Sorry for the delay. It's been a hectic week for me, and Amir's player sprained his ankle.

Spoiler: Group B: Spy Hunt Success
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After spending about an hour shopping, drinking, and arguing, Team Evil finally got on with trying to track down the spy in their midst. At one point, Pitow ran into her (an changeling named Zelle MacLeod) and she asked him for directions to "Captain Irmentrude's tent". He managed to hilariously mislead her by honestly forgetting Imiza's last name. Instead, Pitow told Zelle to ask at the tavern. He realized his blunder about an hour later.

Once it became clear that no progress would be made if I didn't pull the trigger, the party was alerted to an attack on the prison block. Rushing to prevent their hard won abducted princess from escaping, the party hastily flung itself into the fight against the Hassani rescue squad. The enemy force consisted of three cavalry archers, a mage, a pair of celestial war hounds (refluffed hellhounds), and five gnoll mercenaries. The battle took longer than it needed to, mostly because Sergeant Slaughter was the only one who bothered to attack the mage. Speaking of which, turns out double-tapping with fireball kills people! Eclipso forgot she had counterspell, got dropped by the first fireball, and killed by the second. I don't normally hit unconscious people, but it was rather unavoidable with three people clustered around the downed wizard.

At any rate, the party eventually managed to defeat the enemy combatants, stripped the corpses of all the valuables, and even remembered why they went there in the first place. As they entered the prison to make sure Princess Sarika was still there, Pitow commented how strange it was that the prison block had been so lightly guarded.

"Almost like they left intentionally," Pitow mused.
"Nah," Amir said. "See? There's dead hobgoblins. They didn't leave. They just lost."
"What happened to the Ragesian guard shift?" Pitow asked.
"No idea," Imiza commented offhandedly.
"How did they get inside the base anyway?" Pitow asked. "We have walls. Aren't they guarded?"
"Maybe they teleported in," Amir said. "Come on, let's make sure the stupid princess didn't escape again."

Sarika hadn't had the chance to escape yet, and Zelle MacLeod was posing as a hobgoblin guard. She was hoping to wait for the party to leave, then smuggle Sarika out of the camp on some horses Imiza had readied for her in between sessions. Unfortunately, it seems my players have seen too many spy movies. They cottoned onto the notion that the only surviving guard had to be in on it, and immediately tried to kill Zelle. She quickly surrendered and offered to become a double agent if the party agreed to double the pay Al-Hassan had promised her.

"You want us to pay you?!" Amir shrieked. "Hell no! **** you!"
"Calm down," Pitow sighed. "She's a lot more valuable alive than dead."
"No!" Amir shrieked. "She'll either tell us everything or I'll kill her."
"No," Zelle said calmly.
"Zone of Truth! Now tell us everything!" Amir screamed.
"No," Zelle said again.
"Dammit!" Amir whined. "Why does that never work?!"
"If it didn't work on Shalashaska, why did you think it would work on her?" Pitow asked.
"Wait, I could've said 'no' in your spell the whole time?" Imiza asked irritably.
"Yeah," Pitow said.
"Dammit ..." Imiza sighed.
"Look, let's just pay the spy," Pitow said. "She's not going to talk otherwise."
"Fine," Amir pouted.

Once the party gave Zelle 2,000 gp, the female spy told Team Evil everything she knew about Team Good (basic composition, mostly), the geopolitical situation (Al-Hassan and Thalos were allied, and that Al-Hassan was trying to ally themselves with the desert elves), and that Al-Hassan was getting desperate enough to reach out to "The Lord of the Wastes" for aid. Zelle didn't know who or what the Lord was, but she thought the title was rather ominous. She recommended that Team Evil beat Hassan to the punch and secure an alliance with the desert elves first. Pitow thought it was a good idea, and made sure to frame the suggestion to make it sound like Amir had come up with it.

I'm so glad he's learning how to manipulate handle negotiations with other players.

The party double secured Sarika's prison cell, dropped the cash to get a raise dead for Eclipso, and settled down to divide up loot and pawn off vendor trash. The session wrapped up with a grand parade of brightly dressed Ragesians marching through the main road in camp as they heralded the arrival of a woman claiming to be an avatar of Empress Zarouhi Orlaith. Sergeant Slaughter seemed to be the only one in the group happy to see her.


TL;DR: They turned the enemy spy into a double agent.