Dungeons and Doppelgangers

This is the one where we say goodbye to Otomne Bosch, AKA Mishty Step.
Not in a bad way, he doesn't die or anything, he just stays behind to rekindle relationships and fix that library he keeps blowing up.
 
After escaping from Taleb's house, where we figured guards would come searching for us and the poor guy, Misht takes us straight to his sisters house. Needless to say, she was very unhappy to see him. His actions caused her to be shunned and forced to live in the outer circles, basically the slums. Which would have been a good place to be, to keep her far away and safe from the effect of "swimming upstream" directly into the maw of doppelgangers. Or so we thought.
 
Enustah Bosch was clearly blinding herself to her own children's strange behavior. Burrus and Marjorine, each equal amounts of creepy, sizing us up and down like they were deciding the best route to our jugulars. Turns out the elders were "kind enough" to offer private lessons for the children. Obviously to replace them with doppelgangers, but Enustah and her husband Caseous were not easily convinced. Cleverly enough, while we were out of the room, Marjorine transformed into a guard searching for us fugitives and the Burrus pulls out a knife! No!
 
The easiest thing to do was to kick our way past the guard and charge out of the house with Burrus in hand. The clever thing started screaming for help, bringing in a lot of attention, but that is exactly what we needed. We needed the whole city to witness what we were about to reveal in the library.
 
I break windows and burst in through to flank the elders as Gargax and Misht burst through the front doors. We had the elders trapped, but we really were not prepared for the amount of power they had in their arsenal. It was a long and well matched fight, the doppelganger who had previously been Burrus transformed into me! Citizens outside the library were being attacked by their own, as family members and friends charged towards the library to join the doppelganger hoard.
 
The numbers quickly outnumbered us.
One slimy trick from Delphis and I was immobilized in a pile of earth and black vines, Gax was still struggling to fight the Copy-Cat me off, and Misht could see that we were going to fail. But then he called for the book, the one I still possessed, and I obliged. Catching it as I threw it into the air, Misht knew exactly what to do. A massive force, one that rivaled that of all the elders combined, erupted from Misht and his book, summoning black tentacles all around the chamber. I cannot say I remember much of the event, I was losing consciousness and could barely see through the vines and tentacles, but I remember reaching out and finding myself holding onto Misht and Gargax as this incredible power flowed through us. Finally, the elders were vanquished. Blue, long-limbed doppelgangers littered the floor.
 
The dust cleared and Misht's people could see that blowing up the library was definitely what needed to be done.
 

We reunited citizens with their family members who had been caged for who knows how long beneath the library. Those who did not make it were promised a proper ritual burial. The real Burrus and Marjorine are actually pretty cute kiddos, and were excited to see their long lost uncle. I think it was them who convinced Misht to stay behind. He was absolutely horrendous at giving a motivational speech, but I think he can figure out how to help Croesus properly rebuild.
 
Gax and I will be heading back to Najarma, hopefully we can get another ride through the desert. But for now, I'll celebrate Otomne's win.