Zoom 2024-01-30 21:00

... in which the party suffer from Dalek syndrome.
The party decide to continue up the East staircase, and are stymied by a 'trap' of Oil of Slipperyness on the stairs. We can't just cover it with a blanket - so Twoo flies over it to throw down a rope, but is promptly shot by the Giant archer who is waiting in ambush. So he flies back again very quickly. Then some 'normal' oil is poured down the stairs, so we scarper, though Garaf sets it alight in the hope that it inconveniences those above.
To carry on up, we need to go down to level 1 to then take the North staircase upwards - and come across a similarly oiled set of stairs. Having not read the Monster Manual, we don't know that wine/alcohol dissolves this oil (the implausibility of the idea revives many fallen cat-ladies), so instead we give a mop and bucket to an Unseen Servant and get it to clean away the oil with more conventional agents - ie soap/detergent.
We emerge onto the 5th floor into another library (this held tomes on sociology, religion, settlements etc rather than magic), and realising that we are sitting targets for the Giant archer, we use a sparkle bomb to protect ourselves. Joshua then moves silently through the smoke, but is gratuitously back-stabbed within it. So he scarpers. The fighters charge through the smoke - led by Bazin - and receive the full blast of a fireball. This also sets fire to the library - these Giants have no respect!
There are three opposing giants - the archer, the mage and a thief. Dougal gets to the thief quickly, and is immediately down on the floor writhing from a poisoned knife strike. However, Wun and RiffRaff manage to stick holds on the thief and the archer (who are summarily dispatched), but the mage gets away.
We recover a part-used vial of Oil of Slipperyness from the thief.