Adventure Log XXI.II
JAILBREAK
Having defeated Glorio Arkona and a slew of his minions, The Flowers began deciding what to do next as they explored the opulent palace. Hopeful plans were made to turn the building, and the supplies within, over to the people of Old Korvosa. Relocating the orphans to it would help free up space within the crowded Manor they were currently cohabiting in with the rescued night workers. Unfortunately, Melyia getting away meant it wasn’t safe just yet.
Beyond the immediate physical danger, Travis warned there was a chance she could start turning people against the Flowers by spinning the fight as a cold-blooded murder, but Calli felt even if they couldn’t prove they were Rakshasas, the evidence they’d confiscated pinning The Arkonas as the force behind the Cerulean Society, among other things, would bring the public to their side. They considered tracking down Grandmaster Boule right away to make him aware of the Society’s change in leadership, so she couldn’t use them as pawns in her battle, but it had been a long and difficult day. Everyone was running on fumes. If it took time to track him down, or if there was another battle, they couldn’t be sure they’d all make it through alive. They’d just have to worry about her, and the Society, another day.
They had to rest. The next concern was where. Byron’s main goal was getting back to Carowyn Manor, worried she’d take out her vengeance on those they cared about. Most of the others worried going back there would lead the Queen’s forces to the loved ones, instead. Nightingale pointed out that if they teleported into the building, no one outside of it had to know they were there at all. He then recalled they had found Ausio in a panic room in the basement, so they still had somewhere to hide should anyone come looking. Travis asked if they could teleport directly to the inn they left Trinia at. Leave the city behind entirely and wait for Kalepopolis and Orisini to turn up with more information. Byron refused to leave Korvosa until Gina was rescued, and seeing his determination, the others agreed. The choice was made. The five Flowers gathered and magically relocated themselves back to Carowyn Manor.
————————————————————
Young Alice squealed and drug her new husband Taylan away immediately. He bid the others goodnight, and went to enjoy his evening in private. Byron and Travis checked in on the manor’s inhabitants, ensuring Miss Cooper had made it back safely, while Calliandra and Nightingale got to work writing letters, making use of the illusory script wand they’d found on Glorio’s body. He wrote to Field Marshal Cressida Kroft to update her on everything they’d uncovered, and what their next steps would be. She wrote to her parents, Nif, Oriel, and -without the spell- Daesha, sealing each one with her personalized signet ring. To her mother she bid her parents flee, to her friends aware of her secret adventures a warning to be wary, and to Daesha she simply sent her love and condolences. To anyone else intercepting they would only see that Calliandra had made it to her brother and the other Mierani Elves safely.*
A few of the refugees from Old Korvosa most skilled at skirting the streets unnoticed tucked the letters away and slipped out into the afternoon sun to make the deliveries. Nightingale said something about loose ends he needed to see to before they left town, and squeezed Calli’s shoulder affectionately before departing. She was left alone to pace until the runners returned. One by one they made it back, but the one she most anticipated returned last, with a new letter in hand. It bore not her mother’s, but her father’s seal. She ripped it open with shaking hands, and found a mundane message reveal itself to her in the same illusory manner. She took in the words, and clutched it to her heart.
It was then she noticed Byron nearby, leaning against a door frame and watching with concern in his eyes. With a wide smile, she answered the unspoken question, “They believe me. They’re actually listening! They’re making arrangements to leave right away… they’ll be safe. As long as they manage to get out…” Her smile faltered.
He closed the distance and wrapped his warm arms around her. “They’ll make it.” She returned the hug in silence.
Travis joined them from the direction of the kitchen, still chewing. “We still going to see Decca or what?”
“Yeah, if you’re ready we can go now,” he hesitated before pulling away from the bard.
Calli looked between the two tall men, “More tattoos? I’m ever so curious about the process.”
The Half Orc shrugged, so Byron held out a hand, “Calli, would you like to join us?”
That evening their alchemist friend Svjatlo Raev dropped off some assorted potion gifts for Nightingale, and the order for colour bombs Travis had requested. Everyone was inspecting the new acquisitions when there was another, more frantic, knock at the door. The Flowers braced for danger, but it was an exhausted looking Eries Yelloweyes who stood on the front steps. She swept inside and shut the door behind her as soon as it opened.
The gaunt woman continually looked over her shoulder, and jumped at every sound. They got her a hot tea to try and steady her nerves. With her back to the wall so she could keep an eye on the exits, she told her story. “I know where your friend Gina is. She’s being held captive, with many others, by the Grey Maidens and some of those plague doctors. Mostly people who’d failed the tests to enter the Grey Maidens, or turned them down. Mostly women. They’d locked me up, too, but I was able to turn into a rat and get away. There are otyughs they’ve got chained up on guard, but made wrong somehow. Like they’ve been mutated or something. I won’t go back there. But if you want to get them I can describe the layout, at least. And you’ll need to go soon. They’re talking about a new, more secure, facility being built beneath the Grey Maidens headquarters.”
Calli felt the truth in her words and nodded to the others. Byron suggested, “Can you do your memory trick to see what she saw? Might be more accurate than her trying to describe it.” All agreed this was a bright idea, and with Eries’ consent began using the last of her magical energy for the day to pull out the memory of the frantic escape. She could feel the terror, hear the wails, and was relieved the spell only allowed for a short glimpses at a time. She saw them chucking bent and broken bodies of hippogriffs to the mutated otyughs below as feed, and suddenly understood where the Sable Company mounts had disappeared off to. It took multiple fraught castings to get a full picture of what the wererat had been through. Heartbeat still racing, Calli then used silent image to show the others what she’d seen. Between the vision and Eries’ help, they were able to draw out a map of the lair, including the small passage she’d used to flee unnoticed.
There were a great number of hostiles they’d have to get past to save more hostages than they expected, but they were resolute. There was nothing else for it. Byron would go alone if he had to, and no one was willing to let that happen.
*Calli’s letters are available to read within Character Log “Words of Warning”
————————————————————
After a desperately needed long rest, the day dawned on the 23rd of Gozran, and the group set out again. They kept to shadows and side-roads until the wererat indicated a sewer entrance for them to descend into while she kept watch. One by one, they slid down a rickety old ladder into the tunnels below their city. The smell was horrendous, and the longer the late spring sun shined above the worse it would become. They clustered together until Eries dropped in, pulling the grate closed behind her, and then she took the lead.
The Flowers moved in determined silence. They knew they needed to keep their strength for the jailbreak, and didn’t want to be caught by any of the other dangers below Korvosa before they even got there. Between Eries’ expertise and Byron’s unnaturally keen nose, they avoided disturbed waters where reefclaws might lurk, and skirted around where lumbering otyughs mumbled over an unfortunate meal, until finally she indicated that just ahead was the first guard station into the lair. She would go no further.
Nightingale drew a wand of invisibility and one by one made each of The Flowers disappear. Calli had her lyrakien Rune nestle into her cleavage before the spell, so that the tiny creature was able to benefit from it as well, while Focker reassured them he could simply be too stealthy to detect. Onward they crept. A shaft of light spilled out of a single open doorway, with a single Grey Maiden standing just inside. Taylan craned his neck to get a better look inside, and while distracted knocked a pile of rocks into the filthy water below. The guard looked curiously at the pile, but sensing nothing amiss, shrugged and remained where she was.
Past the guard station the tunnel opened up into a larger cavern. The majority of the space was a large pit below, as seen in Eries’ memories, that held multiple strange otyughs. While the creatures are known to live in filth normally, these were somehow riddled with disease. They were kept at bay by tall barriers along the walkways that surrounded the pit in a wide U shape. To their left was another exit out into the sewers, to their right along the walkway was the door to the cells, and before that door another faced back in the direction they came into one of the common rooms. The pit itself had a giant tunnel that led away in front of them, but they hoped they wouldn’t have to enter the pit at all. In the far corner of the U, a single hippogriff was chained, bound, and gagged, and looked near death.
Their magus whispered that he could open the gate onto the walkways magically, and Travis suggested Calli created a silent image to hide the movement while they slip through. Their luck held, and single-file they snuck in, weaving between the pacing women on watch. Calli, last through, carefully reclosed the gate and dropped her illusion. Byron passed slightly too close to one of the guards, sending a shiver down her spine. She paused, and called out to the others that she felt like there may be someone around, asking the others to reach out like her just in case. The group were spared seeing how ridiculous they looked as they invisibly bobbed and ducked being grabbed. “You, go see if the outer guard is okay.” One of the women went through the gate they’d just entered, and returned moments later with a shrug. The spooked Maiden shook her head, “I guess I’m just tired. Can’t wait to get back to base!”
Having successfully reached the far door to the right, Byron managed to slowly ease open the door. Two priests of Urgathoa sat at the table in the center of the room guarding the two barred cells, but neither noticed the door opening behind them. Their strange bird-like masks may have protected them from Bloodveil, but not from Flowers. Byron and Travis flanked one, while Nightingale and Taylan surrounded the other. Calli cautiously shut the door behind them, and all at once the men sprung into action.
Byron speared one of his bone claws directly through the neck of the plague doctor in front of him, killing them immediately without a chance to make a sound. The other doctor got out a brief, “What the hell?” before Travis, seeing his original quarry dealt with, buried his axe through the second’s head into his chest cavity. A small hall opposite the cells led into another small room, with a door to the guard chambers beyond, and within the other small room a Maiden called back to ask what had happened. Poking her head into the hall, she saw the now visible Barbarians and one of the dead priests. Gale moved to the hall, dropped to one knee, and touched his hand to the floor. The shadows of his fingers elongated unnaturally as they’d seen in the labyrinth, and Black Tentacles erupted within the next room. Other voices in the room cried out, as they were all grappled by the unnatural appendages. Taylan then followed up with a Fireball directly into the center of it. Multiple voices just out of sight went silent.
Calli used a wand to Haste the party, and stealth no longer a concern, began singing to inspire courage in her team while moving into a corner out of the way. She was the only one still invisible. Travis pulled Byron’s crowbar out of the pit fighter’s bag and jammed the door they’d come through so that attackers would have to pass through the tentacles to get to them. Taylan created Ghost Sounds in the room to sound like the struggling guards, trying to tempt more enemies that way. The door to the distant guard chambers opened, and a Maiden took in the sight only a moment before calling for backup. She warned there were tentacles in the way, and instructed people to go around. The door near the Flowers rattled as the guards outside attempted to get in. Nightingale pointed his sword at the guards in the far doorway, and a bright bolt of Lightning blasted forth into them. They took a great deal of damage, and staggered backwards into their room. While the party kept the enemies at bay, Byron took the keys off one of the dead doctors, slipped on a mask of the Red Mantis assassins, and looked through the small barred window of the nearest cell door, using the death watch ability within it to see how badly hurt the prisoners within were. Just about everyone inside was fragile or fighting off death. They recoiled in terror to see a creature of dark myths appear, but he reassured them he was there to save them. Gina recognized the voice, and rushed up to the door as he unlocked it. The well-toned woman wrapped her arms around him, and they hugged tightly in reunion.
Their bard kept the boosts playing, and Taylan sent another fireball into the newly opened room of guards. There were more screams of agony, and one of the Maidens still alive inside slammed the door closed again. The nearer door shuddered as those outside doubled down on their attempts to break it open. Byron opened the second cell door, and noticed everyone inside seemed to be keeping away from one particularly large woman. He asked her name, hoping to put her in charge of keeping track of those in her room during the escape.
“Why, what’s your name,” she sniffed.
“I’m the one getting you out, unless you want to stay in here?”
“Alright. You can call me Valencia.”
“Valencia, you know Gina next door? She’s your boss for this escape.”
“Oooh is she, then?” She grinned strangely at him and stood up, “You look like a wise man.”
The phrase took his brain back to the Clown Face gang in Old Korvosa, and he recognized the spark of madness in her eyes. “Everyone else out, Now!” The other prisoners began funneling out past him, as quickly as their battered bodies could move them. Focker took a position near Gina, ready to protect or help heal her if needed.
Nightingale looked behind him into the corner he believed Calli should be standing in and gave a wink as he cried out, “I can’t hold these tentacles much longer!” Then he and Taylan together prepared for when more foes would appear. Calli picked up what he was implying, and cast a Major Image over the tentacles to make them look like they dissolved away.
The near door finally burst open, with many more Maidens waiting to get in than they’d initially passed. Travis had been ready for this, and his axe met the face of the poor fool who made it through first. They fell to the ground lifeless, leaving gore splattered across the faces of guards behind. Nightingale spun his prepared fireball into the oncoming group, and the first rows of them went up in flames and collapsed to ash. One of the last of the group stepped forward bravely to try and retaliate against Travis, but as she raised her sword he caught it with his axe, and in a circular motion harmlessly moved it away while burying his own blade into her neck. She joined the other dead at his feet. Multiple arrows zipped past him, embedding in the open door and table behind, as waiting Grey Maiden archers unleashed a volley that failed to find a target. Remembering the previous fights against the plague doctors, he carefully checked either side of the door now that it was opened, and there were in fact more of the masked priests waiting to attack anyone who would step out. He warned his comrades about the situation between them and their exit.
Byron and Valencia squared up in the doorway of the cell, him keeping her attention to allow the rest of the prisoners to flee. She made an attempt to grab him, but he sidestepped, backed out, and locked the door again, leaving her trapped inside. She threw herself against it, screaming obscenities. Calli continued singing, but passed Gina the holy crossbow they’d recovered from the Arkonas the previous day so that the bouncer wouldn’t be helpless. Rune cheered on the heroes from her cozy position. Taylan directed his prepared Fireball at the archers, and over half of them were blown to bits. Nightingale sent another after and finished off the rest of the archers they could see.
Rummaging in her bag once more, Calli pressed a potion of Invisibility into Byron’s hand, and Taylan used their want to make Travis vanish once more. Travis was able to slip out past the waiting plague doctors and buried his weapon between one’s shoulder blades. It died, and he became visible. Two archers who had been in the larger communal room to the side fired, but hadn’t been expecting him to appear as he had, and weren’t able to accurately aim in time. Nightingale, hearing there were more around the corner, charged out and plunged his rapier into one, frying it from the inside out with one of his Shocking Grasps.
A Grey Maiden, seemingly better decorated than the others, stormed in and tried to bring her longsword down upon Travis’ head, but he turned just in time, and it crashed off the cavern wall behind him. The sword cracked, sending a sliver of metal flying back into her own face. The plague doctor nearest Nightingale thrust a dagger deep into his side. The priest nearest Travis stepped away from him, allowing more of the guards to move in and surround him.
Feeling the power of the Haste leave them, Calli carefully stepped next to the open doorway, without blocking it, to ensure all were still within range, and recast it on The Flowers. Byron ran past, swinging at one of the enemies surrounding Travis, but was unable to hit hard enough through their heavy plate to do any damage. Taylan joined Calli at the door and conjured another Fireball on the attackers, and two of those menacing their half-orc were blasted backwards over the barrier into the waiting otyugh’s below. Horrific metal wrenching sounds let everyone know the beasts would attack indiscriminately.
Nightingale grasped the clothing of the priest who had stabbed him, and then rapidly and repeatedly plunged his own rapier into him, leaving the doctor a dead and bloody mess. With no one left nearby to attack, Gale went closer to the hippogriff, but the creature reared violently and he stayed away. Travis hacked into one the Grey Maidens beside him, removing first one arm, then a leg, and as she fell took her head off. The final swing continued through and buried into the hip of the other nearby, finishing his movement standing in the doorway.
With the path to the hippogriff cleared, Calli- still invisible- began moving towards the frantic captive. It seemed to be protecting something in the corner. She told Nightingale she could handle that, and directed him to help the others in the fight. Taylan stuck his head out between Travis’ mighty legs and opened his jaws wide. A frosty blast of his cold breath weapon spewed forth over the last of the enemies, three of whom seized up and crashed to the ground dead. Travis continued his kill count by taking down another. Nightingale sent a Fireball into the pit of otyughs for good measure, not wanting whatever unholy disease they carried to spread.
Feeling the fighting was wrapping up behind her, Calli dropped the invisibility, and began making soothing noises as she slowly reached for the hippogriff. It calmed a bit, sniffing carefully in her direction Rune cooed sadly from her cleavage, “Oh look, milady, it’s got a baby!”
Byron joined her, and noticed it seemed to be bleeding out. When he brought attention to it, Calli asked Rune to heal it, but Rune sadly reported she wouldn’t be able to do much good. There was internal bleeding to an extent that magic could no longer undo what was coming.
There was only one enemy remaining, but ready for it to be over, Taylan dropped another Fireball. This one managed to jump out of the way of the worst of it, only to look up into the tusked grin of Travis as he followed up with his axe. The magic users finished off the otyugh’s quickly while Byron and Calli continued to calm the feathered creature. It quickly realized they weren’t there to hurt it further, and from behind it nudged forward a large egg, looking piteously at them. Calli scooped it up and turned away with tears in her eyes, while Byron put it into a gentle headlock before swiftly putting it out of its misery. Calli collected a few feathers, and then they all heard the sound of many booted feet heading towards them from two directions.
Valencia screamed at them, demanding to be freed. The party had a hurried discussion of whether to put the mad woman down or leave her to whatever the guards would do to her, and running out of time, they prioritized getting the prisoners out safely. Byron and Gina lead the pack, Calli and Travis guarding the middle, while Nightingale and Taylan brought up the rear.
Eventually. The freed people at the back of the group were too scared and focused on escaping to notice that Valencia had stopped screaming before they did.