Luxina wakes up a little later than the rest, feeling dizzy and drained.
"Well I'm happy that I'm still alive... Not sure if I want to redo this anytime soon. I feel wrong."
Luxina uncorks a flask on her bandolier and drinks the contents in one go.
Then she falls back on the ground, sighing and looking tiredly at Momiji, peacefully sleeping on the floor.
(+1 vs Compulsions)
Seeing that everyone was badly shaken up by the ritual, Cesadia wasted no time having a crate of restorative potions broached. Soon you are healed in body if not in spirit.
A after a while, a messenger for Cesadia rushes in and exclaims, "The corpse of the Count's enforcer..." He suddenly stops, and turns bright pink with chagrin when he realizes who else is in the room. Rather lamely he adds, "Apart from a thin dusting of yellow ash, the corpse vanished. I guess we know where it went."
At that exact moment with a gasp Momijii awakens, sitting bolt upright.
Agrippa groans groggily and sits up. Owww. We. We were successful. Agrippa says, more question than statement. But then he notices Momijii
We were! We did it! the man says exultantly, he pulls out his notebook and begins writing furiously
Agrippa has plans for today and he shares them with the party
Today, we prepare. Master Filbert has our distraction. Mistress Cesadia and Mistress Klazcka will gather our allies. Tomorrow, first light we assault Fort Hailcourse. We struck a blow against the Cult today, tomorrow we continue that work.
Today Agrippa will copy Spider Climb from Luxina's spellbook. (Took 40GP from loot log since Agrippa is broke now, He'll pay it back.) And he's gonna look for Protection from Evil somewhere in town... He NEEDS that formulae.
Agrippa will also scour the town's bookseller and library (if there is one). He wants to know what exactly a Cult of Hastur does/iscomprisedof/goals etc. He also will look into Juju Zombies.
(Taking 20 on Knowledge Planes/Religion/Whatever on them. Since he knows they are in the Fort)
GM, let me know what rolls are necessary and if any/all of those actions are possible during the day this day.
Filbert nods, weary from the night's work and then the spell on top of it. But there was still work to be done.
While Agrippa pours through the local library for knowledge, Filbert goes back to the streets to gain a bit of his own.
First he approaches the Fort to look at the front gate area.
Afterwards he goes searching for a used but serviceable wagon, a light wagon would work but something heavier would be preferable,
"Mistress Cesadia, while you search for allies could you locate someone with a wagon, serviceable but no great loss should it burn to the ground. I will pay them 30gp for it's use, should it survive then all the better for them."
Filbert returns the hand cart to Master Rouy, advising him it would still be best to stay around the house today. Stopping by the general store to purchase some bags of feed to use as wheel chocks and positioning material for the rocket. 20 10lbs bags @ 5cp = 1gp
With a shuddering gasp Momijii awoke, her body sitting bolt upright, and looking around in confusion. "Where..." her voice was barely a croak, as if not used in a long time, "where am I? How did I..." She looked at those gathered and realized who was there and continued, "I could swear I was just being heckled by devils and demons, and now I'm here?"
Luxina copies False Life from Heinrich's formulae book. Then she accompanies Filbert to the Fort, but she listens in for any sorts of accents being used behind the gate.
Agrippa spends a frustrating morning attempting to find a book shop or library. It turns out that Thrushmoor used to boast two book shops. The largest of these the Booklayer was until the primary supplier of books to Count Lowls. Similarly until about six months ago, the most prominent stalls in the High Market was occupied by The Paper Tree, Thrushmoor’s second bookshop. Apparently the owner, a man named Timoan Timoran simply disappeared one day. A few weeks later Count Lowls purchased all its books at a public auction for a very cheap price.
While stymied by his inability to perform any occult research, Heinrich does find a small Brick-a-brack store which has an arcane scroll of Protection from Evil for sale. The owner a thin twitchy looking man called Kalorian asks in a thin nasal voice, "After anything special sir? Oh I see well I don't have no treatises on obscure religions. Oh you want a charm to ward against evil? Well now, those have proved very popular of late. I have but one left, I'm afraid it will cost you 50 gold."
Unable to afford transport for his remaining stock, the bookseller left all but the most valuable of the store’s books on the shelves, where they will likely remain until Count Lowls inevitably requisitions them for his own growing library...
Under cover of daylight Luxina and Filbert approach the fort. Remarkably no missiles or boiling oil rain down as they approach but neither of them can help but feel that something is watching. After studying the gate for a little while, Filbert determines that angling the firework so that the ejected stars fly up a murder hole is likely to cause the maximum confusion, possibly even setting fire to anything flammable inside.
Agrippa takes the scroll from the man (Agrippa owes 90GP to the party now...) and he'll copy it into his formulae book (100GP to the party now...)
Agrippa has no qualms about breaking into a bookshop
Let's see what we have here.
Lizzie hadn't any particular plans, but...
She does buy a potion(oil?) of bless weapon, and prays for protection from evil for her spell for the day.
Making her way past the legs of the taller friends, Lizzie clears her throat.
"Hello, sir....erm, down here, yes?"
Him looking down.
"Could you please not charge that much? We are going to fight a great evil, surely you'd not charge so much for an item, that could save our very lives, and therefor bring back fortune for the city?"
Agrippa finds the lock to be a poor copy of a standard type 3 "Absalom" something that was regarded as obsolete a century ago. Opening it was a simple matter of raking the pins a certain way while applying a little torque. Inside the shop Agrippa finds a thin layer of dust and general chaos. It was as if somebody with knowledge of the shop had selected the choicest items, discarding all the rest.
Unsurprisingly most of what's left is generally not terribly interesting: works of fiction, fishing manuals, poor quality maps of town, agricultural treatises and so on. Although there are thousands of books, going through all of them will take days.
It takes Lizzie quite some time and haggling but she is eventually able to track down a a potion of bless weapon and she manages to get a fair price for it.
OK what next?
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Agrippa walks through the bookshop, remembering his past...
True Strike
Invisibility
Monkey Fish
Longshot
Agrippa pockets the spellbook. Don't mind if I do...
He reads the journal entry with a brisk professionalism. Investigation is his job afterall.
It seems our Count Lowls was a skinflint, on top of his other...more deviant failings.
And then Agrippa says Well Lizzie. Our search turned up not much... back to the Inn to check on the others.
She doesn't let the man or woman spook her, but she leans in a bit as like she's joking to Filbert and says quietly.
"Someone or something has been following us around. Don't look around yet. Laugh with me as if I've just told a joke. What do we do about our wathcing friend?"
Filbert hasn't noticed their tail but laughes at the absurdity of it all. Here they were taking on a cult of old, just 5 of them. They had to be crazy.
Settling down, he elbows Luxina lightly in the hip, giving him a chance to look back past her.
"Oh I don't know perhaps we should invite them to come say hello."
he says thinking a moment before shaking his head "Nah, if they went missing right now, would probably ruin our surprise in the morning. However, what have they seen us do, study the outside of the fort's gate. Nothing else though...yet"
Back at the Sleepless Detective Agency, a little unsteadily Cesadia tells Momijii, "Well I don't know anything about Demons and Devils but somehow Agrippa found one of the cult's ritual. Apparently the cult have been using sacrifices to empower the standing stones. Anyway I got roped into helping, frankly it started off seeming a bit foolish and ended of being utterly terrifying. The ritual fed off our lifeforce and there in front of us you emerged out of the mists, then that yellow lightning struck and I guess we blacked out. My detectives found us just up the hill and dragged us all back here." She pours out some Tea, offering a cup to you, "Have to admit Agrippa scares me more than a little bit. That was proper big time magic, and you should have seen his eyes. He loved every moment of it, despite the pain."
Agrippa will spend the remainder of his day reading what books he has available and studying.
Back at the Sleepless Agency Filbert clasps Momijji on the shoulder. "Nice to have you back, some kinda vacation you took."
Gilbert is good for the moment just needs rest and something to eat.
Ok, well Agrippa will definitely make use of an item that lets him drink potions (and infusions?) as a swift action.
Cesadia clears her voice before summarizing, "All right then, lets see if I've understood Heinrich's plan. Tomorrow we'll put on a bit of a show with perhaps thirty or so pichfork wielding locals making a racket out of bowshot range meanwhile Filbert will position he cart, light the blue touch paper and retire to a safe distance behind the fort. When that over-sized firework goes off, it'll make some real noise, which in theory should give you a distraction while you'll climb up round the back. Is that right?"
Close enough yes. Get the Fort's attention, that is the important part. If we can claim the walls, and perhaps the Gatehouse. We can retake the Fort.
Agrippa drinks his Restorative, feeling swell as the infusion gives him more vitality
He then pours the potion of Barkskin into his new jacket.
Filbert joins the crowd as they begin heading towards the fort, aware that they would not get within bowshot of the wagon if they could help it. Getting up on the buckboard of the wagon, beside the driver he reminds him.
"We are to drive slow like you have a delivery for the Fort, my guess is they are going to turn us away. At which point we will turn the wagon away. Cesadia, I need you at that moment to bring your group in from the sides to garner their attention while we stop the wagon. While they are watching you, the driver and myself will set the brakes, cut the harness and get the heck away from this thing. Agrippa, you look like a smoking man with that fancy jacket, have you got a cigar?"
That's about all the plan Filbert has for the start, things are subject to change.....
Cesaida nods, she was ready to go when you are.
Daylight doesn't improve the appearance of Fort Hailcourse, the squat stone fortress is still forebodingand it seems to brooding in the distance as you approach. Cesadia and her detectives lead a rabble up the hill while the party drag a wagon loaded with the rather dangerous looking Mark V dragon fusillade.
Filbert oversees placing the firework, and as before there's utter silence from the fort despite the villagers chanting slogans from further down the hill. Of course it's still raining softly which requires some enthusiastic encouragement from Cesadia and co to keep them going.
Once everyone was in place, Filbert struck an alchemical match and lit the slow fuse before running round the side. You hear a soft sizzling for a mew moments before you hear a great BANG followed by a BOOOM, BANG wizz, BOOM, BAAAAAANG, wizz BOOOM as the incredibly loud fusillade begins. Five hundred shots, that's what Sentillar promised - surely nobody could hear you over this racket?!
As before a grapnel and knotted rope is thrown up over the battlements and you manage to haul yourselves up and over. In the day light you can seen more clearly. Each of the turret towers has another story above you, ending in more battlements with a ballista. You notice each tower has stout wooden doors on this floor.
Further back is the boxy central donjon, an external wooden stairway leads up there, ending in a door. According to Cesadia that's the magistrate’s apartment...
Rushing across the courtyard below are a trio of hideous lumbering gray-green creatures with hides that glistens with moisture, with saliva dribbling from their fishlike maws.
Alright. We have but a moment. Prepare yourselves. We can circumvent the zombies if we enter the tower. Agrippa points out the zombies as he draws Red Destiny and looks for away into the Fort proper and off the Battlements.
Good luck Cesadia.
"Perhaps the doors are not locked, if they are, we could go over the wall onto the upper turrets. You and Luxina see which option we need to follow. Lizzie, Momijji and I will deal with any visitors."
Turning Filbert keeps an eye on the Juju guards from their previous visit.
While they wait. "Anyone any good with the ballista, seems like our new fort guards would make wonderful pin cushions."
As the firework continues to send explosive shell after explosive shell into the doors and up the murder holes, the companions examine their options. The southern doors are locked (DC 20) but the northern ones are open. There are spiral stairs leading up and down. On the battlements above each ballista has a neat stack of twenty bolts the size of javelins!
A ballista takes up a space 5 feet across.
Back at the Sleepless Detective Agency, a little unsteadily Cesadia tells Momijii, "Well I don't know anything about Demons and Devils but somehow Agrippa found one of the cult's ritual. Apparently the cult have been using sacrifices to empower the standing stones. Anyway I got roped into helping, frankly it started off seeming a bit foolish and ended of being utterly terrifying. The ritual fed off our lifeforce and there in front of us you emerged out of the mists, then that yellow lightning struck and I guess we blacked out. My detectives found us just up the hill and dragged us all back here." She pours out some Tea, offering a cup to you, "Have to admit Agrippa scares me more than a little bit. That was proper big time magic, and you should have seen his eyes. He loved every moment of it, despite the pain."
Momijii was rather surprised at what she was told, it seemed a lot had happened that she didn't know about and she wasn't sure how she felt about Agrippa's newfound studies. She rose then, and gave the detective a deep bow in her normal fashion, "I am in your debt for helping them Cessadia, on my honor I will repay you in some manner, all you need do is ask." She rose then and looked concerned, "Agrippa worries me though, no one should be able to do what he did today, especially without much training, I worry that something else might happen as a result of his actions."
With their preparations completed Momijii quickly scaled the battlements with the others. She knew this was going to be rough but she also knew that she was ready for it. Much like the others the monk noticed the scurrying creatures down below but she had no clue what they were. She heard the explosions as they discussed their options and spotted the ballista. "I wonder if we could put those to use," she pointed at the siege weaponry as she asked her question.
"More are below but I believe they are moving away from us. We could block this door and use the balista, it's too big for me to operate but I'd gladly help with the aiming of it."
I suppose. Agrippa says, regarding the ballista. Could we turn them on the inhabitants of this place?
As the party decide what to do, the zombie guards move closer...