"Don't let her fly out of the building or this will become as tough as with the peryton!" Ohrmizd leaves the door for Manuun and Heshan to protect, and darts towards Undrella profiting on her stunning.
"No need to remind me of that." Heshan rushes over to the door and fires a blast of electricity from his hands.
Teh stunned harpy is an easy target and everyone takes advantage of that. But Undrella still stands after the beating. She shakes the effect of heshan's spell, takes a step back and starts her singing.
"~How lovely~."
Ohrmizd blinks looking fascinated at the sudden singing "Wh-what... why is she singing now?"
The Keleshite tries to approach and embrace the harpy.
With all standing fascinated around the harpy and enjoying the song, even when ripped apart by the sharp claws of the harpy, it gets dark for Heshan then Manuun and last for Ohrmizd.
Ohrmizd wakes first. Robbed of his weapon and armor and all other gear he finds himself wearing only his shirt and his pants and his shoes. His whole body hurts from the thorough beating and scratching the harpy applied. Through his swollen eyes, that slowly adapt to the lack of light, he recognizes his companions, that are in similar bad shape.
The room is about 20 feet long and seven to eight feet wide in the shape of a ring segment. The three inner walls are masonry, the outer 'wall' is steel bars with a steel bar door in it that is locked. The corridor before the cell seems empty, but there are noises from areas you can't see.
Manuun lies on the one bed in this prison cell. Heshan lies skewed on the ground. A desk is the only other piece of furniture here. You're not sure, how long you've been out.
Heshan appeared to be no worse than the Archaelogist as he struggled to sit up straight. For now, he wouldn't say a word, instead examining the place to see just where in gods' names they landed themselves in.
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"Groan! Ouch that hurts. What did happen to us?"
Manuun slowly tries to raise his head and take in his surroundings.
Slowly the memory of the last moments come back. " I think you were right Miz. I am not going to marry Undrella right away. Lets first try to way to survive being her next lover."
After a few more minutes Manuun finds the energy tostand up and check out the others.
"You look like S%+*, Miz. The Father is going to be annoyed that we need his healing magic again. Talking of annoyed, I believe Garavel will be mildly displeased too with how events turned out. Maybe we should not be so keen on surviving anyhow."
Later Manuun checks out cell for anything useful which could help opening that lock.
The prison wardens are obviously thorough. Not only is there nothing in the cell, but also on yourself nothing is left, that would be remotely useful to get out of there.
As you sit there four laughing gnolls come along. They walk past your cell and drag another prisoner out of the neighbouring cell. The man doesn't look well and screams and kicks as he is dragged past your cell and out of the corridor. With the door falling shut the screaming gets quieter.
But after a while you hear the man again screaming. This time not in anger and fear, but in pain.
While you listen in horror to what could as well become your fate, a beautiful woman sneaks up on your cell door.
"Ohrmizd, what are you doing here?" she whispers. With quick hands and some special tool, she opens the lock. "Quick, follow me."
She leads Ohrmizd and his baffled colleagues the other direction in the corridor. Checking around the corner first, she opens one of the two doorwings and pushes Ohrmizd outside. "Run while they are distracted. Don't look back! If they catch you, we're all dead."
While getting away from the building, which is the Battle Market, you catch a glimpse of what the gnolls are doing. The rip the intestines of the poor man out with glowing tongs.
You make it safely to the cover the other buildings provide, and carefully out of town and into the pesh field.
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"Who is that girl? And why is she helping us? Well I am not questioning a gift horse"
Manuun follows the woman to the exit and and then quickly rushes into the open and towards the next buildings. When Ohrmizd seems to be hesitating, he returns and grabs the mans arm. " You have heard the woman. We must leave. And Undrella would never choose you over me anyway. So lets just get out of here."
"Ugh... Undrella..." Ohrmizd wakes up from what seems a conjunction of a terrible dream and a torrid hangover to discover he is half-naked sleeping with Manuun and Heshan.
"I told you... there is something deeply wrong on getting in love with someone who is telling you to kill her last lover..." the Keleshite observes as the gnolls drag the prisoner "Well... it probably won't matter in a few hours I guess..."
As the woman comes by the prison bars, Ohrmizd comes up excitedly holding the bars and trying to grasp her "Haleen! What the heck?! Why did you disappear like that?! In what kind of craziness have you managed to get in this time?!" the man knows when it is time for survival, and he does indeed run out of the cell when the woman forces the door open.
"No, wait! I am not leaving you now that I have found you!" Ohrmizd looks very seriously to the woman taking her by the wrist "You come with us"
"Let us focus on getting out of these prisons alive before we worry about the boss."
He just needed to find something in his pockets... which they weren't.
"Hm. Our captures may have been thorough in their search, but we still have other abilities at hand. Speaking of which... does anyone know how to lock a pick? Because I don't."
But it seemed that this wasn't needed as a woman comes out of nowhere and opens their locks. Heshan cannot help but smile at their change of fortunes.
"You would do nicely,." He has no issues following the lady's orders, only stopping when Ohrmizd stopped.
"So... I assume you two have a history together?" He pointed fingers at the two of them repeatedly.
~~~ earlier ~~~
"I can't leave." Haleen tells before pushing Ohrmizd out and closing the door behind them.
~~~ Now ~~~
The bright, hot midday sun burns down on the group in the cactus field.
"Yes. She is the girl... well... now the woman that saved my life when I was just a teenager in the streets of Katapesh" Ohrmizd stands up from his fall after Haleen's push. He looks powerless at the door "What am I supposed to do now? I made all this trip to help her and now she just pushes me away and do not even give an explanation of why she disappeared or whether if she is in danger?"
Clueless, confused and deprived of self-drive he looks at his underwear "What now? Are we supposed to forget about her and come back defeated and naked to Garavel and the Princess?"
"But we yet live." Heshan strove to point out the one good thing that has happened to them.
"And we have at least one angle of attack: that bird person. Did anyone see if she was really going to betray the gnolls?"
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" I think she would have. but she would have led us by the nose all the way there."
"As for what now, how about we go back to our place from the first day and watch how much trouble we have created. IF they are starting an expedition to search for us, we should be able to see this. That way there is at least something we can tell Garavel."
"I am naked" Ohrmizd frowns "We need equipment. Perhaps the gnolls have some"
The man looks around and tries to determine what building might hold the armory or at least some basic supplies.
The place next to the battle market looks like a palace. It is huge compared to most of the other buildings and looks mostly intact. A large double door prevents free entrance.
"I don't think they would let us have it for free, he sighed.
"I suppose it would be best to go back and report."
"Tsk! If we leave now, not only Haleen but all our stuff will be lost to who knows when if we ever recover it. You do know how that stuff is quickly move in the black market" Ohrmizd pushes the stone wall increasingly powerless "But I will not force you to take this risk, if you prefer to leave, let's do it"
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He walked over to Ohrmizd to place a hand on his shoulder. "Your friend has survived this long. If she did not take the chance to go with us, she must have other arrangements at hand. You need to trust her so we can find another way to save her."
You wait just on the fringe of town to wee what happens. The prisoner the gnolls took out of the Battle Market screams for a while, but then falls silent. From your vantage point you only see the aftermath, as the gnolls put away the glowing wongs and leave the corpse of the man they tortured to death in the streets for the pet hyenas to dig into it.
The gnolls go back into the market.
After a short while they come back out in big numbers. Four patrols of four gnolls each swarm out in the town in search for someone or something.
"We just about stayed our welcome, yes." He would follow the others out the area.
Ohrmizd contemplates the scene hitting the ground rocks "They are bloody merciless, and we are in no condition to do anything" the man hits again the ground breaking in tears "None of our actions have a meaningful impact on this place. We are just pulled back and forth by Destiny to witness the show without an opportunity to will change anything or at least fight back. What is the sense of this world?"
Pulled back by Heshan and Manuun before he can charge to a certain death to defend the prisoner, Ohrmizd helps the two of them back to the Monastery through the pesh fields.
"Exactly. Not the way I would have put it, but you get the gist of it."
You get away fast enough before the gnolls search the fields but after a few minutes you notice the harpy raising from the river and supporting the search. Undrella flies around the city in growing circles looking for you.
"Seems the harpy heard we are leaving her hospitality and decided to come and claim us. Perhaps she is still interested on you Man. What she did to you while we were fascinated was awful" Ohrmizd comments while the group tries to save themselves.
The harpy flies a few rounds even passing over you but doesn#t change her course. As the circles become larger she comes past you twice more in growing distance, until she returns to Kelmarane.
Not wanting to play a part of that particular game, Heshan hides behind a bush and casts Vanish to continue the illusion.
The gnolls don't come after you and you reach the monastery without further unpleasant surprises.
The mercenaries break out in laughter as they see the group coming back. The princess guards are unmoved. At least on the outside. Your return is reported to Garavel and he comes out of the Princess' room to greet you.
He musters all three of you with a stern look. "On the plus side, you're still alive. I was concerned you could have met sincere complications as you didn't report back yesterday."
"What misfortune has befallen you?"
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"Hmm What happened. I must admit detail are a bit fuzzy here. The day started of well enough. We crossed the river and decided to search the buildings on the other side of the bridge."
"First we met that flying wolf-deer, Heshan what did you say it was called? It spotted us almost immediately even though we were still outside his house. We managed to run away a bit so the gnolls might not have noticed but we had to fight it while it was flying. Since it was a magical beast only Ohrmizd here could really damage it, but finally he managed to lay in a mighty charge nd the beast flew away to the mountains."
"Next up Ohrmizd decided to check out the harpye. First she seemed friendly enough, offering us help against the gnolls and their new leader. She wanted us to bring herthe head of the cobra we slew yesterday. We agreed . but when we came back she was always piling on new demands. When she demanded the right to live in Kelmarane even after the gnolls were defeated, we said that this is not for us to decide. Learning that we were not in charge made here furious and soon after she attacked us."
"First it went okay and we managed to get in quite a few hits, but then she started singing and from then on verything is blank. We woke up later with only our clothes in a gnoll cell."
"When we just thought this was the end, a mysterious woman Haleen turned up who seems to be living in Kelmarane and not fear the gnolls. She let us out while the Gnolls were distracted and send us back to safety. The gnolls send a few search parties after us, but we vbelieve we have avoided most of that."
"We know its not the result you hoped for, but we found out a few more things too. The leader of the tribe seems to be a djinn named a genie named Kardswann. There seems to be some kind of conflict between him and his lover the harpye, who believes that Kardswann was possesed by a evil Djinn while finding some secret in the cellars. Given enough Groweling on my part, it might even be possible to get the harpye back on our side if we can find a way to talk to her."
The details of battle Garavel just listens to without any reaction, but the information about Kardswann piques his interest. "So the leader is no gnoll but a genie - and supposedly possessed. That would make for a powerful enemy."
"This harpy, what kind of help did she offer? To have such a monster permanently around in Kelmarene is a high price, that should bring a big advantage to be worth it."