Well, Shucks. You're Probably Gonna Get Waterboarded. (Sirenswail 6)

Date: Early fall 1640
Location: London
Main Cast: Shio the Acid-Burnout Alice, Gund the Amoral Magic-User, Salith the Cannibal Elf
Supporting Cast: Helga of the Ulvenbrigaad, Harold the Mule

Previously: With a minimum of planning and the overconfidence that powerful magic items bring, our heroes quickly found themselves trapped in the Tower of London and Gundisalvus captured on the roof.

Presently: Salith and Shio, in the prison chambers of Archbishop Laud, poke around. The twitching bodies held by massive iron bands to slabs were of surprisingly little interest to them- puzzling the Ref, but hey, these PCs been through some shit, so whatever. A chest was of somewhat more interest, and when inspected it seemed to have some kind of blurred field around it, as well as the materials being petrified and rusted.

That seemed like too much trouble. The Archbishop was the objective, and they wanted to expedite things in order to maybe rescue Gund or at least escape. Salith removed the ring in order to talk to Laud, since they wanted to get their information about what was going on with the various religious factions, political movings, and especially the anti-pagan stuff going on in the country.

Laud seemed pleasantly surprised to see them- he made a brief cordial greeting, and began to remove the glove he wore on his left hand. Underneath was something to see- an eye on the palm (pun intended). The shock forced an initiative roll, and the players were lucky enough to win, with Salith immediately donning the ring of invisibility/forgetfulness/obstacle-obviation. Safe from whatever was going on with Laud's hand, it was time to GTFO.

Who knows what information they had actually gained from this? That the Catholic/Anglican/Protestant tensions going on had some kind of bizarre occult background? Hard to say, really. Since the ladies were svelte enough to shimmy up the chimney again, they did so, though the buzzing of the ring's energy was getting to a worrying point, as was its amnesiac aura. On the roof they quickly rappelled down their rope, but as soon as their radius of invisibility exposed the rope, a guard dislodged their grappling hook and they plunged to the ground. Tense rolls for fall damage were made, but they made out ok and rendezvoused with Helga. Fuck Gund, am I right?

They hoofed it out of the walls and into someplace they could disappear in the streets of London. After dodging the fuzz, they found their way to a spot directly across the Thames from the White Tower so that they could spring Gund and make an escape via gondola. Shio used her wiles to gain passage from a young ferryman named Melvin, who was kind of an awkward acne-ridden goth type and seemed pretty twitterpated with her.

Meanwhile, Gund came to in a dank underground prison cell. Though he couldn't see anything, he did hear a fellow prisoner somewhere down the hall and struck up a short conversation with him. The prisoner had an Irish accent and claimed to be imprisoned by Parliament for collaborating with Durham, with whom the Swedish Gund was not familiar. He also mentioned that a few others had been taken to a torture room down the hall. Pretty par for the course, Gund figured, and thus it was time to get the fuck out. Luckily, he knew the spell Arguments Against Design, perfectly suited to his situation.

The man-made cement and blocks making up the underground foundation of the tower were within the purview of the spell, meaning that with a few castings the walls had been turned to dust. Gund sweated as he made a Risky Casting roll, facing the possibility of perhaps disassembling himself into constituent parts among other consequences of cosmic manipulation, but was successful and now free.

He wasted no time in his exit. Blazing across the courtyard, he was quickly spotted by the guards on the walls as soon as they regained their composure. Further gritting of teeth seemed to carry him through, as he was not struck by any musket-fire as he made his way to the gate. From the ferry on the Thames, Salith cast Plant Growth, both jamming open the portcullis and hampering the movement of pursuing guards. Gund made a running leap to the gondola in the style of ye Faste & Furiousse, and the PCs were off towards the bay and the docked White Wind.

Sadly, no treasure nor much information was gained due to their hasty exit.