Brindolfin's mighty blow strikes solidly. Alkiad's first swing misses, but the second is on target.
Kaddoc also connects, rocking his target.
Everyone's gone, so:
Manor fight Round 2:
Brindofin
Straehan
costumed cultists [x2]
Alkaid
Fake Ryu
Kaddoc
Fake Leonard
CC1: for
CC2: for
Fake Ryu for plus grab
Fake Leonard for plus grab
Grapple vs Alkaid:
If still alive, CC2 misses.
Round 3
If CC2 is still alive Kaddoc 5ft steps and attacks, otherwise he moves and attacks Fake Ryu,
CC2 is down.
Flanking the fake Ryu, Brindolfin calmly swings his psychic sword.
He hits a vital area delivering massive slicing damage.
Aaaaand Brindolfin slices Fake Ryu in half. Green blood splatters everywhere.
Straehan ducks the blow of the cultist, and delivers a set of punches to the costumed man's ribs.
Flare (1):
Prestidigitation (1):
Dancing Lights (1):
Elemental Ray (6): xx
Elemental Fist (1):
Produce Flame (1): x
1st Spells (4):
Spell Effects: None
"Thanks for the assistance."
Straehan takes down CC1. Fake Leonard, seeing the rest of the group fall, runs for the back door.
AoOs anyone?
threatening...
booooo....
Fake Leonard keeps running.
The giant charges the fleeing clone of Leonard.
Striking to do anything but cause extreme damage is unknown to him.
But grappling and holding is in his bag of tricks.
Unfortunately the half-giant has difficulty disengaging from the fallen Ryu clone and gets a poor grasp on the fleeing 'Leonard'.
Watching Alkaid, Brindolfin tries to think of way to hide his perceived loss of face as Alkaid shows him how it is done. Not really coming up with anything, he gets up with a big grin.
"Well done Alkaid, I probably need to work on that move."
You capture and secure the ugly monster and the surviving townsfolk. What do you want to ask them?
Brindolfin is not much in the asking mode. He begins to tell them, "Unless you want to see a giant rampage, you better come clean with all these shenanigans. When you are all done spilling the beans, if I found out anything is held back, there will not be a single stone on top of another stone in this town. If I found out your stories don't agree with each other, there will be extreme discomfort for all. Now, what is going on here and why did you get rid of the tax collector?"
Asking questions is so inefficient. Glare at them and show them you mean business, and wait for it all to come out.
Kaddoc leans heavily on his weapon sucking air, content to let Brin to do his thing for them moment. He bends down to unmask the cultists, living and dead, to see who was trying to get them.
Alkaid has him in a Full Nelson Hold
"I think you should answer Brindolfin's questions."
The monster laughs. "The tax collector? He left us on gossamer wings. As will your friend."
The consious locals, some of whom you recognize from the party, seem terrified. "Don't interfere. We need to feed the King, to save the mayor and the town. If the line dies, so does Ravenmoor! All will be for naught...the blood, the misbegotten...you must have been sent to save us through your blood!"
As they speak, Cil and Sparrow arrive.
"You need to worry about one thing, making the big giant with the big sword happy. You have fed your last victim to the King. Who is in this line that must be preserved besides this mayor, I want names?"
Upon seeing the new arrivals, "I am glad you are safe. Seems like we have a town doing nasty blood rituals to save some pathetic line of losers starting with the mayor."
Seeing Cilyanka and Sparrow
"It's good to see that your safe."
Sparrow blinks a couple times, taking it in, before turning to Cilyanka. "Well, now we know what they were wanting to do wit you. So now we know what happened to the tax collector, we're gonna head back, right? Or we gonna stop that ritual? Because I think I like stopping that ritual."
"I have a feeling that there might be more to the locals affinity to stirges than meets the eye.
"I think you'ld best start explaining friend. Telling us might doom your town, but if you don't, I guarantee that my big friend over there will burn it to the ground.
"I agree with that, sparrow"
"Do you know who you made references to, it's the God of Parasites.
They tend to corrupt from within and slowly kill the host community for as long as possible.
And they are are absolute evil.
I want to kick the mayor's ass even more now."
We're going to stop that ritual. There's no way I'm going to let them sacrifice that girl that won the contest. The mayor, on the other hand, I might be willing to let him take her place.
I'm guessing the field we saw earlier they said was dedicated to Desna...
"Dedicated to Desna, I think not.
As they pose to be representatives of other gods.
Now, I do need to kick that mayor's ass for dirtying a good Goddess' reputation."
"Let's meet the mayor right now. Pack all your stuff, we end this tonight."
The big giant looks determined and looks at the townsfolk left.
"You all come too. We end this and fix the faith of this town. I guess these practices have been going on long before Ryu, so you can't blame him."
"Anyone have any idea where they might be holed up?"
If you search the Mayor's home before leaving:
Alkaid
Brindolfin
Cilyanka
Kaddoc
Sparrow
Straehan
poison on a high shelf in the back.
The Mayor's bedroom (6) is locked.
The front bedrom has bunkbeds. The upper hasn't been used in weeks and the lower has silk sheets covered in brown stains and exuding a pungent odor.
The kitchen contains six older bottles of Galdurian wine on a small rack.
You also have the map scrap that was found upstairs with 4 buildings marked: this one, the trading post, the ferry and the weaver's place.
int
"The pig was taken to this building marked K on the map."
Removing the wand from its secret compartment, Cilyanka will toss it to Sparrow.
Let not waste time then. We want to get there in time to stop that sacrifice
Cilyanka hurries out the door, waiting to make sure the others are following.
"Should we maybe check the Mayor's room before we run off?"
Kaddoc will stuff the 4 vials of antitoxin and two potions of neutralize poison in his backpack, unless someone else wants to have one handy.
Catching the wand, Sparrow gives it a look before following. "Interesting find there, Cilyanka. Wonder what it is?" If given three rounds to study it...
Having examined the wand, Sparrow follows the others, bow out and ready in case of trouble.
"Let's proceed to have a with the mayor."
Brindolfin manifests his blade, and looks forward to ending the mayor's line. He can think of two ways to do it, one lets the mayor live.
"Sounds good. By the way, anyone able to use this thing? It can restore a person's physical and mental attributes if you get 'em hurt by spells and such."
Straehan smiles innocently, "I can always use a back-scratcher - that one looks exceptional. Maybe you should hang onto it until after we handle this pesky Virgin Sacrifice situation."