The door opens enough to give a glimpse to the room beyond before becoming stuck, clearly barricaded to some extent on the otherside. A crossbow bolt hits the wooden door with a loud thud, possibly a warning shot or just bad marksmanship. The same voice calls again. No further or the next one going between your eyes! Who are you!? Why are you here and what happened to the rest of the garrison?

From.his brief glance inside Zack can see this is clearly a bed chamber, likely for the baroness given the ornate bed and a dressing table covered in fine jewels and perfumes. From behind an overturned table Zack can see two crossbows pointed his way though the one on the left is reloading, the man behind it a young soldier of probably no more than 20.

Zack flinches slightly, if only as a natural reaction to something only half-expected. Summoning his sword to his hand, he puts it up into the slit in the door sideways to block off the 'hole.' No, I don't think you will shoot anything. The guards must have lied to me, I was supposed to be heading to the prisoner, but we ended up here instead. But whatever. We have taken the fort. Whatever guards remain have submitted, and been disarmed. Your captain has fallen and been relieved of her armor. I will be sticking her face into the slot momentarily so if you shoot then, you only ensure her death at your own hands. 

We are not here for the Baroness. She isn't even on our list of maybe's. We only came here for the prisoner.. So, is she in there with you? he asked, moving to the side, removing his sword from the slot, and carefully putting the captains face to the slot, to verify the captain was in fact, in custody.

Narz lets things play out. Although on the off chance things do somehow escalate, or with the thought in mind anyhow, he has the hawk fly back outside and search the windows for a view on the interior of the room from there.

Nadia stays relatively quiet while Claire and Zack had taken care of looking for the prisoner (though she does give a small snort at the fighters remark of already having someone to fool around with). She stays in the door way of the area the guards were being held up in and keeps her ears open for any shouts both inside and out, and keeps an arrow ready had she need to shoot anything or anyone.

Rollo stays near the guards, pacing back and forth for a while as he slowly calms himself.

Gritting her teeth worriedly at the thought of more violence, Claire summons another mote of flame to rest in her hand, though she stays a few paces behind Zack so as not to disrupt his attempts at negotiation.

Zack sticks the Captains face into the doorway to prove his point and suddenly you can hear frantic whispering from within the room. There's several moments of silence before a woman's voice replies. Fine...take the prisoner. This whole thing has been a mess from the start. Just take her and go. Whatever of my guards are left I beg have mercy on them. I'll need them if I'm to flee this place.

Narz silently sighs in mild relief. Although prepared to fight again, without the goal being to repurpose the grounds in some way, it was a less preferred avenue by its very unecessariness. That is, outside of assuring the silence of all those involved in the battle that might yet seek vengeance at a later date. As soon as that thought came to mind however, the hobgoblin shook his head in dismissal of it.

"Why that's rather sporting of you, if I do say so myself. If you can but now divulge their whereabouts, and the most direct route to said location, that would be most appreciated. Assuming again, of course, she's not in there with you. And we'd be out of your hair in no time. Sounds good, eh?"

Claire dismisses the flame in her palm, sighing with relief.  "Oh good..."  Then she pokes her head through the doorway, above the captain's.  "Why do you have the duchess?  Based on what the others have told me, I was expecting an army of fiends to be here, rather than..."  He eyes turn down.  "People."

In response to Narz one of the guards replies First floor of the keep, through the door by the stairs last door on the left. Just hurry up and go. When Claire asks about the Duchess there's a quick bit of silence and the other guard replies What are you talking about? The Duchess isn't here? We only have the one- Silence! Enough just take the prisoner and go! And be quick about it! The woman ininterrupts. The guard aiming the crossbow looks down behind the table he is using as cover in confusion as she does.

Narz raises a brow at the mention of Duchess. It could be the more exacting details of the mission was passed along, and it could be he had forgotten a thing or two. But after taking a moment to think abou tthings a bit, he found himself whispering to the others. "You know if we're rescue'n someone of such import, and that woman in there seems to know this and intentionally obscuring this from the help, should we not take her in too to the appropriate authorities? May go a long way in smoothing over this whole breaking and entry without leaving an important loose end." He suggest before smiling what one might assume to be sheepish on an otherwise intimidating mug. "But up to you all, eh? I'm just here to help."

Rollo slowly slides over to the hall to listen as well, still staying near the prisoners though. 

Zack grunts at Narz's suggestion, Narz had a point, but it would also lead to more fighting which he was trying to avoid as much as possible. After a few moments he nodded. As the 'place' the woman made him believe the duchess may actually be in there with them. Allright then Narz, You, Nadia, and Claire should be more than enough to handle two guards.... I'm going to go handle the prisoner, or what and where they claim the prisoner is, you guys do what you gotta do.  he sets the commander down on the wall, if only to save himself the added weight and goes down the hall where the baroness had said, and barring anything happening along the way, he would go straight to opening the cell or door.

Claire nods to Zack and then steps into the space he'd been standing in as he left.  After a few moments of silence, she taps on the door softly, if only to grab the baroness' attention before speaking.  "Miss Baroness... it seems, on some level, whether it be beneath or above your level of authority here, that there's been at least some kind of... miscommunication.  I feel it may behuff... be... beefoo... be... ehrm.  Behoove you to have, perhaps, a private dialogue with myself or one of my party?  If you assist us with some information we may be able to help elevate some of this misunderstanding... uh... sorry, I mean alleviate, this misunderstanding and its potential fallout."

 Theres a moment of silence from the Baroness after Claire speaks before finally she responds. There's nothing to discuss. You have what you came for, you can leave. As soon as you're all gone I'm taking my guard and fleeing. I hear the Moonshae isles are nice. Anywhere but here. 

Zack, heading where directed it doesn't take you long find the dungeons. They are cold, dark and damp and reek of mildew. Walking towards the cells you find them to be mostly empty until finally, in the last cell, you find a woman. She is short and skinny, the wrinkles and warts on her face making her seem quite an ugly thing and her silver hair seems more like dried straw. She wears torn up rags and has a thick pair of metal manacles around her wrist. She looks up as you approach but doesn't say a word yet they seem to be waiting with anticipation. After a few moments silence she speaks in a weak but surprisingly graceful voice. I heard fighting. You don't wear the armor of the guards. Who are you?

Zack is glad there's only one prisoner here, as the more there were the more difficult this would be. His face shows obvious tension that he had been suppressing  until now, as this whole thing had taken a longer turn than he had expected. But this was perhaps the first -potential- real step.. assuming this was the real Duchess... it would be his first true step towards gaining the repute he needed for his dream. When the woman spoke as he was fiddling with the keys. Somewhere in the back of his head, he kept thinking 'is this another trick? is this a Hag in a cell, like the monster, not just cause she's having a bad hair day?'

Yeah... there was. Lets just say a long chain of events led me to slaying an imposter to save the real thing. Though if you're who I think you are, I used to work for you... I think... Not sure when the swap happened... But long story short is, I, and my friends came to get you out of here.

He continues to try each key until one of them works... or if none do... he goes with the brute force route after asking her to get out of the way of the door. Regardless.... if she doesn't turn out to be some evil trap and doesn't attack him, he pulls out his waterskin, and hands her a set of rations. They're bland, but it's all I have right now. But lets get moving. There will be time to talk when we're not here. And I'm sure my friends want to see why we came here.

Insight just to see if he notices something off with whatever she responds with: 12

(To DM: Did the hawk familiar ever find a window or other egress that might get a view inside the room?)

Narz furrowed his brow at Zack before he departed, but then slowly nodded in at least as if in understanding. He even throws in a thumbs up for good measure. It's only after the warrior left that he got a real pensive look on his face while trying to decide if what had been said could be considered sanction or not for getting the woman inside, or if he was somehow over thinking things. Regardless, he tuned up pretty quick to hear the lady's response to Claire, and tried to suss out if she really meant the part about their being nothing to discuss and/or intended to flee to the Moonshae Isles.

Insight: 5.

Frowning, he then sends the Raven back to go get Rollo as he whispered to the others, "Well, guess this means we're doing things the hard way? He did say do whatever we needed to do, so...?" He let the words hanging there, and while the others considered them, he said aloud for the baroness ears. "Sorry to be such a bother. But for the sake of those higher folks investigating this whole mess, and to assure that your departure is not one followed by hunters, which noone really wants, might you at least explain how you came across your prisoner, and for what reason have you kept them for anything but nefarious reasons? Not to put too fine a point on things, but you are somewhat out in the middle of bum**** nowhere." He request while keeping a close ear out for any signs of a lie. Though if she refuses to answer, he'd take that as admission of guilt enough and with Rollo's arrival, motion towards the door before waving his hammer up and down.

[Persuasion]: 6.
(if needed)

[Insight]: 6.
(if needed)

Rollo moves closer to the door and prepares himself for the answer as well. 

Claire shakes her head 'no,' and speaks quietly to Narz and Rollo while the Baroness considers her answer  "Guys... the prisoner is priority.  Let's focus on getting her off the premises first.  Rollo, you haven't tried to persuade her to talk yet... perhaps your... uh... rugged charm will do the trick?" Claire suggests, raising an eyebrow unconfidently.

Rollo nods. "Alright m'lady. My friends here tell me that you're being difficult. Now, we have beaten all your guards, and could quite easily beat the last few inside with you, so, how about we just have a talk instead? We were told that a Duchess was here and, forgive me, but I don't really trust people who just shot me to be truthful. So what's the real story? You guards can speak up too. Remember, you're just meat shields to her."