It takes over an hour, but Vultan manages to find a ship that is suitable for an escape. One that doesn't require more than a handful of people to sail, but still allows for multiple passengers in the event you manage to rescue someone. It's still amazing that he can suddenly do all this, even if it took some time to try and figure out.
Meanwhile, Con and Tamien search the abandoned streets to try to find anything useful, or a good passageway into the city.
As you search, you discover that most of the streets and alleyways that leads further into the city have been blocked off. Some of them with rubble from damaged buildings that collapsed during the battle. Others have been deliberately blocked with wood and stone, creating barriers and preventing escape from those inside. The few passages that are clear are guarded by yerath soldiers or with undead - mostly zombies.
"How should we proceed?" Keri asks the others. "I could try to charm one of the soldiers to escort us further into the city. But if it goes wrong, it could be bad."
"We could lay in wait for a patrol just inside the city, past these blocked alleys. Though we don't have all night, it might be better to seek out our targets instead."
Con says, staring into the darkness. He stands, axe and shields at the ready.
"I like Con's ambush plan. It lets us choose our starting ground. We can test out our abilities and see how they'll respond around the city."
Keri nods. "Alright. Let's give it a try."
You search for and set up a good ambush site. It's about midnight now, and it's fairly dark. Gas lamps light the inner streets, which creates heavy shadows this far away.
Roll a d6 to determine which kind of group shows up for the ambush:
1: A yerathi general
2: An animated Hulk
3: 3 yerathi elite soldiers
4: 2 encaged
5: 3 yerathi scouts
6: a poltergeist
You set up your ambush in an out-of-the-way location, with a clever lure to draw the attention of a curious guard. (Please describe where your characters are).
Unfortunately, instead of luring a guard in, an undead giant comes stumbling into your trap. A full 15 feet tall hulk of rotting flesh.
What do you do?
Keri does her best to stay hidden. Unfortunately, Vultan's feathers tickle her nose, leading to an ill-timed sneeze!
Tamien had helped stack a half dozen crates along the side of a building in an alleyway in a stairs like fashion. He crouched on the middle crate, giving himself cover.
He'd taken to occasionally tossing rocks down the alleyway to see if the noise might draw attention.
When he heard the lumbering footsteps he stopped moving and prepared to leap from his hiding place.
His eyes widened at Keri's sneeze but he did not move or tip himself over.
Vultan follows along with the plan, grinning ferociously the whole time.
If only Captain Moriarty could see me now! Next thing you know, we'll be planting civil unrest!
He watches carefully from the nook that he and Keri had tucked themselves into, but when he sees the attention they've grabbed, he goes still as a stone, praying he goes unnoticed by the patrolling hulk.
Keri sneezes and Vultan hopes the acoustics somehow deceive the Hulk and directs it away from their location.
Con sits quietly across the alley from Tam, behind his own cover, while Tam tries to draw someone's attention. He starts to feel anxious and sweaty as the anticipation of battle gets to him.
He begins to pant as his excitement grows and his grip tightens on his weapon.
Con nearly bursts out from behind his cover when Keri sneezes. He stumbles back from his false start, shaking. When he sees the hulking mass approaching them, he goes cold and sits back on his heels, holding his breath.
The giant zombie comes stomping through the alleyway you had set up as an ambush site. It doesn't even see you as you walk past, stomping it's way through.
By sheer happenstance, it nearly crushes
Mere seconds after, a human with pale skin, dark sunken eyes, and dirty purple robes comes walking behind the zombie giant. He seems mostly unaware of his surroundings, as his nose is in a book as he walks, with a magical floating light bobbing just above and behind him shedding light enough for him to read by.
The lumbering hulk stumbles into Con's makeshift cover forcing him to jump out of the way, and revealing himself in the process.
He dives onto the ground and plays dead, hoping the giant doesn't notice.
The giant accidentally crushes the hiding spot Con was sequestered behind, and Con narrowly jumps out of the way. With quick thinking, he lays still, pretending to be dead.
"Be more careful!" the necromancer calls out to the giant without even looking up from his book. The two continue on their way out of the alley, not even noticing the hidden party.
Con remains on the ground until the giant and the robed man pass. Once he's sure they're out of earshot he hops to his feet and reconvenes with the group.
"What the hell was that thing? It was huge! Err... Size 2 maybe? I can never remember. I think we might reassess our plan and maybe look in books to find out more information about what exactly we're up against."
He shakes off the adrenaline from almost getting smushed and sits against the wall.
"Some sort of zombified giant," Keri says, shaking her head. "You're lucky you didn't get squished! It's likely there's going to be a lot of things in this city that will be too tough for us to fight. We need to be extra careful."
"There are bigger things than that in this world. But remember, just because its big doesn't mean it's overly dangerous. I wasn't expecting that to be our first encounter in the city either. But we need to try and get over that notion. Next time we see something like that, we might just need to hit it with ranged attacks first.
So, are we just going to hide out here until another target presents itself to us? Also, we may need to work on hand signs and coordinate an attack."
"No, let's move. We can still find supplies or survives somewhere. We just need to stay hidden.
Let's have one person move up to scout another secluded spot, then have the rest of the group move when the coast is clear. I can go, but maybe someone quieter would be better."
"Not a bad plan. Keri, you're the quietest of us. Think you can do that?"
"Consider it done," Keri says. She says a silent prayer as she sneaks forward to scout ahead.
As the rest stay behind, Keri makes her way inwards towards the city, avoiding guards and patrols seemingly easily. Its a mix of her natural talents, some blessings from her god, and the general complacency of the guards. Believing they already have the city conquered, they're less paying attention to anyone sneaking in, and more trying to look out for escaping humans.
During the excursion, Keri witnesses a horrifying site - something she's seen before.
Keri covers her mouth in horror at the sight. She makes her way back to her companions to report what she saw. "It was M'ushu! Or at least what has become of him. It looked like be was giving orders to a squad of yerath and necromancers. Do you think it's too late to try to help him?"
Tamien's mouth hung open and his eyes widened.
"Mushu? He's... he's actually here?"
He took several long moments to try and work past the shock. Eventually he spoke without meeting anyone's gaze.
"I... don't know. This place is unusually cruel, but it is still a place of magic. I won't say it's impossible. But from what I remember of being a Healer as Charles, that sort of a thing is tier 4 magic, at the earliest. Probably more like 5 and it would have to be a pretty small list. Imedren was easily the most varied character I made and he couldn't have done it.
But even so, we're only level 3, so we have a long way to go before we can even consider something like that.
Then he looked up.
"Although, if one of us were to learn divination magic, or buy the right scrolls, I think there's a couple of spells we might be able to use to contact the one running this game. Ask some direct questions and talk at the camera, so to speak."
You have several options and goals you can aim for during your time in the city. The more you try to accomplish, the greater the risk.
1) Human Rescue. Rescue some humans from their enslavement, and provide them a path to safely escape the city.
2) Aquire Goods. Gain funds and potentially magical gear for yourselves.
3) Inhibit the Yerath. Halt or reduce the Yerath's ability to advance their army and accomplish their goals.
4) Inhibit the Undead. Halt or reduce the Undead's ability to advance their army and accomplish their goals.
5) Mushu Restoration Path. Perform Step 1 on Mushu's long path towards breaking away from the Yerath Queen and gaining mental freedom.
6) Gather Information. Find out more about the Yerath and Undead armies, and about Mushu. Discover their plans, their accomplishments, and more.
You can attempt to do one or more of these tasks, with your success dependant on your actions and how well you roll. For each attempt you make, the risk of getting caught becomes higher and higher. Getting caught could result in capture or death.
"But none of that helps us right now. I don't see how we can help M'ushu, especially since he seems to be in charge and we'd have to forcibly remove him from those he commands.
I"m worried that he may have been the reason the Yerath started hunting the Shrines and I'd like to inhibit their ability to move forward. But I think in order to do that we're going to need help. If we're able to rescue some folks we can start a resistance movement. But they'll need more than just a way out of here. They'll need supplies and other things could be useful to us besides.
But further compicating things are the Undead. We don't really know anything about them or why they'reapprently working with the Yerath."
Tamien begins tapping his hand against a wall as he's thinking.
"Anything we do is going to be dangerous but a few of these things are all but guaranteed to kick things off into high gear, while some other things will only do that if we get caught. Gathering information about the Undead or the yerath, as well as hunting for goods will take time. Doing anything else is bound to start attracting attention no matter how successful we are. I'm starting to think we should try to figure out what it is the Yerath and Undead are doing here. Thoughts?" he says looking around at the others.
"I'm inclined to agree," Keri says. "As much as I would love to rescue all of the people here and kick out the invading armies, we can't realistically do that with just the four of us. And if we can't open the gates, then everything would be for naught, anyway. The quest comes first.
"I think we should gather what information we can about the yerath and undead. If we can hinder them without jeopardizing our mission, then we should do it, but not at the risk of being caught. And if we can find some more magical gear to help us, then all the better. But let's not overextend ourselves."
"We ought to gather supplies and information. If we happen across people that can be saved, then we will. However, I don't think we'll have enough time to actively seek out survivors in this war-torn city."
After narrowly escaping disaster, Con doesn't seem as keen to save civilians but it's hard to say whether that was his actual intent in the first place.
Vultan holds his breath and prays as the mountain of creature nearly stomps him flat. His brain tries to work out what it would look like, with Con being relatively strong, but the creature obviously being enormous.
Blessedly, Con dives out of the way. Cursedly, it puts him right where the giant's accomplice can see him.
He lowers himself slightly in preparation to launch out from hiding and open combat, but hesitates just long enough to see Con get off without any issues.
Impressive. I'll take that any day.
He steps out as everyone else does and listens intently to the chatter, keeping his eyes peeled on their surroundings.
"Yeah, I'm with you, Tam. Info first. It could be that impeding their goals significantly outweighs saving folks, and I don't want to get caught in the weeds of saving the few over the many."
He pauses for a moment.
"Like... We're in the many, man. I don't want to die to the Shadow."
"Also, Con, remember those fancy teleportation boots. Those will give us a big edge in reconnaissance, and you seem to have some social camouflage besides."
"Do we think the folks we encountered were patrolling, or do you think they were up to something? We gotta start gathering intel from somewhere..."
Tamien nods, he appreciates that the group is more or less of the same mindset.
"That guy was a necromancer but he had his head buried in a book and he was just traveling around with his bodyguard. He might have just been really bad at his job but I think he was heading somewhere, not patrolling.
Keri said she saw M'ushu, though. We'd probably find out more by searching him out again and spying but it'd be more dangerous. I say we should follow the necromancer and see what's going on with him."
You decide you're going to try to get intel on the Yerath and Undead armies. There are four key tasks to accomplish this and acquire the most information.
Task 1:
First, you must capture a person with significant knowledge. A bit of spy work and investigation can determine who this will be.
Spy - Two Rolls. A hide check and a perception check. For each bane you apply to the hide check, gain one boon to your perception check.
If you fail the hide check, then you've raised suspicion by the enemy and they will investigate your position. Elude or otherwise survive this encounter to try again.
You must succeed on the hide roll to make the perception roll. If you succeed on the perception check, then you can roll on the following table.
Perception Success (1d6, +1 if you rolled a 20+).
1: You overheard the name and location of a guard, who heard some rumors about what's going on.
2: You heard the name and location of a sergeant, who was critical to the success of the invasion.
3: You discovered the name and location of a war academic for the undead army.
4: You hear the name Mr. Kraund, and you get a lead on where he is.
5: You overheard the name and home of a necromancer who may or may not have spell exhaustion.
6: You discovered the name and location of a high ranking officer in the Yerath army.
Task 2:
Now that you know who to capture, it's time to actually kidnap them. You must find a way to lure them out and ensure them in a trap.
Lure Roll. Intelligence roll - each bane you apply leads them further away from safety and increases your odds at capture.
Failure to lure them out simply means you must go in and capture them yourselves. This may involve combat, but you have the benefit of being able to plan if you want to avoid a fight. Don't let them escape.
Success on the lure roll brings them out into the open and available to capture. How you capture them is up to you.
Task 3:
Get them to talk. It's up to you how you do this. If you get them to tell you everything, then they'll not only reveal some of the history of the armies, but also where to acquire secret documents to determine their plans.
Task 4:
Acquire the secret documents for the full information. You must find a way into a set location so you can steal the documents.
"I think I am the best suited at finding somebody to question. You guys wait here, and I'll lure them close so you can capture them," Keri says. She pulls a hooded robe on over her colorful clothes as she slips into the city.
While she is unable to remain undetected, her first attempt at trying to eavesdrop on conversations yields no results.
Her second attempt is more successful. She hears the name of an influential sergeant in the army and learns where to find them.
From there, it's a simple matter to subtly get the sergeant's attention and lure them out to where her friends are lying in wait...