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(Oooh, okay.)

Aethaerraent, having been told it was not wanted for the party, and deeply suspicious of this Helos character, remained just where it was and looked menacing. I will await your return, it informed the two girls, eying the bookshelf itself.

(Edited; sorry for the failure. I apparently was confused as well.)

Eirwyn followed the man down the stairs along with Mephorae. At first, it was very dark, and then quite bright. They entered a chamber with several openings around it, leading into tunnels. It was comfortably lit, and there was a long table covered in a luxurious table cloth, with fine silverware and crystal goblets set on top of it. Servants coming down a trap door to one side of the room were setting the table and filling the glasses. Already several other guests were sitting at the table, waiting, while others entered. It looked fairly normal so far, except for something at the far end of the room. It was a short piece of furniture made of stone, almost like an unusual hutch, and it had a pair of dark red candles sitting on it, evenly spaced from each other.

Eirwyn let down her defenses and directed her thoughts to the illithid as best as she could. She didn't really feel comfortable letting her guard down, but she figured as long as she was reporting information to it, it wouldn't be getting anything she wasn't comfortable sharing, nor would it look for anything other than what she was giving it. She sent the image of the strange stone thing at it, and then, briefly, the faces of the guests in case they might need to identify them later for whatever reason.

Helos moved to the servants and picked up two pitchers of wine, handing it to the women and beaming. "We're almost ready!"

(... At this point, let's not even bother to fix it.)

She was uncertain she could do this. But with a reassuring look from the Lich, she took the pitcher and went about serving some guests. She was careful not to be her clumsy self and sum up that buried part of her that was confident and agile. She moved through the people, trying to get a good look at them. Her eyesight was not its best in brightly lit faces but she tried to keep her expression pleasant. The strange stone "furniture" made her uncomfortable and caused her skin to prickle.

Helos' voice then thundered through the room to announce the beginning of the occasions.

As the bookshelf closed behind the two women, Aethaerraent performed a sharp turn in the air and glided smoothly to the nearest window. Spidery hands brushed around the window frame, and the chilly glass keeping the autumn wind out, checking for security devices magical or mundane that would prevent a quick escape through the window should there come a time when a hasty retreat was required.

As it worked, it spoke to Mephorae and Eirwyn from a distance, its 'voice' quieter with the stone floor providing a certain amount of dampening. And yet making its psionic speech quieter only served to make it more creepy, a wicked little whisper, less intrusive and more haunting.

Your new friend's mind is not of perfect soundness, it mused. But nor is he a complete fool. The truly insane - and the truly stupid - cannot hold on to wealth. They lose it in days or months. Yet this man is well established, has been here for some time living at his current standard of luxury. There is decadence, unnecessary excesses for the body but achievable within one's financial means, and then there is ruinous waste. It leads one to believe he would know the value a spell book. It is more than the cost of hiring two wine servers for an evening. In a city like this, he could likely hire a hundred servers for days, both beautiful and unusual, for the price a true book of spells could fetch.

This was by far the most chatty the flayer had ever been. Presumably satisfied that a chair through the window would create the desired exit point, it would return to the bookshelf behind which its companions had disappeared, select the first book off the shelf, and begin scanning through the pages. Though it was currently assisting in the hunt for a specific book, sooner or later it was going to have to return and read all of the books in this house. Might as well get an early start.

Flipping pages, the illithid finished its thought distractedly. If he does not already have a plan to destroy you so as to not need to go through with his ridiculous bargain, he has great motive to create one. I would keep my back against the wall as much as possible this evening, were I in your place.

Eirwyn listened at length to the illithid's information, trying not to look distracted as she moved about, pouring wine. A hand twitched in the direction of her behind and she gave its owner an icy cold look that stopped him dead. His hand quivered before finding its way to his lap. Good. The lich tuned back in to the illithid's whispering voice.

Very well, was her only response. She felt she could handle it.

The stone bench, or whatever it was, kept nagging at her. She wasn't quite sure what it was, but she felt as though she should know, and that it was important. She kept scanning the room while she could, taking in whatever might be helpful.

The debauchee took his place at the head of the table and called for silence. He began his speech. "It has been ten years now since we assembled for the first time," he said. "With each year our purpose has grown. We were once mere acquaintances- some of us even enemies- and now we are like family. No, not 'like'. We are family. Tonight, I hope everyone enjoys themselves. I guarantee it will be a night to remember. Now feast!"

He made his way over to Mephorae and Eirwyn. "You may eat too if you like," he said. "Just be sure to do so standing, so that you're at the ready to pour drinks."

Her already tinged cheeks turned pinker as she walked through the crowds, pouring drink where it was requested. She tried to be as polite as possible, giving a soft smile to these people who probably didn't trust most if not all of her people. She had to struggle a little to not look distracted as the illithid spoke to the back of her mind.

She had made her rounds and satisfied the people when Helos had begunto talk. She sought out a walk to lean against and almost melt to the shadows there. She politely declined the offer for food as she had already decided not to trust this man. instead, she was content to be forgotten to the background in order to observe the evening's proceedings.

Since Eirwyn was in the process of information sharing, Aethaerraent sought details from her. After all, it was going to be questing for many more books than this single tome, and it had its doubts the two women would want to help it comb the city for every written word to be found. Best get some hints while the getting was good. Are there others among this crowd who number among the book-owning nobility you spoke of earlier?

((Hope you guys had great Halloweens! ))

Eirwyn looked among the noblepeople as they ate. Only three of them she recognized- one of them was a dark skinned woman with long black hair, wearing a gauzy head scarf and a small circlet with a teardrop shaped jewel hanging in the center of her forehead.

That is Methilde, she 'said'. She is a great lover of poetry, so I expect most of the books in her possession to be poetry. Her eyes turned to a young man with hair a shade of orange somewhere between rust and carrots. Darron. He has no use for books, but he inherited his father's collection. He's looking to sell, but most of the books are written in a crude form of the city's language, so no one wants them. Finally, she came to a plump, older white woman with curly hair. Jila. She likes cheap romance novels. While Eirwyn's mental voice was androgynous, it did affect emotion, and there was a note of distaste in her voice at the mention of romance novels.

The lich was absorbed in this, so she didn't see other servants enter the room and begin to set things at the side of the room in preparation. There were candles in abundance, a big rolled up banner, a stack of books- enough for everyone in the room sans Eirwyn and Mephorae.

Her eyes went to the servants as the information was passed on between the lich and illithid. The people here seemed ordinary enough but the way everyone was speaking and the preparations made her increasingly uncomfortable. This almost looked like some kind of mass, what with the candles and matching books. She was no stranger to the darker rituals as she often worked with those who received these kinds of offerings, but to see people perform such a taboo thing?

She was getting ahead of herself. Mephorae cleared her thoughts and instead searched the room to take in these seemingly ordinary people and hopefully to glean their intentions.

Excellent. This information is most useful.

Cheap romance novels weren't exactly Aeth's cup of tea, but rules were rules. Everything needed to be read. Hopefully it could get through scanning at least one of these shorter ones before the two girls were sacrificed to some cthulu-like creature, as the Illithid now strongly suspected was about to happen.

Eirwyn finally spotted the servants and the items they had brought, and began to catch on. Meanwhile the noble people ate, until finally Helos stood again. "And now, we begin!" is all he said. The servants cleared away crystal and silverware from the table, before separating the table into sections and carrying it away. The lich could now see the large magic circle painted on the ground. She had to suppress a roll of the eyes.

And just as though they were following a script, calloused hands closed around the lich's upper arms as the servants accosted her and Mephorae.

Did you see this coming, too? she asked the illithid wryly. She took a moment to take stock of this situation- obviously Helos knew some magic, at least of the ritual sort, so he and his friends might be something worth reckoning with. Then again, people driven to form cults do so as a necessity because they were not powerful enough on their own. At any rate, she had a feeling Mephorae and she could take them.

Already uncomfortable in a crowded area, the teifling began to panic. She twisted in her captors grip and managed to sink her cat-like claws into the person's arm and pushed away for freedom. Her body slammed into another would-be captor. Panic rising, she trashed harder, hooves and horns brandished to get these people away from her.

She sought magic-users from the room; finding one who was sadly low-leveled she siophoned a spell from him. Her eyes now had an angry glow around them and she snarled at the man trying to bind her, releasing the spell. The man stood in a stupor before screaming in pain fo rhis hands were now burnt with acid.

Sensing the disruption in the basement, the illithid snapped shut the book it had been perusing, replacing it on the shelf like a good house guest. Drifting into the center of the room, the illithid extended its senses throughout the house, searching for other presences in the adjacent rooms; making certain no one was on the way to lay hands on its fragile frame.

As I said; The moment the offer was made I became deeply suspicious. How would you prefer I assist?

The servant yelped and jerked away from the teifling's claws, clutching her wound and pursing her lips. The other fell beneath her assault, being simultaneously gored and bruished by hooves and horns alike. "For gods' sakes," snapped one of the nobles, a rail thin, yellow skinned man, who leveled his hands at the tiefling and began to murmur the words of a spell. Jila went pale at the sight of the man's burned hands and darted for the exit.

Eirwyn could not help but grin. As violently as is possible for you, she answered. She raised her hands, feeling her voluminous sleeves slide past her wrists, and began to weave motions through the air with them. A telekinetic force swept across the room, making the air ripple. It picked up the table and drove it against the wall, trapping the three noblepeople Eirwyn had pointed out to the illithid.

The teifling spun at the noise, her tail taking the legs out from under a bystander. She looked to Eirwyn and back to the table-struck people. She felt another spell accumulate and turned to the caster. Before the thing was complete, Mephorae siphoned the energy to herself and tucked it away for later. She dealt with the user bodily, leaving the woman wishing she'd never left home.

She paced backward toward Eirwyn, keeping up her guard. Her eyes now glowed with a blue flame-like plume. Her lips peeled back in a snarl, she asked the lich, "What's the plan?"

The flayer waited, "watching" the fighting as it broke out below, using this time to gather up psychic distress from the air - fear, anger, pain - as someone gathers together fallen leaves into piles. The two women had already had a chance to get in a few punches and spells before Aethaerraent deemed the collection large enough, and sent it gusting back, turning worry and uncertainty into panic.

It was not terribly specific - likely enough that its two companions could be caught off guard by the sudden wind of terror - but also likely enough to make concentration difficult and casting that much harder for those mages in the room that had attempted to threaten them, and take away cleverness in favor of blind instincts. Most would freeze or flee in terror, but there were always those who lashed out when they felt they were backed into a corner...

At the top of the stairs, Aethaerraent waited for the first fleeing party goer to blunder into the flayer's waiting tentacles, cracking the skull with one swift movement to get to the soft grey meat inside. Those that had been following up the stairs turned and trampled one another to keep from running into the feeding Illithid.

The magic user hit the ground heavily, the air rushing from his lungs on impact. He lay there, trying to recover his breath, only to lose it once more when a fleeing cultist trampled him.

Eirwyn paused to take stock of the situation. No one seemed to be immediately about to attack them any longer, but Helos was nowhere to be seen. He was not likely to abandon his own home to them, especially when they were after something very valuable he might have in his collection. "Find Helos," she said. "Kill him, and anyone else who remains to stop us. The authorities will thank us once they see this little cult room."

It was then that the wave of terror hit. Eirwyn had not been expecting it, and so her wits were scattered to the four corners of the room. For a moment she felt an unwelcome return to her mortal days, but she took a forced breath and forced herself to calm and focus, as best as she was able. People were flying around the room erratically like frightened birds. This would not do. And still no Helos. He had not gone upstairs with the other, but seemed to have disappeared down one of the tunnels.

The rush of adrenaline was waning the terror caused the tiefling's throat to become dry. She swallowed many times and but her body would not relax from the guarded position. Aethaerrant's methods were telling her to run, get out and never come back. Her hooves were inclined to agree. She heard her companion speak to her through the fevered frenzy of her terrified thoughts. It almost calmed her enough to stay still.

She glanced to the lich and rocked her weight. "Would you like me to go find him?" She wasn't sure who else Eirwyn would be speaking to, as the other beings in the room were running for their lives. She couldn't remember seeing their host flee but she tried to get a hint of his scent. It was hard to do with so many people having been about.

She looked to Eirwyn fro guidance, or perhaps Aethaerraent would be of more service. She tried to reach out to the thing mentally.

((Glad to have you back, Eirwyn ))