Readied action + AOO you still have and action for round 2 you can post.
Flares strikes one of the two men moving up on her and wounds him but not badly enough to stop him. She swings again but this time he avoids the blow.
Thalion lands a good hit on the leader causing him to grunt in pain.
Cynthia winced as the weapon cracked against her - though at least she'd managed to avoid having her somewhat-fragile weapon struck. That would be bad. Instead, she carefully stepped backward and fired towards the chest of one of the thugs before quickly reloading her weapon.
for
It was a good shot, but unfortunately not a very strong one... perhaps she'd reloaded a little too quickly and hadn't cranked it as far as she should have.
Frustrated at the hit on his smaller form, Victor retaliates with throwing a bomb at his enemies
Riven uses her Dimensional Slide to blink next to Flare (J11) not giving the grunts time to attack and strikes at the one in front of Flare (I12).
Victor' bomb takes down a thug.
Riven attacks but misses.
Cynthia just barely injures one.
The thugs attack.
One of them hits Flare for 5 non-lethal.
"Just hurry up and knock him out, look he's barely standing!" says the leader pointing to Thalion.
Your go again.
As if to prove the leader's point, another bout of dizzyness washes over the cleric. "Argh! I told you. Scram. We're busy right now. Why are you all listening to this fool, who guides you all this doomed task?" The cleric chases after the leader, and makes a followup swing with the weapon in hand.
Frustrated at his enemies determination to capture one of them, Victor hurls a bomb at the leader, following Thalion's example.
Cynthia shot another bolt through the air, aiming for one of the men ganging up on Flare before loading another arrow.
...Well, she was going to be embarrassed about that shot for awhile. Maybe nobody else had seen it...?
Flare reels from the sap hitting her, but only grunts angrily as she continues her movements, slipping back into a protective stance between the two mages and the warriors, bringing her body low and sliding her polearm along the ground, before drawing the blade into a devastating vertical stroke.
Riven would try to follow the other two and cut the head off the snake with a ray of frost.
Thalion misses, Victor hits the leader with a bomb and he goes down.
Flare takes a thug down, Riven misses, Cynthia misses.
The remaining thugs withdraw and run for it.
"Does anyone have a spell to keep these guys from bleeding out? I'd hate to use my cure spells on them." Flare was already kicking the weapons away from the ones that were on the ground nearby.
Taking a moment to drag the fallens together, Thalion makes sure they've been stripped of their weapons and properly surrounded. Then, the cleric looks over to Flare and grins. "Shall we wake them up and see what they know? Hopefully they'll be more willing to talk to us now, yes?" The cleric of Erastil channels, and waves of healing energy washes over both the party and the fallen enemies now gathered before them.
The leader and one of the thugs is dead another is still alive and regains consciousness when you channel.
Flare looked downright distraught when she discovered the person she had struck in anger now lay dead at her feet. An entire life... gone. His family would be left without a father, or a son, or a brother. Certainly, he had chosen to fight... but she had chosen to end his life.
Cynthia calmly walked over to the unconscious thug and looked down on them. A glimmer of magic appeared by her eye, clearly visible as she smiled. "As you can see, my friends aren't inclined to go along peacefully." she said, repeating her words in the exact same tone as before. "So, would you like to cooperate with us? I'm sure your boss will be more understanding when he realizes how outclassed you were by strange magics, like this-" Her evil eye flashed, ripping away at his general abilities, "-or this-" his movements grew more sluggish as she ripped at his defenses, "-or this." she activated her hex one last time, targeting his ability to actually do things. None of them would last long, of course, but layering the curses up that way should be enough for anyone to realize they'd been impacted by some strange power. "Believe it or not, we'd rather not hurt people more than we have to. However, I'm sure we can come to some kind of arrangement if you're at least minimally cooperative, and that really should help you avoid your boss taking revenge on you for failing him so badly. What do you say?" It was an honest question, and at least so far, she'd deliberately avoided making an outright threat... she didn't like those anyway, and would much rather... ah... encourage people to behave the way she wanted them to.
"What do you want from me witch?" replies the captain somewhat unnerved.
Cynthia just kept smiling. "I just want you to realize that we're far more trouble than we're worth, and for you to convince your boss of the same. We're actually kind of busy, and I don't want to be constantly interrupted by needing to deal with people like you. However, if you don't bother us, then you'll never need to worry about us again, and we can all get on with our lives. That's the best course of action for everyone, and I really hope you understand. If not, you can negotiate with her instead." Cynthia pointed to Flare... or, more specifically, to Flare's spiked gauntlet. "This is your opportunity to cut your losses and get out before it's too late. I can't promise to be so understanding if you try something like this again. Okay?" Without ever losing her smile, she stepped back from the man.
"I wont be bothering you again but don't count on the boss giving up so easy. He brought us here all the way from Port Peril to find this Malcolm fellow and he promised us a bonus of five thousand gold if we brought him back to him alive. We don't know who he is or why the boss wants him but he wants him bad and he thinks you lot know were to find him. As for me I'm thinking I just vanish see and let him think I'm dead."
Flare broke her silence after a moment. She motioned to the singular dead person, her voice breaking a little. "Who was he? Did he have family? Where does he live? What did he do before he came out here with you?"
"I think this man deserves a proper burial. Perhaps you should keep vigilance over him while we return with shovels. Yes. We will return. We can dig a sufficiently big grave so that...the others...may think you amongst those buried." Without waiting for an answer, Thalion heads over to the body, and chants the Last Rites of Erastil over the former enemy while he waits for the group to be done with this...leader.
"I'm glad you're wise enough to value your life over money. There are always more chances to get coin, after all... but most people don't get a second chance at living."
Also...
"I wonder why he couldn't use locals to do it... maybe he's opposing the leaders here more than I thought." Cynthia mused. That might just be the most important piece of information he'd given them, and she'd have to think on it a bit more.
"If his family is local, I'll carry him to them myself. No need to bury him where his family and friends won't know what became of him." She said, her voice a little less shaky. "And what of you? Do you have family or friends that we may be able to get a message to? They shouldn't be left wondering."
"Local? I don't think so he was picked up at Port Peril and I don't much about him other than his name. Most pirates don't have much family and those that do don't usually talk about them much."
Flare nodded slowly, then fell silent.
Cynthia continued to keep watch, lightly lacing her fingers together behind her back as she considered the information she'd been given. As was often the case, she seemed to be blinking just a little less often than people normally did. "Does the city have any kind of cleanup crew that could handle this? We do have a mission of our own to be doing."
"I should warn you the boss who sent me is a man named Malphus. He leads the bloodhands who came into Riddleport and he is skilled with both blade and sorcery. I suggest you do everything you can to avoid him, I know I will after having failed him. Leave the body for all I care nature will take care of it. As for me I need to get moving."
"What if we sent word of our deaths?"
Riven seemed to be talking to herself more than others but had a well known habit of think aloud.
"I like that idea. Now that these folks left us their clubs, which solves bashing problems, should we hurry with finding...who are we looking for again?" The cleric sorts through the confiscated weapons, and grabs a club from the stash for any skeletons that might come their way.
"Those aren't built properly for bashing. Only for... well... sapping. Which I don't think works on dead things?" she looked to Victor and Cynthia and Riven for confirmation, but she didn't really seem 'into' correcting Thalion.
"How would we even send it in a convincing manner?"
You turn back and heads towards town. As soon as you leave the swamp a group of six thugs approach you blocking the way to the city. Five of them have clubs and the other has a ranseur.
"We heard you're looking for Sloanne and Malcom. Our boss would like to have words with you." says the one with the ranseur.
"Sapping wouldn't do much to undead." Cynthia agreed, nodding. "Not unless they were very strange indeed. A particularly healthy specimen, perhaps one not entirely undead, might be vulnerable to such a blow... but I'd stick with something a little more definitive."
"Bah." Thalion flips the sap back into the pile, and picks up the ranseur.
"Back to town then? May be for some slings and clubs and the like? Are any of you hungry? Some fresh bread sounds pretty good about now, too."
"I should probably eat." Flare shrugs a little. "Bread sounds fine. We should get a shovel, too."
She looks to the leader and nods. "You're free to go, I suppose."
The man takes his leave, you can take you time to bury the body and then get some equipment before heading back out.
Riven wasn't very skilled with weapons but so finding a decent slashing weapon she could use would be difficult she'd settle on a dagger for now, not ideal but they needed it.
She tried to think of a way to fake their death as she had suggested hopefully making their jobs easier.
Flare would gather up something (cheap) to bash Skelly skulls. Even a simple club was fine for her for now. She also retrieved a shovel.
"I'm not much of a warrior." Cynthia sighed, sounding honestly regretful. She did keep her crossbow, but didn't seem like she was in any hurry to load herself down with various weapons - she had no business being in melee combat anyway.
Once they travel back, Flare will set to work digging a grave. She'd much rather generate Pharasma with proper funeral rites than Urgathoa by leaving the bodies to sit on the ground for everything and anything to devour. Before putting the body in the ground, she searches it for any signs of who the person was. A name, a locket, a well-maintained knife... anything, really. Once that was done, she would give him a proper burial, then place one of her stones, carved with a blossoming rose, over the shallow grave. Once done, she would be ready to go.
Riven would help Flare but was distant as she was more focused on how to fake their own deaths, now that the hunters had left more would surely follow and having a bounty was bad for their life expectancy.
Once the bodies where taken care of Riven would speak up."Are we ready to head off now?"
Having buried the bodies and gotten some new weapons from the town you head back out towards the swamps and avoiding roaming zombie bands you once more reach the old castle were the men your looking for were last seen heading to explore.