Shane quickly knocked out the closest guard, his furious flurry bouncing the man off the wall and dropping him to the floor. He took a second to look around the room, confirming that they had seized the room containing the controls to the sea gate. They looked simple enough, but regardless of their complexity Anthony could surely figure them out.
Following Jaelynn's mental command, the earth elemental merged into the stone floor.
From the noise, it presumably reappeared behind the sea gate controls, but the tight quarters constrained it as it tried to knock down the remaining guard.
Aziel rushed up the steps in time to hear a bolt being thrown; when she tried to open it she found it locked.
Jae cast her spell and was rewarded with the sight of the guard and the sound of the sailor on the ramp below her both slumping to the ground. Unfortunately, in a matter of seconds the group on the ship was swarming up out of the hold onto the ramp.
The man in front of the ship group saw the sleeping man on the ramp and paused, shouting up at the top of the wall. "What's going on, Min!?
The remaining guard on top of the wall stopped at the sound of the voice. "Looks like a spellcaster and support team, sir! They're in the controls room!"
Aziel cursed, then backtracked, aiming her ill-gotten musket at the remaining guard. "Surrender now," she growled.
The guard, hemmed in by a elementals of air and earth and in a room crowded with hostile commandos, dropped his sword and raised his hands immediately. "I surrender!"
Shane calls to Anthony, "Anthony! Can you open the sea gate and then disable the controls? The rest of us will do what we can to secure the door from the lighthouse. Someone needs to be prepared to admit Jaelynne when she is done out there. Then all we need to do is set off the fireworks and wait for the marines to get here."
He moves toward the surrendering guard and cuts a length of rope off his supply and begins to bind the guard's hands behind his back.
"Why don't we *all* get inside the control room and shut the door, and leave the elementals outside to fight off the troops? Or maybe 2 outside here, and one in the tower?"
Anthony nodded at Shane. "Will do." The man and his mechanical friend moved over to the controls and started fiddling with levers and knobs. In a few seconds the floor was vibrating with the noise of motors under their feet and the sea gate began to swing open. "Is someone going to signal the fleet?"
"If we all went in there and locked the door, we'd be trapped, and couldn't signal the fleet," Jaelynn said to Tarvak, "But I've got some ideas. Pull him inside." She nodded at the sleeping guard nearby, as she pulled a scroll from the case at her belt.
"And you realize that the elementals are living beings, right?"
Just before she read the scroll, Jae gave the two elementals at her command a... well, command. Tow separate ones, in fact. "To me," she thought at the shadow, and "Go throw those barrels down the ramp," along with a clear image of which barrels and which ramp, were what she sent to the earth elemental.
Then she read the scroll, and in a few seconds, was the exact duplicate of the fallen guard - complete with equipment.
With a surprised look on his face, Tarvak stammered "Oh, um, they are? I...I didn't know that..."
With the guards inside both dealt with, Aziel hefted her musket and ran outside to the half-wall, where she knelt and aimed at the oncoming guards. "Let's see if you run up here so fast while under fire," she muttered, pulling the trigger.
Kneeling beside Aziel, Tarvak readied his bow.
Shane disarmed and tied up the remaining guard, while the earth elemental and shadow both disappeared from the room. The shadow emerged next to Jaelynn, giving the pseudo-guard a second shadow, this one unnaturally leaning toward the nearest light instead of away. The earth elemental lumbered past Jaelynn, heading toward the barrels at the top of the ramp- and coincidentally, the closest of the still-conscious guards.
"Earth elemental approaching, sir!" The guard lifted and fired his musket into the elemental, but if the lead ball had any effect the elemental gave no sign. The animate creature of solid stone just kept stolidly plodding toward the barrels.
Aziel had better luck, her bullet smashing into the officer's chest and smashing him to the ground before he could respond. The three guards behind him kept running up the ramp, screaming a challenge as they leapt over their fallen leader.
- already posted
- EE already posted
Aziel, the earth elemental, and the trio of guards got 2 rounds worth of actions last time.
Assuming the higher the effect the better for the purposes of signaling the marines some distance away, Shane took one of the scrolls of pyrotechnics and said, "I will have my airy friend carry me up until I can see the flame of the lighthouse and then set off the pyrotechnic display. The marines ought to be able to see that. Once I've done that, I'll see where we can be helpful in keeping the guards and soldiers busy and away from this position. If the controls are disabled, I'd seek the safety of the water or get out of the fort and into the bush. Don't look at the lighthouse. As I understand it, the light can be blindingly bright."
He tucked the scroll securely away so it would not fall if anything surprised them. He then commanded the elemental to carry him slowly enough to draw less notice and to avoid any light. Once outside, he had it stick close to the wall and head out away from the fort to the north and then rise up until the fire could be seen, while staying within 400'.
Jaelynn glanced over the wall, measuring distances and calculating odds. Then she frowned, mightily. The math didn't work for her disguise. Not when the guards on the ramp were still bunched together the way they were. But adapting to a fluid landscape was what one had to do in a combat situation.
Gathering her will once more, Jaelynn dropped another enhanced spell of sleep on the trio of guards rushing up the ramp.
"Go help remove that last guard," she thought at the shadow, "quickly. Do not let him escape or summon reinforcements."
(+1 if they're within 30 feet)
All three of the soldiers charging up the ramp succumbed to Jaelynn's enchantment, each dropping to the ground in between one stride and the next.
Tarvak launched an arrow at the only remaining guard as Jaelynn's shadow flowed across the stones to attack him. The arrow flew past him and out into the dark. The guard flinched away from the hissing arrow and cried out as he noticed the unnatural shadow coming for him.
The guard dropped his empty musket and pulled out his sword to defend himself but in his fear-driven haste he sliced open his own hand on the draw.
Shane's air elemental lifted him into the sky, moving slowly to escape notice and hopefully not get shot at while he was dangling in mid-air. The lighthouse was 50 feet above the constables' heads, so it would take another few seconds for him to get level with the light.
Jaelynn realized that the man was unlikely to listen to a "guard" who looked like someone he knew, but sounded like a woman. So she called to him from behind the wall.
"Surrender! Don't make us take your soul!"
"Someone should go down and make sure those sleeping guards don't cause us problems later," she said to Aziel.
Jaelynn's attempt at intimidation did not cow the man, who continued fighting, slashing at the shadow as the earth elemental closed on him from behind.
Shane ascended to the top of the lighthouse and reads off the spell. Whoever had written it probably hadn't had such a large light source in mind, though. The top of the lighthouse exploded into a storm of multicolored fireworks, illuminating the entire fort in blinding flashes of light for the better part of a minute.
The constables facing the shore noticed that while they were putting down the closest soldiers, more were massing at the landward end of the wall. They had a minute or two until the first wave of soldiers would be on them.
There was a yell from the massed soldiers as the lighthouse seemed to explode and the front ranks shielded their eyes from the glare. Many of them even started shouting about being blind, the flash of pyrotechnics was so bright.
"Someone should go down and make sure those sleeping guards don't cause us problems later," she said to Aziel.
Aziel nodded grimly, setting down her empty musket and drawing her rapier as she moved to the sleeping guards.
Tarvak waited to see whether the consensus was to get inside the control room or not. Meanwhile, he nocked another arrow.
see it.
Depending on his status, he'll look for ways of creating distractions/diversions, such as possibly setting ships or wharves on fire, anything they would have to try to put out to risk losing valuable infrastructure.
The constables spent the next few seconds frantically packing barrels of firedust into the control room. As Anthony and his automaton made the final few adjustments, Jaelynn ripped a wall of solid stone up out of the very structure of the massive rampart shielding the fort from the sea.
With that wall in place there was no way for the soldiers to retake the lighthouse or control room without magic, short of rowing across the bay and scaling the interior wall.
Once he recovers, if there is time, he will have the air elemental fly him back toward the others. Once he gets wind of the plan, he will have it fly him down to the water's edge and then send the it back up to get anyone else who doesn't want to jump. Swims out a ways and watches for the the others to make their big splash.
Shane's eyes cleared of the blinding flash after a few seconds, just in time for him to see the others finalizing their preparations to leave. The constables climbed up onto the roof of the control room and jumped down into the deep, dark water one by one. It was a long way down but no one was permanently injured.
Jaelynn, buoyed in the air by Shane's elemental friend, watched as the fuse in Anthony's automaton's claw burned down. Though the elemental turned her away from the blast, the pair were still caught by the explosion and buffeted on waves of hot air as the grenade exploded and set off the barrels of firedust.
The explosion shattered the control room's interior walls, blowing debris out into the ship bay and rattling off the top of the wall for hundreds of feet. The exterior wall was apparently reinforced against explosions, though, because that wall remained intact and protected the constables from the rain of smoking stone. That reinforcement probably just concentrated the explosion, focusing the energy that would have gone out over the sea back toward the keep.
With the controls not just jammed or broken but utterly destroyed, the Duchess's forces had no hope of repelling the King's forces. Already alerted by Shane's flare, the Risuri flotilla sailed in less than half an hour later- under heavy fire, though only from the western half of the sea wall. The King's marines were excellent at what they did, and in less than an hour the constables were back in the keep.
The Duchess's forces had ceded control of the sea gate and docks to royalist forces but were still holed up in many of the buildings inside the keep, including the central keep. Luckily, it wasn't the constables' job to root out rebel soldiers.
The constables were resting on board one of the landing ships when Captain Smith of the Impossible- the ship that had brought Unit 6 and Unit 11 to the island- came on board. He beamed at the constables and offered cigars all around. "We can smoke them all together when the job is done."
He nodded in the direction of the keep, and it was probably no coincidence that the sounds of the heaviest fighting were also coming from there. "Intelligence says the Duchess is secured in the central keep there. With Unit 6 gone, you all are the highest ranking civilian authorities on the island. It is, therefore, your responsibility to deal with her once the marines have neutralized her soldiers."
Before we smoke cigars, we'll want to conduct a memorial service to the fallen members of Unit 6. If anyone has the magic that would allow us to move heavy rocks under water, we'll recover their bodies as well.
Shane checked on the status of the one survivor of Unit 6 and then said, If we are going to deal with her highness, we best get ourselves cleaned up. He emphasizeded the word highness enough to indicate his skepticism that she deserved the title.
He changed out of his jumpsuit and into his constable uniform.
If anyone is interested in adding a PF adventure path to their roster of campaigns, I'm recruiting for characters for a Wrath of the Righteous game.
The constables waited for the marines to do their work, digging out the Duchess's dug-in forces. Musket fire, the sound of steel on steel and the screams of men dying came from deeper in the fort as the constables bided their time. Then suddenly there was a small explosion behind them, gunshots and screams of panic from one of the Risuri ships in the sheltered harbor, hundreds of feet away from the lighthouse.
A few flashes of fire lit up the night, then a larger explosion as massive ball of flame engulfed the ship. Smoke billowed upward as the rigging caught fire, and the constables could faintly make out a humanoid figure striding across the burning deck. He pointed a flaming sword and swept it in an arc toward the sea wall. All of the gas lamps shattered and went dark.
Armed with a sword of pure fire and a shield , he then leapt thirty feet from the ship to the sea wall, his cloak transforming into a cloud of smoke, making him practically invisible in the night. The figure streaked toward the Royalist siege engines, almost too fast to follow with the eye, much less on foot.
+4(Living in the Streets) +2(WIS) = 19
Swallowing hard a couple of times, Tarvak finally managed to say in a reasonably calm tone "What the *frak* is *that*?!?"
He started to ask if Shane and Jaelynn could send the elementals after him, but then remembered someone's comment that they were alive, not "summoned". He never had gotten the hang of how summoned creatures worked.
Shane sent the elemental over to the burning ship with instructions to pull any injured who fell in the waters to safety on another Risuri ship. He drifted over to where the others were watching and waited to see if anyone else had any idea who/what that is.
In case that modifies how well he could see things.
Shane's friendly air elemental flew over to the burning ship and started pulling struggling sailors out of the water and depositing them on the deck of a nearby ship.
Whatever or whoever it was didn't seem interested in attacking the Royalists, regardless of the damage it had inflicted on the marines. It seemed to be avoiding Royalist and the Duchess's forces as best it could, heading directly for the inner keep. Precisely where Captain Smith had told the constables the Duchess was hiding.