Onyx reflexively turned his attention away from the bloodthirsty instrument and whipped his head around toward Bentley as he announced the room rates. His mouth opened for a second, both out of shock and out of an intent to protest, but after a moment's thought he decided to not bother and just grimaced instead. For all he knew, the witch had cursed Bentley too; besides, it wasn't as if he hadn't had someone graciously take care of the situation.

He turned back just in time to see the dragonborn free his hand from the pernicious piano.

Bentley had half-drawn a short wand from his jacket pocket, but seeing the crisis averted, he slips it back inside the jacket, gives one sidelong scowl at Galerius, and then continues answering questions.

Wings? Surely you are misinformed, my lady. I admit we take some licence when we describe it as our guest, for it has resided here in slumber longer than any of us, so perhaps we are the guests. At this point he becomes more animated than before, making a flourish with one hand at each exclamation, and finishing with a small bow. It is a behemoth of Ostorian proportions, a colossus like no other, the monster of all monsters, the titanic, the epic, the legendary Tarrasque!

Lia glances around at the others, her face painted with dread. "Of course. Of course it's a Tarrasque. What else would it be? I swear, if I see this witch, goddess or whatever she is I'm going to punch her straight in the face." She buries her head in her hands, before looking up again. "Would you be able to check if our rooms are still booked? And if you have room for those of us who haven't? I don't want to think about this until I've had a rest."

Bentley extracts a small notepad from his jacket and flicks through the pages, his eyebrows raising as he reads. Lia Dewtail, room 11. Yes, ma'am is appears you are already registered, and at a significantly lower rate I see. He notes that Lok is already registered at the low rate also, in room 4. He has plenty of available rooms for all those wishing to book.

"You've.... we... you're joking, right?"

He had faced a devil with barely a thought. After all, it was capable of conversation. It was intelligent, and orderly.

But THIS? A Tarrasque?!!

In all of his reading, only the greatest warriors, the strongest magics, or unknowable mysterious voodoo had ever managed to defeat the thing.

Looking around at the others, those who noticed seemed to still want to rest before dealing with the creature, which made sense of course.

"Well, at least with two more people, maybe we'll last an extra few seconds," he mumbled. It was almost as if he'd already given up on the riddle. With new resolve, Onyx approached the newcomers.

"Hello!" he said, putting up a weak smile. "My name is Onyx. You two have arrived at quite the time, it seems. In case you're thinking of running, well... there's a bit of a problem with that."

The warlock filled them in on the nature of the hotel, the curse, and how the other adventurers had just solved the fourth part of the riddle that could get them out of there. "And it looks like most of the others are going to rest right now," he added. "I'll probably join them, I've been traveling all day and could use it. But obviously, we'll all run into each other soon enough. Hopefully come breakfast we can throw all our heads together and figure this out WITHOUT needing to physically defeat such a terrifying beast."

Quin breathes a sigh of relief as the newly introduced Galerius manages to free himself from the mimic in the guise of a piano. Since she loves music in minor keys, she notices the sound change and it seems much more appropriate to their surroundings.

"I'm Quin," she says to Ren. "Be careful in this place. Things aren't always what they seem, as you might have already noticed."

She nods to Galerius who is checking his finger for after affects. "I'm Quin. Glad to meet you. We need all the help we can get to get out of this castle."

Then she turns her attention to Bentley, awaiting his reply to Lia's question. When she hears his answers and Onyx's reaction, she just nods her head and says, "I will take a room. And so will Throm. If Onyx doesn't mind sharing, he can share with Throm."

"I thought Hatch had a room. We may have to double up, but I'm willing to pay until my gold runs out." She decides it is wise not to say exactly how much gold she is carrying around. 

Then she turns to Lia and asks, "What is a tarrasque? I've heard of one but know nothing of them." 

Quin pulls Lia aside and says, "If all we need to do is make it fly to get out of this place, I have the ability to fly up to 60 feet for up to 10 minutes. Maybe you can think of a way to make that useful. I'm afraid I know so little about the Tarrasque, that I don't have any ideas. To be honest, from the way I've heard others talk about a tarrasque, I thought it was some kind of legend and wasn't real at all. Now I wish I had paid more attention."

Lia nods. "Maybe that'll help. I don't know, even if we could somehow work out how to lift it, I feel like it's going to be far from that straight forward. I've never read or heard first-hand accounts of the creature... those who choose to engage it generally don't live to tell the tale."

(I believe Hatch borrowed someone's room to rest after the vampire incident)

(Unlike the previous chapters, I have made no attempt to provide or even think of a solution to the final part of the riddle. It's all up to you and your creativity and imagination. I'll just adhere to the official game statistics for the monster, and any published lore. Good luck making the tarrasque fly. As Lord Farquaad said: "Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make")

Quin nods, listening and thinking. "Well, do you know anything that the Tarrasque likes? I mean, what motivates a Tarrasque? If we could figure out something that would compel it to fly, that seems the best way to do it. Make something fly that is too tempting for it to resist flying after it. But even if I made myself into its favorite sort of morsel and flew, would it *have* to fly in order to reach me?" Quin looks at Lia hopefully. 

"Maybe after everybody rests, we can get together and discuss a plan.  Is it so big that it never leaves its room? If only I could make something fly past its window that was irresistable. But I don't think any of us could get outside. I wonder if Buck, my imp, could get outside. He can fly much longer distances than I can."

 "I don't want to die. There are so many things I want to do. But if I could save the rest of you by figuring out some way to make it fly after me, I would do it. Worse than dying though, would be dying for no reason. So I want to make sure that if I make the sacrifice, it's going to work."

"I'm not sure Tarrasques can fly..." Lia mumbles. She doesn't want to talk about death and sacrifice, or at least not yet. She looks around at the others, takes in a deep breath, and summons a smile, however weak. "Well, rest up everybody, and we can meet somewhere when we wake up. Perhaps the dining hall? Then maybe we can ask some of the guests and staff what they know about our friend the Tarrasque."

Throm shakes his head to clear it. He realizes he is more tired than he thought. When he had heard “highest room in the tallest tower”, he envisioned forcing the beast out a window or through a wall. Perhaps flight could be defined as “falling with style”. No, no, there is no outside. He really needed rest.

Quin said, let's all rest. Then meet up and everybody can share any information they have or know of the Tarrasque. 

Quin, after getting a room from Bentley, goes and bathes. She feels much better.

She sat on the very luxurious bed and wrote questions. 

How big is a tarrasque?

What is it?

What does it do? 

She stopped making the list.  If Lia was right and a Tarrasque couldn't fly, how could they make one fly. That seemed to be the question.  Her fly spell would only work on a willing creature.

She started writing again.

Does the tarrasque want to be here? Or is he trapped like everybody else? Did he want to escape too? 

Finally she fell asleep scrawling something on the paper that was unreadable. 

When Quin woke, all she could make out of her scribble was "Bentley."

Galerius booked a room with Bentley. As he was walking up to his room, he pondered the riddle.

"wings, on a Tarrasque? Does anything make sense at all? I have a vague feeling there is some sort of spell to make a Tarrasque fly, but it does not come to my mind at the moment. Or maybe it is a metaphor?"

In any case, the Dragonborn was tired, and he needed his beauty rest. He flopped down on his bed and immediately passed out. When he awoke, he much clearer mind. 

(Note: Galerius's text is now in bold)

"A tarrasque, I suppose, would need to be charmed. The difficulty is that a tarrasque is wild, with no sense of right or wrong. It needs to be a very powerful spell, and the caster must be charismatic."

Throm doesn’t recall how he got to the room, if he ate, or when he bathed, but as he wakes, he realizes he is in an exquisite bed with only a very soft bathrobe on. As the memories begin to flood in, his mind comes back to the Tarrasque. He had only heard of the beasts in legend. Were they truly immune to all attacks as he had heard?

Throm begins dressing and strapping on his equipment as the thought crosses his mind, “just how bad would it be to be stuck here?” No, his life is not to be lived trapped in a gilded cage. His life was “out there”. His pony, Flax, was “out there”. He takes inventory of his gear and leaves the room to find the others.

Galerius bumped into Throm on the stairs. He decided to persuade Throm to take a nap.

"I say, Throm. A nap would sound nice, would it not?"

Persuasion roll:12

"Ah, Drat!"

Onyx took up Quin's offer, and eventually found his room. He barely noticed Throm entering, falling asleep on the second bed, and leaving several hours later. Rousing himself, he found himself wishing he had a way to know what was happening outside the hotel. Was it even daylight yet? Was time even passing at all? "Without a timepiece of my own, guess I'll just be winging it," he thought as he dressed and used his magic to clean himself and his clothing.

"Morning, Lannel!" he said with a smile to the owl perched at the foot of the bed who'd been watching him the entire time. "How about we find the others, grab a bite to eat, and figure out how to leave this place for good?"

Galerius attempted to hop down to the first floor

Acrobatics check:20

Galerius did manage to get down to the first floor, but took 2 falling damage.

"Ouch."

Quin thinks she remembers what she was wanting to ask Bentley and dresses quickly and heads downstairs. She sees Galerius and Throm ahead of her. 

Quin finds Bentley and he seems so fancified now that she has trouble looking at him with a straight face. "Hello, Bentley. You're looking well today." Before he responds she rushes on.

"I noticed earlier when that new lodger arrived who got his finger stuck in the piano that you were pulling a wand out of your pocket prepared to deal with it. May I ask what your wand can do? And ahem, do you know how to, ah, what I mean to say......I say there, are you a wizard?" 

And is there a library in this fabulous castle?