Headmaster Grimsly

==Loot==
==Lore==
Enter battle:
The hideous creatures bombard you with their questions, which range in nature from the thoughtfully intellectual to the ludicrously absurd. The demands for information which rain upon you like volleys of arrows provide ample proof that these beings are familiar with the work -- its contents perhaps relayed to them via the same eldritch means which Headmaster Grimsly used to scour it without so much as turning a page.
"What happens if you hurl an ogre from a high building?" one shouts.
"It makes a mess," you reply. "I can assure you of that."
"What happens if you eat a troll?" another cries.
"If it's a small piece, the acid in your stomach will prevent its regeneration. If it's a large piece... Well, a little later a troll will be standing where you were -- with your remains splattered over his hide."
That you already knew the answer to that particular query both impresses and disturbs you.
At last the bombardment ends, and the headmaster raises a finger heavenward.
"Lucian has satisfied this gathering of the intelligentsia!" he proclaims. "I declare his thesis to be successful, and confer upon him the official rank of scholar!"
The din of applauding hands fills the round chamber, almost muffling the opening and closing of the doors behind you.
A diminutive boy in a page's uniform scurries past you, passes a slip of paper to Headmaster Grimsly, and then scurries away once more. A powerful sense of misgiving fills your breast as the headmaster unfolds it, and looks upon its ink-inscribed innards.
He stares at you once more, and the glint in his eyes does nothing to quell your sense of unease. Nor does the imperatorial sweep of his gnarled hand which he employs to quieten the room.
"I have received a note from Form Master Gulch! The missive was sent from the infirmary, where that valued and respected member of our scholastic community is recovering from severe injuries inflicted upon his person by none other than the boy who now stands before us!"
Gasps of outrage percolate throughout the chamber, and each visage takes on a look of scandalized disapproval, discontent, dismay, and countless other states of being which one might equally describe with words prefigured by the same initial syllable.
"In this note," the headmaster intones, "Gulch demands that, if there is yet time, Lucian's thesis be disqualified from consideration."
The interior of your gastronomic organ churns and bubbles, as though it intends to rupture.
"Alas, I cannot accede to his request. For I have already passed judgment on that matter."
You smile. The regulations you digested in your study were quite clear on this subject, though until the present moment you weren't precisely sure if you could successfully pull off your intended coup. Short of slaying your form master, the discovery of plagiarism, or a failure to pay your school fees, nothing should suffice to countermand the proclamation he's made. And if your hypothesis is proven to be well-founded, you should be able to leave this realm very shortly.
Yet you cannot help but notice, and be perturbed by, the fact that the world around you isn't disintegrating as the treasure-filled dungeon chamber did upon the demise of the scorpion-man.
"If, as has transpired, the note reaches me too late for this to be done," Grimsly continues, "Gulch asks that I instead subject Lucian to a gruesome and agonizing death. And this latter entreaty, I am delighted to say, I can indeed carry out."
The same eldritch aura coats the headmaster's monocle once again, and this time you suspect he intends to harness that sorcerous power for something far less intellectual and benign than the perusal of academic literature.
A sigh escapes your long-suffering lips. Yet you aren't without resources to draw upon, for you had anticipated that something of this nature might occur.
You clutch hold of the voluminous material of your dark blue gown, yank it aside, and withdraw the bat you'd previously concealed beneath it. The sporting tool will have to be conscripted into martial service once more, it appears, and deliver brutality in your hands.
Victory:
The bat swings upwards in a parabolic arc, an ascending vertical blow that catches Grimsly between his legs.
Whatever form of creature he might be, whether cast in the image of a human or a demon, the cry he emits seems to indicate that he at least possesses testicles -- those useful and necessary articles which at this present point in time the headmaster perhaps feels he might have been better off without.
The arcing sweep of the bat, combined with his own pain-stricken leap, launches him into the air. The momentum carries him rather high before dissipating. At that point gravitation takes hold, and exercises the power much lauded and studied by men and women of a scientific persuasion. That invisible force seizes him in its inexorable grasp, and he plummets towards the center of the world. But he doesn't reach the center of the world, for the surface of the world -- in this case represented by the chamber's rather solid and unforgiving floor -- breaks his fall. And judging by his groans, it has also broken Headmaster Grimsly.
There's a cacophonous babble from the beings seated in the semicircular rows above you. But they remain where they are, apparently content with giving Grimsly verbal support and encouragement in lieu of much needed physical assistance. Thus you ignore them, and focus your attention on the supine headmaster. More particularly, the attention of your bat.
Hard wood, fashioned for long hours of healthy athletic activity, makes short work of features and skull. A flurry of clubbing blows leaves his considerable brains decorating the floor in a not altogether unpleasing shade of grey, pink, and red.
It's then that the world begins to swim. Distortions ripple across reality, or at least this simulacrum of reality, melting the world fashioned in accordance with the scholar's thoughts. The walls, and floor, and ceiling, and strange beings drift away into a raw mass of eldritch matter.
A moment later you're being swept along on psychedelic tides once again, tossed about amidst incoherent tapestries of glorious brightness. This time you're ready for it.
The moment a portal appears within reach, you hurl yourself towards it -- launching your body with a movement born more of will than sinew.