Thanks, Vincent--you've caused me to learn a couple of things! smile

takes us up and along I think this means literally what it said. If you're being led from (out of) a basement you're most likely going UP stairs or whatever; and along probably means along a walkway, or some distance.

thaumaturgically I had to look this one up. I first found "Perhaps you meant: thaumaturgical". So I looked up thaumaturgical and found "1. pertaining to a thaumaturge or to thaumaturgy.
2. having the powers of a thaumaturge."
Finally I got to thaumaturge and found: a worker of wonders or miracles; magician. These were from Dictionary.com.
So thaumaturgically means magically.

wisely or otherwise Otherwise, here, means not wisely. To ask the speaker "to fix the Internet" might have been wise if he had that capability; if he didn't, then asking him to do that would have been unwise.

I honestly don't know where the cat that’s swallowed the canary came from, but it's an old saying. It refers to someone denying that he's done something when there is clear evidence that he has. If a cartoon cat has swallowed (eaten) the canary, he will shake his head "no" to his owner's questioning whether he ate it, but yellow feathers--or in your case, feet-- sticking out of the side of his mouth tell the owner he did eat it.

the Counter-Possession Unit I Googled this, and to my surprise it's not what I thought it would be. Here is what I found; I can't verify that this is the true definition but I think it is: the Counter-Possession Unit of SOE that dealt with demon-ridden Abwehr agents. This is somebody's blog or something, apparently quoting from something.
Ok--I found another Google listing that offers: occult intelligence agency.

turn her into a frog Your book must have a lot of magic in it! This refers to a magic spell. There is a fairy tale called The Frog Prince, where the prince had been turned into a frog by the evil witch, and only when a princess kisses him can he turn back into his rightful form.
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This is a wonderful dictionary.

And Refdesk is a fantastic site for all kinds of information--and fun.