The adventurers are enjoying their successes, and are offered some wine and drinks as the first ushers can be seen gathering people for Farabellus' speech...
Sir Laribold Croome, an immaculately dressed Taldan nobleman, scrambles for cover behind a table, which his halfling manservant helpfully flips onto its side. Catching his breath, the Taldan fumbles for his monocle before addressing the nearby Pathfinders "Monsters and villains are attacking all over the grounds," he states with perfect articulation, punctuated by a crossbow bolt that embeds itself in his makeshift barricade. "Spread out, patrol the grounds, and snuff out trouble as you find it. If you should discover any clues about what the devil is going on, report back here at the base of Skyreach."
He pulls his sword cane free from its sheath and raises it overhead. “Look alive, and show initiative,” he shouts before performing an elaborate dueling salute in the direction of an elephant and setting off after it.
The Grand Lodge’s campus is overrun with marauders and monsters, while support staff, initiates, and visitors run in peril for their lives.
The solitary figure of Ambrus Valsin himself jogs out of the Quadrangle’s courtyard. “You lot, we have a crisis here that can’t wait.” He turns and gestures to the Quadrangle. “When the banquet started, I dismissed the first-year initiates back here to continue their studies for a few more hours. The damned Aspis were waiting inside two of the dormitories,” the venture-captain says, pointing to two ivy-covered stone buildings. “I think their plan is to leverage the initiates as hostages if they have no other escape route.”
Venture-Captain Valsin regards you with an inscrutable look. “This situation can only become more desperate. The safety of our initiates can’t wait another minute. Consider yourself drafted, because you’re all I’ve got. I’m heading to the southern dormitory. You head to the northern dormitory. Talk them down, or hit them hard and fast.”
From my understanding, the hostage taker is alone and has declared that he can kill all the hostages almost instantly. Valsin explains. I don't think the threat stems from a magical spell, but we should treat the threat as credible. Reconnaissance should be possible, but the doors are locked and the keys are missing.
The quadrangle is a square building that you all know well from your times as initiates. The building consists of main hall and several side rooms. All of the rooms except the main hall have small windows
whose curtains are drawn. The main hall has a large, round window 10 feet up from the floor.
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Rhanloi casts mage armor on himself, then gathers the arrows and bolts of his comrades (up to 30 - he will use 20 of his own) and casts flame arrow on the lot.
When the rest of the team is ready, he nocks one the spelled arrows and prepares to move quickly to the northern dormitory in the Quadrangle.
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Marra looks outraged "Who would dare attack the Pathfinders here! It will not go well for them."
The halfling hands 5 of her light crossbow bolts to Rhanloi to be enchanted with flame Arrow "Thanks! Now off to the Quadrangle."
Marra eyes the northern dormitory as they approach, "We of the small size could probably sneak in the small windows?"
Casting message {link} linking to all five companions and the brownie
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"Well, more interesting than speeches,", Cacumattus replies to Scarlet, while casting mage armour on himself, and handing five of his bolts over for enchantment. Taking them back with a grateful nod, he turns to Poppy and Marra.
"Good idea. Poppy sneaks in a checks out the situation, confirms the single aspis, and so on. Then Marra and I can follow, unlock the door for the others, and get in good positions to attack as soon as the others burst through the door."
The smaller windows are all shuttered, windowsblinds tightly locked in place. Simply climbing through is not possible before the blinds are removed, and even then it will require some sqeueezing.
The main doors to the hall are locked tight as well. The window in the main hall () is has a glass pane in it, but it otherwise not blocked.
Poppy has a look through the windows and sees several pathfinder initiates sitting on the podium of the main hall, tightly bound, fear in their eyes. Further down the hall a single man is standing, nervously casting glances. He looks at the main door, and the other door in the hall in turn, then up at a item suspended from the ceiling above the podium. It looks to be a scale of sorts, and in it lies a single glass marble.
The door on the south wall is locked.
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Marra sighs when the room is described, "Must be a trap of some sort, not sure how he intends to trip it. I suggest we try to talk him down, depending how that goes I can try to fascinate him, but any threatening actions would break the fascination if it works."
The looks around to the others "first thing we do is get a door open quietly."
Marra moves quietly to the front double doors
examines the doors for traps.
if she finds no traps she tries to pick the lock still under stealth.
using the message spell she signals the others if it works, but does not open the door yet.
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Boram pulls a small bead out of his belt pouch and drops it into a small vial of liquid. Almost immediately, the liquid takes on the same properties of the extract he drank earlier, and he drinks this one, too, with the same effect. A white glow suffuses his mouth, and he empties a potion into it, then spits it back out into its vial. As before, his features take on various animal-like qualities; the hairy mask covering his face the most notable among them.
After his preparation, and handing 10 arrows to Rhanloi to be enchanted, Boram follows Marra's lead.
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- I don't know about this stuff, - said Rasamoro, - I have a scroll of short-distance movement, trans-planar window -in Tien - which can be used to drop me and another one of us inside the room, just when it's needed. But this one is quite rare, so I'd like to keep it with me until we couldn't do it without spending it.
Marra moves to the main entry doors. As soon as she sets her picks to the door, a nervous voice form inside shouts: Don't try anything sneaky out there, or I will kill everyone in here. Yes I will!
The marble sounds like a bead from a necklace of fireballs, and in the worse case is potent enough to kill everyone on the podium outright.
Stay away or I will torch the whole place! the man shouts from the other end, nervously. He sounds scared to death, and obviously hasn't thought his plan through much.
The device is over the podium (orange star), about fifteen feet in the air, while the nervous man is on the other end of the hall (blue circle)
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Scarlet and Poppy have a rather involved conversation, spoken very quickly about "Visiting the neighbours" that seems then goes on to mention "The lock charmer working the lid", "a ginny", "hoisting the booze",and then "hushing the pigeon" variously nodding towards Marra, waving at Poppy, and pointing at Rasamoro, Boram, and Cacumattus. It doesn't seem to make much sense, but the pair of them seem to be having a fairly comprehensive talk.
"Marra, you keep him talking and well distracted - if you can get a chance then pick the lock, otherwise here's a crowbar" she pulls a prybar from her bag and hands it to Rasamorro "Poppy will get in behind the desk back there and climb up and steal the gem while the fellow is distracted. Once she has the gem, we crash the door and... deal with the man"
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Marra whispers through the message spell to the group. "Sounds like a plan. Mage Hand won't work on the bead, but what about holding a bag under the bead. or casting feather fall on the bead if it drops. Both need line of effect which we don't have yet. Broram maybe you can unlock this door or the side door stealthy."
The southern door can be reached from the outside, though it is locked as well.
Don't try to convince me now, I'd rather go down in flames than talk to your like!
While Marra keeps the man talking - without convincing him too much - poppy dimension doors into the room and silently climbs up to the ceiling, eyed by scared-looking hostages. Up at the ceiling, she manages to grab the glowing bead.
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Acknologing through the message spell, Marra talks to the man through the door, "It would be best for you if you surrender, before anyone gets hurt."
Not having much hope she looks to Boram to pick the lock hopefully without alerting the man.
Marra tries to pick the lock again quietly.
Marra tries one last time to convince the hostage taker, but it takes a swift block by Boram to resolve the situation: suddenly the hostage takes is face-to-face with six pathfinder who don't take kindly to aspis agents threatening the lives of their comrades.
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Scarlet
Cacu
Rhanloi
Marra
Boram
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Hostage taker
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Rasamoro
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Boram fires a shot at the check of the hostage taker, while Cacumattus burns the man's sword hand with a scorching ray. As poppy moves in, the man turns around, already bleeding strongly, and Scarlet takes the opportunity to cut open the man's back and tear out his kidneys.
A sigh of relief can be heard from the hostages, and as they are liberated, Ambrus Valsin moves. Well-handled, not a single drop of blood spilt, he says, taking a spit on the bloodied corpse on the floor, if only all hostage situations were dealt with so fluently.
The victory is short-lived, however, as the beauty of the Grand Lodge’s well-manicured grounds is shattered by the sounds of shouts and screams from panicked initiates, support staff, and visitors.
Frightened innocents trip over hedges and stumble through fountains and pools in an effort to higher, a member of the guard has already entered the grounds get to safety by the most direct means possible, especially when the landscaping otherwise leads them to certain peril.
Two woolly rhinoceroses prowl the grounds - you're certain to have seen the locked in cage before - and gore anyone in sight.
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Cacumattus
Rasamoro
Scarlet
Boram
Rhanloi
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Rhino
Rhino
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Marra
Rhanloi shoots an arrow at the nearest beast, penetrating the creature's tough hide.
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Cacumattus
Rasamoro
Scarlet
Boram
Rhanloi
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Rhino - Red
Rhino - Blue (8)
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Marra