RQG 105 - Surprise!

## Content Warnings

Multiple deaths, aggressive dogs, violence against animals (dogs), animal death (dogs). SFX: multiple dogs barking

## Summary

The party head out to the warehouses, navigating the ultra-competent guards for a glimpse into the shadows, where they spy something new and something very familiar...

## Synopsis

The party is in the admin building at Crank Industries. All of the party is now visible, having searched the entire building. They’ve still got most of the night to investigate the rest of the complex, but the guards have been alerted that something is up. They plan to go and check out the rest of the warehouses and see what’s in them. Grizzop looks out of the window and watches as one of the guards on patrol heads toward one of the warehouses. He can see the front gate, with four people manning it, and plus the one guard mentioned above, but that’s it. The coast seems to be clear.

They go out the back door; Sasha gives her cloak to Azu, so she’ll be able to sneak better, and they all head to the warehouse furthest from the exit. They make it to the far end warehouse - warehouse nine. All of the warehouses are quite large - similar to aircraft hangers. There are thirteen, with twelve of them sitting in a clock formation and the thirteenth off in a corner.

At the front of the warehouse, there’s a huge door, which has a mini door built into it. Around the side, there’s a small entrance, with a set of stairs leading up to another entrance above. All of the guards they’ve seen have been going in the lower side entrance, so they decide to follow their lead and check out those entrances as well. They go to the lower side entrance on the warehouse, and it’s locked - not for long, though, as Sasha unlocks it with her tools. She notices that it’s an unnecessarily good lock for a warehouse.

They carefully open the door, and a trap goes off. A large number of bells inside the warehouse start ringing. They immediately start running; Sasha points to a warehouse opposite, Hamid tells Azu to give Sasha the cloak back, and then they book it as Hamid casts *invisibility* on himself, Grizzop, and Azu. They head to the warehouse that would be at number three on a clock.

They see the guard who was in the other warehouse sprinting toward the one where the alarm went off. Every guard apart from two with four dogs at the entrance are also running toward that warehouse, just missing the party. They see one of the people at the main entrance start sprinting down the street, toward the city of Damascus. Azu says that they might be scared, but Grizzop says that it's still weird; he looks over and it’s the guard who was a bit rubbish earlier, so he concedes that he was definitely scared.

The party pause in the shadow of warehouse three; the guards are spreading out, so Hamid won’t be able to cast *fireball* on them. Sasha says that they need to work out what’s going on in the warehouses, and that they’ll probably need to fight their way out. Grizzop says that they need to determine whether what’s going on here justifies murder, and Sasha agrees, pretending that that’s definitely what she meant. Hamid says that he’s pretty sure that whatever is going on here, it has to be criminal and immoral.

The alarms are still going off, and a pair of guards are going into each warehouse while a pair remains outside. Sasha unlocks their warehouse door again and then checks for traps this time. It isn’t a complex trap, but it’s incredibly well made and incredibly sensitive. It’s a mechanical pressure trap; the second that the door is opened, and the second that pressure is too wrong outside the door, the alarms go off. She points exactly at where they need to step.

Inside the warehouse, they realize that they're in a metal cage, with a grille door on the other side that’s locked. The cage is only built for one person. Past the cage, the warehouse is dark. Inside the cage, there’s a shutter system with a trough full of meat beside the cage. Sasha says that someone with dark vision needs to go in and look, so Azu squeezes in and looks. There are row upon row upon row of metal statues, built a little bit larger than an average human would be, roughly ten foot tall; they stretch on throughout the entire warehouse, as far as she can see. They seem to be really well made.

Azu comes back out and relays what she saw, and Hamid and Sasha immediately recognize the description as being similar to the Simulacrum. Sasha can hear something moving around in the warehouse, something big. Sasha tells Grizzop to come in with her, and he describes the bunch of metal soldiers lined up in rows, about ten foot tall. The difference between these robots and the simulacrum is that the robots don’t have the precious metals and stones that the simulacrum had, these are only adamantine.

Grizzop gets a knife out and taps on the cage really lightly. The movement stops, and Grizzop does it again; they hear the movement start moving toward the cage. He tells Sasha to get out, because he has dark vision and can also hear it stalking toward them. Sasha gets out; Grizzop sees a pair of cat eyes blinking at him in the darkness, and then next to them a pair of goats eyes, and then glowing orange eyes, all staring at him. It starts approaching the cage very slowly, and Grizzop realizes its a chimera. Chimeras are incredibly dangerous, inherently evil, and have a breath weapon - either lighting, fire, etc. Grizzop hops out of the room and closes the door, explaining that it’s a chimera. He says that they should probably leave now that they know what’s there.

Meanwhile, the alarms have stopped and the guards are spreading out to search the rest of the complex away from the warehouse where the alarm went off. Sasha suggests that they fireball their way out the front, but Grizzop suggests that they just cut a hole in the fence and slip out that way, or climb over. Hamid says that the guards already know that someone is here but they don’t know who. Grizzop says that they could probably just kill them, but Sasha says that sneaking out is easier. Hamid says that they need to figure out a way to destroy the complex somehow, but they probably can’t do it now. Azu says that they should leave and discuss later, and they all agree to head out the front.

Sasha plans to sneak in and slit as many throats as she can and then they can follow behind. She makes it past all of the guards in the compound; one guard slips into the admin building, notices the tied-up guard, and then the rest of the searching guards run into the administration building from different entrances. There are still four on the front gates, facing toward the administration building.

A bird lands on the guard house and they turn for a moment, catching Sasha, but they don’t immediately react. Hamid casts *fireball*; all of the guards take thirteen damage each. All of them are prone, but none of them are on fire, and the party enters combat.

## Dice rolls and Mechanics

* Everyone makes a Stealth check: Grizzop gets 19, Sasha gets 17, Azu gets 18, Hamid gets 19
* Sasha rolls a Disable Device check: 29
* Everyone makes a Stealth check: Grizzop’s isn’t said, Sasha gets 29, Azu gets 23, Hamid’s isn’t said.
* Sasha rolls a Disable Device check: 21
* Sasha rolls another Disable Device check: 25
* Everyone makes a Stealth check: Grizzop gets 16, Sasha gets 21, Azu gets 13, Hamid gets 16
* Grizzop makes a Knowledge (nature) check: 22
* Sasha makes a Stealth check: 35
* Everyone sans Sasha makes a Stealth check: Grizzop gets 28, Azu gets 10, Hamid gets 17

## Combat Breakdown

**Initiative:** Sasha gets (22), Azu gets (17), Hamid gets (15), Grizzop (10), Guards, Dogs

**Surprise Round**

* Hamid: Casts *fireball* at the guard post. The gate guards make their Reflex save and take 13 fire damage each.

**Round 1**

* Sasha: Throws a bomb at the gate guards and successfully hits on a 24. She deals 15 damage on the centre guard, killing them, and does 3 splash damage to the rest and the dogs.
* Azu: Readies an action to attack any enemy who comes running at her.
* Hamid: Casts *fireball* on the remaining gate guards, and deals 25 fire damage. All the gate guards and dogs are killed in the blast.
* Grizzop: Readies an action; the first individual to leave the admin building will get shot.
* Guards: A guard leaves the admin building; Grizzop’s readied action goes off. He rolls a nat 20 and confirms the crit with a 25 on the first attack, and then rolls 13 on the second, missing. He deals 9 damage on the first attack. The guard runs back into the building.
* Dogs: Six dogs charge toward the party from the admin building.

**Round 2**

* Sasha: Throws a tanglefoot bag at the dogs, and rolls a 22 to hit. She hits two of the dogs and they are entangled.
* Azu: Starts running toward the entrance.
* Hamid: Casts *sleep* on the untangled dogs - two of them drop, fast asleep.
* Dogs: The remaining two dogs reach the party and attack Sasha; one of them hits, dealing 3 damage.
* Guards: An alarm goes off in the admin building, ringing throughout the complex.
* Grizzop: Takes one shot at each of the two dogs. He rolls a 24 and a 12, hitting on the first only and dealing 2 damage.

**Round 3**

* Sasha: Stabs the dog that is biting her, rolling a nat 1 on the attack, missing.