"I'll follow your joint lead," Thyrius just barely agrees. "I have to admit I have my doubts we Leonins can pass as being anything else, but perhaps we can try to just not be seen."

Zhuti stands up from her adjacent table, hauling her armor with her. “Someone watch my stuff,” she nods in the direction of her pack and shield. She makes her way past the tables to the private privies. Over the link she say, “It depends where we go in Waterdeep. There are places where lion brothers won’t be remarked upon, and places where any of us will be noted as we pass.”

"Interesting, well perhaps we alter things a bit" says Simaal.... "not that any plan survives contact, however, two folks wearing religious style robes and deep hoods being led by a knight in shiny plate armor who is so alluring that the brothers are barely glanced at, plus the knight ensuring she takes the brothers through areas she knows will cause least amount of trouble may work better. This would also assist the brothers in navigating the city. Toc and the monkish twin will follow me by themselves."

"Oh, this is so good." Simaal mutters as he continues eating "There is something to be said for non-magical food and eating a table or rather eating at a table.. .". he grins.

Zhuti will don her armor in the private rooms, blessing Durnan for keeping the privies as clean and fresh smelling as possible.

Nuzej speaks up on the link. "I can make any number of us invisible for an hour. Or there is the ethereal path."

Zhuti emerges from the rooms to the side dressed in her armor. Now that it's on, you can see it is a really fine piece of crafting. Made of mithral, it is filigreed and carved, with the eyes and stars of Selûne, but also jungle trees and vines winding around the plates. Her green-so-dark-it-is-almost-black cloak rests over it, over her shoulders. Somehow, fine as it is, the armor doesn't give her figure more bulk, and thanks to its materials and construction, she moves lithely and without burden.

She strolls across the common room, well aware of the figure she cuts, her long, straight black hair flowing over her back and shoulders, her green snake eyes and somewhat feral smile making contact with several patrons as she saunters back to the party. Durnan shakes his head and goes back to his business, but she sees him and gives a little laugh.

Stopping in front of the party, one hand on the hilt of her saber, she says out loud, "I feel good. Are we strolling now, or later?"

The groups stay in the Inn is not entirely brief, but they don't tarry either. They'd shown up, disguised in magic from Nuzej's Seeming spell. The resulting bland group of figures that roughly matches the size and shape of each individual, with illusions that copied their gear and clothing but just made it all the more plain and ordinary to look upon wasn't even necessary to relay to Simaal, as anyone who know the group could see the vague similarities that Nuzej had drawn upon to cast the illusion over each individual. With Simaal disguising himself the group was like a poor, boring, shadow of itself. 

With this illusionary veil over the group, Zhuti's flirting didn't go as well as usual, and Durnan's reply to her look was more a professional courtesy than familiarity. Likewise, there was no surprise that the lion brothers weren't drawing any notice, however, conversation did turn to how much, or how little notice they would generally draw in Waterdeep. In general, they would be of mild interest to most people, and certainly something someone might remember in passing for a week or two, but no one would gawk. After all, Waterdeepers had to act all cool and collect at the strange on wonderful things of the world, they were a multi-worldly metropolis with flying ships, griffons, powerful wizards, and all manner of fantastic events occurring on the regular. They couldn't be phased by the look of a couple of cat like fellows. 

Toc responded to the concerns of the group mentally after re-establishing the bond upon Simaal's arrival, "I don't think a day is going to cause the end of the world. If I'm wrong, I apologize in advance. We only know the vague location of the enemy, and it's in a very big part of a desert, so we have no way to know if they're still looking for the holy site, have already set an ambush there, or if they are still searching. But, we can't react to each unknown in a panic. I think if we wish to...deal with things here in the city first, we can. As for our meeting in Tilverton, I'm not sure how long the troops will take, it may be that we will beat them there and need to wait a day or to, so this delay does not worry me." 

When Zhuti emerges from the rest rooms, she makes a little more noise as she moves, but her illusion is still intact over top of her glorious armor. The view of the filigree and details would need to wait until Nuzej's current subterfuge magic was managed. However, it was now easier than previously planned for the group to follow Simaal at a distance. 

After what felt like a week of delay in the bar, the group finally decides to stand, bid farewell to the Yawning Portal and it's dark central pit, and to follow Simaal out into the streets of the city. 

Simaal works himself ahead of the group a ways and the rest follow looking as casual and uninteresting as possible...easy to do when shrouded in illusion. He picks his way through the streets like he doesn't quite know his way, constantly looking about for some clue that eventually leads him to the next spot.  The group moves steadily eastward into the trade district. The area takes an abrupt turn for the worse after crossing a main by-way. The buildings look poorly maintained, the streets seem to press in on themselves, there is more trash discarded about the streets, and more lumps in alleys that are presumably sleeping people, but the fluid they lay in could be puke, piss, or blood. The foot patrols of Waterdeep guards becomes less common, but more heavily armored and in minimum groups of six. As the area has gotten more run down, Simaal's route forward has become more and more confident until he strides a path like he's been here a hundred times. 

Eventually Simaal stops and bends over to adjust his shoe while next to a corner. Mentally he says to the group, "The building to my left, half a block down. There is a metal half-face on the wall above the door."   The group makes out the building easily enough. The building seems squished up against a building to it's left with no space, but there is an alleyway running down on the right side. The buildings here are three stories high, and loom down upon the filthy gloomy streets. They seems a mixture of apartments and businesses, though the front door of this place looks like a private establishment. The windows on the front of the first floor are all boarded up, while the 2nd and 3rd floor have a couple of open windows that look like they belong to run down apartments. The entrance to get to them isn't clear, so you suppose must be at the side or back of the building. 

Amazed by Nuzej's spell, Thyrius admits: "If I could do this, I wouldn't have to hide in the shadows all the time." Not being able to see his new temporary face, he wonders if he was given big hair and long beard, as to match his unkempt Leonin mane. Does he still have a busted eye in this form? Does the illusion maintain his natural scent? The black cat makes a mental note to ask these questions to Nuzej at a later point in time.

Arriving at the building, Thyrius makes a gesture which Xem would recognize as his code for scouting ahead. The older leonin falls back to the habit of leveraging the shadows, despite the ongoing illusion, and tries to look around the sides and back of the building with the goal of bringing back information to the group.

-> Stealth: 37  

Zhuti holds for a report from Thyrius, but does add over the link, a bit of a smile in her voice, "We don't need hand signals, do we, with this link active?"

"Force of habit..." Thyrius explains. "I've been scouting for my brother for far longer than I have known Toc and his mental debate spell."

Zhuti smiles at the mental debate characterization of the link. Yup.

Toc adds over the link, "I would argue that it's possible to use it for more than just....."  then he goes silent and seems to think about it, then shrugs and nods, "...nevermind."

Thyrius, looking like a scruffy and bland figure with a grey hooded jacket and brown pants pads across the road. The sky is mostly overcast but it's dry and cool out as he makes his way casually down the alley. His nonchalant progress is a good cover for his impeccable timing and use of angles in avoiding people's gaze.  Thyrius treads down the alley way. A cat sits there preening itself, pausing in it's half-lay-down, half stand licking to eye the man as he walks past...ready to bolt should it make an attempt for him, but relaxing soon enough back into it's self cleaning.  The alleyway has a narrow stairway built onto the side of the building with landings at the 2nd and 3rd floor where doors lead into the building. The doors have simple pad locks on the outside. A few small windows that are covered in filth glare out from the top floors, while the bottom windows are boarded up. The back is a another alley, that breaks off in several directions through a maze like journey amongst the houses, many of which have additions or alterations constructed together. The building in question has a short stairway down leading to a basement back door. The same metal half-mask is nailed to the wall above the door. A lump of a person under a blanket can be seen down the alley.  A rat runs past with a squeak. 

'They can yet be useful for confusing any onlooker. And no magic -- as far as I'm aware at least -- is wholly without flaws that can be exploited.' Xemnez replied to Zhuti after giving his brother a seeming half-hearted gesture for a go ahead. He then took to leaning against whatever building happened to be nearby at the time, and pass the time with his arms crossed and dozing by all appearances. 'But that said, I doubt we need worry overly much. Even if they have the capability or a creature with the means to read minds or such communications from afar, we would simply have to adapt. More importantly, Toc? You mentioned doing something to keep an eye for sensors, yes? Can you scan the bulding for such from here, or prefer another to do so to conserve resources?' 

"Do you have invisibility and the like to get in without people noticing? Assuming there's no additional remote sensing options offered by the mages, then I can go inside and try to find something to open for you all to sneak inside through an opening least watched in alleys and the like.."  Simaal the smoke monster sneaks along the ground hugging it like he was nothing but a bit of late morning mist. 22 Stealth. All of this starts in a least watched alley. Plan is to sneak in through any tiny 1 inch crack in windows, failing that door. Failing that, he'll try climbing up if multi level structure. Let the group know mentally of where I am, and ask them to reply with "ok" mentally every time I stop talking for more than a second. Inside the building look for a window that's big enough for the group to come in that has no one around it for at least 2 rooms if possible. Idea being is that he tells the group which window to come through, as he unmistyies, removes locking mechanism carefully, making sure he won't scream if something nasty happens to him while doing so. He then remistifies and scouts around a bit more... by staying low to the ground to appear as some kind of natural mist even though it's not like he can become a spaghetti strand and instead is pretty much himself still...

"I was going to suggest the back door leading into the basement, but I guess that works too..." Thyrius says mentally to the group, referring to Simaal's misty escapade.

Zhuti waits patiently for the scouts to report, eyes scanning the street and the alley, alert for danger.

Perception: 22