205: Dew Skidoo, We Can Too!

## Summary

The party finally open Dew's book with Gwen's help, revealing an illustration depicting caged prisoners, including Dew's missing gnomish kin. Dew somehow transports himself into the picture itself to free the captives, before vanishing. After a good deal of soul-searching (and arguing) the group are forced to turn their attention to their imminent date with Ricardo Ulysses and finalise their plan.

## Synopsis

The party (minus Will) are in Gwen's apartment and have just unlocked Dew's mysterious gnomish book, when there's a knock at the door. Gwen opens the door and it's Will, still in disguise as Bernard. She let's him in after he explains it's him, but not before Will tries to convince her that he's here to collect her rent. Dew tells Will to keep quiet as they're about to open the book and this is extremely important to him. He puts his finger into the book where the piece of grabby triangle is and opens it. The screaming gets a bit louder as he does so, but nothing happens. Dew is stock still and utterly transfixed by what he's seen. He says *"Look..."* and the rest of the group peer in.

The left-hand page is blank, but the right-hand page contains a full-page illustration so realistic and vivid that it appears real. There is no text. The illustration depicts an outdoor scene showing many cages stacked on top of each other amid undergrowth. Imprisoned in the cages are a variety of different people, who's faces are all depicted in agony or fear. A large number of the cages are filled with gnomes (though Gwen doesn't recognize them as such because she's never seen them before). Will recognises one of the caged people as Vera, and Batthwack notices that pictured in the back of another cage, mounted like a hunting trophy, is the severed head of the goblin Thrunch Bouldergut. Dew says the gnomes in the cages are his people, his family. He tries, but can't turn the pages of the book. Will looks more closely at the picture of Vera and can see she looks scared. Dew points to the undergrowth shown in the corners of the image and says *"That's grabby triangle!"* He peels off the piece of grabby triangle that was marking the page, holds it up to his mouth and starts whispering something incomprehensible before holding it up to his ear. He nods and then he reaches out with the leaf towards the thicket of grabby triangle, as if he's trying to put it into the picture. As he does so, both Dew and the leaf start to shrink.

The book falls to the floor as it becomes apparent that Dew is now *inside* the image. Not only that, but the image is now moving. Dew can be seen placing the leaf into the thicket and the people in the cages are shaking the bars, yelling or crying, huddled in the corners. It's now apparent that the screaming heard earlier was the sound of these caged prisoners. Dew stands up and looks around at something (or things) out of view to the rest of the party. He pulls out his bow and fires a dozen arrows in different directions. He then begins opening the cages.

Gwen casts *Detect Magic* and determines that the book's magical properties belong to all schools of magic, something which she'd also encountered with Ricardo Ulysses's paper airplane. From this she draws the conclusion that both were made using the magic paper made by Crumplemeyer. Batthwack kneels in front of the book and shouts Dew's name, but he doesn't respond and only continues rushing around opening the cages.

Will is more focused on Vera. He reaches down and touches the page where she is, and casts *Major Image* to try to create a sword for her. Raphina, despite the fact she no longer has the ability to sense Will's emotions, can still read him better than most and is able to tell that he is very upset but doing his best to hide it. Will's spell creates a large claymore-style sword at Vera's feet, who looks shocked, but picks it up.

Raphina approaches the book and presses Dew's waterfall locket to it (the one he fashioned out of his money). Dew appears to address the freed prisoners, fires two more arrows and runs towards the left of the picture and gestures to everybody else to follow him. They all disappear out of the frame. Before Dew goes out of view he slows down and straightens up as if sensing something. He looks up at the sky and nods, before rushing out of view. Everyone in the room, except Raphina, feels a warmth within them. After a second, the page detaches itself from the the spine of the book, the front cover slams shut and the lock latches closed again. The separated page is blown out and floats gently down to the floor. Will grabs it, but can see that it now only shows a still picture of empty cages.

Gwen grabs the book, noticing that the gnomish symbols on the lock have changed, in fact they don't appear to be gnomish at all anymore. She says they're going to take it to Crumplemeyer to see what he can tell them about it. Will asks to see it, but Gwen doesn't want to hand it over, accusing Will of being light-fingered. She does give it to him briefly though. Batthwack suggests that if this book is made with Crumplemeyer paper, then having more of it might allow them to achieve some of the same power this book has, and potentially let them travel long distances. Will says he's all for getting some magic paper, but he'd rather not *"fly into book world"* and take the risk of getting trapped there. The party wonder if what they saw was a real place or not and Batthwack says if they can find this place, then maybe they can figure out what's going on. He's convinced it's a real place because he saw Thrunch's head and Will quizzes Batthwack about the goblin, asking if he killed him. Batthwack answers *"No, I did* not *kill him."* He thinks the place they saw was Gully's End because that was the last place he saw Thrunch. Will disagrees and reluctantly tells everyone that it's because he saw someone he knows in the picture who wouldn't have been in Gully's End, though he won't say who. Will quickly directs the suspicion towards Gwen, saying it's strange that this book turned up just before she did, she was able to open it, didn't want him to touch it and now she has both books.

Will looks at Hilula, who appears paler than usual and shocked. Raphina tells everyone to calm down because they have much to do and Gwen agrees, suggesting they direct their anger and frustration towards Ricardo Ulysses. Gwen says she's happy for the books to be separated and gives Dew's locked book to Batthwack, saying she'd prefer to look after her book. The time is getting close to noon so the party turn their attentions to their plan to entrap Ricardo. They lay out their plan of attack, the basis of which is to go to the candy shop instead of going to the Lichen Caves to force Ricardo to meet them on their terms. Gwen will go first to forewarn Aleister and set up the impression of business as usual. There's two ways into the store: the front entrance and the back door for deliveries. Will disguised as Ricardo will make an extravagant show outside the front of the store, while Hilula and Mo cover the back door. Gwen will secretly carry Raphina to the store in a pillow case and when there, her and Aleister will fashion a fake cake large enough for Raphina to hide in, which they'll position outside the store. Finally Batthwack will act as a customer inside the store. Everyone heads off towards to the candy store, leaving at different times so that they're not seen together.

## Trivia

* The episode title quotes Eric who was responding to KT/Will's comment amount using the magic paper to *"fly into book world"*. It makes reference to American children's TV series *Blue's Clues* that premiered on Nick Jr. in 1996. In the show the main character Blue and the hosts visit other worlds by "skidooing" into a book or picture, while reciting the phrase *"Blue Skidoo, we can too!"*

## References

1. ↑ All players (except Raphina) received 5 permanent additional hit points.