A smoldering fireplace illuminates this room, casting red light over a massive corner desk littered with disorganized papers. A seven-foot-tall statue of a four-horned fiend with a burning crown overlooks the desk from the corner.
Asmodeus even stated
Of our wretched fate
That he hath reevaluated
Every spirit’s weight.
For what would be the fairest price
Of souls ixpressly grown
If I’ve an essence full of vice
And sin in evil Abrogail’s Thrice–
Damnéd Hall of Sacrifice to cast before his throne?
The second document is a twine-bound set of instructions for activating the prison’s soundproofing mechanism. The manual notes that the prisms emit light when active, and they create a wall of magical silence between any two prisms with an uninterrupted line of effect to one another. No sound passes through this border, but if an object, creature, or wall disrupts the border, the entire effect ends until the obstruction is removed.
The third is a letter addressed to the interrogator from the Nail’s ranking officer:
Vasenti,
I appreciate your desire for more information to guide your interrogation of prisoners. Know that your request has not gone unnoticed. Unfortunately, your superiors are limited by the reports we receive from our informants.
I will tell you this: the last three prisoners about whom you requested information were apprehended using intelligence provided by Paracountess Zarta Dralneen in Absalom. Following a recent political misunderstanding, the paracountess’s reports have grown increasingly vague, lacking their past detail and proving to be nearly useless. Those above my station assure me that this change is being investigated, but I have seen this pattern before. To me, Zarta’s contributions are purposefully misleading, as though she were attempting to shield her own informants—or worse, actively sabotage House Thrune’s rule. There is also the possibility that as she works more closely with the Pathfinder Society, her loyalties there grow stronger than those to her homeland. Until I can convince my superiors of her true motivations, work with what we have. I have moved our latest shipment of documents to the vault for further processing.
Good fortune with your continued service to the glory of Cheliax and the noble House of Thrune,
Inspector Lusarious Deckland
Seltyiel looks over the documents Dulomak pulled from the mess on the table. "These are interesting...What do you suppose the note is of? I do not expect that our dear Interrogator is secretly a poet. Let's see...information on the silencing crystals, that will come in handy...A letter about Dralneen? Looks like we'll have to find our way into the vault to get the papers and information we seek."
Krima watches over you looking through the room, occasionally glancing back to the outer hall. "I take it what you need isn't in here? Come on, I'll lead you to the vault, hopefully you'll find more there. I don't know the code though." She leads you to the door of the vault.
Steel beams reinforce the walls of this chamber, which is accessible only through a round iron door with an inset wheel. The numerals one through nine embellish the wheel’s edge, with the number one set in the uppermost position beneath a stone arrow. "Watching the interrogator I know that you have to turn the wheel clockwise, then counterclockwise, alternating for each number. There are quite a few of them, but like I said he's bad about remembering things at the best of times."
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The Paladin's body goes rigid, and he stands straight up at the door. A distant voice growls from his mouth, muttering in ancient Tien. Dissa opens his eyes, and bright jade green light blazes in beams directly at the lock. In perfectly unaccented Taldane, he says "7, 4, 3, 8, 2, 5, 6, 9, 1." As soon as the words are uttered, he slumps back to his usual posture.
The group looks at him, and Dissa seems completely unaware of his actions. He looks at the group quizzically, "Do you want me to break down the door? It seems a little conspicuous for our covert mission."
Seltyiel looks askance at Dissa, mouth hung open. "What on cesspit infested Golarion was that?! I've never even heard of a phenomenon like that and you seem to have no recollection of it at all! What are you?"
Krima, during the outburst, was playing with the lock, running it through the numbers Dissa specified. With a soft click the lock opens, allowing the door to swing open. "Quick, let's get inside."
Dozens of carefully organized codices and scrolls fill the stone shelves carved into the walls, each labeled with names and sigils hammered into small brass placards over each niche. Two statues of humanoid fiends holding red-flamed torches monitor the room from the corners. Two open chests on either side of the door hold jumbles of unsorted documents, but a third chest in the far corner remains closed.
The corner chest has the Nail's monetary assets in the form Chelish minted gold and silver coins. The other chests contain information on Cheliax's numerous political targets, each of them from various interrogated individuals. Some of these include blackmail material, but three documents in particular catch your eye.
The first two are interrogation reports filed in a section marked with the Aspis Consortium's sigil:
Inmate: P66742—Niara Cremden
Identification: Female human
Occupation: Maintenance at Aspis headquarters
Plaintiff: Ianareth Alazario
Charge: Unlawful communication of inside trade information discussed between the plaintiff and the inmate’s employer
Information: Successful interrogation—inmate admitted having overheard the plaintiff state that Aspis agent Kitio Aspenthi would be performing covert operations in Aspenthar for the foreseeable future at the organization’s behest. Inmate acknowledged being in violation of her employment contract by sharing this information with parties other than registered Aspis agents and collaborative contractors (i.e. the plaintiff).
Inmate: P66759—Raleri Zetryl
Identification: Female human
Occupation: Ship laborer (suspected Pathfinder agent)
Plaintiff: Ianareth Alazario
Charge: Willful disruption of a lawful exchange organized by the plaintiff between her affiliated organization (i.e. Aspis Consortium) and a contracted third party (i.e. Order of the Rack)
Information: Unsuccessful interrogation—inmate expired before confession could be obtained. Original exchange between the interested parties (i.e. transfer of one Bell of Obedience from the Aspis Consortium to the Order of the Rack) resolved normally.
The last document is in a chest filled with Zefiro's unaltered Chelish histories and is, interestingly enough, about Zarta...
Last documented Davian figurehead: Lannavia Davian, Duchess of the southern Hellcoast and matriarch of her House
Lineage: One male heir, Hekerius Davian
Following the Battle of a Hundred Kings in 4639 AR. House Davian suffered almost complete annihilation at the hands of their empowered rivals, House Thrune. Davian properties were seized and redistributed among Thrune loyalists, family histories were destroyed in Clarity Pyres, and all potential heirs to Davian lands were executed.
Historian’s Note: Evidence suggests that Hekerius Davian was adopted into House Dralneen, a minor noble house loyal to Thrune, in the event that hereditary claim to the southern Hellcoast were ever disputed. If my sources are accurate, the late Hekerius Dralneen and Hekerius Davian are one and the same, meaning that Hekerius’s only legitimate child—Paracountess Zarta Dralneen—is the last remaining heir to the Davian title and estate.
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"Seltyiel, I agree. Krima was really impressive opening the door. She must be a wizard." Dissa seems wholly unaware of the magus's true meaning of his exclamation.
Once inside, he is surprised bo the vault. "That's a lot of paperwork. I'll stand guard in case we're interrupted by ... guards?"
When the news about Zarta is revealed, Dissa makes his first connection of the mission. "So that's why Zarta is so eager to conceive her heir. She wants to rebuild her bloodline!" The paladin clears his throat awkwardly. I would choose me over a troll-infused ghoul any day."
Krima looks over everything, "Where to now?"
Krima nods along and adds as necessary, "Getting into the cells is easy, interrogation is a bit harder, but manageable. Any spare silencing crystals will be in the facility storage space, which I'm not sure if you've been there yet. No exits beyond the front door, this is a prison after all, though I don't think the guards will be paying too much attention with all of the celebrating going on."
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"Krima, can you forge us some prisoner transport documents? It seems like that would be a great reason to walk out of here. Also, we could say they are supposed to be part of the 'celebration' and have to be relocated downtown. Does that sound like a good cover story?" Dissa asks the clerical assistant.
"Also, how would you like to join the Pathfinder Society? We probably pay a lot better than this prison, but you may feel you're doing more good here." Dissa smiles at the administrator. "Also, about half our missions seem to be recovering dead Pathfinders, so the job probably has some risks."
Krima looks thoughtful as she ushers everyone into the storage room that was shown to you earlier, "I don't have time to make everything look official, but if we head out fast we can move quickly and quietly I doubt we'll be stopped."
She digs around the crates and pulls out two violet crystal prisms, one of which has a visible crack along one of its facets. Seltyiel snatches it from her hand and examines it. "This won't do, it'll never maintain an aura with this. Let me try something." He pulls some powder out of his pouch and spreads it along the crack, whispering words of enchantment. With each successive pass of his finger the crack fills in a bit more with crystallized powder. "There," the half elf intones when it is done. "This won't last long, but it will keep the silence running."
Krima gathers everyone together and marches down the hall to the door leading into the prison itself and waits beside it. "Here's a key I snagged from the office. It'll either lead into the interrogation room or it will lead to the chains of the prisoners within, I'm not sure which. I'll stand watch out here and let you guys do the rescuing."
She opens the door and shuts it firmly behind you. The stink of unwashed bodies permeates this narrow corridor, illuminated by violet prisms set into sconces on the inner corners. Iron bars isolate the hall’s outer perimeter, where the walls are lined with manacles set into the stone. Dozens of filthy prisoners lie behind the bars, each one wearing a sign around his or her neck bearing an identification number, a crime, a red “X” next to the word “Interrogation,” and a release date. Two sets of iron double doors lead deeper into the building.
Seltyiel pulls the instructions for the sound proofing system from his belt and goes over them. He takes both prisms and places them in the empty sconces, again whispering arcane words, which cause the prisms to light with life as well.
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"Hmmm. I understand your desire, but our mission is not to get trapped, loose more than 20 prisoners, or expose our contact. Undermining the Chelaxian government is also not our mission. We are here for what we can manage, the extraction of Zefiro." Dissa whispers his response to Bozmir. "Furthermore, I would prefer a nonviolent resolution. I have no desire to kill unwitting guards, battle local civil authorities, or expose the intentions of our legitimate organization."
Dissa winks at the Ulfen Skald, and says, "These prisoners only have a month sentence anyway. How bad could it be?"
Seltyiel looks around at all of the signs on the prisoners closer. "Actually most of these people will be out in no more than a few days. It appears only that sleeping man there has a month left. I agree with Dissa, it would be best if we continued on with rescuing Zefiro. If you don't mind, I'll see if that key works on the interrogation chamber now that the silence field is up. Shall we enter from the north side of the chamber or the south?"
Seltyiel pushes the door open to show the interrogation room. Barbed chains hang like streamers from the pyramidal ceiling of this large chamber. Several chains wind around the room’s grooved, bloodstained central column. Each corner of the room bears an iron statue of a regal, four-horned devil standing over a network of winches wound with the wicked chains. Light pours in from a dirty pentagram-shaped skylight set in the roof’s highest point, casting a shadow of Asmodeus’s unholy symbol crisscrossed with chains over the stone floor.
"This...This is something more than I expected," says the half-elf looking at the chains all around him.
Zefiro and three humans are wedged into the grooves of the central column. Blood drips from the cuts marring their bodies, and each is gagged with a leather thong. They are securely held by the spiked chains wrapped around them.
The winch attached to the statue rapidly releases, causing the chains attached to it to whip around the room, touching other chains and releasing all of the other winches until spiked chains are flying around the room!
Seltyiel looks around at the whirling chains before deciding, "Destroy the winches on the statues! That's our best hope to make it out of this trap alive!"
The chains writhe and whirl, then whip around causing a terrible screeching as the door slams shut and locks. The chains around Dulomak, Kontha, and Seltyiel are moving slowly enough that they can avoid the nasty barbs, but around Bozmir and Dissa they swing as though wielded by a master.
Seltyiel curses, and grits out while avoiding chains, "This might be a time that I accept a song of Rage Bozmir!"
The switch doesn't respond to Dissa's flicking, but the winch certainly does. With one blow the winch shatters, dropping a large length of chain to the ground, though there are many more still whipping through the air.
Seltyiel responds to Bozmir as the man's song fills him. "They shouldn't be able to according the instructions! We'll find out when we get those doors open again!" Seltyiel's muscles bunch and expand slightly under the power of Bozmir's song before he screams and rushes another winch, scimitar in both hands.
The winch hit by Seltyiel also explodes, causing chains on the other side of the room to drop to the floor.
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I propose an informal botting agreement. If one of us (definitely me included) takes no action for a specified timeframe, we bot.
What do you all think is fair? 2 days, 3 days, a week?
I know last summer when my life went haywire, I missed like 5 weeks in a row. I would have been more than OK if someone posted for me in that gap.
Kontha crunches through the winch releasing more chains and making that particular area safer to stand in, with none of the remaining chains able to hit Seltyiel, Dulomak or Kontha. Seeing roughly where the winches direct Dulomak rushes over to the nearest winch and crushes it with his flail, keeping himself, and now Dissa safe as well as Zefiro and the human tied on the south end of the pillar.
The chains in the north side of the room continue to hum around rapidly, making terrible screeching noises as they impact the floor, walls, ceiling, and each other.
Seltyiel heads out of the safe zone in an attempt to stop the rest of the winches, the rage clouding his mind and making him believe he is still in danger, for his mercurial and aloof nature wouldn't promote him to help those not needed by the Pathfinder Society so readily.
Seltyiel again brings his scimitar down with both hands, shearing through the winch in the north and causing more chains to come rattling to the ground.
Dissa crunches through a another winch, dropping still more chains onto the ground. Zefiro, a little out of it, just glares at Dissa, unable to respond because of the gag.