it out... So I'll explain it, you see this hag who feeds off despair, telling you something that would put you in a position of longing for an extended period of time, and in the process of this deal to 'keep you from disaster' she also gets your shadow? It all sounds very very one sided to me, and all she had to do was tell you one lie... Well not lie really, it was a lie of omission, just as cruel and manipulative. There will be disaster if you two meet, but she never divulged for who this meeting would be disastrous... See this is how she works, there is apparently a prophecy of her own downfall caused by the two of you reuniting, it was her disaster, so that was yet another benefit for her, in fact I'm glad you took her deal because if you had refused it, I doubt she would have let you go, not with all of that at stake... You did well, to be detained in such comfort, but if you remain here you only enable her to make such deals and treat others with the same twisted cruelty... That is the only truth you need to know and consider." With that the gnome steps into the room and takes a seat, looking over his glasses at the acrobat and awaiting a reply expectantly.
Gleam looks at Mulligan dubiously as he speaks into her mind, then turns away with a sniff. Only Mulligan hears her telepathic response:
You're wrong. She showed me other things too, and they all came true.
Greg delivers his more reasoned response, and Gleam seems to consider the possibility a little more. Almost as a challenge, she recites what she remembers of the prophecy:
"When sun and moon unite as one / The final curtain shall be spun." How does that relate to Lady Endelyn? We are performers, you know... Glister and me.
She turns away again, talking now to herself a bit, and reciting other lines:
"Keep the silver, bar the gold / Let no eclipse these lands behold. / For should the borrowed darkness fall..." how did it go next? "The stage stands bare: the end of all."
How does a red dragon blow out the candles on its birthday cake?
“Oh, more riddles. Hmm. When you and your brother get together, do you make bright light? He has that glowing hair thing going on so I assume that has something to do with light. And your names are Glister and Gleam. So maybe you two make enough light to get rid of all the darkness that seems to like this place.”
Rowan looks around for a moment then frowns.
”Do you think they need to meet on stage? On stage while Lyn is watching?”
"it will be the end of all for her, her stage will lay barren, her twisted displays will be at an end. So she keeps you, the silver moon, and Bars you brother, the golden light. Thats all is costs her to keep her power. Your imprisonment and separation." He thinks reflectively for a moment, "I'm sorry gleam, I know that it is frustrating to learn that you have been tricked and misled. But your brother is waiting, and the only one who has something to fear from that rhyme is your captor, but that's not something you need to deal with, we'll handle that"
Gleam covers her mouth and giggles at Rowan's comments.
No, silly. Glister's hair doesn't glow. Tee-hee.
Rowan however is certain that it does, and in fact that during the encounter with the leprechauns that he even emitted a beam of blinding light from his hair.
--------------------------------
Gleam sighs upon hearing Greg's rational argument, and although she doesn't appear entirely convinced, he can tell that some of what he has said has swayed her. Rising from her divan, she straightens her clothing and says:
Hmm. In any case, if Glister is here I would dearly love to see him. But if what you say is true, then Lady Endelyn will hardly appreciate me leaving my room. How do you propose to escort me from here without offending her? She has many strange creatures who serve her in this place, you know. Goblins and such.
----------------------------------
Barria and Mulligan are close enough to the main prison door-mouth to see it slowly close shut, obscuring them for now from any casual observers from outside.
How does a red dragon blow out the candles on its birthday cake?
The tension Barria didn't realize she was carrying in her shoulders slowly release as Gleam finally starts to realize what they are saying is true. "We have been given total run of this castle, well other than the library and we can stay away from there, so I feel that would include requesting your company as we move about the castle, don't you? She never said anything about you or others that are in the castle and to leave you be, so come on! Do you know much about this place? I would love to hear about it as we take you to see your brother."
Another thought pops into the dwarf's head, "Oh! Do you know the bugbear Hurly? I met his brother in the carnival and he misses Hurly so. But Hurly.. he is so depressed, I wish we could help him too."