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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mikeawmids1" data-source="post: 9510060" data-attributes="member: 7030604">The Library Job - Part 2The City Watch activate a ring of alchemical spotlights, illuminating the Spire. Shayloth tears open the maintenace hatch in the copper dome atop the tower, reavealing the clockwork gubbinz of the lift mechanism. Doctor Sin jams a metal pipe into the works, preventing the elevator car moving between floors.A claustrophobic vent grants the crew access to the Forbidden Stacks. A circle of seven hooded figures stand around a chalk pentagram, chanting doomfully. The lead cultist clutches a leather-bound tome that sod's law dictates must be the Tormented Compendium. A writhing shadow, smoky and half-formed flickers in and out of vision in the space above the summoning circle.Shayloth frisbees a duckarang across the library, winging the lead cultist. Her hood falls back, revealing the age-weathered features of a furious older woman with one fiery orange eye. It is Melliflua Trioditis, head librarian of the Spire - and deranged devotee of the Cult of a Thousand Eyes! Shaken, she drops the book. Doctor Sin lobs an alchemical bomb into the mix, incapacitating three cultists. Old Man Jenkins drops down into the centre of the pentagram, sweeping his pitchfork at the remaining figures. Sensing a malevolent presence nearby, Jenkins turns to see a huge, lidless eye wreathed in a mane of adumbral tentacles glaring down at him. Jenkins lunges for the book, snatching it up off the floor - just as the entity snares his ankle. Jenkins throws the book to Doctor Sin, moments before the shadowy tentacle reels him in.Melliflua casts a bolt of eldritch fire at Doctor Sin and reclaims the book. She rushes for the elevator, but the mechanism is still stuck, and she cannot call the platform.Jenkins is grappled by the entity; it begins siphoning his intelligence (permanently reducing his Smarts by one die type). Shayloth moves to aid the flailing farmer, but feels his sanity fracture as he gazes upon the Knowledge Eater. Shayloth is Stunned.Melliflua slides the elevator door open, contemplating the ten storey drop down the lift shaft. Doctor Sin staggers up to her, and reaches for the book. Wild-eyed and manic, the two snarling scholars wrestle over the contested tome. With a firm shove, Doctor Sin pushes the head librarian backwards into empty space. With an anguished wail, Melliflua plummets down the shaft - until the roof of the stationary elevator car simultaneously breaks both her fall and her spine.Tucking the Tormented Compendium into his coat, Doctor Sin begins carefully descending the lift shaft. Another convenient vent gets him onto the noble floors. A squad of watchmen emerge from a secret door indistinguishable from the surrounding bookshelves. Doctor Sin slips by them and finds a steep staircase hidden within the walls of the tower. He starts heading down, and is able to blag his way passed the guards on the ground floor by masquerading as a guild engineer.Meanwhile, Shayloth (finally) recovers his wits and prostrates himself before the Knowledge Eater, pleading with the formless entity to spare his friend. Old Man Jenkins struggles feebly in the creature's crushing embrace. In a moment of genius (thankyou Alex), Shayloth grabs his duck-camera (patent-pending) and snaps a quick picture of the entity. The bright flash pains the Knowledge Eater; it drops Jenkins and retreats further into the shadows. Shayloth picks up the slack-jawed geriatric and exits through a window, glass shattering around them both, as the infamous Dark Duck spreads his wings and glides away from the tower.The crew later reconvene at their headquarters, having successfully completed the Library Job! Sure, they left a shapeless horror roaming the Forbidden Stacks, and dropped a high ranking church official down a lift shaft - but you can't break an egg without making a few omlettes.Unfortunately, any celebrations are short-lived, as the Crew soon learn the hijacked balloon was shot down over the noble district, and Sean has been apprehended by the City Watch! He is being held in the 14th District Precinct House until his imminent transfer to the Castle (max security prison), from where their will be no escape. TBC</blockquote>

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