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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9784060" data-attributes="member: 27780">Duo session featuring winged kobold Zerr von Kopa (disguised as a halfling) and 3 of the binder's followers: (Rei the 6th level Sha'ir and two unnamed 4th level bards)While the others were heading down into the vaults, these four came strolling boldly through the front door, dressed richly like their previous visits. It started off with Rei thanking them for their previous work and asking more questions about the nature of their security, which were of course politely rebuffed. Zerr took a slightly different tack from the one I assumed earlier though, and instead of watching stealthily decided to play up his childlike nature, dashing from one receptionist to another, asking what everything did in a hyperactive manner and generally being loud and annoying, but in an innocent way designed to get the guards attention rather than make them attack instantly. This managed to keep them busy for several minutes until the guards outside made another circuit around the building and found that the stairway was missing a wall at the back, but the door between the stairway and the main bank was stone shaped shut. They banged on the door and the bank manger tried to open it from the other side as well. When that didn't work, and casting dispel on the door did nothing (since stone shape is an instant effect with nonmagical ongoing results) she directed the clay golem in her office to smash it down, and ordered the guards to grab Zerr. He skidded away and past the main door, somehow managing to lock it at high speed as he did. After a few rounds, two of the guards managed to grapple him and pick him up by the arms, with Rei apologising profusely all the while. They tried to open the door to chuck him out, and found it locked, forcing the manager to divert her attention from trying to get through one door to get her key out and unlock the other one.However, when they did this, they found three men in dark cloaks waiting impatiently on the doorstep. It was time to add another element of chaos to this scenario as I revealed that this wasn't merely based on a single adventure, but a mash-up of Vlindarian's Vault and <a href="https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/dungeon-polyhedron-part-2-the-great-merger.914783/post-25066478" target="_blank">Worms in the Exchequery</a>. The shadowdancers immediately tried to put their own heist plan into motion, with Samuel and Coalfinger conjuring shadow illusions to give them something to shift through, while Snigrot tumbled through the two guards holding Zerr, grabbed him in the process and wound up in the southwest corner with his blade held to Zerr's throat. He tried to use Zerr as a hostage and demand that the tellers hand over some loot right now, which did not quite have the expected effect given everything else that was happening simultaneously. Rei and the other minions decided that anything that's a genuine threat to Zerr would take them out in a hit or two and hid in the side offices. The guards that previously had Zerr grappled tried to grab him back, which led to several rounds of comical back and forth with Zerr just letting it happen, still trying to hide his true power level. Meanwhile the shadowdancers shadow companions attacked Tiatyllin the manager, which worked quite effectively since she has a low strength score, so she only managed to get off one Flame Strike (which they took no damage from thanks to Evasion) before being reduced to zero. The shadows then terrorised the rest of the bank staff into the corner while Samuel looted her body. Rei broke the window on the office she'd barricaded herself into and shot her crossbow out at the shadows to show enthusiasm, but being nonmagical, the bolts just passed straight through them, as expectedAt this point, the clay golem had finished smashing through to the stairwell and lacking contrary orders, started heading down the stairs. Rei decided it would probably be a good idea to send a message down to the others to let them know how things were going up here, so she scribbled a quick note and attached it to the foot of her bat familiar. On the way down it passed by both the golem heading down and one of the severely wounded cornugons from last session heading up, forced to walk at least some of the way due to the dimensional barrier. Zerr decided that this was probably about time he stopped putting up with the tug of war between the guards and shadowdancer and broke out his mind blade to stab Snigrot. Seeing this, the guards stopped trying to grab the ambiguously guilty halfling and instead concentrated on attacking the definitely guilty shadowdancer for now. The other two shadowdancers headed for the vault stairs with the keys they'd stolen from Tiatyllin's body, only to have the cornugon appear in front of them and tell everyone up here that the vaults were under attack. It started to sink in that they'd wandered into someone else's story and they hurled accusations at Zerr, who just did a slightly embarrassed shrug, then went back to stabbing Snigrot. Being the coward of the group, (and having just taken a quarter of his hp) Snigrot decided to cut and run, using his shadow jump power to pass through the wall and start running away. Zerr used the moment of freedom to tumble through the broken window into the bosses office where Rei was hiding. The cornugon unleashed a lightning bolt on Samuel and Coalfinger, who managed to evade it, but also weighed their odds now they were down to two, rolled poorly on their morale checks and directed their shadow companions to keep the cornugon busy while they made their getaway. The cornugon took several rounds to kill them due to the incorporeality miss chances and took 11 points of strength damage in the process, but the huge power disparity meant this fight was never seriously in doubt. Exit shadowdancers, pursued by the human guards. Once it had eliminated the shadows, the cornugon looked around and decided that since Tiatyllin was dead, it had better take charge here. It snapped at the cowering human staff to release the slaadi. One of them went up to the one room our PC's still hadn't seen inside and opened the door. 8 grey slaadi came out. The cornugon directed half of them to go downstairs and attack the people down there, while the other half had to stay up here, secure the building and watch out for any further attacks from the outside. Meanwhile, Zerr & Rei stayed barricaded in the manager's office, temporarily forgotten about due to the noisier adversaries. Zerr used his open locks skills to get the window to the outside open, ready for them to slip out. Whether he'll use that to try and get down to help the others or just get away, we'll see next session. It looks like that will probably involve a lot more chaotic action and fast flipping of perspectives.</blockquote>

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