Session 27. (30/01/02)
Episode 7 contd.
We rejoin the troubleshooter in the ground floor guard room of Ishiyama Castle, deep in enemy (Hyugan) territory. Having killed the guards they now need to move quickly to find the Iyo spy and help him escape. To help relate the events, a timeline will be used:
| 12:36 am | The troubleshooters are standing about wondering what to do next. |
| 12:37 | A guard calls upstairs from dungeon level. |
| 12:38 | Sugiyama sneaks downstairs. Guard doesn't see him. |
| 12:39 | Sugiyama sneaks into range. Guard still looking up stairs trying to see anyone. |
| 12:40 | Sugiyama strikes with Silent Kill. Guard fights back, injuring Sugiyama. Sugiyama strikes again. |
| 12:41 | Second guard appears and strikes Sugiyama. Kimori goes to help but Sugiyama is blocking stairs. Sugiyama finishes first guard then advances around corner away from second guard. |
| 12:42 | Kimori takes on second guard and kills him in two critical blows. Sugiyama finds himself facing a third guard, but separated by wall of iron bars. |
| 12:43 | Sugiyama starts assembling his bow. Guard in high security cell area goes to ring an alarm bell but sees Sugiyama's bow and retreats into an empty cell. Komako and Emiko come downstairs. Kimori tries other two doors in guard room but finds them locked. |
| 12:45 | Komako shouts at the guards to hand over keys but they are dead. Kimori looks for keys on fallen guards but they have none. Sugiyama tries to pick lock on door in iron bars but fails. |
| 12:50 | Kimori tries to bribe guard hiding in cell, promising his escape, his life and "lots of gold". Guard believed him until "lots of gold". Kimori flips his last gold piece into the cell and tries out his newly gained rhetoric skill (after half a week training with Mariko) but the guard is unmoved. Impasse continues. |
| 12:54 | Sugiyama looks at other doors in guard room, sees they are iron-bound wood with relatively simple locks. Takes out his fine quality lock-pick and gets to work. Mariko comes down. |
| 01:02 | Sugiyama unlocks the door and goes through. He finds four doors, three to cells and one to a further area with four solitary confinement cells. All the doors are very solid and locked. |
| 01:03 | Sugiyama ascertains that there are at least 11 prisoners. He talks to one who says they are mostly soldiers and offices from Lord Chozo's army captured at Mie a few weeks earlier. |
| 01:05 | Mariko tries to bribe cowering guard but is ignored. |
| 01:06 | Sugiyama asks prisoner about spy. Credible rumour is that the spy has escaped! |
| 01:12 | Emiko goes upstairs to get wooden bar from main doors to try to pry iron bars apart. Sugiyama considers releasing all the prisoners but realises that without supply caches they will starve in this mountain wilderness. He learns from the prisoners that the Captain of the Guard has the keys and he only comes round a few times each day; the locks are beyond Sugiyama's meagre skill. |
| 01:18 | Emiko struggles back with door bar. Kimori and Komako try to pry iron bars apart but the wood starts to splinter. |
| 01:25 | Mariko, Komako, Kimori and Emiko go back upstairs, leaving Sugiyama to watch the guard and prevent him ringing the bell. |
| 01:27 | Mariko creeps through some doors into a large room with torture equipment in one corner. |
| 01:29 | Followed by Kimori, Mariko slides open the double doors at the far end of the large room and finds an Officers' Briefing Room with an officer at work at one of the desks. He leaps up and draws his sword. Mariko and the officer exchange two blows each, with Mariko coming off worst. Kimori rushes in and hits the guard, then Mariko gets a critical hit with her tanto and kills the officer outright. |
| 01:30 | Mariko and Kimori search the room but there are no keys. |
| 01:32 | Komako looks through a grille in the only other door in the room. There is a long corridor with four cell doors on the right and a guard at the far end. The door is bolted. Komako tries to use a distance attack on the guard but it fails. |
| 01:33 | Kimori gets his bow and prepares to fire an arrow through the grille. The guard advances and uses his sword to keep Kimori away from the door. Another stand-off ensues. |
| 01:36 | A prisoner in the cells calls out to the troubleshooters. The guard goes back to shut him up. Kimori takes his chance and fires an arrow, wounding the guard. |
| 01:37 | The guard tries to hide, but the corridor offers no hiding places. Kimori fires another arrow and the guard slumps, moaning weakly. |
| 01:38 | Kimori and Komako charge the door and at the second attempt break through. Before Komako can stop him, Kimori finishes off the guard. |
| 01:39 | Mariko questions the prisoners and finds that they are also captured Iyo soldiers. The cells here are used for prisoners being tortured. Mariko passes what weapons they have found to the prisoners. |
| 01:55 | After much discussion, the troubleshooters decide that they are in no shape to take on the rest of the castle, have no means to release all the prisoners or feed them if they had, and need to find the escaped spy as soon as possible. With a list of names of captured officers to take back to Koreyasu, Mariko decides to leave. However, Kimori decides that he should "just take a quick look upstairs." |
| 01:56 | While climbing the stairs, Kimori find two guards watching him from the top. Emiko hears shouting from one of the upper windows. They decide to leave. |
| 01:57 | Shouting to Sugiyama as they pass the dungeon stairs, the troubleshooters run for the outer doors. |
| 01:58 | Sugiyama catches up with the others. The guard in the dungeon sounds the alarm. |
| 01:59 | The troubleshooters sneak along the inner compound wall to the bath house. There is much activity near the barracks and someone spots the fleeing party. |
| 02:00 | The troubleshooters climb down the rope into the outer compound, Sugiyama fastest of all and disappears once at the bottom. While running round to the other rope, Kimori is hit by an arrow. |
| 02:02 | The party finally makes it out of the castle and splits up, looking for the spy and agreeing to rendezvous at the Dragon Cave. |
| 06:30 | After half a night of fruitless searching, the troubleshooters meet up again. Emiko heals the injured, though it takes five attempts to heal Sugiyama. Emiko wonders why. |