Atal notices Kel giving him that look.  He blinks, and then realizes that his… unique disposition might still be new to some people.   And give him a prime opportunity to prey on the poor clerk's mind, should the boy wake up.  Suddenly thankful for Kel's unknowing insight, Atal grins broadly.  "Hey.  You can call me Atal.  Same person, different body.  Been like this since as long as I can remember."  His eyebrows go down in mischief.  "Don't tell the clerk boy.  I've of half a mind to make him think I'm Ura's brother and ask him if he killed my sister.  Might give us some leverage.  Or break what little of that miniscule mind he has left."

Upon calling down to the guard, a couple outside the barracks go towards the wall and out of sight beneath your footing. A man’s voice calls out “Its locked. You’ll need to come down.”

Kel blinked as Atal, formerly Ura, explained briefly the personal situation. The tiefling must have had a look on his face. Nevertheless Kel gave a nod with one of those 'Aha!' moments where you can almost see the lantern be lit above anothers head as the thought clicks. He chuckled at Atals idea. "It was my intention to turn him over to the guard for arson. He did after all have the only source of fire within the barracks. A little ribbing and salting of wounds won't hurt." He smirked. Kel stowed the bread and salted meat and stuck his head outside.

"What's the word?" he asked of Uthal. 

"Have to go down and unlock the door for them." He says as he passes, accepting the pork as he goes. "You change that disguise very quickly thief. I didn't even notice you do it." He says as a greeting to the revived Atal, accepting the oil without comment. With that he heads down and unlocks the door for the guards. "We have a Sergeant and a clerk up there. Along with the rest of my group sent to help by the Arbitrator. Most are heavily wounded." 

The trap door in the center of the room lead to a spiral staircase, that wound down to the ground level, and ended at a wooden door with a simple latch lock above the door handle. The stairs were a rather snug fit for Uthal, as he descended, and the door was about only as big as his own frame.

Opening it, Uthal found himself facing several guards, a mix of both Northern and Southern Midgar. They looked back at the door quizzically, before realizing exactly who/what they saw. After a brief moment, one of guards chimed, “If you could, have all of the survivors come down...How many are there by the way?” The guard attempted to make himself taller, in a failed attempt to look past Uthal’s shoulders at whatever may lay beyond him.

Uthal looks down at the man. Then turns to start back upstairs. "My group is five and we have two survivors from the barracks. If you have any way to help carry two of them it would be appreciated. Three others are awake but the other three are still unconscious." He walks back to the top and gently scoops up Ander. "The guards would like us all downstairs." 

“Private, go get the medic.” An order issued, as Uthal turns to go back up.

When Uthal reaches the top, once more, he notices that no guards had followed up the stairs. ((Due to size constraints Uthal will have to drag Ander, down the stairs.))

Uthal drags Ander down the stairs, being very careful not to cause him any further injury. At the bottom he mutters again and casts spare the dying, just in case.

Kel sighs, but gathers his things as Uthal informs them of the guards request. Backpack and weapons once again slung, Kel stoops to pick up the bound clerk and carefully follows after Uthal. He grimaces in the tight stairwell as the length of his weapons make it an awfully difficult thing to traverse. Once at the bottom, the tiefling gives a look over at the guards and places the bound clerk on the ground. If any of them give him a look, Kel will shrug.

"This one has some things to answer for." He nods his head towards the barracks.

Ander’s helm knocks against each step as Uthal drags him down the steps, but no damage is done. 
When Kel places the boy on the ground, two northern Midgar guards unite him and carry him towards a wagon that has since pulled up, right inside the city wall. 

A female voice behind Uthal addresses him “You there, are you the leader of this rescue party?”

Uthal looks around and then turns to the voice. "I don't think we have a leader but I guess I'll do for now."

A human woman, with short brown hair and fair skin, is standing a few feet from Uthal. She is adorned in South Midgar armor, though unlike the others running around with spears and polearms, she only had a long sword, currently hanging at her side. Standing next to her was a familiar halfling, the Arbitrator’s servant, Blemish. “I am Lieutenant Ripplee, North liaison to the South Midgar Barracks. You are the ones the Arbitrator sent here to assist?” Blemish was nodding his head, answering the question for you, and without waiting for a response, she continued, “Thank you. Though I have many questions. How many perished in the fire? Where are the survivors? But firstly, what happened here?”

Uthal nods. "As far as I know no one alive was caught in the fire. The only two survivors are the Sergeant and the clerk. Everyone else apparently went to the priory and never came back. As for what happened, the little clerk there got jumpy and decided we were the enemy, he threatened us with explosives and then when the undead came in he promptly wet himself and was knocked unconscious. The torch he was using as his threat then burned the entire barracks to the ground while we fought."

5

1

Kel cleared his throat. "The Goliath speaks directly, but his words do ring true." Kel gestured to himself. "I am Kel Iscariuss, Hellheart of the Order of the Wall." Introduction made he quickly continued. "As to what led up to the clerks actions I am unaware, however after we arrived, and being informed of the Sergeants condition, I went to check on him. When I returned to the ground floor after hearing shouting I found the clerk threatening the others with a torch and some sort of gunpowder based explosive. Soon after, having put himself in the armory and demanding we get into the jail cell the barracks came under attack by the undead." He sighed, stroking his chin.

"We attempted to set up a defensible position on the stairwell. The clerk berated us for using Watch property in such a manner, refused to join us, and then was promptly struck down by the undead that he failed to notice. Upon the ground, the clerk must have used the torch to burn one of the creatures, not knowing they would go up like cordwood. Two of the party attempted to retrieve him, succeeding. After suffering many wounds and dispatching the undead our defense crumbled. I..." He stopped, deciding. "We were forced to retreat when the flames became untenable. The goliath and I moved everyone to the parapet and then to the tower." He gestured. "As you can see some have not yet awakened. The Sergeant." He pointed to the tower. "Would have been a helpful witness to this, but he has slept through the ordeal from whatever drugs he was supplied for his curative." Kel rested his case for the moment.

Persuasion: 7

“Quite the ordeal.” Lieutenant Ripplee words lacked a certain conviction. It was obvious that she didn’t exactly buy into everything she was being told. She made no attempt to hide it, as the two stories between Kel and Uthal gave the appearance of individual’s with only a half grip on reality as much as conscious liars.

”Well, we’ll have to ask the private when he awakens, as Sergeant York seems to have slept through it all. If you’ll excuse me, I have things to attend to. I may have additional questions later on.” The Lieutenant walked towards a pair of Southern Midgar guards waiting by the now open northwestern city gate.

Blemish remained, standing there and looking up at Uthal and Kel.

Atal groans and shambles down the steps, exhausted and still feeling a little woozy, but also not exhausted enough to be subjected to the treatment Ander got.  On exiting the tower, he sees Uthal and Kel negotiating with some sort of authority figure, this one hopefully more competent than her peers.  Figuring that for once, he doesn't have to try to awkwardly grease the social wheels with his two teammates taking point, Atal instead just limps to their side, catching the tail-end of Kel's explanation. 

His brow knits.  It all sounded accurate, but Atal was distinctly reminded of the time in the barracks that he told Kel what had happened in the city of Cathaan.  The other guards' faces were looking similar to the way the tieflings's had.  Uh-oh.

"Hey.  What he said," Atal pointed at Kel, "Sounded pretty accurate to me.  Like him, I don't know what happened with this blathering clerk boy here.  All I know is that we came in hot, being chased by the undead, and this boy was already so scared he at first refused to let us in even when we mentioned the Arbitrator's name.  What kind of a barracks guard doesn't act for the best interest of the people in his city?  As soon as we were let in, he tried to send us right back out to become undead canon fodder.  Kel and I - I'm Atal, by the way - went to look for some actual authority figures, and all we found was your unconscious Sergeant and the barracks log.  And I saw with my own eyes from up there that the black fog that seemed to draw all this undead trouble, was concentrated over the priory itself.  By the time Kel and I came back down, though, this crazy guy was already waving a stick of dynamite at the rest of us and calling us liars.  He yelled loudly enough to bring the second zombie invasion that ultimately destroyed the barracks, and nearly cost everyone here their lives."

(that was help for Kel's roll)

"... and besides," Atal says, figuring the way everything has been going, there's nothing to lose by lying a little at this point.  "The barracks roster said the royals were at the priority.  No matter what you think of us, whatever was eating your guards was eating the royals, too.  Do we really have the time to stand around here when something evil could possibly holding those royals hostage at the priory, and detaining the majority of the barracks guards?  Maybe you should send a scout in rather than a show of force, and find out what the hell's going on."  Atal shrugs, ignoring the looks the others might be giving him.  Hey, if these royals are going to be a royal pain in our ass every time we mention them, we might as well use the clout behind their names for our own benefit.

Deception: 9

Anearis joined the others as the group finished discussing with the woman guard. At his surprise, he didn’t see D’armes among the soldiers. Wasn’t he supposed to lead the reinforcements here? He turns to the half-giant and the tiefling.

"Did she happen to mention where the Ser D’armes was?"

Blemish stood motionlessly,  just attentively watching as the party conversed among themselves.

Ripplee returned from whatever conversation she had been having with the two southern guards, at the northwestern gate.

Looking at Atal, “I appreciate your investigative work. Perhaps you could provide us with information to fill in some gaps.” Atal’s deception had been successful in convincing the Lieutenant, but possibly too much so.

“You mentioned some sort of evil eating the citizens. Our scouts just came back from the priory. There’s a number of dead guardsmen, all bound with rope with throats slit and limbs missing. It could not have happened more than an hour or two ago. We found no signs of creatures feeding though. There or anywhere else in the city. What’s the evil you’re referring to?”

She signaled for a southern guard to come over. “Please what do they look like, we must know everything we can about this unseen creature.” The South Midgar guard that had come to join her was slender, even for an elf, with a large pointed nose. He pulled out a large pad of paper and charcoal, prepared to sketch upon Atal’s word.

"Well, you'll forgive me if I'm not being accurate here, but in the course of the madness that was yesterday, I can think of three things offhand that it might be. The first, would be a gigantic bat-like creature.  It most definitely was not a zombie, tried to eat us, and was airborne.  I think it traveled with the black smoke, so there's a prime candidate."

Atal scratches his head, thinking.  "This one is less likely.  But far more insidious.  There may be a scaled, fire-resistant red hand going around slitting throats.  I'm serious.  Not attached to a body.  But it is fast, it is evil, and it has also tried to kill us, and the Arbitrator as well.  You can ask Blemish more about that, he was there."

Atal crosses his arms and looks down.  "The last one I saw, was a spectral elven woman.  She did actually manage to knock out Anaeris here, and we barely got away from her the last time.  Into the barracks, by the way, which was literally out of the frying pan and into the fire."

Atal smiles helpfully.  "I hope that was of some use to you.  I know it all sounds far-fetched, but really… the past two days have been like something out of a nightmare for us."  And then he stands at the ready, willing to provide as detailed descriptions as he can possibly give of any of his three suspects, although he tries to take cues from Blemish as to whether to straight-out say it was the Arbitrator's own hand.

He thinks to himself: The best lies are the ones that are true.

Kel was a bit beside himself, but he was also too tired to put up anymore of a fight. He turned to Anearis confused before he recalled something one of them had said in the presence of the Arbitrator before. "She didn't" was his short reply.

No sooner had he answered the elf then the woman returned. Kel sighed and shook his head at the news from the priory, but he wasn't exactly surprised by it. He stifled a yawn and rested against the wall as she continued to grill Ura ...Atal... Atal for information. If they weren't to be detained, Kel was of a mind to see if his coin was still good at the Maiden. He wasn't likely to recoup anything out of this debacle aside from something to eat later. If the whole time was to be a loss he might as well try to find the silver lining, even if it had to be paved in gold.

As an afterthought he looked to Blemish and motioned him over. "Anything from the Arbitrator? Did you pass him by?"