25 Arodus 4718 (Starday) cont.
Felyx pressed the attack against the Fantionette, slashing at it with Mr. Smiles’ sickle. The creature dodged out of the way, launching the phantom blade at Cornelius, missing my friend by a hair’s breadth. Cornelius launched another glob of magically conjured acid at her, and it landed directly on her porcelain-like face. The outsider let out a horrific screech, before she collapsed to the ground as if the “strings” holding her aloft had been cut.
I prodded at the creature with my sword as we all took a second to catch our breath. A few seconds later, Verity came charging back into the room. She looked relieved that everyone was standing and the fantionette was dead.
Felyx told us that she had exhausted the magic that Abadar had granted her today. All of us were in various states of injury. Cornelius suggested a retreat, but both Oliver and I agreed that wouldn’t be possible. If the remaining members of the Brotherhood of Silence didn’t already know that we were here, they would shortly. I had no doubt that they would either move Martella to another secure location or even kill her.
After some debate, we decided to send Verity to the Cathedral of Coins to buy a wand of healing. The temple wasn’t too far from the Dignified Repository, and Verity is by far the quickest of us. Oliver gave her several of the gemstones that we found among Dagio’s treasures to pay for the wand, and she asked him if he’d like to bet on her being back within five minutes. He declined, which was unfortunate for him, because it took her nearly seven minutes to return. When this was brought to her attention, she told us it was an acolyte’s fault. I guess the first wand he brought her wasn’t up to standards, and took forever to count her back the change. Regardless of these “complications” the fact that it took her only seven minutes was still impressive. It makes me think I need to put more time into my own training.
Felyx immediately made use of our new purchase, patching us all up til we felt comfortable moving further into the safe house. While this was going on, Oliver pulled a scroll of invisibility and a potion of gaseous form and gave them to Cornelius. He told Cornelius to use them to free Martella when we find her so that she can flee to safety. While it is an excellent plan to free Martella from any restraints her captors may be using, the idea that she would flee and leave us behind seems unlikely. Martella had displayed loyalty to her friends throughout the years, and I doubt she would abandon us if we were in a fight.
We backtracked to the room with our first confrontation with the Brotherhood of Silence and chose to continue down the unexplored hallway. Eventually we reached a door that opened up into a lavish bedchamber, complete with a large plush bed. Several desks lined the other walls of the room. Blueprints and books filled with information about clockwork creations were piled on the desks, along with various tools, gears and other mechanical bits. We all made the quick assumption that this was Martella’s room. While we felt a little uncomfortable going through her things, we thought we may find something of use. Oliver spotted two more brass chatterbox crickets on one of the tables, and we decided to take those just in case.
We exited the bedroom and entered the large room beyond, It was clearly a training room of some sort. The floor and walls were all padded, which was a bit unusual. Most of the practice chambers I’ve seen have had padding on the floor, but not the walls as well. Three dummies lined one wall. One was holding a padded shield and a flail with a soft ball. It swiveled on its stand, and was similar to ones I had seen to help improve dodging and shield blocking. The next dummy was thickly padded, and after a closer inspection we realized that it was damaged, most likely from a bullet. This was yet another odd thing. While firearms aren’t unheard of in Taldor, they aren’t what I consider all that common either. Yet more questions for Martella when we see her. The last dummy was perhaps the oddest of them all. It wore a vest with a great many bells sewn into it. None of us had any idea what it was used for. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised about all the mysteries down here. Martella is a spymaster after all, but I find myself becoming quite curious about what sort of skills she has acquired over the years.
An open archway stood opposite of the way we came in, leading into another chamber, as well as one closed door across from the dummies. Felyx spotted dried blood on the floor near the closed door, enough to indicate that someone had probably been rather injured. Verity took one of the dummies and put it in front of the door before reaching around and carefully opening the door.
The door opened to reveal a small nook in the wall, where a five barreled firearm had been placed. It was attached to what looked like a pulley system of some sort making it a trap that would cause the gun to fire when the door was opened. It seems like the Brotherhood of Silence did their own poking around when they secured this place and triggered the trap. I assume that Martella used this to train to disable traps and other mechanisms like it.
We then made our way through the open archway and found ourselves in a room dedicated to alchemy. Martella is a woman of many talents it seems. Spymaster, clockwork engineer, alchemist, and I’m sure the list goes on.
Cornelius took some time to examine the lab. He informed us that Martella was meticulous in her organization. Among the finished products he found several vials of anti-toxins, as well as two magical potions. One of them was delay poison, but none of us were able to determine what the other one did.
Considering all the poisons and venoms we found on the various cultists so far, we all decided to drink one of the anti-toxins before moving forward down the single hallway that exited the room.
As Verity took a step through the doorway, her foot caught an almost invisible wire, and Felyx heard the soft sound of a bell ringing in the distance. We rushed down the hallway, which deposited us into a large cavern with unworked walls. Hanging from the ceiling were six pairs of manacles. Martella was held captive in one of the pairs, a gag in her mouth. She was beaten and bloody. When she saw us, she tried to yell something, and even though it was most likely a trap, my friends and I moved forward to rescue her.