Xander appears further inside of the warehouse, finding that the wall to his left his lined with barred cells separated by wooden walls. The staff in his hand thrums with anticipation of liberating the slaves in the pens beside of them. He sees two cells packed with at least a dozen halflings, and another cell with a mostly naked old Taldane man with a long white beard, who is shackled and chained to the wall. Looking up and seeing Xander, he starts calling out, "Help! Please, help us!" though Xander cannot actually hear him, no matter how loudly he rattles his chains, due to the bubble of silence that is between them, though Ehren can hear his muffled voice as he is standing a bit further back.
At that moment, Unafe leaps up through the hole, and shoves the thanadaemon in front of her forcefully into the stable door. She finds that the enchantment on her hand wraps doesn't help much for this sort of action, and the thanadaemon is unharmed.
Meanwhile, one of the derghodaemons inside the sphere of silence backs away somewhat from the intruders and starts to sway back and forth eerily. Its many horrific insectoid limbs start to snap around irregularly, probably making a horrific din save for the bubble of silence that surrounds it.
The derghodaemon is trying to cast some sort of spell.
Isilme is up!
Isilme's ungainly goblinoid form flies straight up through the hole after the others, moving up to the roof just like Aglais had. She wasn't in her swarm form yet, and she had no intention of exposing herself to an attack from the Thanadaemon's life-draining attacks. She doesn't particularly notice the stench of the barn, having grown accustomed to the stench of the sewers after spending nearly an hour preparing for this battle.
At once, she notices one of the Dhergodaemons attempting to summon more of its kind, which would be seriously problematic if they hadn't already prepared for just this situation. Pulling out a small vial of ambrosia, she pops the cap off it and throws it in the direction of the daemons, chanting in celestial as she does. Her invocation blesses the space, warding it against evil outsiders, weakening them and preventing them from drawing others from their native planes to aid them in the battle.
Isilme flies up to the roof, similar to Aglais, and wards the space against the daemon's abilities to pull evil powers and spells from Abaddon. While she works on that, the thanadaemon wriggles free of Unafe's grasp and stumbles awkwardly away from her. Its eyes glow a fierce red as it raises both arms in the air, as if beckoning the heroes forward.
The Thanadaemon is casting a summoning spell.
Aglais, undaunted by the Thanadaemon's evil stare, flies over the stone wall and starts to inspect the cells. He tries to open the door of one of them, but finds it is locked.
Round 2!
Xander, Ehren, and Unafe are up!
The staring person snaps out of their trance and then walks off in a hurry. Hinagiku stands up and walks down towards the street Sophini's is on. She wants to try and get directly behind Sophini's, but she does not actually know which side of the street the building is on, since she has not seen the building itself just yet. She knows it was described as a larged walled complex built from white stone, but according to her instructions, she would have to walk at least three more minutes down the street in order to see it in person.
So, she goes to the street and peers curiously down it to determine which side Sophini's must be on. If it was large enough, and she peered closely, maybe she could see it from afar and then she could approach it from behind. When she does, she catches the attention of the one the Legionnaires who is monitoring the street. A young man with a black goatee wearing a turban, garbed in the same uniform as all of the Pure Legion, sees Hinagiku on the intersection and starts walking towards her.
"ببخشید خانم؟" he calls out. "Excuse me? You there, in the blue dress. Just a moment."
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Target number = 43, 47, 51
(((6+6) *4) -2) -3 = 43
With a wary eye on the thanadaemon, Xander weaves a spell -- a fairly new spell, as things go. He glows with power as he thrusts the magic forward into the mind of the closer derghodaemon, trying to summon an image that would terrify and intimidate even such a creature. While he does so, he taps into the natural mathematics present behind all reality in order to amplify his chances of success, making a minute adjustment here and there to the natural order of things.
Ehren pays the thanadaemon no heed, his will far too strong to be fazed by its stare. Leaving the daemons to Xander and Unafe, he dives into the ground snout-first, messily shoveling through the dirt with his large claws. He emerges from the ground seconds later, on the other side of his wall of stone. Noticing that Aglais was unable to get the cell door open, Ehren eyes the locks on the doors and snorts derisively. He raises a claw and invokes more of his magic; with a terrible screech of warping metal, the locks twist and pop open.
Unafe is up!
Unafe laughs off the attempt to cow her, and attempts to punch and hold onto the Thanadaemon as it attempts to get away from her.
If successful, she gives a Saurian War Honk of Glory, and tries to grind it into the ground and then punch it again.
Unafe grabs hold of the thanadaemon as it attempts to get away from her, shoves it onto the ground, and punches it. It squirms and shrieks in an effort to get away from her.
Meanwhile, the derghodaemon inside of the bubble of silence starts flailing its appendages about wildly, but doesn't otherwise budge from its spot.
Isilme is up!
"Heorcnian and lecgan mîn word−cwide frîend, fullfyligan dôð buter−flêoge flêogendlic azata, man willa drêogan êow hêan h¯ælnes ðâ we nîðplega. Frêot bîd swâðêana êower!" she calls out to the halflings in the cells, encouraging them to get moving.
"Listen to my words, friends! Follow the butterfly-winged azata, he will lead you to safety while we fight. Freedom awaits you all!"
She then turns her attention to the Dhergodaemon in the back, calling up the same magic she'd used to banish the demon possessing the clay statue they'd dealt with in the cavern when they sought out the celestial leyline. She invokes the power of the Song of Spheres to further empower the spell as she finishes the incantation.
The dhergodaemon in the back winks out of the Material Plane. Meanwhile, the thanadaemon fails to wriggle free from Unafe's grasp, but it glowers in fury the entire time.
On the other side of Ehren's stone wall are Ehren, Aglais, and the various prisoners. Ehren's spell springs the doors open, but it isn't until Isilme calls out to them do the various halflings start to cautiously leave the confines of their cells.
Meanwhile, Ehren can see that in the cell in front of him is an old Taldan man. He is chained to the wall by manacles around his wrists. He calls out to Ehren, "Please, don't leave me here!" His hands are a mangled, bloodied mess.
Up the narrow path created by the wall of stone, Aglais transforms into a large moth. He proceeds to help ferry the halflings down into the sewers on his back, one at a time.
Round 3!
Xander, Ehren, and Unafe are up!
Overcome by the furor of battle, Xander throws the hand holding his staff up in the air and cries, "Yah!" When he sees Unafe leap to flank with him, he takes advantage of the thanadaemon's compromised position and lashes out with his machete. With the derghodaemon disabled for the time being and the second one dismissed by Isilme, destroying the thanadaemon became the most important thing to do. It would seem that things were going well, but they were far from success. Between himself and Unafe, though, he believed that the daemons were more than handled.
"Hurry up and get those captives out of here," he call, before adding, "Has anyone found Aravashnial yet?"
This time when the wave of fear washes over her, Unafe nearly succumbs...but she remember's Old Aye's training and lets the rhythms of the battle wash it away.
She smashes the thanadaemon several times in quick succession, ending by trying to slam it dramatically into the ground.
Ehren is up!
"Don't worry, we're not leaving anyone behind," Ehren says in a reassuring tone, eyeing the man's mangled hands sympathetically. Just at a glance, he can tell that the damage is likely beyond what an ordinary cure spell could repair. "I will be right back, okay? I need to see how many more people we need to get out."
With that, the druid hurries down the length of the warehouse, peering into the rest of the stables. When he reaches the last one, he looks to the man inside and raises a paw. The points on the wooden wall that his manacles are chained to warp unnaturally, breaking their attachment.
"We have a tunnel leading into the sewers, but we need to hurry," he says to him, gesturing back the way he came. Wrinkling his snout slightly, he asks, "You're with the Riftwardens, right? Where are the others? Where is Aravashnial?"
Ehren walks down to the last cell, where he finds a younger human man. He is also only wearing his smallclothes, and his hands have been likewise mangled into a swollen mess. His features are angular and Chelish. He is also manacled to the wall, but his restraints come free as the wooden wall behind him creaks and bends. He stands up and opens his mouth and starts to moan. His tongue has been cut out.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the wall, Unafe slams the thanademon into the ground until it falls unconscious. Its scythe falls to the ground and it slumps in her arm. Even so, Isilme loses control of herself, flying into the rafters and cowering for several moments before she can regain her composure once more.
Round 4!
Xander, Ehren, and Unafe are up!
Ehren winces when he realizes the extent of the man's injuries, worse even than his elder's. With no more stables to explore, he turns back the way he came, beckoning for the man to follow. True to his word, he stops at the older man's cell again and gestures at his manacles, willing them to pop right open. As he helps the man out of his cell, he bombards him with the questions his apparent colleague could not answer.
"What's your name? You are with the Riftwardens, right? We heard that there were four of you - where are the others?"
When the thanadaemon falls unconscious, Xander capitalizes on that immediately. He carefully steps closer, holding his machete over the creature's neck to line up properly. When he thinks he's got a good angle to simply sever the thanadaemon's head from its body, he swings his sword as hard as he can down into its neck, whirling his entire body in order to get the extra momentum going.
His work done, he stands up and takes stock of the situation around them. The daemons seemed to be well-in-hand, but if he heard Ehren properly they hadn't located Aravashnial yet. He looks up and around at the others. "What do we do next?" he asks.
"You all find the missing prisoners. I'll give this last daemon what he deserves.
"Careful though. Those Adepts are probably here too, and could be casting their own magics, and getting ready to strike."
With that, Unafe ducks under the flying Isil-gobbo and runs straight for the last daemon, smashing into it with full force (though, odly, with no sound whatsoever).
Xander decapitates the thanadaemon without much issue. The daemon melts into a pile of black ash. Meanwhile, the old man exclaims, "Thank you, thank you..." as he is freed from his restraints. He gingerly stands up from the hay, and winces as he attempts to brush some of the grime off from his body with his mangled hands.
"My name is Gerrard," he says. "This is my colleague, Mikael," he continues, pointing at the young man whose tongue was cut out. "The Blackfyres came earlier and took both Aravashnial and Najat... they have a torture chamber somewhere below. When they took me there to interrogate me, they tortured my weasel familiar in front of my eyes, trying to get me talk," he says, his voice heavy with emotion. "I am glad that my poor little friend did not hold out for long, for now he is at peace."
"They took me through the main building. There is a stairwell inside one of the administrative offices, but only the Blackfyres have the key to get down there..."
Meanwhile, Unafe charges into the bubble of silence, leaving her unable to hear any of Ehren and Gerrard's conversation. She makes up for it by grabbing hold of the multi-limbed monstrosity and pummeling it repeatedly in the face. The creature flails and writhes, and suddenly a cloud of bats appears and attempts to devour Unafe whole. However, their sharp little teeth can't get through the stony enchantment Ehren had placed on her, using the recovered Demetae wand, so the net effect is more of a tickling sensation.
Round 5!
The Heroes Are Up!
Even if the summoned insects couldn't hurt him, Xander has no real wish to charge into a crowd of them. With the derghodaemon disabled by his magic, he has full confidence in Unafe's ability to destroy it before they needed to flee. With the halflings being escorted down into the sewers by Aglais, Xander has nothing to do.
Looking around at his compatriots, and having heard what the Riftwarden told Ehren, he says, "Well, I guess we have to go look for him, don't we? If the key is in the hand of a Blackfyre Adept, then that's one Blackfyre Adept we have to kill in order to save Aravashnial."
Xander takes a deep breath in through his nose as he accepts in his mind that, while the daemons have been defeated, there are likely other enemies beyond the walls of this barn. He's going to need everything he has in order to fight them, so he takes a few moments to relax and re-center himself.
"I'm sorry for your loss, Gerrard," Ehren says with a frown, unsurprised by the Blackfire Adepts' cruelty. "I have a potion that should heal your hands, but we'll need to get you all down into the sewers first."
He ponders Xander's words for a moment, debating on their next course of action. He had not counted on Aravashnial being in a different location, though in hindsight, it was something they should have anticipated.
"I know you have been through a great deal, but do you have any idea how many enemies there are out there? Adepts, slavers, daemons?"
As he continues to question the Riftwarden, the badger moves to edge of the tunnel, where Aglais is slowly lowering the halflings into the sewers. Hoping to expedite their escape, Ehren reaches down and casts stone shape, willing the stone that forms the ceiling of the sewer to slope down, forming a makeshift slide.
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"So... not much further, then." Ary says at the explanation of Thuvia. Well, maybe. Maybe they were further east than west in this case. She nods slowly to Jamal's explanation. "Alright, good. So as long as my companions just manage to save Avi and the Riftwardens and don't do anything... terrorist-like... Lann should be fine. I... think that's all that I have for now. Thank you, Jamal, and good luck on the investigation."
Jamal gives Ary a nod, then leaves through the door. Ary sits and waits for about an hour or so before Lann is brought into her room, along with a tall female guard who wields a spear in her left hand.
Lann is allowed to sit in one of the chairs in Ary's cell. He is able to quickly recognize that his cell is identical to hers. He feels relieved to see Ary, as after he had cut his questioning short with the previous Pure Legion official, Lann was kept in the dark about anything going on regarding Ary, Hinagiku, or the others.
He and Ary are not cuffed or manacled during their visit, but the door to Ary's cell is closed and locked.
Isilme walks over to where the halflings and the wardens are filing out and unleashes a burst of healing energy, filling the room with silvery-blue light for a moment.
"Anything you can tell us about the torture chambers and who runs them would be of great use as well," she adds to Ehren's questioning of Gerrard. "For the time being we need to get everyone into the sewers and seal the path behind us. If we can prevent them from following us we can figure out what to do about Aravashnial and Najat. We may be able to get help from Aglais on this, Thyrliens are gifted by the Song of Spheres with the ability to track creatures or people magically."
Gerrard thinks back for a moment. "At least six Adepts ambushed us. Blasted Infernal mongrels, the lot of them. We thought we had eradicated the entire cel, but it seems that a group of Blackfyres had been traveling abroad during our strike that we had not known to account for... perhaps we acted in too great haste, to try and stop their efforts to ally with a Xill Matriarch and her unholy brood and imperil so many innocent lives..." he trails off and shakes his head. "I only hope that you can rescue Najat before we escape. Does the Legion know that you are here?"
"Xill" is the true name of what most beings on the Material Plane refer to as "ethereal stalkers" - a race of four-armed carnivorous aliens from the Ethereal Plane that seek to subjugate other races by using them as hosts to incubate their eggs.
Xill are able to planeswalk from the Ethereal Plane to the Material Plane at will, allowing them to use the Material Plane as a ready source for creatures to incubate eggs and to feed their young.
"The slavers employ close to a hundred people," he continues. "Security, maintenance, administration, advertising, and so on."
"As for daemons... I remember seeing another derghodaemon when I was in the basement. But it could have been the same derghodaemons from here."
Unafe is up!
Within the eerie globe of silence, Unafe continues to pummel the daemon.
Unafe continues to silently pummel the derghodaemon into a pulp while it squirms and thrashes helplessly. Another swarm of bats appears, this one swarming around Xander. They attempt to bite at him, but he is also warded by the Demetae magic, so there is not much of an effect.
Meanwhile, Aglais starts to lead the halflings down the ramp, which speeds things up considerably.
Round 6!
The Heroes Are Up!
Unafe keeps wailing silently on the injured daemon. If she takes it out, she turns her attention to the swarm that's flapping around her.
Hinagiku takes a short breath, whispers ”Apologies.” and simply bolts, as fast as she can, toward the bridge leading into the poorer part of town.
Ehren cannot hear the fighting on the other side of the wall, but he takes the fact that the daemons have not interfered with the evacuation as a good sign. Leaving the others to address the bats, the druid heads back to the two Riftwardens. For lack of proper thumbs, he sticks his head into his polymorphic pouch and digs around for a few seconds, before reemerging with a small vial carefully clutched between his teeth. He holds the potion out to Gerrard, hoping that he still has manual dexterity enough to open and drink it himself.
"If there's as many people as you say, we're not going to be able to fight through the entire compound," Ehren says, doing what he can to help Gerrard keep the bottle steady. "There's a door in the sewer that we sealed to curb any possible pursuers. Is there any chance that it leads into the basement?"
"If we can figure out roughly where Aravashnial is, we don't even necessarily need a door. We could easily duplicate the trick we did to get my gear back from the Pure Legion," she says in response to Ehren's inquiry. "I think we should try to keep that door sealed and repair the entry point here before we go. It'd make it significantly harder to follow us."
"I think I might have a way to help keep the swarms from approaching further," she says. She stops for a moment and begins focusing inward, drawing upon the memory of their time in Drezen just after they'd defeated Vhane. It was there, down those steps leading into the basement that she and Valaria had witnessed something truly divine: Hundreds and thousands of butterflies appearing out of nowhere and flowing through the room in a giant swarm, leading them to the jail cell where some mysterious Desnan had been trapped. That moment had been the one that led her down the path of serving her Lady Starsong not simply as a follower, but as a priestess as well. As she focuses on the memory, she feels Cygnus thrum with power, and moments later her small goblin body dissolves into a cloud of blue butterflies, their forms filling the room. The swarm swiftly moves into the nearest swarm of bats and beyond, carefully avoiding Xander and Unafe, she works to bait the bats into attacking her, knowing she'd be protected by the cloak of winds and stoneskin Ehren had imparted upon her.
Xander steps back and away from the bat swarms. Relegated to people-watching, and with no enemies left to fight, he simply sheaths his sword and waits for something to happen. Xander does not wish to fight a hundred slavers (or even whichever subset of them are security) and a half-dozen Blackfyre Adepts, but he doesn't see a way to reliably pinpoint Aravashnial's location without using old-fashioned methods. "How do we roughly discover where Aravashnial is? You mentioned using magic, but I thought locate magic only works on people that you know?"
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Hearing Xander speak while she found her consciousness distributed among the swarm was a unique experience. Instead of simply hearing his voice coming from a singular direction, she instead heard it almost surrounding her completely. Despite the lack of sense of direction she had on the sound itself, she still was somehow conscious of the rough direction it had come from. Similarly, though she could 'see' Xander, she had to focus on seeing 'at' him. When she didn't her vision was diffuse and unfocused, seemingly seeing everything at once and yet not resolving any of it sufficiently to understand what she saw.
She thinks on Xander's question momentarily and then swarm seems to reply somehow as a collective whole, answering him. "It should be able to find an elf, however, and there are unlikely to be many here. If we also search for Najat in the same place then Ehren could verify that it is in fact them. Once we have done so, it would be easy to teleport in to free them."
"I certainly hope so," Ehren says, as he does what he can to assist Gerrard. "I have plenty of spells left, but not enough to fight off a small army. And we will want to be on our way before the Pure Legion catches on to our presence."
Xander presses his mouth closed tightly with concern and doubt. "I still think it would be better if we went to search for them the old-fashioned way, with our eyes -- especially if we're going to flee and shut the door behind us before attempting to use magic. There's no guarantee that any elf located by a spell is going to be Aravashnial, after all."
He gestures with one hand towards the door that leads to the Blackfyre facility. "Why don't we just turn invisible and go look for ourselves? I'm sure we could find him without getting caught. Ehren could lead the others towards the escape point while we do so."
He sighs, and puts a finger and thumb to his temple. "I'm just nervous about the idea of teleporting into an unknown room with unknown inhabitants based on the assumption that the nearest elf is your boyfriend."
"We don't have to teleport blind, Ehren can go in invisible to peek before we go. We have already pulled this off once yesterday, so I have no doubt we can pull it off again," Isilme's disembodied voice replies to Xander. "We can test for the nearest elf, and then for what we know of Najat. If they're in the same room, and below the surface, there is just little probability it's anyone else, and again, Ehren can double check. If that fails we'll know quickly, and then we can consider sneaking in."
One one side of the wall, Isilme turns into a mass of brilliantly colored swallowtail butterflies. The bats immediately attempt to eat the butterflies, but, they are blown away five feet when they attempt to get too close. They crowd along the left-hand wall of the warehouse, unable to fly past the winds that circle the butterflies.
At the same time, Unafe beats the derghodaemon in an oozing pulp. It stops flailing, hanging limp and useless in her grasp. The bats that surround Unafe vanish into thin air.
Gerrard attempts to grasp the potion, but it slips through his fingers and falls to the ground. It does not shatter, thankfully, but it rolls around. He clumsily tries to pick it back up.
Finally, the silence effect dissipates inside the warehouse, which fills Unafe's ears with the sound of shrieking bats.
Round 7!
The Heroes Are Up!
As the halflings continue to exit, an idea occurs to Isilme. Perhaps if they brought down the entire barn as they left, it would cause a further distraction outside and force them to sort through the rubble to verify the halflings had disappeared. If they were lucky it might buy them 10 or 20 minutes, a head start they'd need to get to the river before the Guards or Pure Legion started after them.
One would need to take out the largest vertical support pillar, which is located close to where Ehren dug the hole, and at least two out of four of the support pillars that hold out the roof, to most efficiently bring down the entire barn. Each wooden support pillar has around 40 HP and a break DC of 25.
Hinagiku takes off down the street as the Pure Legion yells after her and begins to give chase, but finds that due to the great amount of crowds and obstacles in her way, her improved speed does not give her that much of an advantage, but, perhaps her skills would help her bridge the difference. First, she needs a way to escape the throngs of people who surround her on every side, and maybe then find a clearer way to get back to the bridge.
"Xander, see the central pillar by the hole we came in at, and the two nearby corner pillars? If we could knock those out we could bring down the entire building at once. Do you think you could do so with magic after we have evacuated everyone?" asks the Wizard, wondering if he could pull off her idea.
While Gerrard fumbles for the vial, he answers Ehren's question.
"I'm not sure... I don't remember seeing any strange doors. It was more a series of corridors down there... extra storage for slaves, I presume," Gerrard says, distastefully.
Squinting at the architecture around them, Xander nods in response to Isilme's assertion. Doing a bit of math in his head, he determines that he could burn the building down in less than a minute if desired. On the other hand, he imagines that it could be wasteful and overly noisy. "Yep, I see them," he says in response. "I think I could, yes. Not quickly, though, and it would gather a lot of attention. Are you sure you want to do it?"
He looks around, gesturing vaguely towards the outside. "Where are the rest of the Blackfyres, anyway? Shouldn't they know by now that we attacked?" He rubs the back of his head briefly. "The silence and lack of action is telling me that they don't, which in turn warns me against causing unnecessary action. If you think it's the best choice, though, I can bring down this barn."
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Sound comes washing back in as the massive daemon collapses.
Unafe considers finishing it off, but decides the swarm of bats should be handled first.
With a mighty saurian "HONK!", she leaps over to the swarm (landing in the midst of Isilme's butterfly-self) and says, "Let's see how this clasp you made me works, Ehren."
Then she winds up and swings her fist into the cloud of bats.
"Sorry," Ehren apologizes sheepishly when Gerrard drops the vial. Figuring that he will not need to dig any more holes, he decides to shift into a more practical shape. In a blur, his bestial body becomes that of his oft-used earth elemental form. Blessed with opposable thumbs, he picks the potion off the ground, holding it delicately between his rough stone fingertips. At least in this form, he could properly assist the Riftwarden in drinking it.
"It is possible that there were no Blackfyres close enough for the daemons to warn, but I somehow doubt it," he says, recalling what Isilme said about daemons being telepathic. "They would have to be fools to be unaware of our presence. While that would be awfully convenient, I'm more inclined to believe that they are planning something." The druid looks to the ceiling and frowns.
While he certainly would not mind seeing this vile place burnt to the ground, it is not necessarily the wisest course of action. "In which case, it might be better to save your magic, in case we cross paths with them."
Str 19, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 22, Cha 12
AC 24, touch 14, flat-footed 22 (+2 deflection, +2 Dex, +10 natural)
CMB +11; CMD 25
Bonuses +2 Strength, Power Attack
Other darkvision 60 ft., burrow 30 ft. (with greater longstrider), earth glide
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"First, I've cooperated fully, to the best of my ability, so it will be nearly impossible to say anything truthful that could hurt our allies; in fact, it would only corroborate what I've said, probably, or add another perspective." she says, chewing her lip.
"At the moment, you're not being charged with anything, you're simply being held here because of the suspicion that you're working with terrorists. There's a lot going on on that front, though. They said you'd have been released today, given your cooperation... but Hinagiku vanished in the night from the local hospital." she says, not splitting hairs. "Apparently, she was declared dead, then escaped the hospital and disappeared into the night. I know it doesn't sound like her at all, but... I believe Jamal about it." she says, tilting her head.
"But that's not the reason we were moved. Yesterday, while identifying our gear, someone posing as Isilme and with an earth elemental, appeared in the interrogation room, stole the bags of holding, Faith, Radiance, and Cygnus. I... don't believe that it was Isilme, because the person intentionally implicated me... and the voice was off. I'm uncertain whether Jamal believes that, believes that I believe that, or doesn't believe it at all. I think it may have been one of the demonic cultists that have been watching us. Getting our things while we were disarmed of them was a simple and effective way to cause some permanent harm." she says, lips tightening into a purse.
"So, I don't know whether we were moved to prevent further scrying attempts, to prevent further communications, or to prevent a possible escape attempt. Given the light of those two events, your stay here may be a bit longer than Jamal - the investigator assigned to our case -" she elucidates once she realizes she's been repeatedly using a name that might mean nothing to Lann. "Originally believed." she says, though makes it clear there's more to talk about... only that the biggest things needed airing before they got into more details.
Unafe punches once into the cloud of bats, causing her swarmbane clasp to glow suddenly. The force from her once punch is multiplied over and over until all bats in the hivemind are struck at once. The remainder of the bats crumple to the ground. Behind her, the fallen derghodaemon lays on the ground, still and unconscious. A pool of reddish-purplish goo surrounds it on the floor.
Meanwhile, Ehren picks up the flask, uncorks it, and raises it to Gerrard's lips. His hands are quickly restored to full function. He smiles brightly. "Oh, thank you, thank you. Did Lae-Lae send you all here to rescue us?" he asks.
"I only have one spell remaining - locate creature. I could try to use it to find Aravashnial, or Najat. But I would need bloodhound fur to cast it. They took all of my spell components when I was captured, naturally. Either way, we should hurry. It seems like the silence spell you employed helped cover up the sounds of battle, but it is only a matter of time before it is discovered that you killed daemons.... and it is likely the daemons were communicating with the Adepts telepathically the entire time anyway, so perhaps they are preparing a trap expecting you to try to save Najat and Aravashnial next."
Finally, the remainder of the halflings slide down Ehren's stone-slide into the sewers. Mikael gingerly follows them.
Round 8!