RQG 57 - Locksmith Lockdown

## Content Warnings

Nonconsensual drugging, very graphic description of mutilation, societal collapse. Hostage situation including violent interrogation, violence towards a helpless character, minor character deaths. Prejudice against fantasy races (gnomes), including conspiracy theories that mirror real-life racist conspiracy theories, and physical violence motivated by fantasy racism. The character deaths are \*not\* racially motivated.

## Summary

Everything goes a little wrong for the Rangers.

## Synopsis

Episode begins with the party starting at the top of the
initiative order; the entire party, sans Zolf, is entangled, and are surrounded by
gnomes. There are still noises of unrest and riot throughout the city. Wilde is
unconscious. There’s a few rounds of combat and then all the gnomes who weren't downed
flee. Some of the gnomes on the ground groan, and Bertie grabs one and brings them
over to the group for questioning.

Zolf stabilizes the one on the floor. Sasha ducks into the
building that the one gnome went into to look around. It’s completely looted,
and there’s a small trail of blood leading into the back room, which then goes
to a back door to an alley.

Zolf makes a heal check on Wilde; he’s been hit hard by
poison, he isn't sure what it is, and will have to wait for him to sleep it off.
Bertie strips the gnome of all of his weapons and equipment, drops him, and kicks
him to the side. Hamid gets the weapons and equipment from the other downed
gnomes and Sasha comes back to tie them up.

The equipment found on the gnomes include (all of the gnomes
individually have the following): another Tanglefoot bag, studded leather
armor, masterwork bucklers, composite longbows, twenty arrows, a dagger, masterwork
rapiers, 2 *invisibility* potions, hip flasks of bad brandy, money (50g each).
One of them had a small knapsack, with a collection of jewels and gold.

Bertie puts the unconscious gnome, who is beginning to stir, into the papoose. They head down the street; Sasha ducks into a few shops
as they decide where to stay for the night to avoid trouble. They find a
locksmith’s and decide to stay there – it seems abandoned and is very secure. Everyone
apart from Bertie notices some rioting sounds and movement in the backgrounds. Bertie is staring at the gnome as he walks and
he keeps walking, waiting for the gnome to wake up. The gnome does, and then
convincingly pretends to be asleep. Sasha opens the front door of the locksmiths
and two Tanglefoot bags are catapulted at her; Sasha dodges and then checks the
rest of the room for traps. She disables all the traps and everyone files in.

They all decide to interrogate the gnomes; Bertie wants to
interrogate them alone (namely, torture them for information) and Sasha and Zolf are
not letting that happen. The gnome in Bertie’s papoose stops pretending to be
asleep and Sasha and Zolf start questioning them (the gnome only speaks gutter French).
Bertie tries to intimidate the gnome into answering their questions through a
dazzling display. The gnome is not intimidated in the slightest, and convinces
Sasha to clap for him. Bertie attempts to cut off the gnome’s ear but Sasha
trips him and gets in the way.

They find out that La Gourmande wants Wilde (Hamid translates
the conversation for Zolf, since it’s in French). Sasha kicks the gnome when they
make some comments about Barret Racket. Bertie continues to try to intimidate
the gnome with Sasha’s help. The gnome says that the poison is Drow poison,
which will knock Wilde out for a few hours. Bertie breaks the gnome’s leg before
anyone can intervene, and the gnome screams and then cuts himself off.

Sasha guesses that La Gourmande is controlling the food
supply and wants Wilde because he could be a key to getting to the Meritocrats. Zolf
and Hamid both tell Bertie off for tormenting the gnome. Sasha brings up the fact
that they don’t need the gnome anymore, and they discuss the fact that in the
battle, Hamid basically breathed fire. Hamid doesn’t know why it happened and
just finds it weird. They discuss what to do with the hostages and decide to
leave them tied up. Zolf wants to kill them quickly, Sasha wants to tie them up
– they decide to go with Sasha’s plan and wait for Wilde to wake up to see what’s
going on and if he has any other ideas.

Hamid asks where La Gourmande’s base of operations is, and
the gnome says it's in Eiffel’s Folly. The gnome says they can take the bribe
they have and leave Wilde behind, which none of them agree to do. Hamid says
they’ll kill La Gourmande, and then slaps the gnome with a clawed hand when he basically
laughs in his face.

Time accelerates – they all take different watches, and no
one lets Bertie take a watch. They wait for Wilde to wake up and look around
for any sort of food or water, equipment, etc. Bertie has some rations that he
shares.

In the middle of first watch, Hamid and Zolf talk about Hamid’s
weird fire-breathing thing during the battle. Hamid’s face changed a bit during
casting *scorching ray*, got more scales and his hands turned to claws. Hamid
didn’t realize the fire came from his mouth, and is confused when Zolf tells
him that. He’s never learned *scorching ray* and, as a wizard, shouldn’t be able
to cast a spell he hasn’t learned yet. Zolf asks if Hamid accidentally worships a god, and Hamid says no. Hamid says that his spells just sort of work when he needs them to, and confesses that he doesn’t think he’s a wizard. Zolf
understands what sorcerers are, but doesn’t make the connection between that and Hamid. Hamid thinks he might be a sorcerer (because he must be a spontaneous caster, and he isn’t a bard).

Time accelerates to second watch, which Sasha takes. There
are multiple people outside, although Sasha can only see one person. She looks
through the peephole – there’s a human on the other side, who then knocks
loudly on the door. Sasha doesn’t answer, and the man waits, turns around to
signal, and knocks again. Sasha walks back to the party and wakes up Zolf and
Hamid to find a way out, tells them to be quiet. They aren’t sure who it is,
but they assume it's La Gourmande’s men.

Sasha and the man outside talk – she spots at least 6 other
people on the rooftops of the buildings opposite and covering alleyways. The
man is holding a briefcase and looks cheerful; asks them if they’re the people holding
Oscar Wilde, and offers them a sum of money to give Wilde over to them; Wilde is
completely out. Sasha lies about Wilde and tries to convince the man to go away
– the man isn’t buying it and offers them food as well in exchange for Wilde.

While Sasha and the man are talking, Hamid wakes Bertie up
and convinces him to be quiet. Zolf and Hamid try finding exits, and then Sasha
comes back and says they need to find a way out. Hamid suggests that they kill
the two gnomes, Bertie and Zolf agree but Sasha isn’t a fan of that idea. Zolf
keeps trying to wake Wilde up – kicking, slapping, casting *create water* over his head. Wilde is waking up slowly but isn’t all there yet. Sasha keeps looking for ways out, and finds a trapdoor underneath the floor that looks like
a saferoom – a small amount of food, a small amount of water. It would only fit either Hamid or Sasha.

They discuss killing the gnomes; Hamid and Bertie are for,
Sasha is against. To settle the argument, Zolf kills both of the gnomes by stabbing them through the neck.

## Quotes

**Hamid**: "All the food shops would have been looted but if we can find, y'know, a, a, a tailor or a furniture shop or something there might be something we can use to keep ourselves warm."
**Zolf**: "Yeah, alright well I guess um—"
**Sasha**: "Let's walk for half an hour or so, find, find a—"
**Hamid**: "Twen-twenty minutes maybe..."
―The party look for someplace to recover after the fight.

"Guys, guys, the GM says that this locksmith will be secure, so we should stop here ... It's not, not a plot point at all!"
―**Sasha**

**Bertie**: "Now, Mr Smith, we have here two gnomes, I would like to question them."
**Sasha**: "I don't think we should let Bertie do it, I think maybe he could stand at the back as an example of, y'know, a possible Bertie."
―The party discusses interrogating the two gnomes.

"Alright, gnome! Do you know how hard it is for us to get this guy to not chop more bits off you? Tell us what you did to Wilde, tell us what your plan was ..."
―**Sasha**

"As I see it, young mister gnome, you have two choices—one of them is going outside of here and dying, the other is staying here, telling us what you know, and then dying. Now, there's a certain amount of discomfort that might accompany either of these choices, I advise you to choose very carefully which degree of discomfort you would like to endure, hm?"
―**Bertie**

"Bertie, if you can't *control* yourself then frankly you can *leave*. We do *not* need this kind of action, we've been friends for a long time but I will *not* stand by and let you do this to someone who is helpless and defenseless. That is absolutely *disgusting*."
―**Hamid**

**Bertie**: "I'll take first watch."
**Sasha and Zolf, simultaneously**: "No."
**Bertie**: "I'll take second watch."
**Sasha**: "No, Bertie gets no watches."
―Bertie tries to get a watch so that he can interrogate one of the gnomes.

**Hamid**: "No, no, no it's a spell, it's called *scorching ray*, but I've never studied it, I shouldn't even know what it's called, I've suddenly got this knowledge in my head and I don't know where it's come from."
**Zolf**: "Did you accidentally worship a God? Did you end up doing that? Are you maybe an accidental Cleric?"
―Hamid asks Zolf how he could know a spell he hasn't learned.

"My, my professors at University always told me casting spells would require hard work and, and memorisation, I've never needed to do any of that, the spells just happen when I want them to ... I just ... I don't think I'm a wizard ..."
―**Hamid**
## Dice rolls and Mechanics

Sasha rolls a perception check to find the gnome in the
building: 18.

Zolf takes ten to do a heal check on Wilde.

Knowledge local to navigate to the locksmith's: Sasha gets a 26.

Everyone does perception checks before entering the
locksmith’s: Sasha gets a 28, Bertie gets a nat 1, Zolf gets a 17, Hamid gets a

Sasha takes ten on breaking into the locksmiths. Rolls to
check for traps: 22.

They make perception checks upon breaking into the locksmiths:
Bertie gets 5, Zolf gets 10, Hamid gets 13, and Sasha gets 15.

Bertie rolls to intimidate the gnome: 13.

Sasha rolls to stop Bertie from cutting the gnomes ear off:
19. (Bertie’s CMD is only 17)

Zolf and Hamid roll a knowledge Arcana to see what’s going
on with Hamid: Zolf gets an 8, Hamid gets a 26.

Sasha rolls a perception check on her watch: 21.

Sasha rolls a stealth check on her watch: 27.

Sasha rolls a perception check to see how many people are
outside: 22.

Sasha rolls a perception check and notices other people on rooftops and nearby: 28.

Hamid makes a diplomacy check to keep Bertie quiet: 30.

Sasha makes a perception check to see a way out of the
locksmiths’: 21.

## Combat Breakdown

Sasha is entangled. She moves to stab at one of the gnomes
and misses with a 6.

Hamid attacks the one closest to him with *magic missile* –
fails the concentration check and doesn’t cast it.

Bertie swings at the gnome nearest to him, rolls a natural
20, does not confirm the crit. Deals 8 damage. The gnome is down.

Zolf attacks the gnome closest to him with Icicle, misses on
the attack roll of 12.

All the gnomes have held their action to be able to act now.

The first gnome ducks behind a car, putting it between him
and Bertie.

The second ducks through the glass of one of the looted
buildings.

The third provokes an attack of opportunity from Sasha. She
misses with a 4. The gnome runs behind a corner.

They drop out of combat.