3.5e Batman Campaign (2.0)

[MrAbdiel]

Pressing back on the mental bond established by the Knight of the Bat, Damien 'calls' Kate:

["I'm on the roof on the eastern face of the building. Plenty of dark windows, all trapped and alarmed. You should be able to make your way around without approaching to spot range - I'll meet you by the corner of the black granite building north east of where we started; that should give you a straight shot of sight, if you can warp us in. Then I'll sneak on to find our target. His goons are gossiping about how weak his position is; I think we're in a strong position to bargain."]

With that, he hustles to the rendezvous.

[Molan]

Spoiler: South Channel Island -- Carnival Tent

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Oracle very nearly fell out of the scaffolds a couple of times as she scrambled back from her attacker's position, but the gambit worked. She managed to get up to another section, and spun around, pointing the dragon-mouthed wand directly below the woman's position. For a moment, there was recognition, and the woman's mad eyes widened in what looked like genuine fear. Oracle didn't hesitate at all; she uttered the ancient, arcane draconic phrase attached to the wand, and a fireball exploded out from it's mouth, bursting into a violent explosion direction beneath the attacker's feet.

She crouched low as the attack came in, jumping and flipping backwards, but it wasn't enough; a good bit of the fire hit her anyway, and the scaffolding below her (along with quite a lot of the adjacent, very wooden structure) disintegrated.

The effects were calamitous. The fireball set off a chain reaction that sent a huge portion of the scaffolds crashing towards the crowd below. Oracle's attacker had avoided the worst of the blast, but she flipped backwards onto...nothing. She let out a helpless scream as she fell towards the ground, and Oracle lost sight of her in the falling timbers.

The cascading structural failure, unfortunately, hit Oracle's section as well, and she suddenly found the platform beneath her boots falling away.

Spoiler: OOC

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Reflex save to try to leap and grab something more solid. Alternatively if you wanted to perform some kind of skill trick you could try a balance or jump check.

Spoiler: Uptown - - The Jinx

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Kate maneuvered to the rendezvous point and quickly managed to teleport both of them inside the room. Once inside, Damien disabled the trap behind the window, and managed to pick (with only moderate difficulty) the locks after wedging open a loose window pane. The whole thing was slow going, but worth it; they had an egress. The alarm would go off if they exited through mundane means, but hopefully by then they'd be on their way to safety.

Kate posted up inside the darkened room. It was more or less like a study, with a desk and some scroll cases along the walls, a deep leather chair and a long couch not completely unsuitable for sleeping on. Damien quietly, carefully worked the door open without a creak while Kate remained inside, and he found himself in the hallway outside.

The layout up here was...strange. In some ways, it reminded him of a high class, upscale inn, the kind where nobles might have reclined and relaxed after a long day of doing nothing downstairs, but it was old and shabby, the carpets and tapestries worn. It was incredibly dark upstairs -- almost none of the candle sconces in the walls were lit, save a couple that gave off only dim halos of light, casting even longer shadows for him to conceal himself in. Of the few thieves who were upstairs, they must have moved around mostly by memory, or via their own candlelight. But no one was outside their rooms now -- for a moment, he had the floor. He could still hear the sound of a raucous party going on down below, as if the city wasn't actively eating itself alive all around them.

Still...something seemed a bit...off. About the whole place. He tried to place his finger on it, not quite sure what it was he was noticing. As he meandered his way past the offices and bedrooms upstairs, he realized that the place also sort of reminded him of a clerk's office, the kind that a trade guild might have maintained at their headquarters. Perhaps instead of as an inn or thieves guild apartments, this place had once been intended as a kind of headquarters for a legitimate business interest. There were desks aplenty, and not all of the rooms were conditioned for sleeping. The whole place seemed half finished, just...sort of...off.

He paced from one corner of the top story to another; the building was quite large, and this area seemed to take up most of the second floor. Towards the south were stairways that would lead down to the great beer hall below. As Damien made his way back the other direction, he continued to listen, hard as he could, trying to sense some kind of disturbance.

He reached the north-westernmost wall, which was decorated with a large, floor-to-ceiling mirror braced by a pair of candelabras. Suddenly, as he stood their, staring at his near-black shadowy outline in the mirror, it hit him. He couldn't be quite sure, but he was almost certain he knew something had changed. He paced his way south again, towards the stairs, then back north again towards the mirror, silent the entire time. Always listening. When he reached the mirror, he was sure of it.

The sounds of partying below got louder as he moved north, away from the staircases, rather than getting quieter.

What in the hells... he wondered to himself, baffled.

His mind drifted back to Lord Marshall Gordon, and the stories about the Justicar sweeps of the Jinx.

Somewhere, somehow, inside Falcone's beer hall, there's a door marked with the Thieves Guild icon -- the skull key...I have no idea where this door is -- we never found it when we ransacked the beer hall -- but if you need to corner Falcone, that's what you need to find. Be careful though; the Thieves Guildhall will be one of the most dangerous places in Gotham.

Damien thought for a bit about what he knew. From the outside, the Jinx was clearly more or less a rectangular building -- massive, but not especially complicated in its design, at least not obviously. The Justicars had swept it multiple times, but found nothing. The obvious answer should have been beneath the building, right? But then, if it was beneath the building, it seemed impossible that the Justicars couldn't have eventually found their way inside. The Hideout had to be somewhere they wouldn't have thought to look.

Damien looked around some more, and realized something else -- the bay window he'd seen from the outside was missing. He counted the doors -- remembering which ones Kate was behind and which were occupied by thieves, and their friends...or their dates. There weren't enough doors to match the windows. Looking around himself, he began to feel more sure of it. The upstairs for the hall -- it was too small. The roof of the building had stretched much further north. Something else was on the other side of the floor, somewhere. It had to be.

But...even that still didn't make sense. If the Justicars had come up here, wouldn't they have known that they were missing half of the floor? Unless....somehow....was it possible? Unless the ceiling of the beer hall had been designed to conceal the building's dimensions.

It was too dark, and he wasn't having any luck finding the door. But he felt like it was close. Maybe, just maybe, if he could find that there was a hidden room up here, he'd find the entrance.

Okay Dame, I think I'm close, but we've got a problem.

What is it?

I think I can find the hideout, but I need to narrow my search. I...I need you to get down to the beer hall below, and get a look at the ceiling...

It was, needless to say, a dicey proposition. Damien was not at all sure his companion would take him up on it.

You're incredible, you know that?

Kate thought back.

Spoiler: OOC

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Okay, so, you don't actually have to do what I just suggested, you can try to find the hideout another way. I was just trying to lay some breadcrumbs so as not to slow the action. If Kate demurs, then Damien can try to come up with a plan b, and hopefully I've planted enough clues to help. Or maybe not! You let me know. In the mean time, either of you are up!

[JbeJ275]

As the wave of collapsing scaffolding swept towards her Barbara took the half second before it reached her to angle her descent. Aiming for the very same patch of black tentacles she had conjured earlier, hopeful that if she fell within their reach they’d be able to aid in catching her before she hit the ground.

Spoiler: Roll

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Tumble: (1d20+11)[31]

[Molan]

Spoiler: South Channel Island - Carnival Tent

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Oracle leapt off of the platform as it fell away, careening down in a controlled fall towards the illusion and the writhing tentacles 30 feet below her. The Gambit worked, for the most part. She was able to roll and break her fall as she came down, carefully using some intervening obstacles to help slow her momentum and absorb most of the impact. From there, though, she knew she probably wasn't out of the woods just yet.

An ominous sound of chanting came from across the tent, causing the hair on the back of her neck to stand up. There was a burst of arcane abjuration, and for a moment Oracle had a strange sensation like she felt the air being sucked out of the room. Oracle's ring suddenly flashed and a burst of heat ran through her finger, and the ring of counterspells she'd been wearing activated, rejecting the prophet's dispel magic effort. Oracle felt a wave of relief wash over her, realizing after assessing the arcana burst and the quality of the spell that she probably would have been left completely exposed on the stage.

Never thought i'd think this...but thanks Lord Wayne.

Spoiler: OOC

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Your turn!

[MrAbdiel]

Damien huffs, pressing one hand against the northmost wall behind which he is sure there is more.

["It might be as simple as having another wing of the floor accessible by a different staircase... but the design of this floor seems intentionally disorienting. I can't find an access mechanism here. If we go downstairs, we will be given away. First, let me... try something."]

He took a moment to map the floor he'd covered in his head again, choosing a point on the floor that seemed fairly central to the hidden space, and flattened his hands to the wall.

Then he slowed his breath, and closed his eyes.

"I am the master of my blood..."

He felt the warmth, and the dissociation again; the same as when he had over the past nights injected some portion of the nascent phase spider's venom. Then he slipped out of sight... and indeed, out of space, and ghosted clear through the wall of Falcone's labyrinth to whatever lay beyond.

Spoiler: OOC Actions!

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Spending 1 Ki point (down to 7) to use Ghost Step which, as of this level, I can use to go Ethereal, then going through the wall into the mystery zone. Strictly speaking once I'm through the wall I'll be able to see what's on the other side and then Damien will choose a hiding spot as necessary to return to the plane.

Ninja.

[JbeJ275]

You know, so much time wasted on learning ettiquete and I never learned the appropriate thank you message for a magical gift that saved my life in arcane combat with a madman. Perhas a fruit basket would be appropriate.

As this grim thought raced through her mind Barbara had to come to terms with the fact that she was outgunned here, fights between mages were always a toss up, but outnumbered and outgunned against a mage who could just brute force dispel anything she threw was a good time to cut and run, content in disrupting their operations for a day at least.

Thus she ran to the outside of the tent, before undergoing a Benign Transposition in the seconds before the invisibility faded, with Juluis using those last seconds to extract himself back through the top of the tent again.

Inside, the booming mask continued to speak.

"So rude of you champion, trying to send me away like that. I suppose a spellseller has no reason to take my embrace. Still, as for the rest of you, perhaps I'll see one of you tonight.

With that she let the major illusion flash into bright crimson light for the next ten seconds, hoping to dazzle and distract with it while she focused on running to cover, hoping to make it into hiding before the last few seconds of her invisibility spell passed.

[Molan]

Spoiler: Uptown - The Jinx

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Damien passed straight through the mirror and...popped into a open, chaotic room on the other side. Lots of expensive looking rugs were tossed about the room, and tables and stacks of crates were filled up with what Damien could only surmise was ill-gotten loot. Behind him, he saw the outline of a false door...he hadn't figured out the mirror itself, but the answer to the Thieves Guild entrance had been under his nose the whole time.

The room looked like a sort of a common area; there were some chairs, lit candles, empty or half empty bottles of booze, even some crumb covered plates. But it was also filled with tons of valuable contraband. A door was partially ajar at the other end of the room, leading into the rest of the hideout. Damien remembered his grandfather's lair, from when he was a few years younger -- it'd been riddled with surprises to punish those initiates who didn't take their training seriously. He had to be careful, in here.

Spoiler: OOC

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Thieves Guild Hall unlocked! Best of luck to you...

Spoiler: South Channel Island - The Carnival Grounds

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All things considered, Oracle's operation had gone remarkably well. She'd left the tent and it's cultish occupants in complete disarray, and managed to depart relatively unscathed. She couldn't tell for sure whether she'd killed the woman pursuing her or any of the thugs on the ground, but they'd all learned a tough lesson about starting trouble in her city -- they would not be going unopposed.

In best case terms, Oracle might have hoped that the cult turned on their leader, or at least disbanded. Something about the interaction left her unsure about that outcome, but she'd definitely set them back. The preacher would have to do something truly dramatic in order to reign in his terrified flock now. In the meantime, she'd assessed their strengths and learned a bit more about their plans, and that was something. A little bit of purchased time, a little more planning, and these brutes could be stopped. Hopefully.

But now she was navigating her way out of the haunted Carnival Grounds, looking to make sure she got away clean and avoided running into any more trouble. Torchlight up ahead of her warned her of two passers by, who she might have run into if she kept moving in that direction. She looked around, assessing ways to circumnavigate the patrol, and weighed her options. She needed to clear the Carnival Grounds, and get back to her original mission. She just needed to pick between brute force, or subterfuge.

Spoiler: OOC

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Ten on a listen reveals two voices talking to each other. At least one is holding a torch, just up ahead. If you can clear this pat you're home free off the island. Then you can pursue your next objective.

[JbeJ275]

Another swift spell restored Invisibility to Barbara and Julius, though this lesser version wouldn’t hold up to combat. Following that she made a path around the two, listening to what they were saying as she went but focused first and foremost on getting clear.

[Molan]

Spoiler: South Channel Island - Carnival Grounds

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Oracle stalked behind the two thugs. They were both wearing the same kind of worn, tattered former-circus-costume outfits that the cult's other thugs had on. She couldn't tell if the getups were because they were genuinely performers or because they were putting on a show to imitate the Fools' Guild, but she could sense the radiating stink of arcana coming off of them.

"What do you think is going on?" the larger of the two, a half-orc, asked.

"Dunno. You know the Boss. He's putting on a show for the new recruits. Maybe he decided to do something extra insane, just to drum up some excitement."

"He's gonna get us killed if we're not careful."

The second man, who was holding the torch and had a sort of strange horned hood as part of his costume, shook his head and laughed.

"You're off mate. You have no idea what he's capable of. When he finally completes his ritual this whole city'll be at our knees, and I'll be burning down the Mage's College myself."

"You sure? Until the Harlequin showed up we weren't exactly in big bus--"

"Mate, you don't get it. Everything's different now! Soon, the Dark Knight will be gone, if he's not already! The Bat will consume the High Lords and the Boss will control the Bat, and we'll all be kings!"

"Maybe..." the big half orc grumbled. "Still, we should get back."

"We're almost there."

They turned towards the great tent -- even from this distance, in the dark, Oracle could see that people were now swarming around it. She'd kicked the beehive something fierce -- she could only hope the bees were consumed enough to eat each other. Either way, she had her way out -- the patrol had passed her point of egress, and the path through the woods back to the bridge was now open.

[MrAbdiel]

["I'm in."]

Damien returned to a world of weight and color, feet alighting silently on the floor.

["It's just behind the mirror if you need to bust in at some point - though the mirror itself may be trapped or warded. Looks like an antechamber testing ground for novice rogues."]

The door beyond was partly open - an invitation to simple solutions, he assumed. Perhaps the ground beneath one or both of the rugs ahead would drop into a pit, if one put their eyes to the destination and not the path. Instead, he took a moment to shift sideways along the wall, peering over the contraband containers for anything worth confiscating - and anything too tempting to be anything but a trap.

Spoiler: OOC:

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Oh boy, I guess Listen's great but doesn't help you with things that don't move or make noise! But time to give the contraband pile a cursory search before proceeding. (1d20+7)[16]. I'll take ten on a cursory glance for traps on the way there, too, just in case.

[Molan]

["I'm in."]

Damien returned to a world of weight and color, feet alighting silently on the floor.

["It's just behind the mirror if you need to bust in at some point - though the mirror itself may be trapped or warded. Looks like an antechamber testing ground for novice rogues."]

The door beyond was partly open - an invitation to simple solutions, he assumed. Perhaps the ground beneath one or both of the rugs ahead would drop into a pit, if one put their eyes to the destination and not the path. Instead, he took a moment to shift sideways along the wall, peering over the contraband containers for anything worth confiscating - and anything too tempting to be anything but a trap.

Spoiler: OOC:

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Oh boy, I guess Listen's great but doesn't help you with things that don't move or make noise! But time to give the contraband pile a cursory search before proceeding. [roll0]. I'll take ten on a cursory glance for traps on the way there, too, just in case.

Spoiler: Uptown - The Jinx - Thieves Guild Hall

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Damien managed to navigate along the edge of the wall nimbly enough, but his search was in vain -- he'd need to spend more time prying through the boxes to see anything of value, and wasn't able to detect any traps.

[MrAbdiel]

Damien's curiosity was never his downfall - he'd check these crates on his way out, if there was time. But he cast a glance across the room as he turned his attention back to the task at hand. Falcone was the target - and through him, Velnire; and through him, the weakening of the Thieves in Midtown and the acquisition of a tool to make their crusade more possible. Plus, if they finished up here quickly, they could still speak with the Bards, and maybe even catch the Chraal. He'd been warned about this place, and he took the warning seriously - no need to provoke the room in the places traps were most likely loaded, if anywhere. Under rugs, on the thresholds of doors, in otherwise juicy boxes of loot. So he took out his trusty Rod, set it to its zipline function in case he would need it; snooped up to the edge of the rug infront of the ajar door on the other side of the room... then launched himself nimbly over fifteen feet of carpet to dangle one handed, chimplike, from the frame of the door, and then peer through into the next room without touching the ground.

[Molan]

Spoiler: Uptown - The Jinx - Thieves' Guild Hall

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Hanging from the doorway, Damien saw it lead down a hallway; the door at the other end of the suspiciously featureless hall was also ajar, mostly open in fact. The room beyond that was dimly lit, but there were at least a few candles glowing inside, and he could see a couple of other doors inside the next room.

[MrAbdiel]

Another suspiciously empty room - but without telling bloodstains, or grooved tracks in the dust to guess the ideal path, Damien is forced to assume the danger is one bypassed by those who know the way to walk through it. If there's a danger at all, and it's not just psychological cruelty to the thieves.

He first tries his luck, dropping gently to the ground inside the corridor...

Spoiler: OOC!

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Speed Climb requires that I begin and end my turn on a horizontal surface, so technically Damien drops down and, if the world doesn't end, hunkers there for a few seconds.

...then bounces up to the left hand wall, using his momentum and light grabs on sconces and fingerholds in the crown moulding to scamper sideways across the wall, finally ending balanced on the top of the door already swung partly into the room.

Spoiler: OOC!

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Another end of turn, to satisfy the business of speed climb!

... before peeking into the next room from his new vantage!

[JbeJ275]

Barbara bites her lip, but decides against interfering with these two individual goons. The previous expierience more so than anything else showing that it's best to always suspect you'll need a spell in reserve. Instead she quietly made her way back to the bridge to midtown, and from there went about tracking down the home of one Officer Bullock, GJD.

[Molan]

Spoiler: Uptown - The Jinx - Thieves Guild Hall

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The Thieves Guild was a notorious and dangerous organization, and their premier hideout in Gotham seemed to really live up to their reputation. And yet, it needed to be said, Damien was, in many respects, up to the challenge. Sure, he was young and still sometimes pig-headed, but he had been trained by the League of Shadows, and by the Dark Knight himself. His skills were superb, and he handled himself with incredible agility.

Unfortunately, even he was not flawless. As he dropped down inside the hallway from the doorframe, several things happened at once -- he heard a loud *click*, and felt the distinct sensation of a pressure plate moving a mechanical device under his foot.

Spoiler: OOC

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Thanks for clarifying! (evil devilish grin face). Make a reflex save.

Go ahead and make a new search check too; if you survive this, you can look for new traps lol. Given what just happened I'll also give you +2 circumstance on Spot and Search inside the lair.

Spoiler: Uptown - Old Gotham - Outside Bullock's Apartment

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Old Gotham lived up to it's name -- it was positively ancient, a wiring complex of ancient connecting towers, keeps, walls and great halls. Supposedly, once, an incredibly long time ago, this was the center of "Gothamite" civilization, though it was mostly occupied by Necromancers and later, by the conquering Wayne armies that had scoured them from the earth.

These days, it was sort of a grandiose, if decaying, historical district that allowed certain connected middle class members of Gotham's society to live near and even slightly in the Uptown highlife without actually qualifying for it. The Arcane Rail system up here included mostly smaller individual cars that ran along enchanted wires suspended from the island's many tall and baroque towers, and one of them quietly coasted overhead as Oracle scouted out her destination.

Bullock stayed in a large stone building; it had to be at least six stories tall, and, as best she could tell, had once served as some kind of library or grand barracks. It'd since been renovated and restored many times, and was now cut up into a honeycomb of apartments for tenants just like her quarry. Some late night drinkers tarried under faerie fire lanterns in a decaying garden out front, overshadowed by a couple of old hickory trees. There was one primary entrance, but the building was crisscrossed with gothic crossbeams and arches and gargoyles, and as it's purpose was never defensive in nature there were plenty of decent sized windows, especially on the third levels and up.

She had a choice; use magic or guile to walk in through the front door, past a bored looking pair of guards, or find a way to circumnavigate them and enter through one of the windows or -- maybe? -- the roof herself.

Bullock wouldn't be too hard to find. According to her previous investigation, he'd claimed his apartment on the sixth floor -- a really nice, big suite -- after an old, lonely rich widow had died in it and he rushed the cause of death investigation.

Real nice guy.

Spoiler: OOC

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Your move. Declare how you want to enter -- if you think you can ingress without talking to anyone, you should be able to. Once we get you to his room you can lay out how you want the scene to go.

[Molan]

Spoiler: Uptown - The Jinx - Thieves Guild Hall

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The trap's mechanism opened fast, and the floor gave way. Fortunately, Damien was quick enough and familiar enough with this kind of trouble that he was able to leap away, jumping up to a handhold on the wall and then swinging from one spot to another down the hall, avoiding the floor, until he arrived in the next doorway as intended.

He'd only gotten a moment to see the mechanism at the bottom of the pit, but it looked like a simple rolling barrel covered in spikes, so that if he'd fallen in the pit he'd have been stabbed, then severely struggled to extricate himself.

Still, he'd made it. No reason to dwell on that embarrassing episode. A quick scan into the next room revealed no hiding interlocutors, which was good. But he still couldn't seem to detect any additional thieves guild booby traps, which he felt sure had to be there.

The next room over was strange looking. It was a nice enough space, but mostly empty. It was approximately 50 square feet, and filled with a strange array of different doors. Some were wooden, some metal. Some simple and grimy looking, some incredible ornate. ALL of them seemed suspicious, and all of them were very clearly fitted with locks of varying complexities. There were eight doors in total, not counting the doorway he was hanging in. For a moment, it almost kind of seemed like that's all they were -- doors to nowhere, a room for thieves to practice their art. But upon closer inspection Damien verified that more than a few of them were definitely connected to the wall, and might lead somewhere.

One of them had to lead somewhere, right?

[MrAbdiel]

He grimaced at the pit, now that he had avoided it. He had been sure the trap would be part of the floor, not the entire width of the corridor. Less a test of memory, and more of constant effort. How did Falcone traverse them? He had not placed the man as particularly physically cunning - but then, perhaps that was a cultivated illusion.

Now with a room featuring the lockpicking array, he checks back in with Batwoman.

["Kane. Beyond the first room is a corridor with a pit trap; I'm in a room beyond that, with an array of doors - probably a lockpicking course. One or more of them has to lead somewhere."]

But without a trap becoming obvious, he needs somewhere to stand - and with no stronger instinct than to try the doors one at a time, his course, hazardous as it may be, is clear. He drops down to the floor just inside the door - surely they wouldn't do the same thing twice in the same way - and then starts at the left, to work his way around. Once he is confided he cannot -see- obvious traps, he chooses the first door on the left, toggles the handle at a distance with the help of the minor telekinetic property permitted by the Hand of the Mage, and if no trap is revealed but a lock is present, he will set to picking!

Spoiler: OOC!

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Ah, the Baldur's Gate 2 Shadowtheives Guild Hall. How I missed you. You better have a Rogue Stone for me, in one of these.

20 to take ten attempting to disable devices, if I notice them; 25 to take ten picking locks. I guess he'll work through until he fumbles onto a trap, or opens a door to somewhere, or gets outfoxed by a lock!

[JbeJ275]

Well outside of the Bullock's bachelour pad, Barbara rewove the illusion this time bending greater energues to her will to ensure she had the time to both get in and get out. With her Extended Invisibility now in place she made her way through the front door, following the next occasion on which it opened and then slipped past the guards and towards her target.

[Molan]

Spoiler: Uptown - The Jinx - Thieves Guild Hall

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Damien reached out with Hand of the Mage and jiggered the handle of the first door. It was locked firmly shut, but he was rewarded with a sudden *snap!* sound and a rush of magical energy. An immobile, vertical curtain of whirling blades shaped of pure force sprang into existence. Some of the sharp blades suddenly whizzed past him so close and so fast they nearly clipped the end of his nose. Fortunately, he was only just far enough away from the door to avoid the trap, but if he'd been closer, he'd have been blended.

Spoiler: OOC

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Your move. You can try Knowledge: Arcana or Spellcraft to try to guess the blade barrier's duration, but these are not exactly your strong areas.

Spoiler: Uptown - Old Gotham - Bullock's Apartment

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Oracle managed to find her way through the apartments easily enough; invisible as she was she was able to simply avoid passers-by as she went, using her extended senses to eventually make her way to the top, where she found Bullock's apartment in a long stone hallway furnished by an ornate but ancient rug. His door was thick, heavy wood banded with Iron, and the lock appeared to have been installed sometime after the original door; it was quite ornate. Crucially, however, a cursory search revealed something else: the door handle was alarmed.

Spoiler: OOC

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Back to you! Almost inside!

Spoiler: Feathersnow

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You are very patient and we all appreciate you, lol.

[JbeJ275]

Barbara momentarily paused, she could likely disable the alarm as she had Tetch's security mesures, but while those were exterior runes that could easily be left unaximened for weeks at a time this one was in a prominent place, that would no doubt alert Bullock to someone's tampering if it didn't trigger upon his own return here. Thus she was forced to draw upon that careful blending of divine and arcane magic, expeding a Divine Guidance to temporarily access the competence needed to leave the alarm disabled, but able to be reactivated when she left.

Spoiler: Rolls

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Disable Device: [roll] 1d20+34[/roll]

DC should be 36

[MrAbdiel]

Damien steps back onto his heel as the bladebarrier erupts. A strange trap - without applying its teeth to the place directly infront of the door, it seems mostly intent on either killing spectators, warning learning rogues that they might be dead if the trap had wanted it, or specifically to whack midwit door-crackers toggling handles with ten foot poles. But it was a hell of a trap; and the blades, force as they are, would penetrate into the realm of smoke and shadow where the mastery of his blood could take him.

This is a lot of work for a conversation. Falcone better be willing to help.

["Kane. The traps in this door-nexus are... extremely dangerous. I'm going to try circumventing them entirely."]

He trots around to the corner wall, with the blade barrier to his front and the wall to his left. If he stewards his resources carefully, he might get... two or three doors scouted, before he had to make a choice. From his bag of theives tools he takes the simplest tool of all - a twelve inch length of plain pine wooden doweling, and tucks it under his arm. Then he produces a potion of clear, saline tasting tonic and throws it back - feeling his mind and muscles tightening as he draws on his blood's gained power again.

Fading into the smoke and shadow, he steps through the wall, and searches beyond the doors - hoping to avoid the traps entirely.

Spoiler: OOC:

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Okay. New plan.

But first - Damien's looking over these doors didn't reveal any of them matching THE DOOR I'm looking for, right? it's a variety of sample doors, but not THE DOOR Lord Gordon mentioned?

Presuming I'm not missing something that wildly obvious, he's the plan. Prep by drinking a potion of expeditious retreat (caster level 1, so 1 minute duration). That'll juice Damien's move speed up to 50ft, which he'll need to carefully use his Ki points here. He has a piece of wood in his hand (I figured such an expendable thing was reasonable to have in a thieves toolkit). Then, on a fresh turn...

Swift action: Go Ethereal.
Move action: move 50 ft, starting by going diagonally into the wall to his left to put him past the frame of the door he just triggered, and then forward.
Std Action: move another 10 feet to complete the search, then back up to 40ft to the most interesting revealed location.


By my calculations, if we assume there are corridors behind all the doors, Damien can use about 60ft of his movement to ghost-move cutting narrowly on the 'inside' of those doors and explore/sight the two on the west side, and the two on the north. And with 40ft of movement left, he has enough to cut directly back to whichever one he makes the split-second decision to manifest in and explore more thoroughly.

He's leading his movement with the dowel pointed forward. The idea is that if that bladebarrier is operating on the far side of the door as well, it'll chew up the (ethereal) dowel instead of his face; and he'll stop and renegotiate his movement at that point in a more conservative way.

Down to 6/8 Ki!

[Feathersnow]

The Batwoman hides as the young scout risks himself with the traps. Hypothetically, she could circumvent the whole mess with her psi powers, but that seemed like the sort of thing that could easily go wrong. Better to rely on conventional methods. .

[Molan]

Spoiler: Uptown - The Jinx - Thieves Guild Hall

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The first door Damien circumvented revealed a short hallway, then a large, dark room beyond. he didn't have much time to examine it but the room seemed much bigger than it ought to be...it was too, deep. The second door revealed a small chamber with a single heavy looking locked chest inside. The third room however had a nice, ornate looking door just inside a short hallway, and what looked like a decently well furnished chamber beyond it.

Spoiler: OOC

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You're up!

Spoiler: Uptown - Old Gotham - Bullock's Apartment

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It was difficult to do under normal circumstances, but feeling the pressure of temporarily disarming the alarm spell on the door and beating the lock while wondering if her quarry -- or someone worse -- might come back and notice something amiss at any moment gave Oracle the slightest feeling of anxiety. She remembered her time in her own townhouse, working with Questor, and focused on the divine lore she'd garnered.

Focusing closely, she summoned divine power to her to expand her mind and steady her hand, and completed the mystical steps required to temporarily nullify the ward. It worked. Once the runes' auras dissipated from her mages' sight she got to work picking the lock. It was well made, but she was patient, and after a while of working it she managed to get it open, making her way inside Bullock's Apartment.

The interior was well furnished enough; clearly the building had a service staff -- or perhaps some ongoing ministerial enchantments -- that helped keep things clean; there was a stew slow cooking over a fire in the hearth, a moderately sized, well furnished and fully made bed, and the chamber pot had been emptied. Most interesting to Oracle were other details in the room -- specifically the single, large window overlooking the Old Gotham street below and the study area, complete with a messy pile of notes and dates and other letters. There was evidence here, that much was sure, but it was too much to decipher all at once. Though, if her plan worked and she was able to break up Bullock's network, this evidence could probably be quite useful to a patient, dedicated Bloodhound later on if she chose to press charges.

As she began to prepare her trap, she noticed a single other feature of the room -- next to the hearth, the wall looked...off. After a quick search she was able to find a candelabra that acted as a leaver, and when she pulled it the wall moved to the side, revealing itself to be a concealed door, hiding a closet within. It was dark inside, and she had to produce her own light, but she was able to determine the contents easily enough.

Weapons. Broadswords, Greatswords, crossbows, knives, maces and hammers. A veritable trove of killing hardware.

"Well, not sure what I expected, but this about checks out." she smiled to herself.

Spoiler: OOC

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You're up!

[MrAbdiel]

The first room looked like it might be another mirror-trick. The second didn't go anywhere - though he was curious about the chest's content, he could come back for that another time. But the third, with the vague ethereal glimmers of a well furnished room beyond a small corridor, most probably fit the bill. Falcone was a man of culture - past the façade of tricks and mirrors, he would dwell in comfort. Thus, he made the decision to manifest in the short corridor of the third door, halfway down the length of the room to the left side.

[Molan]

Spoiler: Uptown - The Jinx - Thieves Guild Hall

Show

Once inside the short hallway, Damien inched forward closely. The door was slightly ajar, and though he couldn't see much inside besides a simple, elegant table against one wall, some (likely stolen) wall art and some animal skin rugs, he could hear plenty.

"I don't know why we're waiting around, at this point. We've got the coin, let's just put out the contract."

"What, and start a bigger war? A public contract will..."

"It doesn't have to be public, Boss. We can just do a single contract. One assassin."

"Listen, you ingrates. For the last time, it's more complicated than that. We got the Kyles in Midtown, the False Face Uptown, the Dents running around with half the city looking for them, nobody can touch em. The bankers are starting to get antsy and if all that wasn't enough, now the Justicars and the Blackgates are out in force every siggin fuggin' night trying to round up anyone who might be a threat to the Black Tower. We need to pick our shots. We have Padfoot yes, plus a few other pretty decent assassins besides. But if we go single contract, then whoever we send is probably going to be indisposed for at LEAST a week, if not longer. These are big hits. If we post it up generally, then anyone who's not our friend might suddenly be gunning for us. We've got to move, but we've got to do it carefulyl."

"Well......there's always The Penguin."

"Whoa...mate..."

"Are you out of your fuggin' mind!? There is no way in all the Hells we are fuggin' around with that stunted little bastard. I don't care if he does own half the fuggin' city. Nevermind that crap he pulled back in the day, you wanna wind up like the Dark Market, taking orders from that squat?"

Spoiler: OOC

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You're up.

[MrAbdiel]

Damn. That's Falcone - but also Kysel Velnire, whom Damien hoped to convince Falcone to sell out! He could hardly swagger into the room like that - even if they didn't jump him and get the lucky hits they needed to kill him right away, it wouldn't work with both in the room. He flattened himself against the wall outside the door, and listened for a few moments longer before reaching out to Batwoman.

["Kane; I'm just outside Falcone's chamber. He's meeting with his lieutenants, Velnire among them. They're desperate, like we thought - but I can't pitch him selling out Velnire while he's standing right there. I need a distraction - a big enough ruckus these guys clear out to help, and leave Falcone in his safe room where I can speak to him. Maybe you want to... start knocking on doors, and throwing goons around? These ones here are mid-bosses - heavy hitters - but you don't need to stick around and take them all out. Just to mix it up long enough they leave Falcone unattended; then you can blink out of there. I can escape through the wall, too. Can you do it?"]

Spoiler: OOC:

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Damien's hiding out of sight, but he's hoping that when the ruckus stars these LT's will clear out. So he's holding an action to Ghost Step, so he can fade from view when someone starts to come into this corridor; and probably step through the wall and hide in Falcone's office at the end of that action.

[Molan]

Spoiler: Uptown - The Jinx - Thieves Guild Hall

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Damien recognized Velnire's dour voice from The Exchange.

"Cobblepott wants to rule Gotham. No fuggin' way in all the hells we let that happen. But his boys are tangling with the Justicars and the Imperials every night. He can't make any big moves until House James is out of the way. The only way he pries away the Legion or the Cops is if there's a succession crisis."

"Okay, so what do you want to do then?" the second voice sounded defensive.

"The bankers are powerful but they're a mess. That's to our advantage. They'll be at each others' throats soon, now that we know Roman Sionis is running the False Face. As far as we know, from the Boss' experience at the party, the Dents, the False Face, and the Bankers are all after the same thing."

"Yea, they want the bat. Dent was just dumb enough to get out ahead of the rest before they'd all killed each other."

"Get the bat, get the city. With that kind of power you could kill Lord James, Marshall Gordon, all the Blackgates, and anyone else that fugged with you, without batting an eye. What we need to do is make sure no one gets it. The longer they're fighting over that fuggin' book, the better it is for us. So we don't send out a general contract at all. We only need to solve for two things."

Falcone finally spoke again.

"Okay, and what's that?"

"First, we need to keep your buddy Lord James alive. The Cops are a mess, in no small part thanks to us. I'd rather deal with them any day of the week than the Bankers' army. Second, we do need to put out a contract, I think, but not on Dent or Sionis or Cobblepott."

"Who, then?"

"The only person...or, maybe now, people in this city that can throw a wrench in this whole thing. The one group that poses more of a threat to us than the Man Bat or the Law or the Bankers or anyone else."

"You're talking about the Dark Knight." said Falcone.

"Yea, kind of. But it's knights now, isn't it? There was a whole crew of adventurers at Hill Hall, you said so yourself. They gotta be working together. If the original Dark Knight is taking on squires and copycats, that's a problem. It's time to clear them off of the board."

"You don't think it's true, do you?" said Second Voice.

"What?"

"That the Dark Knight's actually Bruce Wayne?"

"Pfffft. That lazy dumb@ss? No way. But I think whoever it is wants us to think that he's the Wayne's returned to Gotham. That's where all the direbat iconography comes from, I think. And if 'House Wayne' manages to do their adventurer thing and say -- defeat the bankers, or find this Guild Hall. Well, that's game over."

Spoiler: OOC

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Chat chat pass!

[Feathersnow]

[On it.]

Kate warps up to the mirror door and smashes it!

I'm here to kick *** and take names, and I'm all out of names!! she shouts!

[Molan]

Spoiler: Uptown - The Jinx - Thieves Guild Hall

Show

The mirror shatters and falls away, revealing, behind it -- an ornate looking door, with a skull key icon behind it.

It was locked, but not nearly well enough; this barrier relied on being concealed. A swift strike with the heavy poleaxe ripped through the door and Kate was inside the Guildhall. Lots of expensive looking rugs were tossed about the room, and tables and stacks of crates were filled up with what Kate could only surmise was ill-gotten loot. The room looked like a sort of a common area; there were some chairs, lit candles, empty or half empty bottles of booze, even some crumb covered plates. But it was also filled with tons of valuable contraband. A door was partially ajar at the other end of the room, leading into the rest of the hideout.

Kate's battle shout echoed down the hall, loud enough for Damien, still in the hallway near Falcone's office, behind one of the locked test doors, to hear her. And not just him.

"Shut the fug up. What was that?" said one of the voices inside.

This time, Damien heard a woman's voice. "That," she said, "Out in the hall! That loud bang and that woman's voice yelling."

"I heard the bang, but I didn't hear..."

"Quiet. It doesn't matter, I did." Velnire growled. "We've got company. Armand, Alberto, get the Boss to Safety. Allegra, Johnny, come with me."

Things were moving quickly, Damien would have to think fast.

Spoiler: OOC

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Roll for initiative!

You still have Surprise as no one as seen anyone else yet. Reference Roll20 for your map positions. Kate can't see where Damien is, currently.