The foot trail leads to a camp inside a crater in the rocky terrain. Sneaking ahead between the scattered trees, Nimby the gnome counts five guards at the entrance. Beyond the guards are a dozen tents with up to fifty lizardfolk milling about. Some carrying crates, others barking orders, still others training drakes. To the right and to the left are two towers with a few more guards watching the perimeter. Nimby retreats back and reports to the group. Vola the half-orc speaks up, “I have credentials and can get us past the front guards. I was part of their numbers until last night, remember? I know the layout of the camp, but not where they would keep prisoners. Once inside, we will need to search the tents one by one.”

With this plan, the group confidently approaches the guards. “Halt!”

Vola declares, “I have returned with the rearguard. No one followed from the town.”

The guards look at the group curiously, “I don’t recognize who you are with, Vola.”

“These are initiates of the cult, ready to prove themselves to the queen.” And she begins marching forward. The guards let everyone pass without issue but there are a few curious looks.

Taking in the entire camp, they first notice a large cave opening at the other end of the crater. In front of this cave is a large pentagon-shaped pavilion, much bigger than the other tents. Each corner of this structure has a dragon head attached to the roof. Vola whispers, “That is Rezmir’s tent. She is in charge here. We should avoid her.” The group nods and continues walking further into enemy territory. The other tents vary in size and quality from just a stick and a blanket to a leather canopy covering a fur dome. Stealthily, the women peek into the make-shift tents one at a time. They see a few kobolds doing laundry, lizardfolk napping in a big pile, a couple humans playing cards. Finally after half a dozen, they find one with ten humans chained to a spike in the ground. A guard immediately stands up, “Only essentials in here, what do you need.”

Vola looks at her new friends for a moment then says to the guard, “The prisoners are being transferred to a different tent. It smells funny and no one else wants to sleep there. Rezmir asked us to oversee the move.” Vola holds out her hand and points to the key.

“Heh heh yeah alright miss here ya are. I wouldn’t question her, no way. Just don’t rough ’em up too much. They’ve got to survive the caravan.” And he hands over the key and leaves the tent.

Issa the tiefling laughs, “Wow, that was so easy! Who are you, Vola?”

“I’m on your side now, let’s leave it at that.”

Phoebe the human takes the key and unlocks the chains from the stake. She explains in a very calm voice to keep quiet while being rescued and suggests no celebrating until they are back in Greenest. Zelena the elf asks if the villagers had seen any elves taken prisoner as well. One young man with a big bruise on his neck replies in a raspy voice, “Yes, I saw an elf! They took him further back, near that cave. *Cough* They’ve been roughing him up every couple hours, the whole camp can hear it. He must be important cuz they haven’t bothered us since we arrived.”

The released prisoners rub their wrists where the chains had been. A couple of them yawn, and they all have droopy eyelids. Zelena hatches a plan, “Vola, if you can get these folks out of the camp, I will go find Mr. Leo and meet up with you on the road. Issa, come with me in case things go wrong.”

“Okay, but be fast. It will be noticed pretty quickly that all of their prisoners have gone missing.”

Zelena agrees then quietly slips out of the tent with Issa as a black cat. They head toward the cave. The sun has set, so the camp is now illuminated by lamps every 30 feet. It is easy for them to keep to the dim shadows until they round the last corner and can now see behind Rezmir’s tent. An elf with long hair wearing bracers and leather armor is strapped to wooden poles with his head hanging down. Three drakes sit at his feet. After a moment, the pavilion flaps open to reveal a dragonborn with deep black scales. She carries a scowl on her face and a turkey leg in one hand. She wears gold-trimmed purple robes and marches over to the exhausted elf, “I bet you are getting hungry. Let’s try this again, how long have you been watching our camp? Who do you work for? And how did you know my name?” She takes a big bite out of the leg and chews it louder than is necessary in polite company.

He looks up, “I will not answer your questions.” He has a goatee that could use a trim.

She gets close to his face and whispers in his ear, “Everyone breaks eventually.” Then with her free hand punches him in the stomach. She laughs at his grunt, takes another bite, then returns to the pavilion.

Zelena whispers, “Now is our chance. That villager said they interrogate him every few hours.”

They approach with caution. Zelena blows on her hand and a lavender cloud envelopes the drakes, putting one of them to sleep. The remaining two drakes stand up and growl at the intruders. Issa tries to sooth them with her cat form purring, but they get more agitated. Zelena quickly casts Silence on the whole area as soon as they begin to bark. They stop for a moment and appear confused since no sound escaped and no one was coming to help. Then they pounce onto the cat, popping Issa back to her tiefling form.

Issa wild shapes into a tiger and fights back. One of the drakes rushes Zelena and tackles her to the ground. She shoots out a witch bolt, but this only makes it angrier. Issa finishes off the one by her in time to see Zelena’s forearm disappear into the other drake’s mouth with blood dripping down. Zelena whacks it with her staff and a silent bolt of lightning fries it unconscious. Catching their breath and thankful for the silence, Issa slices off the chains holding Leo to the poles. He falls to the ground, but catches himself on his hands. His eyes show gratitude, and he points up the crater ledge behind him. Zelena takes a moment to heal her arm. What looks like a spark of electricity climbs up her elbow to her wrist, and the open slashes seal up immediately. Then the three scramble up the fifteen foot plateau and run toward shadowy rocks away from the camp.

Meanwhile, Nimby and Phoebe loosely replace the chains on the villagers and ask them to follow their lead. They explain again they were sent by Cassie in Greenest to rescue her people. With Vola in front, the villager prisoners are led back to the entrance of the camp, sticking to the shadows as much as possible to avoid extra attention. Vola hails the front guards again, “Hello, we are just transferring these prisoners to another tent. Rezmir’s orders.”

“Aye aye captain.” The guards wave her through.

After a few minutes on the path, a large horn sounds from behind. Looking back toward the camp, they see a plethora of torches and hear dozens of boots marching. Vola panics and pulls out a rope. She throws it up into the air and says, “Okay, it’ll be tight, but get up there if you want to live.” Everyone scrambles up the rope to find themselves in a tiny room way too small for all of them. However, with the smaller folks sitting on shoulders, they squeezed in. Vola pulls up the rope to the magical room and whispered, “Now we wait for them to pass.”

-They split the party and had a rough time but survived. I applaud the ingenious uses of the spells sleep, silence, and rope trick to avoid detection and recapture. Simply brilliant.