A new trouble

The three of us opened three doors in the entrance hall at the same time. I thought hard of the throne room, but still no luck - a random hallway appeared. The other two had random rooms, as well. We kept it up until the armory appeared, at which I held the door while Bryrgar went in and grabbed some weapons and armor. The chain mail was a little tight, but better than just a ragged nightgown!

We went back to opening doors, marking them with scraps of cloth from the gown. I found the library again, with its eight elves, and held the door a second time while the others checked out the books. As they did so, we all heard the distinct sound of a door opening... and closing! Only seven elves were in the room, and we all ran to the door at the other end of the library.

Sadly, this one, too, was set to random. We hit a few empty places, then the kitchen. Since no one had been counting elves before, Bryrgar ran in and knocked everyone in the kitchen over to see if they were all truly frozen in place. Then we were back to the opening and shutting.. we even opened the other door to the library and saw ourselves at the other end! Eeek!

Bryrgar knocked down any elves we found, and Sprocket eyed the book she’d picked up in the hurry. Apparently, it’s for “all curses malevolent”, which sounds quite useful! So, she sat down and paged through it while Bryrgar and I searched the random rooms shown by the magical door. We found the throne room again, and Bryrgar took an unholy joy in barrelling through every elf in the place. I did note that poor Elzan had not reappeared. I felt some grief that we’d had to kill such an elderly and wise elf.

We finally found Haran - in the queen’s bedroom, looking over her sickbed. Sprocket mentioned that she’d found the curse that this place is under, but the page to reverse it is, of course, missing. We went in to grab Haran and head for the entrance hall, when Sprocket cried, “Someone’s casting!” and a chair began to attack Bryrgar. As I boggled, another chair attacked me! The large wardrobe, however, went after poor little Sprocket; when it spit her out after tumbling her inside its doors, I shouted at her to run out and close the door behind her - she could find us again later!

No such luck - she couldn’t get away from the wardrobe’s attacks. Bryrgar was tripped up by the chair attacking him even as he tried to get to the corner Sprocket had pointed to. I grabbed my own attacker and flung it at the wardrobe, but it only bounced off. At least the wardrobe then got tangled up in the chair and fell over! But before I could rejoice in that, I saw that something had stabbed Sprocket in the chest. I shouted to Bryrgar and charged the space over her unmoving body.

Thank Ubtao, I actually struck home against our invisible assailant! As I stood over her, prepared to defend against another attack, I saw the door open to a hallway, then close. Hoping our assailant was gone, I knelt beside the gnome to give her what help I could - and found that her rat familiar had already stopped the bleeding with his own body. What an amazing creature! Bryrgar swung his axe around the space near the door (good thought!), and I discovered that the furniture had not stopped moving (ouch). We smashed at it until it did.

Bryrgar was able to heal Sprocket enough to wake her up. Then, we searched the room for any sign of the loose page. No one said our sad thought out loud - that the invisible assailant probably had it! Giving up, we grabbed Haran and (more gently) the queen, and Sprocket opened the door until we found the entrance hall. For better or for worse, her rat now recognizes the smell of the invisible one, and can hopefully warn us of danger in time!

Finally, the entrance hall appeared. We ran down to the barrier, and Bryrgar and Sprocket went through with Haran while I stayed inside with the queen. It had occurred to me that she’s probably better off inanimate, as she’s sick... and it was kind of funny to watch yet another elf react to his first sight of our strange races. We’re lucky he didn’t blast the lot of us! Roscoe chattered away at him, then Sprocket finished up.

Haran says he can fix the curse - but he needs that missing page! He does think he can get us home afterwards, too, which is a relief. He has a “laboratory”, in which we will find stuff to make the invisible person visible again, and almost walked through the barrier to get it himself when Roscoe forestalled him by a demonstration. I gave the frozen halfling a shove and he fell partway back through, yelling at us while his arms and legs were still frozen on my side. In a fit of fun, I tangled his legs up and pushed him through. It took the poor fellow a few minutes to get himself sorted out and run off yelling that he hates us all... I laughed, but Haran looks worried. Although Sprocket is reassuring him, I think I need to think ahead a bit more!

We have the key to the laboratory, and Sprocket has instructions to the materials he needs. Off we go again!