Tatienne slides her sword into her scabbard as she walks, taking a moment to let the adrenaline from the fight ebb away. Entering the poker room as Geborah finishes her speech, the relic hunter pauses as the ogre lifts Blackerly to the table. What a magnificent creature Grumblejack was.
"There can't be too many guards left. We surely outnumber them at this point. And, I'm feeling greedy, dears."
"As for the dogs, they fed Grumblejack something to try and weaken him, I'm sure it would do wonders on something with a weaker constitution. Other wise let them rot for all i care, who knows when someone would return to check into the prison."
Wraith nods at Tatienne's suggestion, "I too am greedy and would like to see if there have been other mage's sent here and might have had some things not claimed by the late Warden."
"I haven't had enough practice in the sin of greed; let's indulge our worst impulses there. But we should realize we haven't killed half of the guards--besides the ones on still on duty at the gatehouse, and the ones in the main hall, there must be another shift or two of them somewhere. Do they have homes in the village, or barracks in the prison? Another question for Blackerly, I suppose. Who wants to do the honors? How about you, Jezabel...you had the first guard quaking in terror."
Jezabel giggles at the memory.
"It will be fun to tryyyyyyy..." she replies in a sing-song voice.
Grumblejack picks up Blackerly and drops him on the table. Wraith shackles Blackerly to the table, then gags him with a bloody rag before rudely slapping him awake. His eyes snap open, and he looks at all of you standing over him, his eyes darting to each of you, wide with fear, and he says something muffled by the gag.
"Oh, shhh, shhhh, shhhhh!" Jezabel tells Blackerly, running a fingernail across his cheek. "You're not supposed to talk, yet! You WILL... But I get to hurt you first."
She smiles widely.
"So what would you prefer...? A cheek, or an eye?"
Jezabel hops up on top of Blackerly, sitting on his chest and strokes his cheek. "I'm always partial to cheeks, you see... They're deliiiiiiiciiiiious! But an eye?" She licks her lips. "Tastes like jelly."
After a moment of his muffled talking, Jezabel jabs her finger into his left eye and pries it out.
She laughs wildly, waits until he's watching, and pops the eyeball in her mouth. She eats it happily, then pats him on the face.
"Shhhh... I'm going to take off your gag, and if you answer their questions honestly, I won't eat any more of you. And if you don't..." She grins madly. "I'll eat you one bite at a time."
"Ready?" she asks him happily.
"Spare yourself some pain, Sergeant. And spare your men, too. The eight of us are perfectly capable of slaughtering every guard left in this prison. But we'd rather just grab what we need and be gone. Tell us where the payroll and armory are, and we can sneak in there with no further lives shed."
"We also want to know about the next shift of guards. Where are they? When do they go on duty? Tell us and we can avoid them. Don't tell us, and their blood is on your soul."
"Jeza not the face I was planning to keep it intact..... Who am I kidding I only need the bones... But I'll take an eye if your sharing.. They are the windows to the soul, lets see how his soul tastes!"
Tatienne sidles up to the former detective, her mouth turned down in a slight frown. "They're both totally mad, you know. But they haven't tried to eat us friendly types. Yet."
Wraith smirks in Tatienne's direction before giving her a wink. "Your too pretty to eat Tatienne, but don't tempt me."
Dante, more than a little disturbed, realizes that he hadn't taken Jezabel's first expression calling him delicious seriously. He had assumed that she was simply amorous. But then she had plucked an eye out of the guardsman's head and eaten it. What gave her the gall to do so was mystifying, but Dante would be keeping an eye or three on her.
"Noted." he says to Tatienne.
From the dead guard, he takes the chain shirt and the longsword. An awkward, big weapon is better than none at all.
"Torture is not typically an effective means of gathering intel," he adds. "People tend to say whatever they think you want to hear to make it stop."
"Ah? Then I should say what I want to hear is the truth, Sergeant Blackerly. And perhaps a bit of groveling, if it's done well."
Turning her face away from the bound and bleeding captive, Geborah gives Dante an eyeroll and a wink, as if apologizing for the theatrics.
Blackerly screams as Jezabel pops his eye out, although the gag muffled it for the most part. His screams renew when she pops the eye in her mouth as he watches, and he begins sobbing. Once Jezabel pulls the gag out, he says, half-blubbering, ”I would have told you anything you wanted to know! You didn’t have to do that! The armory is in the great hall. It’s locked, but the key is on my keyring. Payroll is distributed to the men when the it’s delivered from Varyston. Most of the rest are asleep in the barracks, but there are two in the Great Hall on guard outside the armory. Look, just let me live, please, I beg you!”
Jezabel smiles with amusement at Blaskerly's blubbering.
"How many guards should be in the barracks?" she asks
Dante hums. "We should get going," he says. "Best to get as far away from this place as we can manage, I think."
Tatienne averts her eyes at the scene, the noblewoman finding unnecessary cruelty quite unbecoming. "Answer the girl, Blackerly, and one more. And I'll promise she doesn't eat you."
"When is the next guard rotation due?"
Balam remained silent during the interrogation, preferring to let his betters ask the questions. Instead, he simply did his best to look threatening, giving extra weight to his superiors' words.
After giving the wretch time to answer the others, Geborah strides over to the table, flicking her nails together. "And for the most important question, Blackerly. What could you possibly offer us that would make us spare your miserable life?" Her tone makes it clear she doesn't expect him to have an answer that will satisfy her.
"There are five guards remaining in the barracks, and two servants in the kitchen. The next guard rotation is after sunrise - you have plenty of time to escape."
"What can I offer you to spare my life? I have gold. I won't tell you where it is, though, unless you unchain me and leave the room. I'll tell you where to look from down here, and then you shut the trapdoor and leave me be. Otherwise, I will tell you nothing."
"Such sass from my food!" Jezabel says with a laugh. "Tongues are delicious toooooo, you knoooooow..." she sings.
Dante scrunches up his eyebrows. "Such a tempting offer," he says, "But I think I'd want to advise that we just murder you quickly and be on our way." He has no wish to see the man tortured further, and an even greater wish to get out of this prison as fast as he can so he can think about what to do next.
Jezabel smiles widely. "I promised I wouldn't eat any more of you if you talked, Blackerly."
With bloody hands she finishes, "I didn't say you'd live."
Then she bursts out laughing, as if it were HILARIOUS.
Geborah urges Wraith forward. "Catch his fleeting life force before she kills him--or is it already too late? Really, Jezabel, do we snatch food from your mouth? Strong sacrifices like Blackerly are best for fuelling Wraith's black arts."
The young priestess's eyes narrow as she considers the dead man's final words.
"I agree, plus dead men speak to me so his gold should be easy to find once he's dead! This is in response to Blackerly's comment.
-----------------------------------------------
"He needs to be dying for me to fuel my power." With an evil grin at Jeza he waves her to proceed. "I'll take my chances with her killing attempt, if she kills him outright I'll collect his head to taught his soul later. If she doesn't kill him right off I'll torment his soul now."
"I'll then collect his head to torture his soul more later." He mumbles under his breath just loud enough to be heard by the man.
Jezabel's hands lash out, wrapping around Blackerly's neck. As the man begins to choke, he nails dig in and, with a wet, sucking sound, she rips his throat out. With a few burbles, Blackerly dies, his lifeless body still on the table he's chained to.
"We would be wise to dispose of the guards at the gatehouse now. Then, if we wish, we can return to the prison to hunt for Blackerly's supposed gold, our escape route entirely clear."
She snaps her fingers at the latecomer. "You--what is your name, anyway?--and Balam, and Tatienne, and I, dressed as guards, will go down to the gatehouse and take the guards by surprise. Wraith, Jezabel, Grumblejack and Skorn will follow at a distance, so that they are not spotted before we have a chance to distract Blackerly's men. With the uniforms, and the password--it is 'Hesterfield,' by the way--we shouldn't have any problem getting close enough to strike without raising the alarm, and if there is any trouble, our reinforcements will be close behind."
Taitienne cocks her head. In all the commotion and torture, she'd forgotten to ask the newcomer his name. She'd always been somewhat absentminded. The girl, however, was sharp as a javelin point.
"Sounds good to me. Let's earn our freedom."
Eyeing Blackerly's blood dripping down her hands, Jezabel pouts. "A waste of good refreshment."
She laughs suddenly, then hops off of Blackerly and down onto the floor.
"Always with the orders," she sings, "Go on, girl, make your plans."
Her songs shifts on from 'plans' into a bit of nonsense.
Wraith walks over to Blackerly's corpse, borrowing a sword he spends a few moments hacking at the neck to remove it. Once done he puts it in the bad with the wardens head.
"Well I got what I need, and I would like to get any additional resources possible."
"Aye, there could be more resources, here. I know I would like better armor."
At the question, Dante hesitates. He could give them some kind of fake name. By all rights, he should. Who knew who all of these people were, but one thing he was sure of was that they were all convicted criminals. And a couple of them seemed definitely to be insane. But then... on second thought... who cared, really? What was the worst thing that could come?
They could kill his family.
But his family had consigned him to this place without a second thought.
"I am Dante Alighieri," he says.
Geborah, Tatienne, Balam, and Dante, dressed as guards, head out of the gatehouse to walk down the causeway to the guard post. Grumblejack, Wraith, Jezabel, and FireSkorn sit back a bit, trying to avoid being noticed by the guard left at the post.
As the group readies their disguises, Geborah moves between them, murmuring the blessings of Asmodeus on devious endeavors.
A guard's cloak doesn't do much to hide that the priestess is but a young girl.
Tatienne's hair falls from her helmet as she walks, unbeknownst to the relic hunter, that she looks like she's a she.
Smirking, she looks sideways at Geborah. "You look like a scarecrow wearing armor."
"Helloooooo Dante," Jezabel purrs with a wide smile.
---
Jezabel bursts out laughs at Deborah and Tatienne's disguises.
Eventually she remarks, "Hang back, child. Now's not the time for you to play dress-up." Turning to Tatienne she says, "Your locks aren't doing you any favours. They'll spot you as a woman from a mile away."
She looks at Balam and Dante with a bright smile, clearly waiting to see if they also look hilarious.
---
Despite the terrible day he's had, his haggard appearance, and his torn clothing, Dante manages a decent impression of a prisonhouse guard. He stands straight-backed and ready. "Um," he mumbles, trying not to look at Jezabel, "Hello."
"Greeting's Dante, I am Wraith. Like the spectre but more menacing and with teeth." Wraith gives Dante a very toothy grin. Showing that some of his teeth look sharper then others.
"Actually ladies you both look like guards that just came from a roll somewhere. I'd try again or just scream confidence that you did just come from a roll somewhere." After a moment Wraith tries to be helpful but feels that in the end he made them worse off.
As the group moves out, Wraith starts clinging to shadows just like his name sake.
A look of confusion crosses over Taty's face.
"A roll? I'm not from Talingarde. I'm afraid I don't follow this colloquialism?"
"A toss in the hay..." Wraith starts sprouting various innuendo terms till Tatienne get a clue.
"Oh yes," Tatienne says, laughing, her laugh one that is full-throated and rich, as if she's practiced it. "I wish!"
Geborah rolls her eyes at the adults' sex talk, and tries to heave the conversation back on track.
"Dante looks passable, if they don't recognize his face and voice immediately...Dante, did you see how many guards were at the gatehouse after you left with the one we killed? There's a dog too, I believe. This ruse might get you and Balam in striking distance, but can you silence them alone? If you can just keep them occupied until the rest of us rush in, that should be good enough."
Geborah, Tatienne, Balam, and Dante, dressed as guards, head out of the gatehouse to walk down the causeway to the guard post. Grumblejack, Wraith, Jezabel, and FireSkorn sit back a bit, trying to avoid being noticed by the guard left at the post.
Balamn does his best to not look like criminal. But, the blood staining his clothes does little to make him look innocent.
"Let me help with those Balam," With a wave and a chant in some dark and dingy language. Wraith draws the blood out of his clothes.
With Balam and Dante's disguises in place, the group heads out of the gatehouse and down to the causeway, the rest of the group following at a distance - close enough to help if there's trouble, far enough away the guard hopefully won't notice. As the two approach the guard post, the dog starts barking rapidly. Walking, you also notice it's beginning to get lighter out - the sun will likely rise soon. You will have to be quick.
The guard barely glances at Balam and Dante as they walk into the guard post. "'Bout time you got back, Adam. I though I was gonna have to finish my shift alone. What, you kip into the gate house for a drink and a hand or two? I see Jonas is back, too. Game break up then? Pah, tomorrow night, I get to go have fun and you two can sit here bored out of your minds."
Balam keeps a mild look on his face even as he cuts at one of the guards with a sure blow strike from his blade.