A very nice hotel there are penthouses at the top

Ozzy walked in, getting a quick look around. Hopefully, he could at least get a look at one of the staff uniforms before getting booted out.

The staff is wearing old timey bellhip uniforms. The lounge is  your typical fancy hotle lounge. Ozzy is stopped by the Doorman before he gets too far in. "excuse me are you here visiting?"

"Oh! Sorry, guess I kind of got distracted. I noticed the lobby through the doors and couldn't help myself. I'm a bit of an artist, you see, and your lobby is very aesthetically pleasing. Anyway, I suppose I'd better be on my way," he said, doing his best to look embarassed before skating back out. He'd gotten a decent enough look at the staff's uniform, especially the name tag. Once he was out of the doorman's line of sight, he ducked into an alleyway again and changed the armor again. This time, he looked like a little old Spanish cleaning lady, with a nametag that had the same look as the doorman's, but less fancy.

Then, "Maria" made 'her' way towards the staff entrance, hoping to avoid the doorman's watchful eyes.

'Maria' has no problem making it through the staff entrance as no one pays her more than a second glance.

"Maria" silently takes one of the cleaning carts to complete her disguise, and starts making her way through the hotel. She sets the compass on the cart, hiding it in the clean towels on the cart so that it can be seen and read from where she's pushing it, but it should conceal it from other angles.

IT takes Ozzy a little while to figure out that the compas is pointing up but he eventually makes it to ne of the penthouses on the top floor In front of the penthouse is a large man in  asuit with tattoos on his bald head neck and hands. Ozzy recognizes them  as some form of rune.

Great... another rune mage. If he's a wizard in his own right, this might be more than I'd bargained for. I dunno if I can handle this entirely on my own... but I think I can make it long enough to get in some backup. Let's confirm that he's got the book, though. Yo, Tats, I'll distract him if you get a quick look around.

Tats slithered out of the bottom of the disguise, hidden by the cleaning cart. He hid towards the bottom of the cart, among the extra rolls of toilet paper and such.

"Maria" trundled up to the door, knocking on the door and saying, "Housekeeping?"

The door opens reveali ng a man in his mid thirtiesin a stylishly cut black and red suit in his hand is a cane with a golden skull atop it. He frowns at the housekeeping girl before his eyes momentarily glow a deep red he then smiles. "Ah I was wondering when you found your way to my door. Come in dear boy, and do dorp the illusion won't you?" he steps aside allowing Ozzy to see into the luxurious penthouse suite.

Rather than reveal his identity as Painter, Ozzy let the armor shift back to looking like his street clothes, knowing the man could probably see through the Painter mask just as easily as he had the 'Maria' disguise. He also mentally ordered Tats back up his leg, the small painted dragon climbing its way up to its usual perch on his shoulders.

I want you to take the button off, use it to call for help. This is going south, fast.

Will you be all right?

I'll live. Just go.

Ozzy then took the compass and stepped into the penthouse, smiling at the man and being very polite.

"Of course, of course. I just had to get past the normals somehow, you know? So, I assume you know why I'm here? The Tome of Orthos. I'll ask you to forgive me not putting my protective spells all the way down. I'm young, not stupid."

As he spoke, Tats pulled off the comm button as quickly and quietly as he could, hopefully scampering away before he was noticed.

The man smiled "Ah yes healthy paranoia it will serve you well believe me especially when people areindeed out to get you." The man turned entering the suite and standing before the large window. "Yes I assumed Virgil would send someon to fetch it, though I also assumed he would recall them when he learned who posessed it. But i suppose you don't even know who's lair you've walked into, young people are so ignorant of thier history. Tell me young man what is your name and where did you learn the art? Its power was waning until recently there are scant few practitioners left to teach you."

"The name's Ozzy. Ozzy Gysbourne. The Art runs in my family, passed down from generation to generation. I'm afraid I wasn't told anything other than that the Tome was stolen, though, and I'm here to retrieve it. Of course, if you'd like to tell me what they decided not to, I'd appreciate it. After all, you can't ever completely trust The Man," he said with a smirk as he pulled his jacket through the armor, unzipping it slowly before tossing it onto a nearby chair, revealing the sleeveless 'Slayer' shirt he had on, as well as the flame tattoo on his arm.

"Hope you don't mind, it's a bit warm in here for that heavy coat. Besides, what's the point of having art on your body if you never show it off, am I right?"

Tats, having apparently slipped away unnoticed, got back into the cleaning cart before he started talking into the commlink.

"Attention, we have a possible situation on our hands. The evil wizard who stole the Tome saw right through Ozzy's disguise, we need backup. We're at the Cirandon Hotel, in the penthouse! I repeat, we need backup!"

The man smiled "I'm afraid you won't be getting it I have plans you see, and the tome is very important to them." He glances at the cleaning cart and then to Ozzy. "You may leave now that you know you shan't get the tome. Or if you wish we may have a little chat though if you insist on attmepting to take it by force well it will be a pity to see all that wasted potential."

Sounds like your friends are occupied. Trouble in Para-Dise, it seems.

Punny. Well, shit. Let's do this solo, then.

Can you do that?

I better be able to. Do I have another choice now? Get to another room if you can, call Grandpa. He won't be as fast, but I can survive that long. Tell my friends not to worry about me.

... All right.

Ozzy didn't actually speak, though. Rather, he decided that he'd shoot first and taunt later. After a quick spell, a barrage of four rune-arrows was headed for Darius, one aimed at his jugular vein, two for his lungs, and one for his carotid artery. If this guy was anywhere near as dangerous as he made himself out to be, Ozzy didn't have the luxury of screwing around.

As the arrows approached Darius they simply vanished into mist. "YOu didn't think I'd be so foolish as to leave my protective spells off didyou?" Behind Ozzy He feels a crackle of enrgyheading straight at him. The man that was outside has both his hands and his eyes crackling with energy. This is when ozzy places the tattoos on his arms and face. They weren't runic magic, they were symbols of rank, this guy was a combat mage specializing in spells for maiximum damage.

Ozzy cursed mentally as he spun quickly, putting up a force shield just in the nick of time to block the full force of the spell's blow. How could he not have recognized the runes? This guy was a top-class attack mage. Ozzy was a just-graduated defense mage. This was going to be messy.

Tats continued running, doing his best to hastily search for another room from which to call for help. Hopefully the others had gotten his message, but you never knew...

Darius lifted his staff which began glowing and suddenly ethereal chains psroted around Ozzy and attempted to bind him. "I gave you the chance to run boy you should have taken it."

"What, and let you get away?" said Ozzy as the chains wrapped around him.

"!@#%# that. I don't do 'run'. Besides, I'm not the one who needs to run," he said, smirking. As he did, he shunted the armor outward, hoping to break the chains, or at least loosen them enough to escape their hold.