Devon picks out a fine suit from the Wardrobe, then he and Dani head off to be “blessed” by Cayden Cailean and work on their cover identities.
Dora and Jack head to the Dreaming Palace to stake it out, waiting for the appointed time Dani and Dev are supposed to arrive. While watching the place, it soon starts become clear that something is odd. They notice subtle repetitions in front of the windows of several seemingly empty rooms, such as a curtain waving or a housefly landing in the same place. It seems illusions are in place to mask what is actually happening in those rooms.
The hour comes and goes with no sign of the pair. Finally, a few hours after sunset, the two agents show up, arm in arm, laughing, and swaying slightly. They head inside the hotel.
Large arched windows illuminate the elegantly polished floor and warm wooden furniture of the hotel’s reception area. Directly across from the stout main doors, double doors of bronze lattice are carved to resemble interwoven vines and offer tantalizing glimpses of a large chamber beyond. A few comfortable chairs surround a fireplace to the west, while to the east a long, tall counter encircles a small wooden door.
The half-orc Ralso, whom you briefly met previous at the Tipsy Tengu, stands behind the concierge’s desk. She eyes Dani and Dev. ”Checking in?”
Dani has clearly been blessed several times as she is laughing and quite giddy. To everyone's surprise, she's dressed in a brilliant white wedding dress which compliments Devon's dark suit. She smiles at the half-orc and says excitedly "Indeed we are! We just got married and we need a room to uhm, celebrate in."
This last statement causes Dani to snort as she tries to refrain from laughing, leaning her head against her "husband's" shoulder. She isn't so plastered she has forgotten who Ralso is however, so she holds her hand out to the concierge and shows her a brand new ring. "Do you like my wedding ring?" she asks.
Ralso eyes Dani’s ring, then looks at the matching one on Devon’s hand. ”It’s lovely. Congratulations, you two! We have a honeymoon suite that will be right up your alley, modeled after a Qadiran pleasure palace. It’s 10 gp a night, but I think you’ll find it well worth the cost.”
Assuming you pay up, the half-orc leads you into the hotel. A sweeping, bifurcated staircase rises up from the northern end of this open space, splitting and curving to either side as it reaches the second floor. A huge portrait of a handsome half-elf man looms over the staircase—a grinning Hendrid Pratchett. At the base of the stairs, the handrails end in marble pillars topped with statues, one of a crying angel and one of a laughing devil. Tiled corridors stretch off to the east and west, while bronze lattice doors lead south to the lobby.
A door off the lobby leads to the honeymoon suite. Colorful silks hang from the ceiling of this large bedroom over an oversized canopy bed, a low divan, and an abundance of scattered cushions. Curtains conceal windows to the north, and double doors of angled wooden slats can be closed to partition off a private bathroom to the south or opened to leave the facilities exposed to the rest of the room. A massive moth-eaten tapestry on the eastern wall depicts a satyr and a nymph about to do something scandalous on the sandy shore of a desert oasis.
Ralso hands you the key before departing. ”Have fun, lovebirds!” she calls.
Dani is really selling her act and is quite expressive. After picking up the key, she squeezes Devon's hand and pulls him away only a few feet before saying. "Let me tell them where to bring my luggage! Go get settled, I'll be right there!"
Dani pulls Devon down for a big smooch on the lips and declares boldly "I love you so much!" before skipping out to the direction where Jack and Dora are waiting around the corner.
The bard approaches the other two agents and once they are out of sight she says to them "We're in the honeymoon sweet. We left two bags out front. You can deliver them to us as cover to get inside."
She pulls Dora aside and shows her a golden wedding band "Isn't it beautiful?" She squees loudly, stamping her feet quickly before squeezing her hand and says. "See you upstairs soon." and dashes off to her awaiting husband.
"Well done Dani, sounds like you sold it! Just remember those rings aren't real..." Dora might as well have been talking to empty space as Dani has already dashed off to see her 'husband'.
Sighing, Dora looks back to Jack. "So I could pose as her tireless ladies' maid and you as his manservant and both deliver their own luggage?"
"I really hope that we don't walk in on anything...They will be professional, right?" Dora states, her voice trailing off as they walk off towards the front of the Dreaming Palace.
"I wish I were that confident." Jack replies. He picks up the valise, leaving the more feminine accessories to Dora, and heads inside.
"We need to take these up to the Honeymoon Suite." He says, in the tone of a long-suffering manservant.
"We are for the newlyweds, Mr and Mrs Hampton. They said to bring their things straight to their room. Please do give us directions." Dora says, more cheerfully than Jack.
"Well done Dani, sounds like you sold it! Just remember those rings aren't real..." Dora might as well have been talking to empty space as Dani has already dashed off to see her 'husband'.
Before Dani dashes off, she shakes her head at Dora with a huge grin "Oh, oh no. They are real! That's why we were late. We really wanted to sell it, so we actually went and got married! Legitimately! Found a priest of Cayden and we did it!"
Devon eagerly returns Dani’s kiss and lays on the bed until she comes back.
When Dora and Jack approach Ralso, the half orc looks them over and grunts. ”Through the main doors, just to the left of the stairs. Don’t dally.”
Following the directions, the four agents soon find themselves together in the honeymoon suite...
When Dora and Jack arrive and knock about luggage, Dani replies "Just a moment!" and indeed takes a few moments before she gets to the door to open it, a few hushed whispers on the other side of it are inaudible and hastily exchanged.
Opening the door, Dani's hair is messy and Devon is wearing some of her lipstick. She stands in the doorway holding the door, "Ah! Our luggage! Come in, come in."
She shuts the door once they enter and puts her hands on her hips "I hope you don't expect us to tip you for that? Honey? Please tip the nice people."
Taking the luggage, she opens one up and searches for a change of clothes. "As much as I like dressing up, I think I had enough adventuring in dresses in Undercity. Give me a moment to get changed."
She throws a pair of trousers and shirt at Devon and dashes around the corner to get into something a little more appropriate.
Devon seems disappointed that their fun has been interrupted, but he obliges, pulling on the clothes and strapping his armor on above them. ”Ralso will get suspicious when you two don’t come back out, so we should move quickly.”
Dora looks concerned at her new friend's change of course but smiles and congratulates her for now - this is not the time and place to have that conversation.
When everyone is ready to investigate a little, Dora suggests they start with listening in to the rooms near them and if any are available and vacant, to have a quick search before going further through the hotel and looking at any communal areas.
Change and mostly ready to go, Dani reminds everyone "Don't forget about we learned about the jelly. There's a nasty disposal system in here somewhere, though I can imagine it would be on a lower level of some kind. We should clear this floor and then either make our way up or down."
"Dealing with Ralso may be appropriate, sooner rather than later." The Doctor points out. "As a known gang-member I fear our lawful authority will not have much impact."
Leaving the suite, you begin exploring clockwise around the ground floor. You walk past the stairs and enter the first door.
This clean kitchen contains a large wood-burning stove and brick oven that vent out the side of the building, as well as a gleaming metal hand pump and basin inset into one of the many counters. The western wall holds a recessed pantry with shelves full of dried and preserved goods. Innumerable pots and pans hang from hooks in the ceiling, and a large stone larder takes up the room’s southwestern corner. There’s enough food here to feed a fully booked hotel for a week.
Dora and Jack notice a conspicuous gap between the wall and the pantry’s shelves. Pulling on a stone jar labeled “beef tonsils” triggers a latch and causes half the pantry to swing open, allowing access to a small chamber with peepholes looking into the Honeymoon Suite through the tapestry on the wall!
"By Iomedae's light, who would put a spy hole into a hotel room?" Dora exclaims. "We're going to have to be really careful and hope that nobody has already listened in."
Dani is only partially surprised at the spy hole "Maybe that's how Ralso finds the valuables in the suites and knows it's okay to go in and get them?"
”Or maybe she likes to watch. It is the honeymoon suite, after all,” Devon suggests. ”Though we didn’t have a chance to give her much of a show, now, did we?” he murmurs in Dani’s ear, giving her a quick kiss on the neck.
"Just remember to put something in front of the hole if you return to the room I think."
Let's continue and not dally here too long."
The next room on this floor is a bunk room. Several bunk beds have been set up around the perimeter of this windowless stone room. At the foot of each bed are two lockable wooden cabinets. There isn’t anything else of interest here.
The next room is a fine bathroom. This small, elegant chamber contains a privy seat, a basin in a waist-high pedestal, and a tub for bathing, each made of white porcelain and bearing a gleaming metal handle.
Dani finds a peephole hidden behind a painting of a ship that looks into the adjoining bedroom. This room is packed tight with a full-sized bed, a smaller children’s bed, a crib, and a dresser with a stuffed fabric goblin sitting atop it. The candy-striped walls are lined with pictures of clowns and happy-looking animals. A dwarven family with two young kids is inside the room.
Bypassing that room, you continue to the next room in the hall. This magnificent dining hall boasts huge glass windows along its curved wall that looks out at the cobblestone street, as well as a wagon-wheel chandelier attached to the ceiling. Two long wooden tables with benches fill the western space, while a large round table surrounded by chairs occupies the circular part of the room.
Finding nothing more of value here, you head south to the room at the end of that hall. Red stone inlays form a pentagram encircled by runes on the floor in the center of this room. To the west stands a wrought-iron four-poster bed with an iron sculpture of a grinning imp atop each of its upright pillars. Opposite the bed is a wardrobe depicting agonized humans skewered on pitchforks. The walls are painted black and draped in long, regal streamers of crimson cloth.
You begin to look around the room. A few seconds after you all enter, the door slams shut and locks behind you! With a burst of smoke and brimstone, a red-skinned, bearded devil appears in the circle on the floor, gripping a saw-toothed glaive!
Dani gasps at the appearance of the devil. "Trouble!" she shouts to her companions, whipping her violin into her hand and starting a tune about a devil going down to some southern location.
Once her tune is in progress, she whips a heavy book from a shelf toward the devil.
Dani’s projectile misses the devil. Seeing Devon’s holy symbol, the devil goes after him, but the champion of Cayden parries it’s clumsy strikes!
Dora attempts to dispel the summoned fiend! It disappears as suddenly as it appeared!
Careful examination of the imp statues atop the bedposts reveals that while three have eyes of red glass, one has an eye of clear glass. This is actually the viewing lens of a reusable recording rod; the rod slides easily out of its hiding spot inside the hollow statue. The rod’s memory currently contains a recording of your short fight with the fiend.
Jack collects the rod and promptly blanks the recording. "This is a useful item, but it still does not explain how the devil was summoned. Was it automated or someone was watching?"
He continues to examine the room, looking closely for peepholes or some other form of spy position.
Jack doesn't find any peepholes or anything else of the like. The runes on the floor suggest the devil was summoned by a trap.
"Someone must have placed a trap here to stop intruders, maybe there is something more here that we aren't seeing."
Dora spends a few minutes helping Jack search the room properly, ensuring they check the little nooks and crannies such as behind any mirrors.
Dora doesn’t find anything else as well. With nothing else to discover here, you head to the next room. This windowless stone bedroom is decorated entirely in brass and iron, with a massive brass four-poster bed in the center of the eastern wall, a wrought-iron clothes rack, and two iron chairs at a metal table in a small alcove to the west. The walls are painted with red and yellow flames and hung with shadowbox-style artwork formed of overlapping thin steel plates, all depicting a fiery city of onion domes and minarets.
Searching carefully, Dora find summoning runes similar to those in the prior room.
"I will not be able to approach close enough to effect the rune." Jack says calmly. "Unless you can remove it, we should investigate without touching it." He continues, looking at Dora.
"We should also avoid names where possible since there may be more recording devices."
Dani turns to Dora in astonishment "WOW! How did you do that? You just made the whole thing disappear?! I thought for sure we were in for another devil of a time in combat!"
"We should also avoid names where possible since there may be more recording devices."
Dani smiles and gets excited "Oh! We can use aliases, like we did last time." She holds out her hand to Jack and says "I'm Kris. You are....?"
”Maybe we should just bypass this room for now,” Devon suggests, eyeing the decorations dubiously. ”Save our resources for when we’ll really need them. There are a lot more rooms in this hotel, plus I get the feeling we’ll likely have to confront Ralso and Pratchett before we’re through.”
Dani agrees with her husband. "Good point Devvy, let's just move on and come back here later one."
Dani turns to Dora in astonishment "WOW! How did you do that? You just made the whole thing disappear?! I thought for sure we were in for another devil of a time in combat!"
...[/b]
Dora shrugs her shoulders and laughs. "I can show you sometime. It might be useful if we could both do it."
"Don't you find it strange that some of these rooms are trapped and some are not? What about these rooms, in particular, is special I wonder?"
Dani scratches her head, trying to find the answer to that question "Perhaps they are setting traps for the guests in the room, not us. Maybe that is how they make them disappear?"
You move on to the west wing of the first floor. The next door leads to a spacious room that has its own bathroom and large, curtained windows overlooking both a small decorative garden to the west and the quiet street to the south. A huge feather bed, a couch, a coffee table, and several chairs furnish the room, and large paintings of city landmarks such as the Starstone Cathedral and Azlanti Keep hang on the walls.
Finding nothing of interest here, you move on. The next door is locked, suggesting it is occupied. Beyond it is another bathroom. The southern wall has a hidden door, unlocked by pushing in a loose tile on the wall next to the bathtub. The 5-foot-by-10-foot room beyond contains both a peephole into the room to the west and access to a crawl space via a short ladder that looks down into the locked room you bypassed.
The ceiling in the east bedroom is only five feet high and covered in elaborate wooden molding carved to resemble leaves and branches. All of the furniture is half the usual size for humans, and low windows with pink curtains look out onto a small garden bed. Paintings of fruit bowls and assorted domestic scenes hang on the walls. An elderly halfling woman rests within the room.
The windows along the walls of the west bedroom are stylized to look like portholes. A large painting of a pirate ship hangs on one wall with portholes that show a tropical ocean scene. A large painting of a pirate ship hangs on one wall, and the wooden bed frame has been carved to resemble thick ropes and elaborate knots. A classic wooden pirate chest, straight out of a storybook, sits at the foot of the bed.
Jack sees a thin gold necklace chain hanging partway out of the closed chest. But as he peers closely, he sees the chest itself shift slightly, almost as if it might be alive...
"The chest is alive!" The Doctor says sharply. "I have heard of creatures who imitate inanimate objects. It will not be fast. Perhaps you could attack it through the doorway, while the rest of us hold the door to prevent it reaching you?"
Dora raises an eyebrow at the unorthdox idea but follows through anyway, making sure that at least two people are holding the door before she even goes close.
"This had better work Jack - I feel ridiculous casting at a chest."
Devon stands at the door with shield raised. As Dora begins to cast her spell, the mimic realizes its ruse has been foiled. It sprouts lashing pseudopods and moves to attack!
The Doctor waits, lacking a ranged weapon and unwilling to move and engage the creature in close quarters while the agents have tactical advantage.
"What the-" Dani gasps, "We're being attacked by furniture now?!"
She starts up a slow-paced tune called 'Second-Hand Furniture' while throwing a side-table at it with a flick of her head.
The mimic grunts as Dani smashes it with the table. It lurches forward, slapping Devon and trying to grab him!
"Oh? Like that table, did you? How about you have some MORE!" she shouts, repeating the process while she continues to play.
"Dani, stop shouting! You're going to alert the whole hotel!" Dora says quickly, worried they will be found out.
She sends a bolt of frost at the chest hoping to freeze it in place.
Jack does what he can to keep Devon vaguely healthy.
Dora's ray of frost misses the mimic. Devon stabs it with his rapier, but the weapon geta stuck to the creature's body, forcing him to yank it free. He raises his shield as Jack patches up his wounds.
Dani batters the creature again, but it still fights on. It lands another hit on Devon!
"What?" Dani says, confused by Dora's statement. She had been focused on the battle she hadn't been paying close attention to her volume. "Oh. Right!" she whispers before silently picking up the table and using her powers to loudly smash it into the chest again.
"Sorry!" she apologizes, continuing to drag her bow across the strings.
"Strike with the point of your weapon to minimise adhension." The Doctor suggests to devon.
"Like this?" Devon says to Jack as he drives his blade deep into the mimic's central mass! The creature thrashes and snarls, then a toothy mouth splits open on the face of the chest.
"You win! I will surrender if you will spare my life!" the monster says.
"What is your purpose here?" The Doctor asks sternly. "What can you tell us about the owner? What is going on in this place?"
Dora is flabergasted at the object speaking in front of them and leaves Jack to the questioning.
"Its alright Dani." She whispers kindly.
Dora looks around the corridor to make sure they haven't attracted too much attention in the meantime.
Dora doesn’t see anybody else in the corridor.
”I don’t know much about this place,” the mimic says. ”I used to live in the Darklands until a dwarf trapped and sedated me. I woke up in this room and haven’t left since. But the owner of this place, a man named Pratchett, worked out a mutually satisfactory arrangement: Pratchett brings people to this room for me to eat and helps keep the area free of anything that might tip them off, and in exchange I agreed not to attack him or his friend Ralso. It’s been weeks since I last had a meal. Here, take these—they belonged to her.”
The mimic spits out a small collection of 7 gp and a gold necklace worth 10 gp inscribed with Rahadoum’s First Law of Mortality: “Let no mortal be beholden to a god.” Asking the mimic to describe the last victim, it seems very likely that it was the Rahadoumi scholar Elama Mohaso, one of the people on the missing persons list.