WAR! It Ain't Over Till... January 2014

xx okay, tried this once before and fell flat so I've made a few edits xx

From their last mission, SF Black discovered several Royalist factions fighting with each. After SF Black enabled the main rebel army to enter the key port City of Zazesspur, many of the newly freed slaves take up arms against the fewer and fewer remaining Royalists. As the rebel forces mopped up the residual resistance within the city, Strike Force Green, led by Chief Hayden (6th Warlock - Brad), the younger cousin of the more famous Hayden with the same name, manage to hunt down and capture a minor priest of Pelor who had critical information regarding the Royalist leadership.

Commander Danlor - "The Royalists know they’ve lost. From the information gained from the minor priest captured by SF Green, we know that Prince Banneerk, heir to the Royalist throne, is going to attempt to flee the islands and establish a government in exile, seek new allies, rally and rebuild the Royalist Navy and renew the war. We’ve identified the date when Prince Banneerk is meeting with a group of foreign mercenaries who will help him off the island but we do not know the exact meeting point. From other intelligence we’ve gathered, we’ve narrowed down the meeting point to one of three places:

1, A small Pelor temple, inland and high in the Carpathian Mountains. The team that is sent to this location will be inserted either by a one use Plane Shift Scroll, similar to ones used to break the siege of Zazesspur, or by being dropped off by Thunderbolt and Corsair, the Rocs who saved SF Black on one of their early mission on the island of Zemya Major.

2, An abandoned underwater cave lair of Sulfur the Black Dragon, whom SF Black has fought on several occasions, the abandoned lair being inland near the shores of Lake Mir. The team that is sent to this location will be inserted either by taking a barge from a small town that we’ve used as a base through out the war, you’ll cross the lake and have the barge available to assist as you dive underwater to find the cave. The other possible approach is that Wendy and Gale (the air elementals) will guide you around the shores of the lake, hopefully avoiding the pockets of Royalist resistance still in that area, and the team will approach what we think is the location of the underwater cave from the shore side.

3, A small temple to the Raven Queen, on the coast north of Zazesspur. The team that chooses this location may choose to have Wendy and Gale guide them (if the team going to Sulfur’s old cave is using the barge), or Captain Pike and the Silhouette will take the team up the coast and the team will disembark at the temple’s dock.

Since SF Black is senior, they will choose first which of the three locations they will cover. As our most powerful special operations team, hopefully they will select the location where the Prince is meeting the mercenaries. The other two teams, SF Green and the Bloodhawks, will cover the remaining two locations in case SF Black is wrong. We cannot send in platoon or company sized forces which will be spotted as that will merely alert the Prince’s scouts that we’ve been alerted and he will doubtless temporarily abort his escape, spoiling our chances to capture him."

Section Chief Snape (SF Green) "Hmmm…from our last mission when I tried to Plane Shift us into the enemy temple, we ended up on the wrong plane fighting a squad of Githanki warriors, anyone remember that? I don’t know if I want to try that again."

Captain Pike "The old lair of the dragon is far to the north, well inland, and in territory that we (the Rebels) have maintained moderate control over for the last three years at least. I really don’t see who or what the Prince might be meeting there and how he would make his escape off the island from an underwater, inland cave."

Chief Hayden (the younger one) "Well, we can discount the temple of the Raven Queen, the Royalists are followers of Pelor and would not schedule a meeting there." Captain Pike "…but it is on the coast and the strongest arm of the remaining Royalist fighting force is their navy and other than my frigate, a few others, and several coasters, we really don’t have a navy that can stand up to what the Royalist have left. Yes, they only have half the fleet they did, but that’s still more than a dozen first line warships and about twenty lesser ships."

Section Chief Lucian Atredies (SF Green) "Well there are only two ways that I can think of off this island and that’s flying or taking a boat. The boat is too obvious so the Prince has got to be flying off the island somehow; I think that means the meeting place is the temple in the mountains, it’s a temple to Pelor after all so that’s got to be it."

Pick one of the three locations - and pick one of two ways to access the target zone.
Mountain Temple of Pelor - Plane shift in, or airdrop in...
Dragon Cave - Barge up the river, or walk w elemental guides
Coastal Raven Queen Temple - elemental guides, or take a fast frigate

ST

Hmm, sounds like we need a View Location or Locate Object ritual...

Hand of Fate ritual may work as well.