OK, time for a prison break!
The group crept through the streets shortly after daybreak, heading towards the docks. With the one human in the group wearing borrowed town guard armour and working as a scout, they managed to make their way through the back streets to the house of Baba, the midwife and cleric of the Green God.
Whilst waiting for low tide in the house, the ‘guardsman’ wandered the docks looking at the state of the Ysian refugees’ ships, and the two ne’er-do-wells in the party decided to each steal a carved wooden duck from Baba’s extensive collection.
When the time was right, the group ran for the cave entrance revealed at low tide in the harbour, down some stairs. They were guided into the cave by one of Blind Nico’s men, a man with a large scar on his face caused by ‘a fall’.
Once they were deep enough into the cave, Nico’s man lit a torch so that he and the ranger could see (the rest of the party were perfectly fine).
Wandering the various tunnels, the group noticed a few symbols carved and worn away at some of the junctions.
When the party were told to be quiet and sneak through a part of the cave, the guide immediately slipped on the floor and fell, and seconds later was covered by a large pile of ochre slime that fell from the ceiling.
Wading in with various weapons, most of the party managed to cut the slime into smaller pieces which attacked with a will of their own, though were quickly dispatched.
Eventually the group arrived at a large metal door, barred from the other side. The guard had been paid off and would unlock the door if he was called away at any time, but currently the door was unusable.
Biding their time, the party eventually heard orders barked from the other side, and then a quiet metallic clunk.
Carefully swinging the door open didn’t really work, as it was rusted and squeaky, so the group didn’t have the full element of surprise, but did get the drop on the guards by coming in the back door.
With many called out to what sounded like a disturbance in the above courtyard, the few guards remaining tried to stab and shoot the party without much luck. Eventually the captain in charge of the prison ran and locked himself in a nearby storeroom, whilst the party opened the cells of the various prisoners and helped to remove shackles.
Searching the various bodies of the guards and the captain’s desk, they found various different keys – small iron and brass ones that unlocked most of the cells and manacles, a small silver key, and a large, strange-looking iron key with teeth on both sides of the shaft.
Heading down one corridor, the group found a larger cell containing most of the fighting men from Ys, and the captain of their ship locked up in silver manacles and leg-irons, with a silver bar locked through his mouth.
Unimpressed at the party disappearing into the forest for six months, finding out they’d been away for what they’d experienced as three days didn’t seem to surprise him much.
Down another corridor was a well, at the top of which, along with a crank and bucket, were two large featureless humanoid stone statues holding chains that ran down the edges of the well shaft into the darkness below. At the points the chains met the stone, it appeared to be worn, as it the chains moved around a lot.
The Kobold, being light and spry, jumped into the bucket and the Gnome fighter lowered him down to the water below. At the water’s edge was a small lip of stony ground where a man was held chained to the wall at the end of the long chains from above.
Casting his ‘magic missile’ (rhymes with ‘Elblitch Drast’) at the chains themselves, they seemed to absorb the magic itself. He was unable to unlock the chains without a strangely-shaped key.
Back up the well, realising he was holding a strangely-shaped key, the Gnome got in the bucket himself and the Kobold turned the crank – but a Gnome in full armour weighs a lot more than a Kobold scribe, so the Gnome fell most of the way into the water.
At the bottom, he quickly unlocked the chains around the man’s wrists, and at that moment the statues’ heads turned to focus on the Kobold, cracking at the neck as they did.
He ran, yelling ‘Help, the statues are moving!’ straight back into the main prison room, filled with people.
Many had picked up the weapons and armour of the fallen guards, whilst the Ranger, Gnome Rogue and Tabaxi had managed to get the captain out of the storeroom at gunpoint, undressed and into a cell on his own.
As the unknown man and the Gnome climbed up the well bucket chain, the two statues moved down the corridor carrying their heavy chains.
The Rogue and the Kobold managed to get the drop on them, despite the statues deftly whipping the chains into people. As the stone was damaged, it fell away to reveal some nasty-looking partly-rotted bodies underneath, skeletal and blackened but somehow still moving.
The group made extremely short work of them.
Once everyone was back up and into the room, the crowd of locals began to mutter among themselves. The man rescued from the well was the missing priest of Perun, long thought dead, who had cursed Bouyan to wander the oceans many hundreds of years ago.
No one was entirely sure why he was still alive, and he wasn’t about to answer, as he’d apparently been rendered mute by years imprisoned.
And that’s where we ended the session.
jot jot ïota 