In the morning, Su'uvarax finally confronted Merosska about the halfling woman and the evidence of the caravan attack, and demanded to speak to Hazel. Merosska claimed that his knights found the remains of the caravan during a patrol, and they rescued the halfling who was wandering the area. He wouldn't dream of subjecting her to an interrogation without her agreement. He then went off to talk to her. When he came back, he accompanied Su'uvarax to the greenhouse room, where Hazel and the hurricane waited.
After they left, Truth tried to follow, saying he needed to tell Su'uvarax something, but the initiate at the top of the stairs told him he had to stay in the great hall. Thoril had enough standing around and took a swing at him, but missed. Maendir took the precaution of spiking a bedroom door, in case someone came out to surprise them, and Zook hid in another bedroom. The others more or less lined up with the two knights in the hall, but didn't actually swing. The initiate managed to stab Thoril with a dagger and run down the stairs, yelling. Su'uvarax excused himself politely, came upstairs and yelled at them to behave. He then charged Truth with keeping Thoril in line, leaving Thoril feeling very put upon. So no battle yet.
Su'uvarax returned to the greenhouse. Hazel was watering plants, not meeting anyone's eyes and giving terse answers, but going along with Merosska's party line. However, Su'uvarax used Awakened Mind to let her know he was here to help, and asked to her spill water if she needed help. She promptly did. Su'uvarax used his Sending Stone to tell Silaqui that they needed to rescue Hazel. This raised the question: can you send a message without speaking out loud? The recipient hears it in their head, but does the sender need to speak? It isn't spelled out in the spell description, and strangely has not been argued to death on the Internet. In the end, I went with silent mode.
Upstairs in the great hall, Silaqui told the party that Su'uvarax said wanted them to join him, but they needed to clean up first. Finally, the party started rolling well for Insight and got the message, so they weren't caught flat-footed when Silaqui launched her attack on one of the knights. In the end, one knight went down but the other was able to jump out a window before he could be killed; he joins his comrades in the stables. Some of them will be heading up the spiral stairs while others will fly to the roof and come down from the top.
Down in the greenhouse, Su'uvarax cast Darkness, which protected him from attack, and Hazel took the opportunity to hide. Merosska made his way out of the darkness, and out of the room. He's in position to hold the staircase. The hurricane cast Thunderwave since he couldn't close with Su'uvarax.
That's as far as we got with the battle, so we'll have to see how things develop. The tower architecture is really the defining element, with the central staircase and the opposing sides on different floors. Team Feathergale has the advantage of mobility, so we'll see if the party can avoid getting gridlocked on the stairs.
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