Kiru whines as "Roselyn" transforms into her true appearance. The wolf looks over at Voh'ren, his ears pressed down flat in a distressed position.

"I tried to warn you before," the Half-Orc says nonchalantly, doing his best to be reassuring and hide his own surprise.

"I have some travel rations," Voh'ren offers when Whisper raises the topic of food. "They aren't the most flavorful, but they are filling." His mood changes when Bristle goes slack.

"What have you done," he says, his voice betraying the hint of a growl.

"I didn't do anything," Whisper says casually. "It's hardly my fault that your associate tried to go peeking where she wasn't invited. Rather rude of her, really. That's a habit that might come back to bite you one day, darling."

"So it's rude to do the exact thing you do? Maybe you should take after your own words and advice lady." She said with a growl, even she was starting to get to the point that  she wanted to rip this woman's throat out.

Sebastian glares at the woman, then stops, thinking. She's trying to anger us, taunt us. Why? Simple perverse joy at it? Or is she trying to distract us, make a mistake. Instead, he ignores her and looks at Bristle, examining her eyes carefully for signs of possession or control.

"I'd say you've made your point clear," Voh'ren replies. The edge is still in his voice, but it is difficult to tell whether it comes from repressing fury or concealing fear. "Would you please release her?"

Bristle had been rendered into a pseudo state of shock by what she had seen. Not with her eyes, but with her mind. She was unable to know. To comprehend. Whisper... What had Bristle just witnessed? Experienced? Her companions' words mostly flew past her ears without being registered. At least not at first. It wasn't until Sebastian purposefully looked into her eyes that she even realized it. Sebastian would find confusion and fear within both Bristle's brown eye and her green eye, but they were still hers to control.

"I am not hers to be released," Bristle muttered, replying to Voh'ren. Her knuckles gripped the edge of the table nearby to keep herself steady, but her grip suggested she was trying to turn the wood into coal. She finally looked up at Whisper again. Or, at least, the physical body she was peeping through.

"What... ARE you?" she hissed. "Nobody's mind is that vast. That... unfathomable. You cannot have been a person such as us. No mortal could have a mind like that..." Bristle leaned against her table for additional support, but did not take her eyes off of the witch in the room. Was she an aberrant horror birthed into being? An eltritch entity form the pits of eternity? A discarded deity chained to the realms of dreams? It was impossible to know. Quite literally.

"What I am," Whisper says pleasantly, "is complicated. And hungry." Whisper's smile is unreadable. She picks up a book, leafs through it. "You wouldn't believe how many things they got wrong in this. All of these. Full of holes, if not outright propaganda. Waste of paper."

"Let us have the book we look for, and be our own judge." She said in a low measured tone. It was obvious that Firea had no love for this woman.

Sebastian refuses to give Whisper the satisfaction of engagement, but he watches her closely, looking for hints and clues. He tries to identify the book from across the room.

Do I need a perception for that?

"No can do, darling, that book is ashes in the river," Whisper says easily. "But trust me, you wouldn't want to read it anyway. It's unbelievably dry."

In an instant she had lost it. Within seconds she was in her true form, those seven floofy tails wavering then suddenly stiff behind her as those fox ears laid flat on the top of her head. Pure flame burning in her right hand as her left was suddenly on the old woman's shoulder, a low growl escaping her as even her eyes looked aflame. "Give me one good answer other then the body you are in why I should not fry you to a crisp right now. Because in my eyes, as long as you are in her body, she is not an innocent. So tell me some peace of information that I give a shit about now, bitch."

[OOC: 00:14, Today: Firea rolled 19 using 1d20+16.  Intimidation.

LOL, just...LOL!]

"Please, stay your hand," Voh'ren says as he gestures for Firea to stand down. "We are here to solve problems, not start them." The Half-Orc frowns as he considers his options given the current situation. He chooses to go with the threads the mysterious Whisper offers, and prays to the Green that they are not his undoing.

"You mentioned propaganda," he says to Whisper. "What did you mean by that?"

"Oh, dear. I am imperiled." You hadn't known it was possible for a voice to be quite that dry, but Whisper manages it at Firea's threat.

She then smiles to Voh'ren. "Well, it's simple, really. History is written by the winners. There's always a temptation to...pretty things up. No one needs to know about this massacre, or how dirty that city's sacking was. Pretty little lies, and no one remembers the truth, it's been so long and who cares enough to go digging?" Her smile is sharp now.

Bristle smirked when Firea threatened Whisper. She found the action to be particularly impressive now that the cleric had glimpsed just how futile the idea of threatening Whisper actually was. The changeling woman remained quiet as she continued to recover from her recent experience, and opted to listen.

The exchange went about as Bristle expected. Even so, Whisper may have been letting more information slip through the cracks than she realized. For instance, knowing how long the librarian had been on administrative leave let them know how long Whisper had been influencing her actions. It also let them know that not everyone at the library was under her influence, at least not at that time, since otherwise there would be no reason for her to be punished for destroying a book.

Likewise, whatever was in that book was worth it to Whisper to keep secret. Which suggested either herself or her plan had a weakness they could exploit, if only they could find it. Luckily there were roundabout ways to gain the information that was destroyed. None of them easy. But at least they were possible. It was also worth noting that she had dodged the question about what she was. Was that information another possible weakness?

Having realized all this, Bristle felt it might be beneficial to keep Whisper talking. Maybe she would let more information slip between the cracks.

Making an effort to stand up taller, Bristle asked, "How do you know the books are so inaccurate? I thought you've only been around for a few weeks or months. Even if you were around long long ago, how would you know what is inaccurate in the books written in-between? Or why would you even care?"

"She started the problems, or did you forget?" She reminded Voh'ren. "If not for the problems she has been causing, we'd not be here now."

"And you. If you can affect people here, that means we can find you and destroy you. It might be hard. Maybe even damn near impossible, but it is possible." She growled out, then stepped back.

Moving back past Bristle, she would whisper to her. "Hurry and get you answers, because that one tests the ends of my tails." Then she turned around and leaned her back against the wall behind Bristel.

"Perhaps she did," Voh'ren replies to Firea, "but I think it's clear she would not suffer the consequences of your actions. It would cost her host her life, and I am certain we would be held responsible." The way Voh'ren phrases "we" hints that the Half-Orc worries that the brunt of the blame might fall on himself.

Voh'ren grunts and the hint of a wry, bitter smile plays at his lips as Whisper mentions propaganda and "prettying things up."

"I can sympathize," he says, "as I'm pointedly aware of what it means to be the subject of...'misconceptions.'

"I am curious, though," he adds, echoing Bristle's own interest. "Did the inaccuracies offend you on general principle, or was there something personal involved?"

"I care because inaccuracy and imprecision offend me," Whisper says, tossing the book aside casually. "It's sloppy." She smiles.

A knock sounds at the door. Walking in, Caleb and Hester find the rest of the party sitting opposite a woman who looks simultaneously like a complete stranger, and eerily familiar. She is sitting, smiling, moving, far too much like Whisper's appearance in your dreams for comfort, though her body is nothing similar.

Hester looks from the others to the Librarian/Whisper and rolls her eyes.  "Hello", she greets her colleagues and then Whisper, "Hello Mother. What are you doing here?"  Finally she says, "My grandmother was of little help. She's on her way to Absalom."

Sebastian grits his teeth, trying his best not to let the rage get the best of him. He can see it in his mind, his blade slicing through her flesh, killing and slaughtering. Blood, hot and red, spurting out, spurting everywhere. NO!

He shakes his head, and addresses Whisper, doing his best to keep the rage from showing. "All right then. If that record was inaccurate and imprecise, then now is your chance to correct the record. What really happened in Andoran in 2062? What did you do Whisper?"

Caleb entered the room warily, tensing up as he took in the unknown woman, his face hardening and drawing his crossbow upon realizing where he recognized that behavior from, a bolt loaded quicker than blinking. "You. I don't know how you're here, but I'm pretty sure a bolt'll work this time. Give me a reason not to test out the idea.

"I already tried that approach." She said flatly. "The only thing keeping me from torching her right now is the kindness of him." She thumb'd towards Voh'ren. "Otherwise, I'd have torched half the building right now just to make sure she's dead ever since I woke her up." Her tone was sharp, cold, but full of fire and hatred.

"Hello, child," Whisper says casually to Hester, her tone almost affectionate. Then, to Caleb, "I'll give you three. One, a bolt will do far more to this poor librarian than it ever could to me. Two, you'd be found guilty of murder, which might be somewhat of an inconvenience. And three, your friends are much more likely to get something useful from my words if they aren't just bloody gurgling, no?"

Smiling, she turns her attention fully to Sebastian. "What happened in 2062? Nothing of particular note, in a cosmic sense, I assure you. All I did was what anyone else in my position would gladly do, had they the power to make the attempt."

"And what position was that?" Bristle asked Whisper. She was a bit annoyed that someone with a mind more expansive than a mountain couldn't seem to grasp what sort of details they were interested in. Although Bristle suspected Whisper was being evasive on purpose. "What power did you have to make an attempt at what?

"She's being evasive of purpose." She said as she looked towards Whisper. "Likely because she knows that if she gave us a straight and truthful answer she would be giving us a means to find or beat her. She's scared, or a chicken."