Timothius nods to the two diplomats and sends them off with a blessing.

May says, "Eh. We haven't even used our most powerful abilities yet. So let's just hunt her down, stomp her, then rest so we can be ambushed while sleeping."

Timothius says, "Yeah. Kyle and I can set up an eye of alarm when and if we decide to sleep. Which I prefer to do before fighting Sovacles if possible, but like May said, we've got most of our more powerful stuff at our disposal, so we should be good even if we aren't allowed sleep."

Raichel says, "Alright then!" She looks at the rakshassa. "Since you're being so nice... care to tell us any hidden doors you might know about before we go looking in all the wrong places?"

May grins at Bram. "I'm so glad Tim wants you sticking with us... when we fight Sovacles, you might get to see us at full power. Mostly because we expect high-profiles like him to be powerful enough to hold nothing back. But I say 'might' because sometimes... we finish such enemies too fast to get the chance to use everything." It's true. Some boss fights where May, Rai and Tim all wound up using only 2 or three dailies total between the three of them. Not that they are complaining.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:24, Thu 21 Jan 2016.

  Considering how large the explosions tend to be, Bram may not be able to tell the difference.  "Hopefully your trip home goes better than your visit." Hmm... They never DID get served any food.  Wawaiwai feels the urge to cast Flare in another setting.

"60% power at most to stomp Sovacles and Cachlain," Mits estimates.

Bram headshakes.  "None that I know of."

"Kyle spotted one earlier," Mits reminds.

(( Referencing this guy: http://vignette2.wikia.nocooki...st?cb=20130624065241 ))

Ambassadors’ Quarters
Visitors to the court stay in these modest rooms. Two
are meant to house Medium creatures, and the northeast room is larger—fit for a Large or Huge visitor.
The doors to the chambers lock and require a DC 20
Thievery check to open.
The middle room is for the PCs, and Cachlain’s
servants bring cots if there are more than four PCs.
It’s not particularly comfortable, but the beds are high
quality, and the room is quiet.
The room to the west houses Bram Ironfell and
his two guards. See the sidebar about Bram Ironfell.
He also makes an appearance in the “Disrupted Banquet” encounter.
Sangwyr’s agents tunnel into these rooms and
begin marauding through the halls.
Tactical encounter: B2. Invasion Tunnel
(page 34).

May says, "Let's get to scoutin'."

After checking out the northern rooms, May comes back and shrugs. "Just a bunch of empty rooms."

  "Surprising, usually there's more."  Look Kyle, the maps can only fit so many ambushes with this few rooms.

"Off to secret door, then."

Mits heads off.  Bram looks hesitant and takes up the rear.

As usual, May takes point and heads down the stairs. She turns invisible and is careful to sneak and scout again.

---

Activate armor's encounter-long encounter power to turn invisible
Stealth: 40
Perc: 34
This message was last edited by the player at 07:57, Thu 21 Jan 2016.

Hidden Prison
Located below the other rooms on this level of the
court, this prison is down a flight of stairs concealed
behind a secret door. The prison contains three cells,
each of which is occupied.

A female cyclops in one.

In one cell sit two eladrin.  A man and a woman.

And in the third is a gnome.

May returns, reappears, and reports. "We should all go down there. Sure it's a prison and I saw nobody there. But at this point, enemies might just pop out of the ground at random just because. Or the prisoners get possessed by a githyanki and attack us as soon as we set them free."

Timothius says, "Sticking together is good, yes."

Assuming everyone agrees, May leads the team downstairs, this time not invisible.

  "Hopefully none of them are sitting on another secret door for said enemies to pop out from."

  He checks his crossbow, "Well, that and that none of them are in a hidden prison for reasons such as 'ate other guests' they want to continue"

As the PCs explore the hidden prison, mysterious
assassins attack them. Make Stealth checks for each
monster and compare the results to the PCs’ passive
Perception checks. If the PCs don’t detect any of the
enemies, the assassins have a surprise round.

If a PC’s passive Perception is higher than a
monster’s Stealth check, read:
You suddenly hear soft footfalls coming from the hall. Whatever’s approaching is clearly trying to conceal its presence.

Mits points.  "Sneaky sneaky!"

"Hiss!   We've been ssspotted!"

Skulking through the shadows comes a creature with a
vaguely humanoid shape. Purple scales cover its body,
and its long tail, tipped with spikes, lashes in the air. It has
humanoid arms and carries a longsword.

What's more, unless there is yet another hidden door or the monsters spawned, May would have warned the team ahead of time anyway, what with her searching the place just seconds ago and rolling a 34 perception.

May uses the confined space to her advantage and begins the combat with Come And Get It! The enemies are forced over to her and she whacks most of them good!

Timothius, of course, gets in close and bursts with holy energy to cause vulnerability before hitting the big bad with Pacify.

Raichel does what she has been doing at the start of every combat now; activate blood fury scythe, go feral via razorclaw shifting, furious bolts* and hits them all!

---

*Rolled out of curiousity. 38, 32, 34. Pretty sure that will hit any and all of the enemies

  Kyle knows what Purplespawns are, so makes them even more purple by shooting Violet Phosphor bolts at them.   One of them tries the whole 'shapeshift so they can't tell!' trick, but it's not really hard to tell the difference between May May, and 'Bright glowing purple' May.

  "I am getting a surprising amount of practical mileage out of novelties." Kyle comments, as he knocks Not May to the floor.

The eladrin look over to the cyclops.  "See?  Agents of Sangwyr!  Adventurers!  Give 'em hell!"

A githyanki clad in heavy, red robes glares determinedly
and brandishes two silver longswords. You catch a glimpse
of chainmail during her rapid, graceful movements.

"Meddling in affairs that do not concern you will be your fatal failure, adventurers," Arzoa threatens.

She forward flips over the frontline and attacks the group from behind!  Woobwoobwoob!  The whole team is blasted with psychic energy!  She then slices Timothius and telekinesis slams Raichel!  Then another slash and slam for Kyle and Mittens!

"Watch out for the tails!" the gnome warns, rattling his bars, "They're poison!  And hit 'em with radiant magic!  It stops their regeneration!  Get me outta here and I can help!"

"Misstress sssshall ssshred you!"

The purplespawn nightmares begin healing their wounds.  The powdered one swings at May but fails to get through her defenses.  The other purple spawn changes itself to look like Raichel!  She then attacks with a flurry of blows that fill Raichel's mind with terrible nightmarish thoughts!

"Allow me to help," the cyclops says.

She closes her eye and meditates, then glares at Raichel, helping reduce the mental pain!

"I'll show you nightmares!" Mits summons a swarm of yellow mongooses that beat up on the enemy with snake-charmer flutes!

She tisks at Arzoa.  "Perhaps you didn't get the memo.  We just got done killing Tiamat's exarch, Chillreaver.  You're in way over your head."

Kazowie!  She flashes with explosive magic power, severely damaging all the enemies and threatening to damage them even more very soon!
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:31, Sat 23 Jan 2016.

Bram flanks purple May with May and ganks it in the back!

"Much as I'd love to get a piece of Arzoa, I'm happy just helping where I can."

Raichel mews a moment, but pushes her fears away immediately with her superior will... that and, "Nice moves!" her love of martial arts. "Lemme show you mine!" with that, she does that teleport thing, whacking the fake Raichel to be next to May and then teleports herself to flank the thing with Timothius.

May nods to Bram and pulls out a glowing sword and SLICE! hits fake May with a mini nuke of radiance and slides it over to a spot where she can still keep it close! "I'm going to enjoy beating the tar out of you when your turn comes up." May slinks over to be in Arzoa's face and lets out a dragon's roar! It isn't come and get it, but it does mark everyone next to her.

Timothius corrects Arzoa with, "Don't pretend like your people making war against my home doesn't concern me. Zetch'r'r making war with everyone will be his downfall as he forces everyone's hand... including us." The snake that turned into Raichel begins to just stare blankly. "And looks like that one is out of the fight." he points at the snakes that look like May and Rai and chains pop up, hindering them. Doesn't matter much for fake Raichel, but it does mean 10 more radiant damage to both snakes. Oh... and thanks to the repositioning that just happened, Arzoa gets hit with it too.

  "Well, it is still closer to sensible than trying to poison us and then yelling 'we have no quarrel with you' when we show them what a foolish idea that was."

  Considering May's commentary, he opts to shoot the fake Raichel to leave that chance.  So... uh... Welp, even the freeform attacks don't quite finish them off. But at least it hit and made their own melee attacks that much worse.

"Those snakes resist psychic attacks," the gnome informs.

"Bram you fool!" Arzoa shouts, "You will pay for telling them githyanki secrets!"

But she and her allies don't last another round.  Badguys are beaten and tied up.

The prisoners cheer!  The gnome rattles his bars some more.  "Fantastic!  Now please get me outta here."

The eladrin nod.  "That would be most appreciated, yes."

Mits nods.  "Appreciate the offered help earlier."

Cells: The prisoners’ cells are locked. Opening the
lock requires a DC 30 Thievery check. The bars can
be bent or destroyed (break DC 28; AC 4, Fortitude
12; hp 120).

Bram searches Arzoa, muttering, "Who's the fool now, idiot?" but he finds nothing of use and sighs.

"If she knows anything important, she likely memorized it and destroyed the letter."

May gets to unlocking doors with Kyle, careful to pay attention to Kyle's technique. When she tries, of course, she pretends her pick is a sword and "stabs" the lock. "Ahhh! You may stab me, but I won't let you unlock me so easily!" she narrates.

Timothius chuckles at May and then looks to Bram. "Most enemies are not used to people like us being any challenge whatsoever and would be impressed we so much as scratched them. But even enemies who know who we are seem to think our stories are exaggerated or that we were very lucky. You get used to it. To be fair, my team and I are very powerful and would think someone arrogant to hurt us, even if they started to manage making some headway. But I think we know our limits enough now that if someone was a serious enough threat, we'd try to escape.... come to think of us, do we even HAVE hasty escape options?" he looks at Kyle.

Since the experts at freeing people from cells are on freeing people, Raichel sits on Arzoa and slaps her several times to wake her. "So save me some time. Are you going to self-destruct and revert to childhood before you don't have a mind left? Or perhaps astrally project? I want to know if you are useful for anything or if I should show you what happens to people we take prisoner."

May, meanwhile, gets frustrated with the lock and RIPS the door off its hinges, tossing it aside for Arzoa to see. She asks the cyclops, "High... err... low five? Thanks for the help." she offers a high-five with tippy-toe.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:05, Sat 23 Jan 2016.

  "Unfortunately, I don't recall offhand anything that would let us escape in a hurry if things went that bad." Honestly, more results for preventing escapes (you know, when it's not a handwave free action NPC exit).

  Kyle approves of May's unlocking technique, because it works and hey, not like it's a door they should care about.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:25, Sat 23 Jan 2016.

The cyclops sweatdrops and accepts the high five.

"Thank you, powerful adventurers."

The gnome jumps for joy when released.  "You guys are the best.  And gals.  Lovely ladies!  I'll be gettin' outta your way, then.  Maybe someday repay this kindness!"

He hurries for the exit.

The eladrin bow and introduce themselves as followers of Inzira named Elletraius (male) and Serennel (female).  "Sovacles and the king jailed us shortly after we arrived two weeks ago, seeking an audience so we could propose an alliance.  This cyclops is Talyrin, the adviser whom Sovacles replaced and falsely imprisoned."

Arzoa wakes.

Arzoa’s Secrets Level 18
Skill Challenge XP 2,000
As you attempt to interrogate Arzoa, you catch a flash of
psychic power. She whispers, “You’ ll get nothing from me. My
mind slips away even as I speak. Failure is unacceptable.”
The PCs have only a short time to interrogate Arzoa before
her mind is gone.

Mind Degeneration
After every two skill checks the PCs attempt, Arzoa’s
mental faculties deteriorate, giving the PCs an automatic
failure.

Primary Skills
Diplomacy 20, Intimidate 20.
Other Skills
Heal 20, Insight 13.

Insight
DC Tim wins. (no successes)
Timothius realizes that Diplomacy works best early in the challenge,
and Intimidate gets better later on.

"Looks like that would be the former, sis."

She shows off her painting of Chillreaver.

"Yes.  We are that strong."

“You fight well. Chillreaver . . . perhaps not such a failure.”

Timothius goes to Arzoa, looks genuinely sad and says, "It is a shame you are programmed to throw your life away so quickly when your words could very well save many of your kind or help what you believe in. It is clear your people have tried to convince you to take the coward's way out and you are only acting on instinct from your training. But before you slip away, perhaps you can show me your way of thinking and open up to me. Don't let the name Arzoa slip into nothing and then nobody knows your name ever again. I promise; you give us something useful and I will help maintain your name."

May reaches for the gnome. "Hold on a sec! Can't you at least tell us who you are and why you're here? At least stick with us so we can make the way safer for you!"

Raichel doesn't care if a gnome decides to run off. Especially after hearing about wrongful imprisonment. She fills in the eladrin and cyclops about the fact Sovacles is obviously manipulating the king and probably even using magic to do so.

She then looks over to Arzoa. "If you don't provide useful information... well let's just say one of our enemies is now a soul trapped in a globe to be taunted by githzerai forever. Your mind may forget, but your soul won't."

---

Timpomacy: CRIT! 41
Rai Intimidate: CRIT! 33

  "We do have that ritual on hand, yes.  However, throwing your mind away for the sake of those who would not appreciate such a sacrifice is already worse.  You just tried to kill us, but we still have more concern for your welfare than your masters."  Hardly befitting any proper employer...  And also the whole planar wars and enslavement thing is bad too, but you know how Kyle can get about these things.

  OOC: Arcane mutterings to Auto the Diplo

“Bram is not strong. Not strong like githyanki.”
“Cachlain will fall. Too much resistance . . .”
“I follow githyanki ways . . . now the dragons’ ways.”

"The dragon.  You mean the githyanki are on this warpath because Tiamat told them to?"

"Too late.  Mind slipping."

Arzoa dies.  The gnome is startled by May grabbing him and thrashes about, "Lemmegolemmego!...  Oh.  Sorry.  Old habits die hard, heh.  That's very generous of you to offer.  I'd hate to trouble you all.  I can sneak pretty good and turn invisible if need be, so I should be alright on my own.  Name's Kimdal.  I'm here 'cause I'd be a smear in the arena too fast to be of any fun for Cachlain."

Mits addresses the eladrin. "We came here to convince Cachlain of the same.  Sovacles has him under some kind of mind control and kicked us out of the throne room.  Any insights on how to undo the mind control?"

They shake their heads.  "None.  Sorry."