3B - One flew over the cuckoo hut

"You look very pretty with your little crown. Can we PLEASE get out of here now?"

"all right. So any ideas on where to go from here? What were you looking for when you came here in the first place?"

Sun turns to the goblin maid. "Hey there, you happen to know what happens when we open a jar? Would that let our friend here out?"

The goblin says, "You make Baba Yaga VERY mad is what happens. Then YOU end up in one of those jars! So yeah, it will get him out, but is it worth making her angry?"

The heads are all going crazy, and the chaos is overwhelming and it is hard to really understand what any of them are saying. ((Everyone who is not in a jar give me a perception+intuition check))

(ooc: on phone today. Please roll for meh)

(ooc: yep, my good perception is in the astral. Scenario like this where I can't really do magic stuff makes it kind of difficult for me)

"Open the jar or at least carry it out of here. Whatever! Let's just get out of this room before she comes back!"

Carefully putting the Medusa head down, he realiz es nobody actually got turned to stone before he put his jacket over the jar, so he quickly puts it back on and opens Sam's jar, then quickly moves to the frog to release him as well.

"Should we find Sam's body before opening jars?"

(ooc: Ok.  Had to read all the way back to page 6 to figure out why Sam even came in here.  Out of curiosity, do we still have the flying broom?)



"Ok, so we have her hidden 'treasure', and now Sun is a Pretty Dwarven Princess.  Lets get out of here, preferably into the Library where I hope to find a damn map."

WuJen begins opening a door until he sees all the available options or the Library.

((@Wujen - No one has said you can't use magic. It is just hard to see on the astral plane. As far as you know, there is nothing wrong with your other abilities (albeit you would need to test them to be sure). As for the broom, Sam is the last one to have it.))

When Sam's jar is opened, Sam suddenly appears in front of the jar, apparently unscathed and body intact. When the frog's jar is opened, the frog hops out and makes his way up to perch on Sun's shoulder like Pikachu. He apparently has a pet now.

Wujen opens and closes the door and it does in fact eventually open into a library. The surprisingly well cared for room is filled with books. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of books line shelves throughout the room. Some of them are very old while some seem to have been recently bound. A large wooden table sits in the center of the room with a single wooden chair placed near it. The table has a handful of books stacked upon it, apparently recently used by the last researcher to visit.

A tiny winged creature with a long barbed tail, a sort of schoolmarm dress, and thin, metal-framed glasses flutters about the room, its long hair tied up in a no nonsense bun.

Ichigo sighs in relief.."whhhhhoooooo sam it's great to have you back! Plz let's not have something like thus happen again ok guy!"

Sam says, "I don't want to get stuck in a jar again either, so lets make sure that doesn't happen. We need a map and a necklace to get out, right? Maybe we ask this lady if she's seen either of those things?"

The frog on Sun's arm croaks and the tiny winged schoolmarm angrily flies over to Sam, Ichigo, and
the frog and shushes them. "Quiet in the library!" she hisses in some foreign language that you apparently are able to understand. "Do not make noise in the library!"

"Excuse me, Ma'am.  I was hoping to find a map to the house in the library, can you help me?"

The tiny winged schoolmarm buzzes up to Wujen, goes, "SHHHHHHHHHH!" and whispers, "You have to whisper in the library!"

WuJen whispers "My apologies. Can you help me find a map of the house? Any documentation on it's design would also be appreciated."

The tiny schoolmarm nods and whispers, "That's better. Yes, there is a map. I can find it for you, if you wish. Is there anything else you wish me to look up?"

Whispering "I would be most grateful for the map, thank you. I'm really not sure what else I will need, I understand an emerald necklace is also important, though unavailable at this time. If you have any materials on that subject, especially a spare or indications of a substitute I would like that as well."

The tiny, winged schoolmarm whispers, "Ah, the necklace. The good news is I know well about that. Tragic romances are my favorite type of reading material, you know. I've read that one countless times.  The bad news is there is no other necklace. I've no other pressing business, so let me try and tell you the story of that necklace and Baba Yaga, for they are deeply entwined.

"Baba Yaga was once a pretty young girl, believe it or not. In her youth, she met a promising young elven wizard who was in a little war with some other elves. Politics weren't really her thing of course, but she did have a fondness for this wizard. She liked to live in woods as she does now and she still lived in this strange, dancing hut, although it was much smaller on the inside back then. The wizard would visit her her and they would pass the night away discussing magic, how best to kill his elven enemies, and other things best left undiscussed in polite company. They were good times. But, like all good things, that came to an end. The young elven wizard was sealed away forever by those nasty elves he was warring against.

"Before his last battle, he came to Baba Yaga and gave her a beautiful necklace. The chain was delicately handcrafted from mythril with a large emerald hanging from it. The emerald was cut in such a perfect manner that it seemed, in the right light, that an elven skull glowed from within. It was grim, but a work of art no less. 'Keep this forever safe and so shall my love for you last,' he said as he handed the necklace to the young witch.

"Baba Yaga happily took the necklace and slipped it over her neck, vowing never to remove it. She was overjoyed to have found a love that would last eternity. But unfortunately for the young witch, the young elf never returned. Days passed. Then weeks. Then months, and years. Decades, even centuries passed. Eventually time lost all meaning for the witch.

"Loneliness does terrible things to the best of us, and Baba Yaga was never the best of us. Some say that she went mad waiting for her love to return and that is why she goes about terrorizing people that sneak in her home. Others say that her apparent madness is only a ruse and she plans to get back at the elves who had stolen her love away from her.

"What I think actually happened is a bit sadder. You see, I believe the wizard eventually escaped his prison. You would think that after his vow that he would return to her as soon as he could, but he never did. The magic that was used to seal him away should have decayed to nothing at least a couple thousand years ago by my reckoning. Yet, never once in all that time did he visit. He is the only person in the universe, other than Baba Yaga herself of course, that is freely allowed to come and go in this place and every one of her servants have orders to bring him to her immediately should he ever return.

"Now think on this: Baba Yaga kept that necklace on her all this time as a declaration of her love for that wizard and it got stolen. Now, there's no real reason why that necklace should have allowed the thief to leave. In fact, it's incredibly strange that the thief was ever allowed to live after stealing from such a powerful witch. The only person who can let anyone in or out of this hut is Baba Yaga, and suddenly a thief steals her most valuable possession and is allowed to leave. Does that not sound strange to you? Don't tell her that I said this, but if you ask me, I think she was relieved to have that necklace stolen. It has been nothing but a weight around her neck for longer than she can remember; a constant reminder that the love of her life not only would never return, but couldn't be bothered to even let her know that he never intended on keeping his side of the promise. So when the thief took it, she let her go. Sure, she cooked up some story about the necklace having the power to get you out of here, but that's all it was: a story. The thief never knew that she just happened to catch Baba Yaga in a generous mood. If you lot plan on getting out of here alive, you'd better take that lesson to heart. This place is full of people who weren't smart enough to just leave her alone to her misery.

"But anyway, you mentioned a map, right? Let me get right back with that."

She then flies off and flips through some books, then returns with a weird diagram with a tangled web of rooms and connections showing all the different ways the rooms within the hut connect up, though with no explanation of the symbols used. If this is a map, it was created by someone with no concern for ease of understanding, but at least it is better than wandering around blind. "This is it," she whispers, "It's a mess, but you should be able to find your way around in here with it."