A Dangerous Gift

With all appropriate deference, Ishi cautions his elder: ""I think the drow and the 'slave' can see us already. we should back off a little and spread out ready for what comes." as he moves north, away from the edge of the darkness. Elowin, for her part, remains where she is and tries to talk with the darkness, addressing the point where she'd seen the cloaked figure. "We are not with the Duke. We just want to rescue our friend before he gets here! The Duke just tried to kill us a moment ago!"

The hope in this appeal to a common cause is shattered a moment later when there is a shifting in the air in front of Elowin. The vague outline of a shaggy long limb with sharp claws on the end appears, transparent in the morning light, as a creature that was invisible swings at her face! The creature's claws connect, and electricity snaps through the elf's body! Elowin takes 7 lightning damage (using up her temp HP)!Elysia, cantering on the dead man's horse as she leads Adran and Morik through the winding city streets, is reassured that Eozindra took the most efficient route - the route that she is taking, naturally - because of all the perturbed people who are gathering up their belongings that were scattered when her sister came through moments earlier. Inured to the shock of almost getting trampled, the citizens just duck into doorways again, or lean against the walls on either side. But when they see Morik loping along, apparently chasing the horses, there are shrieks of surprise and fear! One person laughs hysterically, because for a second he thought he saw a tiny newt clinging to the brown bear's ear!

Eozindra dismounts, drawing her rapier with an unconscious flourish, and touches the wire in her hair as soon as she sees the horses and bear round the corner at the far end of the alley. The bard's magic message reaches Elysia's ears: "Definitely trouble, be prepared. We didn’t kill the guards but whoever did is still here."What do you do for round two?
Elowin had deferred her turn in round one, but she remains first in initiative order.

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24 - Elowin (17/17) (0 temp)
12 - Cloaked figures
10 - Ishi (25/25) (7 temp)
10 - Creature
9 - Elysia (14/17) (0 temp) ARRIVING ON ROUND THREE
7 - Eozindra (10/10) (7 temp)
4 - Morik bear (30/34) (7 temp) ARRIVING ON ROUND THREE

? - Adran (16/19) (7 temp) ARRIVING ON ROUND THREE

Not as long as I hope to talk my way out of combat

The Unseen: Round Two

Elowin steps back away from the sparkling claws, assuring the creature (and hopefully those in the darkness) "We are not your enemies. We just want the people."
"I'm ready with the gnome. Let's go."
"Oof; I can't see a...She says they want the people."
The first voice raises in volume as the speaker addresses the party: "You're welcome to the people! Everybody we left in there! We'll be out of your way in a moment!"

Ishi tightens his grip on the sword and warns: "Be careful auntie, I don't trust the drow."

The muttered voices continued, sounding slightly out of breath. "Did they just say we're drow??"
"That's torn it." Then, a little louder: "Excuse me? Hello? We're not drow..."
"...whatever those are..."
"Right! Drough? Droo? Ha-ha. I don't even know what that is! We're just everyday murderers!"
"You make sure to tell the Duke that when he catches you with all these dead bodies, right?"
"...still, it's better if they can't talk, right?"

Elowin notices a flicker at the edge of the sphere of darkness, a bit above where it bisects the roof of the building, and with a muttered "TohrtandStaliandrawtheeye!" (said all in one word), a spell descends on Elowin, Eozindra, and the three horses.
Elowin and Eozindra must attempt DC11 DEX saving throws.
The two heroes twist and sidestep as a wave of arcane energy surges past them. The horses snort and whinny as each mount suddenly gleams with a shining purple radiance.

The glowing creature steps forward toward Elowin...and disappears from view, fading out as it moves.

Elysia, Adran, Morik, and Jeffery continue racing down the alleyway toward the enormous black ball that serves as the backdrop to their view of Eozindra.

Eozindra, for her part, looks defiantly at the black sphere and declares: "We are saving our friend one way or another so you really should just stop this all now."

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24 - Elowin (17/17) (0 temp)
18 - Adran (16/19) (7 temp) ARRIVING ON ROUND THREE
12 - Cloaked figures
10 - Ishi (25/25) (7 temp)
10 - Creature
9 - Elysia (14/17) (0 temp) ARRIVING ON ROUND THREE
7 - Eozindra (10/10) (7 temp)
4 - Morik bear (30/34) (7 temp) ARRIVING ON ROUND THREE

Elowin can tell the spell not by assessing the arcane, but by observing the results: each of the horses is now glowing bright purple, which means that the spell is a version of the familiar Faerie Fire evocation.

The Unseen, Round Three

Round three of this combat begins. There are at least two somewhat-talkative aggressors in the darkness, Elowin saw movement on the roof, and there's a monster that attacked Elowin on the street but then turned invisible just moments ago. The horses are glowing purple and not happy about it, and Elysia, Adran, and Morik start the round having just arrived.Elowin and Ishi look at each other; Elowin says "Ishi, give me a leg up to the roof," and then sprints toward the jail. Being less armored and naturally fleet of foot, Ishi is generally much faster, but he takes a moment to process what she's said and gets a later start (first part of Elowin's action, the rest happens on Ishi's turn as he catches up).
Starting the round on his horse, Adran quickly dismounts and rushes straight ahead, into the darkness, finding the wall of the jail with his shield. Feeling his way quickly along toward where the door must be, his feet bump into some kind of obstacle: what he will eventually learn is the limp body of the guard pierced by crossbow bolts, but right now is just something to step over. Adran cannot see anything.
Elowin is too close to the jail to see on the roof, and both Adran and Ishi's views are blocked by the darkness, but Eozindra, Elysia, and Morik see a cloaked humanoid figure straighten up out of the darkness on the roof (standing fully upright, the darkness comes up to his waist), aim a small crossbow at them, and pull the release trigger. The bows jumps with a soft twang, and the figure ducks back down into the sphere! They see a second cloaked head emerge from the darkness a little further back - it pops up just enough to see over the edge of the roof, and calls out "Slave - keep them from following us!" There is a shimmering in the air and a glowing blue shape appears in the street in front of Eozindra, and the head visible on the roof steps back out of view of the people on the street.
Ishi sprints toward Elowin. As he skirts the edge of the sphere of blackness, a claw lashes out at Ishi, from the invisible creature trying to eviscerate him. Reaching Elowin, Ishi cradles his hands, Elowin stomps her boot down, saying "There must be an entrance of a sort up there," and Ishi nods and heaves upward, tossing Elowin up like a caber. She grabs the eaves of the jail's roof and pulls herself up, right on the edge of the sphere.
As she is hefting herself fully onto the roof, Elowin can see the dark fabric covering part of a hunched figure's back sticking out above the curve of the black sphere right in front of her. It is bent over, only its back visible above the blackness. Further to the west, a cloaked figure is walking away, further to the west on the roof. "Hopefully we can keep them talking while we get away with the gnome..." it is saying (only Elowin is close enough to understand the Elvish, but the others can all hear that someone is talking on the roof).
"I'm hurrying," the hunched figure near Elowin replies, "He's not exactly light, you know. You could help..."
The standing cloaked figure turns back and sees Elowin regaining her feet just as she recognizes that it is a dark elf!
"Vartus!" he calls a warning, there is a gasp, and the exposed back disappears as the closer figure drops down fully into the black sphere.
The glowing arm with the claws that slashed at Ishi previously retracts back into the sphere, as the creature turns to attack Adran in the darkness!Elysia runs toward the jail, yelling "Ishi!" The barbarian has just flung Elowin up onto the roof and doesn't have time to reset to hoist the half-elf, so she leaps for the eaves herself...and smacks into the side of the building. She's left hanging by her hands from the edge of the roof.Eozindra mocks the voices for their miscasting of the spell that has highlighted the horses. "I mean, they look very pretty now, thank you! Why don't you come on out so we can talk this through?" She presses her knuckles to her hips in a casual posture, the unsheathed blade of her rapier pointing behind her in a non-offensive stance, as she addresses the glowing figure that she can see a few feet away from her. "Sounds like you don't care for the Duke much either so we have that in common. Maybe there's other things we can agree on." The figure shimmers but provides no reply, not even to move to attack.

Morik rushes past the glowing figure and into the dark, sniffing mightily. He reaches the northeast corner of the building and immediately senses Adran ahead of him; there is also a lingering, unfamiliar odor of moldy earth and root vegetables. Underneath that is a faint trace of ink, pipeweed, and magpie droppings: Findal Dinfizzle Findazzle is clearly nearby.

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24 - Elowin (17/17) (0 temp)
18 - Adran (16/19) (7 temp)
12 - Cloaked figures
10 - Ishi (25/25) (7 temp)
10 - Creature
9 - Elysia (14/17) (0 temp)
7 - Eozindra (10/10) (7 temp)
4 - Morik bear (30/34) (7 temp)