Pizazz's Ravenloft and Beyond

"From the north." Lionel politely nodded to the bard one last time, added "We should not keep you then from enjoying festivities. Mordekai, let us give our most gracious host possibility to greet other guests." And hoping for tiefling's good hearing added "Get Meepo and lets meet by Ulthan. Something is wrong - Ketch has disappered."

If he was not stopped by Quill and Renekor, Lionel without visible hurry but fast enough joined Ulthan at his hiding spot, waited for others and repeated. "Ketch is gone. I saw him touching that painting and disappearing."

"Very well, I look forward to hearing your stories and songs later if time permits.  If not, perhaps in the next few days, then.  The locals tell us you have been in the habit of entertaining them in the past.  Enjoy your party, it certainly is one of the best I've ever been to."

With that, Mordekai walks calmly away...outwardly, at least.  He will walk to Meepo first, and not necessarily join with Lionel and Ulthan immediately.  As he gets to Meepo, he'll keep his back to Quill and the beholder, and take out his Book of Shadows as he says to Meepo, "Ketch is now lost.  Lionel says he just disappeared".  Turning to the page with the group's names on it, he'll take a minute to first send a message to Lionel which he hears in his head, "Stay calm.  Let's not all converge together just yet.  Give me a moment to reach out to Ketch."  Without waiting for a response from Lionel, he takes another minute to send a message to Ketch: "Are you ok?  You vanished.  Are you in danger?  Do you know where you are?  Do you know what happened?" 

(Ketch is able to reply, presumably within the 25 word limit of Sending, and it takes a minute for each, so if Lionel thinks we need to rush, he's got time to walk over and interrupt the second casting.)

Meepo sighs, looking around for their missing friend. He waits for Mordekai to do his thing, keeping an eye on the beholder as Mordekai works.

Since others are not panicked yet, neither is Ulthan, but interestingly many-eyes is not rushing off yet, merely inquiring something or other. But he does make a note of the painting-that-leads-to-somewhere but traveling to somewhere and not knowing where via magic is not on top of Ulthan's priorities. Until there's a good reason for it.

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Quote from Xarboth >>

Mordekai  takes another minute to send a message to Ketch: "Are you ok?  You vanished.  Are you in danger?  Do you know where you are?  Do you know what happened?" 

      Upon Mordekai's book of shadows the following words appear:  Touched painting now in cell with Arrant Quill. If dagger solves issue, someone enter with it? If I misunderstood, wait. No known way out.

Mordekai shows the writing to Meepo as it appears, and heads over to Lionel and Ulthan to explain. 

"Ketch says he's with the real Quill, trapped in the painting's magic. If we take the dagger, we may have a chance to persuade Quill of its purpose and allow us to free him. I suggest I go first as the most persuasive of us, and take the dagger with me in case the painting's magic somehow stops or is cut off? Then the rest of us either follow discreetly one at a time, or perhaps even keep watch out here to keep up appearances. But I'd be taking our only means of communication in there, so it might be best to keep all together."

"Go!" Immediately agreed Lionel. "The beast and imposter are watching and might try to stop you, it is better we are here defending your departure."

"Ulthan, what do you say we show our host your cat? Might distract even the beholder." Whether Ulthan agree or not, Lionel returned to the imposter and Renekor to ask about the manor, the statue at the entrance, the weather - anything to keep the attention on himself to let Mordekai get through the painting unnoticed.

Mordekai receives the dagger from Ulthan, and (assuming Ulthan offers it? If not, ignore the following!) Mordekai will wander casually over, not looking at the painting until he's close to it. Then, equally casually, he acts as though it's just caught his eye. And, as if he's wondering if the smeared paint is still wet, he reaches out his hand to touch the painting. 

Meepo stays near Mordekai, ready to aid if the beholder takes too much interest in him. He will stand guard by the painting if Mordekai is able to get inside of it, wanting to help keep the beholder from it if it tries to go that way.

Not entirely sure what's real and not real in this not-real place, Ulthan surrenders the knife. He'll follow along with the plan, unsure why to meet the fake one, but will follow instructions at this time. 

     “Wait!” Ketch voice says in Mordekai's head.  Mordekai recognizes Ketch as the sender and knows he can mentally respond, much as Ketch was able to his book's sending... Unfortunately Ketch sends just the one word for the moment.

Assuming the message arrives in time, Mordekai stops to admire the painting as he replies in his head, "If you have the real Quill, and I have the dagger...I was going to come and speak with him. What's wrong?"

     Ketch's voice returns once more... "If not real Quill, dagger may be trapped here. Prefer to confirm or find way out first. Conserving spells til I know." 

"This Quill seems reluctant to sing.  Assess the talent of yours and I'll be back in touch in a minute."

Mordekai beckons Meepo back to their discreet corner. (Not sure if Lionel, Ulthan and Utazo are now holding the beholder attention, but maybe they held back when Mordekai didn't go through the painting. Either way, Mordekai would still like to be as discreet as possible).

Quietly to Meepo once out of earshot of anyone else, "Ketch says to wait while he figures out which is the real Quill. I'll give him a minute then send him another message. Hmm... Perhaps we do need a quieter room if I'm to keep sending Ketch messages?"

Mordekai thinks about that as he waits a minute to give Ketch time to persuade the (hopefully real) legendary bard to sing for him.

(Not wanting to jump the narrative ahead too fast, to give time for Meepo to reply to the suggestion of a different room, and presumably some secret conversions between Ketch and the DM outside of the game thread, but Mordekai intends to send another message to Ketch rather than use Ketch's spell slots. Mordekai made that clear to Ketch, but wasn't sure it was clear from my post, since I didn't send the message yet)

“Meepo think use knife on this bard.”  Meepo suggests.  “If no work, then not right bard.  Go painting and use on other then.”

"The risk there is incurring the wrath of beholder. Let me send one more message."

Mordekai will once again turn his back to the beholder and pull out the Tome, sending to Ketch, now that a couple minutes have passed, "Can yours sing? And have you learned any information that could help us?"

5

(Ketch, you receive the message.)

    Ketch responds, causing the following to appear in Mordekai’s book.  “Seems too snobby to perform right now. Think it’s him. Dimension Door doesn’t work. If send dagger in, may be trapped. Cage within cage?”

Ulthan shrugs "hrmpfh chop painting scrape paint maybe good maybe bad hrmpfh". "hrmpfh maybe distract steal painting make painting look like still there hrmpfh" "hrmpfh experiment painting elsewhere hrmpfh".