"Looks like a hatch. I see no other rats besides this!"
Cavell says quickly to Ozz: "They didn't all follow--and Triss is stuck, we gotta kill them."
He stabs at the rat that Ozz hit, hoping to finish it.
She turns her gaze toward the guardsmen and gestures toward where Adrien and Ozz got off to. "That way! With haste!"
Trissae yelps in pain as the creature nibbles on her ankle. She hisses back in a thick drow dialect "To the maw of Lolth with you, VERMIN!"
She then casts Cure Wounds on herself in hopes of keeping conscious.
Adrien moves to help Triss, pulling Ozz slightly off balance and killing the rat at her feet.
Ozz tries to finish the rat near him and the doorway.
Killing the rat, and assuming Adrien moves with him again (), he heads up the stairs to try and push open the hatch.
"Hang in there Triss!" he shouts as he stabs the rat attacking her--straight in the eye.
"Sorry, someone had to say it," he grins at her.
As Ozz yanks on the rope towards the hatch, Cavell says, "Damn it Ozz, I said we kill them all! Cut the rope if you're going to go chasing rats in the dark, I can't see a godsdamned thing that way!"
He'll stand his ground unless Ozz drags him forcibly.
"There! It's dead!" Ozz growls, impatient to follow Trissae's directions, turning back in time to see...
... the final rat emerge from the darkness by the food pile, and bites at the guard's back as he looks around for additional threats to his wards. The rat pounces, bites into his shoulder and knocks the man down, once more at death's door.
The dwarf from above, holding his action, cries out and tosses his spear at the rat, but misses. "Hold on! I'll help get the hatch open!" he says, and vanishes.
"Gods damn ye! Don't follow thuh f&!*ing dwarf, hold onto me!" Tease cries, probably at another guard out of view.
You all hear a slight commotion from Ozz's direction, as if something is being moved behind a door.
Trissae finally exasperated turns toward the last rat. She begins to wiggle her arms and legs to imply she some sort of large insect or spider. Hissing like the spiders back home and swinging aggressively at the rat trying to intimidate it to scare it off.
Flicking the knife in front of her face as though a gleaming maw of teeth.
The rat shrieks a terrified shriek and scuttles back into the darkness (Disengaging to do so).
"Ozz, f@##ing get over here now," he finally orders.
Cavell flashes a grin to Triss when the rat scurries off. Once he's got both their attention, he mimes a lockpicking motion in front of his manacles, then points at the floor around, to his eyes, then to the floor around again.
Not having anything else to do but wait for Ozz to give him more leash, he saws through the rope, trying to scan the darkness for any slight sparkle that might be a pin but not having much luck this far away.
Trissae let's out an exasperated sigh, then while supporting her weight she cuts the rope free and hops to the ground. She then goes to check on the injured guard. As she does so she glances around for the missing lockpick.
If she spots it she'll quickly palm it, otherwise she'll give up and focus on the guard. She cuts away a length of her drab linen shirt with the knife before discarding it, then using the linen rag she'll cover the poor man's wound.
"Don't worry friend, you will be okay..." she says in a comforting tone. She keeps a hand on him as she looks back to the others.
Ozz gives a look back at the hatch, the sounds still coming from it, and then "hurries" back to Adrien and Triss into the light.
Trissae finds the manacle pick, and quickly palms it. All that is left is the silver hairpin. Adrien, the only one who knows about it, cannot see even his bag that he lost grip of in the darkness by where the rat fled. Maybe the pin is still in his bag, maybe it came out as some items scattered out.
"There's one more," Cavell whispers harshly, frustrated.
He gags a little as he wipes the pick off on his uniform and pops it in his mouth, then searches the area for the silver pin.
Trissae looks up at the hole and yells. "Bring a healer, your man is injured!"
She looks back to Adrien. She whispers back, "Sorry Addie, I can't leave his side. That last one really did a number to him. Maybe after they get the door open and some light we can look for it."
She gives him a sympathetic look before continuing to focus on the guard.
Blindly groping in the darkness, Adrien is able to find his sack, but can't tell by feel which small item of the ground is the silver hairpin.
Ozz follows Adrien into the dark, mainly to keep an eye on the final rat, in case it tries to attack his blinded companion.
"Yes... One more. But Triss scared it off well, it's scurrying behind cover in the corner." He says, not getting it.
Cavell curses under his breath and shoots a glare at the injured guard. He always assumed ulterior motives when he saw a good deed. Helping a stranger for the sake of it was an alien concept to him. He turns on Trissae, fuming for a second, trying not to snap at her. He speaks low and forcibly steady, but gradually loses that restraint.
"While I appreciate your sense of self-preservation, Triss, when you stop helping us survive this and start putting your own life above ours, I start to think I misjudged you. In case you missed the look Wen gave us--they're going to f~&$ing hang Ozz. If earning good-will with the shields is more important than trying to save him, then you can f~$@ing stay with them for all I care. Play them songs and suck their cocks, but I want to save my godsdamned friends!"
He clenches his fists, throwing himself back to the floor and patting around trying to find the other pin. After a moment of searching he glances over his shoulder towards the hatch, trying to ignore wounds that would have killed a weaker-willed man, frantic to find the pin before the guards came.
"Gods, Cavell", Ozz mutters after his rant. As if another group of people intending him harm isn't anything to get so angry over.
"... What are you doing?"
Trissae sits there quiet, stunned, unable to say anything in retort. She just sits there holding the injured/dying man's hand and watching Adrien and Ozz in the dark. Her eyes welling with tears.
Adrien's hands deftly prove the floor, searching for objects that match the brief image of the hairpin he saw in the kitchen. After about a dozen such objects his fingers close around what feels like the perfect match. Wide of the back, the shown decorative wooden plate, and a couple thin bars of metal held tightly against the plate to seat it in someone hair.
Trissae is able to successfully tend to the twice critically injured guard, keeping him from bleeding out in the rat infested cellar. Though still unconscious, his life has been saved.
The sounds from the door stop for a moment, before there is a brief, loud cursing heard muffled through it. Following that is a sound of hammering metal on wood, then metal on metal, then metal on wood again.
"Still alive, ya?! Hey! What be going on down there?!"
"Ozz and Adrien are keeping the beasts at bay while I tend to your injured comrade." Trissae calls up in a cracking voice. Quickly losing her composure again she covers her mouth to stifle the sounds of weeping.
Fingers moving rapidly, Cavell uses the knife to pry the wooden plate off the hairpin, constantly glancing up at the banging hatch. He tries to ignore Trissae as he works, burying guilt under anger and urgency. Carefully he slides the pin into the hem of his prison uniform (opening a hole with the knife if the pin is too dull).
"Comrade?! Thuh bloody f@*# are ye talkin' about?!" The voice answers, followed by the sounds of rising, no longer being pulled down by his rope.
Another voice pipes up. "He'll live?" The halfling, from the sounds of it, concerned and thankful.
The ringing blows crack against the door a few more times while this occurs, and another new voice rings from above with an accompanying shadow.
"Hey!" She calls down. "The cellar hatch is locked! They're trying to smash through it! Are the rats all dead?"
"One more, it's hiding somewhere. It's bloody dark though I hope they brought torches!"
He scans the darkness uselessly, knife held out in front of him, then motions to Ozz. "I'm fine. Let them in if you want," he says, voice weary.
"Lock isn't inside." He mutters, staring off into the dark (not that Adrien can see). He guides Adrien back toward the light.
Seeing the severed end of the rope Trissae cut herself free from, Ozz jumps up to the grab it, trying to climb out of the hole.
As Ozz jumps up to grab the rope, his weight pulls it somewhat through the wedge it's caught in. A another slam is heard followed by dwarvern swearing. The human woman guard looks over at something out of sight in surprise, and as Ozz drifts downward as the rope pulls toward the hole, in horror. She dives out of sight, apparently trying to stop Tease's sliding. Ozz starts climbing out of the hole, noticing or caring about none of this, getting to the lip and finally noticing he barely has enough slack to get out entirely.
As Adrien works on the hairpin, prying the wooden plate off with some difficulty (though eventual success, the plate separating from the metal), he notices a strange feeling from the silver pin. Almost as if the metal has an inexplicable weight to it, or maybe that it is warmer than he would expect.
Cavell watches Ozz climb with interest before turning his attention back to the pin. He's curious about the strange feeling, but focuses on properly smuggling it.
Triss's pride finally overwhelms her grief as she grows silent while the other two sharks go about their activities. After Ozz finishes climbing she finally speaks in a dry tone.
"By the gods.... A cellar door made of iron and a floor made of paper. No wonder they moved out."
She stares out in the direction the rat scurried off to, in case she need call out to Adrien but otherwise remains motionless while she waits for the guards to finally break through.
"Cavell", Ozz says, shaking his rope down at him. "Cut me loose."
Ozz disappears from sight. "H-hey! Where are you-" comes the woman's voice, strained slightly from keeping Tease still. Several pairs of feet leave the room.
A few moments later, the sounds at the door abruptly stops.
KLANG! KLANG! KL-ERRRNG! ... Creeeeeeek
Light slants across the darkened basement and three guards rush in, leading Ozz, the dwarf taking a watch against the dark while the other two run up to you. They check the downed guard, and look over your wounds.
Trissae sits up quickly and steps away from the injured man so that his comrades may better tend to him. She only momentarily glances at Adrien before heading up the stairs, or at least wait by the stairs to be lead up by the guard.
"Thanks Ozz,..." She says, fairly confident it was only when he assisted that they finally were able to breach the door.
Cavell chuckles as Ozz enters, "What a man. I might swoon." He claps him on the shoulder as he heads up the stairs--not waiting for the guards.
Once back above-ground he trudges his way out into daylight, waving off-handedly at Tease as he passes. He slumps down against the building outside, leaning his head back against the wall and shutting his eyes, letting the sunlight warm his face and breathing fresh air.
To no one in particular he says with his eyes still closed, "What a way to go, eaten by rats in the dark. Always hoped I'd be killed by a courtesan-assassin mid-act, stabbed in the heart with her atop me. That's a death. Or killed in a frantic duel, taking my opponent with me."
His voice fades to muttering, listing other ways he'd rather die, trying to take his mind off that dark cellar of rats gnawing pieces out of him.
Ozz follows Cavell outside, giving the guards who had failed to open the door for so long a derisive snort as he passes them.
"Too much cherryfire", Ozz adds his own to the list. "Or in my sleep, after getting everyone together again." He thinks about how long it has been since he has seen a few of the more worldly of the Bogsharks.
"Sometime after I finally see the Moor's unicorn anyway..."
Cavell smirks, brought back from the edge of dark thoughts by Ozz. He opens his eyes.
"I bet there was wine or something in that cellar. I could use it right about now. Doubt they'll let us have any though."
He toasts upward at Ozz with an invisible cup.
"To the Unicorn of the Moor."
He throws his head back, downing the imaginary alcohol and pretending to wince. "Strong," he mutters.
"No wine that I saw... Bunch of barrels. Ale, maybe spirits... Lots of it though."
A door of iron indeed. Adrien and Ozz pass by a heavy, iron hatch as they leave the building and into the afternoon sun. A shattered lock lies on the ground at the foot of the hatch.
A couple of the guards follow you out, and moments later Sargent Silvers comes running out into the building's backyard from the rear exit, silver sword in hand, a look of apprehension and resolve on her face. She stops as she sees you, slightly battered and resting.
"Triad's mercy, what happened this time?!"
"Rats."