Greenest in Flames

With a slight look of disappointment on his face Governor Nighthill concedes that a bit of a rest is probably the best course of action. "As you wish. Once you're ready, please join my on the parapet." As he turns to leave you notice that the right side of the man's face and head are heavily bandaged, an obvious temporary measure to keep himself in the fight.

After spending a little time tending to wounds, weapons maintenance, and other miscellaneous tasks, you head up to the parapet to talk with Governor Nighthill. "Look" he says, slowly swinging his arm across his body, motioning to scene in front of you. "It appears they have no intention of assaulting the keep directly. They're merely keeping us from leaving, allowing them to loot the town with minimum resistance." From what you can see Nighthill's conclusion seems sound. Raiders have the keep completely encircled but don't appear to be making any type of preparation for an assault.

Pacing slowly, hand on his chin, Nighthill continues, "I don't know what we're up against and we don't have the personnel to launch any type of attack from within the keep." He stops and leans against a railing, "We're at their mercy, but that doesn't mean we can't try and save some of the stragglers that haven't made it to the keep."

Relaying some information he's heard from others that have made it to the safety of the keep, he asks if you would be willing to mount a rescue attempt of those who have holed up in the Chauntea temple. "Apparently a group has locked themselves in tight and the attackers are trying to burn them out. Now, obviously, you can't leave through the front gate, but ol' Escobert may have another way to out."
He leads you down to the grounds of the keep and quickly finds Escobert, motioning him over to join you. The dwarf, with knotted and tangled bright red hair, quickly scurries over. "What is it, Nighthill? Needin' my time to getting defenses set up in case them bastards make a run at us" he says in a gruff tone.

"The tunnel exit! Can you show our friends here to the tunnel exit?"

"Aye" he says "Nothing out there but them bastard raiders, but if you're wanting out, I'll show you the way." He leads you to the cellar underneath the keep and points you at a stack of barrels and crates. "The door is behind that mess, clear it, and use these" he retrieves a huge ring of keys from his pocket and quickly searches through them, throwing two of them to Mogguth. "First one's for the door, second's for the grate at the end of the tunnel."

"I need to get back to defending this place. Try not to die out there." he says before turning and yelling out something in dwarfish as he walks away.

At the sound of the beep it will be roughly 10PM *beep*

"Once out of the tunnel, head directly east, the temple is by far the largest building in town, you really can't miss it." Nighthill responds, helping the group clear the last of the debris from in front of the door. "Please do what you can for those trapped inside, and if an opportunity presents itself to learn what this is all about, take it!"

The lock to the gate appears to have rarely, if ever, been used and it takes some effort to get the key to catch properly before you can get the gate unlocked. The heavy gate squeaks and groans as it opens, rust from the hinges falling to the ground. The narrow tunnel provides little space and you form a single file line as you enter. Brushing away the webs as you move through the tunnel you make steady progress before running into a large swarm of rats.

Stomping, kicking, and occasionally slicing through the hoard, you make your way to the end of the tunnel. Just above your heads is the exit grate, disguised to look like a sewer outlet. Years of weathering and neglect appear to have taken their toll on the grate's lock, it will take a skillful attempt, even with the key, in order to get the grate open.

It takes several attempts just to get the key into the lock as it keeps catching upon insertion, but you are able to eventually get the lock undone. Slowly pushing the grate up, but before it you get it open completely you hear some rustling off to your left. A group of raiders, at least five of them from what you can see, appear to be searching the stream bank for any townsfolk that may be trying to hide. They are slowly moving in your direction.

As you discuss your plans, Mogguth gets a better look at the approaching raiders. Six smaller figures, most likely kobolds you figure based on recent encounters, being bossed about by two humans.

After a tense few moments the raider patrol passes by and Mogguth slowly lifts the gate and climbs out, covering the position as the others follow closely behind. To the east, roughly two hundred feet from your position, lies Chauntea's temple. A large building, just as Nighthill has stated, its silhouette stands out remarkably well against the night sky.

With plenty of brush along the bank of the stream you decide to move closer to investigate. There appear to be three groups of raiders (a mix of humans, kobolds, and rather large lizards) outside of the building. There is a group in the rear that is piling straw up against the rear door of the structure, a group out front that is battering against the main door, and finally the largest group appears to be nothing more than a strung out mob that is whooping and hollering as they continuously circle the building outside of the wall.