One Cup at a Time: A Starbucks DnD Campaign

Session 13 - Empty Barracks

Roll Call: Dolion, Eliodoro, Kai, Kel, Uldin

  After the fight with the strange smoke nemphits, the group checks out the other door in this dining room. It appears to be a very sturdy door and definitely locked. Dolion takes his best stab at the lock, but even with some of his best efforts he is unable to pick it. He does discover though that this lock seems to be arcane in nature. Perhaps what's behind this door is some of the most valuable items, weapons, etc. that the Boros has in this garrison.

  Meanwhile, Uldin and Kai check out the rest of this floor. They find the remainder of this floor to be empty of any enemies. Back in the hallway, the two doors that were to the right each contain a barracks that connect together with a large locker room. Each of the barracks have a small armory attached to them, though these seem filled with mostly basic armor and weapons. It appears that all of the best stuff is indeed locked behind the door connected to the dining hall.

  Kel explores the mostly destroyed kitchen and finds in the back of the room to be a pantry closet which was untouched by the explosion. Though the stoves are a bit charred, Kel is able to put his chef expertise to use and make some bangers and mash for the whole party. Those such as Uldin living a well-groomed life find the food to be good, though not entirely new or exciting. Those with poorer lifestyles such as Dolion find the meal to be some of the best food they have ever tried. It seems amazing that this strange elephant could create something this delicious. This food seems fit for the gods. Uldin flavors some water with some special chemicals from his equipment and manages to create something similar to blueberry juice. The party enjoys the home-cooked meal, then make a plan to rest up for the night, letting Borris waiting at the wagon outside know of the plans.

  The party makes their way to one of the barrack rooms and sets up an alarm in case any intruders come by. Eliodoro decides to take first watch of the party overnight as he only needs a few hours of meditation rather than sleep. During his watch, Eliodoro uses this time to resummon Bill who had been taken out by an arrow earlier. At some point in the night, Eliodoro hears what sounds like banging and crashing noises coming from the hallway, seemingly from down the staircase. Eliodoro eventually switches out his shift with Kai, though Kai makes it through the night undisturbed.

  Once everyone awakes, Eliodoro tells everyone, "I heard banging and such."

  The party prepare themselves for the day, then step out into the hallway. Kel takes a sniff up the stairs, but only smells burnt hair and food from the day before. Smelling down the stairs, he picks up nothing of value. Given that Eliodoro heard noises from the basement the night before, the party decides to head down the stairs first rather than up the stairs where the vine magic surrounding this building seemed to have originated from. Eliodoro casts an invisibility spell on Dolion so as to not worry about being stealthy. Eliodoro and Kai send Bill and Plorp on Dolion's shoulders the travel down with him. The spell extends to them as well. 

  Dolion descends the stairs ten feet, before the stairs double backwards another ten feet. At the bottom is what appears to be the remains of a library. It seems to be in a great mess at the moment. Shelves of books are toppled all over the room, books and pages scattered around creating a thick mess covering the entire floor. Dolion looks around the mess, but finds nothing of value. Kai, however, looks through Plorp's eyes and notices that one shelves which seems to be leaning against a wall actually seems to be mostly blocking a door of sorts. Kai relays the information to the others, and they all decide that it is safe enough to descend down into this library. Everyone manages to make it down the stairs rather quietly, except for Kel who steps onto a wooden shelve, crunching it under his massive feet. Kai absorbs Plorp back into a small bottle which is its holding container.

  Kai decides to Detect Magic and comes to the conclusions that nothing in this room, aside from the party, has anything at all to do with magic, but becomes temporarily blinded by residual magic which seems to be leaky down the stairs from the outside of the garrison.

  The way the shelve is leaning on the door, one would have to squeeze through if not for the massive loxodon which is able to move it from the frame with ease. Dolion, still invisible, slips through this doorway and finds more stairs to descend. The further he travels down these steps, the rougher and more jagged they become. The levels of each of these become very uneven. After a few flights of stairs, Dolion finds himself in an L shaped room. Inside this room are four lizardmen, much like the two from before. Dolion immediately freezes, though none in this room acknowledge his existence in the slightest. Two are at a table on the right wall playing a game of cards. The other two seem to be just chilling out against a wall, and another on top of a medium sized chest along the same wall as the table, but deeper into the room. Along the left and back wall, wrapping around the outer corner are many jail cells. A few are empty, but most contain what appears to be Boros soldiers, bound, gagged, stripped of all armor and weapons. There are two per each cell, with seven cells filled in total.

  Eliodoro, through Bill's eyes, sees the jail cells and realizes that they are quite an oddity for the Boros. Jail cells are for holding people, but holding arrested criminals is an Azorius job. Jail cells like these should not exist within the garrison of the Boros military. It would put them at odds with the Azorius.

  Dolion speaks to Eliodoro through their murmurs and they all come up with a plan for Eliodoro to use the Message spell to notify the soldiers that they are coming to rescue them and that they need to remain quiet. Eliodoro has to message each soldier, one at a time. The first two hear the message and remain silent, but the third hears the voice in his head and begins excitedly grunting and squirming through his bonds and gag. Eliodoro curses at him for not listening. Some of the lizardmen walk over to the cage and shake the door, ordering the soldier to calm down. The enemies seem to be fairly alert now. The party decides to abandon their plan to get help from the guards as they seem to be in a rather precarious situation, and void of any weapons to help in a fight anyway. They decide the best plan of action is to just rush the group.

  Dolion makes his way around the corner into the smaller part of the L- shaped room, and throws down a card from his deck of illusions. The illusion that springs from the card is that of a fighter and four guards. And by a pure stroke of random luck, the illusion takes on the appearance of the Boros Legion.

Combat begins.

End Session 13