Price curses in silence and then moves forward taking a position close to the middle barracks door.
While Price does her work, Shulme, still wary of the priest at large, ensures that these fallen guards, at least, will not rise again.
The guard on Cain, seeing the danger presented, dodges past him, attempting to call an alarm as he moves. The zone of silence prevents his screams from reaching beyond the hallway.
Xanos's hand skitters after the guard, the zone of silence moving with it.
Cain continues his bloody work, lips peeled back in silent snarl as he tries to cut down the final guard.
The guard attempts to stand and run to shout out a warning, but Cain's blade descends upon him, stopping his noble attempt short.
Cain sheathes his blade as he checks his wound, powering through the wave of fatigue that often comes from a fight. After a quick look around, he jogs back and grabs one of the dead guards, carrying it back into the doorway through which they came.
As he comes near the strange gauntleted hand of XAnos, he stoops, hoping his voice carries to the wizard but not through any of the doors nearby. "Good trick," he says with his clumsy canine tongue, "I reckon I owe you a drink after that one… or maybe fifty. The trick worked… we're cleanin' up and movin' out."
Xanos' hand crawls to the barracks door and somehow manages to pull a nail out of a small hole in it's own palm. It holds the nail up against the seam where the door met the doorframe down at the lower corner and let go. The nail jumped forward like it had been shot from a bow and slammed itself deep into the crack.
"It has been a fairly long while since I imbibed alcohol. I have heard that the process is far more refined now than it was when I first discovered it. Perhaps it is time for new experiences." Xanos whispered back to Cain.
"They have secured the barracks. The first door is jammed." he relayed to Teon.
Then do what you need to do magic man. I want to join the party.
"It will not be long now. We wait until the jammed doors draw attention, or until the others are in place at the gatehouse."
Little effort it needed to secure the three doorways. The bodies are retrieved and placed into Barhold's room. Moving down the hall to the open door, a quick glance is enough to alert our villains that upon the upper bridge, two guards currently patrol back and forth. Both are armed with bows and horns.
Cain peeks out, then backs into cover. "So, back up the tower stairs and try to get up on their level?"
As the team gets ready to move, Cain takes some time to check the mechanisms on the big double-doors that lead out onto the main bridge from the gatehouse.
Cain fiddles with the massive doors, spending a few moments finding—then unceremoniously jamming a pin into—the hinge mechanisms .
Then, after a quick peek to make sure no one will spot him, he heads back down the hallway past the officers' quarters, heading up the spiral stair and towards the gatehouse. As always, his eyes and ears are open for the sounds of soldiers approaching.
Cain sets to work, disabling the door's lock in preparation for the imminent attack. As he works, one of the guard's brings his eyes to bear upon the entryway. Cain freezes for a moment, embracing the shadows as the searching gaze travels over him. But the night wins out, and the guard fails to spy the work being done below.
The task completed, our villains make their way up the stairs to the next level, only to hear a sneeze above. Guards lie in the chamber up top .
EM1
EM2
MM1
MM2
Cain pauses and quietly steps back down to where the others wait, whispering as quietly as possible. "I'm more'n happy to murder the two up there, but we gotta keep a low profile until we can get that gatehouse secured. One a you think you can lie the group through? Less bloody that way."
He seems disappointed that he's even saying this.
"Not I." the sorcerer's low reply comes from a nearby shadow. "In times of... interest... my tongue is not to be relied upon."
"I can do it. They sound sick, so let's go in as fit troops volunteering to relieve them. I'd rather we beat them on numbers... so aside from Cain, who wants to come with me?"
Cain nods, ready to move on Price's lead.
Price, as a guard, leads the small team upstairs, talking as she goes. She deepens her already contralto voice, to sound more masculine. "...practically the whole fort is down with this damned sickness. And I'm pretty sure I just heard these fellas hacking up a lung so..." She mounts the last step and regards her fellow guards with a wan look, "we're here to relieve you, boys. You look like sh!t and need some shuteye. Beds are ready for ya. Come'on guys let's help'em with their gear a bit. They look dead on their feet." Price keeps up the patter as she moves towards the furthest guard, her mace held behind and disguised as a switch.
Neither guard seems particularly surprised when Price comes up the stairs. At first one guard seems a bit confused, "I thought it was double shifts for ::cough,cough:: the ones not too bad off?"
The other seems to nudge him a bit, a seeming act to draw off attention, "Father Donnagin probably sent 'em here. He said he'd see what he could do to relieve us. Iomedae bless the father for his kindness." The two seem ready to head down the stairs.
S1
S2
"Yeah, well, you boys are coughin' and we're not. So I guess we drew the short straw here, eh? Have a good night." Price waits for the men to head toward the stairs before striking.
Alaric
Cain
Price
Shulme
Guards
Price waits for the guards to move between her and Cain before she strikes.
Cain steps into the room a second behind Price, nodding along to her bluff. When Price strikes, Cain doesn't hesitate, drawing his blade over his shoulder and bringing it down on the guards. Brutal. Fast.
"They've taken the gate house." Xanos said to Teon. "You will want to be clear of the top of this tower for what happens next, and we will need an arial view of the soldiers' response. You will know when I am ready to leave."
I will have to fly low in order to see anything and that leaves me in danger of being seen. It it a risk worth taking or can it be mitigated?
And we might want to signal the Fireaxe. Locking the guards in does little good if they can be freed before the attack comes.
"Not quite yet. Very soon though. As long as we have subterfuge on our side, we will use it."
"As such..." he says, opening his book and laying a hand on a parchemnt, which disintegrated to pale powder as he spoke.
And Teon vanished again.
"You have three minutes."
The only reply is is a gust of wind and a quiet chuckle.
Price and Cain easily dispatch the two guards in the chamber with the element of surprise. Teon takes to the sky invisible and reveals several other guards located throughout the complex.
"Do you see anything we have not accounted for?" Xanos says over the whisper link.
As the two guards fall, Cain—wearing the face of one of the guards—licks his lips (in a decidedly canine manner), resheathes his blade and grins over at Price. "You always bring me to the funnest joints."
He looks down at the spray of dark blood on the stone, "Should we even mess with hidin' these guys?"
Cain re-checks his illusion, making sure his disguise shows no signs of the blood splashes decorating his real clothes. Then he makes his way to the door to the courtyard. He presses his ear to the door for a second before cracking it, checking for patrols or guards before he leads the group quietly out into the night, up the stairs, and onto the walls.
Guards on the roof of the gate house, no more than five. A few on the roof of the keep and the walls. A couple at each of the doors. All in all, not many. I can take the ones on the roof of the keep myself. Hurry up Magic Man, I want to join the fun.
"If we alert the forces on the ground prematurely, the gatehouse will go on alert and reinforcements will begin moving in behind the others. I'd prefer to avoid that until they have control over the mechanism room and can bar the doors."