So the next order of business was to rescue the girls being held captive at Veris' keep as well as grab the master list of Angelyn descendants in the hopes of finding and protecting them before Anzja and her followers got to them. I warped us to Pernicdel, and we managed to get in contact with Sigurvan in order to have someone to help watch our escape route while we went in and got the list and girls.
Grey rigged up a collapsible frame which I turned into portable gates for each of us (me, Cassie, Grey, and Trent). Our plan to get inside was to crawl into Cassie's bag of holding, and have Swiftwind catapult us over the walls of the keep. We landed in the courtyard, unfortunately getting the attention of a hapless cook. But Cassie scared him off by turning into a big spider, and while he was away, we replaced the bag of holding with a mundane bag and snuck off, hoping the guards would find the empty bag and chalk it up to some sort of innocuous weirdness.
We made our way to the private library we'd been to before, but as we made our way up there, the librarian stopped us, insisting the library was closed and it wasn't safe, motioning to someone in the room with him. Apparently, it was Duke Melfir! Grey discovered this by turning invisible and sneaking in close. While he was invisible, I passed him a couple of my roofies, which he used to drug Melfir and the librarian! Strangely enough, Melfir was reading a children's book, and acting like a big baby, and Cassie soon ascertained that his mind had been regressed to that of a child.
Grey began to look for the list, using his magic to find something with Sina and Hilda listed on it, since they would be on the list. We began to get worried as we started hearing playful evil laughter every so often. I tried to get it appear by making like I would coup de grace Melfir, but as soon as I tried, we were all overcome with a wave of dread that really creeped out the others. Grey was having trouble finding the list, and asked for my help since I wasn't doing anything of import in his opinion. So, I flipped through the bookcases and managed to quickly find what we needed quite fortuitously. Cassie memorized it so we didn't have to take the book with us, and we tried leaving the library. We found we were locked in, but Cass merely shapeshifted and crawled under the door and unlocked it.
She quickly did a life scan, trying to find the location of all the redheads within the structure. The majority were in some living quarters in the middle of the compound, but there were 5-10 more wandering around. Cass and I would make our way to the main group of girls, while Trent and Grey snuck around and picked up the stragglers.
Cass and I managed to fake our way into the living quarters, but the main door was guarded by those gargoyles. So, we went off to the side, and Cass used her magic to make the walls transparent to us so we could find a place we could enter safely. There was a small broom closet in the hallway where the girls lived, so with her magic, Cassie pulled open the wall as if it were putty, we slipped in, and she sealed the wall back up.
There were 5 guards in there, 2 sets of 2 and one at the end of the hallway. Cassie snuck out, changing herself to look like a redhead, and acted like she thought the girls would act, basically like dumb helpless children. She said she was hungry, and the guards, not even looking up, told her to go back to her room. She snuck into one, and since the guards seemed lax, I snuck out and made it into another. We quickly tossed girls into our holes. Cassie walked out again, saying she went to the wrong room, but the guards were less fooled this time. They didn't recognize her, so as she made her way into the room, they went up to confront her and were alarmed since they didn't recognize her.
I used the opportunity to backstab one of them from behind, but then the guard at the end of the hall started ringing a bell. Crap, I didn't realize he was standing next to an alarm. I held the guards off while Cassie tried to get more girls into the gate. But then we freaked when we heard the distinctive sound of people teleporting in. Sure enough, I looked down the hall and Grave and Serendipity were here. I dispatched one guard, and another ran away, knowing he couldn't do anything to us. But Grey and Serendipity were almost upon us. Cassie made her way to the room across the way, while I dimension doored to the end of the hall. That guard just ran, and I intended to jump into the room next to where I was and lock the door, but I locked eyes with Serendipity. Damn, she was just so hot, part of me just wanted to go up and talk to her. But luckily, I kept my wits about me and snapped out of it, getting through the door and locking it.
I heard her compelling me to come out, but I grabbed the two girls and plane shifted to Vandriel. It took me a few minutes to find Vandriel, but I dropped the girls off with her and asked her to send me back to where Cass and the others were. I could hear over the telepathic link that we shared that Grave followed Cass through her gate, and she, Sigurvan, Trent, and Grey were fighting him off. Vandriel shifted me in about the same time Serendipity showed up.
We managed to gang up and put Grave down, but Serendipity was standing there looking all pretty that we didn't want to mar her flawless beauty. Or at least I didn't. I felt myself falling under her thrall, and I was just so overcome with feelings of lust for her, that I decided to turn my own charms on her, hoping my new ring would help. She looked so frakkable, I just had to tap that. So using my most charming voice, I told her, “Why don't we get out of here and have some fun?” I knew I was successful when I saw the same lust in her eyes that I was feeling for her. I was hoping to grab her and shift with her back to Vandriel's, hoping that after Serendipity and I had our little tryst, Vandriel would hose us down and chase her away. (Well, part of me was hoping she'd join in, but I doubt that would ever happen) Unfortunately, she beat me to the punch and grabbed me first, teleporting us away….