"So we need to get the key from the warden and get a password from the warden or this mage-keeper... and something about not smiling? And that's on top of other guards-or something else- that's defending and sentineling the place." Burdock is puzzled and doesn't like the news. "Alright, we first gotta find the warden at the very least and hope he'd be willing to cooperate first."
"Shall we just open a door and see what's behind it? I'd suggest not entering the center room, I'd reckon it's the highest guarded of them all. Something that's somewhat general in most military organisations or armed groups."
Like the east room, this one has a couple of paintings hanging.
rounds.
"Shall we try to avoid the guards or take them head on? I'd rather not fight again but I do not think we can make it back so as to avoid them."
Sabel says with a worried look.
"Hmm... there were clues before in one of the other paintings."
Burdock looks over the paintings for anything out of the ordinary.
"Maybe these spectacles will finally be useful?" Lyssa wonders out loud as she activates them and also looks the paintings over.
You are struck by this and feel the urge to adoringly kiss the hands of the nearest female >Elsa for 1 round.
Lyssa feels happy and sits down to relax for a minute.
rounds.
Burdock drops his hammer and shield and moves to Elsa, taking her hand and kissing it and up her arm."Oh, mi amor...how can I resist the chill of your touch, the icy stare of your cold eyes, the frozen gaze of your sweet face?"
"Isn't this a lovely place to just sit?" Lyssa asks her allies while on the floor. She doesn't seem to care even a bit about the guards that are about to return.
"Such a lovely place..."
Grint looks at both Lyssa and Burdock and then looks slightly at the paintings with a skewed glance, then shakes his head.
"I sometimes hate magic... This doesn't seem to be the best use of our time, but we need to get these two out of here and don't starte into those paintings."
Grint picks up Lyssa hard-handedly and throws her over one shoulder. "Let's take the door opposite this room, it can't be much worse now can it?"
Elsa sighs a long suffering sigh I thought I could not hate this place any more....unhand me! she commands the Dwarf.
Voices come from the other door.
#1 "Anyway, time to get back on guard duty."
#2 <Guard against what, exactly?>
"We need to hurry. Come on."
Sabel says as she throws open the northern door. She motions for everyone to enter the room quickly.
Agreed. Elsa says as she snatches her hand away from the dwarf and hustles into the room.
As Father Burdock comes back to his senses, the group heads for the other door. Which just opens revealing 3 surprised guards.
"What the?....Who're you!?!"
I'm the last person you want to see...flee this place now or suffer.
The three inside are demoralized for oh...4 rounds.
Weighing off their options, one mutters.
"I ain't getting paid enough for this, i'm outta here." He does, the other 2 seem to value their lives over risk and take the more modest, quiet withdraw down the hall, leaving a room with a bolding bearded older man (in his early 50s) at an altar, praying.
In a tone surprisingly casual and reserved, he addresses you with his back to you, relighting a few candles.
"Why have you come here, are you assassins, or perhaps liberators in misguided causes?"
We are neither! We seek someone to translate something for us. Help us find this person, or get out of our way.
"Now now child, hasn't anybody taught you courtesy to respect the elders? What is the ruckuss all about an old man to get out of your way, we're in an institution here, no need to raise the dead."
Partially hidden beneath his sleeve, the old man's wearing a bracelet with engravings.
Spellcraft DC 16 on engravings: Dispel Magic
Burdock looks up at Elsa again and the love that was in his heart instantly fades. "By Torag's loin fuzz!", looking at his position, near prostrate to the ice sorceress.
He then looks at the others. "No word of this! That's not how a dwarf should romance someone."
Burdock manages to grab his hammer when the guards come by, but Elsa's icy cold stare and sharp tongue removes them from the equation, leaving a single man left.
"My colleague is not known for her tact.", glancing at Elsa, "but she is right that we need access to the Vault for its resident who speaks Aklo. Need a few questions answered, then we'll leave you to your institution."
The man strokes his bear and adjust his spectacles back onto his nose.
"Aklo? Can't say i'm familiar with that speech, but there's one case that speaks in a foreign tongue. I heard that one led to part of a town's inhabitants going mad, those gone crazy even killing others in the process. It was quite an endeavour to, sadly to use the word, 'capture' that one. Still, there was more fear in that one than the town's people. Can't say deliberately guilty. Would that be all?"
He probably was on the scene of capture. You're pretty sure he wants to get you away as soon as possible, he's obviously wary of strangers and may even signal others or sound an 'alarm'.
Sabel looks at his bracelet and looks a tiny bit troubles but she smooths out her face in an instant.
"Could you point us to him? Then we will be on our way."
Sabel says to the man.
"You'll forgive me asking by whose request you have come, with no guarded escort, many a reasoning places you in the unidentified people category, there's been people trying to break out patients here you know. But that aside, you'll see this wonderful heavy door down the hall. It's locked unfortunately. You'll need a key and means to fight off magic."
The man slides his sleeve back to try and cover the bracelet.
Grint manages to stay quiet during much of the time the others are conversing using it to set down Lyssa and keeping an eye and ear out for the guards and where they're going, but he picks up what the man's saying and something in his voice seems off.
"I beg your pardon sir, but how do you know all that, especially about the fear in the 'captured' one comapred to that of the villagers. Seems to me you were there with that kind of details. Like my companion said, we only need a direction to this Aklo speaking person and we will be on our way."
The man's face is not showing anything other than formal indifference.
"What are you implying boy? That a frail man like myself would dare venture to capture an individual with dangerous powers? Now, you'll need the warden's permission."
Lyssa snaps out of it and gives Grint a death glare. "You couldn't have repositioned me with some more subtlety, Grint?"
She turns to look at the old man and looks him over, noticing the bracers.
"Like I care if you were there or weren't, geez. We just need this Aklo person to translate some stuff we found."
Grint shrugs as Lyssa gives him a death stare. "You weren't in any state to react and we had to get out of there quickly. Would you have preferred me dragging you along with us instead?"
He looks back to the old man and questions him once more.
"I didn't imply anything other than you were there, but if you're being so defensive about it... But other things are more important to us. You say we know have to find the warden to get permission to get on? We've heard that the warden or the mage-keeper might give us permission, does that mean you're the mage-keeper?"
Sabel glares angrily at Lyssa.
"Please ignore her. If you do not mind we would like to get some more information as Grint already asked."
At first the man narrows his eyes at Lyssa's rudeness.
"Someone clearly needs a lesson in manners."
@ Grint:
"Of course anybody would be careful when unfamiliar faces just show up in the supposed-to-be-secured part of this institution. By your questions, i can assume you were eavesdropping on what that trio of ruffians was saying? Matters little, they'll likely rat out you being down here. With that said, the office of the warden is down the hall, let's take a walk shall we?"
A relatively young man (late 20s) with a thin mustache and rectangular jaw stands besides a records archive. On the desk lies a book with a leather strapping. Dressed in a shiny chainmail with a holy symbol of Sarenrae, wearing a dark green cloak & leather militaristic boots, the warden eminates authority. He looks a little tired.
"Mage-Keeper, what brings you?...*sees you and looks serious*..Who are they?"
He looks at each of you with a stern gaze, probing your intentions and claims, to which he comes to conclude you speak truthfully.
"You come from Kharum to translate a manuscript written in a shady tongue and you need someone from one of the cells to translate it to prevent disaster, interesting & dangerous i must say. I am obliged to aid in that request if that is so. Magekeeper, keep ready, we'll go visit our detainees."
Lyssa frowns at Sabel and whoever else gives her any kind of glare or stare. Grint's an exception; Lyssa completely ignores him.
"Finally someone who's understanding," Lyssa replies to the warden. "It's been hard to find reasonable people inside this building. Most of the people we encountered were patients who escaped their cells."
Lyssa turns around to Jenny. "No hard feelings, Jenny. I believe you're also one of the few sane people here. Still not sure why they had to lock you up. And Lynnen seems fine as well, but I have no idea what she says..."
-Posted with Wayfinder
"Well...i t-t-told you i h-have th-this comp-p-pulsion with n-numbers? I erm....cr-cracked a s-s-safe's c-combin-nn-ation when someone cl-claimed it uns-s-solvable."
Lynnen seems to size up the mage-keeper, who in turn seems astonished by the warden's cooperation.
"Young man, i respect your sense of duty and professionalism, but helping total strangers?"
He's cut short as the warden's slightly tired eyes gaze firmly at the man.
"If they'd be lying i'd likely know by now. What of you, magekeeper? You are content with current business? You pray and study but i have yet to see you help the detainees. Now let's get it over with." He turns to you. "Any inquiries before we head over there?"
No. Elsa says quickly
With the warden up front and the mage-keeper a foot behind him muttering ethics, the group proceeds to the door. The mage-keeper mutters a swallowed word and aims his bracelet at the door. A faint blue *poof* and the warden completes with a set of keys.
The sound of a heavy door swinging slowly in its hinges muffles your footsteps. The corridor is surprisingly lit well enough. The doors have numbers and name tags.
On the left:
-Thomas Harcke; nickname 'Fear'.
-Unoccupied
-Edward Harpe; deranged master thief, nickname 'Knife'.
-Unoccupied
-Name unknown.
On the right:
-Suzy; nickname 'Little Briar Rose'
-Unoccupied
-Unoccupied
-Renovation
-Renovation
In the far back is a door with a plague simply saying 'Madness' daughter'.
Warden: "Well, this one should be it, mage-keeper please stand by in case things take a twist."
The old man nods and the warden unlocks the cell.
As the warden opens the cell, slight muttering in a weird tongue comes from within, a slightly cold breeze comes from the cell, yet there is no cold elsewhere in the Asylum.
The 15x15ft padded cell holds a young blonde woman. Holding is a relative term, for she's suspended in mid-air in her straightjacket by 4 ropes, which are tied from the cell's 4 corners to the jacket's straps.
She wears a blindfold, her head lifting slightly as she hears the door open.
"Have salvation's heralds come at last?"
Sabel stays at a safe distance and greets the woman.
"Hello. That entirely depends on who you were expecting."
She says with a careful tone.
"We have come to request some information from you."
She will await the response on the comments before she continues.
"Knowledge, from me? Now that presents me an unexpected situation. Will giving knowledge get me out of here? These binds are much too tight, i miss the outdoors....."
Burdock relaxes after finally reaching some people that seem to be cooperative to their quest, although confused as to why things progressed the way they did. Nonetheless, he quietly contemplates the situation as they approach the cells.
"I cannot promise something I'm sure we cannot give.", he answers. "Aklo, do you understand it?"
"Ak..lo, is that what the voices speak in? It's...unnerving, the whispers and images."
A bit of whimpering before she calms down.
"I can convey it's meaning, if that is what you suggest. To what purpose, conversing or words of the write?"
Lyssa also stays at a safe distance. "Written words..."
That blindfold... I suddenly wonder about if it's a bad idea to take it off.
"What's your name? Mine's Lyssa."
"I'm Lilly. If you wish me to give you insight, i'd need to gaze upon the text."
The mage-keeper makes note:
"Dear girl, you know very well you're not allowed to leave, you're a danger to the community."
The warden frowns.
"Much as i agree on being risky, she's not entirely at fault. Then again mage-keeper, you're supposed to be an aiding hand in recovery here as well, yet you do nothing. No wonder she's tried to escape several times."