With captives facing execution and no time to spread a rumor or rest overnight, the group turned to entering the prison. They learned that prisoners were kept on the upper floors and a torture chamber occupied the basement, and obtained maps showing the Purgatory entrance, the Moil, guard tower, ballistae, central area, and stairs. Vesper Farheel proposed infiltrating in a guard’s guise and using a tower; she knew the guards changed their identification passcode daily. The group agreed to seek the code, wear Masquerade Scarves, and enter through the front. Vesper offered Sira Antkeep as a prisoner while invisible Wyn accompanied them to listen.
At the entrance, Vesper presented Sira as a Hellbreaker caught snooping. The guards admitted Sira, but no passcode was spoken there; Wyn spotted a key and tried to steal it after an inner door opened. A guard sensed the invisible intruder and raised the alarm. Vesper returned disguised as a guard while Adam’andiel Ironbane took a frozen-lava bomb. Inside, Sira diverted a guard’s attention and Wyn slipped her his Handwraps, but guards struck and restrained her. Adam’andiel detonated the bomb against the perimeter wall, blasting open a breach and drawing guards toward the armed group and Wyn’s wyvern. Vesper went through the breach, and Rin joined the fight.
Wyn became visible after killing a jailer with a Thunderstrike Spellstrike. The group fought through the guards near the breach; Sira was repeatedly prevented from manifesting Isaac, while Rin and Adam’andiel attacked the defenders. Vesper ran toward a tower, saying she had an idea. Wyn and the others killed the remaining nearby guards, and Adam’andiel took a warhammer. When Wyn nearly attacked Vesper, she offered him a bottle of booze; he recognized her and stopped. Sira recovered her backpack and equipment. The group took dead guards’ uniforms, collected keys, and declined to rest. Vesper healed Sira and Wyn, then led the uniformed group to a ballista tower.
Vesper claimed the explosion had been caused by repelled Hellbreakers and asked the tower guards for relief and reinforcements. They demanded the code and refused to leave their posts. While she kept them talking, Isaac and Adam’andiel climbed through an unlocked trapdoor. Isaac shoved a guard from the platform and struck another. The fighting continued as guards loaded the ballista; Wyn, Adam’andiel, Rin, Vesper, and Isaac killed the defenders. Vesper’s Phase Ball killed one guard, Rin killed another with an icicle, and Adam’andiel was visibly frightened by the latter’s death. None of the defenders survived to give the passcode or reveal where the prisoners were held.
At the second ballista tower, the guards locked the trapdoor before the group could enter. A sniper fired on Rin and Sira, and Sira was badly wounded and began dying. Adam’andiel broke through the trapdoor, and Wyn’s wyvern, Cray, joined the fight, taking repeated ballista shots. Vesper revived Sira with Hymn of Healing and later healed her again; Wyn and Isaac killed the sniper before he could fire at them. The group killed the remaining tower guards, including the last artillerist, but again obtained neither the passcode nor the prisoners’ location. They paused for ten minutes to heal: Sira treated herself and Cray, and Vesper’s healing restored the group and wyvern fully.
The group then reached another door. Wyn listened, heard nothing, and used a recovered key to open it quietly. Beyond lay a winding corridor lined with rusty chains and manacles, dark stone walls, and arrow slits; Wyn saw no moving creatures. As the group pressed on, arrows flew at them from the slits. The captives’ location and the guards’ changing passcode remain unknown, and the group is under attack in the corridor.