A young woman, maybe eighteen or nineteen years old, appears in the clearing. She's wearing armor, and a yellow cloak with some kind of embroidered geometric pattern, and a headband with a different pattern, and a circular pendant with three pointy bits sticking out, and some sort of bag with four more symbols hanging off of it (a rose, a butterfly, a sword with a wing, and a wasp). She was reaching for something, but a moment after she appears she looks around, blinks rapidly, and adjusts her stance.

She says something in a totally unfamiliar language.

The place looks like a semi-permanent camp. There's a drying rack, improvised benches, a few bags and wooden or stone boxes lying around, and well-tracked ground. Two people are preparing food (forage and small game), and two more are sparring.

They all startle. The two sparrers drop their wooden weapons and draw steel. One of the two preparing food goes into a low martial arts stance with a stomp that sounds far too heavy. The other yells something into the cave, but then trails off in confusion. Everyone looks at each other and start arguing in tense voices.

...They don't look to be in great shape. Some evidence of lean months, some slightly ratty clothing.

She's — not dead, which is weird, usually when you get eaten by a giant snake you die, or at the very least you end up inside a giant snake and not wherever this is — but she can still feel her magic and she's pretty sure you stop being a priest when you die. And everyone here looks human, which she's pretty sure they wouldn't be in Elysium or the Maelstrom.

She's not thrilled about the people pulling weapons on her but she did just Teleport out of nowhere, it makes sense they'd be scared. Probably if she draws her hidden dagger it make things worse. Her spear'd be better if she does have to fight them, but she didn't have it with her for the snake attack, and she didn't choose spells for a fight anyways.

And they look foreign, and she can't understand them — she does have a couple of Share Language, she'd been planning to sell them to someone who likes that she's got the Chelish dialect too, only there's no good way to get them to take it if they don't know what she's going to do—

Well, she can prove she's not Evil, at least. (If they're bandits that might not be helpful, but she's really not prepared to fight a whole pack of bandits.) She touches her holy symbol, looks around at the group, and tries to want everyone here to be okay.

Within thirty feet of her in every direction, cuts and scrapes and bruises patch themselves up. It didn't look to her like anyone was seriously injured, but if they were, it'll fix that too. Her channel won't do anything about hunger, but it can definitely help with injuries.

And then she holds out her left hand and looks around the group, trying to look friendly, and repeats what she just said, though presumably they won't understand it yet.

They yelp! This is pretty shocking! And possibly Spirit business! She's wearing yellow- Can Air Nomads heal? Maybe?? But isn't that a waterbending thing???

Well, a Fire Nation princess or whatever wouldn't have tried to heal them. So. The tension can ratchet down to wary confusion. The two with swords sheathe them.

Four people rush out of the cave!

Two of them seem to be the party leader(s), just going by reading everyone's immediate reactions and deference to them specifically. The guy is wearing something mostly resembling armor and has a mace. The woman is wearing a bundle of waterskins, two rings of unfamiliar design, and a belt with a wave symbol carved into it; She's the only one here who seems to have possibly-magic accessories.

Healing?? Eyebrow raise quite high up.

She uncaps one of the skins and draws out a measure of water in a practiced motion. Holding it between her hands and asking a question.

...No, no, they explain, she just did it. Instantly. Which... ???

They've... figured out she's a cleric and want to know if she can make water?? That doesn't really feel right but it's not like she has a better idea, and theoretically it might help convince someone to take her hand?

(Is she doing sorcery with the water or is she just being really careful with it??)

Create Water. Only a little bit, she doesn't actually have anywhere to put it right now.

She puts the water back into her waterskins.

...And then does the starting pose of a very basic partnered Bending exercise that everyone does? To see if the stranger reciprocates. No?

...Yeah this woman is not a waterbender, probably maybe, and she says as much.

She wants to... dance???? Justice doesn't know any of their dances! Are dance-sorcerers a thing somewhere, is that some kind of extra-weird song-sorcerer?

...She tries offering the woman her hand again. Maybe this time it'll work.

............You know what sure.

"Gan, I'm gonna take her hand. If she attacks, well... I guess I don't need to say what to do next."

The armored guy chuckles and nods.

Linlao takes the armored stranger's hand.

Share Language.

There's a sensation of something slipping over Linlao's mind, and then she can understand the stranger's words.

"—Uh, where am I? I got eaten by a giant snake and somehow I wound up here."

Oh, Sprits indeed.

"Okay, that's... Strange. We don't have a name for this place. It's our camp. Near Rojonu. If some spirit - ate you and sent you here - well, I'm glad it didn't just eat you. Are you an Air Nomad?"

"I don't know what Air Nomads... are. I'm not any kind of nomad, I live in a flat in Augustana." Admittedly she spends lots of time away from it, but she's pretty sure that doesn't count as being a nomad.

She converses with the rest of the camp for a bit.

"Okay, well. I only asked because you're wearing yellow. It was their color. And the Air Nomads are... Gone. The Fire Nation killed them all, except one, a hundred years ago. We have no idea what Augustana is, or what you are, really. The healing was strange."

What the fuck!!!

"—I'm a priestess, back home most priests and priestesses can do healing channels like that — not all of them, some of them can do the opposite kind, but the Good gods only give out the healing kind and we've got more priests of Good gods than Neutral ones. Augustana's in Andoran, which is in Avistan — uh, I assume we're not in Rahadoum but if we are that'd be good to know. Uh, and I don't know what the Fire Nation is either, do they, uh, murder people a lot?"

"Yeah. They kill people a lot. They're invading the Earth Kingdom, and they attack the Water Tribes too. They imprison or kill anyone who steps out of line in conquered regions, and treat Earth Kingdom villages as something to extract resources or amusement from. We- Are still resisting, but the war front has moved on. I don't recognize those places, maybe the spirits took you from... Beyond?

That's so concerning, especially given that apparently they also murdered an entire... country? Religion, but not even the Evil kind? There's plenty of wars that'd be justified, back home, but that wouldn't make it okay to murder a bunch of innocent people.

"—My world's called Golarion in this language but I don't know what they call it in other places. I know there's other worlds with people but I've never heard of any of them having humans, unless you count the afterlives. Uh, are the Earth and Air and Water and Fire people connected somehow to the Plane of Earth and so on?"

"...You mean the Spirit World? Earth, Fire, Air, Water. Only the Avatar can master all four elements."

"Uh — we also call those the elements, but I don't think the planes for the elements have a lot of... souls without bodies? I guess they might, I've never been there, but I always sort of imagined everyone was... made of the same thing as the plane." Possibly that was a stupid thing to imagine. When she's seen elementals summoned they've always been made of the element, but maybe that doesn't apply to literally everyone on the plane. 

"Uh, and I've never heard of the Avatar." Lots of people can do magic connected to all four elements, she could if she had the right spells prepared, but she doesn't know what this woman means by 'master'.

"No, something weirder is going on."

...She updates the onlookers briefly.

"The Spirit World is where spirits live? I don't really know much about it and I've never been and don't know anybody who has. Maybe the Avatar has. They reincarnate and are really strong."

"What... kind of spirits?"

"Like... Koh the face stealer. Who steals your face if you show emotion in front of him. Or Wan Shi Tong, who has a library in the desert and will kill you if you try to steal books. Or Jumon the great panda who punishes those who cut down bamboo forests..."

"...I'm not sure, but those kind of sound like faeries? Faeries are from a different world — in this language we call it the First World — and I did hear once that they reincarnate, although I didn't, uh, think it was actually true. I've never heard of a giant snake faerie that teleports people by eating them but it wouldn't be the weirdest thing out there."

"...Nnnnno, one or both of us are still confused. Um. I'm not going to ask you to help us fight the Fire Nation without, like, trying to actually prove to you that they are bad, and un-confusing you if we can-"

She pauses to argue with someone, still standing tensely around, for a moment. And then another few moments. She throws her hands up in a 'fine' gesture.

"Uhh. So. You popped right on top of us and that's scary, and you have the healing magic and you used it to help and that's reassuring, but if you decide to go tell the Fire Nation where we're living that would be... Bad..."

"Oh, I mean, assuming what you've said about then is true, I definitely want to help fight them!! I just, uh, got distracted trying to figure out what was up with the snake thing, sorry. Uh, the spells I have today probably mostly won't be super helpful, but I can ask for different ones tomorrow — in the meantime, I've got two more of the Share Language like I used on you, and two Remove Disease if anyone's sick, and I can make more water, and I can list my other ones if you want. And I've got three more healing channels like I did earlier. Tomorrow I can ask for Create Food and Water." And Zone of Truth, but on the off-chance they haven't heard of it she's not going to mention that yet.

"Well, the snake thing is objectively very concerning. Uh..."

Chatter chatter.

"Yeah, Clove is sick- They weren't doing well to start with and they fell in cold water and I'm not very good at the healing part of waterbending. I don't think we can feed you... And what you can do is clearly categorically different from bending..."

"That's okay — or, I mean, it'll kind of suck today, but tomorrow I can make food, like I said." She ate breakfast, it's not like she's never been longer without food. She's not going to demand food from a bunch of starving rebels.

"Uh, can you show me where Clove is so I can try the Remove Disease? And then I guess I can... explain how my magic works, if that'd be helpful?" 

Talking talking-

"Gan, that's him-" Armor guy, "Wants you to give the language to, uh, Badgermole."

One of the other people who ran out of the cave gives a lazy wave; He has shaggy brown hair and a lazy slouch of a posture and a wooden mask painted white and black.

"He... He picked a new name. And then talk to him instead of me about things. It's almost like he doesn't trust me to stay focused or something." She smiles a bit ruefully. "And yeah, we can show you the place. Might as well since you're here and maybe helping."

She waves back. "I'll need to touch him to cast it. Can you, uh, tell him that?"

She tells him that.

Badgermole shrugs and walks forward, saying something that is probably a greeting and taking off a leather glove; His clothes are pretty all-concealing, actually. There is a big scar across the back of his hand, which he presents as a fist.

She puts one of her hands on top of his fist. "Share Language."

"Oh, yikes. Yep that worked." Pause. "-Yeah, it worked," in the common tongue. "Hey hello. Welcome to the party, we got scouting missions, foraging, cold beds, sparring, and if we're lucky- Sneaking into the resort the Fire Nation built and utterly destroying it. You know, aspirational. Some day. I'll give ya the tour?"

Glove: Back on.

She grins back at him. "Sounds good to me! —Uh, I don't know if she mentioned, I can probably heal your sick person."

"Yep, we'll go say hi. By the way, almost everyone with an ounce of power in the Fire Nation probably did shitty things to get it. I got my many scars when the late Lieutenant Morrow Emberstar tortured me after I beat up one of his men who was trying to rape my mom. Unfortunately, not at my hands- A battle against the Earth Kingdom got him."

He heads towards the cave. Lenora, the waterbender, is apparently going with someone else off into the hilly woods with a bunch of large buckets.

"Someday we'll avenge what they've done," she says fiercely. (Assuming this group is telling the truth, but her guess is that they are.)

She follows him towards the cave, then glances at the people with the buckets. "—If they're filling those up with water, I've got Create Water today. Uh, Create Water's not limited the way my Remove Disease spells are."

He nods slowly, once.

"They are. Not far though. Lenora's a waterbender, she can draw it right out of a little waterfall not too far away. Catch 'em on the next trip."

Inside the cave entrance, the structure is regular and even reinforced with pillars. Sort of like a large mine. It's quite dim, with light coming from occarional shafts to the sky. There's a long hallway, and eventually a big common room with a large rectangular raised stove and a bunch of chairs. He points at doorways, a dozen all on this single long hall of a room.

"This is the common room. Armory such as it is, is through there. That's the planning room and Gan's quarters. That door has the cistern and washing areas. Training sand pit through there. General storage there. Workshop there. And those go to individual rooms. Our sick comrade is through that one."

She casts a Light on her holy symbol as they enter and follows him down the hallway, peering at the different locations he points out. "Is it alright if I go in, or do you want to explain things to them first?"

"I'll explain first."

He knocks on the door and speaks through it. Then goes in and speaks a bit longer. Then opens the door again and waves her in. Clove is a slim teenage girl with bright amber eyes. She stares intently.

"...Oh, I think Lenora forgot to ask your name."

"I'm Justice! It's nice to meet you both."

The guy who named himself Badgermole seems to approve of the name "Justice". If his masked posture is any indication.

He says something else to Clove. Clove holds her hand out, trembling as it may be.

She takes her hand.

There's something she can reach for if she tries, a sense of chance bending a tiny bit in her favor for just a moment. She's never been sure whether it actually helps make sure the Remove Disease takes, but it definitely feels like it. She reaches for that feeling, and then as it slips away she makes a gesture in the air with her free hand.

"Remove Disease."

For the past week, even so much as breathing has been a struggle. Doing anything other than laying on her side and carefully focusing on in-and-out makes it worse, a horrible light-headedness. Sometimes she stops breathing at all for a minute or two, failing to cough up thick miserable globs from somewhere deep in her chest. They've been feeding her congee and helping her to the facilities across the hall; She would no doubt collapse and hit her head on bare stone if she tried to do it alone.

This was what was going to do her in: Hunger and chill, like a candle burning slowly away to nothing, knocked over and snuffed out in a muddy pond. She half started wishing for it, thinking that her friend Keiya sees her as a burden, and hoping the chances of making a difference would be better without her.

This charlatan has fooled Badgermole into some weird scheme, and she prepares to tell her what for if she can manage to bring up the words without also bringing up a torrent of pink phlegm.

And then the relief is - not instant - but the coughing fit borne of shocked surprise immediately feels better, and she gulps down greedy lungfuls of air- She has the spare energy to be embarrassed at the filthy state of her clothes and room, and the horrible goo that she's adding- What---?

Badgermole whistles a low tone, impressed.

"I'm assuming it worked?"

"Well, usually when someone almost drowns and coughs up blood for a week, they die."

"Clove, how you feeling?"

"Like shit. Where did you find this soldier lady? Did someone make a deal with spirits or something?"

"Dunno. She just appeared. Maybe the Avatar sent her."

"...Fuckin' Avatar, disappears for a hundred years and..." Cough cough cough!

"I'll say thanks for you. Let someone know if it comes back, yeah?"

"Go tell Keiya I'm better!"

"Yeah, it worked. She says thanks. Let's give her some privacy?"

Nod. "Happy to help!" 

And then she can head back out of the room.

He goes out and knocks on another door.

"Keiya! Mystery Lady healed Clove."

There's a thump from inside, and Badgermole walks back towards the main room.

"I'll show you around the facilities. Depending on what else you can do, we've gotta re-plan everything. Not that the old plans were great, this isn't a complaint!"

Nod nod! "I can tell you more about my magic but I don't know what'd be most helpful to know first, it seems like the... sorcery?... people have here is really different."

"We call it 'bending'. Plus whatever element- So firebending, earthbending, and waterbending. Oh, and airbending. But the Fire Nation killed all the airbenders." This is stated as a droll fact. "Some of us are Earthbenders and Lenora's a waterbender. We thought maybe Clove would figure out Firebending given her dad but it doesn't look like it... You can heal and cure diseases? And do something with water?"

People are chattering at the big table in the main hall, seeming fairly animated. Badgermole goes right past them with a lazy wave of his hand.

"Okay. Uh. I've never explained this to someone who'd never heard anything about how magic works where I'm from before, so tell me if this doesn't make sense. I'm a priestess, which means I get my magic from a god — in my case Calistria, but I think almost all the gods sometimes pick priests, except the really little ones." Lots of places have laws about Calistrian priests, or just make them totally illegal, but it seems pretty unlikely that a bunch of vengeful rebels are going to be bothered. "Uh, I don't know which gods people mainly worship here, if they're different it might be worth going through the ones I know of that don't suck and seeing if they'll choose any of you if you know about them."

This would be so much easier if these people were familiar with the concept of priests that can cast spells, or even just spells.

"Every day I can ask Calistria for some spells — uh, to do that I have to pray to her for an hour, starting at dawn. Spells are... uh...... they're like, specific things you can do with magic? The Share Language I cast on you is a spell, the Remove Disease was a spell. There's a lot of different spells, I can list some of the ones that I know are especially good for fighting but it might also be good if you list things it'd be helpful for someone to be able to do. Most of my spells can only be cast once — or, uh — she can only give me a certain number at each circle every day, and she can give me the same one multiple times but then it counts multiple times towards the total. Uh, a circle is like, how complicated the spell is, higher-circle spells are usually better but not always, I'm third-circle right now. But I also have, uh, we call them 'orisons', which are spells that are so simple I can cast them over and over as many times as I want. The orisons I've got today are Create Water, which, uh, creates water, Light," (she taps her glowing holy symbol) "which makes things glow for a while, Guidance, which... makes people a little better at something they're about to do, that one's kind of hard to explain if you've never had it cast on you, and then Virtue, which makes people a little tougher for a little while. The channel I did earlier's not a spell, I get four of those every day. Some priests get a different kind that hurts people instead, it mostly depends on whether they and their god are Good or Evil or Neutral. —And I can turn some of my spells, not the orisons but the other ones, into healing spells that just heal a single person's injuries. And then there's a couple other things I can do, and a couple things that are more complicated about how priest spells work, but that's most of it.

...Did that make sense?"

"...Doesn't really make a lot of sense but I can see some of the tactical reality of it. You'll want to limit yourself to one solid fight a day. Hit and run, and careful budgeting of what you can do as contingencies or backup plans. Except for the orisons which you can do whenever. I don't think... Well, people worship the great spirits which are said to provide people with Bending abilities, and like, Raava the Light who supposedly created the Avatar Cycle... Some things it would be really handy to do huh? Hmm... Look and talk convincingly like a specific Fire Nation guard. Breathe underwater. Be immune to burns. Create blasting jelly from nothing- Blasting jelly explodes when lit on fire. Read enemy officers' minds. Sabotage complicated machines in a way that isn't immediately obvious. We've been trying to harvest gullfrog venom and turn it into something we can use but the stuff goes harmless after a few days... If Guidance is one you can do whenever might as well try it out now? See what it's good for?"

They are now in the cistern and washing area. It's not too complicated. There's wooden laundry racks of the type that will probably be familiar, and drying lines. There's a tall cistern with an earthen ramp going all the way up to it, and a wooden spigot mechanism on the side. There's buckets and barrels, and a currently open wooden door to a room that has a bathtub in it, and three small rooms with holes for the necessary, also with wooden doors.

The laundry racks are new! Everywhere she's ever lived has just had wizards for laundry.

"Okay, let me think." She starts counting off spells on her fingers. "Priests can do underwater breathing — there's one at first circle that only lasts a few minutes, or a longer version at third. Protection from burns is also doable, assuming they're, uh, fire burns, that one's also got a couple different ways it can work but the more reliable one is at third. There's a couple different spells that might work to keep the venom fresh but I don't know for sure, I've never heard of them being used for that specifically. Sabotaging the machines is... probably doable? But it'd depend on how the machines work."

She pauses for a moment. "Uh, and then — reading minds and looking like other people are both things some priests of Calistria can do but not me specifically. The one for looking like other people is first circle, reading minds is second, but I don't think Disguise Self can do voices. I don't think it's possible to make blasting jelly with magic — or, actually, if it's called jelly because you can eat it it might be possible, I'm not sure either way."

She holds out her hand. "And Guidance is also touch-range."

"Blasting jelly is edible. Once." He snickers. ".... But no. We don't know how it's made. We know it involves sulfur and that's about it."

He holds out his hand.

"Guidance."

And then there's a sense of — something he could reach for, if he needed to be just a little smarter or faster or stronger. It can't give him skills he doesn't have, it won't make the difference between a catastrophic failure and a rousing success, but it could give him the little boost he needs to narrowly succeed at something when he'd otherwise have narrowly failed.

"Huh."

He ponders for a bit, then pulls a knife out from a hidden holster and does a trick with it, spinning it across and between his fingers.

"...Huh. Useful for critical moments, like taking down sentries. Not so much when you can afford to do things slow, careful, and right. Well, maybe things that need to go right. Like mixing blasting jelly if we knew how."

Nod. "It's worse for anything slow, it only lasts a minute at most. —There's some things where it works to just have a priest cast it on someone over and over and over until they're done, but not if it's the sort of thing where someone casting a spell on you would be too distracting."

Onto the planning room.

"We've got maps and sketches and records in here. I mean, we're kind of running out of parchment like everything else, but there's notes on the garrison and such. We take turns putting on a nice downtrodden disguise and doing chores and labor in town. It's really hard to overhear anything good. We're trying to save resources and keep suspicions low to do something decisive, but it was getting old fast."

"I wish one of my wizard friends were here too, they get some great spells for listening in on places. I guess I can try asking for some of them in case the gods actually can give them out but I wouldn't get my hopes up. —Wizards're another type of person who can do magic, they get their magic by studying a lot."

She takes a look at the notes.

Sketch of what the resort looks like from the outside, plus an attempt at a floorplan map. Four entrances, two on either side of the river, lots of buildings built over the water, some boats and bathing areas, lots of open spaces and freestanding 'cabins'.

Notes on guard sightings: Usually two sentries on this gate, usually only one on that one. Guard Rang Shao is known for being incredibly lazy and waving people through if they don't look suspicious. Guard Hao Ling is high-strung and paranoid, but his colleagues kind of hate him. Map of the non-resort parts of the town. They have to bring food into the resort somewhere, right? Looks like it's by boat- The boats leave from here... Etc etc.

Collated overheard gossip: The Fire Nation is gathering up for an attack on the Northern Water Tribe. Raids towards the plain of Ba Sing Se have been crushed and turned back. New type of airship with Fire Nation emblem spotted. Princess Azula is in the Earth Kingdom for something. The manager of the resort is Hana Aiko. She reportedly takes great pains to hire pretty people as servants, and has aspirations of marrying into nobility. Etc etc.

"...Would it be helpful to give one person the ability to fly for a few minutes? Or no, because the Fire Nation'd probably just spot them and shoot them down?"

"Maybe not if we do something at night. But that sounds like a one way trip. Could do something like... Get in and lower the gate for the rest of us, then go on the attack? Maybe."

"What're the walls made of?" And based on the diagrams, how are the guards spaced out on them?

"The ones around the resort are stone about three feet thick, with decorative wood and metal cladding. Around the main town they're eight feet thick, twelve high, and well-sunk foundations. Boss helped build them." He mutters something else too low to hear.

The diagrams show guards mostly on gates and a couple of watchtowers.

"I don't know if it'll work with the wood and the metal, it sounds like the metal might block it, but just in case — there's a spell I get at third, Stone Shape, it lets me change the shape of about this much stone at a time—" She attempts to indicate 15 cubic feet with gestures. "Even with the headband — uh, the headband does Wisdom — that probably didn't make any sense, sorry — the headband lets me cast more spells. Anyways. I get two third circle spells a day if I'm wearing it, plus one that I can only use to prepare one of two specific spells, which might get us through the big ones but it'd be a pretty tight squeeze. But it should definitely get people through the smaller ones if it works on them at all, which'll depend on how the wood and metal are built into it."

"I'm pretty sure it's, like, a thin outside decoration? Getting through the walls is not really a challenge though, we've got three Earth sorcerers. Working together they could punch a hole in the wall or lift people over it. Admittedly, maybe not quietly... We should go over all our old plans and pick out ones that are high impact. I think it was capturing or killing a proper noble, killing or capturing officers, destroying the fuel and machines and ships at the docks, and killing or demoralizing the rank and file soldiers in that order."

Nod. "My kind of magic can help with all of those but it doesn't make them trivial — well, it might, actually, if people here aren't protecting against them. Uh, probably it makes sense to go through those ideas one at at a time... who're the nobles around here, and what sorts of ways do they have to stop people from killing them, for their manors and then also for when they leave? If you were going to try to kill one without me, how would you do it, and where'd it probably end up failing?"

(If a noble dies, is the Fire Nation going to try to hunt down the culprit and anyone who helped them, or are they going to assume everyone in the village is involved and put half of them to the sword? How's succession decided around here, and what sort of person does the local lord's heir look like? Do they have loyal servants or servants who secretly hate them, loyal guards or guards who secretly hate them, personal slaves that they let in their manor or only field slaves? —She can ask those later, she doesn't want to overwhelm him with too many questions at once.)

He solicits answers from some of the others who have come to lurk near them in the planning room for some of this.

The lords' protections generally include a number of Firebending guards, fortified manor compounds, personal combat skill (there is a dueling tradition called Agni Kai), and usually ability to call on the military proper for protection. Their best plan without her involved identifying one going on a sea trip at night, and having Lenora drive a large canoe right up under the ship close enough to board the vessel with an armed team. Or a straight up ambush of a carriage or similar, if they travel by land. The boat plan is probably not viable; Earthbenders (the best fighters besides Lenora) are as disadvantaged by the ocean as Waterbenders are advantaged. It probably fails when the Earthbenders and mundane fighters fall to professional Firebending killers, and Lenora is overwhelmed by them once she has no support. A night assault on a noble's home might work, they don't tend to recognize specific Earth Kingdom people/commoners and you could get close to the walls before being spotted and challenged by a guard if you manage to get into the town at all. This probably fails when the alarm sends reinforcements to the manor before they overwhelm the lord. Their servants tend to be Fire Nation natives, mostly, or at least Fire Nation commoners in charge of Earth Kingdom commoners.

In charge of Rojonu Town is Count Han of the Steady Bluetorch family. They are out of favor in the Fire Lord's court. He is cruel but largely uninterested in day to day affairs, his daughter and head servants run the place mostly by stamping down hard on anything that looks like resistance, resentment, or 'not knowing one's place'. There are also a number of Barons and lesser Lords, a rank that is still above 'commoner' but doesn't imply holding any land. Wulong and Chima Valley have no noble lord and are under military authority; They have a few names of officers, and rumors that another resistance group is active near Chima Valley. The Yu Dao region, on the far side of these mountains, is under a coalition of Baronial families known as the Five Flames Alliance. They are actively running people out of their homes, enslaving them, and destroying the environment with extractive industries, trying to make as much money for themselves as possible. There is a rumor that Princess Azula, the Fire Lord's favored daughter, might pass through this region on her hunt to capture or kill the Avatar.

"If we were attacking a manor at night, and they wanted to raise the alarm, how would they do it? And how quickly would reinforcements get there once they did?"

They'd send Firebending straight up into the air, as a flare. Reinforcements would take minutes at best, at the run from the barracks or walls.

Nod. "I don't have any totally reliable ways to stop that. Do you have maps of how the insides of their manors are laid out or are they better at keeping secrets than that?"

They have pre-invasion layouts for some of them. And know where the Master Bedroom is on a few others; There's a turned cleaning lady in this wing of the house who was happy to tell the layout in hopes it would make things go badly for the man who threatened to burn her hair off.