Elzeru pulled closed the rift in the shadows and dusted himself off, satisfied. Lacking the physical strength to install the decoy where he'd stolen Astra'ath's tome from, he had had to reverse the flow of gravity in the closet, causing the book to "fall" up to the ceiling, where he could push it onto the top shelf and finesse it into position.
Now that he had his tracks covered came the hard part; actually transporting his prize out of the Library without attracting the notice of the Librarians- or worse, Dragnar himself. Despite being born from the blood of a God, he knew better than to think that his illusions could fool one, least of all the god of knowledge.
He prepared to reach out telepathically to his nearest comrade; a cute lass who had just rotated in from Natus, or so he'd heard... He'd never met her before, but he could use a hand here, and maybe they could get to know each other afterwards...
A touch on his mind shook him out of his reverie; it seemed she'd contacted him before he could. Something about a new god at the library, and...
"...A horde of screaming lunatics, you say?"
"Yes! Armed, too. They just barged in over the librarians, gibbering and frothing!"
"Gibbering AND frothing, eh? ...Wait, aren't there, like, whole fortresses full of monsters and deathtraps between us and them to prevent things like this happening?"
"Depends on how many bodies you throw at them; most of them are torn up pretty bad. ...They're really making a mess out there, though. Some of them have been subdued, but..."
Hmm. This could be useful... What better chance to slip away unnoticed than an asylum throwing up on the library?
"See if you can foil the librarians for a while, I needed a diversion anyway."
There was a short pause.
"Alright, but you owe me one."
"Fair deal."
Now just to attract the attention of one of the intruders...
Crashing and shouting jolted him out of his thoughts, and he severed the connection. 'Madness must've made them bloody fast,' he thought, peering around the corner of the bookcase to see a few of them charging up the corridor towards and past him.
"Heyguvcouldjaspareamomen-"
"Heyyouholdupasec-"
Elzeru frowned. Time for Plan B. He wove together arcane magics, crafting a barrier of invisible force that he swung out into the corridor to catch the next oncoming madman.
clopclopclopclopclopclopclopCLOPCLOPCLOPKRAK thud.
It appeared to be a dwarf that had shattered the barrier with it's head- or at least, something related to a dwarf; it was shorter than most mortals, and it's face was lost in a mass of hair, blood, and spittle, save for it's beady eyes. It clutched the two halves of some sort of large brown nut in it's hands with a white-knuckled death-grip.
The Fey bent down over the edge of the shelf, summoning a morsel to his hand.
"Hey, you! I have candy~!"
Quickly, he leapt back as the dwarf sprang to it's feet, gnashing it's teeth and frothing just inches from him.
"Bloody hell." he muttered, eying the creature warily. He'd heard that the dwarves were particularly susceptible to Fey magic after one of his brothers had inadvertently driven a craftsman into a gibbering frenzy, but he'd never seen the effects firsthand.
No time to reflect on that, though; it would serve the purpose. He tossed the sweet into the gaping maw and waited as the dwarf slowly mellowed, falling under his spell, before pushing the tome off the shelf, where it bounced it off the dwarf's head, and secured it to it's back.
Elzeru settled on the mad dwarf's shoulder, and gave a sweeping gesture forward to his hypnotized servant. "Onward, Concord!"
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