29 Rova 4715

Wealday

Session 32

On their last day of preparation for exfiltraationg the Torrent Armigers, the Silver Ravens wake early to finalize preparations. They decide on the following plan:

“Lucius will be disguised as Giraud Tannessen, and the rest of the group will be various functionaries of House Tanessen. The group will be working under the pretense of looking to make a private investment into the Holding house. They’ll try to get a tour to scout out the location of the Armigers, then will try to get the warden alone and knock her unconscious.

From here, Lucius will re-disguise as the warden, and try to get the Armigers out under her orders.”

They understand that flexibility will be key, but they’ll make their best efforts to stick to the orders from Octavio Sabinus’ two requests to keep it quiet and try to limit bloodshed. After finalizing, the party splits up to get the last few supplies.

-Ham and Perfidus stake out as the Holding House disguised as homeless people. Their goal is to gather information, and keep an eye out in case the prisoners get transferred. Throughout their many hours around the area, the Dotari patrols begin to catch on, but after some awkward failed propositions for sexual favors to the Dottari, and later some additional disguises dropped off by Lucius, they’re able to avoid more pressing scrutiny.
-Lucius secures the needed disguises, gathering a variety of upper class clothing to make the party match their story. After grabbing the disguises and dropping them off to the various party members, he heads to go get forged documents to validate their cover story. He heads a shop owned by an elderly Varisian woman named Ruba Fenquay who was recommended by Octavio. They dance around the topic for a few minutes before Lucius propositions her to forge a noble seal. She says she can do it, but it would cost 1000g, which Lucius has in the form of trade items and a chunk of cash. She takes the rest of the afternoon to finish them, and Lucius is able to pick up the documents just before the party is meant to start the mission.
-Ayse further researches Kytons in the Alabaster Academy Library. He learns more specifics regarding different types of Kytons such as Evangelists, Sacristans, and Apocrisiarius. He then grabs a few scrolls of “Knock” just in case.
-Talula Checks in with “the boys” in her “Organization” Slimy Carl gives a low down of whjat he was able to learn, which is not much more tan the party had already known.

Lucius, Ayse, and Tahlulah meet up with Ham and Perfidus out front of the Holding House after Lucius finalizes the disguises for everyone with a masterful hand. They saunter up to the first door, but are quickly rebuffed as it turned out to be the prisoner transfer entrance, and no amount of complaining would get the guards to let them in this way. Lucius heads to the second entrance and knocks to demand entry. They are let into a small waiting room with two Dottari inside.

Lucius walks up to the one behind the desk and demands an audience with the Warden. After some diligent convincing from the whole party, she knocks on one of the two doors behind her, and peeks in to have a hushed conversation with whoever is inside. When she turns back to Lucius, she says the Warden will be out in a few minutes, so small talk begins as the group keeps up airs. Finally, Sabo the Spider herself enters the waiting room.

Lucius immediately goes about trying to charm and convince her, but Sabo is quite unimpressed with the party, and take SIGNIFICANT convincing to let them get a tour. It takes a variety of negotiation tactics, and some tense deception from the entire group, but eventually she is convinced to at least entertain the party while the forged documents are sent to the Temple of Asmodeus for verification. Kristoff, the Dottari guard, is sent off to the Temple with documents in hand, and Sabo warns that the group will not be allowed to leave until the documents are proven to be authentic, which of course Lucius agrees to.

With that settled, Sabo seems to relax a bit, despite the odd and unexpected circumstances, and agrees to give the group a tour. She heads in to the prison proper to make sure everything is in order, before coming back to personally lead the group through the tour. The party follows, and is taken past the barracks, and into the holding room, where they are able to look around and identify three of the four Armigers. The party is taken to see the transfer wing, where Lucius berates the guards for their earlier dismissal of his entry attempts. Finally, Sabo says that’s everything, but Lucius notices there’s still another room they hadn’t seen into, and has a sinking suspicion of what lies beyond.

Sabo acquiesces to giving him a peak, and all of the Dottari back away from the door. A quick look inside reveals the private torture chambers of the Kyton, who turned out to be an Apocrisiarius Kyton in the middle of torturing the fourth Armiger. The door is quickly shut again, with Lucius being visibly shaken. He suggests the group retire to the wardens office to await the verification of documents and to discusser finer details of their proposal. Sabo agrees and take them into her office space to wait out the remaining time.

Session 33

Lucius has Sabo show the group back to her office under the guise of “Refreshments” while they await the guards return with the report on the forged documents presented earlier. Sabo offers drinks of various kinds to the group, though they all lament the lack of lemonade. Th conversation eventually steers towards the Asmodean worship, and Sabo is careful to question each member individually, though the group as a whole manages to avoid suspicion or direct answers under her inquisitive eye. It becomes clear that Sabo is tired of entertaining the group, and perhaps still a bit weary about their presence, so makes to send the group to the waiting room while she does a patrol of the cells. Lucius takes the opportunity to strike.

Drawing on a well of heroic strength, Lucius summons a radius of complete silence in the room, draws his whip, and trips her feet out from under her. The rest of the party gets the hint and pounce. Ham thunders towards her in complete silence, dropping off Tallulah’s blade to her as he tries to pen her into the corner. He isn’t quite able to grab her, but starts to set up a living wall to keep her trapped. From the ground, Sabo draws her mace, and black shadow begins to crawl down the weapon and onto her arm, though while silence, she is unable to draw upon her more formidable magics. Lacking magics of their own from the silence, and lightly armed and basically unarmored, the group brawls with her back and forth, try to grapple, knock her down or blast her with controlled explosions from Ayse.

Sabo does manage to land a withering blow onto Perfidus, but to no avail. Outnumbered, and without hope of escape or reinforcement, she’s dragged down and knock unconscious by a blistering combo from Ham and Tallulah who caught her leaving herself open in an attempt to flee. The silence barely managed to hold while she was conscious and drops almost immediately after she’s downed.

The group begins scrambling to get the second half of their plan in motion, but whatever inquisitorial boon Sabo was bestowed by Asmodeus manages to continue reknitting her wounds at an alarming rate. Tallulah knocks her on her head repeatedly, frantically hoping it will stop. After an uncomfortable period of time, fortunately it does. Sabo is stripped of her outer garments and gear, tied up, and shoved under her own bed bound and gagged. Perfidus summons Zach, quickly covering his mouth to silence his overt enthusiasm, and has him stand guard to keep the bedroom door closed and make sure Sabo stays unconscious.

Ayse and Tallulah quickly set about quietly cleaning the scene to pass cursory inspection, While Lucius dons Sabo’s clothes and armor, passing off the Gerard disguise to Perfidus. Both men take potions of disguise self to turn them visages from Lucius and Perfidus to Sabo and Gerard respectively. After some touch up from Lucius’ disguise kit, they’re ready. Ham quickly appraises the two rooms, finding little of value outside of Sabo’s possessions and the prisoner intake records. Lucius, in his new form, grabs the pages for the Torrent Armigers, and they quickly peers behind the final door to find an interrogation chamber.

Deciding they’d taken enough time with their final preparations, the lot of them pile out into the waiting room, and Lu-Sabo orders Gerard’s party to stay there while heading back into the cell block for the final leg of their mission. Carefully and cautiously, Lu-Sabo orders a guard to round up the four prisoners from the intake forms he hands them, and get them ready for transfer. Sufficiently convinced by the proceedings, the guard pushes back on the fourth prisoner indicated, mentioning that only Sabo has the authority to ask for release from Genemal’s practice. Lu-Sabo waits for the other three to be removed from their cells and prepared, them steels himself for the final confrontation.

Opening the door to the chambers, Genemal is entirely too engrossed in her work, slicing and stabbing into Portense, to notice. Lu-Sabo gently intterupts and being immediately afflicted by the Kyton’s truth-forcing gaze, quickly weaves together a vague but impactful plea for Portense’s release from Genemal’s “playing”. Genemal seems convinced that Lu-Sabo intends to “Transfer” the prisoner, but its utterly unwilling to relent, as she mentions that she wasn’t done, and her “sisters” hadn’t even gotten a chance to play yet. Four shadowy creatures begin peeling themselves off of the walls and out of the crevices in the dimly lit room to form humanoid figures that now surround the table that Portense is splayed and flayed upon.

Lu-Sabo takes the conversation in stride, without even realizing the implication of the absolute truth with which he spoke, and trades the life of “Any other prisoner here” for them to play with, as “I don’t care what happens to them”. Trying to keep up the air of deception and trying to take back some control, he says they can play however they wish until Sabo returns. Genemal lights up with torturous delight at the agreement, and orders Lu-Sabo to leave. Wasting no time in doing so, he exits and swiftly shuts the door, hoping that Portense would still be alive, and it wouldn’t take too long for his release.

As he sinks his back into the wall and stares blankly at the ceiling, he sees shadows dart and flit about the cells in his periphery, and shortly thereafter the screaming began…

After an indeterminate length time spent with baited breath, the screams abruptly drop, the shadows gather around Lu-Sabo, and then melt through the walls back to their chamber. Portense is unceremoniously tossed out the door, and Genemal offers her final words, “I hope that this trip for them is worth it”. Lucius mutters “So do I” in dejected assent.

Lu-Sabo orders a shell-shocked guard to carry the prisoner out to “The pirate in the waiting room”, as he makes way to the transfer area to finalize the release. He gets the guards assembled there to ready the 3 ambulatory prisoners, now bound in chains together, outside to the front of the building. Meanwhile, the remainder of the party hears the bloodcurdling wails from inside the prison some moments ago, then see the door open and a pale, defeated guard with a cut up and unconscious prisoner slung across his shoulder. Ham immediately rushes up, drawing the wand of cure light to heal the prisoner back to consciousness. While doing so, he demands the guard to explain what had transpired. The guard is too traumatized to give a coherent response, and Perfidus quickly chimes in to defuse Ham’s anger and get the party moving outside.

The party, and all four prisoners, are reunited outside the Holding House, where Lu-Sabo and Perfidus are able to convince the guard that a Dotarri escort was un-needed since Sabo was going, and that they needed to stay at their posts and make sure no one came in or out until she returned. They finally agree and head back inside to lock the place down.

Lucius Solemnly leads the group away and out of line of sight of the Holding House, where they quickly drop into a back alley to drop the disguises, unchain and re-clothe the armigers, and finally reveal the subterfuge and true purpose behind their release. The armigers see the sword offered by Perfidus as he explains, and they immediately relax and almost break down with relief. The urgency is picked up again, however, at the sound of Dotarri boots running through the streets back towards the Holding House.

Quick time is made as the group beelines to the Tooth-and-Nail. Upon entry, Setrona has a moment of disbelief upon seeing them before she has all of the patrons cover their eyes (they do so of their own volition at a mere word from her, its wild) and opens her concealed basement for them to hideout. The armigers get situated and immediately pass out on the prepared bedrolls.

Session 34

The party settles down in the basement of the Nail to rest after their extraction of the Armigers. Ham tends to the wounds of the Hortense, who suffered the worst of the injuries thanks to her interrogation by Ghenemahl the Kyton. Perfidus takes some time to re-summon Zach, having shunted him away off the plane after the Ravens had gotten far enough away from the Holding House. Perfidus says that Sabo did indeed regain consciousness at one point, and he was seen briefly before bonking her back unconscious. He assures Perfidus that he did not kill her. Setrona takes a moment to hear about the events from the party, but the group is predominantly interested in getting some rest, so after dropping off supplies and drinks, she leaves the Ravens to sleep.