"Sure, boss, go pamper yourself & rest up. I'm just gonna go buy the stuff I need and I'll meet you all back there."
Eben's shopping trip pretty much depletes his increasingly meager purse. He gives a low whistle at the barely over a hundred pieces of gold left. "Good thing we got some treasure from Ilthane's cave, or I'd be rooming with Astraden at her nasty-ass place tonight..." he murmurs before getting to work.
After an hour or so spent doing uncharacteristically hard work and study, Eben comes down to the main room of the Deluxury, face a little flushed. "Okay, let's go meet with Grin and do this thing."
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Eben spends some time putting together an altogether repulsive disguise. Poxy sores cover more than half his face, and his eyes are notable swollen, red, and oozing. "It's how I'll justify even approaching the angels in the first place. Any normal citizen of Alhaster would be terrified to approach, but if I'm half-blind from the pox..."
His poxy self walks, or rather, limps at a distance from the rest of the group all the way down to Sinner's Sanctum. "Didn't expect an Angel outside, but I suppose the principle is still the same..." he mutters, as he limps past the rest of the party, then casts a few spells.
Eben's voice begins to take on completely new and un-MacTeague like elements. There's an authentic-sounding Alhaster accent, and his voice becomes very, very realistically... phleghmy.
Once everyone is prepared, Carina pulls out her usual complement of extracts and starts handing them out.
"By the way, I've developed a new extract--one that's kinda similar to a mage's stoneskin spell, but better." She pulls out a flask filled with grey fluid, with hundreds of grains of sediment collecting at the bottom. She chugs it down and starts prodding everyone.
When she touches someone, their skin takes on the texture of a statue for a brief moment before the magic settles in fully.
Then she takes one of her false life extracts on top of her dexterity & constitution-boosting mutagen. Her skin takes on an unhealthy grey pallor, transforming into what appears to be dozens of layers of scar tissue.
"Everyone ready?" Her voice sounds unnaturally deep.
"Well, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, or at least wiser." Zalamandra lays a hand on Carina's shoulder. "Let's hope that this plan will result in much fewer incarceration and near-death lacerations."
Zalamandra nods. "See you on the other side." She steps away from the group, miming silence, and enters the shadow of a nearby alley.
After passing by close enough to the group to inclue them in his spellcasting (and have Astraden and Carina return the favor unto him), Eben stumbles away and, via a circuitous route, makes his way around the block to Sinner's Sanctum. He takes a deep breath to steady himself before approaching the front door and its Angel guard, and then launches his routine.
"Heeeeelp... heeeeelp..." he moans, shuffling along and using a wall to support himself. "Gods be good, the lesions... oozing everywhere..." He pants as he comes to a halt, rheumy eyes staring past the angel and into, seemingly, oblivion itself. "Need... a place to... rest," he groans, reaching for the door handle. "And I know Miss Furpotia always has a bed open. Maybe she's even got some of those potions in from his Highness, finally, eh?" A note of not exactly optimism, more of final resignation, comes into his voice.
The Blessed Angel looks closely at Eben as he approaches. She raises one eyebrow. "This domicile is closed. The proprietor is suspected of cadaver hoarding—the only people who want to come here are either very much misinformed or complicit in her crimes. Assuming you are the former, I recommend you go elsewhere." Her lips quirk upwards. "If you truly have nowhere to go, citizen, I suggest you contact a friendly Watcher. They will be able to provide you with a warm bed. Well, a bed, anyways."
"Wha...? Furpotia gone? Tha' can' be... Who am I even talking to?" Eben mutters, doing his best to sound half delerious, as he reaches out and yanks the door wide open. "Furpotia! Yu've got some street urchin trying to scare good, honest, sick people away on your doorstep!" As he opens the door, he feigns a swoon that pitches him a foot or two to the side, leaving the door itself wide open and unblocked.
Astraden makes a globe-conscious bolt for the doorway, nudging her companions and Grin as she moves past.
"Hm." To the onlookers, as Eben's back is turned to open the door, it seems the Blessed Angel is considering something. The two Blessed Angels inside look similarly startled.
With a whining, buzzing sound, the other two erinyes teleport on either side of the half-delirious old man.
They examine him closely for just a moment, and Eben has the sense of a rapid conversation transpiring silently between the three. They reach a consensus, it seems, because they visibly re-focus on him.
Then he feels an icy chill clutch his heart—and his heart starts to race with panic.
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Eben gives a startled gasp as two angels appear flanking him, and an even more startled gasp as he gets hit with a triple dose of fear-inspiring magic.
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A very brief look of bewilderment comes over Eben's face as he realizes that all three Angel's attempts failed. But a quick bit of decision making on his part turns that bewildered look into the start of (feigned) incipient panic.
"Ah. Ahhh! AHHHH!!!" He screams, producing a few inarticulate words between the purely gutteral sounds. He pivots himself around, back to the opened door, and then falls backwards, pinning the door between himself and the wall, causing it to open fully and invitingly.
"Bwaaa! Nyuh...nyuh ahhhhh!" he cries out some more, hands up in the air, eyes rolling back in his head, and flailing in place against the door at his back. He continues in this vein for a few more moments, while giving himself a slow count to ten in his head, before finally shouting out at the top of his lungs, "THERE'S BETTER PLACES TO DIEEEEE!!!!" and then bolting for the street.
The Blessed Angels observe this incident in silence.
The group creeps by the Blessed Angels unhindered and heads for the hidden stairs. To their slight surprise, the Angels appear oblivious, and the party ventures down into the depths of the Sinner's Sanctum.
The remnants of the hangman golem rest exactly where the party left them, untouched.
As the party approaches the bottom of the stairs, a Blessed Angel teleports in. She looks around, sighs, and teleports out.
For the next two minutes (give or take), the party is on their own in the chamber. They are also currently Eben-less.
Astraden silently moves up to the opening in the corridor, at the edge of the radius around where she thinks Grin might be, and looks down into each alcove. She picks up one of the strands of rope and waves it towards the passage before carefully replacing it.
Zalamandra surveys the neighborhood. Are people moving about, beyond the terror-stricken blind man? Is there even any reaction to him?
Carina's heart is pounding in her ears.
Did we make it? Did we make it?
We don't have Eben--are we going to be alright?
"Farrukh, can you check it out? We've only got a couple minutes."
Eben keeps up the pretense until he's a block or two away from Sinner's Sanctum, at which point the screaming man plunges into a crowd and vanishes. Quite literally, vanishes. He darts in between a small gaggle of people surrounding a produce stall and never comes out the other side.
He pops back into view next to Zalamandra, looking much more himself, although some putty still sticks to his face and he hasn't quite managed to finish changing back into his regular clothing, tho0ugh he's at least managed to shed most of the sackcloth garments and put his own pants back on. "I think that worked..." he says, perhaps a little forcedly optimistically. "The angels didn't kick up a fuss in the Sanctum, that you saw. right? Guess we're just waiting on word from below..."
Zalamandra shrugs. "You scared a cat and some children were looking your way. I haven't seen the Angels, though I didn't want to get close enough to watch your act in the beginning. I'm much too familiar a face."
She makes a face as if listening to someone shouting far away, responding not to Eben but to another. "If you're ready, I am as well." Zalamandra takes Eben's hand, twists it around into non-space, and pulls the two of them out into the dark space around the pit in Sinner's Sanctum. She is careful to place them so they have at least a little cover from the hangman golem chamber.
Farrukh nods his head and gives an "ok" sign, going to investigate where Astraden pointed.
Neither Astraden nor Farrukh see anything in the passages or alcoves. In fact, strangely, it seems like the Blessed Angels haven't done anything in here. The ropes haven't even been pushed aside.
Zalamandra and Eben appear up ahead, looking slightly disconcerted. They see nothing, so it's a little hard to tell if the rest of the party is even down here.
Cuetzpalli is not particularly happy with this whole affair, and struggles to remain as silent as possible within the invisibility sphere. He watches behind them intently, waiting for the devils to descend and find them at any moment.
Cuetzpalli is not particularly happy with this whole affair, and struggles to remain as silent as possible
Cuetzpalli does very well at this.
Astraden nods in response to Farrukh, then realizes the obvious and steps beyond the limits of the sphere. She holds up the now-used scroll she'd cast silence on, then looks questioningly at Farrukh. After waiting a little while for a response, she shrugs and places it in an alcove a little ways down the hallway, then continues on to join Zalamandra and Eben. "Good work, Eben. Should I make a light?" she whispers.
"I think we should get down the pit before doing anything that might draw attention, in case an Angel makes an early visit..." Eben whispers in return.
"Really the only place we didn't already look, right?" Farrukh says, hopping down over the lip of the pit, activating his flight on the way down and continuing the descent.
Cuetzpalli follows the others into the hole, still quiet and on high alert.
Carina follows suit.