Trial By Fire - Exalted 2e IC Thread

[RettieSetGo]

Rashiid follows Darian and Aredin out to the markets, picking up some new clothes, rope, and other accouterments in preparation for the break-in. Once the shopping is done, he pours over the schematics of the prison, preferably with a plate of food, and begins planning his route through the facility using the guard timetables as a rough guideline, but knowing he'll have to improvise.

 

[Rykon]

When out on the town, Aredin makes sure to cover a few sets of sturdy clothes for his two fellow road warriors, with a single set of finery in the off chance they need to make a notable appearance one day after the haul. At the very least, being stuck on the road with only what was on his back for quite some time has him determined to be adequately prepared for the next flight from danger.

 

[Sherwood]

With supplies bought, and the map of the fortress in hand, it is now mid-afternoon as everyone is once more in the common room of the inn you stayed in last night. As you study the layout and the notes written on the side, it is clear that the time with the least amount of guards is during the night time hours. Also, according to the notes, there should only be one of the three Dragon-Blooded officers on the property, sleeping during the overnight hours with the other two off somewhere else.

Looking at the map, you can see that there is one entrance to the fortress that is closed in the evening hours. The only way to get in after dark is to get the gates to open (no small feat) or to go over the wall. There are guards on the wall to help keep that from happening, so those making their way in will have to be careful.

 

[Psychie]

Darian will take some time to run her fingers over the map with her Awareness Charms active, hoping to be able to get a good mental picture of the prison. She turns her attention to Rashiid and Aredin. "Obviously, going in at night will give us the best chance of slipping in and out undetected. Fewer guards out and about to try and stop us, not to mention there is only one Exalt in the place that we might run into. Now, how shall we get inside? Over the wall, or do we want to try and bluff our way in through the front gates? If we do that, I can alter the memories of the guards there to forget we were ever there."

She is quiet for a moment, then says, "Just let you both know, I will do my best to avoid taking any lives if I can avoid it. These guards are, for the most part, just doing their jobs and there is no reason to arbitrarily wipe them all out if we don't have to."

 

[Thief of Words]

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[Rykon]

Aredin puzzles over the guard placements for a moment. "Either of you good at disguise? If one of us can make for a convincing guard, we can breach the exterior with minimal scrutiny and hostile interference. As for what happens during the riot, well... It'll play out according to their own choices, and I doubt we'll have much better odds for dropping the body count."

 

[Psychie]

Darian shakes her head. "No, I'm afraid that disguise is not one of my strong points. What about you, Rashiid? Can you make a convincing guard and escort some prisoners in?"

 

[MasterDAF]

Viktor nods along as they discuss the break-out plan. "If Rashiid can escort the two of you in, Feihan and I can wait a bit and then follow you in the same way. With her Dynast heritage, they'll probably be too scared to even question her authority."

He points to the entry gate. "Once we're inside, the two of us should be able to quickly take over the room and bar the gate from further outside reinforcements. That'll hopefully keep the other two Dragon-Bloods from showing up and interfering." Viktor moves his fingers to point at sections of the walls. "If we're lucky, they'll pull guards from the walls to retake the entry gate. That should free up an exit path for you three to get Holst and the armaments out over the wall."

He smiles and shrugs. "In order to keep them occupied long enough though, I guess Feihan and I will probably just blow a hole somewhere and scramble out."

 

[Kwops]

Lance taps his finger against his chin, then says "If necessary, I can stay behind to keep everyone grouped together once you escape, then I'll use Stormwind Rider as our getaway. Theoretically, I can summon an elemental or two to serve as assistants in the break-in, although I'd worry about keeping my Essence levels high enough to get us out safely once we've secured Holst. Any thoughts?"

 

[Rykon]

"Lance, since you're our get away, let's do everything possible to keep attention away from your person. We need you free at a moment's notice so we can all flee the city as soon as we're out. Once we three have entered the prison, wait thirty minutes then send one elemental by itself to assault the wall opposite of the front entrance, preferably an earth or similarly hardened elemental. We will tell the prisoners that a spirit is going to attempt to breach that wall, so even the prisoners will be gathered there at the wall, with no one by the front door. We will then, walk out as simply as we walked in with Holst wearing this disguise of clothes." Aredin holds up a baggy outfit he snagged earlier to make him look passable as legal counsel if he needed to pitch a bold-faced lie. "I don't want to make any of you feel like you aren't part of this team, but I don't want any delays from any of you being tied up as a distraction."

 

[RettieSetGo]

"Let me handle the disguising, I can get you past the front doors. I'll just need to get a good look at one of the guards before we go in." Rashiid remarks, tapping the map unrolled before him.

 

[Psychie]

"Getting a guard's uniform shouldn't be too difficult," Darian muses. "The sooner, the better. I doubt that the prison will open its gates to us once they lock down for the night, so we have to get inside before then."

 

[Thief of Words]

Scowling, Feihan turned over a thought that'd been bothering her in her mind before swallowing a handful of date-flesh, spitting out the large stone, and washing it down with a draught of palm wine from the same source as the fruit. She had to admit, if she had to pick a favorite thing about the Southern Threshold, it'd be how easy it was to take that Ragara buffoon's money at the gambling tables. If she had to pick a second favorite thing, though, it was how cheap, prevalent, and universally available dates, palm wine, and other sweet or fermented foods and drink were. Of course, palm wine was an easy one. Its short shelf life essentially necessitated it being inexpensive, and she rather liked the sweet, sugary flavor of its weaker variants.

"It does occur to me that they might recognize me or even expect me. Worse, if the criminal I spoke with decided to act on the offense he seemed to take, he might move the man out of raw spite. Do we have any way to make sure he's....well, there?"

 

[Psychie]

Darian shrugs. "If we worry about what can go wrong, we will be paralyzed in indecision. We just don't have the time to confirm that he's there before the Wyld Hunt gets here, and there is still the deadline of Dunbar's execution." She steeples her fingers as she thinks. "There is an old saying: Keep it simple, stupid. If we make our plans to get Dunbar out overly complex, it is bound to end in disaster. The simpler, the better."

 

[MasterDAF]

"In the interest of keeping it simple, might I suggest an alternative for those of us not counted amongst the three infiltrators? You want to sneak in and out without drawing attention, and it sounds like you'd prefer to have an elemental pull their attention at the opposite wall from the entry rather than us."

Viktor scratches beneath his right eye, then continues. "What if we just waited outside for you all to escape with Holst? It would allow us to keep Lance guarded while nearby the prison so that he can cast his summonings and spirit us all away when necessary. It would also keep from having Feihan deal directly with prison staff, thus avoiding opportunities to alert them if they have been so tipped-off. Lastly, it would still put us near enough to intercept the off duty Dragon-Bloods should either of them be called in, thus preventing them from locking the facility down before you get Holst out."

 

[Rykon]

Aredin nodded at Viktor's assessment, "Aye, thats what I intended. Also, I don't know if the criminal will have the pull to move a man in the pen on about a day's notice. From what I can tell, many of the magistrates here hate these underworlders, and they would be the ones with the authority on legal matters such as this. That said, it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility. If this mission takes such a turn though, things are liable to get bloody quickly. Mostly for this criminal if we have to storm his mansion and wring our prize out of him." Aredin took a pull of water, readying himself to head into the jailhouse, carrying only a long knife concealed in loose clothing should he have to defend his partners on this operation.

"So remember, elemental battering ram hitting the opposite wall of the entrance 30 minutes after we enter. Infiltration goes in, order is armory, miscellaneous prisoners, Holst, then we all bolt town as soon as we meet back up. Savvy?"

 

[Kwops]

Lance nods in agreement. "Yep, I got it. Depending on when we want to start the break-in, I may need to start on the summoning right away, since it takes exactly 4 hours to complete. Plus, it isn't exactly a quiet affair. The elemental exists in creation perfectly visibly for an hour, and we don't want to draw undue attention before we begin drawing perfectly due attention. Plus," and at this Lance begins looking away from Aredin in a flustered manner, "I don't have access to the plates necessary to complete an Abscissic binding, and I can't afford them myself. I could bind the elemental to the task of assaulting the prison, or destroying the wall, but that could come with dangers of its own, particularly that the elemental is no longer beholden to me, only my orders. It could cause undue collateral damage or civilian casualties, or hamper our efforts to retrieve Holst. The only other option is leaving the elemental to its own judgement, and only force it to be loyal to me, not follow my orders. I would have to pick my elemental very carefully, and even then it could simply leave if it chose. That strikes me as a worst-case scenario, and I want to avoid it at all costs."

 

[Thief of Words]

Feihan frowns at the discussion. "Wait wait wait. You're planning to release the inmates and blow holes in the prison?!" She huffs out a breath, crossing her arms over her chest. "There's no possible way that ends well. Or does less damage in the net sum than letting this one man be executed. I'm not okay with this, and, unless you can do better I'm not only not going to help you: I'll work to prevent it."

 

[Kwops]

Lance turns and gives Fei a look, with a mix of exasperation and worry. "It's not like we're detonating bombs against the walls. I'm planning to instruct the kri to enact what's basically a controlled demolition by reshaping the foundation under a section of the wall. That should minimize casualties while making sure the guards have plenty of time to come running. Besides, in terms of distractions, we don't have a much better choice. I could always send a thunderbird into the prison and have him fight every armed man in there until he dies or they all die, but then I'm basically committing wanton slaughter by proxy, and I want to avoid that if I can. This is probably the most bloodless way we've come up with, and I remember every idea we've discussed. So unless someone else has a better idea, we're stuck with the demolition."

 

[Thief of Words]

The immense woman shook her head. "No. That is too much potential harm to innocent folk for a maybe. Your plan has holes you could walk a Yeddim through. Holes I could find. An' in case y'hadn't really noticed," she swayed slightly, gesturing at him with the bottle of palm wine and spilling some down her arm, "I'm drunk."

She took another sip, sealing the bottle. "No ship with holes a drunkard can spot is sound t'sail. The plan hinges on ifs. If he's there. If they don't know we're comin'. If he hasn't been moved. The man who put him in that cell knows we want him out of it. If he is proud enough t'think an incident on par with the fucking Bull is worth playing host to, then he'll be tryin' to make damn sure Hostler is'n goin' anywhere. If he decides it isn', then he'll be moving him himself. The situation changed. The plan so far is based on terrain we don't know still exists. We don' have time t'not confirm the landscape. Can't spirits go all unseen and scout it? How would that be other than worthwhile?"

 

[Kwops]

Lance grits his teeth and replies through them "Technically yes, most any elemental has the ability to dematerialize and rematerialize at will. However, the main problem there is I still don't have the plates to complete an Abscissic binding, so I must bind them to a task or leave them unbound but loyal. A kri is as sure as Malfeas not going to stick around if I leave it unbound, and if I bind it to a task, I'm more likely than not going to have to summon more than one elemental, since I would need to summon one and have it report its findings, then summon the kri and bind it to the task of breaking open the wall, assuming the first elemental's findings allow us to proceed with the original plan. That is both time-consuming and Essence heavy, since I have to complete each summoning ritual separately. Considering each takes four hours, that is at least 4 hours before we could proceed with any plan, and eight before we could proceed with the original plan. That is simply time we don't have."

 

[Psychie]

Darian holds up her hands in an effort to ease tensions between Lance and Fei. "Hold on. I don't think anyone wants a full scale prison break. The elemental bashing on the wall was just for a distraction, along with letting out a few prisoners to run wild in the prison for the guards to chase down. Fei, you obviously feel strongly about this, but consider that we are rapidly running out of time. In less than a day, the nine experienced and well armed Dynasts will be arriving in the city, with the sole mission of killing all of us. While I would love to be able to recon the prison and make sure that Dunbar is still there after our visit yesterday, we just don't have time. But with all that said, what would you suggest we do?"

 

[Rykon]

Aredin lets his resentment boil over, his time spent as a sailor's son left his filter unhinged. "My only concern is for this group to make it through this ordeal and survive. I will not sacrifice any one of you so that some slave-holding scumbucket ponce can rest at night in peace while us less desirables toil about in misery. Where were they when my family was eaten alive in front of me? Where were they when Rashiid was pressed into hard slavery? What have these potential victims done to help you, now that we woke up made into these 'Anathema' against our own volition? Perhaps you forget that there are guards aside from those in the prison. Perhaps you forget other wrongly imprisoned such as our mark. I certainly don't like the reality we got forced into by the very arse swabbing bootlickers in heaven that corrupted this system to murder one of their own, and I certainly think this is better than cutting loose and killing the lot of these guards ourselves. Sun knows we could succeed well enough in leveling them out with just the three of us. So why don't we all just put up with having to do something we don't like so we can spare an innocent man the headsman's block, get the hell out of dodge, and figure out a way to make things halfway decent around this Malfean piss drain we call a world, hm?" Aredin slammed a draft of liquor down his gullet, before finishing his rant. "You want em to stay all locked up? Fine. All the guards in one piece? Fine. Don't whine if we exit with some pack of festering imperial dogs on our heels. Let's go you two." Aredin concluded, taking a small club and stowing it in concealment next to his knife then started to walk out of the inn.

 

[RettieSetGo]

Rashiid allows a moment of pause, extending his right arm as Taj leaps off and practically drags Aredin back to the table if he has to, before clearing his throat and saying with implacable calmness, "If our only goal is to retrieve Holst. I now have everything I need to do so. Well, minus the gilded tongue necessary to talk our way through some minutia. I'm not one to propose plans, myself. I'm just a very specialized tool for very specialized jobs. However, for minimal disturbance it would simply be easier for me to do what I do, and drag Holst out of his cell under the guise of a guard moving a prisoner at the behest of some high and mighty Dynast. Then simply walk him through the shadows to an extraction point. Though, as I understand it, that's not the goal. The goal is to make as much profit as possible, and for that to occur, a more complex plan would be required." Then, he shrugs, continuing, "So, here is where we weigh the cost lives within Realm lands against our own potential." then he turns his cold eyes to Feihan, "Are you aware of our collective potential? Do you know what it is we could accomplish? I may sound rude, but I find your behavior curious, and it makes me wonder just what it is you think you are."

 

[MasterDAF]

Viktor stands nearby, listening and steadily growing more cautious as the voices begin to climb in volume and intensity. His armaments are all secured away in his room, save for a single knife strapped to the back of his belt. Slowly and inconspicuously he reaches a hand around to his lower back, ready to grip the handle and pull it from it's sheath should violence break out. 'I've no love for the prisoners, but Fei is right. We can't let them get out and endanger the general Chiaroscuran public. Those people haven't done anything to deserve that treatment. What kind of heroes would we be then?'