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Abandon Ship - all hope is lost...

Our Necromagicks have failed us!

Next year...

Next quarter...

This quarter?!

Never - The GM is just playing with you!

[RAM]

Fires happen, we can't really expect to cause any more mayhem than your average pyromaniac, and cities survive those, so I don't really see as it will get the fort to lower its defences.

Some assumptions:
 We cannot beat anyone who is likely to possess the amulet in a direct confrontation.
 We cannot go over the fortress walls without assistance or training.
 We lack the time for training.
 The front gate cannot be safely bypassed if relying upon visual illusions.
 A lone agent cannot personally cause sufficient mayhem to appreciably tax the city's resources.
 We need that amulet.
 The adventurers are not going to die horribly, but leave all their look lying around for us to safely collect, no matter how much we follow them...

Well, options that I can see:
 Gain help from others. I don't really see a good way to do this. We could try impersonations, but we don't know the political environment well enough, we have no fortune to spend on hirelings, and have no friends. But a well-placed illusion might trick someone into doing something beneficial to us for their own reasons... Perhaps spread a rumour that a powerful faction wants the amulet, it might get it stolen, which would destabilise its security and likely keep it from travelling or being dismantled, but would likely increase its security too...
 Find a alternate access to the fortress, see if there is a less guarded entrance, or an escape passage, but that is very unlikely. Tie a mess of birds together and use them to gain some altitude from which to glide into the fortress. Hot air balloon?
 Stake out the fortress and practise our climbing, keep following the amulet until we are strong enough to take it...
 Incite a riot against the fortress...
 Predict the path of the adventurers, dig a hole along that path, place magma spiders poisoned spikes flammable oil in the bottom of the hole, wait...

P.S.
 A single out-of-control fire is not going to burn down a city, people survived the middle ages...

[escaped lurker]

Mana potion, mana crystal, mana store, ...

Alternatives exist.

Let me take this chance to make clear that alchemagical concotions do in fact also work on us - I mean, it's pretty much like a mana-sryinge down into your stomach. We just don't absorb the surrounding mana on our own accord.

About enchanted items, it depends how the effect is reached. If the Item itself is enchanted with the power, we will also profit from it with no problems. If the Item enchants it's wearer, it is set to do so on a humanoid creature - not a dragon-demon-mongrel-mix. Might cause problems / lessened effect. A case for the dice if we stumbel upon one.

As for - the up till now ignored - weather, we do have the end of summer, and its actually a bit dry at the moment - and it rarely rains this time of the year, with no clouds in sight.

On the matter of the tower and it's inhabitants - conjuring water is obviously somewhat limited to Conjurers and Elementalists with maybe the odd Alchemage having means of his own to douse fires. While they certainly will be able to help, a fire of bigger size will be beyond them.

Nice points there, RAM - I actually really like some of the options. We have many ways of achieving our goal, but I have set no route. Give suggestions that look good enough, and we will see about it. But yeah, unless those adventurers decide to settle down in that keep for good, it is doubtfull that they would not leave in three month's time. And for fears that the sorceress might mess with the amulet - we would notice so very quickly, if not on the spot. It bears a very resilent enchantment, seeing as it was the critical ingridient in our creation, breaking it would require quite the effort on her part.

[GiglameshDespair]

A single out-of-control fire is not going to burn down a city, people survived the middle ages...

Ever heard of the Great Fire of London? That pretty much did burn down an entire city. Of course, london didn't have actual magicians, but...

I think we should wait until they leave. Once out on the road, we might be able to steal it from them without them noticing and flee.

Actually, quick question, are we physically capable of speech? Or would we have to cast a spell to achieve communication?

[RAM]

Yes, one city, probably extremely overpopulated and poorly maintained. Cities were besieged, accidents happened, fires started and didn't cause disasters. Yes, a fire can be dangerous, if it gets out of hand, but folk do have effective countermeasures and it isn't gong to be an issue for them unless we can get a large number of fires started at once with nobody noticing until they are well established...

[weenog]

Maybe instead of forgetting that we're just a cute, cuddly, and distinctive wad of victim, and making plans and suggestions that assume we're Action Badass, we should exploit being a cute, cuddly, distinctive wad of victim.

Consider: we're weak and vulnerable enough to raise any hero-type adventure's guardian instinct, our appearance is adorable and cool and suggests the possibility for much greater power later so we seem like we might be a good critter to befriend, and the really successful adventurers are accustomed to and enjoy having things nobody else does.

We should monitor the local gossip and rumours and determine whether these adventurers have a rep for being the Good Guys.  If they are, we send an anonymous message asking them to meet us somewhere secluded, to discuss a secret proposition.  We go there hidden or disguised (hidden is probably better, we don't have the illusory power to convince a whole bar full of people that the guy sitting alone in the shadowy booth in the corner is human rather than a tiny dragon thing) and talk with them.

Tell them an abridged version of our situation (leave out the demon detail, and if they already know and they ask, say it's bound or contained or something and does not pose a threat).  Ask for the amulet back, and ask to join them on their adventures.  We can be patient and helpful at first, accepting subordinate status, but can gradually manipulate ourselves into full member and party mascot.  Then we can influence them to do what we want from the inside.

[Lenglon]

-snip-

This I like.

[killerhellhound]

-snip-

I was thinking this while going to bed did you sneak into my dreams and steal and refine the idea
If can you tell me how did you avoid The Pink One there I want to know.

[weenog]

It was the posters that can't figure out or accept what we AREN'T that gave me the idea.  Adventurer types are fairly susceptible to grand, optimistic ideas about adopted monsters that aren't very well thought through, too.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

RAM: Fire talk!
-Pyromaniacs don't set out to destroy the city and cause as large a distraction as possible, they set out to start fires. They tend to start small and work up, so people catch on and become more prepared as they go. And they get caught.
-Starting a bunch of fires all at once in locations where they can become well-established before discovery is exactly what the plan would call for. If we could make firebombs & fuses, that would be ideal. But back-alley piles of scrap could work wonders depending on the density of the homes. Keep in mind we'd be starting them at night.
-Besieged cities would have everyone working to counter-act the inevitable fires. They'd know what to look for, and have the help of the military, (unless they've already breached the walls).


Plans!
RAM: I like the idea of hiring some kind of thief guy to steal it- offering a huge reward for an outlandish trinket. If he succeeds, we just do a no-show and he'll pawn it himself. It'll be much easier to steal it from a fence than an adventuring party.

Weenog: If we miscalculate them, or fail to attract the attention of the 'good' members of their party, we could end up enslaved, vivisected & dead. If we succeed, we'll still be enslaved yet again- as if they'd give this cute, cuddly, potentially rather valuable asset on legs it's freedom back. The elder dragons would be displeased with this 'party mascot' path of action.


We shouldn't box ourselves in- setting fire to the city is something we can do. Just because we look cute & cuddly doesn't mean we have to act like it. I'm also somewhat averse to giving up our new freedom.


-edit
Diction

[killerhellhound]

If we join the adventures DONT MENTION WE WERE A PET of the dead guy
also the adventures are likely to see us as cool, cute and hopefully a powerful long term investment
plus a renewable source of rare powerful components like dragon blood and scales

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Yes, because being harvested is so distinguished. Probably not painful at all either.

Then how will we get the amulet? They knew the guy, so they likely knew about his oh-so-famous familiar. If we mention him at all they can put one & two together. In fact they probably will even if we don't mention him.


I'd like to get some info/rolls, just for planning.
-Roll for fire-bomb-fuse ingredient knowledge?
-Building materials
-Building Density
-Signs of fire-preparedness (water distribution, tons of buckets, ladders, etc)
-Common wind patterns?

[RAM]

I don't know, the adventurers might appreciate that we saw the flaws in the plan to blow up the adventurers...

Our opinion of the adventurers is quite low, they seem to be typical adventurers. Some parties I have seen will kill random critters they encounter, anyone who uses any form of 'bad' magic, anyone who monologues, or anyone who tries to 'trick' them by offering a deal instead of just surrendering or fighting... And the stories always have the heroes killing the dragon, there are no good precedents there... An alliance could be possible, but it would require studying our customers and tailoring our product to their attributes...

P.S.
 I think that the demon essence is trying to make us burn down cities... Or it could be the dragon essence, we really should try to learn more about demons...

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Or both. 

They might also see this (not blowing them up) as us being treacherous.

[Harbingerjm]

Maybe instead of forgetting that we're just a cute, cuddly, and distinctive wad of victim, and making plans and suggestions that assume we're Action Badass, we should exploit being a cute, cuddly, distinctive wad of victim.

Consider: we're weak and vulnerable enough to raise any hero-type adventure's guardian instinct, our appearance is adorable and cool and suggests the possibility for much greater power later so we seem like we might be a good critter to befriend, and the really successful adventurers are accustomed to and enjoy having things nobody else does.

We should monitor the local gossip and rumours and determine whether these adventurers have a rep for being the Good Guys.  If they are, we send an anonymous message asking them to meet us somewhere secluded, to discuss a secret proposition.  We go there hidden or disguised (hidden is probably better, we don't have the illusory power to convince a whole bar full of people that the guy sitting alone in the shadowy booth in the corner is human rather than a tiny dragon thing) and talk with them.

Tell them an abridged version of our situation (leave out the demon detail, and if they already know and they ask, say it's bound or contained or something and does not pose a threat).  Ask for the amulet back, and ask to join them on their adventures.  We can be patient and helpful at first, accepting subordinate status, but can gradually manipulate ourselves into full member and party mascot.  Then we can influence them to do what we want from the inside.

Problems: As Grizzly said, this is also a dangerous course of action and loses us the element of surprise. On top of that, we were well known to be the familiar of the dead guy, so they may well assume we're in it for the vengeance. Even if they realise we aren't, that's not much better, since "some guys came along and murdered my creator, then I went and befriended them" doesn't exactly inspire confidence in our loyalty.

If we join the adventures DONT MENTION WE WERE A PET of the dead guy

They already know.

plus a renewable source of rare powerful components like dragon blood and scales

Well that certainly sounds like a good reason to join them...

[EveryZig]

If we could embellish a good enough sob story about how our master was unpleasant to us (binding us to an amulet, trying to sacrifice us in an elaborate ritual to kill them) and the heroes rescued us I don't think the disloyalty perception will be too much of an issue. Them killing us anyway due to being part demonic or for the exp and loot is a major risk though if these are kick-down-the-door types.