3.5e Batman Campaign (2.0)

[MrAbdiel]

<“You’re right, but I don’t think we’ll need a lengthy infiltration. Just throw the cloak over your quills and armor pull the hood down as far as you can manage. There’s no way any of us are fooling a base with a bunch of hidden mind reading doppelgängers - but if we buy ourselves ten, twenty, thirty seconds of confusion from guards posted inside, we’ll be in a better position to drop them before we figure out how to break the prisoners out and draw out any dopplers among them. All we can do right here is stop them from nailing us with loaded crossbows when the door opens, or doing their worst for a few crucial seconds.”>

Further to that, he looks at his discarded things and curses. If he was feigning death for twelve seconds, he didn’t need to be disarmed at all. He hastilly replaced his gear and tried to gloss over that little oversight.

[Feathersnow]

>I suppose that makes sense. Unfortunately, it would need me to drop a lot of my psionic defenses, because they are visually obvious, thus negating the big advantage I normally have in a null magic zone. If you think subterfuge is the call though, I'll chance it. I can have them back in a matter of seconds.<

[MrAbdiel]

< No, you're right - your edge is the best one we have in a null zone, with Oracle's spells and my ki thwarted. It may end up fooling no one, but we'll just have to hope they're dumb enough to not know what they're looking at for a few moments. If they peg us immediately... Well we'll do it the hard way. >

[Molan]

Damien's plan solidified, the party donned their disguises and made their way into the next chamber. As the large doors opened, Damien and Kate could feel a physical static wave trickle across their skin as the null zone was activated and took hold. For Oracle, it was a bit more jarring -- the arcane forces that had roiled inside of her since she was twelve, back when her powers first began to awaken, were suddenly and almost violently ripped away from her, as though half of the blood and tissue that made up her innards had suddenly vanished. She felt heady and nauseous for a moment, and then almost suppressed, like she couldn't breathe, and for the briefest of moments she had to fight back a panic attack.

Fortunately, she'd trained for this, and a fair bit of concentration allowed her to keep her composure. Eventually, her senses became a bit more used to the sudden, gaping, absence, and she had her wits about her once more. Still, it felt a little strange moving through the room, almost like she was walking through water -- slowed, yet lighter at the same time.

There were rows of cages along the inner entrance, and as the room opened up further in, they could see it was lined with several dozen large, stand-alone cages along each walled surface. Some other cages dangled near the perimeter from thick iron chains, as though the doppelgangers had acquired so many captives they had been forced to start creating overflow room. There were several long wooden ladders against one wall, underscoring the temporary need and explaining access to the hanging cages. Still, most of the captives were in the floor level cells, huddled against each other in the dank darkness. The room was mostly lit by a large wooden chandelier affixed with both candles and flickering torches, with some smudged and smoke-smeared mirrors in the ceiling to help -- weakly -- illuminate some of the darker areas in the room. There were two groups of guards inside, neither particularly interested in the newcomers entering their midst. Two men sat huddled on some low-slung wooden chairs, hunched towards each other, haggling over something and passing a cigar of devilweed back and forth. A few more were sitting on modified half barrels-***-chairs around a similarly modified looking table, this with it's own candelabra on it. They were playing cards, and drinking. There were four of them.

"Put the new deliveries in one of the hangers." someone muttered in the party's general direction, without looking up.

Before reacting, Kate happened to turn her head to the right, and came to find herself staring almost face to face with Liane's "Family". The captive bards -- who looked identical to the facsimiles they'd taken out in the Bards' Guild dormitories -- were huddled close together to comfort one another, but stared back at her with a mixture of fear and anger.

Spoiler: OOC

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Okay, no alarms raised yet, you're about halfway into the room, so maybe 30-40 feet between you and the door, another 40-50 feet to the other side of the room, though a chunk of that space is taken up by cells. So far, no one has really looked at you closely enough to see through the charade. If you want to make a move, now's the time.

[Feathersnow]

Kate uses her primary school interest in geometry to figure a line that might grab as many of the goons as is practical and nonchalantly queues a Greater Stomp, a move she hadn't used since she had practiced with a powerstone in the training yard...


[Color=Red]The Bat has come! Surrender now and save yourselves some pain![/roll]

Spoiler: OoC

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Intimidate (1d20+3)[4]

As many goons as are in the line must make a DC 18 Reflex save or be tripped and take [rol]7d6[/roll] damage. A save negates everything.

[MrAbdiel]

Dragged limpy into the room, Damien risked peeking through his eyelashes, but could make out little. But the ruse was working - the bored guards seemed to buy the whole thing.

< "Alright. Great. How many are there?" >

"The Bat has come! Surrender now and save yourselves some pain!"

At this point, naturally, it occured to Scion that the precious communication necklace and gems they'd worked so hard for wouldn't function in this room - all he could do was trust the instincts of his allies who weren't feigning unconsciousness. He bounded to his feet and took in the scene, whipping a shuriken at a shocked target as he did so!

Spoiler: OOC:

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VsFlatfoot - (1d20+20)[32] for (1d2+2)[4] damage plus (6d6)[21]!

Move action required to stand up.

Are we slipping back into the previous initiative order and this is a new surprise round? Cool, let's see how many guys are left after our ambush.

[Molan]

Of the six guards present, Kate was able to hit five of them -- one of the guards who'd bene smoking and drinking with his friend on the left side of the room avoided Kate's attack entirely.

One of the guards at the table managed to hop up to his feet rather than being smacked over by Kate's psionic burst attack. Of the remaining four guards, all were knocked over...and didn't get back up again. Damien's shuriken caught the guard Kate'd missed, and sent him tumbling to the ground too. The one remaining guard, suddenly startled and backing away from the table, backed away from his fallen comrades, and towards the center of the floor, falling to his kneeds.

"No...no no no no! Mercy, mercy please m'lord! I didn't do anything! I did m'best, I swear to ya!"

Around the room, all of the bards, stunned in their cages, looked on at the spectacle with shock and horror. All eyes were on the final -- surrendering? -- guard.

Spoiler: OOC

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We can stick with the existing turn order.

[MrAbdiel]

Damien glances over the cages - perhaps forty, maybe as many as sixty prisoners here. The operation wildly outsized their estimations; there was no way this many people were getting crammed into a portable hole, and even if they were, they'd not be able to breath with the pittance of air afforded by the bottle. Adapt. Adapt.

"We're going to have to walk them out the way we came..."

He muttered, already dreading the prospect. They might have to bushwhack the guards in the break room after all...

That would have to wait. First thing first: sort the dopplers from the victims.

Atleast Kate's powers, and the fear of the bat, had neutralized the immediate threat in the room. First, the prisoner. Scion took advantage of the surrenderer's kneeling posture to disarm him, pat him down, seize keys or useful items...

"Repentance is the right choice, soldier. Stay on our side of the conflict, and you'll walk out of this alive. The Bat believes in redemption... Though I've rarely seen it. Now speak, quickly and clearly: what the hell is happening in this keep? Who is responsible for these blood wards? Why are they working with Karlo?"

Kate, alone, is equipped to cast her eyes about the gloomy room and spot for disruptive interlopers. In the dull candlelight, only her darkvision could make sense of much. Proud of his power as he was, Scion was much reduced in this circumstance - and he knew Oracle was similarly bereft.

Spoiler: OOC:

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Kate's got the decent spot check and Darkvision, so luck be a batlady tonight. If she does a quick glanceover and can't see any hidden dangers, all we can do is try to loot keys and prisoner manifests off these guys and start unlocking the cages... and trying to keep order here with these frightened prisoners.

[JbeJ275]

Oracle had barely had the chance to acclimatise to the sudden lack of depth of her vision when all to suddenly she was moving forward and Kate was taking control of the room by storm, something she felt entirely unable to help with. The questions that next faced them though wee those of prisoner containment and logistics, both things she had covered in her studies as a potential future justicar not as a mage, and so here she could feel herself getting to grips with the problem. First a quite word to answer Scion's own.

"If we can escape the are where magic is supressed I might have a way to shift them out without needing to go through the whole compound. It might need us to hold for a time though, but we shoudl be able to do that."

Then, she moved onto securing the guards. Those who were sent to the floor, well it would hardly be a suprise if these people were also being manipulated somehow, nor would it be a suprise if they were waiting for the one person who could still cast here to do something before they made a move. Thus she started moving to the slumped gards on the floor, trying to ensure they'd live through this healthy enough to give testemony, and looking for any signs as to their origin and loyalties.

[Molan]

As Damien patted the guard down -- removing a generic looking cell key, several rolled up documents and his weapons -- the stunned man looked back at him with a confused expression. Damien ripped his thick hood and scarf off, revealing the face of a middle aged half elf man. His features were covered in grime, and thick black streaks coated the underside of his eyes. it could have been warpaint but was more likely that he was just filthy. His eyes were wide, and he seemed to give Damien an almost baffled expression, rather than answer his questions. Eventually, he just turned his head away from Damien, towards one of the cages at the corner, immediately across the hall from where Liane's family was huddled.

"I...I'm sorry, m'lord, I don't know what to say."

From the corner he was looking, behind where Damien was standing, one of the hostages stepped forward. There were a few other people in his cell, and all of them moved as close to the sides of the cell as they could. It had been hard to pick out their faces in the darkness, but it was now plain that they were wide in abject terror.

"Ah but you have nothing to apologize for, my hapless understudy," the "hostage" replied. "Except of course for being an absolutely horrible character actor. You've got to sell it, don't you see? Tremble your lip, clasp your hands together, beg for mercy. Make them believe that they've won!"

The hostage walked up to the edge of his cell...and then kept walking, passing right through the bars and reforming his features as though he was composed of some kind of enchanted putty.

"Then again," the elegant looking bard's features twisted into a vicious scowl. "That may be the one sin I can't can't forgive. I'm sorry, old chap," the bard "hostage", now free of his cage, began to grow, as though suddenly under the grip of an enlarge spell. "I just don't think that we have room in this production for your vision of 'Hapless Thug #4'."

The guard trembled. "B...but, m'lord, my name isn't #4 it's Leopo--" before he could finish speaking, the growing "bard" extended his hand, which shot forward with lightning quick speed, turning into a spear as it traveled, extending across the distance between the two men and ripping the prostate guard's throat open. Blood poured out of his wound as he choked on his own viscera, collapsing to the ground.

"I just absolutely hate it when people aren't completely dedicated to The Craft, do you know what I mean?" the giant grinned, and his features began to warp and melt, pouring together and turning a mottled shade of amber brown. His mouth split open wide revealing jagged teeth, and his eyes turned a dull, pupil-less yellow. He looked like a very large clay golem, standing nearly 9' tall, with one hand a fist of clay and the other forming into a series of metal-looking claws.

"What...the...fug...is....that....?" Damien wondered aloud, his jaw dropping. "Is this...could this be...Lord Karlo?" Kate said, baffled.

"either psionic or extraordinary abilities...both of which are rare..." Oracle cursed under her breath, recalling the conversation outside the door. "Of course. Why not."

Spoiler: OOC

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Can you guys just remind me what your earlier initiative rolls were? Was having trouble finding all three for some reason. Karlo's is 10, so since he used his surprise round killing his own dude, you could try to speak to him instead of initiating combat right away, if you think you could get somewhere with that. Otherwise I'm fairly confident one or more of you has a better init spot than he does.