Morthos opens the door to allow the ogre to barge in.
Daidalos holds back, ready to act if needed, looking for an alarm horn of some sort.
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Perhaps a bit overconfident given the state of their undress or the fact that he has an ogre at his back, Timo wades into the room and stands between the two opponents. He levels his sword between them and sends the two a mischievous grin. "So which one of you dies now by my blade and which one of you surrenders and gets to live? I leave the choice to you."
Asturu falls in behind Grumblejack. With how small and packed the room is, he will need more time to find a position from which he can attack the guards.
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Affyria throws open the door with a grand gesture.
"Proffer yourselves before us, that you may live through this bloodsoaked night!"
Leading with her spear, Price charges into the kitchen looking for a target. Given the horrendous meal they stuffed down her gullet, she expects to find a greasy-shirted pig dumping cigar ash and scabs into the stew.
She chuckles at the priestess' declaration, adding in her own - more personal - pet peeve. "I have a bone to pick with the chef... your food is almost more palatable coming out than it was going in." Spying the likely cook, she runs the spear into his intestines, delivering a similar gut-ache to what she felt after enduring his cuisine.
In the kitchen, you find a pair of servants toiling away, a man and a woman. Banging around with pots and pans, the man looks up and is about to yell at the interruption when he realizes the ladies are not guards but prisoners.
The kitchen is much as you'd expect it to be. It is well stocked and there is a collection of plates, bowls and yes, knives and a cleaver. On the south wall is an almost comically large fireplace currently lit and burning.
Both of the servants are agape with shock as Price charges in and skewers the man. He collapses to the ground, dying. The woman screams in terror, dropping her pans in an unholy racket. "AAAAAH! Don't kill me!"
Seeing that the kitchen is under control, Ineluki flies to the doorway of the guardroom.
The three guards, unarmored, are taken completely by surprise by the ogre and armed men storming their room. They each grab the closest weapon available and attack.
Grumblejack brings his club smashing down on the arm of the guard he'd already hit, turning it into a mangled mass of flesh as the man screams then falls still.
Completely panicked by the sudden onslaught, they panic and they flail wildly with their blades.
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1-2=Longsword; 3-4=Club; 5-6=Dagger
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As the two guards go for their weapons,
Timo grins and quips, "Just remember I gave one of you the chance to live when you are both bleeding out on the floor." He then lashes out at the guard furthest from the door with powerful attack.
As Timo parried off their blows, Timo strikes back with a vicious counter attack.
The inquisitor eyes the door briefly before turning to the kitchen drudge. "We'll let you live, provided you do a few things for us. First, be quiet. Second, answer our questions and do as you are told. For instance, go stand by Mistress Strex now. And, third..." She looks around the kitchen, "Do you have any profiteroles or something fit for a person to eat?"
Morthos moves in after the others and notices only one still standing. With a impressed look about him, "Well done," he simply says as he brings his sword down upon the one left.
Daidalos clambers up onto the table, ready to act if needed. Howver, seeing Morthos' glancing, if deadly, blow, he doubts it.
Ineluki just watches from the doorway, ready to blast the remaining guard with sonic energy if Morthos' strike was not a mortal one.
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Seeing that there's no room to join the fray, Asturu lingers in the back and adds his voice to the ongoing onslaught. "Surrender now lest Grumblejack eat you alive!"
But the ongoing slaughter produces such noise that Asturu's voice has troubles standing out in this dance of discord.
Affyria smiles her shark smile and motions for the woman to come closer. "Yes come to me, my pretty girl. I don't bite, even though I have a large appetite at the moment."
Timo drops one of the guards with a wild swing that nonetheless had plenty of power behind it. His follow-up on the other guard, however, misses.
Morthos lands a glancing blow, enough to draw a line of blood but not enough to kill the man. Grumblejack also takes a swing at the man, but his seems to have a sudden run of luck as the ogre's strike goes wide.
Back in the kitchen, the woman's screaming slowly fades while her mouth remains agape, eyes nearly as wide, staring at Affyria and Price. Wordlessly, she points a shaking finger towards some bread and jam on one of the shelves. Hanging near it is some cured sausage.
...having witnessed the quick death of his colleagues and seeing he's barely escaped with his life so far, the guard drops his weapon and surrenders.
Daidalos, with the situation taken care of, first goes to the kitchen to grab some food before the inevitable rush, and allows Price to work alone with the surviving cook while he chews on a sausage. Later on, once the room to the north is empty(er), he looks through the lockers of the guards for anything of note. In particular, he looks for journals, notes, and other books.
"Thank you." Price says amiably. She collects the bread, jam, sausages, any condiments she can find, a stack of plates, two kitchen knives, and - most ominously - a butcher's cleaver. She hums happily as she brings the pile of goods over to the workbench near the cook where Affyria has the woman hemmed in. There the inquisitor quickly slices bread and sausages. Then just as quickly she assembles large, alternating stacks of jam sandwiches and sausage sandwiches. She hands the first sausage sandwich to Affyria with a polite nod and an explanation, "I sprinkled on some dill. It should compliment the coarse brown mustard."
Price plates the other sandwiches with practiced efficiency, smiling at the cook while she works. She says lightly, never slowing her pace. "How many guards work at the prison? And what kind of security do you pass through on your way out? Walk me through the route you take."
Luke takes his shot... but is it enough?
Luke's sonic blast injures the guard but doesn't quite kill him. Timo rejects the man's surrender and finishes the job. That done, a strange silence seems to permeate the prison. Somehow, you get the sense that those were the last of the guards within the building.
As the guard falls to the ground, Timo grabs a scrap of clothes that the nameless guard never got to put on and wipes the blood from his blade. He then drops the cloth on the man's body with the thought of, "Pathetic..." running through his head. With no more thought on the fallen guards, Timo turns and heads to the kitchen to make sure everything is in order there. Seeing the women have the last of the kitchen staff utterly terrified and under their control, Timo smiles and grabs one of the sandwiches with a nod of thanks before leaning up against the wall and watching the two of them do their work to the helpless cook.
Price gives Timo a lazy salute, tapping the kitchen knife to her forehead. She quips, "Feel free to take a plate, Timo. We wouldn't want to leave crumbs in addition to corpses." She looks benignly back at the drudge, "Now, what were you saying, dear?"
As Timo finishes the guard off, Morthos turns and heads toward the kitchen himself, entering just behind Timo. Noticing the others seem to have the situation at hand, Morthos sheathes his blade and crosses his arms, waiting to see what transpires.
"I... uh... oh my..." She wipes her brow with the hem of her apron, takes a breath to steady herself, then says, "M'name is Margary, if it pleases... There are, uh, let's see...guards at the gatehouse and again at the far end o' the bridge. I'm not sure how many in the gatehouse, but maybe a half dozen? And between two to four at the far end o' the bridge...it varies. Two dogs in the yard. More guards on the walls, I'm not sure how many, m'lady. Uh, four?"
She watches the prisoners...former prisoners...filter into her kitchen and seems rooted in place, half paralyzed in fear. "We, I...that is, you go through the doors off the main hall an' those open into the courtyard. There's a fountain, an' across from that is the gatehouse. There's a password, you give that an' iffin you look like a guard or one of us, they open the gate and let you out. They within the gatehouse, you understand, so they don't get a good look. But the guards at the end of the bridge will."
Timo reluctantly grabs a plate after Price admonishes him. He then takes a bite while listening to the conversation play out. "Wow ... this aint half bad," he thinks to himself. As Margary finishes, he feels the need to pipe up. Clearing his throat, he cuts in, "and what of the wizard?"
Seeing the others have the situation well in hand, Daidalos (after taking a sandwich) goes to the room to the North and searches it, staying away from the interrogation to keep his promise. He takes as long as needed to find everything.
"Well, we might be able to disguise ourselves well enough to reach the end of the bridge under cover of darkness before they realize what's happening, but I doubt they'll overlook the ogre we have with us. We might try undertaking a ruse and trick them into pretending we're escorting him, but in the middle of the night and without a cart of some sort, I don't know how believable that will seem,"Affyria thinks out loud.
"Then again, all we really need is to close the distance to them."
Ineluki lands on a sandwich, not particularly caring that this might freak out the woman even more, and starts taking tiny bites of the meat inside the sandwich... He curses in little piping squeaks that he's so clumsy on the 'ground' in this form, but it's easier to stay than to revert back to human... for now.
"You're being quite a help, Margary. Thank you." Price keeps smiling as she passes out sandwiches, silently encouraging the woman to keep answering her allies' questions. While the woman stammers, Price runs the opposition numbers in her head:
Courtyard - 2 dogs with 4 guards on the wall
Gatehouse - 6 guards with poor visibility
Bridge - 4 guards
Unknown - 1 Wizard
She didn't imagine the wizard-warden would be roaming around at night - not if he had a comfortable chamber and was the typical lazy sot. So, that puts 14 guards and 2 dogs between us and freedom. And we've taken out... she runs through the battles 15 guards, so far, about half of the garrison. Price finds that number encouraging, even heartening. They might actually pull this off.
Her attention is briefly drawn to the bat struggling with the sausage. A frown crosses her features. She gives Affyria a keep her talking look. Then she takes the bat&sandwich plate and transfers it to another table. She shields Margary from seeing the bat by imposing her body. With her back to the drudge, she takes the kitchen knife and slices into the meat of her thumb then offers the welling pool of blood in her palm to Luke.
Affyria grabs the woman's chin and forces her to look at her. "Any horses on the premises? What about outside of this place, any settlements nearby? Roads? What's the terrain like?"
Asturu cupped his chin with a hand and lazily rubbed his cheeks."The conundrum of how to get our friend Grumblejack out of here is one worth pondering on. On the one hand we could disguise him, on the other we could pretend he's our prisoner. The first would lead to them attacking us upon discovery and the latter might result in them calling forth Blackerly or the wizard. Regardless, I predict the outcome of both approaches will be violence so perhaps we should approach this issue with violence in mind."
Grumblejack pokes his head in through the door to the kitchen, the disembodied head of one of the dead guards in his hands, cracked open as he picks at the grey matter within. "Grumblejack sneak good if have to..."
When the cook starts to gasp for breath at the gruesome sight of the ogre and his latest meal, he casts a toothy grin at her, wiggles a couple of bloody fingers in a mocking semblance of a greeting, then backs out of the room (and out of sight).
Margary gasps and pants, flapping a hand at her face as if to ward off the vapors, braces herself on the table, then blinks--hard--and answers the questions posed to her.
"The warden, er, uh, the wizard... yes... he's in a tower on the southern side. Keeps to himself, mostly he does. Sometimes blasts of fire he shoots off, so we stays away mostly. When we take him his meals, we leave them in his office on the top floor. His quarters are also up there, but we don't go in there."
To Affyria, "Horses? Trails? I... uh... I'm sorry, m'lady, I don't know nothin' about any trails, that's for the men... though, you seem quite capable, I mean just not for folks like me. I just work in the kitchen, you see, and uh... horses! No, we don't have any stables here. Closest thing to it is the kennels, to the right of the gatehouse as you look at it from the courtyard."
"I, uh... oh dear, I'm sorry m'lady, I just don't know nothin' about the trails. I just go between 'ere an' the village. It's all I ever done." She seems genuinely distressed... and utterly terrified.
In the barracks, Daedalus finds a number of locked chests but is able to use the keys collected from the guards' corpses to open them. He finds:
1. Empty; this newly hired guard hasn’t stocked his
chest yet.
2. A change of peasant clothes.
3. Ink, quill and a personal journal that reveals this
week’s password “Hesterfield” – a town in the Heartland – and the details of Blackerly’s illicit
gambling sessions including exactly when the
next game will be (tonight!)
4. A small coin pouch with gold in miscellaneous
coinage.
5. A bottle of fine whiskey (smoky, peaty with just a
hint of sweetness) without label worth 25 gp.
6. A bottle of absolute rot gut without label worth
5 gp.
7. A silver holy symbol of Mitra (worth 25 gp) and a
Mitran holy book (worth 5 gp).
8. Hidden under peasant garb are two decks of cards
(one regular, one marked) and bag of 12 gp worth
of mixed coinage.
9. A surprisingly well written love letter ending in
a proposal of marriage to someone named ‘Michelle’
and a sapphire engagement ring worth 100 gp.
10. A large collection of letters from home. Perhaps
they are poignant but they are also worthless.
11. A masterwork lute (worth 100 gp).
12. A small supply of absolutely delicious cookies
carefully wrapped in wax paper labeled ‘From Lil.’
13. A whetstone, cleaning supplies for chain shirt, extra
bowstring, and a small book of military regulations.
14. A collection of cheap, tawdry, crudely printed
books (the so-called “penny dreadfuls”) about
dashing heroes, daring do and amply bosomed
damsels prone to fainting and outdoor bathing
(no resale value).
15. A set of peasant clothes and a short sword.
16. A small coin pouch with 3 gp in miscellaneous
coinage.
17. A small bag of doggy treats.
18. A map of the nearby town of Varyston including
the Old Moor road.
19. A traveller’s outfit, a finely made pipe (5 gp) with
a good supply (1 lb.) of high quality shag tobacco
(2 gp).
20. A small bottle with a hand written note “In case
of trouble – Love, Mom!”
Hearing Asturu, Timo cocks an eyebrow at him. "Unless they're gonna raise the dead I don't think we have to worry about Blackerly any more.
The wizard, however, if we can get him while hes sleeping he may not be able cast anything to stop us." Then as the big ogre wanders in with his newest snack, Timo can't help but laugh. "I was wary of him at first, but the big lug has grown on me."
Timo then sets his eyes on Margery, "How long before the guards on the gatehouse or the bridge start wondering whats taking their relief so long?
Looking to the ogre as it pokes his head in and then leaves, Morthos looks back to the others stolidly. "Escape is our priority, not some pathetic wizard. If he gets in the way, then he will be dealt with accordingly," he says plainly. "As Asturu has said, prepare for battle for it will come to that. I say we don these pathetic guard outfits and disguise the beast as a prisoner. It will at least buy us a small bit of time and maybe it will avoid us having to take on the entire company of guards that are left."
Daidalos raises an eyebrow at Morthos' statement, "Say what you will about wizards, but I would much rather take care of the warden now. What will happen if the ruse fails, and the alarm is sounded? Then, we have to deal with nearly a score of guards and a wizard at the same time. If we go after the Warden now, we confront him on our terms, when he's alone and unprepared. As you say, escape is our priority. However, just as important is staying escaped, and having a wizard on our tail will make that far more challenging."
He then looks at the bottle he found in trunk 20, trying to figure out if it's a potion of some sort.
"I have no desire to chase a wizard to his lair. And if he is fool enough to follow us, then he shall meet his end. My goal is to escape, not traipsing all over this prison for one fool."
"Did you not hear the lady? He stays in his room, and is likely sleeping now. Would you sooner risk a powerful wizard chasing us to Hell and back, or slit his throat before he knows anything's wrong?"
"I do not care where he stays and he does not concern me as he seems to you."
Daidalos looks shocked, "He does not concern you? How? We do not know how powerful he is, and if the thought of a powerful wizard hunting us down does not concern you, it should! I do not know if this man can call lightning from the sky, send us to the Abyss, or tear down this prison, stone by stone! All I do know is that, off-guard or asleep, us storming his room, quietly and suddenly, will result in his death. If a powerful wizard does not bring you worry, you do not know enough of the order!"