Thursday, 5 December 2019

Diversity Hires, part 10: Library Truce

We left our heroes fighting a particularly disgusting wizard...

Gildiril continued to stare blankly into space. Burlok concentrated on taking out Yan's henchmen. Armando fired at the vampire, but did nothing useful. Frida threw rocks ineffectually. And then Mormacar rejoined us, and things got weird...

Yan, apparently not wanting to fight a vampire any more than we did, vanished from sight. Mormacar also vanished, although in a more prosaic manner, by being blasted out of the window in a manner that would definitely have killed him had he not had the fortune to land in a tree. Yan reappeared, tripping over the edge of the curtain that he'd teleported behind, where Burlok gave him a good thumping and Frida deployed an unusually vigorous rock, leaving him on the point of death, at which point he decided to leave properly.

The vampire turned out to be slightly more reasonable about things than Yan. With the team of dodgy witch hunters approaching, a temporary truce was called. With the special books room now open (without party intervention, as for some reason we really wanted plausible deniability), she began searching for the book, along with Burlok, although his inability to read made him less than useful. Frida followed them in and found it immediately, unfortunately lacking the skills to keep this in any way a secret.

The team left, via the window. The vampire carried Frida to help break her fall. Gildiril had his happy reverie broken, and Mormacar was retrieved from the tree, now with a white streak in his hair, which Frida immediately offered to dye the colour of his choice.

We wanted to go somewhere out of the way to examine the book without interruption from witch hunters. The book shop cellar that we'd previously visited seemed like a good choice, but the moment sewers were mentioned the vampire refused, and given that she was carrying both Frida and the book it didn't seem like a good time to argue. We went to the pub instead, with Frida restyling the vampire's hair along the way.

After a few beers, we read the book. We learned that the house where we should look for the necklace was on Shoenstrasse in Ruhrhoff. We also learned that the necklace apparently didn't do what it was supposed to do, being prone to turning the subject into an enraged murder beast instead of making them love you - or at least, that's what happened when Ansel had tried it.

We made some notes to ensure we didn't forget anything important, and the vampire left with the original, much to the disappointment of Frida who'd grown quite attached in the brief time they'd spent together.

The fastest way to get to Ruhrhoff was by boat, and Frida reckoned that if vampires couldn't cross running water they might not do too well with boats, so we could potentially get a head start. We booked passage on a boat, and did some shopping in Altdorf while we still had the chance. Some of the group bought some nicer clothes. Burlok and Mormacar hired an entertainer to keep them occupied during the voyage. Frida bought a disguise kit, four pigeons and some pink hair dye.

Can the party survive all being on the same boat for so long? Will they make it to Ruhrhoff before the vampires? How fashionable will Mormacar look with a pink streak in his hair? Has Frida found love in dubious vampiric form? Find out in next week's thrilling episode of Diversity Hires!

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