Empire of Night: Way of the Wicked (Vampire Campaign)

Game Master Neil Mansell

Anton, or Mott rather, pushes the door further open so he can step past the old man. "Come on, now. Stop wasting time. Hop to it. We need to get a raven ready for a message," he says, still playing the part and motioning for his guards to come into the room.

Bluff: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (6) + 14 = 20

Durova steps confidently in, following 'Mott.' "Yessir, he grunts, hoping to keep up the ruse.

Roll: 1d20 ⇒ 12

The old man steps aside, rubbing sleep from his eyes...

Dane pushes in with the others, muttering. "Can't believe there's been another attack..."

Bluff (Aid Another): 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (14) + 4 = 18

Another...attack?

The old man is suddenly unsteady on his feet...

It really is a demon...isn't it?

Dane grimaces as he pushes the door shut behind the party, and if he sees a way to, bars or locks it. "It's sure starting to look that way..."

Sion stands quietly just next to the door.

"Strange times right now," Durova nods toward the old man, seming as empathetic as possible.

"And it seems to be coming closer and closer to us. You can almost feel it's breath," 'Mott' says grimly, stepping further into the room away from the old man as Dane locks the door. No sense in having his blood splash all over me, even if it can be disguised.

Eh?

The old man looks confused...mouth open to speak, but it seems the words aren't coming out.

Is there anyone else around, as far as we can tell? If not...

Durova quickly casts a spell, trying to freeze the old man in his spot, so the others could deal with him.

Cast Hold Person. DC 16 Will save to resist.

Dane turns away from the door. "Hey, old timer." Dane's disguise slips away and he leans down towards the man. "Boo." The signature blade of the Iraen sets in motion.

Power Attack: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (16) + 8 = 24
Damage: 2d4 + 16 ⇒ (3, 1) + 16 = 20

Arrrgh! My children! Defend me!

The old man staggers, clutching the rent in his side with one hand, and a club in the other...

...and around the room...flying out of slits in the cloth...hundreds of small black shapes take flight...a raucus cacaphony ensues...they gather...and descend ...

Kill them!...the old man backs away, holding his club up defensively...

Is this a swarm attack, DM?

It will be. ;)

Smite Good Power Attack: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (5) + 13 = 18
Damage: 2d6 + 16 ⇒ (4, 2) + 16 = 22

"The message is this. 'Asmodeus returns.' We thank you for your assistance." Sion moves up beside the old man and strikes.

Durova readies an action to cast Burning Hands when the swarm gets within range.

Though the old man gets the club in the way, Sion's blade slides off it, into him...and he collapses. The ravens are swooping to attack, just then (cue Burning Hands)...but seem to lose interest, several flying off randomly, trailing flames...

"Hopefully no one heard that," Durova whispers as he looks around the room for a closet, or some other place to hide an old man's body.

"Doors tend to muffle sound fairly well, but we should finish this destruction quickly regardless." Then clapping Sion on the shoulder, Dane jokes. "Guess now you get to be an Iraen demon too."

Anton begins to search the area, for recent incoming or outgoing messages, or even some valuables. In the process, he pauses and looks at the scattered ravens. "Hmm, we should probably kill them all and destroy their 'home' so any incoming messages will fail to arrive. Or just set fire to the entire room."

There's nothing of any real value in here...

So...what's the decision?

"If we burn this place now, we will need to head back to our tunnel quickly. While we are here, do we want to shoot for more mischief?"

Dane smirks, "Mischief, eh? Mischief indeed. I do believe I'm personally up for more mischief myself, I do have a date with Mrs. Mott to keep, I'd at least like to determine where in the keep she is staying."

"Kill the birds. No more messages out of here."Sion looks around at the hundreds of birds and wonders the best way to get rid of them without making a scene.

Durova will use his burning hands spell and crisp as many as possible.

"Wonder if we can convince the birds to nibble on some of this arsenic I have? Do any of you see their food? A quick bit of poison and the birds will be done."

So far, your solitude is only disturbed by the anxious birds...

If you do use the Burning Hands, it takes out 15-20% of the birds, but they get very agitated and fly around chaotically again.

No bird feeder or anything of the like in here?

Most definitely a bird feeder. A very large one.

Durova pulls two of his vials of poison.,,"A bit of arsenic and stir with a dagger....by the end of tomorrow, I'd wager there will be no more messages sent via these birds." He uncaps the two vials, mixes them with the food, stirs them up with a weapon, and turns to the others. "Ready to leave? We might be able to sneak right back out before they even know we were here. Of course, we might be able to do a but more while we are in here."

"Poison. Simple and quiet. Very good. Let's make our way past those guards again. We can check out some more. So far so good."

"Quickly then, let us escape this tower."

Anton frowns at the bird feeder for a moment. "Can we be certain it will work?" he asks. He then shrugs "I know nothing of poisons, so I'll leave it to your expertise... but perhaps I can add another element." He mutters a spell under his breath and points at the feeder before looking at the others. "At least it may taste better for a while," he finishes moving to follow the others. "But don't forget to bring back your disguise..."

Cast prestidigitation to alter the flavor of the feed to something espectially tasty to ravens... flesh, eyeballs, etc. ;P

"We still have the element of surprise. Is there anything else to accomplish tonight? I'd suspect we will only have a couple of chances to get in here unmolested. I could drop these three other vials in some stew pots, if we could get to the kitchen."

LOL let's cut the bird man up and feed him to the birds! It would hopefully remove any traces of him for them to find dead later and then the birds would mysteriously die. Maybe they will think he did it and then disappeared or fled

Lol, that's sick, Sion! I'd imagine that would take us a good while to get accomplished. Not sure if spending the rest of the evening grinding up his bones for the birds is the best time allotment. It's a funny idea, though!

That's actually a good idea (cutting him up and feeding him to the crows). Maybe they'll just think he left his post and killed his pets (or because his pets were dead). Leaving the body makes it available for a speak with dead.

"A few guards taken out of commission through poison will not have much of an effect in the grand scheme of things. If it doesn't kill them outright, not only will they still be available once the attack occurs, but they certainly will be more careful of their meals in the future."

ok new idea, Durova plz tell me you have an open slot. Prepare Decompose Corpse. Then we take his bones and get rid of them.

Ugh. I could only tell you that, if I were to be lying to you, lol. I don't have an open slot, unfortunately.

For what its worth, I think members of the military disappearing mysteriously would be linked to the "demon" regardless of how well we hide the body.

Very little time has passed...it's the middle of the night...all quiet...take the time you need for a plan...but...if you feel stuck...I'll give you motivation. ;)

"Well, I'd not see us waste the opportunity to cause more havoc in here than this. The innkeeper did seem to hear our entrance into the tunnel, even if we leave undetected, we may not be able to gain entrance the same way twice."

Except if they do use speak with dead, they'll find out that the demon had accomplices.

Anton frowned. "That would be unfortunate. Perhaps, if he has not called upon the proper authorities, the inkeeper could be 'convinced' to remain silent. Or he could be replaced."

Knowledge (arcana): 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (9) + 3 = 12
Spellcraft: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (16) + 5 = 21

"In any case, considering the priest is still up and active, we had best destroy the body, or at least remove the head. A corpse without a mouth cannot speak to the priest to let him know that the 'demon' has allies."

"And destroy the rookery, so that they will not be able to put it to use, even if any of the raven survive their feed. Fire tends to be something pleasant. Perhaps a slow burn so that we will be elsewhere when it truly burns high and the alarm is sounded... at which point their focus would be here at any rate, rather than where we may be wandering..."

Given Grumblejack, and Mordesel's attack on the cleric, that's already a known variable.

"If anything, that may well a good way for us to cause a great deal more damage indeed. If the soldier's are busy attempting to batter down this door and put out a fire, we can be relatively free to move as we need." Looking at the others. "A slow burn?"

Except that if we burn the tower attracting heaps of soldiers to it, our entrance and exit to the tavern is right here in the tower.

A fair point, it may behoove us to exit a different way to try and conceal our efforts, but then that makes getting back into the inn a different problem altogether.

if we are able to exit a different way! we don't have to go back to the inn tonight. We could use our Disguise Self to wander the streets, and sneak into the inn tomorrow with the daily traffic.

Depends on how observant the innkeeper is. If he's suspicious now that we woke him, there's a good chance he'll notice who's missing from their rooms come morning and just happens to walk in the front door at some other point in time. He does lock the front door at night, so we can't act like we just got a jump on the day before he got up. Perhaps we need an alibi? Admit to one crime to hide another? Perhaps we can use Mordesel and someone else (I'm out as my disguise is supposed to be unaffiliated with you guys now) come stumbling back through the tunnel ragingly drunk off of Bellam's stores in the tunnel. Make it look like Mordesel got to stealing booze, not storming castles and murdering people.

Getting out another way will be tricky, but I think it's doable. Dane can at least swim or climb down the walls if needed (assuming the DCs aren't crazy), and he could probably help support the weight of someone else on the lazy river, but it's still not ideal.

Any decisions yet?