The building itself was hidden behind a tall hedge with carefully squared-off corners, although you could see a good bit of the roof from a long way off. If you went up the path you would find a wooden gate in the hedge, usually, with a sign above it reading The Glass Library in painstakingly handpainted letters. The sign remained even in the absence of the gate, which was a good thing today, since the hedge was being difficult and had apparently decided only to let certain people in.
Within the bounds of the hedge was a one-story red-brick house with a sloping roof and large windows, surrounded by a well-maintained vegetable garden and, incongruously, a white picket fence. The path continued through the gate and the middle of the garden and ended at the steps to the red house's front door, possessed of a knocker in the shape of a Grondalith's head. This part of the building appeared entirely ordinary, because it was.
Around the back of the house, however, an intrepid explorer might see a large glass box looking something like a greenhouse. You wouldn't be able to see inside, as the walls were hung with tapestries and curtains to give some semblance of privacy. There was also no door.
Inside the house, chaos reigned.
Dagmar perched at the top of a ladder, propped up against one of the many bookshelves, and ran a pointed paw along the spines, looking for a particular title. She appeared oblivious to what was happening below her, but when one of the whirling multicolored shapes bumped the bottom of her ladder she said "Careful, Virgil. If I fell on you we might never find out what's causing all this mess."
"I'm doing my best!" Virgil snapped, before returning to his task: chasing down and trapping the strange creatures that were loose in their house. Amos had been poking around the shelves last night, including a number of books he'd lugged over from the library proper, and therein lay the problem. Almost all of the books had been left open overnight, and come morning they had found themselves beseiged with miniature Talis in colors neither of them had ever heard of, who were interested in nothing but playing tag and tearing apart anything left on the floor with no concern for what they damaged.
Amos seemed to have wisely shut his book, or else the Talis had knocked it off its stand, leaving Dagmar and Virgil to deal with the problem themselves. So far they were stumped. All the books from last night were closed, even the ones they were sure were entirely mundane, yet the Talis remained. Now Dagmar was looking for something else that might refer to them, so they might be removed, while Virgil tried to pen them in.
It was a pity, he thought, that Rhonda had gone into town today.