Valrieth suggests that Aoife stand ready at the door to L12 in case the boggles or tin soldiers come to check on them.  They still think that the party is doing Granny Nightshade's bidding, and maybe she could intimidate them to mind their own business.  Val consults her start chart and casts guidance on Aoife in case she needs it to deal with the boggles.

Val turns to the children while Ilifir pounds in the piton.  She gathers up the children on the landing, close to the stairs, channeling her best "big sister" energy: "Come here.  Form a little circle.  That's good.  Now, we're all still in danger, so we need you to be quiet.  No cheering, understand?  The truth is that we're not really working for Granny Nightshade.  In fact, the hag is dead.  We've already freed Mishka, and we're going to get you all out of here.  Will of the Feywild is waiting in the woods south of Loomlurch to take you to safety.  But we need you to be smart and brave so that we can get you and the other children out of here."

Val glances to check that the door to L12 is still closed.  Then she says, "My name is Val.  The half-orc by the door is Aoife.  This dwarf is Finley.  And the fairy is Ilifir.  What are your names?"

Aoife bends slightly and whispers to the children, "It's okay. We are rescuing you so you can be children again instead of working so much. Just do as we say, but not in a 'following orders' way, a 'helping us to help you get out of here' way. Clear?" 

She ends with a toothy smile at them, stands upright again and quirks an eyebrow at Val to show she's on board with guarding the door. She keeps an eye on the door and on the crumbling stairs. (perception nat 20 for 27)

The children cover their mouths as they let out a muffled cheer. 

This is the area outside of the L12.

Aoife sees that the stairs are too fragile to step on and no one comes out of L12 though they may once more of Loomlurch falls apart. 

"Watch th' rope carefully!" Finley pulls out his rope and commands it to tie itself to the piton, "Hah, that's easy enough!"

The magic rope is now securely tied to the piton. 

Let me know how you plan to bring the children down to the firs floor. If carrying the children, then please roll athletics DC 15. 

Quote from Weathervision >>

The magic rope is now securely tied to the piton. 

Let me know how you plan to bring the children down to the firs floor. If carrying the children, then please roll athletics DC 15. 

Valrieth proposes lowering the children down one at a time.  Finley could have the rope tie itself around one of the children, and they could lower them down (one at a time).  With two or three of them on the rope, they should be able to lower it slowly.  And if they tie it off at 7.5 feet, even if they let the rope go, the child just gets a nasty yank at the end of the rope.  They shouldn't actually fall all the way to the floor below.  Ilifir could fly down and help Elkhorn steady the children and lower them the rest of the way once they're at the end of the rope.  

It might take a long time if they had to tie and untie the rope each time, but with Finley's rope, he can simply command it to tie and untie itself.  So they should be able to lower all three children down in just a couple of minutes.  Then the rest of them just have to climb down the (knotted) rope, and Finley can have it untie itself from the piton.  

"Or," Val says, "everyone but Ilifir can get into the portable cave.  Then he could just fly down, open it up on the floor down there, and toss the end of the rope in for us to climb out."  She gives the children a rather doubtful look.  Of course, the children have been working under the watchful eye of a hag and her pet dragon for who-knows-how-long, so maybe a ride in an extradimensional hole wouldn't be too frightening if they all held hands.

"yeah i can carry it down, or just trying to steady them works too, i think the hole would be faster and we're definitely in a hurry right now, it'd be a bad end to die now to the roof caving in"  additionally, how far of a drop is it?

The drop is 10 ft. 

Let me know which plan you go with. 

Aoife looks aghast at the idea of putting the children in a portable hole, but tries to hide her emotions (badly - deception 4).

She looks worriedly at the hole. "People can go in there okay?" she asks.

"if its what i think it is then yeah, but if they stay too long the air goes bad" he shrugs "as long as me or spike can open it back up you'll all be fine"

Quote from valeskah >>

 "People can go in there okay?" she asks.

"Oh, yes," Valrieth says confidently, her ears swaying wildly as she nods. "We rescued a bullywug who was unjustly imprisoned in Hither by sneaking her away in it.  It's quite safe for a short trip. It's dark, but we can all hold hands so that it's not so scary."

Aoife nods slowly, looking a little relieved but still a bit unsure. "Okay, let's get the kids in there, safely." 

(OOC: I see that I had the dimensions of the portable hole swapped in my head.  It's 6' across and 10' deep, not the other way around.  So, I guess it's not any easier to get in and out of the hole than it is to lower the children 10' down to L11.  I guess we should keep our eyes out for an 8' ladder that we can keep in the hole in the future!)

Whether using the portable hole or not, I guess we'll eventually need to raise or lower the children on the Rope of Climbing.  So, ideally, we'd have Aoife and another one or two of the characters helping with the rope.  As described above, tie the rope to one child at a time to raise / lower them to L11.  Someone (probably Ilifir since he can fly) should go down to L11 first to help Elkhorn receive the chlidren.  (Since we haven't mentioned Elkhorn in a while, I'll assume that we left him down in L11.)  That also gives us a chance to catch a kid if the rope slips or breaks.

Finally, Aoife, Val, and Finley can climb down the rope, and then Finley can command the rope to untie itself from the piton. 

"Ah'd still wanna be careful at putting them in th' 'ole in case something happens and we have no way ta put it back down." Finley adds, then commands the rope to form knots every foot or so, "tha' should make it easier fer anyone ta climb on it and it's still around fifty feet long. Also if ye wanna tie th' rope around ah child ah can do tha' too as long as we have someone helpin' out with lowering them. Either way, lemme know and ah'll do it, but ah dunnae know how long we got ta be safely here."

Lowering the children with help then whoever is lowering the children please roll athletics with advantage. 

Quote from Weathervision >>

whoever is lowering the children please roll athletics with advantage. 

That should definitely be Aoife!

Aoife begins lowering the children, one by one. (athletics 22) She murmurs what she thinks will be comforting words to each one. "Don't you worry, little one. We'll get you some fun weapons to play with very soon."

(OOC whoops I managed to accidentally click advantage twice so it rolled three dice, but this was the second dice not the third.)

The children are lowered without issue and the party climbs down back to L11. 

What do you do next? 

Quote from Weathervision >>

What do you do next? 

Valrieth asks the 3 children their names.  If Finley kept Granny Nightshade's list of children workers, she suggests that he check off the children that they've found and hands him her pen and some ink while she talks to them.

Val looks around L11 again.  There's the door back to the kitchen, a door that presumably leads to the west yard, and a door to the south (farther into Loomlurch).  She is trying to figure out whether to send the children the same way Mishka went, out the east door of the kitchen and through the yard.  But she's now a little worried that there might be more redcaps out there.  The west lawn might be an option, but they'd have to check.  There's a door that opens to the west from the portrait room (L11).  The only other option seems to be taking these 3 children through Loomlurch with them and leaving through Loomlurch's south exit.  

Val quickly asks the children about other dangers in Loomlurch and then about what they know of the rest of the building.  She says, "As you see, Loomlurch is coming apart now that Granny Nightshade is dead, so we need to take the quickest route to get all of the other children out safely!"  Some of her questions:

1. "We know about Cradlefall, the dragon, but does Granny Nightshade have other loyal guards in Loomlurch?  Other than those awful tin soldiers, I mean."
2. "Do you know where this door," pointing at the one to the south, "leads?  Do you know what rooms are between here and the toy workshop?"
3. "Do you know...are there any other dangers in Loomlurch?  Like a trap or a curse?  Anything that would prevent us from getting all of you out of Loomlurch safely?"
4. "We've been through the lawn east of Loomlurch, but do you know whether the lawn on the west of Loomlurch is safe?  Could you cross the west lawn and get to the little gully that's south of Loomlurch?"
5. Finally, Val asks them, "Those fey creatures upstairs, those were 'boggles,' right?  Are there any other boggles in Loomlurch?"  Val reminds the other party members that to get out of Prismeer, they're going to need Squirt's help.  Squirt is willing to guide them out of Thither in exchange for boggle oil.  She doesn't want to have to go back upstairs (to L12) to do that, and if there are boggles elsewhere in Loomlurch, they can just try to do it once they find those other boggles.

Once they hear whatever the children can tell them, Val asks Elkhorn to take charge of the children.  That way, the party doesn't have to take the children with them into other potential dangers.  The party could leave them in one of the rooms on the ground floor, or maybe hiding in the yard, while the party looks for the remaining children. 

Val says, "We still need to check the workshop (L4), the other tower room (L8), and that room overlooking the west yard (L9)."  Val asks the other party members how they want to tackle it?  Going straight through Loomlurch may be the fastest, but they'll encounter every other surprise Granny Nightshade left in Loomlurch.  They could go outside either into the east or west yards, and come back in through another entrance, but that may ultimately take longer, especially if they run into any complications outside.

The party has one other "trick" that they can play.  Val says, "If we want to avoid fighting the tin soldiers and get out of here faster, we may be able to get a bunch them to run off into the woods by having the Sloane and Will's other companions trigger the distraction with the scarecrows in the west yard.  If Mishka found Will, I think that Sloane should be in place by now.  They're just waiting for our signal: either a shower of sparks from Ilifir or a blast on my whistle."  She holds up a signal whistle on a string around her neck.