Day Seven-Fifty-Three: In summary

As Plato cried, as Fynn revealed his true nature, as Traveller attempted to hug Libby, and as Dragomir began to strike a deal with the regulators, a dragon crashed through a wall.

The diary did not have a particular plan in mind beyond ‘Find Dragomir’. It was not much for cerebral considerations above and beyond the most simple of concepts, and in this it matched its owner’s original temperament rather nicely. Dragomir may have changed, but his early optimism and devil-may-care approach to life lived on in his diary. So, when it spotted the regulator stronghold and sensed Dragomir inside, its only order of instruction to Goranth was CHAAAAAAAAAARGE. And Goranth did as he was told.

The dragon struck the west wing of the Imperium stronghold of Brickrite at approximately 1 am in the morning. The attendant regulators had sensed its presence fifteen minutes earlier and frantically sent out a summons for reinforcements, but the rest of Barrel’s possessed aerie was too far away to reach Brickrite in time to stop Goranth’s near-suicidal charge. Knocked out cold by the impact, the dragon’s head flopped through the hole it had made, its body drooped from the second floor of the stronghold, and its tongue made a nice ramp for the diary to descend to the floor. 

Goranth’s body also made a handy ladder for the hundreds of raccoons, foxes, weasels, opossums, and other assorted animals the diary had summoned along the way. They surged into the stronghold in the diary’s wake, forming a protective wall around the mouldy book that no Imperium guard could hope to penetrate. Eventually, shaking away a massive headache, Goranth joined their ranks, blowing fire through arrow slits and hurling unlucky soldiers from the ramparts with gusts of wind from his wings.

When the diary smashed through the wall, Fynn and Logan - still shocked by the revelation of Fynn’s apparent Non heritage - quickly took advantage of the clamour on the upper floor. Unwilling to cast any more magic, Fynn set about bending back iron bars and releasing the sleepy crew of the Dauphine with his hands. Logan, not nearly so strong but significantly quicker, slipped into an adjacent storage room, took out a pair of bewildered guards whose eyes were plastered to the shaking ceiling, and retrieved his gear. Soon the crew was rearmed and ready to go, their fatigue and stiff bones forgotten, and with Logan in the lead they stormed up to the second floor.

Consequently, Logan saw the sea of animals first. It was one of the few times in his life where he was completely and utterly without comment. His bewilderment only grew when the diary sailed past atop a small black bear, a cheery smile on its face. It waved a leg at him and disappeared around a corner.

The sounds of the animals milling about two floors above also got the attention of Libby and Traveller, who, garbed in some old rags they’d found in a back room (Libby was very much relieved to be freed of Traveller’s running commentary on the quality of her backside), were searching frantically for stairs to an upper level. They, too, had heard Goranth’s epic entrance, and they, too, wanted in on a potential prison break. 

Battle was waged. The Imperium’s guards, tired from a long day of relentlessly obeying the will of their regulator masters, did their best to hold back the tide of chaos threatening to envelop their little stronghold. The rats fought back as well, using their collective’s magic to make their soldiers stronger, tougher, faster, better. But their white magic did not work, and soon they were pushed back to the fourth floor, and then, to the tower. The seat of regulator power in the stronghold.

Dragomir waited in the tower. He learned things, things he may have suspected. But he never knew, not exactly, to whom he was speaking. That oversight would come back to bite him in the ass.