So you are both able to sneak downstairs and follow him into the basement.
In the basement, you spot the innkeeper going into a secret passageway. It looks very well hidden, and something you'd have had trouble finding if you hadnt seen it being used.
Any other exits from the basement?
The disguiesed half-orc puts an ear to the door.
There are no other exits from the basement other than back up the stairs, or out through the secret passage.
Gertrart hears someone, presumably Bellam, headed down the passageway behind the secret door.
Gertrart motions to Soloman, then opens the door as quietly as he can.
Solomon nods, grinning with yellow teeth that look far more rat-like than should be reasonable in his human guise. Is there anything they can wedge in the door as well, so that it doesn't close behind them?
Either way, he descends along with the crafty half-orc.
You mean the secret dwarven stone door? It's still open from when he went through, so no concerns there. While you'd have been hard pressed to find it and operate it if you didn't know it was there originally, now that you've seen it in action, you should have no trouble finding it again and using it.
Ok, so you follow Bellam through the tunnel?
Aye. Discreetly.
Yep, going down.
The two of you follow for what seems like forever, and is in fact a mile. The tunnel is well built, but clearly not used often at all. As you reach the far end, you find the backside of another similarly impressive secret door.
As you peer inside the door you see a roughly square room that is 10x10. This room appears to be used for some sort of storage. large boxes marked as rations, barrels of potable water, etc. Overall a sizable amount of supplies. Off to the side, you can see Bellam carefully lifting a wooden case filled with roughly a dozen bottles, and he turns towards the opening to carry the case out of this room and starts approaching you.
Gertrart backs down the long route, out the basement & to the common room, returning to his travelors disguise as he does.
So you guys leave out ahead of him and get out of sight before he comes lugging the bottles into his basement.
Okay by me, & I know where I'm going. Be best to let others take the limelight :)
Vosil grins, widely. "I have discovered that the lovely Katlyn Mott, married to Captain Mott, is having an affair with another Captain! Now, what if he were to discover the two lovers and kill them both in a rage, before killing himself in despair? Better yet, what if the priest were somehow to try and stop him, and be killed in the process?"
Vosil drops the pretence. "You can see where I'm going with this of course. We - you - do the killing and then make it look like that's what happened. No one's going to look too closely if that's what they think - they'll probably want to hush it up. And at a stroke, without alerting anyone to our presence, we've inflicted huge damage and destroyed morale in the survivors!"
"Why dirty our hands? I'm sure Captain Mott would handle the slaying, if we just guide him to the right place at the right time. We can later arrange some accident to Mott, or let him rot in prison." Mordecai asks, not totally opposed to Vosil's original idea. "Mott is not yet guilty of anything, and killing him will just release his soul. But if he was to kill someone in jealous rage, then my Lord Asmodeus has a claim on his soul." the tiefling continues, repeating the words whispered to his ear by the invisible imp.
"Good work, nonetheless..."
Agreed. If we can get out before him, I'd like to do so. We know where the stash is now.
Alrighty then.
@Gertrart - You meet up with Slate and another dwarf at the appointed time. They start chatting with you, treating you as somewhat of an apprentice and trying to teach you the ropes. If you plan to do anything other than observe and help out today, let me know. Otherwise give me a knowledge (engineering) check.
The rest of the dwarves have headed off on their duties for today.
@Others, what is your plan for today? Obvious things are: intercept//track the ranger group, look into the illicit affair, check out the secret tunnel, everything else you've doscussed.
Eager to gain their trust & therefore deeper into the areas the builders have access to, the traveler displays as much confidence and ability as he can.
@Gertrart - I think I can confidently say that with that roll, your cover won't be blown! I'll get you a writeup of at all you see and do. You're the first set of party eyes to get inside the keep! Congrats!
What's the plan for the others? Spend the day browsing and selling and buying? You've got at least 14 days before go team, so we're not in a rush to assault.
@Gertrart
Slate and another dwarf meet you and you help them haul various tools up to the keep. When you get there, you find a well maintained fortress indeed.
You approach from the town side of the keep, and they bring you to the back entrance. Two guards are on watch here. They explain your having joined them and you are permitted to enter. You pass down a long 20' wide central corridor in the keep, with doors on either side. You hear the normal day to day goings on in a place of this sort. Unlike Brandescar Prison, this place is well staffed, well armed, well disciplined, and well maintained.
Finally you come to two stout doors, which are open and permitting a pleasant breeze into the keep. As you pass through the doors, you cross a 20' x 100' long bridge. The bridge is over an extremely deep chasm with a river at the bottom. (Knowledge(local) and knowledge(history) can gain you something here.)
It is clear to you that the keep is on the "safe" side of the river and the far side where you are headed is where your allies will come when they attack. The last 20' of the bridge is a drawbridge, clearly if that is up getting across is difficult. Across the bridge you come to a large gatehouse, inside you find a portcullis, again, it bars entry to the whole complex.
The two dwarves greet several guards by name, and you crawl up through some ladders and get up into the second floor of the gatehouse. Here you find the working mechanisms for the drawbridge and portcullis, as well as murder holes that look down into the passageway below. It doesn't take a military genius to figure out that doing something with this area will be vital to the success of your mission.
Throughout the day you gain an excellent understanding of how the mechanisms work, etc.
Questions?
Gertrart whistles as he crosses the chasm. "D-deep," he stutters.
Slate is proud to point out that the bridge is of an ancient Dwarven construction. It has low rails on either side, but is deliberately not walled. Just up from the bridge to the north and a little higher, such that it leads to the second level of the gatehouse is another smaller bridge entirely enclosed with arrow slits that would allow defenders to utterly devastate invaders attacking cross the bridge.
Your knowledge (history) tells you that such has happened in previous attacks, and thus the upper protected bridge is called the "bridge of death."
The city side keep has one level somewhat below ground, you came through that.
It has the main level with walls. And then the central keep seems to have maybe three or four additional levels. Defenders inside the central keep could rain arrows down anywhere inside the walls. The SE corner of the keep also has a round tower that goes up several levels. And appears to have the rookery up at the upper level.
On the "away from town" side of the gorge is only the gatehouse. The gatehouse has the lower level where you came across the bridge. Then it has a second level where the mechanisms and such are. This is also the level where the bridge of death connects back across to the main keep. And then there's a roof, with battlements, and ballistae and such.
Xeram does, he translated for Gertrart.
To Gertrart:
"Aha, hehe, their boss, one Barnabus Eisenbach, wants to check out the keep's foundations at keypoints. He'll point them out on a map tomorrow morning, we would want to know those."
Mordecai tries to inquire, how far the ranger patrol usually travels, and whether they usually travel by foot or horseback.
Xeram will speak with the demoted bishop about his troubles, prying for details they can use, friar to another faithful.
Solomon would like to further explore the tunnel, perhaps see if there are others that might provide more access points for the oncoming assault. He likes tunnels, and he can be sneaky and quiet.
But if his presence would help against the rangers, he's happy to do that as well. For an urban rat, he knows a bit about nature and may be able to lend a good hand.
@Mordecai - it's not hard, with some directed questioning and drink buying with some off duty Rangers, to determine that Captain Varning takes his patrols out roughly once a week for 4-5 days per patrol. While he varies his patrol route, you are able to determine that like clockwork, he and his patrol, tend to camp at a place called Freeman's Rock on their third day out. It has good ground, the hunting, and a great view of Lake Tarik.
@Xeram - Father Donnagin, as the Chaplain of Balentyne, resides in the keep itself. As such, he's not overly approachable.
@Solomon - you manage to Sneek down into the tunnel during the day, avoiding all prying eyes. You have no trouble getting the secret passage to open. You follow it to the end, and get the door open at the opposite end. Again, there are a considerable amount of stores here. The only thing you didn't notice from outside the room last time is that there is a trap door in the ceiling of the small room. Also, while the room is not lighted, there are sconces on the wall where torches could be placed.
No need for that, I'll just feed you some more info about the good Father. He has 5 acolytes to help him minister to the spiritual and physical needs of his flock.
Additionally, you learn that Father Donnagin is generally considered a strong warrior in his own right, second only to to the Comander himself, and that the two of them together would be a force to be reckoned with.
I'd like to close the door behind me (to the room) and spend some time looking at what's in some of the boxes. Closing the door is in hopes of not being too conspicuous and buying perhaps a second to hide as someone opens the door if necessary.
Finally, I'll try to listen through the trap door for any indication of what might be above. If there's a ladder of sorts, perfect. If not, I'll stack some boxes of less breakable/valuable contents to form a precarious pyramid!
@Solomon - The various cases contain rations and water. In fact, remember the mealy yucky stuff you found at Branderscar? Well, this is the same stuff, just in much better shape. Well, as much as iron rations really can be.
No problem with stacking some boxes to listen to the room above. The floor/ceiling is too thick to make out conversations, but you definitely hear maybe 4-6 people up there, moving around and talking.
"All right, on third day of their patrol, the Rangers set camp in Freeman's Rock. I say we'll be there to meet them." Mordecai informs the others about his findings. "In order not get bored in the two days before that, we should deal with the other tasks. Let's start with the Mott's and the lady's lover, shall we?"
Vosil nods. "Sounds good. In addition, why don't we try and liberate a map from the dwarves' room? We know they're out all day, so we'll have time to look around."
"Also, how does anyone feel about spending some of our cash to get some scrolls? I think Invisibility would be useful, perhaps a couple of others as well. There's a scroll shop here, I think we passed it earlier."
"May I suggest a small modification to your plan for the map? Instead of liberating the map, allow me to copy it. If they discover the map missing, they may alert someone. I have the ability to copy words from documents and then all I would need to do is draw in the lines. I have done some moderate study of engineering, so I feel I can make an adaquate copy for us."
"Also, I do still carry the scrolls from the prison. One of which is invisibilty. But acquiring other spells would be most beneficial for us."
Gertrart continue assisting the engineers.
"Spells for misdirection and diversion, like creating sounds of non-existant presences or the removal of sound, such are often underestimated. What use is a blade when you do not hear the enemy coming.
I have found out some interesting details on the Father Donnagin.
He has 5 aides assisting him with his work. He is also said to be a strong warrior of thee light...as if that's new, second only to the grand Commander himself. These two would maximize their risk potential against us if brought together, which i'm sure not even Malleck and Shade wish to drag themselves into at the current time."
Gertrart continue assisting the engineers.
And so you shall, all day long! Dwarves are hard workers!
Cast message with Solomon so we only have to whisper to each other.
Cast scrivener's chant on the map.