Grim chooses to position herself in the shadowy doorway (and will attempt hiding there, if appropriate) as she thinks it's a good idea to keep an eye open also for threats coming from the road. She'll keep her bow ready at all times but will need to divide her attention between the street and her comrades.
Inside the ruined building, Orris became still enough that the structure seemed to move around him instead. Dust drifted through the gray field of his darkvision, settling over cracked flagstones and the wreckage thrown across the passage by the collapse above. Somewhere in the timbers overhead, wood complained beneath a weight it had never been meant to carry. Beneath that came the quieter sound he had heard from outside: stone shifting against stone, followed by a faint scrape.
Whoever was making it had not heard him.
Keeping close to the wall, Orris let his eyes work through the confusion of broken masonry ahead. The passage opened into a larger workroom beneath the exposed laboratory, with the staircase rising along one side toward the floor above. To his right, part of an interior wall had collapsed into an adjoining chamber. A fallen cabinet, shattered stone and a heavy support beam obscured much of what lay beyond, but the sound had come from somewhere behind that wreckage.
Then something moved.
Through a narrow gap between the fallen cabinet and the rubble, Orris first saw a hand searching slowly across the stones. It found no purchase and disappeared again. As his eyes followed the movement, the rest began to resolve from the debris: a woman lay partly on her side beneath the collapse, her lower body disappearing beneath a heavy timber and a mound of broken masonry. Dust covered her clothing and darkened the blood that had dried along one arm and the side of her face. She was alive, though every attempt to move seemed constrained by whatever weight pinned her below the waist. Several feet beyond the reach of her outstretched hand lay a small crossbow.
There were other details Orris could not yet make out from his angle. Something hung at the woman's neck beneath the dust, but the fallen stone concealed most of it. Nor could he see enough of the chamber to know whether she was alone. What he could tell with considerably greater confidence was that she had no idea he was there. Her attention remained fixed on the debris pinning her, her breathing controlled until another effort to shift the timber ended in a quiet, involuntary gasp.
Outside, Grim had found the shadowed doorway she wanted. It recessed far enough from the street to break up her outline while leaving the ruined laboratory entrance clearly visible across from her. From there she could also watch a long stretch of road in either direction. Her crossbow rested ready as she divided her attention between the building Orris had entered and the scattered movement farther along the street.
At first there was little to distinguish one glance from the next. Refugees moved between distant intersections. Smoke drifted above damaged roofs. A pair of figures carrying a bundle between them disappeared down a side street without approaching.
Then something caught Grim's eye above the road. It was not movement exactly, but color. High beside a broken chimney across the street, barely visible through the smoke, hovered a point of pale pink light. Once she had noticed it, the shape became clearer. It was a small sphere, perhaps no larger than a clenched fist at this distance, hanging unsupported several feet beyond the edge of a damaged roof. It did not bob in the wind or drift with the smoke. It simply remained there. And it was positioned with an unobstructed view of the laboratory.
The color was difficult to mistake. Grim had seen that same pale, luminous pink before: in the strange ether and manifestations surrounding Judex.
Whether this was Judex, something belonging to him, or merely something that resembled his manifestations was less certain. The sphere offered no explanation. It remained suspended above the street, apparently watching.
Between Orris and Grim, Severin waited near the entrance to the ruined building with Sky. He had drawn neither sword nor spell, though his attention occasionally shifted toward the doorway through which Orris had disappeared. When no warning came from inside, he resisted the temptation to follow and crowd whatever approach the genasi had chosen.
Instead, his eyes traveled briefly across the street toward Grim's position. If he noticed the object above the rooftops, he gave no indication of it. Plague-Mort carried on around them. Somewhere farther toward the palace a bell began ringing again, unevenly this time, while the damaged laboratory creaked above Orris and the pale sphere remained motionless over Grim's field of view.
Inside, the trapped woman tried once more to move the beam.
Outside, something watched.
Orris: Stealth 22 succeeds. The trapped woman has not detected you. Your Perception 10 is enough to locate and observe her as described, but the rubble and your current angle obscure some details about her and the chamber. You can see the crossbow lying beyond her reach.
Grim: your chosen doorway gives you cover and a good view of both the street and laboratory entrance. Give me a Stealth check if you're actively trying to remain hidden there. Feel free to take any action like further investigating/moving in closer or shooting at the orb, etc.
Sky remains free to act from outside. Severin is holding near the entrance rather than following Orris without being asked.
Orris decides that stealth is not necessary in this situation.
“M’lady, I think if you struggle too much, you may only accomplish injuring yourself.”
He speaks loud enough to alert the others that there is no imminent danger.
“Maybe there’s a way I could help you out?”
He approaches closer to get a better look at the woman’s predicament. He is interested in seeing if she has any symbols of the Purple Tears, although the crossbow offers all the evidence he needs to know she was one of the ambushers
“Could someone bring a light?”
He calls back to the others. He is prepared to help her but is aware that this situation offers an opportunity for information.
The woman's searching hand stopped against the rubble. For a heartbeat she went completely still, then her head turned toward the sound. Her eyes found Orris as he emerged from the gloom and narrowed upon him, recognition—or at least familiarity—slowly replacing surprise.
She did not reach again for the crossbow.
As Orris approached, the details hidden by distance became clearer. The collapse had caught her badly. A thick timber lay across her hips and upper thigh, with broken masonry piled against and over it; pulling her free without first shifting some of that weight would risk doing considerably more damage. Blood had dried down one side of her face, and her breathing had the careful shallowness of someone who had already discovered which movements hurt.
Her clothing was darker than Orris had first been able to distinguish in his darkvision: battered leather reinforced with blackened metal plates, practical and worn. Beneath the dust and torn fabric at her throat, however, something caught what little light reached the room.
Three small amber stones hung there, shaped like falling tears.
The woman's gaze followed Orris's to them. Her expression tightened slightly.
At his offer to help, she stared at him for several seconds. Then she gave a dry, painful laugh.
"You're offering to help me?"
Her eyes passed over his sword and shield before returning to his face.
"Here?"
The last word carried more disbelief than the first. This was Plague-Mort. Kindness certainly existed here, but anyone who survived long in its streets learned to look for the price attached to it.
"All right. What do you want?"
When Orris called for light, his voice carried easily through the narrow passage and out into the street.
Near the entrance, Severin turned toward the sound. His hand rested near the pommel of his sword without drawing it.
"Well. He's found someone."
He remained outside with Sky, leaving the request for light—and the decision to enter—to the others.
Across the street, Grim heard Orris just as clearly. Nothing had emerged onto the road, but when her attention returned to the opposite rooftops, the pale pink sphere was no longer hanging precisely where she had first seen it.
It had moved.
Only a short distance, drifting soundlessly away from the broken chimney and farther along the roofline. There it stopped again, suspended against Plague-Mort's smoky sky with the ruined laboratory still beneath it.
Inside, Orris's request for light appeared to settle something for the trapped woman. There were others with him. Her eyes moved briefly toward the crossbow beyond her reach and then back to Orris.
"If you really mean to get me out, clear the stone before you move that beam."
She paused, studying him.
"And if what you actually want is information, we can save ourselves some time and admit that now."
Pain tightened her face as she adjusted her shoulder against the rubble. When she spoke again, her attention remained fixed on Orris.
"You were with the armored man."
Another pause.
"Get me out of here, and I'll tell you why we were interested in him."
Her expression remained guarded.
"You weren't all targets for the same reason."
Orris: from this distance you can clearly see the three amber teardrops at her neck, matching the symbol associated with the attackers. The crossbow remains beyond her reach. Her assessment of the collapse appears reasonable: the loose rubble should be cleared before shifting the main timber or attempting to pull her free.
Grim: the pale-pink sphere has moved slowly along the opposite roofline and stopped again. It remains visible from your position.
At his offer to help, she stared at him for several seconds. Then she gave a dry, painful laugh.
"You're offering to help me?"
Her eyes passed over his sword and shield before returning to his face.
"Here?"
The last word carried more disbelief than the first. This was Plague-Mort. Kindness certainly existed here, but anyone who survived long in its streets learned to look for the price attached to it.
He knows he's been specifically instructed to help those in need - even those who might be enemies - and, if he wants a way out of this disaster of a plane, he'd have to play along. Fortunately, Orris has always been very good at telling people what they want to hear.
If not here, then where? Help is meaningless in a place where it's expected. But, I know you're not interested in a philosophical discussion. Let's see how we can get you out...
He starts looking at the best way to pull her free,
"I imagine it will take some time to extricate you from your situation so let's not waste time: tell me your story while I work.
"You know, I'm not angry for what you did and you can trust my word that I will not harm you. Things seem ...desperate here so it seems foolish to upset by things not in our control."
He comes much closer, kneeling next to her. His gaze glances at the charm around her neck before meeting hers. There is kindness in his eyes. He then touches her arm where it is injured. The wound closes and some of her pain subsides,
"You are safe with me."
I will use 1hp of healing (Lay on Hands) to help "prove" that we are trustworthy.
He's probably taking a bit longer than needed to "make sure everything is safe to move" to give her time to talk.
If you need a social roll, to convince her to talk before she is released: social roll: 1D20 = [17] = 17
With that roll
Deception: 27
Persuasion: 24
So far everything Orris says is mostly true: He's not angry. but that's probably because he's a sociopath. It's true that he won't kill her, but only because he hasn't decided her long-term worth yet. And he believes he needs to keep her alive in order to keep the bargain.
The change beneath Orris's hand was small, but unmistakable. Warmth passed into torn flesh; the bleeding stopped, the edges of the wound drawing together enough to take some of the rawness from it. The woman sucked in a breath and stared first at his hand, then at him.
For the first time since he had found her, some of the calculation left her expression.
"You really are going to help me."
It sounded less like gratitude than the reluctant acceptance of an improbable fact.
Orris began examining the collapse more carefully. The timber itself was not the only problem. Several pieces of masonry rested against it at awkward angles, and one slab near the woman's hip looked likely to shift if the weight above it were disturbed carelessly. There was work to do, and enough of it that neither of them could pretend this would be over in a few moments.
His question about her brought her eyes back to him.
"I'm Mara"
She hesitated, then glanced at the three amber tears hanging against her chest.
"I suppose there's little point hiding the rest."
Her gaze wandered toward the wreckage of the laboratory above them.
"We came here because people were already dying."
There was enough emphasis on the last word to make the distinction deliberate.
"Word reached us that Plague-Mort had found itself a new pestilence. Something the healers couldn't name, something that killed strangely. To some of us, that made this place worth seeing."
She watched Orris work for a moment before continuing.
"We didn't bring it here. Whatever you think of us, remember that. It was here before we were."
A little more stone came free around the timber.
"We collected it. From the dead at first. Then from places where the sick had been. We tried preserving it, separating it, praying over it, mixing it with things that should have changed it. Half the time it behaved differently from the last."
Her eyes flicked toward the crossbow beyond her reach.
"Eventually someone decided understanding it wasn't enough."
Footsteps sounded softly in the passage behind Orris. Severin appeared at the edge of the chamber, bringing light with him but stopping well short of the trapped woman. The warmer illumination spread across the rubble, the blackened plates of her armor, and the amber stones at her throat.
Mara's expression changed when she saw him.
Severin noticed.
"I take it we've met."
"Not properly."
Her attention returned to Orris.
"That's what I was going to trade you."
She nodded faintly toward Severin.
"We had reports about him before the attack. He'd been around the sickness. Enough that someone should have seen something by now."
Severin's expression remained still.
"Nothing."
Mara looked directly at him now.
"No markings. No black in the eyes. No wasting. So the order wasn't simply to kill you."
A brief silence followed.
"They wanted to see what would happen if the ichor infected you."
Severin's eyes remained on her.
"And the others?"
Mara gave a tired glance toward Orris.
"The others weren't the experiment."
Outside, Plague-Mort's distant bells continued their uneven toll. Grim still had the street beneath her watch and the strange pale-pink sphere above the opposite rooftops; Sky remained free to answer Orris's call or hold outside.
Inside, there was still a woman beneath a beam, several hundred pounds of unstable masonry between intention and rescue, and considerably more she had not yet been asked.
Between the healing and Orris's social roll, Mara currently believes his promise that he intends to get her out and won't harm her, and she's willing to talk .. a lot..while he works.
Orris can safely begin clearing the loose rubble without a check. Moving the main support will be extremely difficult alone and difficult with help (a straight d20 roll is fine). Given her injuries, you may also want to stabilize or heal her further before attempting to pull her free.
It isn't clear what Severin thinks should be done with Mara once she's free. Like any other character, he can be persuaded one way or another.
There is also a new wrinkle here: Mara's interest in Severin suggests he may have value beyond being a capable ally and a means of getting out of Plague-Mort. What that means and whether it can be useful is up to you all. Her claim that the plague was already here when the Talonites arrived also appears to rule out at least one obvious explanation for its origin.
Sky watches as Orris enters the building and Serverin takes up a position at the door. With a shrug, Sky takes a position leaning against the wall near the door and tries to look nonchalant.
<<It is not working.>>
Sky hears Orris open the conversation, but the words are muted and mostly indistinguishable. Before Sky can decide whether to follow Orris inside, Serverin does so. Sky does not follow, but he does shift over so he is standing in the doorway where he can see the hall, and the bottom of the stairs, as well as keep an eye on the street.
Sky is not particularly concerned about what Orris, and Serverin are up to so long as he is hearing conversation not combat. Almost instinctively, Sky imbues his staff with divine magic.
So, Mara, you're not from Plague-Mort? All this is experimentation? Why? You said you prayed over it. Is this some kind of religion? I mean, this plague seems dangerous - what if you get infected, will they let you back into your home plane?
Orris dropped the stone out of the way and wiped the dirt from his expensive deer-skin gloved. He sighed. ruined.
The important question, he left to the end. Maybe she had some other way to get back. His thoughts were interrupted by a pestering sound,
The stone came free with a gritty scrape and dropped beside Orris. Beneath it, the larger timber remained firmly wedged beneath the weight of the collapsed ceiling. There was progress to be made, but no shortage of rubble between Mara and freedom.
At Orris's first question, she shook her head.
"No. None of us are from Plague-Mort. We came after people started dying."
Her eyes followed his hands as he examined the stones around the beam.
"At first it wasn't experimentation. We heard there was a sickness here that no one could name. People dying in ways the healers didn't understand. That was enough to bring us."
When Orris asked about the prayers, Mara glanced down at the three amber tears resting against her chest.
"Talona. Lady of Poison. Mistress of Disease. Those are her tears."
There was no apology in the admission.
"Something like this should have been understandable to us. A plague has symptoms. It spreads. It can be encouraged, contained, cured, made worse. There are rites for such things."
Her mouth tightened.
"This one didn't care about any of them."
She shifted slightly beneath the beam and immediately thought better of it.
"So they started testing it. Blood. Animals. Bodies. Different preparations. Prayer. Eventually someone learned that the black fluid could be kept in glass and survive long enough to be carried."
Her eyes moved away for a moment. Whatever part she had played in what followed, she did not volunteer it.
Orris's final question brought them back.
Would they let her return if she became infected?
Mara looked at him for a few seconds, and despite her condition, the faintest trace of amusement crossed her face.
"That's a clever way of asking whether we have another way out."
She settled her head against the stone behind her.
"We did."
The distinction in tense was noticeable.
"We came through a portal route. The people who could still move took the keys when they abandoned this place. They went toward the center."
She glanced toward Severin.
"They had reasons to stay in Plague-Mort by then."
Her eyes lingered on the Mercykiller for only a moment before returning to Orris.
"As for me? If I arrived showing those black marks, my people wouldn't turn me away."
A humorless smile.
"They'd put me behind a locked door and take notes."
Then the bell sounded again.
Its note rolled through the ruined streets, deep and ugly, vibrating faintly through the exposed timbers overhead. After a short interval it came again, followed by another. From his position in the doorway, Sky could hear it more clearly now; the sound came from deeper toward the center of Plague-Mort.
Orris's irritation drew Mara's attention toward the passage.
This time her expression changed.
"That's the Keep."
She listened through another toll.
"The Hounds use it when they're closing the approaches to the inner quarter."
Severin had been quiet through the exchange. His eyes shifted toward the passage leading back outside, then toward Mara.
"How long?"
Mara shook her head.
"Depends why they're closing them."
Another toll answered from somewhere beyond the ruined buildings.
Orris has made some progress clearing the loose rubble; no roll yet.
Mara has also picked up on what Orris was really asking: her group had another portal route out of Plague-Mort, but the keys left with the surviving Talonites when they withdrew toward the center.
Sky can now hear the conversation reasonably well from the doorway. His staff is currently imbued.
Sky signals to Grim to join them as the decision here will impact them all. If Grim does join them, Sky surrenders his position at the door and takes up a new on at the end of the hall where he can see up the stairs. On the way past the opening Sky pauses briefly to get a look at the woman Orris and Severin are talking to.
"There was no compassion in what she has done here. We have no return obligation to demonstrate such. I have no objects to leaving her as she is.
"But I have belief that the knowledge she holds would be of value to the Plague Doctor in his search for origin and nature of the plague.
"If she is willing to make the promise to assist us in good faith until we can leave this place, the path of best option is recover her body, and take her to the Doctor.
"We do not know why the hounds close the gates. We do not know whether what is inside is better or worse than what is without. I have no urgency of requirement to make to the palace. Although I think we will find ourselves under the obligation to do so eventually.
In the shadows of the hall, Sky makes a small gesture and whispers something inaudible.
OOC:
Sky cast Guidance (Conc) 1 Minute. Add 1d4 to a check. Sky will use it to make a Insight check (Proficient, +6) on her response.
