Barty's "Tyranny In Phlan" (DDEX1-10)

The dead leg gifted to Spernik by Hildigrim causes the man to thrash and stumble into his desk, scattering supplies as he rights himself. Before he can utter the syllable of another spell, however, Auriel's gauntlet meets his face, and he drops to the ground like a wet towel.

Area Description:

The room is brightly lit by a fireplace on the west wall. In addition, there is an oil lamp on a desk in the side room.

In the room is a free-standing cell, currently open and empty. 

OOC: Each character has gained 462 XP for defeating Spernik and his guards.

Carl feels that Hildigrim will likely want to do the same, but he quickly walks over to the desk where Spernik was sitting and starts rifling through the drawers, looking for anything of interest quickly, any paperwork that looks important, anything that looks valuable.  "Guess we better move quickly before anyone else arrives.." 

Investigation : 17

Hildigrim’s body slackens as Spernik collapses. His rapier arm lowers slowly until the tip rests against the stone floor with a soft scrape. He does not look away from their unconscious quarry.

“Hex,” he says quietly, steady but firm, “if you would keep your disguise and take the door, that will buy us the time we need. The rest of us should position ourselves out of view. Close enough to support her. Far enough to preserve the illusion.”

He exhales once, sharply, then straightens. The fatigue drains from him as purpose reasserts itself. The rapier disappears into its sheath.

“Auriel. Please secure him.” His voice has returned to its familiar, composed cadence. “Tight bindings. Ankles as well as wrists. And gag him. If he wakes, I don’t want so much as a syllable escaping his mouth. And keep those fingers still as well.” A brief pause. “I have rope. And a cloak that can be sacrificed if necessary.”

"Carl, the bodies need to be hid. You may not be able to do much about the blood, but if we are swift we'll be done here before more guards arrive."

Only then does he look up from Spernik and approach the desk, surveying the scattered papers with a scholar’s hunger.

“While I see what secrets he’s been careless enough to leave lying about,” the Watcher says, lifting a parchment to the light and adjusting his spectacles, “I would be grateful if the three of you inclined toward the arcane would determine how we question him safely.”

He does not look up. “I will not have him speaking a word that isn’t of our choosing.”

Auriel doesn't waste time and does exactly as Hildigrim says, tying the unconscious man's ankles and hands as tightly as he can, without being especially careful ... quite the contrary. He gags him as well, then helps Carl deal with the bodies.

Regarding magic, he says, "Most spells require the caster to see his target. We've taken away his somatic movements, let's take away his vision as well." He proceeds to blindfold Spernik. "We'll have to remove the gag," he adds, "but only once he wakes and listens to what we have to say."

Once everyone is ready, he props Spernik up against the wall and slaps him back to consciousness. He's becoming quite fond of doing this. This time, the slap glows with a pinch of divine magic — just enough to wake the man.

 (ooc: He uses 1 point of Lay on Hands to wake Spernik).

Hex gives Hildigrim a nod and takes her position by the door, facing outward so that her back was turned towards the room. She crossed and flexed her arms, making her posture bigger attempting to block the view if anyone was to approach.

After investigating the desk, Carl pulls and drags the bodies into the adjacent cell, pulling them such that they are out of sight.  If there is a bucket or mug of water, he uses shape water to clean up any blood off the floor and swirl it magically into the bucket, then sets that in a corner out of the way, cleaning up the scene.  Then he rejoins them in the room with Spernik.  

Rifling through the desk, Carl and Hildirim look through a series of ledgers that appear, at a glance, to detail the prisoners being held within the Stojanow Gate.

The view outside of the room looks clear to Hex while Carl cleans up the bodies.

Auriel slaps Spernik awake. The man awakens rapidly with a startled scream, muffled against the cloth gagging him. Realizing he's unable to speak, the mumbling quickly stops as he takes in his surroundings, looking up at Auriel with eyes narrowed into slits and a brow furrowed with disapproval.

Auriel cares little for the way Spernik looks at him. He steps back from the prisoner, giving Hildigrim the space he needs to interrogate him, all the while keeping a watchful eye on the man — ready to send him to the Nine Hells if he tries anything.

Truth be told, he intends to send him there once the halfling is finished anyway.

He glances at Hildigrim and says simply, "Ask away."

The sound of Auriel’s palm striking flesh pulls Hildigrim from his narrowing focus. His mind returns to the room, though his eyes remain fixed on the parchment before him. He stares at the list of names without truly seeing them, forcing his breathing into an even rhythm. Am I ready for this? he thinks. I must be.

“You know as well as I do,” he says quietly, still appearing to read, “that you will not leave this room free. The question before you is not whether you die; it is whether your death has meaning.”

He sets the parchment down with deliberate care and finally turns his gaze upon their prisoner.

“You have already been brought back once. I intend to ensure that does not happen again. If you would like to influence how that is accomplished, now would be the moment.”

He steps behind Spernik and begins loosening the knot at the gag.

“You’ve already died once. That tells me you are useful — not valued. There is a difference.” A slight tightening of the cord. “If you cease to be useful, do you truly believe they will restore you again?”

He leans closer, voice lowering. “Cooperate, and you need not vanish in some forgotten chamber at the whim of a dragon cultist who finds you inconvenient.”

Holding the ends of the gag in his ink-stained fingers, he adds almost absently, “It would be unfortunate if the name Spernik disappeared from the annals of history entirely.”

He straightens. “I am going to remove this gag so that we may speak. If you attempt to cast, signal, or otherwise betray this courtesy ...” His eyes flick briefly to Auriel and Carl. “... you will discover how efficiently we correct mistakes.”

If Hildigrim gets the feeling Spernik is willing to cooperate:

If Hildigrim gets the feeling Spernik is not willing to cooperate:

Auriel adds nothing further. Hildigrim has already made their intentions perfectly clear. He stands beside the halfling, silent and immovable, his attention fixed on Spernik — measuring every word and the faintest twitch of muscle for signs of a lie. (ooc: Insight check, if possible?)

Rolls:

Hildigrim Insight: 4
Auriel Insight: 23

Within moments of waking, Spernik begins sweating profusely, his breaths coming more rapid and heavier as Hildigrim's speech progresses. His eyes widen, then narrow, as Hildigrim removes the cloth from his mouth.

"What...what...why does it matter?" Spernik asks. "I-I am Spernik! I am the very dragon cultist of which you speak! The annals have already been written. All will know that it was I who enabled The Maimed Virulence to claim Phlan and slay its nobility."

For Auriel:

For a flicker of a moment, Hildigrim feels Spernik's declaration press against him. The Maimed Virulence — just as Aya suspected. The certainty in the cultist’s voice. The confidence of someone who believes history is already written.

He nearly responds to it. Nearly.

Instead, another voice surfaces in his mind — not spoken aloud, but recalled in careful ink on yellowed vellum. A Harper treatise he once read in Thentia, its spine cracked from years of quiet study.

Do not contest a zealot’s legend. Legends are armor. Strike at the straps beneath it.

Hildigrim's jaw tightens. Structure, not story. He steps forward, folding his hands behind his back, the gag twisting slowly between his fingers.

“Yes,” he says evenly. He is careful to refrain from either mocking or flattering. “You are Spernik. And dragons have long memories.” A beat. “But you did not answer my question.”

He tilts his head slightly, studying the cultist’s face as though examining a specimen rather than an enemy. “You died. And someone decided you were worth the spell.”

He pauses. “I am not interested in your dragon’s ambition. I am interested in the mechanics of your return.”

His brown eyes sharpen just a fraction. “Who performed the ritual?”

Silence follows — deliberate this time, counted in the back of his mind the way the old margin note had advised.

Silence compels the guilty to fill it.

Hildigrim waits.

Carl looks at Hildigrim, admiring his patience and scholarly persistence in finding the truth, his method of interrogation… but he starts to lose patience.  He slides over the bucket he just used to clean up the area, looks up to Auriel and Hex, saying, “If you hold his feet up and tilt his head down.”  Carl weaves his hands over the water, causing it to rise up in the air and hover over his airway.  

“Answer the lad’s question!  Now!  Or I swear I’ll make you choke on this foul water and make you wish you were dead!”  Carl glowers at the man, holding his hands ready, water hovering in the air.

Intimidation (with adv, came out to be the same roll) : 10

Auriel's brows lift at Carl's move. There was a time when he would have objected — even if the threat went against someone like Spernik — but that time feels distant now. The surprise is there, brief and muted, more at Carl's sudden ferocity than the threat itself.

Without comment, Auriel steps in. He grips Spernik’s jaw and tilts his head down toward the bucket unceremoniously. Spernik is already quite nervous, perhaps this will shatter his boldness completely.

As Carl begins outlining his method, Hildigrim’s head turns sharply. For a brief second, surprise flashes across his face — not at the brutality, but at the loss of control. His mouth parts slightly as his mind begins to spin. It isn't until Auriel steps in to assist that the halfling's finally able to speak.

“No.”

The word is not loud. But it is firm. He steps forward, attempting to place himself physically between Spernik and Carl.

“That will not help us."

His gaze moves between the dwarf and the elf, steady but not accusatory.

“He expects pain. He has prepared himself for it. You will not break a cultist with suffering — you will confirm his faith.”

His eyes flick briefly to Spernik.

“And you will hand him the martyrdom he is hoping for.”

Carl pauses, his eyes were going dark black, now he focuses on Hildigrim, straightening up.  The water drops back into the bucket.  “Okay.  He just… he made me want to boil over.  And the things he has done… but you’re right.  I almost lost myself there a minute.”  Now his face flickers back to anger.  At Spernik.  

“Answer him!  Be glad he’s here or you would’ve had a most unpleasant time..”

Auriel stops as well, reminding himself that despite the man before him, he still has an oath and principles to uphold.

He decides to try something else. Ignoring Spernik completely, he looks to Hildigrim and Carl.

"We're wasting our time here. This one doesn't know a thing. He's worthless. Probably made a name for himself on the work of others and has no real value himself."

“Who performed the ritual?”

Spernik simply laughs. "Even if I knew my resurrector, you think I would simply hand over that information to you? You? You're already dead! There's no way out of Phlan, we've made sure of that. The Tears of Virulence will hunt you down, every last one of--"

He's interrupted by Carl's threats. He stammers for a moment, seemingly unsure of how to respond, but decides to go silent. He glares between Hildigrim and Carl, his breaths a bit heaving with nerves or frustration.

"We're wasting our time here. This one doesn't know a thing. He's worthless. Probably made a name for himself on the work of others and has no real value himself."

"How dare you!?" Spernik suddenly bellows. "The work of others? It was I who swayed the order of Bane within the Black Fist to our cause, I who coordinated with them to learn of the meeting, and I who sent word to Ixusaxa Terrorsong when Phlan's nobility was gathering. You think Severin would have seen fit to bring me back to life if I had no real value? You are a joke!"

OOC: DM, has Hildigrim heard of Severin?

Following Spernik’s shouts, Hildigrim simply watches him. His face remains impassive as he replays in his mind what the cultist has just revealed.

The Watcher had assumed it would fall to him to extract the truth from Spernik. It was Auriel, however, who discovered the man’s pressure point.

A line of careful script rises unbidden in his memory — a passage from a Harper volume he once studied in his hometown.

Pain strengthens conviction. Obscurity weakens it. A zealot will endure torment for a cause, but few men will endure being forgotten.

Hildigrim had underlined that line at the time, though he remembers wondering whether it was truly so simple.

Now he isn’t wondering.

It is time to increase the pressure.

The halfling folds his hands behind his back again, the posture of a lecturer more than a jailer. He glances toward Auriel. “It appears you may be correct,” he says thoughtfully. “We may have credited this man with more importance than he deserves.”

His gaze returns to Spernik.

“Recruiting followers ... sending messages ...” He tilts his head slightly and gestures toward the scattered papers on the desk. “Keeping records. These are the tasks of a courier. Of a servant. Useful work, perhaps, but hardly the work of the architect you claim to be. After all,” he continues evenly, “summoning a dragon is not the same thing as commanding one.”

He pauses.

“If you were restored for that ... it suggests the cult’s standards may be slipping.”

His brown eyes remain fixed on the prisoner.

“So tell me,” Hildigrim says softly, “wasn't Ixusaxa already bound for Phlan when you sent your message? Or did you truly believe you orchestrated the whole affair?”

Carl stands over Spernik, listening to Hildigrim's interrogation and tactic.  He chooses a different way, standing over him with shocking grasp crackling in between his fingertips.  "Answer.  I wonder if ole Severin would expend the effort again.  Second time's the charm?  What if your face was burned off this time?"

Intimidation to help with the interrogation :  21