Graxx to his companions, "If any of you have any questions for the prisoners, now is the time. Oh, if you have a question for the cultist, you should probably ask it sooner than later."
The bloody barbarian will walk back out to the room with the prisoners.
"Your daughter is alive and coming out in a minute now that it is safe, gnome."
Graxx will put Lightbreaker onto his back and will draw his handaxe in one hand and the cell key in another.
"You will now see that I am a man of honor who keeps my word. I will now free you Welcomer girl as you have proved useful to us. If any of the rest of you move when I open this cell, I will split your gord. Come forward for your freedom girl."
Graxx will wait for the girl to approach the cell door. He will then insert the key, allow her to exit and then lock the cell back behind her.
"Who would like to be useful next?" Graxx waits for a prisoner to respond or for his companions to ask direct questions.
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Seeing the girlie being taken care of, Utar turns to the obelisk in front of him, trying to tell if the symbols have religious meaning.
Religion - 10
His attention remains focused on the stone in front of him as he calls over his shoulder, "Marfaen, what do you make of these marks? Can we use them to bring this place down?"
Andmarir is glad that the situation is under control now. Though as the others look into the girl and the pillars , he will keep an eye out for anything that may cause them hard. Though, at the same time he will retrieve as many arrows as possible.
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
(@DracheLehre: I'll interpret that perception roll as a medicine one instead, for a total of 22.)
Neya, Drazzim and Rag all head straight to the cage. Looking around, they notice that Villonah remains seated with her back to the entrance, rocking back and forth and whispering to herself something about not getting out. She does not reply to either Neya or Drazzim. The monk assesses that her mental state is even worse than her physical one, and she looks quite meek. Neya doubts that she can walk on her own. They also take note that the door is on the north face of the cage. Taking that as his cue, Rag attempts to fiddle with the lock, but notices that the cage was purposefully never locked.
The rogue will then focus on letting his plan be known to his companions and start looking for lootables. In the south corner of the cavernous chamber, Rag finds a pile of coins, amounting to 2500cp, 1300sp, and 220gp. Mixed in the pile of treasure, there are also 3 gems (described below). There is also 3 separate Potion of Healing vials, a small sphere of thick glass (magical), and 50-feet worth of rope (magical).
Gems (each worth 10gp if sold):
-> Opaque mottled deep blue gem (Azurite); -> Translucent striped brown gem (Banded Agate); -> Transparent pale blue gem (Blue Quartz); -> Translucent circles of gray gem (Eye Agate); -> Opaque gray-black gem (Hematite); -> Opaque light and dark blue with yellow flecks gem (Lapis Lazuli); -> Opaque striated light and dark green gem (Malachite).
Utar and Marfaen begin to examine the pillars. In addition to confirming what they had already gathered (each connects the ground to ceiling and is crumbling in parts), they also conclude a few more pieces of information:
-> Utar cannot make sense of all the runes, but a couple of them look strikingly similar to the open black palm that he now associates with Bane. -> Marfaen learns that the runes carved in the obelisks serve as symbolic catalysts to an enchantment akin to the spell Cause Fear. A talented acolyte must have found a way to substitute the verbal incantations necessary for that spell with permanent runes. -> Jointly, both the cleric and the diviner determine that they were put in place to protect and old altar of sorts, or ritualistic circle, or whatever this hidden cave was before time and Grick feces took their toll. -> Finally, they also notice that they are structurally unsound. A good simultaneous blow to all five would likely bury this place permanently, although that might be a dangerous undertaking.
Meanwhile, Andmarir keeps an eye out and collects arrows (@Nantook: You may retrieve 50% of the total number of arrows you have used in this fight.)
Graxx is the only one to come out of the cavernous chamber. He delivers the message to Rillo, who then immediately runs into the room to the east to see Villonah.
The Welcomer girl slowly rises to her feet and meets the barbarian at her cell's door. She even looks a bit healthier after the meal she had. Without a word, she leaves the cage once Graxx opens it for her and makes her way out of the secret prison.
As Graxx offers a similar deal to the other four prisoners, he gets a few responses:
-> The beardless male dwarf who is also missing an ear jumps forward and coughs up. The words leave his mouth painfully, as if scrapping against his dry throat: "There is not much I can offer mister, except that I've been recruited to fight against the the Guilds and the Black Fist. I was told the Welcomers have shifted their goals from thieves’ guild to heroes of the people, and that it was our duty as vigilantes to now lash out at the guilds who have abandoned the citizenry, in their greed. Of course, the Black Fist did not like that one bit, so we are hunted by them and any person with a missing ear is imprisoned, tried and hung. Each day, more bodies swing from the Stojanow Gate..."
-> A young halfling boy points to another halfling boy in the cell next to his and says: "Sir, I promise you we have nothing to do with this. Me and my mate here were just having a disagreement in the street that got a bit out of hand. Out friendly brawl damaged a few market stalls, and that armored knight thought a fitting punishment would be to throw us down here. Please, we just want to go home."
-> The confirmed crazed cultist simply continues to talk nonsense. Graxx is not even sure he has noticed him jiggling the keys to his freedom.
Graxx goes to the male dwarf first removes his water skin pours some through the cell into the Dwarf's mouth if he accepts and hands it to the Dwarf.
"If the Welcomer's truly are fighting for the citizens of this town then tell those you work with you have friends in town that may help. If we find out you have lied to us, I will also begin hunting you. Now enjoy your freedom."
Graxx will open the Dwarf's cell and release him. Graxx will then walk to the boys.
"Keep that fighting spirit boys. If you ever hear anything of interest in town, come to anyone in my group that you have seen here today. Now off you go."
Graxx will release the boys. Graxx will then walk to the cultists cage being sure not to open it as he remembers him turning invisible.
"See Cultist I am a man who keeps my word."
Graxx will place the key back into his pocket and reach out to grapple the mumbling cultist with his free hand pulling him against the cage bars.
"Month's ago I made a promise that all who were responsible for the taking of townsfolk and the death of a donkey would be killed. Those were your orders. Today I fulfill my promise."
Graxx will take his free hand to use his handaxe to deal death as many blows as it takes to the skull of the cultist.
Rag gathers all the loot and brings it into the other room.
"I have some hemp rope we can try tying to all the Obelisks and all pulling at the same time from outside the room? Our joint strength may do it - those things look in bad shape but put all these bodies in there first? If it doesn't work we can at least barricade the door. Then let's gather everything from the cell and this loot and divide it up. I would like those Gems to be taken out of my share, please."
Rag will get the key back and grab the loot from the cell. Rag will then sit and mend his wounds while he waits for others to decide.
"I suppose we should be able to do so, given enough rope. Alternatively, I could request some cleaners from the People of the Silent Wood to take care of not just this room, but also this entire prison! I don't know the exact process, but if there are any more who used place, even they won't be sure if there was anything here."
The Welcomer dwarf guzzles the water and then leaves in a hurry, or at least as fast as his injuries will allow him. The boys will nod in appreciation and run away as well. The cultist will die a bloody death by handaxe though the cell bars.
Drazzim kneels to help Villonah but the girls seem in shock. She will fight back, not wanting to be carried away to more suffering. (You can either roll an athletics check {DC 10} to force her to come along kicking and screaming or try to calm her down through persuasion {DC 15}).
Rag (and others, I assume) takes some time to transfer all the loot to a safe location.
(OOC: If you guys decide to go with Rag's plan, we'll do a single athletics check with advantage from help for a character of your choice. The DC would start relatively high but would go down with each additional person pulling on the rope. Alternatively, Neya's plan would cost only money. As her Order was not originally contracted for this rescue mission, they would not come in just to help Neya for free. They would charge each of the characters involved, including NPCs but excluding Neya, for the task. Neya estimates they'd charge 25gp per person for a silent cleaning job with these specifications, and that's the friends and family rate. They could get here as quick as in two days.)
Drazzim will try to do it carefully at first, probably using the alternate means if she gets too reluctant. "Easy now, the bad things are gone now. My big pointy stick made sure of that."
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
"Oh, yeah, right..." Marfaen hasn't said a thing yet, Utar could only tell Marfaen knew something due to his thinking expression, as he logically deducted what the thing could be. "I believe I should explain it...? Hm... These runes were crafted in order to cause fear, in one way or another someone made a spell permanent, and it took this form, a rune."
Marfaen was sure this was true, yet his expressions didn't show it, the nervous hand scratching on his hair, the bead of sweat as he was trying to make sense of this, all pointed to a lack of certainty that was due to the fact that he was now thinking on HOW they could've done such a rune, instead of what they did.
Investigation and/or Arcana: 15 (Great, that's exactly where I wanted him for RP purposes, stuck on a line of thought that doesn't even make sense to search anymore, just because that's the way he is.)
(OOC: The cleaners are usually reserved for instances in which a mission gets VERY messy, ranges from a simple clean-up to erasing a location short of creating a smoking crater. In this case, it is somewhere in the middle because people will notice ruins suddenly disappearing, but few actually know about the secret prison.)
Drazzim calms Villonah down with some reassuring words. Her breathing slows and the repetitive rocking stops. She is still looking into the distance but says to the dwarf: "Okay..."She extends her arms and Drazzim realizes that she means to be carried. He ascertains that she indeed looks in no condition to walk by herself.
Graxx updates the group and Utar congratulates Marfaen, who clarifies his deductions. The wizard tries to study the peculiar way the runes were enchanted, but comes short. This technique is beyond his current abilities.
Rillo reaches Drazzim and hugs Villonah. He nods to Drazzim as to ask him to carry his daughter out. At this point, everyone is back at the cavernous room where you fought the Gricks (even Rag, who is going back and forth carrying loot.)
(OOC: If you want to take the discussion on whether to collapse or "clean up" the place to the OOC chat, please do so. At some point, if no decision is arrived at, I'll default to assuming you guys are leaving the place as it currently is.)
Rag will see if he can pick the lock or use the key he found. Thieves Tools: 11
He will then search the room for treasures: Investigate: 7
"This room is evil, let's get her out, collect anything of value and let's see if we can collapse this room using these obelisks?"
Halfling Luck on Investigate: 19
Graxx to his companions, "If any of you have any questions for the prisoners, now is the time. Oh, if you have a question for the cultist, you should probably ask it sooner than later."
The bloody barbarian will walk back out to the room with the prisoners.
"Your daughter is alive and coming out in a minute now that it is safe, gnome."
Graxx will put Lightbreaker onto his back and will draw his handaxe in one hand and the cell key in another.
"You will now see that I am a man of honor who keeps my word. I will now free you Welcomer girl as you have proved useful to us. If any of the rest of you move when I open this cell, I will split your gord. Come forward for your freedom girl."
Graxx will wait for the girl to approach the cell door. He will then insert the key, allow her to exit and then lock the cell back behind her.
"Who would like to be useful next?" Graxx waits for a prisoner to respond or for his companions to ask direct questions.
Seeing the girlie being taken care of, Utar turns to the obelisk in front of him, trying to tell if the symbols have religious meaning.
Religion - 10
His attention remains focused on the stone in front of him as he calls over his shoulder, "Marfaen, what do you make of these marks? Can we use them to bring this place down?"
Marfaen quietly makes his approach after being called by Utar, and without saying a word starts analyzing the marks the half-orc is referring to.
Arcana or Religion: 19
(She/Her)
Velmine - Tiefling, Rogue (9), Swashbuckler - Dead in Thay
Riris Swiftwhistle - Halfling, Bard (4), College of Swords - Lost Mines of Phandelver
Rellahne Vanderboren - Half-Elf, Wizard (4), School of Abjuration - The Shackled City
Ann Hidrizo - Human, Fighter (2) - Amphail Adventures
Sha - Firbolg, Cleric (3), Twilight Domain - Hunt for the Wish Dragon
Andmarir is glad that the situation is under control now. Though as the others look into the girl and the pillars , he will keep an eye out for anything that may cause them hard. Though, at the same time he will retrieve as many arrows as possible.
(@DracheLehre: I'll interpret that perception roll as a medicine one instead, for a total of 22.)
Neya, Drazzim and Rag all head straight to the cage. Looking around, they notice that Villonah remains seated with her back to the entrance, rocking back and forth and whispering to herself something about not getting out. She does not reply to either Neya or Drazzim. The monk assesses that her mental state is even worse than her physical one, and she looks quite meek. Neya doubts that she can walk on her own. They also take note that the door is on the north face of the cage. Taking that as his cue, Rag attempts to fiddle with the lock, but notices that the cage was purposefully never locked.
The rogue will then focus on letting his plan be known to his companions and start looking for lootables. In the south corner of the cavernous chamber, Rag finds a pile of coins, amounting to 2500cp, 1300sp, and 220gp. Mixed in the pile of treasure, there are also 3 gems (described below). There is also 3 separate Potion of Healing vials, a small sphere of thick glass (magical), and 50-feet worth of rope (magical).
Gems (each worth 10gp if sold):
Utar and Marfaen begin to examine the pillars. In addition to confirming what they had already gathered (each connects the ground to ceiling and is crumbling in parts), they also conclude a few more pieces of information:
Meanwhile, Andmarir keeps an eye out and collects arrows (@Nantook: You may retrieve 50% of the total number of arrows you have used in this fight.)
Graxx is the only one to come out of the cavernous chamber. He delivers the message to Rillo, who then immediately runs into the room to the east to see Villonah.
The Welcomer girl slowly rises to her feet and meets the barbarian at her cell's door. She even looks a bit healthier after the meal she had. Without a word, she leaves the cage once Graxx opens it for her and makes her way out of the secret prison.
As Graxx offers a similar deal to the other four prisoners, he gets a few responses:
Graxx goes to the male dwarf first removes his water skin pours some through the cell into the Dwarf's mouth if he accepts and hands it to the Dwarf.
"If the Welcomer's truly are fighting for the citizens of this town then tell those you work with you have friends in town that may help. If we find out you have lied to us, I will also begin hunting you. Now enjoy your freedom."
Graxx will open the Dwarf's cell and release him. Graxx will then walk to the boys.
"Keep that fighting spirit boys. If you ever hear anything of interest in town, come to anyone in my group that you have seen here today. Now off you go."
Graxx will release the boys. Graxx will then walk to the cultists cage being sure not to open it as he remembers him turning invisible.
"See Cultist I am a man who keeps my word."
Graxx will place the key back into his pocket and reach out to grapple the mumbling cultist with his free hand pulling him against the cage bars.
"Month's ago I made a promise that all who were responsible for the taking of townsfolk and the death of a donkey would be killed. Those were your orders. Today I fulfill my promise."
Graxx will take his free hand to use his handaxe to deal death as many blows as it takes to the skull of the cultist.
Drazzim is going to try and help Villonah out of the cage. (Need me to roll anything?)
Rag gathers all the loot and brings it into the other room.
"I have some hemp rope we can try tying to all the Obelisks and all pulling at the same time from outside the room? Our joint strength may do it - those things look in bad shape but put all these bodies in there first? If it doesn't work we can at least barricade the door. Then let's gather everything from the cell and this loot and divide it up. I would like those Gems to be taken out of my share, please."
Rag will get the key back and grab the loot from the cell. Rag will then sit and mend his wounds while he waits for others to decide.
"I suppose we should be able to do so, given enough rope. Alternatively, I could request some cleaners from the People of the Silent Wood to take care of not just this room, but also this entire prison! I don't know the exact process, but if there are any more who used place, even they won't be sure if there was anything here."
Extended Signature
The Welcomer dwarf guzzles the water and then leaves in a hurry, or at least as fast as his injuries will allow him. The boys will nod in appreciation and run away as well. The cultist will die a bloody death by handaxe though the cell bars.
Drazzim kneels to help Villonah but the girls seem in shock. She will fight back, not wanting to be carried away to more suffering. (You can either roll an athletics check {DC 10} to force her to come along kicking and screaming or try to calm her down through persuasion {DC 15}).
Rag (and others, I assume) takes some time to transfer all the loot to a safe location.
(OOC: If you guys decide to go with Rag's plan, we'll do a single athletics check with advantage from help for a character of your choice. The DC would start relatively high but would go down with each additional person pulling on the rope. Alternatively, Neya's plan would cost only money. As her Order was not originally contracted for this rescue mission, they would not come in just to help Neya for free. They would charge each of the characters involved, including NPCs but excluding Neya, for the task. Neya estimates they'd charge 25gp per person for a silent cleaning job with these specifications, and that's the friends and family rate. They could get here as quick as in two days.)
Drazzim will try to do it carefully at first, probably using the alternate means if she gets too reluctant. "Easy now, the bad things are gone now. My big pointy stick made sure of that."
Persuasion: 16
Bloodied Graxx will reenter the room with the others. "Prisoners are free. We are free to search or do whatever ya'll want."
Utar will clap Marfaen on the shoulder. "I'm glad you're here to do the heavy thinking. We need learned souls like you here."
Walking to examine the loot, he will call to the half-elf, pointing to the sphere and rope found in the cavern, "What do you make of these?"
"Oh, yeah, right..." Marfaen hasn't said a thing yet, Utar could only tell Marfaen knew something due to his thinking expression, as he logically deducted what the thing could be. "I believe I should explain it...? Hm... These runes were crafted in order to cause fear, in one way or another someone made a spell permanent, and it took this form, a rune."
Marfaen was sure this was true, yet his expressions didn't show it, the nervous hand scratching on his hair, the bead of sweat as he was trying to make sense of this, all pointed to a lack of certainty that was due to the fact that he was now thinking on HOW they could've done such a rune, instead of what they did.
Investigation and/or Arcana: 15
(Great, that's exactly where I wanted him for RP purposes, stuck on a line of thought that doesn't even make sense to search anymore, just because that's the way he is.)
(She/Her)
Velmine - Tiefling, Rogue (9), Swashbuckler - Dead in Thay
Riris Swiftwhistle - Halfling, Bard (4), College of Swords - Lost Mines of Phandelver
Rellahne Vanderboren - Half-Elf, Wizard (4), School of Abjuration - The Shackled City
Ann Hidrizo - Human, Fighter (2) - Amphail Adventures
Sha - Firbolg, Cleric (3), Twilight Domain - Hunt for the Wish Dragon
(OOC: Is Neya saying to clean up the area or "CleanuP" as in destroy everything?)
(OOC: The cleaners are usually reserved for instances in which a mission gets VERY messy, ranges from a simple clean-up to erasing a location short of creating a smoking crater. In this case, it is somewhere in the middle because people will notice ruins suddenly disappearing, but few actually know about the secret prison.)
Extended Signature
Drazzim calms Villonah down with some reassuring words. Her breathing slows and the repetitive rocking stops. She is still looking into the distance but says to the dwarf: "Okay..." She extends her arms and Drazzim realizes that she means to be carried. He ascertains that she indeed looks in no condition to walk by herself.
Graxx updates the group and Utar congratulates Marfaen, who clarifies his deductions. The wizard tries to study the peculiar way the runes were enchanted, but comes short. This technique is beyond his current abilities.
Rillo reaches Drazzim and hugs Villonah. He nods to Drazzim as to ask him to carry his daughter out. At this point, everyone is back at the cavernous room where you fought the Gricks (even Rag, who is going back and forth carrying loot.)
(OOC: If you want to take the discussion on whether to collapse or "clean up" the place to the OOC chat, please do so. At some point, if no decision is arrived at, I'll default to assuming you guys are leaving the place as it currently is.)