Re: 1.5A - WotW - Part One: Featherwhisper
Celene casts her spell as Logan hangs back a bit to keep an eye on Zan - the Shadowshore rogue doesn't have too slow down much to achieve this since Zan is pushing past anyway to get to the double doors.
The sorceress see a strong magical aura emanating from the new shinny silver sword sitting on the half-elf's waist. Celene has only ever seen something like it once before where she was tasked to retrieve a certain magical item from the Aubrek house...
But then it is too late as Angati and Zan have pushed open the double doors and revealed the room on the other side.
It is a huge room, 40' wide and at least 100' long with a high vaulted ceiling and tiled completely in expensive looking white glazed ceramics. There are three 15' diameter mud pools sunk into the floor, all gently bubbling warmly from some hidden heat source. At the southern end of the room an artificial fall of crystal-clear water cascade down from an opening high up in the wall into a large pool: a nearby plaque identifies it as a rinsing station.
The room is filled with over two dozen people. The first thing that the party notes is that the remaining Jade Ravens are indeed here. Tolin Kientai, the arogent ranger who serves as their leader; Kaskus Kiel, the driud dressed in his green armour (although no sign of his animal companion, the obese Baxtor the Badger); and the exotic dark-haired Liamae Teslikaria, untamed sorceress.
Lined up against the eastern wall, their backs against the row of tall columns holding up the ceiling overhead is a collection of almost two dozen random townspeople. They are a mismatched grouping of the type of folk you might expect to be out and about early in the morning in Sasserine: Fishermen and district guards. Merchants and maids. Errand boys and down on their luck sailors. The are just standing almost motionless in two rough rows with their mouths hanging wide.
OOC: Okay, as promised the condition of the hostages depends on the time taken to get here which was... moderate performance (met expectations as my boss would always say in my annual review). Therefore...
"Ah-ha!" screams out Tolin. "You are too late ZSabrehawk," he says, looking directly at Zan. "Your friends are at the bottom of ze mud-pit and very soon they will be encased in ztone forever! You! Lacky!" he points at the druid Kaskus. "Finish it!"
The dwarven druid raises a scroll - hesitantly and with jerky movements like he doesn't seem sure if he wants to do it - and starts casting a mud-to-stone spell off the scroll.
Zan goes bezerk. "You will pay for this you imperialist swine!" he screams and charges Kaskus.
Back in the steaming pool room things are also getting hot. The three men pull daggers out from their togas and rush the party crying out things like "Long live the imperium!"
This shit just got real! Okay, we are going to take a leaf out of Beni's book with initiative this time. All the PC's and Zan will roll, if you get a result better than the average for the opposition (the three bath-tub men and the three Jade Ravens) then you get a sort of 'extra round'. Then the enemy goes, then the party just acts as a group from there on in.