Quote from Jack_Joke >>

"I'm all for cuttin' the bridge, Beegred," responds Tozer. "Further conflict with the drow, however...I'm not sure about that."

 "Nothing now, or anytime soon. Just saying, if the opportunity arises... If we find an army of Solars willing to help us, I wouldn't object to a little payback to the Drow."

Having only received her crossbow and bolts from Ferriman, Xilyrah climbs into the armory and retrieves her daggers (2), quarterstaff, and dons (if there's enough time) her light armor.

Once fully armed she descends the ladder and calls down to the others, "Cut the bridge! Now that I have my daggers I'll be cutting any fungus eaters who dare cross me."

Buppido stays put, nodding his agreement to cut the bridge.

Everyone seems to have agreed to spend 2 minutes donning light armor.  I'll rule that finding your stuff, moving around in the cramped guard tower will bump that up to 5 minutes.

Everyone, including NPC's, please roll perception checks.

Narstin: 21

Derendil: 6

Perception - Beegred: 12, Sarith: 14, Ront: 10

Perception:

• Tozer - 8
• Eldeth - 13
• Jimjar - 11

Xilyrah:5

Buppido: 14

Narstin looks through the opened door and sees a phalanx of drow walk up to the downed bridge to the south.  In the lead is, surprisingly, the priestess Asha.  Mistress Ilvara is nowhere to be seen.  Directly behind Asha are Shoor and one of the elite drow wearing studded armor with a hand crossbow at the ready.  Behind them are a mix of other drow and quaggoth.

Asha speaks in undercommon with a booming voice, much too loud to be natural, "Foolish slaves.  Where will you go now?  You will have to go through us to get to the lift.  Imbros and Jaerzred will lead a force of quaggoth from the north.  Below you are our spiders and their webs.  You have no food or water.  I am happy to wait until you come begging for something to drink.

Or, you can lay down your arms, march yourselves back into your prison cell, and submit to your punishment.  As Mistress Ilvara is fond of saying, 'Accept your fate, learn to obey and you may survive.'"

Meanwhile, Beegred manages to hear sounds of combat starting from the north.  Thanks to Sarith's lights, he can faintly make out Topsy and Turvy holding the stairs against the quaggoth that returned.  The fighting looks savage, but they do not seem to be faltering or even slowing.  Below on the webs, there is now a second body wrapped in a cocoon, with three spiders surrounding it.

(With Topsy and Turvy still to the east, I'm guessing we have NOT cut the east bridge, to give them a chance to get to the guard tower. But someone should be standing by to cut it, if things look bad.)

Beegred (while still putting on light armor and equipment) yells down what he notices: fight to the north, Topsy/Turvey, and web activity. Asks whoever can communicate to the Sarith, get him to move around his Dancing Lights (can be split into 4 dim lights, moved to 120' range) to get a better look at what is going on.

Tozer feels his blood start to boil upon hearing the words accept your fate. 

"I don't have the heart to tell the little witch that Imbros and Jaerzred have been slain," he mutters half-smilingly. He then takes stock of everyone's readiness, knowing that this entire endeavor will soon come to its climax. "Doesn't seem like they can do much to us from their position to the south. Just keep that door closed."

After hearing Beegred's summary of what Topsy and Turvy are doing, Tozer replies, "So, do we give the twin terrors another minute or so to do their damage? Then we run across the bridge, and down the stairs? 

Narstin also shares what he can see, but can't understand what the priestess is saying.

Xilyrah translates the words of Asha into Common language.

Responding to Tozer, she says ruefully, "That's probably our best chance. I'd offer to use my crossbow to kill the spiders so we could attempt to escape that way, but my aim has been less than accurate."

As the party keeps an eye out east to where Topsy and Turvy are fighting, they hold the stairs and the quaggoth that are struggling on the slick steps.  However, there are some quaggoth that are climbing the wall, traversing it above Topsy and Turvy.  To avoid being surrounded, they begin to retreat up the stairs, matching the pace of the climbers.

Sarith currently has his Dancing Lights spell up as one humanoid form down on the landing at the bottom of the stairs.  He drops that form and recasts the spell as 4 orbs illuminating the stairs.   When he does so, Topsy and Turvy flinch and their fighting pauses.  They are hunched over with their backs to the guard tower, trying to shield themselves from the lights above them.

Before he forgets, Beegred will find the keys and remove the arm cuffs from the shackles that broke (long ago). If any of the other prisoners are in the same state, he will use the keys on them.

From the remaining equipment (post 296), he grabs a 100' coil of rope, a bag of iron spikes, a building hammer, and a bag of caltrops.

Narstin holds his wrists up for beegred to remove his own shackles as well. "Thanks," he says, rubbing his wrists after they're free.  He also grabs a coil of rope, slinging it over his shoulder so it hangs across his body since he doesn't have a pack to store it in.  He ties the other bag of spikes to his belt, but passes on taking a building hammer, figuring his war hammer will work in a pinch.

Xilyrah sees a few of the others returning to the armory for supplies and she follows suit, grabbing additional crossbow bolts (20), slings a coil of silk rope over her shoulder, and ties a bag of caltrops to her belt.

(Based on information from OOC post 475)

The prisoners who can speak undercommon or elvish are yelling at Sarith to move his Dancing Lights, as the magic is hindering the prisoners fighting. The dim lights (4 with 10' radius) should be just behind the quaggoths on the stairs, or running along the cliff wall to light up the quaggoths climbing from below. Topsy and Turvy should be kept outside the edge of the illumination.

(Once every minute Sarith will have to recast the lights as an Action, otherwise moving the lights to keep Topsy and Turvy in darkness is a Bonus Action.)

Those of your party with darkvision can see the outlines of Topsy and Turvy once again resuming their battle against the quaggoth.  The climbing quaggoth are forcing them to retreat still, but a couple quaggoth have stopped pressing the attack and fled back to the north, injured.  The battle is approaching the platform where the bridge is anchored.

(If you have darkvision, roll Perception.)

Beegred does not have darkvision.

Sarith (Perception: 17 ) and Ront (Perception: 11 ) do have darkvision. But I am guessing that they won't share to the group, but hold onto any information for blackmail / personal favors.

Perception:

• Tozer - 14
• Eldeth (who does so w/ advantage): 16
• Jimjar: 11