Lucky and Selvin, you follow the instructions given to you by the prisoner and find yourself following an old sewer line.  You come into a large maintenance hall where it appears the rebels had set up a temporary base.

They are packing up though.  Two dead ogre magi are heaped in the middle of the floor.  Chandanar waves at you.  He seems to be treating some of the rebels for injuries.  He waves at a tent at the far end of the room.

You step inside to find Zuni and Izzick.

---

Zuni and Izzick, shortly after taking out the ogres, you were lead to a small tent in back.  Laying on a cot is Tarrov.  Or what's left of him.

---

Now that we're all back on the same thread...

Tarrov is missing a leg, one arm, and several fingers off the one hand he has left.  One of his eyes seems to be swollen shut.  The once handsome bard is now disfigured from, what you guess, might be acid.  But you can tell it is him.  He has that same silvery hair.  That same hard glint to his eyes.  And that same cocky grin.

"Well met.  I never thought I would see you again.  Good to meet you Lucky.

"As you can tell, thing here...well..."

He nods at his missing leg and then goes on.  "Forget about that though.  Tell me.  What have you found?  Do we have any hope in this?"

Zuni stared for a long, hard moment at Tarrov.  Or what was left of him.  She had seem similar growing up in the sewers of Kintargo, so much so that it had become almost natural to see people maimed as such.  Tarrov was different though.  She remembered his handsome face from months ago and it was hard to reconcile that visage with his appearance now.  Or at least she didn't want to.

"You have an informant in your group." Zuni said, pushing aside any emotions from her companions appearance to slip comfortably into a business tone.  "Sabrina.  She approached King Pig about how to get in touch with the Queen, and I'm thinking that she might have been responsible for our two large friends outside.  We might want to speak with her."

In reply to Zuni Runesong (msg # 2):

Tarrov looks shocked and then sighs.  "Sabrina, huh?  I knew there was somebody.  I didn't think it would be her."

One of Tarrov's lieutenants pipes up.  "I saw Sabrina run off when the ogres attacked.  Should we go after her?"

Tarrov shakes his head.  "Damage done.  Find out who else she talked to.  We may have more rats."

The woman ducks out of the tent.

"Did you learn anything about what happened to the Queen?"

Lucky gave the less than whole man named Tarrov and nod as he greeted him.  The poor soul seemed alright on the inside even if his outside looked like hell.  Lucky didn't know much about all this stuff that the others had been through so he let them relay all that they had learned.

Where to start on this tale? Now there was a hell of a story. "Well..." Izzick tried to think of where to even start, "We believe she's possessed - a demonic godlike dragon of some kind. Immortal. Mostly. But we think we found the weapon to kill it. Potentially also some back up from a crazy halfling inside a Purple Wurm and a cult - though I wouldn't particularly count on either one of them. We're just sorta luck the queens making enemies left and right."

"Seems like we've had some bad luck but you've certainly had it worse. More than a few times we were wishing you were out there with us."

In reply to Izzick (msg # 5):

Chandanar laughs.  "Why wouldn't they show up?  Things couldn't be as chaotic if they don't.  And if there's anything I learned, everything about this mess has to be as chaotic as possible."

Tarrov sighs.  "Nice to see you're still in form Chandanar.

"Well.  I guess we need to talk about what to do about it."

He nods at the other of rebels in the tent.  "Give us a few moments."

Some of them look askance at you all, but they all clear out.

Tarrov sighs.  "I wanted to speak candidly. I'll let it be known that you all should be considered to have rank in the resistance.  You'll be able to command, but that's not saying a lot.

"We've been fighting a losing battle for a while.  Things were okay at first.  But then the dragons started showing up.  There were eight.  There was some kind of fight within the group and one of them got killed.  We managed to take out another one.  So there are six left.  But it's still six dragons.

"I lost most of my experienced people taking out the dragon.  And we've lost a lot with people fleeing the city.  At most, I have about a hundred people left.  Maybe fifteen of them could hold their own.

"But on to the good news."  He grins woefully.  "My amazing abilities as a thespian...and the skill of one of our mages at illusions...has allowed us to gather quite a bit of intel.

"First, the Queen is building an army and she does mean to conquer.  Sometime in the next two months, she will start an offensive on the lands to the south between Korvosa and the sea.

"Second, there's friction in her ranks.  You may have noticed she tends to favor the female of the species.  Most of her officers and advisors are women.  And they aren't shy about lording it over their male counterparts.  It's causing some turmoil in the ranks.

"Third, the Queen is preparing some kind of ritual.  She does a lot of public executions.  To be expected of course.  A possessed tyrant and all.  But she never holds them at the same place.  And it wasn't out of fear we would stop them either.  Sad to say, but true.

"When I plotted the execution sites on a map, they're forming a circle.  I think.  If I'm right, she'll have the circle completed in a month's time."

He shrugs.  "What's she planning, I don't know.  It's nothing I've ever heard about and nothing any of the mages I've talked to have heard about.  But I do know she is hell bent on killing everyone in the summoning business. "  He glances at you Selvin.  "Your profession was outlawed early on."

"Anyway.  The Queen is holed up in the Palace.  I...do know a way in.  If it's stil open.  But haven't had the man power to try to do anything with the knowledge."

Selvin looked at his friend...and what that friend had lost. The rebellion or resistance or whatever had certainly taken its toll on him. Selvin felt sorry he hadn't been there to help.

He listened to what was said. Izzick covered the the basics, and some of the things they'd gone through...it was too long a story, and a bit confusing in places. "Well. With the sword, we may have a chance at least."

Then Tarrov spoke up and Selvin listened some more. He nodded about the dragons, "Lucky an' I saw one." He didn't elaborate but let Tarrov go on. His eyes widened at the described 'ritual sacrifices'. That made his skin crawl a bit.

He was thinking hard and only somewhat mechanically replied, "I ain't got a profession. I'm just a half-elf on a mission."

He shrugged. "No offense, Tarrov, but you look like hell, an' you maybe oughta sit this out." He looked at Izzick, Chandanar, Lucky and then his eyes settled on Zuni. "Assumin' we're up for sneakin' in an' dragon-huntin'...or...dragon..spirit..huntin'?"
This message was last edited by the player at 16:16, Mon 09 Aug 2021.

Dragons..... dammit all to hell.  Lucky thought to himself.  Those damn things aren't the easiest to sneak up on.  Their senses are top-notch, they are almost better to fight straight on which is not Lucky's specialty.   "Yea one of the damn things tried cooking us on our escape out of the prison.  Luckily the river shielded us from the flame, for the most part.  If we are going to be hunting dragons we best get some better protection from the heat."

In reply to Lucky Six-Fingers (msg # 8):

Chandanar shakes his head.  "Do we gotta take 'em on though?  If they're here cos of Queenie...would they stick around if she was gone?"

Zuni met Selvins look and smiled.  "I've never hunted a dragon before.  That being said, the idea is a little intimidating but maybe doable.  I think that we have the tools to make it one helluva fight."

She tipped her thumb in Chandanars direction.  "Channy makes an interesting point though.  Would we really need to fight the dragons if we could sneak past them and deal with Queen directly?  Tarrovs told us of the effort that he had to make to take out one of them, and if everyone thinks that they need to defeat the dragons, maybe that is a point of weakness in the Queens protection.  Her reliance on the dragons."

"I don't know."  She shrugged.  "Maybe we need to do a little sneaking about first and see what we can see."

Selvin held up his hands defensively and shook his head a few times. "WHOA! No, no, no! You misunderstand me. I ain't talkin' about goin' after all the dragons. The Queen's POSSESSED by a dragon's spirit, right? That's what we found out, right?" He put his hands down. "THAT'S all I was referrin' to."

Zuni looked up at Selvin and tried hard to stifle a laugh.  She almost succeeded, letting out a hearty giggle.  The Half-Elf was just too cute at that moment

"Aw...all this talk of dragons has got me so worked up.  I can settle for a queen instead."

In reply to Zuni Runesong (msg # 12):

"So the question is how do we get at her without her army or dragons around..."

Tarrov nods at Chandanar's question.

"Assassination, while a vulgar option, was one I considered.

"There was one man who supposedly got close to it.  A crazy merchant named Thaddeus.  He isn't one of mine.  But apparently he was able to get access to the Queen's private chambers and tried to stab her.  He escaped, and the Queen's army has been scouring for him.  So have we.  Mostly to find out how he did it.  All we've been able to figure out is that he's holed up in the catacombs.  There's a group of necromancers...you remember when we ran into them?..who've holed up there.  And they're giving Queenie a hard time.  She hasn't been able to root them out.  I think he's hooked up with them. But since those guys aren't friends of mine..."

He shrugs.

"I've also thought about trying to find some of her less loyal lieutenants and seeing if I could bribe or blackmail one of them into helping me slip a team in.  But given my people's general combat abilities, that was an even riskier plan then messing with the necromancers.

"There are ways to sneak into the palace.  We've done that.  But we can only get so far with the routes I know.  Maybe you could get further. But that seems to me to be the most uphill way of going about it."

He sighs.  "That's all I can think of."

Those are just options.  If any of you have another idea, feel free to put it out there.  This section of the AP is more or less a sandbox.

"I think more than anything we should focus on taking out the queen but those are definitely good ideas. The dragons..." Izzick's eyebrow raised up as he looked over to their 'half-elf on a mission,' "Well one of us has experience diplomacizing dragons. Without the queens influence we might be able to avoid fighting some of them. I doubt this is going to be spotless diplomacy but...better than trying to take on an entire army too."

Izzick considered their options though. While he dreaded going back to any necromancy dens (been there, done that, and while it's how he met them all...well, less than pleasant experience). However, he also remembered the queens knights and how ferociously loyal they were. "I'm not sure we'll find many traitors...there was virtually nothing those serving her wouldn't do if I recall. I'm voting for our would be assassin. The Queens well beyond any sort of moral question for me. We've been expecting this might be regicide since the start, we might as well see it through." If the Queen was even the Queen to begin with - she very well could have been wholly consumed by this dragon possessing her. In which case, all the more reason not to pull punches.

Selvin thought it over for a long moment. He wished Zac was with him right then. Then he drew in a breath and let it out slowly, shaking his head. He didn't have a better option.

"Alright. Fine. We go see if we can find the assassin, see how he got in."
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 16:19, Mon 16 Aug 2021.

In reply to Selvin Larst (msg # 15):

Hi ho
Hi ho

It's off to the catacombs we go...


Necromancer's domain it is then.  I will get us set up when I get back.  Will post a new thread starting Wednesday.

Thanks for your patience all.  Have a good one.