"Crusaders?" says the man, interest piqued. "How many? Did you capture or kill any?" He idly fiddles with something small in his hands. "Come down into the sanctum and you can explain everything."
You see something odd moving and then a large black scorpion crawls up the man's shoulder from his back.
Darya's grip tightens on her sword as she practically holds her breath, listening for the response and it's acceptance or lack thereof.
"There were about five of them." Alexa continues. "They looked to be new recruits at the time of our strike on the city. Three of them were slain, but we DID manage to capture two of them. Just give me a minute and I'll bring them down."
With that, Alexa turns and moves away from the stairwell, beckoning to Darya & Luci. "I've got a plan. You two pretend to be my prisoners, and I take you & your weapons down to this 'sanctum'. Once his guard is down, I ambush him, you get your swords back, and we beat the piss out of him."
"Works for me, if things go south I'm sure we can handle it until the rescue comes crashing in." Darya whispers cavalierly. Turning to look at Iomenna she looks askance at her. "Are you okay with it?"
"We'll need to be careful, though; we're both paladins, we go too far with this deception and we're just gonna be two chicks with swords."
"Very true, we can't openly lie." Darya agrees looking at Alexa, "but being poorly tied up and just glaring menacingly is what they'd expect of us, and serves the greater good in me opinion if it gets us into a position to take this guy down."
"That was my plan in the first place." Alexa fetches a length of rope and starts tying slipknots around Darya's & Luci's wrists, making sure they appear to be bound behind their backs.
Then she takes their swords, tucks them under her arm, and starts leading the two 'prisoners' into the basement.
Here goes nothing...
”You know, normally you’d have to buy me dinner first,” Luci joked as Alexa tied her wrists.
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Alexa purses her lips and sighs through her nose at Luci. "You should see me when I'm off the clock. Now start acting angry before you blow our cover."
Alexa brings back the two ladies for display. The red-skinned man seems suitably impressed.
"Not bad," he says. He stays at a safe distance, though. "How come so many of the crusaders are so attractive? Well, we can put that to good use." He regards Alexa for a moment with a look that could only be described as 'shrewd.' "And you got the three lunkheads upstairs to let you take credit for this? You'll go far in our little conspiracy, I'm sure."
He moves to the desk and takes out a key, the strides to the heavy doors in the middle of the room. He unlocks them with the key, stashes it back in his waistband, and pushes the door open. He steps back a bit and gestures, saying "Why don't you lead our guests inside."
"How come so many of the crusaders are so attractive? Well, we can put that to good use."
Alexa shrugs. "Incentives for recruitment, I suppose."
"And you got the three lunkheads upstairs to let you take credit for this? You'll go far in our little conspiracy, I'm sure."
The aasimar bows her head and looks at the floor, like a good obedient servant. "You flatter me, milord."
"Why don't you lead our guests inside."
"As you wish."
She does so, keeping the weapons of her 'prisoners' under one arm and leading them in with her other hand. As she moves, she looks around the room for anything especially hazardous.
This semicircular room has been outfitted with numerous demonic decorations. The green glass lanterns hanging on the walls give the room an eerie glow. A brazen minotaur head hangs from one wall above an altar covered with wavy-bladed knives and curved bulls’ horns, while star-shaped symbols in red decorate other walls. A large wooden chest sits near the west wall.
Alexa blinks, feeling a brief tingle on her tongue before she pushes through it. She feels a brief itching sensation on her back.
...did he notice my discomfort? I hope not.
Iomenna looks on nervously as the plan comes out, but she nods her approval nonetheless. We have to take advantage of whatever advantage we can get after all.
Darya's glare could set fire to the room the aasimar's anger palapable s she is led into the chamber.
'Hnnn...can't lie.....please beat this Alexa
What the smeg was that? she thought to herself.
"I need to help but I cannot just leave these two alone" Sario keeps and eye on her prisoners
"So!" says the red-skinned man with a broad smile, "Why don't you tell me a bit about yourselves. Let's start with... you," he says, pointing at Luci. "You look like a tiefling like myself! Why you'd sign on with those holier-than-thou crusaders, I'll never understand. How many in your squad? How long until they come looking for you? Where are you headquartered?"
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I felt something as we came in, he's staying outside, and didn't ask any questions until we were in here. There's nothing else about this room that would make it conducive to interrogation that doesn't also apply to the room out there. This room must've been enchanted to detect lies.
"I didn't sign on with the crusaders;" she said, hoping he'd think the field had mistaken his "why join the crusaders" remark as a question and was compelling her to answer that.
"I was just gonna be a city guard at best. Besides which; I don't see why I should have to join the Stereotype Brigade just because one of my ancestors couldn't get a date one weekend. Or maybe you just didn't have the balls to take the high road - didn't have the drive to prove everyone wrong about you. You couldn't have the life a human would so, rather than work around that, you just acted like a petulant little kid and want to kick the table over - if you can't enjoy the game then nobody else can."
She honestly had no idea how these truth fields worked, but was hoping that if she kept talking, he'd think that the field was just compelling more truth than he'd intended. And if she could piss him off enough, that would give them the opening to spring the trap.
"The world already sees our kind as thieves at best and monsters at worse, and a##~$#+s like you aren't helping things. It's because of pricks like you that people spit on us, insult us, beat us, try to frame us for stuff, and otherwise treat us like s$&+ and feel justified when they do. All because of cowards like you who don't even try to prove people wrong. You just assume that, because of who we are, we'll never get anywhere in life and that is the biggest load of BS I have ever heard. You want to understand why tieflings would join the crusaders? Because they're the ones who aren't chicken-s%$~ little pissants afraid of their own freaking blood!"
Alexa can't help but smirk behind the boss' back. Note to self--she's going to be front and centre of the first poster I draw.
She then carefully takes hold of both of their swords, trying not to be seen... and starts getting ready to slide them to their rightful owners.
The tiefling man lets out a hearty chuckle and replies, "Oh, you want to be a good little girl! You want them to like you so much! You'll be just like them and mew and bow and scrape for approval."
He shakes his head and says, "You don't really understand power at all. It does not matter if they spit on us, or beat us, or insult us, if we have the power to do what we want and be who we want. And right now, we have true power. We have the power to end an entire city. We have the power to kill them all."
"But I'll help you," he says idly as he unlimbers his belted morningstar. "Or rather, she will. My dear?" he says to Alexa. "Give her some scars. Prominent ones. So that nobody will ever like her again."
Alexa shrugs and unsheathes both of the bastard swords, casually stepping forward. She stops around 5 feet in front of the boss.
"So... which one, which one?" She holds up Luci's sword. "I could cut you with this one, for irony value.... but then again, I suspect I could use this one--" She holds up Darya's sword. "--for added salt to the wound--being cut with your own comrade's sword and all that."
"Or I could use both. Go all in." She holds both swords in her hands, her grip unfamiliar with the heavy blades.
"Or... I could do this."
And she throws the two 'bound' paladins their swords.
Her angry scowl switching to an almost predatory grin Darya slips her hands from her bonds, stepping forward to catch her thrown weapon out of the air. With but a thought, she draws upon the divine power of Ragathiel, her entire presence seeming to become much more sharply into focus to her enemy, a faint golden shimmer surrounding her body as an angry pulsing glow envelops her sword.
she shouts, signaling to Iomenna that the ruse was at an end.
Alexa walks over to the far wall and leans against it, giving the tiefling cultist a casually satisfied grin.
"Something wrong, 'milord'?"
Really? Power's all he cares about? Cayden on a cart, this guy's even more of a walking stereotype than I thought!
Luci's expression mirrored Darya's as Alexa put their ambush into motion, looking forward to metaphorically breaking her foot off in this guy's backside. And like the gorgeous redhead, Luci also drew on her patron's power as she caught her sword, gold light suffusing her becoming a pure white around her head.
"You were saying something about bowing and scraping?"
Hearing the call, Iomenna turns to Sario, "Stay here for a minute, Sario. If we need you down there, I'll give the word." With that, Iomenna begins to thunder down the stairs, her new glaive in hand. As she descends, her holy rage builds within her, and her eyes begin to shine with golden light.
Sario nods at Iomenna, "Please don't move I don't want to have to kill you while you are tied up." Sario says to the men.
Battle Order
The Party <--
The Dude Who Is About To Be Smote
"You and your little grab for power won't be remembered." Alexa taunts the soon-to-be dead cultist as she draws her bow. "Your demon lord has more followers, all of them eager to serve in your stead."
"Perhaps some of them will be less gullible than you." She nocks an arrow and fires.
The arrow doesn't find its mark. But that's alright--it won't matter in a moment anyway.
Luci raced forward to engage the cultist, making sure not to block Darya's approach, bringing her sword down in a vicious strike.
Surging forward, Darya drops her blade low as she moves in alongside Luck, turning herr momentum into a brutal upswing.
Iomenna continues rushing down the steps and turns the corner to take in the scene. "Oh, hey ladies! Glad to see you're in a fighting mood as well!" Iomenna's rage, now in full swing, propels her around the corner, and she manages to get beside Luci before the cultist has a chance to react.
Sario keeps the men upstairs in check
Darya and Luci both rush to smash into the man with holy power. His flesh sizzles as their weapons strike home and he writhes and tries to turn away.
Above, the captives look about uncomfortably as shouts and battle-cries ring out, but a glance from Sario stills them. They know all too well that while in this bound state, their throats could easily be cut if they try to cause problems.
The fiend backs away (5' step) toward his desk to keep Luci and Darya at bay, then points and shrieks at Luci.
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With the enemy tiefling stepping closer, he is too close for Iomenna to strike while he casts his spell. She steps back to stand in formation with Luci, then calls to Darya and Alexa, "Come on in, ladies! The slaughter is fine!"
Striding through the door and moving just past Luci and Iomenna, Darya presses the assault.
Alexa ditches her bow and runs up to punch him in the face!
"It'll take more than that!" she called as she felt the tiefling's spell fail to affect her, and quickly followed the claim up with another strike.
The tiefling gasps as Darya smashes him while he avoids Iomenna's glaive. Alexa punches him and he falls over backward, and the aasimar rogue is so filled with triumph that she barely notices that his scorpion familiar has crawled onto her shoulder as she slammed into him - until Luci crashes her own weapon down on the scorpion, spinning it off of Alexa and cutting it in two.
For the moment, all is quiet; a cursory examination shows that this tower has been converted to the service of Baphomet. The tiefling witch himself carried quite an assortment:
* A morningstar (normal)
* A wand
* A heavy crossbow
* 12 bolts (magical)
* A pair of heavy leather bracers (magical)
* A black and red cloak (magical)
* Two keys (one for the big door)
* 29 gp
The shrine-room where he questioned you has a brass bull's head on the wall - the bull's head being a sign of Baphomet - and a wooden chest.
Alexa gives Luci a brief nod of thanks before checking to see if the tiefling cultist still lives.
Alexa leaves the tiefling on the ground and takes the keys he held. Then she brings them over to the chest against the wall and examines it thoroughly before sliding a key into its lock to open it.
Iomenna peers over the apparently magical items amongst the tiefling's possessions.
"Is everything ok down there?" Sario yells from upstairs.
Stripping the gear off the body, Daya looks over to her companions. "He had no idea what he was messing with. Oh, the room forces you to tell the truth by the way."