Hunting the Gryphon

[Nikolai Gruskov]

Nikolai arrived at his truck where his dog yapped, happy to see him. Smiling, he looked back at the library, surprised to see Bless running out to meet him. As the shapeshifter went back inside, Nikolai knew something was up. He listened as she told him about his mistake. дерьмо! (Shit!) he thought. What a way to start, by angering the demon. He had thought her knowledge lay in her head, and not underneath the library. He made a note to apologize to her about it.

“Thank you, for revealing my mistake. However, before we go, I will need to grab a few things.” and with that he grabbed a bowl, filling it with dog food he brought for his dog, Batyr, for the long trip to Greece. After giving both food and water to his dog, he grabbed his pistol, knife and flashlight, concealing them under his clothing so as not to arouse suspicion or fear from any of the patrons at the library.
As he returned to the library, many people started to leave the library. “Good.” he murmured aloud. He need not worry about concealing the identity of the Others to normal people.
Relieved, he followed bless back into the library. They came upon the rest of the group, listening to the demon. This had all fit together nicely, he thought. One moment needing a team to hunt the Gryphon, the next almost having to turn members away. Smiling, he listened in to what Rennia had to say.

[Rennia Trayvold]

The demoness merely chuckled before shaking her head. The group was a little disorganized, but it was still workable. Or at least she hoped it was. She gave Bless the directions to the basement below and to the far corner where they'd be assembling before turning her attention onto Raeia.

"I don't like being spied on, intentional or not. Too many people of late have been trying to do that, and one of them threatened me. So he'll have to excuse me if I'm not appreciative of being looked over. As for if I'm a regular?" Rennia paused to look around the library. "I used to frequent the old library that was here before this one, several hundred years ago..." She gave a light chuckle as she remembered those days. "Been to this one more than a few times as well.... There are a lot of stories here."

Rennia looked over towards Cag at his outburst and scowled slightly. She didn't much care for him threatening them like that, it drew even more attention than they had already. And he might be able to completely change his appearance, but it put her into a position where she had to be a bit more careful bout how she went around, and she didn't much like that. As little a problem as the common human posed to her, when word spread, problems arose. She shook her head and muttered softly to Raeia. "What an idiot."

When Cag finally made his way over, she gave him another gaze over before wandering off wordlessly to the far side of the library to where the entrance to the basement was. She reached into her pocket along the way and pulled out a key ring with quite the number of assorted keys. Some of them looked quite old, others looked newer. Some were even electronic keys. Rennia approached the door to the basement looking this way and that before she raised a key like she was unlocking the door, but instead she gave it a small tap and the door unlocked.

The demoness then opened it and motioned the two inside before she slid the door closed but didn't latch it. She wasn't much bothered by anyone who'd try to follow, their trip would end up being rather rather short anyway. She proceeded further into the basement, leaving the other two to follow at their leisure, and letting Bess and Nikolai to catch up when they did. Eventually she lead the group to what appeared to be a dead end. There she waited for the last two to finally catch up.

Once everyone was assembled, the demoness tuned towards the far wall and stepped up to the book case that had been placed there. One might have expected her to pull a book and a secret door would swing out, but no. She pulled a rather thick book out and reached behind the bookshelf and pushed something behind it. At the same time she used her spell from earlier and a loud series of clicks and thunks were heard before the wall began swinging outward. When the door came to a stop Rennia motioned them in. "Door won't stay open long. quick quick." Once everyone was through she waited a few seconds until the door latched shut.

Then they were thrust into utter darkness. Not that she couldn't see, but Rennia guessed that at least one or two of them couldn't, so she grabbed something from her belt and smacked it onto the wall. Suddenly light filled the area as a flare burst to life in her hand. She proceeded down the hallway before them motioning one of the dormant torches hanging on the walls. "Grab one if you need light. I'm sure the flare will be enough to light them."

The hallway took a downward spiral, almost in the fashion of a spiral staircase, but without the stairs. When it flattened out they were presented with quite the maze of hallways, each of them lined with bookshelves full of old tomes that were in surprisingly great shape despite the dust and cobwebs that covered them. Rennia proceeded through this maze of hallways until finally they reached a large open room, which her flare barely lit up. The woman suddenly gave an underhanded toss of that flare, launching it into a low arc towards the center of the room. The flare briefly lit up what appeared to be a large bowl before it went dim for a moment as it passed over the walls.

Suddenly, as the flare landed in the bowl, the bowl erupted into a huge fountain of flames, lighting up the majority of the room. Before them was a large room, filled with bookshelf after bookshelf after bookshelf. The room had to contain tens of thousands of books if not hundreds. Near the center of the room were multiple tables, each with their own stacks of books upon them. Finally the demoness turned around and motioned the large room.

"I'm sure you can find whatever you need on the gryphon in here. Probably vampyres too. As well as anything else that existed in the old world, and maybe even the modern world too. Welcome to probably the oldest library in existence in the world."

[Bless Tuttle]

When everyone had settled down, Rennia started to talk. Bless listened in, placing the book back on the shelf. When they were motioned she hurried through, not wanting to get left behind. Once blackness surrounded them a natural need to widen her eyes as her eyes dilated in attempt to see in the darkness. She stepped back slowly her hands reaching out to place a hand hold on anything solid. Suddenly a bright light flared making Bless wince back and shield her eyes with her hands. Once the initial light burst faded she dropped her hands looking about. She took a torch when advised to, slideing the tip to the flare, the fabric around the tip lit starting the torch. She used the light as she walked, to not trip over anything as they made their decent. Once they made it to the large room. Books were everywhere. Amazement filled her eyes as she turned looking at all the books. Moving toward a shelf she ran her fingers down the spine of a book, dust transferring to her fingers. She turned to look at everyone else.
"Maybe we should each take a section, see what we can find...unless there is a card catalog"