NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 7105608" data-attributes="member: 79141">I threw that extraction team idea in at the last minute when I realised that Lya and her bodyguards had not provided themselves with a realistic means of getting out of the Volcano Lair alive, short of massacring the unit.  (I know the idea is that Lya doesn't have to survive past this mission, but I felt that she should at least try.)Given the state the unit were in, massacring them didn't seem out of the question: Rush was unhurt, Lya only took a few points of damage and, while Merton had taken a beating from a couple of attacks, he has a lot of health left.  Bringing in more mooks at this point would make the fight unwinnable (but that in itself would present some interesting options, if they recognised it in time).  The mooks in question were the skulks and ambush mage who survived the Bum Rush encounter.  (The unit only captured one skulk, so that's quite a few!)I decided that they had snuck onto the island in the wake of the strike force, scaling the impossible cliffs with the rope ladders they had left behind, having approached the island in an Ob submersible (that accompanies the Lux Profectusque and accounts for why there are not obvious Ob agents aboard a Danoran warship).  But they did not do so unobserved, and were in turn followed ashore by Matunaaga and his phalanx.Matunaaga's player was returning this week, after four months on paternity leave (from our roleplaying group, not his actual job - this isn't Sweden, sadly).  This, I decided was the perfect opportunity to give him a solo entrance.  To save repeating myself, here is the email I sent him to set the situation up:"That 'extraction team' Lya Jierre just called in consists of a bunch of Obscurati Skulks and an Ambush Mage who last showed up in support of Rush Munchausen way back in session 2.  They followed the unit and their allies on to the island from a submersible.  You and your phalanx spotted them scale the cliffs, so you followed them.  When you reached the entrance to Gradiax's Lair, Glaucia, Kenna Vigilante, etc, were fighting off increasingly determined attacks from Karch and were grateful for your support.  Glaucia said they were concerned that someone might have slipped past them invisibly during one assault, but they couldn't spare the manpower to give chase."You left the phalanx to help defend the cave entrance and followed the rest of the unit, after being shown the way to go by one of Glaucia's cubs.  You found sealed blast doors, so you used your Icon of Nem to get past them.  Then you followed the twisting tracks of tunnel at full speed (which, as you know, is hella fast), until you reach the 'home straight' and heard distant sounds of combat echoing up ahead."Now to switch to the present tense, because I feel like it:"The spark-gap lighting allows you to see several figures silhouetted against the dull red light of the cavern beyond.  These figures are clearly not involved in the combat yet.  They are waiting well away from the entrance, about 100 feet back.  While they wait, one of them (the mage) is etching a teleportation portal onto the floor."There is about 200 feet between you and them, another 100 feet behind you, before the tunnel curves back out of sight. They haven't seen you.Your actions will dictate what level of response Lya Jierre gets when she calls in her 'extraction team'!"I knew that this was an ideal set-up for Matunaaga, but I didn't realise quite how ideal until this encounter played out.  In terms of showcasing his skillset, it couldn't have been better!  As you will see, the unit need not have worried about the extraction team...</blockquote>

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