Conditioning works on dogs, and Argumentus is no exception. He searches the room for traps.

It seems that Finagill failed to equip his work area and study with any deadly traps at all! How sloppy.

Confident in his observation (premature, surely), Argumentus begins searching the room for items, and levers.

Motsognir steps lightly past the snake and into the library. He taps on the mirror, knowing the wizard's fondness for such things, then proceeds to look through Finagill's notes for any possible hints to this sword's whereabouts.

Oh my, it seemed as though we had stumbled upon a veritable treasure trove of arcane knowledge. I scanned the bookshelf hungrily, looking for anything that looked like it might have learnable spells written in it. I then looked over the artifacts on the workbench and desk, sensing for magical auras or any other signs of enchantment.

"Have a seat guys" I vaguely gestured to the others "I could be here a while".

The dwarf chuckled at the mage's comment. He knew well enough this was not a place for his kind. But he kept his shield readied and his axe on his shoulder as he strolled around the room, poking the mirror. Just to test.

Try as he might, Argumentus cannot locate even a single lever. He roots through the room in search of valuables, but most of the objects here are well beyond his capacity to appraise. He does find an intriguing ceramic sphere on the alchemist's bench; it's clearly labeled "DANGEROUS: DO NOT TOUCH" but such a weak attempt at theft prevention is no match for Argumentus' quick hands.

Motsognir fiddles with the mirror. He may think there is something to it, but in fact it is just an ordinary mirror. He rifles through the notes on Finagill's desk, but they are mostly absent-minded doodles of monsters both absurd and impractical: "dog that can teleport", "house that eats you", "mushroom that screams real loud". There is a thin book labeled "Contracts" but all but the first few pages are wine-stained and unreadable. Still, it seems that Finagill kept most of his finished contract work in "the vault". How helpful. All the rest of the papers are nothing but jargon and industry talk. It seems to Motosognir that he used to know a little more about wizardly matters, but all that time on the pommel horse must have jogged it right out of his head.

Bob finds himself in a would-be paradise of learning, but for all the information available very little of it is comprehensible to someone of his somewhat-modest talents. Still, a careful search does turn up a simple ritual book ("Wizard's Curtain") and a few component pouches (20 GP Alchemical Reagents).

Gabriel wanders about threatening inanimate objects again. It's good that he has a hobby.

Realizing she's been left behind, Brigid pulls a bunch of levers for no apparent in-character reason and hurries to catch up.

Gabriel (excitedly poking at the mirror with great fury) abruptly jams his hand through the now-functional portal, smacking his hand painfully into something on the other side.

I cackle in a very in-character manner at the half-missing skull-dwarf, and decide to poke at the stoney door in the east part of the workshop before we go to the next set of rooms.

The door leads to a tiny closet stacked with more tomes regarding ridiculously obscure matters.

The Uses of Alum in the Construction of Helms; and its Role in Repelling Mind-Control

Expedition To The Barrier Peaks

Bibor Fezwig and the Automated Confectionery System

1001 Uses for an Owlbear Pelt

The Halfwit's Guide to Enchantment Transference

How The Lich Hath Stolen The High Solstice Festival Away

Fezwig's Believe It Or Don't

Do Not Open This Book, There Is a Bomb Inside

Nanzi Drow and the Mystery of the Demonweb Pits

Horatio Halfwit was a research wizard of some note so I grabbed the book bearing his name, hoping to learn something helpful.

Cursing at the missing wizard who had left only the more complicated and obscure of his secret powers on display, I resigndedly turned to the sheaf of papers the dwarf was struggling with to see if I could make any more sense of them.

Gabriel felt the situation of jamming his finger into something painfully solid on the other side of a portal was worth some curse words.

So he used some.

And then he glanced over his shoulder and called out to the crack squad of know-nothings he chummed around with. "The mirror is a door again."

He hated wizard houses. They made explaining things very difficult. He took a chance and stuck his face through the mirror, if there was nothing immediately waiting to leap out and cut his head off, he'd step through to see what was on the other side.

if there -was- something waiting to cut his head off on the other side, he'd try and cut its head off first. For something to do.

Fezwig's Believe It or Don't was a sure source of medical curiosities. And medical curiosities meant diagrams that Argumentus could look at.

Argumentus takes Fezwig's Believe It or Don't

Argumentus also moves behind the dwarf while he peeks into the new mirror room.

Bob and Argumentus both pick up some intriguing volumes for later reading.

Gabriel jams his head through the mirror, coming within scant inches of smashing his face directly into a shelf. The little shelf is the only feature of the tiny room on the other side of the portal: it contains three little potion bottles, an iron strongbox, and (on the top shelf) a silver broadsword.

Argumentus attempts to appraise the potions as far as he is able, and checks the lockbox and sword for any traps.

Argumentus searches but doesn't see anything obviously amiss with the sword or the strongbox.

The potions, conveniently, are all clearly labeled: Two potions of healing and a potion of mimicry.

Argumentus pockets one of the potions of healing before attempting to open the strongbox. The hard way :cool:

The dwarf grabbed the healing potion and the potion of mimicry. Remembering a cleric friend of his ranting about this, he figured it was fairly useless for him to have and as he kicked the shelf until the broadsword fell into his hands, examining it to see if it had the markings the Paladin had described, he held the potion out of the mirror, calling out:

"Anyone want a potion what lets you look like someone else?"

He was a Paladin of Kord. Deception was never a weapon he found especially useful. The weak would quake before the might of his god, and the strong were meant to be slain, not tricked. No. Mimicry was not for him.

Take healing potion.
Take sword. Examine to make sure it's the -right- sword.
Offer potion of mimicry to first person who takes it.

Argumentus smashes the hell out of the little iron box containing a dead old man's remaining savings (after pilfering his medicine). The box contains 150 GP and a sizable amethyst.

After swiping a potion for himself, Gabriel examines the sword. It appears to be exactly as Lord Broden described it. A fine-looking weapon, surely.

http://www.saxypunch.com/missile/crusader.png

I took the potion from the dwarf, thinking that a healing potion would have been infinitely more useful. It appeared as though we had found the sword we were looking for although this all seemed rather too easy (Which, I reminded myself was why we took this mission on in the first place). Not that I didn't trust the two warriors but I peeked through the mirror myself to see if there were any secret compartments or switches or anything in the small room. I also looked at the back of the mirror, in case there was anything interesting there.

The Paladin hmmed to himself. As a dwarf he was immediately drawn to gems. He snatched up the amethyst and 15 gold for himself before he almost wandered into the mage's face coming through the mirror.

He brushed him aside and stepped through.

"Found the blade. Damned fine looking thing. I can see why he'd want it back."

He paused for a second as he holstered his axe and slung the hammer over his shoulder.

"There's some gold in there, too. So there's that going for us."

Bob examines the vault behind the mirror suspiciously, checking every nook and cranny of the tiny room for levers or buttons or switches or trap doors. Finding nothing, he resignedly checks the back of the mirror itself for clues. A mysterious inscription is revealed!

"Mfd. 1455 Elegant Reflections
Product of Luskan"

WHAT COULD IT MEAN?

It seemed then, that our work here was done. I looked around for a bag or soemthing I could make a bag out of in order to carry away as much of the wizard's knowledge as possible. Although I understood little of it now, who was to say that in the future, as my powers increased some of it might not start making sense. I also helped myself to 30 gold pieces, a man has to eat now and then after all. With a sack of books and scrolls over my shoulder, I headed back to the room with the levers, not wanting to step back through the first mirror without my pals, just in case the house had been occupied by an army or orcs while we were in the basement or something.