The Castle [02] (Remba, but don't let it stop you)

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha's answer to Mel's suggestion that they head for the library was only answered by an agreeing, but exhausted, nod from the panthress.  She did stay on the floor for just a few more moments though, to mentally and physically regain what energy she had lost.  She shivered a little in the lingering chill of the room, pulling the cape around herself and recalling more of the events that passed.

It sickened her to think about how a mere spider had easily taken the huntress under control...a spider that most likely was perfectly designed to do such a thing, but nevertheless she cursed her inability to have sensed it coming.  The panthress cursed until she ran out of words, and then finally recalled the idea that started the whole thing.  And judging from Keaton's countenance--everyone's really--she wasn't the only one itching for justice.  She's dead...if EVER we see that spider-girl again...DEAD...

Then, Aisha realized she was getting caught in anger again and took a few deep breaths to get out of it, instead getting to her feet again and starting to follow along to the library.  She felt her limbs warming up a little bit as soon as they reached it.

Along the way though, she glanced to Gareeku and paused, pulling her torn sleeve back up to her shoulder with her other hand.  What sickened her most of all was that she might have succeeded in putting the same mind-losing fate to him, or to others.  And would have hurt him trying.

"...I'm sorry..." she muttered quietly to the wolf, ears pinned back to her head while looking him in the eyes.  In the long run it wasn't her fault, but she still felt it needed to be said.

[Gareeku]

Leaning against the wall just outside of the entrance to the library, Gareeku pondered the events which had not long occured. It seemed his paranoia had proven to be correct, yet he still hurt him to act that way to someone he cared deeply for. There was also the matter of the spider woman. If he ever came across her again, he would make her pay, that was for sure.

It was then that, out of the corner of his eye, Gareeku saw Aisha approaching. Watching her apologise, the wolf looked back in her crimson eyes, a soft gentle smile on his face as he gently put a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't be." he replied reassuringly. "You weren't yourself."

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel looked at Bambi and at the charades she was playing. "Are you trying to tell me that cold air sinks?" She stared at the hands. She knew she was small and weak, but did she really come across as so backwards that she didn't know the basics of her element? Mel pulled her hands away. Every magic user in the room was judging her inadequate. "Yes. Um...thanks." She started backing out of the room. "I'll go find... stuff... stuff that we need. I can do that."

She managed to escape the room at a dignified walk, but once outside she wondered what she would do with herself. Nothing involving magic, obviously. Mel wandered a bit, it was pretty lowering to discover that even non-dragons equated her small size with small worth. She eventually found herself on the floor with the bedrooms and passed a door that belonged to a storeroom, by the cedar smell. She decided to look for coats and gloves. Unless the others wanted to sit in the garden for hours they would need them.

[Gareeku]

Before Gareeku could say anything more, he looked up and saw Mel leave the library, walking past Aisha and himself. What was worrying, however, was the look on her face. It was one of sadness, one of...almost feeling alone...

Looking back at Aisha, the wolf had a look of concern on his face.
"I'm gonna go check it out." he said to her, not minding if the pantheress followed her, though he wouldn't blame her if she didn't, considering what she had just been through. Following the dragon through the house into the part where the bedrooms were situated, Gareeku watched as she stopped at a particular door, before heading after her. Looking in, the wolf found the room to be a storeroom, and it could be seen that Mel was looking for coats.
"Mel..." the wolf said quietly. He wasn't the best when it came to talking to people. He always had that diffifculty, at least he though so anyway. "...is something wrong? You seem down..."

[Sunblink]

As the group walked to the library, Keaton remained utterly silent, drawn in on herself with arms crossed and wings folded, shielding the bruised spot on her back where she had felt the pressure on it before. A lugubrious air surrounded Keaton's sulking form, exuding from every pore and slouch in her usually confident posture. Within her mind she was cursing up a storm; promising herself that the spider-woman behind their manipulation would be crushed beneath her heel and have her wretched soul devoured.

She wouldn't be the first person Keaton had condemned to waste away.

A wicked, corrupted grin briefly tugged at the edge of Keaton's lips as they entered the library. Professor Hunnydew had also been afflicted by the spider, apparently, and had been rendered incapable of interacting with them verbally. As Bambi relied on hand gestures to communicate, Keaton could only stare in confusion at her earnest efforts to convey her feelings. The milky-scaled dragon turned away and departed the library the next moment, leaving Keaton to stare after her with increasing befuddlement.

Keaton was as attuned to emotions as her Cubi brethren were--she could tell that Mel wasn't leaving the room in search of something. Fouler emotions had gotten the best of the benevolent dragon, but Keaton wasn't entirely sure what. Perhaps it was stress, or self-doubt? Parasitic feelings they were, responsible for the downfall of many a person's confidence and self-esteem. Gareeku seemed to notice it as well, as he followed Mel next.

Keaton sighed and turned to Bambi, deciding that she would leave consoling Mel to Gareeku. He seemed like a level-headed individual and would likely reassure her properly.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Bambi signs sadly, She didn't get her point across.....Shaking her head "NO nO",  Bambi gathered stack of 5-7 books and puts one book binding up like a V roof.  She hits the top flat book with her flat hand and then moves to next book down and then the next book.  and then the next one.  Knocking the "roof" she motions and blows across the whole surface of the top book and again hits each book down the stack.  

But Mel didn't stay to get it.  So, she signs and follows the dragon a small pace behind her and She see the dragon is sad, but not why... She motions Aisha to follow and see that Gareeku is already following some distance behind the dragon.  Bambi can only nod or shake her head to any questions.  So, she stays silent, and looks worried after the dragon.

Bambi doesn't stop at the door but continues following Mel into storage room.  She hugs Mel when she see the coats and starts gathering the winter stuff.   Bambi purrs at the fur coats.  Bambi stops and looks worried and encourging at Mel when she hears Gareeku ask his question.

PBH  

[Aisha deCabre]

Hearing Gareeku's reply to her apology, Aisha had a soft smile of her own.  She was relieved that he wasn't angered, and more so that the hold had been stopped before it could spread...she certainly owed him in part for that.  "Yes...but I'm just glad you were able to see through it," the panthress replied, laying her hand on his arm.

Before anything more could be said, she too noticed Mel exiting the library, and also looking rather disturbed, with a mute-stricken Bambi following close behind.  With a concerned look of her own, she nodded to the wolf and watched him follow the dragon, pausing for a moment before deciding to go as well...there was most likely nothing much else to do in the library except to sit around and come up with a solution again...and the huntress didn't feel like sticking around by herself, nor letting her friends out of her sight.

Once they found where Mel was, Aisha leaned on the doorway and listened for the dragon's reply as Gareeku asked her what was wrong.  There was a slight quirk of an eyebrow in thought.  I hope nobody's judging her again.  Sebastian did that enough already.

[Boog]

Jeremiah simply found a chair to sit down in while he thought. He wasn't about to offer a suggestion against the spiders. Every time he tried to think of one it would just slip away anyway. So he'd need an excuse to get away from the rest of the group. Some way of getting to the spiders...
"Hey, did we ever check what that bell was earlier?"

[Stygian]

Stygian snapped. That coward thing again! Why was he so bloody blinded?! His face froze for a second, and he growled something, but paid mind to let Mel walk out before he opened his mouth again. She was discomforted, and the smell of it stood rank in his nostrils.
   "Well better that than a bloody inconsiderate idiot who can barely control himself and who still never comes off his fucking high horses!" he snarled once she had left, slapping the table in front of Cog hard and glaring at him fiercely from under his brows. "I don't hate you. I never asked anything from you, or tried to hurt you, but still you treat me like shit." By the last word, he grabbed the wold by the collar and pulled him in, staring into his eyes and baring his teeth. "At least I'm trying to go away and not bother anyone!"
   The bat then pushed Cog away, and then followed an uncomfortable silence, where Stygian averted his eyes and stared into the table hard enough that one almost expected it to crack, and Cogidubnus just peered at him through his glasses with one of those "oh you did not just say that" looks.
   "I see now. Yes, I think I understand perfectly," Cog then said contempsuously, and turned, walking out of the library and against the front entrance. Stygian, in turn, just stood there, then punched the table so that it did crack, and then slumped back into his chair with a hopeless expression.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel continued to paw through the coats as everyone showed up at the storeroom. She smiled a bit as found a brilliant red one with black fur that she tossed to Aisha in the doorway.  "Thanks for the concern, but it's nothing I'm not used to. I'm not powerful enough to help with the big magic so I'll help with the little things I can do." She pulled out a shaggy black coat that she started to hand to Bambi before noticing wing holes. She set that one aside for Keaton and handed Bambi the white fluffy coat beside it and an identical smaller one for the ferret, probably originally a mother and daughter set. She hoped no one was allergic to the scent of cedar since everything in here was saturated with the scent after so long.

That covered the females and she turned to the opposite rack and the men's clothing. A heavy fur and quilted coat for the frog. Nice and warm, although she hoped there wouldn't be any need for him to move much as it weighed a ton. "I've always been too little to be much help." She grabbed a couple of fur lined wool in taller sizes for the two downstairs, one charcoal and one black. She didn't know if Sebastian even needed one due to his nature. She had to paw a bit more before finding one that looked like it would fit Gareeku. She held out a rather military looking navy blue with lots of gold buttons and dark fur to him. "I've made myself good at little things that need to get done but the big boys don't think of. Like gloves and hats and boots. Now where would they put accessories?" She spotted built-in drawers at the back of the room and started pulling them open.

[Gareeku]

Listening to Mel, Gareeku frowned as he watched her collect the coats and hand them out, thanking her as she passed him one of the coats. Stepping forward, the wolf put a hand on her shoulder.
"Listen...you're not a "little person"." the wolf said. He wasn't the greatest at this sort of thing, but he felt he had to say something, and judging from what Mel was saying, it seemed that she had been treated as insignificant in the past. "Trust me when I say that you're as important as any."

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Bambi looks though some gloves and hats she found in a chest of drawers in the storeroom...As she listens to Gareeku. Bambi place her hand on Mel, right after Gareeku's words, and smiles at Mel.  Then PBH gathers up as many of the hats and gloves that she can carry along with her own and Gina's coats, heads back to the Library.  Leaving Gareeku alone with Mel and Aisha...

In moments, PBH hurrys into the Library, places her load of hats and gloves on a table and shows off the coats to Gina ...

PBH

[Boog]

Jeremiah quickly wrapped himself in the fur coat over his tweed one when he got it from Mel... and promptly fell over. A thumbs up emerged from somewhere in the pile of cloth; I'm alright! 'Sall good! A laborious journey back to his chair from before, and he simply sank down into the warmth.
... You have work to do....
He wouldn't be able to stay in the warmth for long. Eventually he would have to make his way over to the others while they were working on freezing the castle and disrupt what they were up to. To get there on time, he would have to abandon the coat. He just might freeze to death. There was an instant of worry that the implanted ideas managed to hold down. Things would probably work out. Just had to work with the spiders...

The interloper-thoughts could be considered to have a personality, for a given definition of the term. It had found its way somewhere very, very strange. The part of Jeremiah's mind where the curse and the subconcious both overlapped. It appeared, to the interloper, as a huge city at about midnight. Neon lights, the sounds of people laughing from numerous night clubs, people working in office buildings and living in apartments, and a little to the left of the center of the city a gargantuan casino. The people on the streets were numerous and varied, but there was one common factor. All of them had an only half-there quality to them. Like if you looked away from one, and looked back, they would be different.
The interloper stood on the balcony of a hotel room, the number plaque of which simply said "Yours."

[Aisha deCabre]

As the coat flew to Aisha, she reached and caught it with one hand in midair, though her eyes still remained on the dragon as she continued to sift through the closet.  The panthress regarded the coat for just a moment, tilting her head and remembering the spiders' suffering of the cold air.  I'm guessing it would be quite unwise to go without this.  But the sooner we rid this place of the vermin, the better.

Listening to Mel's answer, she had to shake her head slightly.  Remembering what she was capable of, Aisha believed that the dragon indeed thought too little of herself.  "Listen to the wolf," Aisha smiled in agreement with Gareeku.  "You've been a wondrous help to us in the castle so far, no matter how little you think your efforts have been."

[Stygian]

Sebastian sat in his chair feeling lonely and ashamed for a while, whilst Cogidubnus passed throughout the castle with a scowl and muttering. Both had been hard offended by the other; Sebastian hardly thought Cog could have the right to call him a coward, when he thought he was staying away from people because of pain and their loathing of him, and Cogidubnus had clearly seen Sebastian's meaning that he was an asshole for trying to push people when he himself was cursed and no better. One sat and pondered, while the other walked and pondered, heading out and for the town, it would seem.
   After a while, the bat got up from his seat, having finished his diagram and incantation circle that he had worked on, and forced himself to seek out the others, more specifically Mel. He found her with Aisha and Gareeku in an old storeroom upstairs somewhere, where they all seemed to be going through a few years' supply of clothes and then some.
   As usual, the bat didn't make much notion of arriving, but just stepped silently in around the corner and then positioned himself leaning against a wall with folded arms and watching them until he felt it right to open his mouth. Which wasn't soon. Despite himself, the bat felt a bit flushed and awkward.
   "Hey," he finally said, pretty silently. "I finished that magic circle."

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel turned back towards the door at the sound of Sebastian's voice. "That's great. I think we're almost done here, as well." She gathered up the pile she had created. "This should make sure no one ends up with frostbite while the spell is working." Almost buried under her burden of coats and other cold weather gear came the muffled question, "Is there anything else we need to find for the ritual? Silver, mercury, rock crystal?"

[Stygian]

"Hardly," Sebastian replied as he slowly walked over to the dragon and flipped the paper he had written on, showing the circle to one exposed eye that cornered the heap of clothes that nearly smothered her voice. "Just a whole lot of ice or water, a circle and... that's about it. It's not a complex spell, after all," he said, in an almost suspicious tone. She didn't work that out herself? She hardly seemed stupid, or even mediocre at magic, and this was her field, but still...?
   "Can I carry those for you?" he asked, and didn't really wait before he took over the dragoness' burden, scooping it up in arms much more suited for that task and putting his chin down on top of the pile to hold it. He thumbed out the sketch of the circle under it in his right hand and turned it over toward her.
   "Let's get started on this," he said, with as little tone as he could manage.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel looked at the paper she'd been handed as she followed Sebastian. So simple? She would never have gotten this, she had been making it unnecessarily complicated, fooled that the size of the spell increased the complexity of the spell. It was nothing but a children's spell on a grand scale. Increasingly disheartened she asked, "Has Cogi gone to start preparations on the ventilation system?"

[Stygian]

The question had to come. But Sebastian still didn't like it, and he folded his ears a bit and made a sad expression, muttering something between his teeth as he walked out the door and admitted Mel past.
   "No. He went somewhere else. Hid somewhere or went out. I don't know," he said lowly and looked serious. "We disagreed quite a lot, and we sort of both lost it." That was about true, though not entirely from the bat's perspective. More prone to sadness than anger, he most often blamed himself, as in this case.
   "I was thinking that we should do it in the boiler room. It's spacious and at the centre of the ventilation," he then said, starting to walk slowly and wanting quite a lot to change the topic.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Bambi, who was enjoying the new coats with Gina in the Library, was slowly growing sad as her own curse continued to be a problem for her even with the simplest things....

"I feel like a blind kitten stuggling to get the most basic words out or toddler" thought Bambi

Gina could see Bam's dark depressed on her face, and trys to comfort, then Bambi brighten suddenly and jumps up quick searchs the bookshelves of the library.  There in a bright corner of the library with a few chairs, she finds the children's books.  Bambi grab a few picture books and an ABC book.   She runs back to Gina with her picture books and demanding and begging Gina to read to her.   

So Snuggled in a big chair in the main study area of the Library, Bambi and Gina are "read" the words, match the picture and letters.

"Dee   D-agg-gone?" questions Bambi     "Dragon"said Gina   "Dragggonnn" said Bambi as she traces the word under the picture.

"ah   CCCAT   N   aaah   Heyt.....  FFFOs  in a  goxxx" said Bambi    "Box " said Gina 
"Oh"   "BE  bee Ba   Box" said Bambi    This is slow  but the words stayed once she remembered them. 

She points to herself with a winter hat on her head and "a cat n Heet?" said Bambi   Gina can't help but laugh...."no no a hat"

[Aisha deCabre]

Aisha had only stood to watch for a moment before hearing Sebastian coming up, casting a curious glance his way as she listened to the procedure they were coming up with for making the castle into a frigid environment.  The panthress was silent, having nothing to say about the methods, but only hoping that they would work.

Clutching the coat that she was given, she pushed away from the doorway and waved casually after the dragon and bat as they walked off.  "I would wish you good luck on the ventilation, but I'm certain it's not needed," she chuckled quietly.

She then turned back to Gareeku with a smile.  "I don't know about you, but I might as well go watch over our comrades left in the library.  Who knows how many of those things are left crawling around," Aisha said in a light shudder.  Should that happen to me again I might become arachnophobic myself.  The panthress started to walk out, heading back through the corridors to the entrance of the grand room.

[Stygian]

The bat paced on with his burden, keeping silent and heading down stairways, first the main circular ones and then, once he and the dragoness had entered the service section of the castle, a broad set behind a pair of heavy doors. A short hallway led to them, and darkened considerably the closer they went. The hard, unpainted walls began to glisten, the stone wet in humid and cold air that pressed in as much as the looming darkness. Stygian descended the stairs without problem, the darkness better for his senses than light, and then stopped halfway to look up at Mel, who was having trouble seeing. His eyes cast back the tiny light there was magnified through his pupils, their points glowing eerily at the little dragon.
   "Slow steps. You can walk in a forest with your eyes closed. Stairs are thesame," he said, waiting and stepping out a bit into the middle of the stairs in case she should fall.
   Once down safely, Sebastian drew out and dusted off a bench, and placed the clothes down on it. He looked around, taking in the place more by feeling and hearing it than seeing. It was large, open and mostly empty. A snap with his fingers lit lamps that had stood for centuries, some of them dimming out as soon as they had lit but most keeping the flame and casting an appropriately dim light over the place. A huge furnace, pipes and mechanisms surrounding the hearth and the boiler behind and atop it, sat against one of the walls, furthest from the doors that led around and behind the whole contraption and into other service rooms, its large iron-barred front hatch seeming a dark maw of black metal in front of which some coal and dirt lay strewn about. The walls were clean and solid, the only other things in the place a cooled air intake and a hatch through which coal was to be taken for the furnace, and two benches. It was a pretty cozy place, Sebastian thought. He could imagine the smell once the furnace was burning. That would have to happen some other time though, beside this one. They couldn't spare time to watch the thing. Or rather, they didn't want to. Individual furnaces in the rooms would have to do.
   "Right. This will do perfectly," the chiropteran said, eyeing the ducts and pipes leading up into the castle through the ceiling. He moved to the centre of the floor and looked around him, and then made a sweeping motion with his hands, the floor cleaning off from beneath him and out as he did.

- -

Upstairs, Jeremiah suddenly became aware of motion at the corner of his eye. Though he couldn't turn much, bundled up as he was, the frog still tried and moved his head around to look at what it had been that had caught his attention. And he saw quite quickly, oddly enough. A spider, the spider, about the size of a large bundled fist, was lowering itself down from the roof and down onto the table before him. He knew, somehow, that it was the same one that had attatched to him earlier.
   The little arthropod's claws clacked just slightly as its outstretched legs touched the table and it released the string of web it had held, the silk somehow curling up and elastically bounding back up into the roof where it began dissolving, before it snuck over the table and then positioned itself before him. Then it held, and stopped still, regarding him with its eyeless gaze. It was tense, knowing that he might do something unpredictable, but he didn't seem terrified, and if it had made its point earlier...

[Boog]

While the intruder's thoughts were potent in their own right, they couldn't compel Jeremiah to let such a thing back onto his neck. He HATED being controlled. However, Plic had recently figured out a new trick.
Slowly, as if unused to having a voice, something spoke from within the frog. The voices of Plic, Cab, the Specter, and Nex. Three personae that believed the spider useful for their own goals.
"Until we find a better," They said, turning Jeremiah's head to the side to reveal his neck. Something else watched the spider from behind those eyes, studying.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel looked around at the furnace room. It was large, plenty of room for what they needed, and amazingly clean and neat. Whomever had been in charge of the mechanical systems of the buildings had loved his work. If the size and number of the pipes was any indication this system covered a majority of the castle. She peeped through the doors leading out of the room. The second one she investigated was the pump room so they had access to water. All they needed was to get started. She turned back to the center of the room and began working.

[Stygian]

The spider didn't respond immediately, but chittered something, and then crawled up Jeremiah's side, slipping into the scruff of his neck and then seating itself down just at the bottom of it at his back, connecting itself to him. The familiar presence and the spider's control took hold, and two more of the little creatures soon joined it in the frog's clothes. Now, he just had to go find the others and lay low, and stay warm. The only place that was going to do so was probably where they pulled off the actual spell. Sadly, he probably wouldn't have time to get the other spiders out there with him, but...

- -

Stygian had already gotten down to marking out the circle on the floor properly. The rough stone seemed to glow dimly from inside somehow as he wove trails of foggy symbols and geometric patterns through the air with his fingers. He knelt down and touched the lines chalked on the floor, and immediately a frosty layer of ice formed on them, which would act as conductor for the spell. Fog rolled a bit over the floor.
   "Right there. That's what I can do. Now, we need your power and feeling to activate it, and it should all work out on its own. I'll just guide if it needs to be done," he said, sitting down on the floor in one half of the circle and crossing his legs. He didn't expect she'd need much help. It was pretty follow-through, even if it was a multiple-stage spell.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel stepped carefully into her half of the circle, making sure that the full skirts of her borrowed dress didn't brush away any of the markings. The next bit was the easiest, calling up the frigid mists they needed. It was a like a child picking up a her favorite blanket, to wrap the comforting cold fog around herself then down into the circle. She felt the magic grab the ice and the spell come to life. She tried not to smile, but the idea of the castle full of ice made her think of home.

[Cogidubnus]

Blowing wind, and loose grass.

That, was what comprised the outskirts of the town. It was a stark contrast with the  feel of the Castle, that place of darkness and stone, the town was warm and bright, if a little sleepy. Cog had made his way there quite soon after leaving the library. The afternoon felt hot, and lazy, and Cog was glad have left that cursed place atop the hill. He had gotten Sebastian's point - the bat wanted to be left alone. So Cog would go, and that was that. It pained him greatly. He wasn't completely sure why.
In some ways, Cog could hardly believe himself. He wasn't the type to interfere with people, usually. He'd watch someone destroy themself before trying to interfere with them, unless he was asked otherwise. Their business was their business, and as he was now keenly aware, he did indeed have no right to tell them otherwise. So, why now?
His anger at Sebastian's words and actions was astounding, to him - anger, was a very foreign emotion to Cog. Rage, yes, but simply being angry was strange for him. It was a tribute that Sebastian had managed to get under his skin this much. People were people, Cog had usually thought, and he was content to usually ignore the bastards and enjoy the nice ones. Sebastian wasn't even a bastard. But, something about him, his accursed refusal to...
Cog growled in his throat and kicked a nearby can, the aluminum tube clattering into a brick wall. He harumphed and walked past it without a second thought, searching for somewhere to find a drink. He wasn't too worried about lodging. He did plan on returning to the castle, if only for a bed.
But he'd had to leave. That much had been made clear.

He walked through the town with an air of melancholy. It seemed to hover about him, practically advertising his bad mood – Cog somewhat hoped it would buy him find a little solitude, and the people of the town seemed well content to let him have it, excepting for a very few brave or overly curious ones. A few asked where he'd come from, or if he'd seen someone in the big castle on the hill. A few moments of silence from Cog, and a hard stare, however, would usually unnerve them to the point of leaving. For the really stubborn ones, a simple no sufficed to get his point across.
Finally, he'd found the place he was looking for. Perhaps not the nicest establishment he had ever seen, but it was dark inside, and it was mostly deserted. It took him only a few moments to find a drink and a table.

And left to himself, Cog wondered why exactly that damn bat bothered him so much.

[Stygian]

"Right then. Let's get this over with. The others will probably realize once the temperature starts dropping..." Stygian chuckled, and then slapped his hands together. Then he placed them on the circle on the floor, and closed his eyes. Immediately, the air and mist started whirling, and crystals of forming ice glinted in it.
   It was only the beginning of the ritual, and not really part of it, but the other people of the castle didn't seem to quick on the uptake, so...
   "We will begin freezing the castle now. Everyone who doesn't want to become a popsicle, please vacate the castle and come to the boiler room," the bat spoke out loud, and the wind carried his words along out through the castle by air ducts and corridors. Then, he looked up at Mel, as if to ask and ascertain that his little intervention hadn't caused any trouble with the spell.

- -

The town wasn't large, not by normal standards, but it was healthy and well-grown from many good years. Most people that lived in Arrien either worked not far off, as the place lay quite close to a railway station, despite the place's mountaineous location, or they worked in the town itself. The place was a prosperous-looking concentration of houses, most in mildly Neo-Gothic or near-Tudor style, around a main square with a statued fountain, a town hall and a manor a bit off into a park that spread off the outskirts to the south of the town. A not-so-large but tall church chimed its bells softly as the wolf paced against what was familiar near to the point of instinct to any adventurer; a tavern, three-storied and set to the side of the square.
   Inside, the tavern was as dimly lit, cozy and still as one might expect, and the wolf seemed to have no trouble fitting in among the few patrons. No one seemed to have gotten word that he had come down from the castle, or at least not yet, which was probably good. Some people had given him odd stares as he walked into town.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Hearing the Bat's call from the boiler room,  Bambi and Gina garther ups their coats and stuff and Bambi grabs some new picture books and leaving the other books behind as they head to the Grand Entrance Hall....

"Great, The boiler room... We don't know where the Boiler room is, but we can leave for a bit. If we can get the bat to help to us to locate it." thought PBH.

PBH

[Boog]

Jeremiah finished pulling up the collar of his coat over the spider and did as asked, immediatly forgetting his newfound hitchhikers. So much to be done...

Meanwhile, deep in Jeremiah's subconscious, the little spider jacked into his nervous system experienced something perculier. It was in Jeremiah's conscious mind, yes, and it also knew it was somewhere in the small of the frog's back. However, it also knew it was in a third place, replacing the thoughts it had left behind in Jeremiah's head.
It was seated at a table with four creatures. A green feathered gryphon (class B) whose overall manner was best described as twitchy sat with her front claws folded on the table, one talon tapping a tuneless tattoo on the tabletop. To her left sat an leonine angel, dressed and groomed to in every way resemble a king. To the left of the gryphon was an undead doberman woman, in every way the example of a well preserved and severe individual, barely touched by her condition save for her slightly sunken eyes and gaunt, angular appearance. She wore what looked to be whatever she had been buried in, equally untouched by time. The room was barely large enough for the table and chairs, its sole furniture, but one individual had chosen to stand. A fellow hidden by a cloak, playing with a little marionette of a frog and giggling to itself. Every so often, it would remove part of the marionette and replace it with another piece from somewhere within its cloak.
All three personae looked at the spider-mind in a manner best described as expectation.