"Good work. Can you go out again this soon? I want to know more about Anora's situation."

"Yes. I'll do that."

And back to the back of her cell, and she searches out the mind of another rat and sends him looking for the Queen.

Building: remains very large.

She'll meet with luck if she searches towards the royal quarters. Anora is in her room, the door is closed and guarded, but she seems otherwise fine.

She comes back and reports this to Elissa.

"Good work. And we've seen one guard since they locked us in here. This smells like a delaying tactic to me," she says. "Can you scout again, get a clear sense of the layout? I want to be out of here by dawn. Metella, if we find a window to climb out of, can you work with that?"

"Only if Stalas doesn't mind being a lyrium potion."

"I'll live."

"My only remaining point of uncertainty is whether or not we want to take the Queen with us."

"I'll look in on her a few times while I'm scouting," sighs Clare, and she curls up again and finds a third rat.

Is there such a thing as a climbable window, or a rooftop or battlement - any route to the open air that's more convenient and less heavily guarded than heading straight out the front door? How does that picture change if they add in a detour to pick up the Queen? And what's she up to?

This being primarily a military installation, windows are designed more along the line of 'arrow slit' than 'openable'. There are a few rooftops, but the prisoners are close to the bottom of the fortress. Getting from where they are to up there, or where the Queen is would take them through several of the more active areas of the keep.

The Queen is currently: pacing in her room.

She scouts more thoroughly, memorizing several possible exit paths and getting a sense of how many guards in what state of alertness they're likely to encounter along each. As promised, she checks on the Queen several more times. Still pacing?

Now she's eating. Then reading. Then back to pacing.

Clare gets up to do some pacing of her own before she makes her report.

"Stalas," says Elissa. "What's your read on the Queen? Our side, his side, her own side?"

"Oh, definitely her own," he says. "If you're asking which way she'll jump if we show up offering to break her out... I wouldn't necessarily count on her support, but it's possible we could work something out."

"I'm very reluctant to stop by her room to talk to her and then leave her there, if she actually is imprisoned."

"Yeah, that's fair. ...I think we should swing by to talk to her on the way out. If she hasn't already gone home by then, but that didn't look likely."

"All right. Timing? I'd go with something on the border between late night and early morning, or as close as we can get from in here."

"That sounds best."

"Hopefully the Queen won't mind us waking her."

"She'll just have to cope."

Decision made, they all go to sleep, except for Stalas who paces very quietly. He's going to need either a breath of lyrium or a nap the minute they get home, but if he tried to get any sleep right now he'd just interfere with everyone else's.

It's very quiet in the dungeon. Another guard comes in to look around partway through the night. He doesn't stick around.

Clare wakes up at the appropriate hour, and quietly wakes Metella.

Metella takes a deep breath, and concentrates.

The ropes fall away from her hands. She pulls the sack off her head by hand, and then goes to her cell door and unlocks it by magic, and the same with the other three.