Seeing the globe rolling toward them, the party rushed into the tower. Evading tripwires and pressure plates, they found themselves at an iron door leading to the wing that the Suma Oro was held in. With the sound of guards approaching from below, Ignacious used a piece of chalk to draw a hole on the door and bypass it. Aiden picked the dragon/mouse lock to gain entry to a small storeroom, where the party recovered a silver chest containing a large diamond — presumably their quarry — and 4 wooden boxes of unknown contents.
With the sound of guards approaching from outside the iron door, Ignacious grabbed Armen and dimension doored away to a nearby alley. Tobias was left in the tower, confronted by a guard and some sort of iron sphere automaton; he managed to rush past them and get to the roof, closing and barring the trap door behind him.
Armen turned invisible and ran out of the alley and turned back toward the tower, spying a huge wrestler — Dormango — investigating the glowing globe that had rolled into the bushes. The sentry from the warehouse ran into the invisible Armen, falling prone on the ground. As Dormango retrieved the globe, a sentry from within the tower emerged to investigate what was happening.
Ignacious engaged Dormango and convinced him the globe was his. Dormango returned it, telling Ignacious that he owed him a favor in the future. Armen cast fly on the pair so they could make their escape. Tobias, meanwhile, had jumped from atop the tower to the rear of the courtyard (while the guards were investigating out front), and scaled the wall to get away.
Two guards threw spears at Armen, breaking his concentration and causing Armen and Ignacious to fall to the ground. Armen managed to rush away and use an illusion to disguise himself as a cart; at an opportune moment, he slipped away back to Effi and Arko Addi’s.
Ignacious was not as lucky: the guards took him and Dormango into custody, where Dormango made enough of a ruckus and used his celebrity to insist on getting the Bronze involved. Inquisitor Luda showed up, took the globe, and took the pair to a holding cell. After a few questions, Ignacious was locked in a cell, until Pella showed up and allowed him to slip away to freedom. She told him to make for the Docks, where the Nightengale had been chartered to take the group south to Esmi.
The rest of the group received a similar message, and after sending a message to Yolan Dagarswan apologizing for the loss of the globe and explaining its last known whereabouts at the Black Box, they headed down to the Docks and boarded their ship, which had been paid handsomely to slip away in the middle of the night.
The globe was lost, the diamond was won, the guards at the Black Box had taken all of Ignacious’ money, and level 8 was achieved . . . .
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