Pizazz's Ravenloft and Beyond

The Harmonium did indeed have a uniform, which you think you can easily recognize going forward. 

Polk claps Mordekai on the shoulder with a grin, "Oh ya!  New in town, well the Revolutionary League is where it's AT my friend. I'm thrilled to sit down and tell you all about it man. The dark of it all, just....I gotta man the books. Awww, forget that, sit down for sure.  So...let me tell you, these other factions, man, they are dry as dust, boring, stuck in their ways. Not us, we aren't stuck in ANY way, you know.  Just...break the shackles of the man...or the woah-man...you know."  He glances around, and laughs a bit nervously, "Actually, we got nothin gainst the lady. I heard she's pretty hot. Though others say..cold....cold as ice..  You wanna go to the bar in a bit? If you're new in town, you gotz lots to hear.  I get off in maybe an hour and can tell you all bout the faction, and you know, i could use a wingman. My buddy Amed just hooked up with a lady and he's been MIA for like, the past week, and I'm hella bored you know?" 

Meepo would dive into the library, grinning ear to ear.  He would start looking through shelves after shelves, just reading titles and walking around.

Lionel only looked inside the library, assessed the deliberate chaos, the "librarian" himself (those horns did not look decorative to him, something to consider) - and stepped outside to talk to Tommy. He sat with the boy, thought about his chances to be scarier than Ketch, shook his head in a disapproval of himself at the very idea of frightening the little boy and begun to talk friendly. "You see, Tommy, if you want someone to obey the law, that someone has to know the law - right? Right now this all we want - to know the law. Something you already told us - no fighting." (Lionel carried with him a small armory, Ulthan and Ketch were no better in that regard, but nobody seemed to object) "What else is forbidden? And how people learn the law around here?"

Mordekai can't believe how much more fun this place promises to be than Barovia, and is starting to feel quite at home.

"My friend, I would love to be your wingman.  And if I do say so myself, I make a pretty good one.  You're not going to miss Amed today.  But you're going to need to help me help you a little.  being new, I'm not acquainted to your social customs.  You'll have to talk me through how not to offend people, how to flatter or compliment, that kind of thing.  Do you want me to leave you to man the books for the next hour until you finish, or are you happy to talk me through it just now?"  Mordekai looks around, "You don't seem to be in great demand from any other patrons right now."

Meepo wanders into the maze of a bookstore with a grin.  There were books here that were covered with so much dust that Meepo was sure they hadn't been touched in at least a hundred years!  Excited he wanders amidst the tome's, glancing at covers, reading strange cryptic titles, and just enjoying himself.  Perhaps it's his eye for 'lost things', perhaps it's his diminutive size, but whatever it is, a book catches his eye.  He's wandered in quite a ways...so far in fact that he's starting to wonder how far back this place goes, when he sees a golden spine behind some other books, at the back of a shelf, seemingly having been pushed back off the shelf some time ago and then slid down the back. It's at an angle, behind the lowest row of books...  A lost book in a library. Meepo has to pause to think of the implications of such a thing.  But, only a moment, before he's digging the thing out. The book is a heavy tome with covers of white marble bound in pale blue leather. It has a lock across the front of it holding it closed. There seems to be something written on the spine, but it's so caked in dust Meepo can't make it out. 

Meanwhile, Lionel walks back outside to talk to Tommy....and looks around...****y to see that he seems to have run off in the few moments it took the group to enter the place and for Lionel to come back out....

The Bariaur pats a small stool next to him, "Take a load off friend! You seem quite talented already at not offending people, I agree, I think you'll be a great wingman!  How'd you end up in the Cage then?" 

Ulthan grumbles as the half orc starts his tirade against the kid "hrmpfh why blame kid asked for information you got hall of information kid no wrong hrmpfh". Later at the library he looks around for anything not a book, more akin to maps and the like, but otherwise he's not terribly useful here.

     “Kid knew place was useless, humph? Led us there as joke, hmph? Admitted it himself, hrrmfph?” Ketch responds, annoyed, but then throws up his hands in surrender.  “Whatever...”

     At the bookstore Ketch continues randomly checking out titles, pulling books at random and scanning a couple pages.  He’s half considering offering a trade of the books he has himself if he finds anything here that would be useful, but these are about the most useless books he’s ever seen...

Lionel looked right - no Tommy. He looked left and found no Tommy either. The kid did not seem too scared of Ketch, not so much as to run from the well paying job. The dwarf returned to the ram-man, again casting a look at his horns (definitely a weapon). "Say, pal," (he was too much in his thoughts to notice he was interrupting a private conversation) "do those kids with lanterns often bring newcomers here?"

Does the book 'feel' magical? If not, then Meepo will simply wipe the dust off so he can read the title.

"hrmpfh you want swamp you want mountain goat hunt goat in mountain this no town bully kid gone talk to kids no more kids hrmpfh" Ulthan shrugs and nods as if his point has been clearly made.

     Ketch looks at Ulthan oddly, unsure if they are suggesting he should hunt kids as he would a goat or not... 

The book does feel magical, tingling slightly in Meepo's hand.  

Polk looks over to Lionel, "Ha?  What, no, the lantern kids usually take clueless to less useful places, like...crappy taverns they get kick-backs at, or the hall of information.  Ha!  Man...what a friggen joke that place. If you haven't gone, you should go, just to realize what the revolutionary league is really fighting against man! No way man, this place has real knowledge, real know how....besides.  We don't give 'em no jink."

Ketch and Ulthan have a strange conversation in amidst the stacks as Ketch flips through strange books. It's almost as if they're trying to communicate to each other, which is adorable. Ketch opens up "Ships in your Garden", and sees designs for something called a Spelljammer, which looks like a ship and sounds like something a wizard would put on his toast, so he puts it back on the shelf, and keeps meandering about.

"Good to know," said Lionel just to say anything. He nodded to Polk and was about to turn and get lost in the books just like others but had to ask one more question before. "Does it happen that people - particular lantern kids - disappear mysteriously?" Obviously, the boy was distracted and run after something, he knew that. But on the other hand, kid was waiting (if only for laughs and may be bets) outside of that miserable place for more than two hours, and now just disappeared. He had to at least ask.

Polk shrugs, "I dunno."  He seems to not care about some kid and turns back to Mordekai to continue their conversation. 

Lionel did notice that the kids mood changed pretty abruptly. When Ketch pulled out his axe and spoke in a threatening tone, the kid became quite a bit less chatty, and any smiles vanished. The trip here he spoke to the group, but it was a bit more perfunctory and without much of the animation. It is entirely possible that Ketch's threats made the kid reconsider his employment.

Meepo would pause to cast detect magic as a ritual on the book.

Actually... Meepo is not that cautious, Denny is that cautious, but Meepo likely not. He would not cast detect magic, but would simply dust it off and try to open it.

As Meepo rubs the dust off the spine the lock clicks open, allowing him to open the book. Zikran’s Zephyrean Tome is written there. Flipping it open, he sees tissue-thin white paper pages and it seems to emit a soft breeze whenever a page is turned. There are hand written notes on the first two dozen pages, the rest of the hundred or so pages are blank.

But more interesting, is that strange small wispy clouds seem to form above the open pages into the form of a small creature, with blue tinged skin, and a lower body that looks like white wispy smoke.  Its upper body is male, well muscled, though...of course..diminutive. The figure looks up at Meepo, "Great, a kobold. I'm surely doomed to spend all my days imprisoned.  Kobold, you...creature, do you understand my words. Can you find some brave wizards or warriors, a powerful warlock or something? Give them the book. Do you...understand me at all?  Ug...this is useless..."

((Ok, make Ketch the bad guy... but he did not pull out his axe or make threats against the kid.  He did put his hand on the axe handle, and he did adopt a tone...  But the main thrust of his “threats” was telling the kid he’d make a lot more money helping us than screwing with us... But if the kid wet his knickers cause the scary cleric scolded him then Ketch is of a mind the kid should go cuddle with his mommy and stay off the streets anyway.))

"Meepo talk just fine." Meepo says to the book-cloud-thing. "Meepo great and powerful wizard, dragon too, but in Library, so no make dragon roar..." he grins at the book-cloud-creature. He then switches to dracconic...

If the book-cloud-creature doesn't understand dracconic, I.E. doesn't respond to the above...

"So you not-smart book-cloud-thing." Meepo says with a frown. "Meepo speak this language not so well, but Meepo talk, Meepo understand, Meepo likely more powerful wizard than most around here... Meepo also have very powerful friends. Meepo friends slay great vampire lored, Straud someone... Now Meepo want know who you be..."

((   I'm not meaning to make anyone into a bad guy.  I was basing his reaction on this:   "Ketch's hand slipped to the hand of his battle axe.  He stroked it thoughtfully while considering the kid.  Weighing  the options, he decided public bloodshed was probably frowned upon in this 'culture'. "    I assume it was pretty obvious to the kid that you were considering violence in that moment, which is what freaked him out. Went from a joke to, "Oh shit, this guy looks like he might hack me in two with his axe!" ))

The cloud creature rolls his eyes when Meepo says he's a powerful wizard, and grunts when Meepo speaks in Draconic, "Gosh darned sunnuva....one second....why of all the people gotta open this book...." he mutters a bit more then casts a spell.  Then, in perfect Draconic says, "Alright then, look Kobold. I don't know what you are chattering on about....but...."  he stops and sighs. He glances at Meepo once more, seeing his staff that looks like a large shard of ice....and his bright eyes....and seems to reconsider.  "My name is Gazre-Azam, and a wicked selfish evil wizard has bound me to this book. His name is Zikran. If you can so achieve my release from this book, on my honor I tell you that I shall grant you a single wish. Obviously, there are boundaries on the wish, the first of which is no wishing for more wishes, obviously. Regardless, I shall grant you a single wish. What say you, powerful...uh...kobold wizard?"  His face says, "this is never going to work", and his voice has less conviction in it than that.