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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 1257137" data-attributes="member: 114">The next morning they set off for Rastor, and arrive in the evening to find it like a wild west outpost, along with saloon. Gathering information suggests that the mining is going down, but there are strange ochre-robed priests up at the crater ridge mines are hiring new toughs.Trajan remembers that these were the guys that were linked with unspeakable evil and working with gnolls back in the moat house last year – back when the company comprised Lysander, Azrin, K’tan and M’ir and he had just joined the company.Apparently although most of the traffic is through the main door into the old crater ridge mines, there are groups of these priests who use a lesser door to the North of the complex. A plan is laid to ambush some and steal their robes, so that they can sneak inside.(Bannor is an 8th Rogue who has joined them - being played by Meliamne’s players’ 12 year old son. He did a great job!)Bannor immediately proves his worth to them – he scouts out an excellent ambush position along the path up to the side entrance to the crater ridge mines, and blends invisibly into the rock formations. They don’t have to wait long for a party of seven clerics in ochre robes to wind their way up the path. Bannor leads off the ambush, springing up with a pair of daggers he slices the throats of two of the priests before they even had a chance to gasp. Trajan’s lightning fast reactions enable him to take one down with a couple of arrows before Bannor dispatches another two priests who were still goggling flatfooted at him. Finally Anne-Marie leaps into the midst of the trailing two priests and disposes of them with rapid thrusts of her rapier.In less than ten seconds the mountain air is still again, and the whole ambush happened so quickly there was no time for an alarm to be raised. Quickly the bodies are carried off the road and stripped. Resplendent in ochre robes which have been cleaned of blood by prestidigitation the party continue up to the Western gate.The gate is at the end of a small opening carved into the rock face of the crater ridge mines. Arrow slits around all the surrounding walls show that this could easily be turned into a killing ground by experienced defenders. A doglike voice barks out “Who goes there?”Trajan replies “Who does it look like? Let us in now!”.The gnollish voice snarls “Let yourself in, dog-meat!”.Attempting to surreptitiously arrange their weapons under their robes for easy access they boldly march up to the entrance door, carved with horrible fiendish figures, and push it open. Inside a corridor is dimly lit by guttering torches in wall sconces. The walls are covered in horrible scenes of human torture and fiendish creatures cavorting together. Quietly and purposefully they march up to the crossroads. Snarling noises from a large creature come from the doors ahead of them so they turn southwards, heading deeper into the mines. The plan is to gather as much information as possible.Bannor and Anne-Marie scout ahead and they find a food storeroom with barrels and crates, and beyond that are two rooms with mining equipment – huge tables with water channels which must have been used for separating out valuable ores at some time in the distant past. They haven’t been used for decades.The next room is more interesting There are two large ore carts resting on buffers here, and two tunnels with tracks heading out to the South. After a little discussion they all climb into one of the carts and remove the break. Anne-Marie gives it a push to get them rolling then leaps aboard and the ore cart starts to rattle off into the darkness which is lit only by the faint light of Arilyn’s magic.</blockquote>

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