Swamped

The alarm bell is going off. Mortimer jumps up with a start, and you imagine the other patients are getting similar rude awakenings.

"Wait here," you say, slipping past the curtain. "I'll take a quick look at what's going on out there."

What you see is a muckbeast standing in the emergency door, holding it open. There's no sign of any rider. You also see a lot of patients running around in a panic. Two of them near the exit look to be arguing, probably about whether they should try to push their way past it.

Your first thought is that this seems as though it would be a rather effective distraction. Not so much for kidnapping Mortimer - you poke your head back in just in case he vanished, but he's still sitting on the bed - as for doing, well, anything in an area that's not so crowded.

For instance, it could be an attempt to steal whatever page from Matilda Laikenne's book was so important, done without realizing that it was already stolen. Or for that matter, it could be done to allow the thief to slip out among a crowd of panicking patients, who decide they don't want to take their chances with a muckbeast.

Well, if you could chase the beast away quickly and shut off the alarm, that might disrupt the scheme. But that depends on having a plan for how to chase a muckbeast away.