A Knock is produced, and Fingers eases the door open. He glances left and right and once again, the gnome’s robe-enhanced vision allows him to survey without being surveyed in turn. The door opens onto an avenue of tall buildings in an even larger cavern. The area where the door opens is unlit, but to the right there are many small light sources and the noise of a bazaar. To the left, a group of kobolds – armed and armored to a degree not seen before – ostensibly stands guard, though attention seems to be focused on a wineskin and a game of chance.
The party hustles across the avenue and breaks into a seemingly unoccupied building. The first two floors appear to be a shop and the living quarters are above. Prepared for battle, the group realizes that the place is deserted. Though there are clear signs of looting, there doesn’t seem to be as much wanton destruction. The group plots and decides surveillance would be good, and so it is that they begin airborne reconnaissance.
They quickly determine the general lay of the land. A massive square boasts hundreds of stalls, wagons, tends and tables. Kobolds of differing clan surcoats stand around in clumps, looking hostile but refraining from combat. The rooftops are occupied by small squads of kobolds armed with bows and some kind of rock pendulum that can be swung across the square. In one corner, some kind of soapbox session is going on with a robed kobold haranguing the crowd assembled before it. This seems to be the economic center of the Stonelost city, but there are still no dwarves in sight.
Digin is equipped with an invisibility ring and tasked with napping the prophet so it can be interrogated. InvisiDigin does as told and swoops out of the sky to pluck the startled kobold from the ground. He quickly climbs towards the sky and activates the ring again, disappearing from view. Behind and below the assembled viewers react with alarm and consternation. “A winged dwarf appeared from thin air and then vanished while flying away with the victim” seems a bit delulu…even for kobolds. Still, as Digin climbs the sounds of alarm grow in his wake. There is a wrinkle in the plan, for as Digin turns towards the party’s temporary hideout – the kobold vanishes from his grasp as though it never existed.
Digin returns, the news is digested and the group springs into plan B – kill everything, but not today. Hopefully the disappearing prophet doesn’t trigger a serious response. Judging from the sounds of it, that assumption is good. There doesn’t seem to be a large-scale response, though undoubtedly there is a wild tale being told to someone, somewhere. Alrightythen. Time for sleeping, and the necessary precautions are undertaken. Once prepped, they venture into the darkness, using various means to fly to the rooftops.
Bayga and his sleep chime help secure two rooftops and while Fingers slits throats, Digin ferries Zaal and Kegdrain to the rooftop. They decide to take advantage of the stone pendula and hurl the swinging stones into the crowds as Zaal and Sniffles rain fireballs into the stalls. Hot deals for all! Predictably, the square is empty of all but the dead and dying within seconds. Those that are not slain outright retreat towards an official looking building across the square, while others flee along the avenues. Some more light slaughtering ensues, and the group goes so far as to break into City Hall and do battle with the defenders. There they seize and preserve the brain of what seems to be a kobold of some standing before slaughtering the rest. A bit of dispirited looting and they decide – fuckit. We’re done with this. They depart along the avenue, headed east.