We'll say Cat 1 got dusted.

As the giant rat falls back from it's wounds taking hits from all sides, it collapses in a bloody heap. The cultist immediately stand in shock and awe as the creature falls. They rather clump together in a huddle with hands raised showing they mean no harm "anymore" to the heroes.

"Please spare us.", one of them says.

Any signs of remaining rats or cultist are all gone with the exceptions of these three.

“LAY PRONE IF YOU SURRENDER!”  Lirian ordered to the cultists, moving to them and, if they obey, tying their hands to their backs and taking their weapons.

Then she turned to the rest of the group. “We must take them to the authorities, but first I’d like to see if we can raid their base here to obtain as much information as we can.” she told them. “I hope no more defenders will remain, and this information may help us to know the nature of the plague, and maybe even some steps to cure Orin and the others. We cannot miss the opportunity ”.

She looked at Kai. “how do you feel now? ” she asked him.

The dogs spend some time biting the downed rat. It is unable to defend itself and is killed before Quentin is able to save potentially valuable specimen. Well, a dead specimen is also valuable, if only about half as much. The dogs then start to eye the surrendering cultists with clearly ill intentions, but now Quentin is more prepared and gets the dogs to guard the cultists as they are being handled by someone else.

Quentin himself goes around the battlefield, telling the dead from the breathing and dealing finishing blows to all of the dead. If asked, he says this is to mitigate some kind of medical errors. Those alive, both the cultists and the rats, are dragged to one neat heap and accounted for.

"We'll need those f***ers stripped, bound and interrogated, these f***ers stripped and bound and those f***ers stripped." This is all said pointing at the surrendering guys, at the neat heap at Quentin's feet and at the rest of the area, seemingly with no intend of personally doing either. "I'll tend to his wounds."

I think someone is still wounded, so, taking 10 minutes of time...
19:29, Today: Secret Roll: Quentin Fox rolled 1,10 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max.  Using one charge from healing kit.

I'd like to know how many downed survivors we have, both of man and of rat variety, and an account of the loot if someone gets to that. I'd also like to know whether Kai seems doomed.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:36, Wed 18 Oct 2023.

OOC: Kai should not be doomed based upon Lirian's healing and using the healing kit. He is wounded I would say by 1 wound by my calculations but he will heal.

IC:The men lay prone following what Lirian says to do.

After trying the men and stripping them of any weapon, potion, scroll or paper or anything that could be sued by them or give information they had, Lirian leaned on her staff. The combat has been stressing and tiring, and she was out of power for more magic, but there was no time to rest if she wanted the base raided for information.

She turned to Piper. “I guess you’re the best to go unnoticed, and even to pass through rubble if needed. Can you lead the way to find their base and retrieve what information we can?”

OOC: some points:

• What can be taken from the prisoners and dead?
• I understand Piper is small cat or rat sized (I’m still not sure what (s)he is). Right?

OOC: Piper is a mouseling which is a heritage that you are familiar with. Very rare race but you are familiar with them or at least have heard of them.

The men carry nothing on the person besides each one carrying a dagger(1) and a pendant that specifically seems to have some strange symbol on it that you are unaware. It's not a god's symbol for sure.

The rubble is pretty dense but a mouse/cat/etc could make it through the cracks. The humans however would not.

Quentin, not being distracted from his work, remarks at that. "You let them give you all the information, and only risk someone's life if they bet their lives that it would be safe enough." He also frowns. Amateurs.

Daremo stands watch over the men making sure that they don't move. His mace is at the ready should any try anything.

Hunter let out a sigh of relief when the giant rat monster went down.  "I say, that was quite exciting, hey?" He drawled calmly. "Almost worked a sweat up. Good thing they weren't armed."

He grabbed one of the spell slinging  cultistss, sauing to Liriam "You take care of the others." He unhurriedly went about tying his captive up with his own clothes cheerfully cutting them into rags to do it with. No point in cutting up good rope, even if they had any, hey?

When that was done he plonked him in a sitting position and hauled over a big rat, which he sat on and began casually cleaning and reloading his pistols, taking all the time in the world.
"So we're you working for that thing, or was it working for you, boys?" He asked pleasantly. "Where did it come from?"

OOC: Just to clarify, Hunter is using the cultist's own clothes to tie him up, not his own. In fact, he will probably even replace his one-legged set of pants with the cultist's!
This message was last edited by the player at 00:13, Thu 19 Oct 2023.

Kai looked at Lirian, grabbing his chest.

"I've been better, but not as bad as I was, thanks to you. I honestly didn't think your spell would work. You might have sensed magic can find it difficult to get through to me. Would rather have tried to deal with the cultists than that rat, but it seems the rat had other ideas, namedly using me as a chew toy. But what's one more scar?"

Jenkins guardedly reappeared from behind a tree, and slowly and cautiously  approaches once she was sure the fighting was over. When she was sure it was safe, she immediately enthusiastically joined in the looting of the cultists, though she didn't twig to the idea of "take prisoners" and had to be physically stopped from killing the captives in cold blood.

She went over to where Hunter was interrogating his prisoner.
"Can has eats now?" She asked hopefully, staring hungrily at the bound man.

"No, only if they don't answer questions."

She snorted disgustedly and turned her attention to the rat her master was sitting on. With little squeals of delight she poked and prodded and finally pulled out an eyeball which she popped into her mouth, chewing contentedly and eyeing the captive specutively just in case Hunter changed his mind.

Hunter was continuing his questioning. "So what's down below?"

The situation was sorted, Aeress quickly saw.  That did not hurt her feelings any.  She might have objected if they'd wanted to kill enemies who surrendered, but that didn't happen.  Normally one to run her mouth, she had nothing to say because it had all been said already.  She was pleased however, everyone was looking for something useful to do and not just thinking of themselves.

The prisoners were guarded, the scouting was being handled, so Aeress watched the interrogation.  She might be of some help, but she didn't wish to crowd the conversation, such as it was.

Piper hopped down from Quentin's shoulder and took up a position atop the head of her surviving shrubbery cat.

Looking to Lirian she gave a shrug.  "I could certainly try.  Though I think Quentin and Hunter have the right of it.  We should see what they tell us.  Might make it easier to find whatever might have survived down there."

Lirian bowed to majority vote. “I doubt those cultists will tell anything useful, but no moment to discuss among ourselves” she thought.

“OK, let’s interrogate them then, but I’d like not to lose too much time, as some more could return or appear.” she said. “So let’s only try to know about what may be here, we will have time to interrogate them more in deep latter, or the authorities may want to do it themselves.”

She left interrogation to the others, while studying the strange pendants she had taken from then, trying to identify what they might be or what the strange symbol might mean.

“You told us this cult brought trouble to your land. Do you recognize this symbol, or at least have you ever seen it?” she asked to Daremo.

OOC:aside from the two daggers from the cultist mages, what other weapons can we take from the other cultists?

[Private to GM: Might a common knowledge help in identifying the pendants or the symbols on them?]

OOC: Nothing other the dangers are on the cultist persons. The symbol itself is completely foreign and unknown to anyone that is part of the group. In order to speed up the cultist replies for information I will turn this into a little drama battle.

IC: As you pick up the cultist asking for answers they give hardly anything short of a smile. When hunter assaults the cultist with his words the man laughs.
"Lair? We have no lair boy. We have no home. We are part of no clan or even city. We are legion."
The man's hood is thrown back revealing horns on his head showing him of infernal blood. The other cultist is of elven blood.

The door itself back to the rooms where the cages where are blocked by rubble that has fallen. Only something small can make it through. The hole itself is not the same hole where you were held. You can see looking in only darkness. However when you listen you hear a very faint sound of clawing very very far away.

As Lirian probes for more information the Elven cultist bites back.
"We have tons of monsters. And soon, all of this city will know our wrath. Our faith is our shield and nothing you do to us will stop us. The illness will spread like wildfire under the city until it erupts in a sea of disease."

In order to get more information out of them you will need to make social rolls. Each person can make one roll so make it count and describe your tactic.

Quentin takes 20 seconds off bandaging Kai to stick the dagger into the infernal guy's liver. Then he returns to his work without saying a word.

That's the roll and the tactics. I think the guy will have -1 to all trait rolls...

20:41, Today: Secret Roll: Quentin Fox rolled 9 using 2d4+4, rerolling max.  Damage.
20:40, Today: Secret Roll: Quentin Fox rolled 5,7 using 1d6+4,1d6+4, rerolling max.  Attack with the dagger and the drop.

After hearing this statement, Lirian decided to try another tactics to see if they sliped some more information.

“Your faith? A truly faithful whose god has given magic to would have died before surrendering, so I see how powerful it is” she scorned at them. “But it seems you’re expendable rabble to him, as you failed him. I’m sure you don’t even know exactly what this disease is, as you don’t seem trustworthy enough for you failing divinity”

18:05, Today: Secret Roll: Lirian rolled 12,2 using d8,d6, rerolling max with rolls of (8+4)12,2.  Performance (taunt) roll, with the intent any of them slips some useful information. I guess a success with two raises

[Private to GM: Not sure if the bonus for hitting their ego where it hurts, as ecplained on page 108, would apply, but I don't believe they make any difference]

Then she seemed to ignore them, while humming a song about the cowards and their punishment
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 18:30, Thu 19 Oct 2023.

Hunter is just politely asking questions while Jenkins eats eyeballs in front of them.

07:08, Today: Hunter Gallagher rolled 3 using 1d4, rerolling max.  persuasion
07:55, Today: Hunter Gallagher rolled 1 using 1d6, rerolling max.  persuasion, wild die. .
This message was last edited by the player at 18:56, Thu 19 Oct 2023.

Aeress saw what Lirian was doing and tried to play Good Guard.

"Do not be so hasty, I am sure these must be servants of the great and terrible Glorth Pestilencebringer.  That is the only power who could possibly back such claims as these!"

There was of course no Glorth the Pestilencebringer, but they seemed like proud fellows who would love to correct her about this.

"Aaaand... done! Now go kick them from me, I'm sure they will live."

Having made Kai as good as new, Quentin proceeds with the remaining matters, namely...
1. He tries to estimate how many man-hours it would take to dig into this underground base. He has no idea, except maybe "a lot".
2. Bind the incapacitated rats. He is not sure if we need all four, but he is inclined to err on the side of abundance.
3. Cut the tails off the three dead rats and one dead giant rat and pack them for taking along.
4. Estimate the time of the day and think whether we better occupy or leave the area. While at it, Quentin looks around for any trails and tracks and signs of other entrances. He wants to estimate how busy this site's operations were and whether horses or carts were involved.

20:28, Today: Secret Roll: Quentin Fox rolled 2,1 using 1d4,1d6, rerolling max.  Survival.
20:28, Today: Secret Roll: Quentin Fox rolled 4,1 using 1d6,1d6, rerolling max.  Notice.
20:20, Today: Secret Roll: Quentin Fox rolled 4,2,9,1,9,4 using 1d6,1d6,1d6,1d6,1d6,1d6, rerolling max.  Rats vigor.
20:19, Today: Secret Roll: Quentin Fox rolled 2,10,4,1 using 1d6,1d6,1d6,1d6, rerolling max.  Cultists vigor.
20:15, Today: Secret Roll: Quentin Fox rolled -1,-1 using 1d4-2,1d6-2, rerolling max.  Science (engineering).

After questioning the infernal, Hunter made sure he was secure and then walked around exploring the passageway and then the extent of the cave in.

Soon after he announced "There has been a complete cave in. It seems long strenuous work is required to get through, and there are rats on the other side. Maybe Piper could get through but we don't want to send her on her own.

"Right! We return to town! He declared cheerfully. Take these people to the Guard. Get lights, better equipment. A blunderbuss would be good. I need to see my cousin and see if he can equip me properly for this sort of thing. There was a gun smith and a map maker I wanted to see."
This message was last edited by the player at 04:47, Sun 22 Oct 2023.

The one of the cultist breaks down and knees in front of Lirian's verbal assault. They seem to ignore the Goblin and Hunter but still seem to be scared of the pair.

"This was just a simple base of the operations outside of the city. We used to help create part of the components needed for the disease. But we know little. We don't even know who is making the disease, he never did show his face to us. We just know when people get to close to him, they go missing."

"Shut up!", says another cultist next to him bumping the man to the ground.

[Private to Quentin Fox: Quentin looks at the entrance but releases that if what the man says is true there might be little to nothing special to find underneath all the rumble which could take a few hours to dig out without decent tools.]

Quentin comes around the "shut up" cultist and whacks him with the hilt of the dagger right on the back of his head. The guy feels the blow, but it would be unclear to an untrained observer whether there is any lasting injury. He then gags that one and makes a proposal to the other.

"Have a proposal for you, if you are interested. Tell me what exactly you were collecting and how exactly you were processing it, and I will leave you just for myself. This one will go to professionals to work on, so your choice whether you follow his fate."

That does not sound terribly convincing, but maybe the man would want to be convinced, like if he has seen some professionals at work...

All players: Please inform me if you would prefer less torture.

20:40, Today: Quentin Fox rolled 2,2 using 1d6,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 2,2.  Persuasion.
20:38, Today: Quentin Fox rolled 8 using 2d4+4+1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 1,1,2.  Damage with a possible raise.
20:37, Today: Quentin Fox rolled 8,7 using 1d6+4,1d6+4, rerolling max.  Attack with the dagger and the drop.

Lirian directed a disgusted look to Quentin for stabbing a tied prisoner, but she knew better than to argue before them. “You already have failed to your pretended divinity, not time to try to redeem yourself now, as I don’t believe such a pretended divinity will forgive you” she told to the non-cooperating prisoner, trying to make his resolve fail.

“Elysia told us the Ancient Covenant was gathered by a member of the city Royal family, and that the Royal Elite Guard once expelled them, but it's not clear if the founder survived. She also told us they met here then, that’s why we could find you, and why I believe we must finish this base.” she told to the others.

Then she turned to Quentin. “I guess your hounds may find the entrance they used to exit. We should raid this base before others come, and you’re the best to discern what to take and what to destroy. Daremo and the dragonman may watch them until we return, and we’ll have time to interrogate them, maybe with the help of the guards… Want to look at their laboratory or whatever they have?”

OOC: I suggested Daremo and S’Sikaar to watch the prisoners assuming they have not yet left and to allow any player who so wants to participate in the raid. Should they have left, Lirian would suggest to take them with the party.

@Quentin: Lirian is clearly disgusted by torture.