dice:
With 575's help Olandil makes for the whale's gaping mouth.
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"What's it to be lads?" says the arcanist, forcing her voice to slow down to a more normal speed. Olandil draws a potion.
"I got nothing...." Olandil says deflated .
While Olandil stays far away from the crazy fire lady. (seriously blinded guy, what was your plan?) Get away from Poppo and the group that was just dusted.
"NO, GET BACK!"
"Did you get her!?" Olandil asks the air beside Aiden.
"We'll all die if Poppo looses his concentration! We have to submerge now, or we'll be in plain sight of the armada, and the last thing I could see was that no one had closed the hatch!" screams Olandil through a face full of suckers.
Olandil curses and works at his eyes!
"Dammit! Where is she and maybe more importantly where is the thing." "Waitaminute! Glitterdust! Everyone move! Poppo! Keep down!" Olandil feels his way to the front.
"AAAH! I can't see!"
Olandil moves to finish the floored knave but only stabs some long-dead taste buds in the whlae's tongue, the lumpy floor messing with his balance. He growls in frustration.
The man in green attempts to roll to his feet.
"I'm never getting out of this damn town."
"LIKE HELLS WE WILL!" shouts Olandil rising to his feet, rapier clutched in his hand. He moves to stand before Aquavius and Son.
"WHOA!" *SPLASH!*
"Don't distract the Professor."
"We have faith in you Professor." Olandil says.
The next few hours are a blur (mostly because of exhaustion, and cheap, home-made alcohol you could strip paint with). Olandil finds you in your rooms at the Academy before dawn and tells you "It's time. The Thistles performed a little early-morning sabotage on the Navy's and the Loyalist's supply caches. Whaler's Point is swarming with marines going door to door." He leads you at a fast pace through the maze that is the Guts as quickly and as quietly as he can. Olandil rounds a bend into a large sea-salt-smelling cave.
Olandil follows the Professor to the door. "I'll keep my eye on him, you get to Meese at the Inkwell, and tell him you need a diversion to help get us out of town tomorrow. And I wouldn't waste time on the Society's reputation in Cheliax, not if you don't all want to be trapped here too." Then he leaves, closing the door behind him, and leaving the party alone in the quiet lab.
"Professor there's no time to wait. Any moment now someone is going to find us out."
"When I was hunting around for magical items that I could use to help in an escape, I found myself in this old smuggler's cave along coast near Whaler's Point were I stumbled on the Professor's secret project."
"Madge, eh? At least I can eat more noodles." "It's the shrimp stuffed cabbage." corrects Olandil.
"The Thistles or Docktown make sense. I admire the Galtans for their willingness to get their hands dirty, but there's no loyalty there. They're liable to work with us one minute and let us hang the next. The Thistles are a little idealistic, but if we're going to use them as a pawn, idealists are easier marks." Aiden chuckles. "Well, if you go with Docktown contact the halfling Auntie at her tavern, and if you are thinking of the Galtans you have to find this old noodle peddler, Madge, and order three bowls of her shrimp-stuffed cabbage."
"I'd talk to Lorrin Meese up at the Inkwell then."
Olandil drops his head into his hands, and speaks to Aquavius and the others slowly. “Even for rookies…Gods above. The Loyalists want to throw me in prison. You are here to rescue me from them. Remember back a few days ago, when a venture-captain gave you a mission briefing? There’s no way they would agree to let me leave this town. Stay away from Loyalist hotspots like the Throne Defiant.”
Olandil shrugs, “Your point is? I don’t care if the Loyalists tell all of Cheliax the Pathfinder Society caused everything that has ever gone wrong in this town. Once we’re out of here, I want nothing further to do with the Society, and if you all have a lick of sense, you’ll make this your last mission too. The Society doesn’t care about its agents. Why do you think they sent such an amateur team for my rescue?”
Olandil continues, “There is one more factor we still need to take into account. The Loyalists we met at the docks are going to be watching the harbor like hawks. We’ll need to create a diversion, and for that, we’ll need allies. Go to one of the factions. See if you can cut a deal for them to help our escape. A distraction maybe. If I know Pezzack, all of the factions are on guard after my announcement, with spies all over the town, so I doubt that you’ll get a chance to speak with a second faction. I would come with you, but honestly, someone needs to protect the professor, and I don’t trust any of your abilities as much as I trust my own.”
“There’s no need to worry. Poppo is one of the most skilled wizards in the Academy. He’s just a bit prone to nerves when he’s put on the spot.” Olandil says to the party.
"You know the place. Lead the way." She points at Olandil. Olandil, now looking determined, leads the party quickly through the underground maze once more and out again in a familiar location--the basement of the Academy of Applied Magic.
He bursts into Prof. Poppo's lab batting the stuff crocodile aside causing it to swing back and forth from its ropes. He marches up to Poppo who was in the process of mixing two interestingly colored liquids into a large beaker. Olandil drops to one knee looks Poppo in the eyes and says: “Sail the whale, now!” Poppo paces around the lab, his only response a faint, anxious humming. “I know you don’t want to stay here. You’ve been working on that thing forever. Let’s get in it and get out of here!”
"Quick, back to the Guts! We've got to find someplace to lay low."
Approaching Olandil, Son of Cayden asks, "Say, you wouldn't happen to have one an original folio of songs or poetry by Amalia Wraxton, hey? good old Major Colson Maldris would like to use it for inspiration in certain parts of the world, now that I think of it." "Well maybe 'good old Major Colson' should have showed up himself and five years ago to pick up the full set!" snaps Olandil. He mounts the ladder and climbs up.
Olandil looks poleaxed. "The Society abandoned me for five years, and they send you? Great, now I have to worry about baby-sitting rookies and get us all out of this hellhole alive." He starts walking. "Well, come on. I'm not staying here another five years." Sullenly, Olandil leads the party through the Guts. He tells them to keep it down until they get out. "We might not be alone, after all." At one point he stops in a small side passage and removing some of the bricks uncovers a small stash of tradable goods he's collected. "Here. grab some of this stuff up. We might need to trade it to get you onboard."
"The wand has about sixteen charges left to it. The command phrase is 'Peek-a-boo'." "The Loyalists got on to me a few weeks ago and have been blackmailing me to try to subvert the rebel factions. So I've been hiding out from everyone ever since. Hopefully my little show will sow enough confusion for us to get to my rendezvous without drawing too much attention." he says in a whisper. The tunnel becomes rough, the brickwork and masonry gives way to rough-hewn stone and even that comes to an end in what might be a natural-rock chimney fissure that's been widened for a ladder leading up.
"Besides planar teleportation you mean?" he looks at Son's suddenly young face and then considers. Finally he shrugs. "Well we could fly overland through the mountains, and so long as you can keep up the chain lightning and sleet storms up we could burn our way through the army of Strix who guard the passes and then break for the coast, though that's a bit roundabout if you are trying to reach the sea. I would suggest boarding Governor Vedra Sawndannac's command ship the Heart of Erebus subduing her, the hundred-plus marines, Hell Knights, and devils aboard and then faking a command to the rest of the fleet that the Heart has been ordered to return to port and then sailing her away, but you guys are the experts, right?" "Otherwise, I had arranged passage for one on a whaler, but that's been an increasingly dicey proposition of late."
There's a loud sigh of relief. "You came! Poppo's message did come to something after all! Thank the gods! I was just on my way out, too. I only did the hands signs in case someone actually arrived." A man who only looks a tiny bit like the Jaks on the stage steps out into the chamber's torch light. "Well then, let's plane shift the hells out of here." he says with a weary, but genuinely happy smile. |