Cold fingers cause Jan some trouble as she huddles against the constant onslaught of icy winds. But after a long moment, Jan's able to hook the latch and lift it just high enough to release the lock. The door pushes in easily, the wind causing it to hit the wall harder than Jan would have liked.
She struggles against the weight of the wind but is finally able to close the door behind her and lock the latch.
The same heatless torches illuminate a curving staircase leading down the tower, the stone steps worn by decades of heavy boots.
Going down the stairs 10'-15' shows Jan the next level below. The staircase continues downwards past the next level, where she can hear the sounds of a few prison guards in the barracks below.
Besides the stairwell back to the roof, and down to the barracks, there is a single closed door. From what she can remember from K's reconnaissance, this likely leads to the Absolution Council Room.
Marrin continues on past the meeting room doorway. William and Gillian Hargrove can be heard talking loudly inside, though, Marrin would have to pause and put her head to the door to hear what's being said. The two actual guards in the patrol continue on ahead.
Solomona and Vonth have both been in the prison long enough to know that whatever is happening today isn't normal.
The bald, bearded, black robed man eventually stops talking to Korda and heads out the western hallway from the panopticon. The warden heads out the eastern passage way.
The central part of the prison is quiet for a moment but shouting can again be heard towards the east.
A guard leaves the central surveillance hub and heads towards the entrance by Solomona's and Vonth's cells. Both recognize him as Culver, a wiry, 50 something human prison guard who has always been decent towards the prisoners.
He pauses and nods when he sees Solomona and Vonth watching what's going on.
Jarrin is crap at listening, much better at being listened to. She gives Ava nudge and tilts her head at the door meaningfully before following the guards. She will have a coughing fit if she thinks they are getting too far away from Ava, hopefully slowing down the normal guards so Ava listen without ending up on her own.
Vonth rested back on his heels, hands on his thighs, breath slow. From a distance he looked carved—another lump of stone in a place made of it. Inside, his thoughts were empty and still, the way the high cliffs were still before a storm. But stillness was not blindness. Like the mountains, he felt what moved across him.
Sounds carried differently today. Footsteps were quicker, sharper. Voices held tightness. The air itself seemed uneasy—pressure shifting, cold threading through the cracks a little too soon in the morning, a heat in the distant sounds he could not quite make out. Something in the prison was wrong. He did not yet know what. The stone did.
“Bit of a right cock-up today,” a voice says as it passed.
Culver. A guard, and one of the few who did not hide spite behind their position. Older, slower, but decent. Decency alone made him rare in this place.
Vonth opened his eyes long enough to blink. Nothing more. For him, it was almost a greeting.
Culver dipped his head, accepting it like a small honor. Most guards would never earn even that. If blood ever ran in these halls—and it would, someday—Vonth intended to spare Culver if fate allowed it.
In a nearby cell sat Solomona. Vonth did not look toward them, but he was aware of their presence in the same way he was aware of a ledge above a sheer drop: quietly, constantly. They had exchanged few words, but words mattered little. Bearing mattered more.
Solomona did not carry themselves like frightened stock waiting for slaughter. They were something else—something that watched, measured, and waited. If the walls ever cracked open, most prisoners would scatter like panicked animals. Solomona would not.
The day was different. The air tasted of it. But difference did not mean destiny. Opportunity was a precise thing, like the moment before loose stone falls. He would not mistake tension for timing.
So Vonth returned to stillness. Breath. Stone. Awareness spread thin through the walls and floors, catching every tremor.
He waited. And the prison around him shifted, quietly, toward whatever came next.
Solomona's new room was nicer than the last one. A bit bigger. Not quite square... more of a triangle, really, which he found delightfully novel. There was a little spider in the ceiling corner above the bed, and he was already thinking of a name for her. The mattress was only moderately lumpy, and the toilet bucket had noticeably less of that lingering tang his previous one enjoyed. And, as always, the accommodation came completely free of charge.
There were, however, a few things Solomona missed about his old room. His previous neighbour had been much more talkative. The new one, Vonth, was a big fullah, broad as a boulder, but not big on conversation. Are you married? Do you like carving wood? Are you a poet? You gonna eat that half a crust? All perfectly normal ice-breakers, he thought, in this cold place. Yet each had been met with the same solid, geological silence. Ah well. People who don’t talk much were often very wise. That is what Solomona decided.
At least Vonth didn’t seem to mind the morning fa‘ataupati, the slap-dance. Other prisoners had either laughed or scolded him, but Vonth seemed perfectly content to let the rhythms roll past him like a gentle surf. Patient, steady, like someone who had found his uho.
Solomona was already standing at the bars when Culver passed by, and he greeted him in the usual cheerful tone and high-pitched voice that often startled new guards.
Ah, serious? Don’t worry, eh. Warden Marthannis is pretty switched on. She’ll get things back in order, don’t ya reckon?
He leaned forward, and with perfect fraternal sincerity asked: Anything I can help wiv, bro?
Because even in a prison cell, Solomona could not imagine a problem that couldn’t be eased with a little conversation, a little dance, and perhaps a soothing massage.
"Listen, Sol," Culver began. "There are a whole bunch of soldiers in the prison who shouldn't rightly be here. I don't know how the warden is going to get them out. It's this new high muckety-muck and his family that brought them. If things turn ugly, get to the back of your cell. You should be safe there."
Culver starts to leave but then looks back at Solomona and then over to Vonth in the next cell.
"Make sure he gets that too." Culver says. He pauses and looks around, then back over his shoulder and to the surveillance hub before stepping closer to Solomona's cell door. In a whisper he adds "Lord Hargrove's son scares the crap out of me. If he gets in control things could get bad. For all of us."
Already thinking what Marrin is suggesting, Ava heads to the door and presses her ear against it. If she's caught, she's already put up enough stink about these people, no one should be surprised she is trying to find out more.
But she finds herself smiling at Marrin's performance, always entertaining that one, even when things were about the take a turn for the worst. She could just feel it.
The adrenaline still pounds in Avaria's ears. Seeing Godrick Hargrove again threatens to push her volatile temper over the edge. All of this makes it difficult to make out everything being said behind the closed door.
However, she does catch a few snippets. She hears Godrick's voice saying that "she's made some sort of deal with them but is being coy about what it is". Then something indecipherable from one of the other Hargroves, followed again by Godrick saying "she knows the stakes if she doesn't aid us but she seems to think she's protected here." Again this is followed by something indecipherable. Finally she catches "we'll change that now."
Before she can hear more, 'Jarrin' launches into a coughing fit. From the sounds of it, Avaria almost believes that Jarrin is about to choke.
The other guards stop and look back and then see Avaria further back. As the coughing stops, the voices in the meeting room stop as well.
Catching up to the others, the guard patrol continues around the outer perimeter hallway, slowly checking the storeroom, the latrines, the infirmary, and onwards.
(So you're saying they put a square peg in a triangular hole??)
Solomona spoke — of course he did.
“Ah, serious? Don’t worry, eh. Warden Marthannis is pretty switched on. She’ll get things back in order, don’t ya reckon?”
Vonth didn’t look toward them. He didn’t need to. Solomona’s voice carried that same strange warmth it always did — open, friendly, as if the prison had never pressed its weight on them at all. Odd for most prisoners. Expected for Solomona.
“Anything I can help wiv, bro?” he asked Culver.
Culver’s boots shifted, his sigh low and tired. “Listen, Sol… there are a whole bunch of soldiers in the prison who shouldn’t rightly be here. I don’t know how the warden is going to get them out. It’s this new high muckety-muck and his family that brought them. If things turn ugly, get to the back of your cell. You should be safe there.”
Safe. A small, useless word.
Vonth kept his gaze forward, unmoving. Soldiers inside the walls. A new authority. A threat even Culver felt. None of that surprised him. Storms rolled in without permission. Culver started to leave, then hesitated. His eyes flicked to Solomona… then to Vonth.
“Make sure he gets that too,” he said.
As if Vonth needed someone to interpret danger for him.
Culver checked the hallway, then leaned in close to Solomona’s door. His whisper was a brittle thing. “Lord Hargrove’s son scares the crap out of me. If he gets in control things could get bad. For all of us.”
His footsteps faded.
Vonth breathed in once, slow, deep. The air tasted different—restless. Soldiers. A shifting command. Fear in a guard’s voice. All signs of something cracking beneath the surface.
Safety in the back of the cell? That was for people who waited to be saved.
The Ogelellum made their own safety—with their hands, their resolve, their readiness to meet whatever came. He would not hide. He would not crouch.
Vonth rose, joints unfolding like stone slabs shifting into place. He stepped toward the front of the cell, toward the bars, toward whatever change pressed against the air of the prison.
Opportunity must be seized if it is to be taken advantage of. One does not seize it from the back of the room.
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Jan tucks her hands under her armpits, trying to warm them up a bit before tackling the lock.
((Would being able to make use of K's tremorsense and casting her senses through them give her any benefit?))
15: Thieves' Tools
DM: Forged in Chaos, Spiders of the Abyss, The Sundered Way, Champions of the Citadel
Active Characters:
Breldo, Halfling Ranger | Kathryn, Wood Elf Rogue/Ranger | Kroshav, Dragonborn Paladin | T'laren Farsiel, Wood Elf Fighter | Trill, Kenku Bard | Val "Janellae", Mark of Shadow Elf Warlock
((Just enough not to need K!))
DM: Forged in Chaos, Spiders of the Abyss, The Sundered Way, Champions of the Citadel
Active Characters:
Breldo, Halfling Ranger | Kathryn, Wood Elf Rogue/Ranger | Kroshav, Dragonborn Paladin | T'laren Farsiel, Wood Elf Fighter | Trill, Kenku Bard | Val "Janellae", Mark of Shadow Elf Warlock
((small edit: Marrin disguised as Jan and Jan disguised as Marrin (who is disguised as Marta).))
Guard team continues its patrol circuit unless something/someone indicates they should change that.
JAN IN THE TOWER:
Cold fingers cause Jan some trouble as she huddles against the constant onslaught of icy winds. But after a long moment, Jan's able to hook the latch and lift it just high enough to release the lock. The door pushes in easily, the wind causing it to hit the wall harder than Jan would have liked.
She struggles against the weight of the wind but is finally able to close the door behind her and lock the latch.
The same heatless torches illuminate a curving staircase leading down the tower, the stone steps worn by decades of heavy boots.
Going down the stairs 10'-15' shows Jan the next level below. The staircase continues downwards past the next level, where she can hear the sounds of a few prison guards in the barracks below.
Besides the stairwell back to the roof, and down to the barracks, there is a single closed door. From what she can remember from K's reconnaissance, this likely leads to the Absolution Council Room.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE GUARDS:
Marrin continues on past the meeting room doorway. William and Gillian Hargrove can be heard talking loudly inside, though, Marrin would have to pause and put her head to the door to hear what's being said. The two actual guards in the patrol continue on ahead.
Is Avaria continuing on as well?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE PRISONERS:
Solomona and Vonth have both been in the prison long enough to know that whatever is happening today isn't normal.
The bald, bearded, black robed man eventually stops talking to Korda and heads out the western hallway from the panopticon. The warden heads out the eastern passage way.
The central part of the prison is quiet for a moment but shouting can again be heard towards the east.
A guard leaves the central surveillance hub and heads towards the entrance by Solomona's and Vonth's cells. Both recognize him as Culver, a wiry, 50 something human prison guard who has always been decent towards the prisoners.
He pauses and nods when he sees Solomona and Vonth watching what's going on.
"Bit of a right cock up, today," he says.
Jarrin is crap at listening, much better at being listened to. She gives Ava nudge and tilts her head at the door meaningfully before following the guards. She will have a coughing fit if she thinks they are getting too far away from Ava, hopefully slowing down the normal guards so Ava listen without ending up on her own.
"Swa...cough...gag...swallow...hack...wheeze...swa...cough cough... swallowed my...hack... cough...gasp...my spit...deep slow breath...*coughing fit starts over*...my spit wrong."
Performance (if needed): 27
Sounds carried differently today. Footsteps were quicker, sharper. Voices held tightness. The air itself seemed uneasy—pressure shifting, cold threading through the cracks a little too soon in the morning, a heat in the distant sounds he could not quite make out. Something in the prison was wrong. He did not yet know what. The stone did.
“Bit of a right cock-up today,” a voice says as it passed.
Culver.
A guard, and one of the few who did not hide spite behind their position. Older, slower, but decent. Decency alone made him rare in this place.
Vonth opened his eyes long enough to blink. Nothing more. For him, it was almost a greeting.
Culver dipped his head, accepting it like a small honor. Most guards would never earn even that. If blood ever ran in these halls—and it would, someday—Vonth intended to spare Culver if fate allowed it.
In a nearby cell sat Solomona. Vonth did not look toward them, but he was aware of their presence in the same way he was aware of a ledge above a sheer drop: quietly, constantly. They had exchanged few words, but words mattered little. Bearing mattered more.
Solomona did not carry themselves like frightened stock waiting for slaughter. They were something else—something that watched, measured, and waited. If the walls ever cracked open, most prisoners would scatter like panicked animals. Solomona would not.
The day was different. The air tasted of it. But difference did not mean destiny. Opportunity was a precise thing, like the moment before loose stone falls. He would not mistake tension for timing.
So Vonth returned to stillness.
Breath.
Stone.
Awareness spread thin through the walls and floors, catching every tremor.
He waited.
And the prison around him shifted, quietly, toward whatever came next.
Solomona's new room was nicer than the last one. A bit bigger. Not quite square... more of a triangle, really, which he found delightfully novel. There was a little spider in the ceiling corner above the bed, and he was already thinking of a name for her. The mattress was only moderately lumpy, and the toilet bucket had noticeably less of that lingering tang his previous one enjoyed. And, as always, the accommodation came completely free of charge.
There were, however, a few things Solomona missed about his old room. His previous neighbour had been much more talkative. The new one, Vonth, was a big fullah, broad as a boulder, but not big on conversation. Are you married? Do you like carving wood? Are you a poet? You gonna eat that half a crust? All perfectly normal ice-breakers, he thought, in this cold place. Yet each had been met with the same solid, geological silence. Ah well. People who don’t talk much were often very wise. That is what Solomona decided.
At least Vonth didn’t seem to mind the morning fa‘ataupati, the slap-dance. Other prisoners had either laughed or scolded him, but Vonth seemed perfectly content to let the rhythms roll past him like a gentle surf. Patient, steady, like someone who had found his uho.
Solomona was already standing at the bars when Culver passed by, and he greeted him in the usual cheerful tone and high-pitched voice that often startled new guards.
Ah, serious? Don’t worry, eh. Warden Marthannis is pretty switched on. She’ll get things back in order, don’t ya reckon?
He leaned forward, and with perfect fraternal sincerity asked: Anything I can help wiv, bro?
Because even in a prison cell, Solomona could not imagine a problem that couldn’t be eased with a little conversation, a little dance, and perhaps a soothing massage.
(Solomona is about 6' tall, and almost as wide)
How does a red dragon blow out the candles on its birthday cake?
THE PRISONERS:
Culver stops and smiles at Solomona.
"Listen, Sol," Culver began. "There are a whole bunch of soldiers in the prison who shouldn't rightly be here. I don't know how the warden is going to get them out. It's this new high muckety-muck and his family that brought them. If things turn ugly, get to the back of your cell. You should be safe there."
Culver starts to leave but then looks back at Solomona and then over to Vonth in the next cell.
"Make sure he gets that too." Culver says. He pauses and looks around, then back over his shoulder and to the surveillance hub before stepping closer to Solomona's cell door. In a whisper he adds "Lord Hargrove's son scares the crap out of me. If he gets in control things could get bad. For all of us."
Already thinking what Marrin is suggesting, Ava heads to the door and presses her ear against it. If she's caught, she's already put up enough stink about these people, no one should be surprised she is trying to find out more.
But she finds herself smiling at Marrin's performance, always entertaining that one, even when things were about the take a turn for the worst. She could just feel it.
Perception: 8 (passive 15)
THE GUARDS:
The adrenaline still pounds in Avaria's ears. Seeing Godrick Hargrove again threatens to push her volatile temper over the edge. All of this makes it difficult to make out everything being said behind the closed door.
However, she does catch a few snippets. She hears Godrick's voice saying that "she's made some sort of deal with them but is being coy about what it is". Then something indecipherable from one of the other Hargroves, followed again by Godrick saying "she knows the stakes if she doesn't aid us but she seems to think she's protected here." Again this is followed by something indecipherable. Finally she catches "we'll change that now."
Before she can hear more, 'Jarrin' launches into a coughing fit. From the sounds of it, Avaria almost believes that Jarrin is about to choke.
The other guards stop and look back and then see Avaria further back. As the coughing stops, the voices in the meeting room stop as well.
Catching up to the others, the guard patrol continues around the outer perimeter hallway, slowly checking the storeroom, the latrines, the infirmary, and onwards.
Jarrin leans in for the hot goss from Ava as they walk.
(So you're saying they put a square peg in a triangular hole??)
Solomona spoke — of course he did.
“Ah, serious? Don’t worry, eh. Warden Marthannis is pretty switched on. She’ll get things back in order, don’t ya reckon?”
Vonth didn’t look toward them. He didn’t need to. Solomona’s voice carried that same strange warmth it always did — open, friendly, as if the prison had never pressed its weight on them at all. Odd for most prisoners. Expected for Solomona.
“Anything I can help wiv, bro?” he asked Culver.
Culver’s boots shifted, his sigh low and tired. “Listen, Sol… there are a whole bunch of soldiers in the prison who shouldn’t rightly be here. I don’t know how the warden is going to get them out. It’s this new high muckety-muck and his family that brought them. If things turn ugly, get to the back of your cell. You should be safe there.”
Safe.
A small, useless word.
Vonth kept his gaze forward, unmoving. Soldiers inside the walls. A new authority. A threat even Culver felt. None of that surprised him. Storms rolled in without permission. Culver started to leave, then hesitated. His eyes flicked to Solomona… then to Vonth.
“Make sure he gets that too,” he said.
As if Vonth needed someone to interpret danger for him.
Culver checked the hallway, then leaned in close to Solomona’s door. His whisper was a brittle thing. “Lord Hargrove’s son scares the crap out of me. If he gets in control things could get bad. For all of us.”
His footsteps faded.
Vonth breathed in once, slow, deep. The air tasted different—restless. Soldiers. A shifting command. Fear in a guard’s voice. All signs of something cracking beneath the surface.
Safety in the back of the cell?
That was for people who waited to be saved.
The Ogelellum made their own safety—with their hands, their resolve, their readiness to meet whatever came. He would not hide. He would not crouch.
Vonth rose, joints unfolding like stone slabs shifting into place. He stepped toward the front of the cell, toward the bars, toward whatever change pressed against the air of the prison.
Opportunity must be seized if it is to be taken advantage of.
One does not seize it from the back of the room.