A prank then. "Gods above and Below! I just want to learn."

He did just learn some about freeform magic this morning. Is glue a liquid? Could he conjure some sort of solvent for the glue? He honestly doesn't know, this is a terrible idea, he knows it's a terrible idea, and yet he just wants to be done with this and maybe just maybe this door has what he needs behind it.

He tries to focus his mind on the idea of a mild solvent to dissolve the glue and incants "Creo Aquam"

It...actually sort of works? A pool of some greenish fluid forms at his feet. He has to concentrate to keep it going, which is tough because his vision is now swimming from fatigue. But after a minute or two the glue starts to loosen and he can sort of wiggle his boot to get the liquid farther in, eventually dissolving what's left at the cost of a few layers of boot leather.

He... was kinda expecting that wouldn't work. Is there more glue on the steps below?

Nope, they are glue-free. 

The closet-sized door opens...into a closet-sized hallway, narrow and dim, with a spiral staircase at the far end leading up.

That is... not what he was looking for but he's feeling stubborn. He wants something to come of this; he'll carefully make his way up the stairs doing his best to check for any more traps.

The stairs wind innocuously upwards, no trap in sight, although Alex does have to duck under the low spiral above his head and the stairwell is quite uncomfortably narrow. 

The stairwell opens onto a landing, which contains another wooden door, handle worn smooth with use, looking if anything even more cramped than the first, though still barely passable at a crouch. It's slightly ajar, or perhaps just a little warped. It sure does give off "closet" vibes.

This is absolutely the school testing him again isn't it? He sighs. He's nominally two floors up now so he hasn't hit the point he was told is unsafe yet. He'll see where this is leading him. He really hopes he doesn't have to shimmy by the end against.

Inside is not a closet, but a cramped magical laboratory! A rack of vials and instruments runs down the center. On the right wall is a tiny desk, chair, candleholder, and bookshelf. On the left are a few more narrow shelves lined with tools, and a table bearing an array of dusty, bubbling glassware. 

It's tiny, but clean and functional, and still quite possibly better stocked than any hedge mage's workshop Alex has ever seen.

As the door creaks open, a gnome woman wearing the yellow-trimmed robes of a Devisor apprentice looks up from the table on the left in startlement. "Oh! Were you using this lab, I'm so sorry." 

Alex startles a little upon seeing a person here. That wasn't what he was expecting. "I wasn't actually. I was actually looking for the linen closet and then I found the door at the bottom of the stairs."

The woman peers at him with large green eyes. Alex hasn't seen many gnomes to compare, but she looks young, maybe a bit younger than he is. "I suppose that's sort of my fault, it's not a closet when the Little Lab is here. Are you a new staff member? I'm Pipette, by the way."

"I'm a new student actually, I know I'm a bit old for that but I'm still excited to be here and learning."

"Oh, that's exciting, welcome to Grawtosh! How'd you wind up in the Picus Wing looking for a linen closet?"

His mood falls a bit at the reminder. "It's because of the stupid prank war between the devisors and the order of dreams. Or at least I think so, someone made my sheets smell like vinegar and did the same to all the spare sheets in the linen chest nearby. I guess it could have been someone in my dorm but it seems weird for them to sabotage the spare sheets."

He pauses, "Unless I'm under some sort of mentem effect that's just making me think they smell like vinegar but I think that's too advanced and risky for someone to use for a prank."

"Oh no, I'm sorry about that. Someone did the same thing to a Devisor apprentice last year, I think, kept him up for three nights running until a friend let him borrow a dispelling wand. I didn't hear anything about a new student coming in, who's sponsoring you?"

"The order of dreams. I got a letter of recommendation from magus Lilian Weald."

"I don't recognize the name, but I don't know all the Dreamers in Arbis let alone outside it. How'd you meet?" 

"I was her tour guide for a festival in my village and then she saved us from a rogue magus."

"Really? What happened? Oh hang on - " Pipette turns to fiddle with the apparatus on the table, which appears to be steadily dripping a blue-white liquid into a jar above a square stone plate. "A rogue magus? How'd she do it?"

(Alexius had a warning about gnome students, which is that they will as a rule never run out of questions. Alex may have to demur if he wants to get to bed before dawn.) 

Alex will relay Lilian's recounting but he will demure on going much beyond that... he knows he's not a practiced liar and talking around his role in events isn't something he's up to doing while this tired. At the end, he'll ask if she has a dispelling wand he can borrow.

Pipette listens attentively. Then: "Oops! I, uh, might've gotten distracted by your story. Uh, I'm afraid I don't, they're not really that common even among Devisors. I could get one but not on short notice. Maybe you could replace the linens like you planned? I don't think I have any linens here in the lab but I might be able to grab some from the dorms? Do you think you could keep an eye on things here in the meantime?"

"For clean linens? Absolutely. Oh uh... there's glue on one of the steps in the upwards staircase after the door. In case you didn't know."

"Again? Ugh, the new apprentices think they're so clever, but that prank fell behind the meta before I was even born, everyone carries solvent nowadays. Have some creativity, people, you're making us all look bad...I'll clean it up on the way. 

"I'll be back in a jiffy, but the Little Lab tends to run away if nobody's using it and I don't want to ruin this experiment. Just watch the salve jar, okay? When you see it start to form a fine mist, take it off the hotstone. Oh, and don't let the distiller run out of juice or it'll ruin the whole batch. Thanks, I'll be back with more linens!" 

Pipette maneuvers carefully through the lab and out the narrow door past Alex. 

"Okay" Alex commits those instructions to memory and focuses his attention in that direction.

Alex is not entirely unfamiliar with laboratory setups. He recognizes something resembling a complex distillation setup, powered by what appears to be a second square plate of stone; both it and the one under the jar give off intense heat. There's a jar of green-white and oddly fluffy - fruit? probably fruit - sitting next to it. There's also a small screw press beside the table.

The setup does look to be in need of refilling, within the next few minutes.