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Yenny lashes the large note to her bag, careful to prevent it from unfolding any more. "This seems interesting, and possibly useful." And while she's fiddling with her bag, she nibbles some more food. "Mmmm."

Hyde watches the armored stoat. What is that thing, hah?

Galan speaks up, "It is clear we must perform the task before we move past. Lizards or the Garden, that is our choice."

Dandelion pipes in,
"Sounds like the lizards are the most direct path to answers around here.

Storm11 wrote:Presuming he is once again free if the lying compulsion Tempus moves towards the Crowman. "How many of your crowmen reside in the gardens, and what else Laura there?" he asks curiously. "Do you know anything further about the lizard enclave?"

The unmasked man looks nervously down at the armored mega-stoat. "There are many of us. Dozens. I don't know. We fight. Some of us hide." When Tempus mentions the lizards..."Th-th-th-they come from the gallery. B-b-b-but they don't live there. Both old lizards and young lizards. I th-th-think there is a secret door. The new lizards - the females" he looks at the party "they send stronger ones after you if you defeat them. We avoid them."
You realize he's talking about mummified (old) and warriors (young) lizard folk.

Galan and Dandelion think the dwelling of the lizard folk is the next place to explore...if they can find it.

Hyde inquires as to the nature of the armored mega-stoat. Torgos turns to the half-orc. "He does my bidding. My loyal companion. Strong as three men. Quick as a panther." The moon man smiles affectionately at the unnatural life form.

Meanwhile, Yenny continues to try to tame the expanding love letter. She lashes it to her pack with a strap, but the paper doubles in size with a loud *pop* as it busts the cord. The sheet, now larger than the gnome, continues to double in size, completely covered in the inked crazed ramblings of love.

The crowman wails..."I helped you! Please don't let him take me! I beg you!" Torgos nods imperceptibly, and the pentagram begins moving north. The crowman, now fully within the circle, is nudged along by some invisible force...as if a clear cylinder the width of the pentagram has ensnared him. He moves north...slowly...within the pentagram, accompanied by the armored stoat, the grotesque snake/hand hybrid, and Torgos himself. "Until next time..."

"Well it seems that we have a bit of a conundrum here. We are here in essence to ensure Azurpenia is not freed. Yet her chamberlain and loyal guardian Torgos seems intent on keeping her safe. We now have to find his sons. But to what end would that serve our own mission? If we don't want to be in here all year we need to head straight to Azurpenia. Then we have the other mission from the blue lady, to find works of art to please and appease her. It seems we are to everyone's skivvies in this place. I think it would be wise if we talked over just what are own priorities and motivations are here before we take a step further. We need to try and work as a team. I realise you lot don't do that so well but if we hope to come out of this place in one piece we need to form some sort of tentative plan of action moving forward, don't you agree? What say you all? Do we head straight to Azurpenia, or detour And work for Torgos, heading into the lizard gardens, or/& the blue Lady? It seems inevitable that we will need to battle the moon man and his minions if his mistress is our ultimate goal here." Tempus says worriedly, looking at the others.

"If we are here for the long haul, finding a safe place to rest seems wise as well!" he mentions.

"Wow this is some cool magic!", says Yenny, her voice rising slightly as she runs to the eastern door (looks to be the closest), and opens it (hopefully) and pushes the expanding letter through with a flourish. "Will this be the end of the prison? Will the walls come tumbling down? Or will it just make somebody hungry? She watches through the doorway with an expectant face. (Unless somebody is there trying to stab her, in which case she'll hide behind the letter.)

If the door sticks, she puts the letter vertical and flat against the southern wall and watches to see if it cuts into the ceiling on its next pop.

If I can get Angus's action in before the last post:

Angus gives Torgos and the unmasked crow-man a troubled look. He sighs with resignation and steps between the moon man and the swirling pentagram. He places a hand on the hilt of his sword. "If you aim to do what I think you aim to do, I reckon we've got us a problem."

"That feller just tried to kill me and mine, and we tried to kill him and his. Fair enough. He ain't long for the world one way or another now and we'd be in our rights to kill him. But I ain't standing by to let any man get tortured, even if he did just try to kill me. You can question the crow-man here, or you can leave him here for us"—Angus draws a deep breath before continuing—"but if you try to take him away to torture, I gotta try to stop you."

Zhym wrote:If I can get Angus's action in before the last post:

Angus gives Torgos and the unmasked crow-man a troubled look. He sighs with resignation and steps between the moon man and the swirling pentagram. He places a hand on the hilt of his sword. "If you aim to do what I think you aim to do, I reckon we've got us a problem."

"That feller just tried to kill me and mine, and we tried to kill him and his. Fair enough. He ain't long for the world one way or another now and we'd be in our rights to kill him. But I ain't standing by to let any man get tortured, even if he did just try to kill me. You can question the crow-man here, or you can leave him here for us"—Angus draws a deep breath before continuing—"but if you try to take him away to torture, I gotta try to stop you."

Torgos' shining eyes watch Angus' hand move to the hilt of his sword. "That would not end well for you" the moon man says to the ranger matter-of-factly. "Keep your sword in its sheath. A Sub-Lunary does not require need the crutch of violence to uncover the truth. Only patience."

AleBelly wrote:"That would not end well for you" the moon man says to the ranger matter-of-factly.

"I reckon it wouldn't," acknowledges Angus just as matter-of-factly. His hand does not move from the sword hilt. "Can't say as that has any bearing on what's right."

"Why're you so scared of this moon-faced critter?" he asks the gibbering man. "What's he fixing to do to you?"

The crowman's eyes dart back and forth between Angus and Torgos. "H-H-He's going to pull out my fingernails...and break every bone!"

Angus's face scrunches up in an expression of exasperation and bemusement. "Now, that don't even make any sense," he says. He takes his hand off his hilt and crosses his arms over his chest. "I still ain't rightly sure what I think of your lunar interrogator here, but I'm fair certain he ain't lying when he says he can get information out of you without spilling a drop of your blood. A man—or whatever he is—what can force a feller to lie has probably got himself no end of tricks to get what's in your head out of your head. Some of them what'd make a man wish all he's got was broken bones and missing fingernails." Angus shoots a sharp look at Torgos, "There's plenty of ways to torture a man without getting physical."

He gives the crow man a hard, sour look and shakes his head. "So I reckon if you're going on about fingernails and bones, you ain't got any notion what he plans to do. Might even be he's telling the truth."

To Torgos: "Will you swear to me on whatever you hold holy that you won't torture this man? Hold him, question him, use your nifty lyin' trick on him—but no torture. Physical or otherwise. That includes your pet. Swear to that, and I'll step back with apologies for taking your time."

Dandelion watches for an escalation. She wipes crow guts off her trident as they converse.

As she becomes aware of Angus's conversation, Yenny drops her grin and backs his play. She only occasionally lets her eyes dart to the abandoned letter of unusual size.

"There will be no torture at my hands nor those that serve me. Speaking the truth may be considered torture by one with a soul this corrupt. I swear this upon the lives of my sons."

He smooths out his shimmering robe with his hands. "Now, I will escort him to my chamber before his allies come searching for him."

He turns to leave, then turns around again. "I do not often make oaths. But while I am in the practice of breaking my custom, I must inform you that if I find you trying to harm Azurpenia, I shall consider you an enemy. I serve her first and foremost."

He turns with his armored mega-stoat, strange snake/hand hybrid and his hapless prisoner. They head north.

The party notices that the stone floor is overlaid with fine boxwood flooring. Angus will recognize this as quite expensive and intricate. Between the group, they determine the boxwood flooring must indicate the almery, the white marble floor the gallery. They suspect other areas may also be distinguishable from their flooring.

As this transpires, Yenny sets up, now with some difficulty, the parchment against the far wall. Sure enough, a minute after it last double in size, it opens from a newly formed crease and slaps - hard, against the wall. It is no stronger than normal parchment, but is now growing to a rather fearsome size - nearly 8' by 5'!

Actions?

Chet take in the conversation, amused by the expanding parchment. "Let's go get the lizards. They're bad."

Tempus resists the urge to roll his eyes. He moves over to Yenny and the growing parchment with a torch and sets it on fire.

"Shall we go?" he says simply, ruffling Clarence under his chin

Dandelion softly scorns,
Y'all need to get that hunger in check. It is never ladylike nor gentlemanly to scarf food like some of you do. Oh, and I havent the foggiest notion of who is right and wrong here. But,
the sooner we get to this Azurpenia the better.

Hyde notes the conversation between Torgos and Angus. I think maybe we ought start thinkin' of ways to defeat that guy, if it come to that. He turns his gaze to where the being left with his entourage. That Stoat-thing, he looks tough, hah?