Cairo

ImpBiscuit A Chib woman with platinum blonde hair, dressed in an elegant, white bell-sleeved romper with lavish copper-colored cuffs and details. She wears boots in a similar style, a white stocking only on her right leg, and a three-tailed dark blue cloak. For jewelery she has a four-pointed obsidian star pinned to her hair and a copper circlet floating above her head. Biscuit turns thoughtful at both Mercurius' observations and Malkaban's extended monologue. It's not quite an answer, at least not a concise one. "So... you're a lazy artist who can't negotiate? That doesn't sound like any boss I know." The Chib shrugs her shoulders and steps aside. "I tried." she comments, turning to look at the others.

Ohh it'll be fine! 😁 Now we just need Flickwit's lantern oil on Malice.

Great! I've marked half an hour off the flask in Shaun's sheet.

ImpBiscuit A Chib woman with platinum blonde hair, dressed in an elegant, white bell-sleeved romper with lavish copper-colored cuffs and details. She wears boots in a similar style, a white stocking only on her right leg, and a three-tailed dark blue cloak. For jewelery she has a four-pointed obsidian star pinned to her hair and a copper circlet floating above her head. Back at the Donner grave... Biscuit joins Ludwig by the grave, although she doesn't have flowers to place there. She dips her chin and stands in respectful silence until the young man is done with his prayer. "Let's make sure to tell Mirabelle the good news. She'll be so happy to hear she can visit the grave again!" Out comes the skeleboss... Biscuit's contributions to the more recent fights have been meager to put it mildly, but at least she's been swinging her Pigsticker at the baddies alongside her companions. For this one the platinum-blonde Chib goes back to her original tactic, however, seeing how the large skeleton appears to be different from the bumbling ones they've come cross so far. She steps forward and waves timidly at it, swallowing down a fear reaction. "Hello... Malkaban, is it? It says you're the 'boss', but is that more of an honorary title, like a 'doctor', or can you in fact be negotiated with?" she asks.

Shaun's set on the plan to light the torch only once Malice is in combat. However... would you allow ignoring the Agility check if I consume, say, half an hour's worth of the oil Shaun carries in a flask to drench the torch and thus make it super easy to light?

I'm okay with Flickwit taking care of the oil 👍

Also as a heads up, I will likely be unable to post this weekend.

I've posted Shaun's plan IC, based on what we've been discussing here. I took some liberties there with the torch, I hope that's OK with you ! You can then react to it IC by turning down the rest of Shaun's plan and propose Doørfin stand by the entrance instead. Here's where I see us being positioned per Shaun's plan (brown is Shaun, red is Doørfin):

Shaun Shaun grabs a lit candle from one of the gravestones on his way, then sets himself up some 20 feet to the side from the tunnel entrance. He selects a 4 feet deep open grave, deep enough for him to hide in and leave his backpack and Truthsinger out of sight. He then extracts an oil flask and flint and steel from his pack and curses silently as he realizes he has no torches. Seeing Doørfin approach he gestures the dwarf his way, speaking in hushed tones and only once the dwarf is very close. "Can you spare a torch? I figured we have yet to try burning that witch to death, might as well give it a go." Once the dwarf hands over one of his torches the man makes sure everything is set up: oil flask for his right hand, torch for his left, flint and steel in a pocket, short sword hanging from his belt. The candle he has dug in firmly in the soil at the bottom of the grave so that it won't fall over. "This would be easier if someone else could toss the oil at her..." he comments to Doørfin, again speaking in a very low voice as he goes through his plan and indicates each of the items. "You can hide there against the wall where you shouldn't be immediately visible from the tunnel. I'll toss the oil flask on Malice when she enters the cave. You then keep her busy while I light the torch either from the candle or with the flint and steel, and toss it at her as well. I can't light the torch in advance, lest she spots its glow from the tunnel... but the dim candle light should be less suspicious, especially as the grave blocks most of it."

Shaun has a full flask of oil, that hasn't been used to refill the lantern. Shaun also has a lantern which was originally full and could provide 4 hours of light. 1 hour and 20 minutes of that was used during the tunnel transit and to get a rough idea of the cavern (), leaving 2 hours and 40 minutes. Since then by my count we've used 10 minutes to examine the graves / candles, another 10 minutes to examine the northern end of the cavern, and 2 hours to rest - assuming we kept the lantern burning while resting; we didn't say we're turning it off so it's fair game. After that Shaun turned the lantern off (before Novia and Doørfin started exposing the wooden floor at Malice's grave), leaving 20 minutes of oil in the lantern. Flickwit's oil flasks have not been used to refill the lantern. Shaun can hurl Flickwit's torch at Malice once he douses her in oil.

Yeah I'd rather not break the lantern. However Shaun is game with lighting a torch for tossing at Malice if someone takes care if dousing her with oil. Edit: needs to be someone else's torch though, Shaun has none.

Shaun's lantern. Since Novia came running from the tunnel mouth warning of Malice's approach and to shut the lantern, I assumed she had left the lantern with Shaun. You can see where Shaun already snuffed the lantern.

Ohhh, good thinking with the phylactery idea!

Shaun Hearing Novia's warning Shaun is quick to snuff and stow the lantern, before starting to move back towards the tunnel using the candle light. "Was Malice alone?" he asks Novia in a low voice. "Forcing her to fight from the tunnel might be more beneficial to her than us. She has the upper hand one-on-one," he comments to Doørfin. "But perhaps the tunnel entrance is still the best place to set up. If there are open, shallow graves close enough, we can hide out of sight in them and hopefully get the jump on her."

Very nice, got my Animal Summoning back! Edit: Based on what Malice said, it sounds like she has company. Shaun didn't hear her words, though.