Pathfinder 1E [IC] Way of the Wicked

Way of the Wicked Adventure Path (IC):

In the kingdom of Talingarde, many crimes may send you to Branderscar Prison, but the sentence has but one meaning. You are wicked and irredeemable. Each of you received the same greeting when you arrived. You were held down by rough hands and branded upon the arm with a runic F. The mark signifies ‘forsaken’ and the painful scar is indelible proof that each of you has betrayed the great and eternal love of Mitra and his chosen mortal vassals.

Condemned, you face at best a life of shackles and servitude in the nearby salt mines. Others might await the “gentle” ministrations of the inquisitors so that co-conspirators may be revealed and confessions extracted. Perhaps, some of you will be spared this ordeal. Perhaps instead you have come to Branderscar to face the final judgment. In three days, the executioner arrives and the axe falls or the pyre will be lit. Through fire or steel, your crimes will be answered.

You have all been chained together in the same communal cell dressed in nothing but filthy, tattered rags. Manhandled and mistreated, any finery you once possessed is either ruined or long lost. No special treatment has been given any prisoner – male or female, commoner or noble – all of the forsaken are bound and imprisoned together. Your feet are secured by iron cuffs tethered by one long chain. Your arms are secured to the wall above by manacles. A guard is posted right outside the cell day and night. Little thought is given to long term accommodations. At Branderscar, justice comes swift and sure.

Escape seems hopeless. You have all been well searched and every attempt to conceal anything on your person has failed. And if you could somehow slip your bonds and fly out of this prison, where would you go? Who from your former life would want anything to do with the forsaken? Despised, alone and shackled – all that you can do now is await your doom.
For each of you, your old life is over. For each of you, hope is a fading memory. For each of you, justice will be fairly meted. And who can blame fair Talingarde after what each of you has done?

You find that you are all in this predicament together. You may be villains, criminals and outcasts, but you are united in a common cause. You each wish you were somewhere else. You have witnessed the fact that if you make much noise that the guards come to check on you. So only quiet whispered conversations seem plausible at the moment. Unless there is something tying you to another PC you know nothing about the others. So, quiet introductions might be helpful at this point.

Players & Characters
Shayuri: Silhouette, the tiefling sorcerer guilty of sedition
GlassEye: Armides Diat, the human inquisitor guilty of witchcraft
Deuce Traveler: Lord Nelleon Mallicor, the human anti-paladin guilty of dueling unto death
Scott DeWar: Niles LeGosche, the human wizard guilty of arson
CanadienneBacon: Cass Anders, the human oracle guilty of murder

OOC
RG

Armides Diat, human Inquisitor

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. . Armides Diat . .

Armides' bravado brought a low, wry chuckle from the woman chained in the corner. What was left of her clothing concealed skin that was an unusual shade of very dark blue; the color of the sky at midnight. Long violet and lavender hair streamed lankly down over her face and shoulders. Had it not been for that, and the livid bruises, or the dirt and grime, she would have been beautiful in an alien sort of way. As it was she was pathetic; a princess fallen to ruin.

"You could name yourself King of the World," she said softly. "...for all the good it would do you now. But all right, as long as we're playing that game, you may call me Silhouette. God-Empress Silhouette, in fact. Look upon my works, ye mighty..."

Waking, attempting to open his eyes, he hears something, a sound like fuzz turning to a laugh. He finally makes out a voice, and a name. A mountain in the shape of a man, he whips his mangy hair, dried with blood, away from his cut and bruised face. The guards really took it out on him, bound and chained and they took advantage. He would have done the same, he wouldn’t have been foolish enough to get his face close enough to get his nose broken with a headbutt. But he wanted to take it personally, he wanted to taunt him, he learned a lesson. A second voice spoke a second name.

He’d spent a brief time as a guard here, he knew the drill and kept his voice low. A deep, gravelly voice, “Vor…”

He paused. The taste and feel of blood in his mouth, he spit it out, it wasn’t alone, something came along for the ride. There aren’t many places in the world you would hear the sound, the quiet clink of a tooth bouncing off the floor. Here, it echoed, inciting a muted chuckle from somewhere outside the cell.

“Skalis Vordahl. The Red Glaive…” He speaks with traces of pride and defiance, it almost sounds to be a dare, a man who would rather die giving some prisoner his revenge than let the state have the pleasure, he breathes deep before he finishes, filling the end of his sentence with disdain. “…of Talingarde.”

"I don't think this is a time for games. Besides, I want my name to be known and my role in bringing true justice to these land. My name is Asseni, priest of the Ascended Asmoeus."
A tall muscular man says, the slightly reddish skin, horns and tail marking him as a tiefling.
"As we are here together, I assume that this corrupt justice that feeds the weak and calls ambitions a crime was neither to your liking ... or are you mere barbarians who cannot follow their goals in a civilized manner?" He asks with a smirk.

Armides Diat, human Inquisitor

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He shakes his head and turns to the other figure, named Asseni. "Life is a game; we've just played less well than others. And I reject the name I was given. I make myself and I name myself. King of the World, if I choose." His lips twitch into a grotesque smile as he glances across at Silhouette. "I also reject the rules of the game, that calls ambition a crime and labels my methods barbaric."

[/section]
. . Armides Diat . .

“There are many that laugh while I am in chains.” Vordahl looks over at Armides to get a better look, a reddened eye nearly held shut by swollen skin. “Yes. I remember you. I was told my intervention wouldn’t be necessary. I remember those eyes; I remember wondering how far out of your skull I could make them pop out.”

He gives a slow, deep laugh.

“How’s that for barbarism? If I am correct in knowing who you others are, you seditionists seem to underestimate its effectiveness. Your civilized revolution would come to a halt with the mere twisting of your neck. But perhaps a mere soldier is out of turn speaking amongst so many kings and queens. At my execution I will only be adorned with a crown of dirt and dry blood, while I’m certain the headsman will be happy to place thy golden crowns atop your heads on their final resting place, up high so no thief would dare to attempt to take them.”

Vordahl looks around the cell for a moment, testing the mobility of the chains to see how much movement he can get with his arms, trying to keep them as quiet as possible.

“And what of the other down there? I see a body, but I haven’t seen any movement. They wouldn’t be the first to not survive to his execution.”

Silhouette lifts her amber eyes to gaze at Asseni for a moment, then shakes her head as if thinking better of something. It was to Armides that she replied.

"Name or reject what you will. It means nothing now. Choices are without meaning, if you haven't the power to command your destiny."

She looked over at the cell door and flexed her fingers. "Still. They haven't gagged me, so there's that."

An Unexpected Visitor

A group of six guards, heavily armed and ready for trouble, come into the cell led by a fat well-dressed sergeant of the watch. Everyone recognizes Sergeant Tomas Blackerly. This was the man who held the brand that marked each of you. He laughed as your skin burned. Right now, though the sergeant seems a little dazed.

[sblock=Sense Motive DC 25*]The sergeant seems to be under the effect of some enchantment.[/sblock]
OOC: *No need to show rolls in a case like this. Just make a Sense Motive roll on your own. If your total is 25 or more then your character knows what is in the sblock.

He points to Armides Diat and says gruffly:
“You there! That’s the scum! Get ‘em unshackled. If any of you makes trouble, they’ll earn a thrashing! Today’s your lucky day, scum. You’ve got a visitor. How you ever warranted such a fine lady is beyond me. Seems she wants to say good-bye. Now step lively. We wouldn’t want to keep her waiting.”
What should be immediately apparent to Armides is that he is expecting no one.
Armides is unchained, lead out of the cell and through the only door out of this room. Four of the guards remain in the cell while the other two go with the Sergeant as they “escort” Armides out.
[sblock=GlassEye]Armides is escorted roughly to a meeting room down the hall and shoved into a chair. There waiting for him is a hauntingly beautiful woman in an elegant black dress and soft silken veil. She looks as if she is headed to a funeral. Her hair is so platinum as to almost be white and her eyes are a vibrant almost unearthly green. She clearly has been weeping.
“Oh, dearest,” proclaims the unfamiliar woman. “I’m so relieved you’re alive!” She quickly turns to Tomas. “Could we please have a moment alone, good sir? For pity’s sake?”
Tomas goes blank for a bit and then quickly agrees. “Of course, my lady. For you, ’tis no problem.”

[sblock=Sense Motive DC 15]Somehow this woman has power over the guard.[/sblock]
As soon as the guards leave, the woman’s demeanor immediately changes. She drops all pretense of grief or concern. She is immediately all business.
“Have you forgotten me, dearest?” the unexpected visitor says with a smirk, dropping her pretense of grief. “Call me Tiadora. We possess a mutual friend who would like to meet you and your fellow cell-mates. Unfortunately, our friend is unwilling to visit you in your present rather shabby accommodations so it seems you must escape. Don’t be so dour. Just because it’s never been done before is no reason you can’t be the first.
If you manage that, cross the moors on the outskirts of town. On the old Moor Road you’ll see a manor house with a single lantern burning in the second story. There our mutual friend waits. That is all I know. He did want me to give you this.”
She takes off her silken veil and wipes away a few fake tears with it.
“Something to remember me by, dearest.”

OOC: Until you are returned to the room with your cell we will keep this in sblocks.[/sblock]

OOC: While we have this brief interlude everyone else can continue to act. Just remember that there are four well armed guards with you.

Armides Diat, human Inquisitor

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. . Armides Diat . .