Renew the Pact: Time of our Lives, part 8
Log Info
- Title: Renew the Pact: Time of our Lives, part 8
- Emitter: Whirlpool
- Characters: Paenitia, Aryia, Seyardu, Fallon, Lyme
- Place: Goldcoast of Veyshan, Tashraan, Jail
- Time: Friday, July 16, 2021, 9:05 PM
- Summary: The adventurers are taken by the Tashraani guards and questioned individually. Some are helpful, some are obstructionist, some feign ignorance, others are blissfully ignorant. Little is learned and the guards are satisfied. Satisfied that they have enough reason to imprison the adventurers without explanation, that is, so they are. They're left to speak to each other, and largely don't. Several have been imprisoned before. They are given food, which many don't eat, due to Aryia's warnings and having been imprisoned before. Later, their cells doors open and they are able to escape, a particularly unruly prisoner having all the guards' attentions. Making their way outside, they encounter Akoniril Belvade.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Appearing, in Order =-=-=-=-=-=-= Paenitia 3'0" 34 Lb Halfling Female A Lucht knight, dark skinned in bold feathery finery. Aryia 4'8" 110 Lb Shadow Elf Female A heavily scarred mul with a curious look about her. Seyardu 5'6" 150 Lb Sith-Makar Female A friendly silver sith-makar with a perpetual squint. Fallon 5'6" 145 Lb Half-Elf Male A short hooded man. Lyme 7'2" 435 Lb Orc Butch Black-skinned oruch of suitable stature -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= NPCs of Note =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Akorinil Belvade Shadow Elf Female Diplomatic Delegate, Priestess of Taara, Aristocrat -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= As the GM -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Whirlpool 5'0" Otyugh I am stinky! -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=
Previously
Farland and Shaevin discuss the elf's discoveries. Something in the past has been lost, and the present and future can affect the past. Things have changed, but he will need further time to share what those might be. He insists the adventurers stay at the Temple of Navos; the adventurers insist on going back to the Inn.
The adventurers win. They all go back to the inn.
Then in the middle of the night the entire contingent of Tashraani guards show up to arrest them. Seems Farland has murdered one of the other auction participants. Allegedly.
When they reach the guards station, each is shown to a separate room. It's large enough to do so. It would appear that the adventurers are going to need to answer questions individually.
Yes, you're being separated. Each of you has a guardsman in your room. You're never alone.
Finally, each of you has a guardsmen come in to talk to you. They take your name, of course, as if they didn't already know it, and they proceed to ask you about the events of the prior day. The auction, your presence in the market place, how well you know Farland. They seem very interested in Farland, it would appear.
Your employer.
"He's under arrest, you see. Seems someone up and murdered the winner of a particular piece..." Oh boy...
Now
Lyme is pleasant when interviewed, but pretty vacant -- he was pretty, pretty good looking that is.
"Oh wow, that's horrible," Fallon answers. He simply waits for the guardsman to elaborate.
Aryia is not the best person to be interviewed. She's fidgety, flighty, and severely dislikes any authority keeping her in a confined space. More often, her written or signed answers are, "What the hell are you talking about, he's been with us the entire time after that thing."
Elaborate? Ha.
Hahaha.
Yeah, that isn't exactly what happens.
Instead, you get asked a lot of pointed questions. You're being lightly interrogated. Getting a timeline of the day given, and questions about the purpose of your visit to Tarshran, the purpose of acquiring the auctioned item, and more.
Paenitia, is obstreperous. Which is to say vociferous, strident, boisterous and clamorous, and loud enough to be distantly heard from the other rooms. "Who this is? What auction? What market place? Who the man is? I visit Tashraan to meet the Charnese mercenaries. I am with the Taaranite Priestess Akoniril. She know I am here? Who accuse me of being these places."
Cooperative, she is not.
Seyardu was more than willing to cooperate with the guards who took them in for questioning. Though it was more than a bit frustrating how sure they were of their own innocence, and their requests to help assist find who did it, despite being in for questioning herself. She knew they were not at fault, but it was convincing them, that.
Fallon isn't terrifically forthcoming. He doesn't have a high opinion of your average guardsman. He tells them the barebone timeline of what they did and what they were after, but he simply shrugs when they inquire about the purpose of the item. "Don't know. Ask him. I'm just getting paid."
GAME: Paenitia rolls diplomacy: (13)+7: 20 GAME: Seyardu rolls diplomacy: (5)+9: 14 GAME: Aryia rolls diplomacy: (14)+-4: 10 GAME: Fallon rolls diplomacy: (3)+1: 4
Stonewalling. Denying. Earnesty. Confusion. All viable tactics to talk to the guards. Each of you are interviewed separately before being returned to separate cells in the guard station. Near enough to each other you can talk, but not with any degree of privacy.
Seems they're just requiring you to wait around for a while while they 'check out your stories'. Seems the murdered person was 'important'.
To someone. Maybe.
Fallon leans against one of the walls of his cells. He doesn't seem to mind that those watching them could hear. "Anyone got any idea who got shafted?"
The Red Knight crosses her arms and thumps down in a corner, making a very small, rusty lump. She is reticent, her expression hidden by her smiling mask, though one might suspect she is not beneath it. Her feet stick out, the pale soles of her dark feet visible.
She barks suddenly, like a rather large dog. "They listen. Do not speak. Babble only." <gnoll>
This is bad. Getting Aryia into a cell almost incurs additional charges as she struggles being shoved into the locked space. She was almost quick enough to jam her arm into the cell door, but it slammed shut and locked before she could do anything about it.
There's a string of half hisses in Undercommon, followed by a loud CLANG as /someone/ punches their fist against the iron bars. "F-ck!"
Aryia slides down in a corner and curls up, nursing her aching hand.
Well, it seemed they weren't being treated poorly, at the very least. But still, they were stuck there even longer. And now Aryia was punching metal, which even for her was likely not pleasant.
"Relax, Aryia." Seyardu calls out from a nearby cell. "I'm sure it's almost resolved, and then we'll be on our way. Just hold out for a bit, okay?"
You can hear other prisoners in the watch-tower chattering, yelling, laughing, crying. You know, the usual.
Time passes. Time will continue to pass.
Eventually, meal time rolls around and each person is delivered a plate of food. It does not look terribly appetizing.
Fallon absently picks at his food. He didn't particularly want indigestion while being held in a small cell, so he doesn't touch the extra squishy bits.
Paenitia does not wait well. She manages to sit for a while, enclosed in her armour and mask, hiding her reactions. The meal seems to do it. That's thrown out of the cell, which she then starts examining for graffiti, loose blocks, a hole she might wiggle through and various escape options.
The Mad Dogs will not be coming. Her trusty steed, Ramirez might, and that won't end well for several and the proud stallion. He might find the challenge he seeks then.
Aryia does not touch her food, the only sounds that she was in her cell was the soft sounds of sniffling. The shadow elf was not privy to be locked away again.
GAME: Aryia rolls perception: (6)+12: 18 GAME: Seyardu rolls perception: (9)+3: 12 GAME: Fallon rolls perception: (5)+10: 15 GAME: Paenitia rolls perception: (8)+4: 12 GAME: Lyme rolls perception: (2)+4: 6
Seyardu was getting just a bit tired waiting for their story to be agreed upon. Unfortunately, they were the outsiders in that city, and likely the most suspect amongst the auction crowd, on no small part of their own. The meal was accepted with thanks, and slowly eaten as she tried to think about what was holding them up. At least it was some time to get a bit more rest.
Aryia stops her sniffling and glances over at something. She reaches into her food, picks it up and opens it out of view of the front of the cell.
Fallon seems to note something off about the food, too, but Aryia is quicker. He wrinkles his nose.
Fallon abruptly stops trying to find 'good' spots to nibble on and pushes the plate away from himself. Ruh roh.
Aryia blinks, her looking about before wiping off her tears and standing up. She cannot warn the others, they cannot see her. But... she hadn't tried this yet...
There's some metal tapping from her cell. It's slow, unconfident, but repetitive.
"Food. Bad. No. Eat. Caution." <Handspeech>
Lyme doesn't notice anything about the food.
Lyme picks at his food listlessly -- it's something to do, and if anything drastic happens, he's got to try to keep his strength up, right?
Seyardu paused halfway through her meal before she heard the incessant tapping on the wall. She stopped, setting down the dish and picking up the spoon. Against the plate it tapped. Clink. Clink, Clink.
"Ate some What is bad?" it seemed to say in response. <Handspeech>
Paenitia doesn't understand the tappings. She has however been imprisoned before, and the unpalatable food was suggestive enough. Do not trust food from people you don't trust. Her stomach growls, and she covers it, pretending to be a little dog as she searches her cell, finding nothing.
Aryia's message just repeats. It's hard to explain anything in taps aside from key phrases.
<OOC> Whirlpool says, "Those of you who ate a bit: fort saves!" GAME: Seyardu rolls fortitude: (16)+8: 24 GAME: Lyme rolls fort: (6)+5: 11 <OOC> Whirlpool says, "Seyarwdu is fine! Lyme, y ou stgart feeling a bit sleepy after a while, work that int oyour RP :)" <OOC> Whirlpool says, "Like you had a benadryl."
Lyme drifts, feeling a fair about of lassitude, listening to the hypnotic tapping -- why is it happening, what is going on?
Paenitia paces to deal with her hunger.
Fallon simply sits and waits for whatever is to come.
Waiting is really all you can do for the time being.
And so you wait. The guards don't seem in a rush to check on you. They don't seem to be in a rush to do anything. It continues to grow deeper into the night, given you were woken in the middle of it. Eventually, there's a clanking sound.
One by one, your cell doors just ... open.
The meal didn't seem bad, but Seyardu wasn't going to eat more of it to tempt fate. She assumed there was something she missed. It could have been an odd color and she barely wouldn't have even noticed.
... What color was food supposed to be, anyways? Aside from a rather vibrant red of melons.
Fallon stands and takes one step out of his cell. He surveys the immediate area before he dares to venture further. "About damn time..."
After dozing for a bit in her corner, Aryia wakes up. Blinks. Then quietly scrambles towards the open door.
When the door opened, the sith-makar stood up and stretched, before she went to investigate it. They were looking around for the escort outside, or why it was open. They were free to go by this point, right? There wasn't any concrete proof, and multiple accounts otherwise.
Paenitia immediately marches out, then turns to check the other cells. "Hola, come, we go now. Be ready."
Lyme's eyes flicker open, staring at the open door of the cell. Hey, it's open, I wonder why it's open. He stares at the puzzle for a few moments as the hamster wheel starts to spin up slowly.
The other prisoners, in fact, appear to be out. Their food was possibly spiked too.
The way out is down the hallway you were marched down earlier. That's good news, right?
Fallon frowns. "This is too clean. Did our saviors just put everyone to sleep?" He wonders out loud. Well, time to go find out. He carefully sneaks down the hallway.
"Well, it seems the guards were not the ones who let us out, for good or for ill." Seyardu sighs as she looks down the hall. "What now, though. Do we leave the others here? I do not like this, and I do not know what we should to." They ask the group. "And what is this about putting to sleep? Is that something about the food from before?""
Aryia just shakes her head. She snaps her fingers at those in the party who have not left their cells and looks ready to get the hell out of there.
<OOC> Seyardu says, "hmm. Can I use heal with a charge of a first aid kit to investigate the food Paenitia threw earlier?" <OOC> Seyardu says, "I think identify drug is part of it." GAME: Seyardu used a Healer's Kit. GAME: Seyardu rolls heal+2: (4)+7+2: 13
Lyme drags himself upright and starts for the opening. It's open. He should walk through it.
"Friend Dragon, I cannot carry many. If you want to pick another in a cell, this you may do. It may be good person, it may be real criminal." The Red Knight says, "This is the flaw of the whole system be corrupt. When the pillars of society are attacked, you cannot tell the good person from the evil person, as all are crushed under the yoke of the aristocracy."
She, like Aryia, is trying to get her friends and allies moving. "If you see one in a coyote mask, or wearing the armour of Daus, maybe they safe to pull free, but I cannot say. We did not hear the false reasons they imprisoned."
<OOC> Paenitia says, "*ahem* Stealth Synergy." GAME: Fallon rolls stealth: (2)+10: 12 GAME: Paenitia rolls stealth: (16)+8: 24 GAME: Lyme rolls stealth: (18)+-1: 17 GAME: Seyardu rolls stealth: (19)+-6: 13 (+2 from not having the shield on) = 15 GAME: Lyme rolls stealth: (1)+1: 2 (EPIC FAIL) (+2 from that) GAME: Aryia rolls stealth: (19)+10: 29 <OOC> Final Stealth Values: Aryia 29; Fallon 29; Paenitia 27; Lyme 20; Seyardu 15;
Carefully and watching each others backs, you move through the hallway down to the next room over, a part of the back of the watchtower. This room wasn't that empty when you left. It's where the guards who're working on the jails tend to be seated and situated, their table looking like they abandoned their dinner and card game in the middle of it. Two doors are visible. One to your left, and one to your right. You came in through the one to the left, and you can hear a *whole* lot of commotion coming from there, and like the guards are trying to hold a particularly unruly prisoner down.
The door to your right is open *just* a little. Like its beckoning you. What an amazing coincidence!
Everyone is weaponless and armourless. It does not sound like Ramirez behind the door.
Lyme follows awkwardly, sloppily. He is not okay. He turns the corner towards the open door, thigh scything through the table, sending dinner plates and cards scattering. "Oops."
"It did not seem to be more than a mild sedative. But it is still a sedative." Seyardu sighs as she watches Lyme. "Which way do we go? We know the way we came in, but it sounds... busy. But if we go elsewhere, there is no guaranteed there may even be an exit. And we may still run into resistance, while being unarmed."
"I suppose it was too much for me to ask for the city to function properly."
Aryia is not unarmed, she cracks her knuckles to let Seyardu know. She points to the open door.
Fallon eyes the right door. "This looks like the door we're supposed to choose, so if anyone has any better suggestions..." That's where he's going.
Paenitia hesitates, she'd prefer the known over the unknown, and one of her vows is to protect the common folk from their abusers. A situation that she might be overhearing. It would be a lot clearer if she recognized who was in the struggle. Farland, a gnome, is unlikely to be putting up such a fight.
Unless he had some unadvertized polymorph spells in his pocket. Again, unlikely.
"Look for keys," she cautions her group. This is a guard room, "We going deeper in, we will meet the locked doors. Then take the honeyed path, yes."
Seyardu says, "Someone set up something here. Whether for our sake or not, it is unknown. But I doubt it, considering our meals were tainted as well." Seyardu adds once she takes a look around. "But the route out may have been set up in advance. What some may do if those they do not expect show up however, remains to be seen. I still don't believe we were in the wrong, but I doubt the guards we encounter will accept that. And the shorter we linger, the better."
She did not wish to think too much about the other prisoners. Hopefully they had reason to be in here, but in their current states, she could not bring them with her."
Lyme doesn't talk -- he's focused on functioning. Things start to click into place.
"Getting keys would be prudent, but all the guards seem to be... preoccupied. If they've left them unattended somewhere..." Fallon trails off, then decides to check the walls and drawers, if there were any available. Quickly. "We don't have much time to mull it over."
The guards do not appear to have left the keys somewhere convenient for you, but then, there is a door. That is open.
Marginally.
Still, the struggle sounds continue. A wall seems like it just hot hit. Hard. What are they fighting? An ogre?
Lyme steps through the door, focusing hard. Does he want to know? He doesn't.
"Then we go the other way for now?" Seyardu asks once the room is checked over. "If everyone is as ready as they will be, Then we should go."
Fallon follows after Lyme. "This way." At least if it's trapped, Lyme dies first.
The Red Knight waves for the others to follow Lyme. Does she want to know what they're fighting? She does. The lure of impossible odds calls to her, as well as the worry that Ramirez is on the other side. So she gestures, go, follow, to get her allies to move.
"Yes. Do not wait. Everyone waiting for everyone so as to be last and the room, she never clears."
Sound, solid advice. Which she is ignoring, because she wants to be last while her conscience sorts itself out. It would be even better if there were bars for the doors, a feature she checks on the available ones.
You pass down the hallway.
Down another. There are rooms on either side of you, but they mostly seem like storage. Box upon box of goods, taken from various things and situations, no doubt, alongside copious amounts of bookkeeping and more. So many people pass through here in a day, no doubt.
The only way lays ahead of you, and indeed, it seems you're going to beheading out the back door. You pass by a guardsman who is asleep at his desk, an empty tea cup beside him.
You move to the back door -- which is conveniently open -- and slip into the alleyway.
There, a robed figure awaits.
They gesture for you to follow them, and indeed, there's little to do but that. Through the vast network of alleys in Tashraan, you slip, one after another, until you've left the guard station behind you. Finally, the figure turns to pull down her hood. Scarlet hair falls down around her shoulders.
"You were expecting someone else, I hope?" says Akorinil Belvade. Your temporary savior.
