The gray man is gaunt and slender, his hair gray as smoke and his dead, unblinking eyes as yellow as citrines.
Amandine finds that he carries very little beyond what he wears: a ragged entertainer's outfit beneath his studded leather armor, a cracked buckler upon his left arm, and a pair of thunderstones in his jacket pocket. His sickle, laying near his hand, is his most interesting possession. It is freshly sharpened and well made, its blade painted like a toothy smile.
Photinè investigates the office overlooking the warehouse. An open door in the southern wall reveals an unused and empty storage closet. A pair of metal exhaust pipes dominate the two western corners of the office, ascending through the ceiling and presumably to the roof. An oak desk occupies the eastern side of the chamber, backed by an intimidating chair. The largest drawer set in the desk is locked.
Chana spares only a glance for the grey-skinned man, then heads on up the stairs into the creepy fellow's office. Once there, she whispers "Aw, I fink there a way down from 'ere. Look." She goes over to the exhaust pipe that her cockroach buddy scouted out earlier and checks it over for a way to open it.
"Bes' we use it before the 'ole crew get in 'ere ta kill us."
With Chana's help, Photinè carefully clicks open the hatch and peers down into the secret passage. "They'll certainly want to kill us down there as well," she says dourly.
She supposes it's better than fighting through another wave of cultists though, and waves the others over.
Amandine recognizes the man to be a fetchling. Not the first such person she's come across, but the most unpleasant. She takes the few things she finds on him.
When she hears Chana mention a way down through the piping, Amandine hurries over to help.
"Much better than making a stand here Lady Photine. If we try to defend a fixed position on their turf they have all the options. They can wait us out, gather everyone to come against us at once, use Lady Martella as a hostage, and so on. We have to keep the momentum on our side so they can't coordinate as response."
Amandine's hands shake too much to foil the lock upon the drawer. The ebb and flow of adrenaline, the threat of cultist reinforcements, and the fresh smell of death prevent her from finding purchase with her lock picks.
However, just as she is about to concede defeat, from her kneeling position Amandine discovers a copper key tucked into a hollow on the underside of the accompanying chair. Experimenting, she finds that this, indeed, unlocks the drawer.
You find a teak snuffbox (worth 20gp), a silver cameo containing a portrait of Grand Prince Stavian I (worth 100gp), velveteen pouches containing 1,207sp and 144gp, and another pair of smoke pellets that are black rather than the gray of the other ones carried by the cultists.
Photinè and Chana open the hidden hatch to reveal a ladder, its iron rungs leading downward. The pipe is large enough that you could each climb down without difficulty, although the taller and longer limbed may occasionally bump their elbows against the metal sides of the shaft.
Peering through the darkness, Chana identifies that the shaft descends some fifty to sixty feet into an excavated chamber beneath the warehouse.
Expecting plenty of danger down below as well, Chana casts barkskin on herself (30 mins) and drinks her single potion of cure moderate wounds before taking to the ladder. "Be real careful, 's a long way down ta whereeva' these guys are keepin' Martella."
She sends Snips ahead to take a look and focuses her attention on their emotional link to deduce whether there are any immediate dangers at the bottom of the shaft.
Greenly volunteers to go last and guard the ladies as they travel down the pipe, keeping her bow out and an open eye. She closes the office window and does her best to barricade the doors. If given time, she gathers all the bodies on the stairs as a warning, but takes Mr. Smiles with her into the office. If the two patrols come into the building, she'll, like, defenestrate the creep before shooting her arrows, preferring any survivors from the fight they just escaped.
The office door is barricaded as Snips scampers down the pipe into the unknown below. As Greenly keeps watch and the party prepares for its own descent, you are left unmolested by the Silent Brotherhood's reinforcements. The two survivors of the first sortie and the two on patrol outside have not stormed into the warehouse, presumably calculating their options instead.
Not sensing any concerns from below, Chana gives the rest of her team a thumbs up and leads the way down. "We go' ourselfs an openin'. Lets go."
Once at the bottom, Snips crawls up her leg and settles into a comfortable position tucked in the side of her vest.
The roughly hewn walls of this cellar are embedded with several mementos of a long-gone iteration of Oppara: bare scroll rods, broken pots, cobblestones, and various other bits of street garbage.
The southern end of the chamber is dominated by the white brick walls of an old villa, buried beneath the streets of the modern city. A door that might have otherwise blended in with the brickwork hangs open, allowing slivers of light from the room beyond to spill out.
Chana gives her allies a heads up about the tripwire in a whisper as they get to the bottom.
Photinè hitches her skirt up and follows Chana down the ladder.
Amandine cleans out the contents of the drawer and follows Olivia down.
Chana steps up to keep an eye and ear open for people down the hall while the trip wire is dealt with.
After Chana points out the trip wire, Amandine takes care of it.
”Of course, darling,” Photinè says to Olivia, and with a wave of her hand, appears four orbs of light that float above their heads.
Amandine effortlessly severs the tripwire without triggering the trap. Proceeding into the storage chamber beyond, she identifies that the tripwire was actually connected to a mechanical trap on the far wall that would have launched javelins at the poor, unwary soul who entered the door first.
A considerable amount of food, water, clothing, bandages, soap, other supplies, and even tools have been stored in here. It seems as though whomever provisioned this hideout wanted to be prepared for spending a long time within.
Photinè summons her floating lights as she reaches the bottom of the ladder, but she soon finds that they may be superfluous. Even before you step into the old villa's storeroom, you find that bright light shines out from the open door. Within, you find that one of the stone tiles set in the ten-foot tall ceiling has been enchanted and bears the glow of a heatless fire. Similar magic lights can be seen in the ceilings to the west.
To the south, another open door offers access to an excavated chamber similar to the one that the ladder deposited you in. However, this one seems to continue onward, into a longer cavern.
To the west sits an unoccupied common room, although a foul smell wafts from that direction.
An adjoining hallway leads south from there, and a closed door sits to the north.
Chana peers warily to the south. "Careful, down that way we go' ourselfs a lot 'a fungus. If you fink about wot we're likely ta find. I'd fink Martella's that-a-way." She points west.
She walks carefully westward with her scimitar at the ready. Once in the common room, she inspects the way out westward, the door to the north, and the passageway to the south. She leaves investigating the room itself to her allies.
Amandine goes ahead with Chana. She figures it's better to follow her nose than mess with fungus. "If you're already behind a secret entrance I don't think roughing it in a fungus tunnel is going to sound good compared to finished rooms."
Amandine stays to check the room carefully for anything of note, including more traps.
"You never know," says Greenly. "Might be something, like, worth looking for in there. Like the good kinda mushrooms, aha," she winks at Olivia, hoping the paladin shares her fondness for either savory mushrooms or psychedelic ones.
The stink of spoiled food permeates the common room. Several plates covered in scraps of rotten meat and spoiled vegetables cover the two round tables in the center of the room. Shelves of preserved foods line the walls to the north and south. At the far end of the common room, a wall has partially collapsed. The rock and soil behind the bricks has been excavated into a rough, sharply curving tunnel.
The door to the north leads to a sequence of doors, passing through a small sitting room before leading to a longer hallway, lined with doors, some of them hanging open. The hall to the south eventually turns to the west before ending at another closed door.
Amandine signals for everyone to be silent, then she signals that she hears a voice down the tunnel.
She peeks down the tunnel, and strains her ears to hear more, but she doesn't intend to go any farther until Chana is back with them.
Chana rejoins the group, quietly closing the door into the common room as she does. She raises a hand and starts extending fingers one by one until she gets to four. With her other hand, she points towards the northern door and starts making a talking motion with her hand.
Once she's done relaying her recon info, she looks at the rest of the team with raised eyebrows, as if to say, 'this way first?'.
Chana is far from stealthy, but she tries to sneak up on the northern cultists, scimitar in hand. She beckons silently with her other hand for the rest of her team to join her.
As she comes up close, she moves so hunched over that her free hand touches the floor in front of her and her hind legs touch only on the balls of her feet. Her nose twitches as she tries to sense where her prey lies.
Greenly follows behind, making less than any effort to sneak. She draws her sword and menaces at the cultists.
Photinè tries to glide quietly down the hall, but her heels are a dead giveaway as they click noisily on the floor.
Amandine will try to cast Color Spray to thin ranks while the enemy and her own group have some distance between them.
rounds
rounds
rounds
The combined footsteps of the party interrupt the cultist's discussion, and they grow aware that someone is intruding. As the party approaches, they quietly speak some spells. The first one steps into the hall and is greeted by Olivia's charging blade, delivering a deep gash to his stomach.
Amandine slips in front of her companions and unleashes her spell as the other cultists pour forth, although only one of them falls prey - dropping to the tiled floor in a slumbering heap.
The one wounded by Olivia takes a step back and fishes a strange, dark-colored stick and a tindertwig from his satchel. He ignites the stick and tosses it towards Olivia. A thick cloud of blinding smoke soon fills the space around her.
Greenly is surrounded by an eerie glow and as she swings her sword across the chest of her opponent, green wisps of flame jump off the weapon, battering and pummeling the cultist with whispered shouts of enthusiasm.
The cultist that Olivia wounds takes a step back from the door, fading out of sight beyond the curtain of smoke. However, he seems unfazed by the smoke and manages to single out Olivia and calls a profane spell upon her.
She hears the magic Command in her ear, telling her to drop her weapon, but her resolve is far too strong. In fact, she only tightens her grip on the hilt in response.
The tight, crowded hallway leaves no way forward for Amandine so she concentrates on the mind of the cultist in front of Greenly, striking out at them.
With the hallway jammed with bodies already trapped in mortal combat, Chana bides her time. She crouches down even tighter, coiled like a spring... or an alley cat about to leap.
Without a way forward, Photinè bides her time at the end of the hallway, preparing to lash out at the minds of the nearest cultist if he resists Amandine's spell.
The targeted cultist seems to exhaust all his willpower resisting Amandine's spell, for Photinè's followup spell pierces through, seizing at his muscles and senses. Then, despite the smoke encircling her, Olivia blocks the incoming sword thrust by the cultist on the far side of the hallway.
Greenly takes advantage of the situation, slicing the cultist before her through the back. Her green ancestor flames spin in silent mirth.
Olivia and Greenly's swings each bring down a foe.
The last enemy still on his feet attempts to slip through the smoke enshrouding Olivia. Perhaps he means to flee or perhaps he hoped to catch Olivia by surprise. It will never be known, for Olivia hears his approach through the cloud of smoke and delivers a fortuitous thrust of her sword. The next sound that follows is that of him dropping to the floor, clutching his bloody wound.
Greenly steps forward and, accidentally stepping on the unconscious cultist, makes sure they will never wake up.
"Augh, wow, that was quick, wasn' it?" Chana lets out a low whistle "I 'ardly was able to squeeze myself in there."
She steps by the bodies and starts checking out the little rooms, hoping to find some keys or a sign of where the captives are being kept.
Amaindine pats down the bodies for valuables.
Greenly pauses, nearly causing Amandine to stumble into her back, so that she can execute the last of the cultists. The bodies in the thinning smoke remains something of a tripping hazard. A junction sits at the middle of the hallway, but the branching passage quickly ends in a collapse.
Eight doors line the sides of this tiled hallway. The doors of several rooms are open, revealing ten foot square bedchambers, each with a single bed and accompanying table. Only half of the rooms appear to be slept in. In the other rooms, the sheets remain crisply made upon the beds.
You find a number of interesting items upon the cultists. Each one wears a finely made chain shirt beneath their jackets and robes, and equally well crafted shortswords sit near their lifeless hands. Each one also wears a silver icons around their neck much like those worn by the initiates you battled in the warehouse above. Furthermore, in their pockets or left sitting on tables in their rooms, you find a number of glass vials, smokesticks, tindertwigs, and a smattering of coins.
4 MWK Chain Shirts
4 MWK Shortswords
4 Silver Unholy Symbols of Norgorber
8 Cure Light Wounds Potions (Labeled)
4 Hide from Animals Potions (Unlabeled)
7 Smokesticks
19 Tindertwigs
20gp
As you pass through the smoke and step into the latter half of the hallway, you realize that the door at the far end is open a crack. The pale face of a small child peers through the opening, watching you with guarded curiosity.
At the head of the column formed by the party, bottlenecked by the hallway, you quietly ask for divine guidance to attune your senses upon the child. However, you are briefly stymied as you feel something tugging at your mind, as though drawing you closer to the child. You resist its hold and shake off the feeling, refocusing your inner sight upon the child.
The unmistakable aura of evil emanates from the "child," but before you can concentrate and glean more information, she seems to recognize what you're doing.
With a frightened squeak, the child turns and runs from the doorway. Her quick footsteps echo, fading, down the hallway beyond.