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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LordVyreth" data-source="post: 1450100" data-attributes="member: 9626">Rescuing people from an evil cult made easyThe party was horrified to watch a creature, even an orc, get slaughtered in front of their eyes, but since they’re outnumbered at least fifteen to one, they could do nothing for now.  Instead, they blended into the crowd, and hastily left the meeting room.  They also first noticed that Flix was no longer with them.  However, they had little time to worry about this, because as they first started exploring the temple, they were stopped by the Spotted-Haired Man!  At first, they thought that they where caught, but the man doesn’t seem to recognize them as imposters.  Instead, he ordered them to help him, and not wanting to cause a scene, Tal, Quercus and Tsine agreed.  He took them back to his room, and then made them carry his equipment out of the temple for him.  Once outside, he met with the spined creature, put his supplies on a griffon that was waiting for him outside, and prepared to leave.  The three heroes briefly considered launching a surprise attack on him, but noticed that they were still being watched by the guards at the door and thought better of it.  With a brief “thank you” and a suspiciously knowing not, he set off, and the heroes sighed with relief, hoping that these were at least two powerful foes they won’t have to deal with right now.    Meanwhile, two more prisoners were waking up; the survivors of Lerissa’s bodyguards.  One of them, Rudyard, is trained with wilderness encounters and an expert on the weak points and fighting techniques of orcs, and the other, who goes by many names but is affectionately called Raz, is an expert warrior but focuses on the bow.  Raz has had a few other unusual properties, including a strange dream about a mysterious woman who called herself Lady Memory…    As they ponder how to get out, they are suddenly discovered by an extremely short “cultist.”  When the coast was clear in the hallway, he broke in, and rescued the pair.  After a bit of wandering, he led the two to Quercus, Tal, and Tsine, who were themselves busy figuring out the layout of the temple and gathering information.  They learned where the armory is and where they hid Lerissa, and because of the raid earlier that day, the guards are currently understaffed until those wounded in the raid can recover.  They take advantage of this fact to find Lerissa’s prison, and then have Flix pick the lock and sneak in when the opportunity presented itself.  Lerissa took one look at her rescuer and uttered the inevitable line, “Aren’t you a little short to be a cultist?”    In a matter of minutes, Lerissa was released from her chains, but she insisted they couldn’t leave until they retrieved the supplies she stole from the orcs that she believed could be used to totally shift the balance of the war.  They managed to reach the armory, where they not only gained Raz, Rudyard, and Lerissa’s equipment, but also various other impressive and magical items the cult was hording, and a strange barrel full of mysterious black powder.  Finally, they were ready to go.  However, when they reached the exit, the guards weren’t exactly eager to let them go, and after trying to bluff their way out (and failing,) the party finally put an end to the non-violent approach and attacked!  The first cultist dropped quickly, but the second was able to retreat into a small side-room and ring a warning gong.  Realizing that reinforcements would soon arrive, which possibly included the high priestess herself and that tailed monster, the party finished the other cultist off quickly and prepared to run, but not before Lerissa pour a small amount of the black powder into an empty sack, and then lit the barrel itself on fire.  The party ran out of their as quickly as possible, at Lerissa’s urging, and escaped the corridor mere moments before the barrel exploded, causing that entire corridor to collapse!    But the mission wasn’t over just yet.  Lerissa began to lead the group to the nearest entrance to the underground tunnels that would eventually take them back to Methosilang, but before they could reach it, the scorpion-tailed monster appeared.  It looked wounded, possibly as a result of being too close to the blast, but it was still able to fight!  No sooner did it arrive than half the group ran in fear, and the non-magical weapons most of the party was carrying did almost nothing to it.  However, Rudyard used a sword he found in the armory that radiated magic, and with the help of Lerissa and Tal’s magic, the creature was destroyed, and the party could begin the journey home.    OOC Notes:  This was the worst case of DM overkill I ever had.  I planned for this mission to last for two days, with the party members hiding out in the temple, working guard shifts while pretending to be the people they killed, and so on.  And they finished the whole thing in a matter of hours, game time and real time.  Eh well, c’est la vie, or however that’s spelled.</blockquote>

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