"There's definitely traps, but I'm unsure what or where they are. I suspect the interrogator keeps some kind of written memo for accessing the vault, where Zefiro's documents would be, in his office."
Bahram manages to jam the lock to the door.
Krima points to the door right to the northwest (large room in the center). "Zefiro is likely in there.". Then she points ahead (the two rooms in the north). "And offices are up ahead."
Steel beams reinforce the walls of this chamber, which is accessible only through a round iron door with an inset wheel. The numerals one through nine embellish the wheel's edge, with the number one set in the uppermost position beneath a stone arrow.
Unfortunately, Bahram can't seem to unlock the vault. The lock is very tough to get through.
Wymarc is a natural at this. He takes one look at the locked door and ... realizes there's something off with it. Both Ehrun and Cassiopia notice something off too. A trap!! Looks like a spring-loaded blade will shoot out of a small groove in the doorjamb. But Wymarc easily disarms it and opens up the door by simply touching it.
Opening up the door, Wymarc sees dozens of carefully organized codices and scrolls that fill the stone shelves carved into the wall, each labeled with names and sigils hammered into small brass placards over each niche. Two statues of humanoid fiends holding red-flamed torches monitor the room from the corners. Two open chests on either side of the door hold jumbles of unsorted documents, but a third chest in the far corner remains closed.
1) An interrogation report of Niara Cremden
2) An interrogation report of Raleri Zetryl
3) A mound of Zefiro's unaltered Chelish histories, including one annotated lineage amendment torn from its binding and left atop the pile. (Seen here).
Other than the chests and their contents, there doesn't seem to be much of interest here. The Pathfinders hear the guards in the south talk and explore, but none have come north - yet!
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Moving to the two opened chests, assuming that Wymarc will work his laymen's magic on the closed chest, he begins to sort through it quickly.
"These reports are certainly significant! They will be coming with us. Ooh, I suppose these coins should be confiscated as well, now shouldn't they?" Bahram puts all of this into his pack while glancing quickly at the missives. "Oh, Raleri didn't make it. That's too bad. We should keep our eye out for Niara in the cells though."
The chests aren't locked nor trapped and the Pathfinders can easily gather all the stuff inside - important documents, Zefiro's notes, etc.
Wymarc gestures the others to follow him to the west. Using Krima's replica key, Wymarc easily opens up the office door. A smoldering fireplace illuminates this room, casting red light over a massive corner desk littered with disorganized papers. A seven-foot-tall statue of a four-horned fiend with a burning crown overlooks the desk from the corner.
The desks hots a jumbled mess of interrogation schedules, prisoner transfers, and Loyalty Day agendas.
1) A copy of The Asmodean Disciplines, bookmarked to a chapter on crime and punishment with a handwritten note. The poem appears to be some kind of crude Asmodean psalm.
2) A document is twine-bound set of instructions for activating the prison's soundproofing mechanism. The manual notes that the prisms emit light when active, and they create a wall of magical silence between any two prisms with an uninterrupted line of effect to one another. No sound passes through this border, but if an object, creature, or wall disrupts the border, the entire effect ends until the obstruction is removed.
Attached to the binding is also a key.
3) A letter addressed to the interrogator from the Nail's ranking officer addressing the declining efficacy of reports exposing political enemies provided by Zarta Dralneen.
On top of the desk is also a vial of antitoxin.
Erhun immediately recognizes the prayer as a riddle. The word 'ixpressly' is deliberately misspelled. Maybe he could combine letters from the previous words with letters from 'ixpressly' to create another word.
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Bahram scoots a little closer to Erhun and the poem as he hears him talking through how to possibly decipher the psalm.
"Well, take the s from the end of souls and put it at the end of ixpressly, and you get six. Could be a code to the prison door. WAIT! The top line can be crunched together to make seven, with the s at the end of Asmodeus and even. Let's dig through this. I imagine order matters. If only we knew how many numbers there are supposed to be."
Bahram gets excited, knowing time is of the essence here.
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"Let's see...It looks like there is one number hidden in each line." Taking out his quill and ink, he begins to make notes on the scroll.
7,4,3,8,?,6,5,9,?
"There are two that I'm not seeing here." He says as he shares his work with the others. [/ooc]And I need to head off to a meeting. Dang it, I want to finish it! lol.[/ooc]
Wymarc easily sneaks down to the door to the central room, where Krima says Zefiro is located. The door is locked though, and Wymarc is unfortunately unable to work his magic.
Wymarc tries the key... and it works! He slowly opens the door. The stink of unwashed bodies permeates this narrow corridor in front of him, illuminated by violet prisms set into sconces on the inner corners. Iron bars isolate the hall's outer perimeter, where the walls are lined with manacles in the stone. Dozens of filthy prisoners lie behind the bars, each one wearing a sign around his or her neck bearing an identification number, a crime, a red 'X' next to the word 'Interrogation,' and a release date. Two sets of iron double doors lead deeper into the building. Looking at the prisoners, there are 36 lower-priority humans (and elfs, dwarves, etc). A quick glance at their identification cards reveals that many of them are serving time for minor infractions, and most are only a few days from being released.
Bahram sneaks down no problem followed closely by Cassiopia. But Ehrun trips and yelps out!
"What was that!?". The Pathfinders can hear a guard call out from down south. "Let me go investigate.". They hear a guard slowly walk up, jingling his keys. As the group stands outside the door to the inner chamber, they see someone walk up to the gate to the south. The guard does not seem to notice you... yet.
Bahram luckily manages to sneak everyone in the center chamber without notice and jams the lock behind him. Zefiro is nowhere in sight. The other prisoners look on with blank expressions. None seem to be Pathfinders. Looking at their name tags, looks like most will be released within the week.
Approaching the central chamber, the door seems locked. Perhaps the key will work again, or Wymarc can attempt to unlock it as well.
No trap and Wymarc easily opens up the door to the central chamber. Barbed chains hang like streamers from the pyramidal ceiling of this large chamber. Several chains wind around the room's grooved, bloodstained central column. Each corner of the room bears an iron statue of a regal, four-horned devil standing over a network of winches would with the wicked chains. Light pours in from a dirty pentagram-shaped skylight set in the roof's highest point, casting a shadow of Asmodeus's unholy symbol crisscrossed with chains over the stone floor.
Zefiro and three other humans are wedged into the grooves of the central column (one in each quadrant of the room). All four are gagged and secured by the room's spiked chains. They look to be in extreme discomfort, but otherwise fine.
Wymarc looks to the west and Bahram looks to the east. Traps!
Touching any of the chains in the room or any of the winches on the statues will activate it. Both are unsure, but Bahram is fairly certain that these chains will start to whip around the room, possibly hurting anyone in there. The only way to deactivate the whole trap is to go from statue to statue and disable each without stepping on any chains!
Wymarc luckily is able to disable statue after statue without activating the trap.
Wymarc doesn't struggle at all. Statue after statue, he quietly disables them. Only one (DC 22 to disable) he has trouble with, but easily gets back in there and disables it.
Now, the Pathfinders can turn their attention to Zefiro and the three other people tied to the central pole. But as Wymarc disables the last trap, the chains that tie them up slacken, making it easier to pull them out. (
No obvious traps left. Zefiro and the others are still gagged but look on relieved.
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Bahram will begin to ungag the prisoners, while simultaneously instructing them to remain quiet so the guards are not alerted.
"we are here to help. Quietly, tell me your names.". Bahram is it looking to cross-reference the names given with records of informants that the Pathfinder society would like to be brought back.
Zefiro looks at Bahram. "Zefiro. Did you forget who I am, Bahram? Thank you for helping me. The other three are Dyrom, Laila, and Opheri. They are Bellflower agents.". The three other prisoners bow.
"Are you here to help us escape?"
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Bahram seems as if he takes Zefiro's question about his memory of him as an affront. "Of course I remember you Zefiro. You are the reason we are here. I merely meant these fine Bellflowers here. I don't suppose any of you know of a secret exit, or side door, do you?" Bahram looks to the prisoners for a ticket out of here.
"I've already tricked them with illusions once. I'm willing to try again if need be, but they will be more alert now, I'm sure."
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Bahram looks over their gifted inventory. "Okay, we have a scroll of silence that we can cover ourselves with, and two elixers of hiding, Krima ad Zefiro, those would work well for you. We could make for the east prison door. From there I can make the sound of escaped prisoners on the other side of the wall, in the hall leading to the offices. Hopefully the guard will take the bait and investigate while we sneak past him. We will probably need to rush the last two guards." Looking to their heavy weaponry, he adds "We should probably aim to bruise rather than decapitate. That might make the investigator less angry and less likely to hunt us as fiercely. How about it?" Bahram smiles at his companions.