"The sewer." Blackjack says bluntly. "Don't wear any clothes you're fond of."
" I believe there are spells to handle such things if need be. this may surprise you but as I said she was quite fine before she because obsessed with spider-creatures. "
"Oh. Well. I suppose everyone deserves a chance. But you couldn't have gotten her to come here, to me? No?" she sighs.
You make your way with Sandra Krause down into the sewers, where Vindicator and Arcachnae have been having a nice chat. The giant spiders seem almost cute when they're just meandering about aimlessly and presenting themselves for pets.
Krause shuddrs slightly, but steps up.
"I hear you needed some help? I am Sandra, from the church of Sarenrae. I would like to lay hands on you, if you would permit me?"
but Arachnae shies away, looking askance at the rest of you.
"It's alright, really-she's not going to hurt you."
"It's alright, really-she's not going to hurt you."
Indeed. If we intended to hurt you we could do it with our bare hands... - Ice say it with a cold, uninterested voice.
Vindicator puts up his hands reassuringly.
"I swear we mean you no harm, and Sandra does not either. We only want what's best for you - you have my word as a paladin."
"It's alright, really-she's not going to hurt you."
Indeed. If we intended to hurt you we could do it with our bare hands... - Ice say it with a cold, uninterested voice.
[dice=Diplomacy]1d20 + 13
The Steel Sentinel watches impassively from behind his helm though his eyes shift a bit warily.
Blackjack sighs and glares at Ice Strike. "Yes, that's very helpful. Are you aware that Sandra will be using her bare hands for this?"
He turns to Arachnae. "What he means to say is that Sandra doesn't have the same hand-to-hand combat training that we do. You have even less to fear from her than from us."
Tim thinks of all the words that could help... and cant seem to come up with many things that would not seem awkward, so he went with this.
" Well, Help or not, as long as you are you in the end, everything will be fine. Just don't hurt people with spiders, alot of people did like you and still won't with spiders. Some people will be scared, but that will always happen. I won't try and convince you... I just wanted you to know. "
He simply blinked and shrugged, there was no way he could contribute past that. His experiences and capabilities where not demi-god level in any way when it came to speech.
Aranea hesitates, but closes her eyes and nods, hunching her head down.
Sandra ignites a white light in one hand, then a silver one in the other, and lays both hands on Aranea's head. She slumps down, unconscious.
" That's odd. Usually they stay conscious, and become perfectly healthy. There was definitely something wrong, there. Something more than madness. I think she'll need a little while to rest." Sandra explains.
The spiders meander about, a bit confused it seems, but do not attack.
Melina makes a lovely sketch of a spider that looks a lot like this.
"Think we should move her? Or just wait for her to wake up?"
Is there a chance that her madness was due to an outside cause, like a curse or something?
Siege considered the situation. "Some kind of possession?"
"Maybe. I don't really know anything about magic, though."
"It's possible. Or the madness was a side effect of some deeper manipulation."
Psykoblade perks up at that, " Magic.. I more something I am.. apt to answer. Inadequate as I may be. Enchantment has the capability to control someone but such ailments as mental disease are more.. Necromancy I believe or as you mentioned, curses. We should remove her from this place, there is no guarantee the Spiders won't suddenly break rank.. or worse. "
Anyway to know? otherwise we would have to target her with every anti-curse, anti-possession, anti-everything spells posible. - Say Ice, but actually his mind is not focused on aranea but on the possibility of a mastermind behind her.
"We'll have to question her once she's recuperated. See if there's anyone who might have had the means or motive to enchant her. If we find the culprit, we can make them dispel the curse, or whatever it is."
Blackjack turns to Sandra. "You've done a great service to all of Sommweir today. We can't thank you enough."
"We should get an account of what she saw after her disappearance. Once she awakens of course."
Assuming she doesn't awake slinging spiders at us
"Yes," Siege murumured, "Spiders would be...bad."
"I'd hope that whatever inn or hospital we bring her to doesn't have that many spiders."
"Well, we should probably take her out of here. These sewers are not conducive to good hygeine."
Thomas picks up the previously-crazy-hopefully-not-any-more-spider-lady and carries her from the sewer.
Siege followed, ready for spiders. And a bath.
"Man, we are going to be the weirdest group to ever drag someone into a healer. People are gonna be talking about this one in the morning..."
The next day, Aranea (or whatever her real name is) is still asleep. Notably, she doesn't seem to have lost any connection to the spiders, that you can tell, given one follows her out and sleeps on her chest. It bares its fangs at anyone but Sandra that tries to disturb her.
On reading the newspaper, you notice you get a mention! It's on page three, and reads "Costumed Individuals Raid Sewers", and gets most of teh details wrong, but hey. Any publicity, right?
Maximillian spent his morning in doing whatever high class people do in the morning. He just ac normally so nobody would notice he was yesterday in the sewers chasing a crazy spider lady.
Timothy opened his shop for work as usual, that Pottery wasnt going to make itself. He had quite a few orders to get dine... and to replace that expensive Minkai-Imported Vase.
Balamar pursed her lips at the paper, before using it as kindling to light the forge. When people were clearly concealing their identity, and you went and made their actions a public spectacle, it was rather insulting. Unless it was a criminal. That was obviously different/
Besides, she thought as she got the smithy going, they could at least have gotten the details right, and found a better artist to sketch things.
Lauren pins the paper in her lair, next to the obituary for her brother. If you're still out there, Ben...I hope you see this. Even though they said I was blonde. Not sure how they mixed THAT one up.
She then goes out and starts mixing herself a flask of alchemist's fire, just in case.
Or she tries, at least. Passers-by on the road have to cover their children's ears as a cacophony of profanity spews from her alchemy shop.
"Well...that was a day wasted. Might as well clean this crap up."
Arthur gets to work tallying up the earnings from the previous night, while his staff cleans up the mess left by the rowdy dwarves.
"That was one of our most successful nights ever, even in spite of that spider incident! I do hope they'll be staying town a while."
He glances at the newspaper while sipping his morning coffee.
Why did they draw me all hunched over like this? And what's with the glowing eye sockets? This looks like a costume for a play. Where's the subtlety?
"Hm, looks like those masked madmen are causing trouble again. Still, whatever they did down there seemed to make the spiders stop, so maybe they're good for something."
Jasper groans as he awakens and prepares himself for the day. While eating a quick breakfast, he glances over the paper and chuckles to himself over the inaccuracies.
Well, after a night like that, things probably couldn't get much worse here.
The next day, as you're all up and about, you notice something in the sky! Two flares have been sent up, creating a pair of giant W's in the sky...no, on closer inspection they're each a pair of V's! The Valiant Vanguard are being summoned to action, on opposite sides of the town at the same time!
Having an odd sense that this is somehow skirting copyright infringement, and bearing confusion as to how and when this signaling system was set up, you set forth to defend your city once more!
Arthur strangely vanishes once again, whilst Blackjack steps into the alley to meet with his allies.
"Good think I spoke with Constable Goromov to get those signals installed. I'll head west, who's with me?"
Who on earth had set this up? One of the others? Donning her armour once more, and headed for the West. If only to find out why and what.
Steel Sentinel armors up and grasps his Earthbreaker from it's stand. He heads West.
Justice calls!
Scarrow appears in the alley behind Blackjack.
"I was wondering who had done that, nice job. Got those installed fast, I'm impressed. Want to wait just a little bit and see who shows up? Looks like more than one person needs us today."
As the majority so far have gone west, Vindicator follows Melina to the east.
"I was wondering who had done that, nice job. Got those installed fast, I'm impressed. Want to wait just a little bit and see who shows up? Looks like more than one person needs us today."
"Looks like most of us are just taking off in either direction. I guess it's good that they all recognize our logo."
He looks around. "Even so, El Beasto should definitely have arrived by now. I wonder if he'll leap through the hole he left yesterday, or just create a new one?"
Blackjack, Psykoblade, El Beasto (uncharacteristically silent), Scarrow, and Steel Sentinel go west, while Balamar, Ice Strike, Vindicator, and Melina go east!
When you arrive on the scene, all is deadly quiet. You appear t have arrived at a hospital, and if it weren't for the faint crackling of fires and a broken window, you'd think nothing was wrong as peaceful as the scene is.