Jack manages to form an extremely realistic appearance of a gnoll. Original enough not to be recognized, but realistic enough to fool most. 

Kashika looks around but notices no one suspicious.

You are all close enough to the castle to see that both guards are red lizardfolk. They both look rather bored, but remain alert nonetheless.

"I've got our 'bonds' covered," announced Jumble. "Gather around me, and I can create an illusion of a single rope binding our hands behind us and linking us together. I'll animate it so it looks natural as we walk. Jack can simply order us around then since it'll look like we can't escape."

With that, Jumble waited for the others to gather around him, placed his hands behind his back, and then cast a spell to fashion a rope around his own hands and the hands of those nearby.

(( Since it fills a 15-foot cube, Jumble's illusion can cover up to nine people, eight others with him in the middle. Anyone who wants to go along with the plan can just gather next to Jumble. ))

Looking down his new muzzle with crisscrossed eyes, and kneading his new clawed hands in the air in front of him, he admires his handiwork with fascination. "This is cool. I could get used to this." Despite being the person that crafted his voice, Jack still is surprised at hearing a stranger's voice in his own voicebox. He clears his throat loudly, but the wheezing quality doesn't go away. It had been so long since he last changed into a new form, he was experiencing the feeling of changing into someone new all over again. As he grows up two heads taller than his previous form, he can feel the new adrenaline pumping through his veins. He turns and faces the party with a proud smile curling over one jutting tooth. "What do you think? Oh nice, Jumble! That sounds awesome. Better than using a real rope, anyways." He looks over to Rethan and nods as he makes his suggestion. "If you put your weapons in a pile near you, I can grab them all and keep them safe until you need them. I'll be back in a sec. Try and hide yourselves behind a building while Jumble gets the rope illusion ready." Unless anyone has anything else to say, Jack walks off in the direction of foot traffic going towards the gates.

Jack keeps his mouth shut and his eyes peeled, almost staring at the guards as he tries to get a really good look at them. As he does so, he makes a mental list of what to pay attention to. I'll take the nose of that one, but the other's facial coloring, that one's hands... But how am I gonna get the clothing? Once he makes his rounds, he sneaks off to a nearby alley and begins the change. His face bubbles like a cauldron for a few seconds as he rearranges his face for the second time in a few minutes, wishing for it to go quickly and smoothly.

(Do I have to roll the D20 again? Or anything else?)

Zalten moves the holster for his daggers towards his back, concealing it under his tattered cloak, keeping his weapons blocked from view as he moves towards jumble, saying "Seems as good of a shot as we have as any. We'll be able to break out of the illusion in a moment's notice, and as long as Jack is convincing enough we should be able to get through unharmed". He then takes a moment to cast Guidance on Jack, hoping it will be enough to aid him in getting the group into the castle before gathering close to Jumble

Jack, are you trying to mimic the guards? They are Lizardfolk... Right now you can't see any more guards. You would be able to tell that these guards do not have the same armor as those you saw on the wall.

Nygil stares at Jack for a moment as the changeling...well, changes. He blinks, then says, "That is...really uncanny..." He shakes his head, "I... I mean, cool." He chuckles a little before turning to Jumble, "Oh good. That's even better!" 

With Jack beginning to do their part of the plan, and Jumble offering to cast a greater illusion to mask their -lack- of bondage... Kashika feels a pang of jealousy well up in her chest. If Jumble truly could perform a greater illusion than she could... she shook the thought from her head. Everyone had their talents... and once the cobwebs were cleared from her mind, she spoke to Jumble, in hushed tones. Why bother hiding or giving up our weapons? if your spell is stronger than mine ... you should be able to mask weapons.. much like how I was invisible within my own illusion... you could simply make it appear as though they aren't there.

There is no vitriol in her tone, she is simply stating what she believes to be possible, though as she has only ever weilded the lesser version of such a spell, she doesn't know for sure... she's just making an educated guess. With that, she moves in close, and puts her hands however Jumble would want them to be, as her eyes once more fall on Jack, whom the success of this plan hinges on.

Quote from Raiketsu >>

Why bother hiding or giving up our weapons? if your spell is stronger than mine ... you should be able to mask weapons.. much like how I was invisible within my own illusion... you could simply make it appear as though they aren't there.

"Oh?" said Jumble at the question, as it seemed to bring him out of a thought. He cocked his head for a moment, mentally finding his words, then responded in hushed tones with a sheepish smile, "Well, honestly I hadn't even thought of the weapons. Although I don't mind giving mine up for now." Remembering he still had his rapier, he tossed it into the pile for Jack to pickup.

"As for my spell," he continued, seemingly eager to be discussing magic, "this one has limitations that seem to occasionally vanish. For example, normally it can only be an illusion of a single object or creature, although sometimes I find I'm able to do more than one. Same with making things disappear... this spell usually can't achieve that, even though, strangely, on occasion it might work."

The bard shrugged at the weirdness of it all. "I guess there's more experimenting to be done with it? It might be that the gods just like playing around with the limits of our arcane magicks. That being the case, I guess I've just gotten into the habit of not trying to 'stress' the spell, as it were. Since doing so doesn't always work anyway."

Kashika looks around for a moment, considering their words... and ultimately decides that it sounds right-enough to likely be the truth. Afterall, her powers came naturally. She knew them intrinsically but that didn't mean she understood them fully. Regardless, she would nod at the explanation, F-fair enough. I can only use a weak version of that spell.. s-so i thoguht perhaps a stronger version of it might be able to. I-in the end, it doens't matter for me... i d-don't need weapons anyway.

(Going to try to push this along. Still not quite sure what Jack is trying to do right now.)

You hand your weapons to Jack and allow Jumble's spell to take action (Unless you don't wish to follow through with this.) Then you approach the lizard folk guards. They look strikingly similar to each other, wear identical armor, and carry twin halberds. Both look extremely board but brighten a bit when you approach. This give you the feeling that instances such as this do not happen often.

"Well what do we have here?" The guard on the right addresses Jack in a deep voice.

"What indeed?" The left guard echos though in a much higher pitched voice, "And who might you be? I don't recognize you. How did you manage to capture all those champions so quickly? They're usually mighty slippery...and why are you the only escort? "

"Hmmm." The right guard scratches his chin. Shifting his grip on his weapon he eyes you all suspiciously, "I'd also like to know why you brought them to the front gate rather than directly to the dungeon. I know His Majesty likes to see his sister's champions, but he doesn't usually bring obviously hostile ones into his home."

The left guard glances at the fading smoke then chuckles. "Just let the man tell us himself before you make any assumptions. I'm sure he'll tell us a marvelous story. Gotta have some excitement since we always get stuck on castle duty." He mutters something about a "ridiculous aesthetic" and "he's not even my brother."

The right guard is still suspicious.

Insight: 15

(For any of you actively trying to hide weapons or deceive the guards. You need to roll deception. I also still need to know what Jack is doing.)

(Would Kashika just trying to act bowed and cowed require that?)

(I'll say no since that's her usual posture. You could roll perception though just to see if she notices anything useful.)

(I am also not quite sure what Jack is doing. Got a little confused. But it’s fine.)

Maybe I should've just changed into the guard-mashup-thing earlier... Instead of this whole gnoll deal. Or maybe I stay in this form and just move on? This is confusing. With a heavy sigh, Jack decides to cut his losses and go with it. He walks back towards the group---as a heavy, hulking hyena-man----and huffs, "You know what? This is too complicated, I have to change twice to imitate the guards, and that takes a lot of energy and I reeeeally don't want to do that, so I'm sticking with the gnoll outfit. I don't even know why I left. Quick, give me your weapons, or hide them, whatever, and do the rope illusion thing. Then follow me."

Once everyone is ready, he takes a second to breathe and calm down as he grabs the weapons of whoever is willing to give them to him. The confusion he thought himself into made his heart beat in his ears, but now was no time to let his anxiety get to him. He bends down to Nygil's height and whispers, "I'm gonna yell and grab you real quick. If I say anything rude I don't mean it. Just a heads up," before immediately grabbing Nygil by the arm and---as gently as he can without making it seem like he's doing it gently---pulling them out into the street. "Come on, ya muck! Think ya can steal the King's crown, eh?" He spits at them, beginning the short walk to the front of the castle. Trying to sell the whole thing, he grumbles a bit under his breath, "Lucky I grabbed yer on my way out to take my shift." However, he tries to move slowly enough to give Jumble the space and the time to animate the rope correctly. When they arrive at the gates, Jack eyes the two guards as they talk, standing up a little straighter. He’s still holding on to Nygil’s arm.

“Yessir, it sure is exciting out there. Some of the other guys caught 'em running around the high class section of town. They were with that… That human? The one setting fire to all 'em buildings.” He chucks a thumb behind him to show what he means, though they were probably already aware. “She’s a wily one, she is. The other guys told me to go on ahead and take ‘em into 'is Majesty's court ‘cause I’m the new recruit. Didn't want to miss out on any of that excitement, anyhow. They’re all still chasing her around last I heard.” He looks back towards his ‘captured champions,’ giving them a particularly mean sneer. “An' these haven’t been giving us too much trouble though, they might just’ve been there to distract us from the girl. Not that they did much to help with that part, neither. Oh, I haven’t introduced m'self, haven't I?” He leans over, hand outstretched to shake each of their hands in turn if they accept them. “I’m Gak, just joined 'is Majesty’s force last week. And y'all are?” He tries to look as if he’s not about to have a panic attack in the middle of the street, sweating like a yeti at the beach in summer, unsure of how convincing he really looks. Should I just ask to go through now? Talk a little more, warm them up? I mean, the faster we can go through this the better. Oh Faia, I feel faint.

Deception: 19!

The guard on the right visibly relaxes after Jack tells his story. "Well, I suppose that explains why you aren't in uniform, though it's still odd that they'd tell you to bring them here." He scratches his chin. "I suppose it's also not surprising that we don't recognize you considering we are always stuck here. My name is Nix, and he's Nag. No we are not related." He says the last part as if answering an unasked question.

"Not even distantly," Nag adds, "Anyways if they told you to bring them here, you must be faster than the messenger. That's alright though... You're sure those fellas aren't gonna cause a fuss right. If ye think they're gonna try anything sneaky, I'd be happy to acomp--OWW!" He's cut off as Nix smacks him on the head.

"Idiot, we can't leave our post."

"Awe come on!"

Nix looks back at you, "Wait one moment. I'll let them know you are here." The lizardfolk reaches up with one hand and grabs a rope that is dangling from the arch. He pulls it, causing a muffled ringing to come from inside the castle. A few moments later the Castle door opens revealing another lizardfolk.

By his cloths and posture, you can guess that this is Zoran's butler. He eyes you with a tired-looking yet almost emotionless expression. Then looks back at the guards.

"Nix, Nag. What is the meaning of this?" He asks in a monotone voice.

"Oh the city guards captured these champions and thought Zoran would want to see them." Nag says quickly.

"Mmmm. Very well." He replies. He steps back and motions for Jack to enter. "Right this way."

Nygil, after Jack throws him forwards, adopts his best scowl...something he'd learned from watching his father walk through town. He straightens his cloths as best he can with his hands 'tied' and says, "You just got lucky you uncivilized mutt." He eyes the guards, "Barbarians, all of you. If we were in my world my father would have you all sent to prison. Humph!" He sticks his chin up and turns his face away as if to dismiss the not-brothers. 

When the butler comes out Nygil attempts to take a step forward (probably to be 'blocked' by Jack/Gak) before saying, "Ah, at last! Someone of some civility! ...oh, wait..." He pauses as if contemplating something before saying, "Oh good! Surely this is all a big misunderstanding..." He goes on to blabber about all sorts of things, playing up his 'snobby noble' appearance (which is scarily easy for him), while spouting off how he doesn't even know most of these people, and this stupid crown business is a job for commoners, and surely Zoran will be more reasonable then his insane sister ect. ect. It is difficult to differentiate his lies from truths, as they are quite jumbled together. 

Rethan keeps his head down and tries to look cowed while Jack interacts with the guards.

'Gak' eyes Nygil, matching his clearly practiced animosity as best he can. "Well, we're not in yer world, yer royal highness, so ya'd do yer best to shut yer ignorant mouth before 'is Majesty's guards," He mocks. "Yer all talk. A blind, senile toad can do more harm than you can." Oh, I feel so bad talking like this! Is the accent too much? Well, I've got to stick to it either way. Oh jeez. I hope they know I don't mean any of this. I feel dirty.

With his hand still on the elf's arm, he yanks him back as he tries to step forward to talk to the butler. 'Gak' keeps his mouth shut for the most part, with the exception of muttering an apology for the captives' behavior to all three lizardfolk, and a 'thank yeh kindly' to the butler. He steps forward after him, Nygil and the rest in tow.

Zalten remains silent, figuring with shrouded form and the whisps of his soul floating behind him the guards and butler might assume he is brutish and perhaps not really capable of pulling any tricks. Besides, with his weapons hidden, they've got no indication that he would be particularly dexterous or fast. Leaning into that presumed assumption, he grunts audibly at some of the guards as they are lead inside, pretending to "struggle" against the chains, the whisps of his soul fanning out around him as he does to attempt to look as menacing as possible. He stares daggers as the guards outside and then at the butler as they are lead in, hoping to intimidate them or at the very least ensure they are unaware of his real capabilities

Rolls if needed:
Intimidation: 14
Deception: 12

Kashika simply continues to be her natural self. She knows she's jumpy, and her head swivels just as it always does, though she does her best to not gain eye contact, the only deviation from her usual self.

Her only concern was when Nygil mentioned sending them to prison, sending her own heart to beat faster,  as she wondered if that would make them out their group in cells should they fail...

This only raises her jitters fornthe moment. But for now she refuses to speak... she believes Zoran already knows she's here... and as such, doesn't want to risk giving herself away just yet.... she knows they may have to fight at some point but wanted to not be the cause of it just yet...

For his part, Jumble mostly kept his head down, trying to look defeated, while concentrating on animating the illusion of their binding rope. The bard followed after Jack silently, waiting for a signal that they were to--what next, exactly? Well, whatever it was to do, he was determined to be ready.