Talon listened intently to the officer while she explained the situation to them - there was lot of information to process there. Looking for other missing people and finding out the cause of the disappearances would have to take a backseat for the moment - the priority was finding Natalya. Thankfully, the tip about Fenster the Blight seemed like a good lead to go on, better than any they had. "Would you be able to give the exact location of the warehouse in Underbridge?" Talon asks her.
Once he gets directions (Or just the general area), Talon turns to the others. "The hour's late, so we'll go see this Fenster in the morning. My offer still stands if none of you have any other lodgings. My place isn't far from here, either," He tells them.
Talon's apartment was on the second story of a well off arms and armor shop a little west of the Grand Arch, in Naos. He rather enjoyed working sometimes in the small attached smithy with the owner to help earn his keep - mostly he'd been paying from the money he earned at Serpent's Run. It was a very simple place, one large room with a bed, a washbasin, and bits and pieces of broken, useless weapons and armor strewn about the place. "Sorry about the mess," He tells anyone who's come with him. "These are all...well, I made most of them...they didn't exactly test well in actual combat. Anyways, if anyone wants the bed, feel free. I can sleep on the floor," He tells them, unrolling his own bedroll and laying down, ready to get some rest for the next morning.
Kasadei gladly gives you the location of the warehouse and wishes you good luck.
"Gesh Talon, Dad's ship was more organized than this place." she said as she stepped over various odds and ends.
"I wonder what kind' of people these tower girls are? I wonder if I coul' talk to them. I hope we find this woman, shes worth a lot of gold." she added before taking Talon up on his offer and taking his bed. She layed down and the winds around her seemed to die down for a moment as she shut her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
K'nyaz decides to spend the rest of the evening at the Pathfinder lodge, enjoying the contents of the extensive library. He tries to find what he can on the Magnimar monuments, and the unknown language Keeya speaks so he has a point of reference. He doesn't stay up so late that he doesn't get a full night's sleep.
Before the enigmatic tiefling splits off from the rest of the group, Talon speaks quietly to him and the others about meeting up around nine in the morning the next day, so that they can get an early start on continuing their investigation. He designates the Lodge as their rendezvous point, seeing as it was close enough to Talon's own place.
"I'd much prefer talking to fighting myself," Talon agrees with Keeya, pulling off his scale mail armor and checking for any damage or dents - a few one in a couple of scales, but not enough to compromise the armor entirely. "But, my gut's telling me sooner or later, we're going to walk into a fight that doesn't involve a couple of imps or a cracked up sorcerer..." He paused, looking over and seeing Keeya having drifted off to sleep already. He pulls the blanket over her so that she doesn't catch cold before laying down to sleep himself.
--------------
In the morning, Talon's up early, sharpening his two-bladed sword with a whetstone in order to give it a honed edge - it takes a half hour to finish, but he has little else to do while waiting for Keeya to wake up. At least this way, his first strikes with each blade will cut a little deeper. He has his armor and supplies all readied, his newly acquired ring on his finger - he tested it out already by jumping out the second story window, landing gracefully on the cobblestones below. It was certainly a useful trinket - imagine if he was cornered against the Seacleft, he could simply step off and land safely hundreds of feet below.
Figuring it was time to wake the sleeping rogue, he reached down and shook her shoulder gently over the blanket. "Time to rise. We've got a busy day ahead of us," He spoke to her, before placing a hunk of freshly baked bread and an apple by her - a small breakfast, but one needed to eat to keep up one's strength. "Come on, eat up, and let's meet with the others."
Talon gave Keeya a bit of privacy, stepping outside for ten minutes while waiting for her to get herself properly ready. Once she stepped outside, he leads the way to the Pathfinder Lodge, linking up with the rest of the party outside of the gates. "All right, our new lead is this Fenster the Blight fellow. We've got directions, but everyone be careful - Underbridge is the most dangerous part of Magnimar, full of the most dangerous sorts of characters. Be on your guard, and check your coin purse if anyone bumps into you."
Keeya slowly rouses from sleep, jumping for a moment and reaching for a knife before remembering where she was. "Oh right... mornin' Talon.". Keeya dressed and readies her armor and equipment, before eating her breakfast and heading out side.
Hm, He didn't try anything funny last night... now I feel silly being suspicious. The bed was comfortable, she tried to ignore the fact that it clearly smelled like Talon. She smiled at him as she left the building, "Than' you Talon, I appreciate it."
She began to follow him. Keeya took her coin purse on her belt and tucked it inside her pants, and shoved it to the front. Should be obvious if anyone goes for it now. [b]"Eh, old sailors trick for when visitin' a strange port... its not tha' people won't go for it... its just easy to tell when they do."[b] she says as they watch her rearrange her coin purse.
She smiled and happily followed along side, keeping her eyes open for suspicious looking people.
You travel into Underbridge, the unfortunate and the poor live in this awful slum in the shadow of the bridge's span. The entire area under the bridge that is constantly in darkness is called 'Underbridge.'
You arrive at Fenster's home, a partially collapsed warehouse - the building has a relatively large open area within, but he keeps to one corner. Here, he's made a sort of crude shelter from rowboats (one or two of which might still be almost seaworthy) and timbers leaning against the warehouse's frame. The entrance to this hovel consists of a pair of skiffs leaning against each other to create a triangular "arch" from which a moldering remnant of a ship's sail hangs like a curtain. Sitting next to the entrance is an old sea chest with a broken lid. A sign leans against the front of the chest - "LEEV A GIFT AND WATE OUTSID." A dented tin platter sits on the ground before the sign.
Talon knows the procedure; leave a gift on the tin platter, wait for Fenster to come out and examine the gift, and if he likes the gift, he'll do whatever you need him to do. You put 5gp on the platter and wait a short while. Fenster comes creeping out of his hovel to examine the payment, he sees the coins and he swiftly pockets them. He sits down on the broken chest as he asks the PCs, "What yew want Fenster ta'do?"
Fenster is a wretched creature, more skin and bone than meat. His flesh is clammy and gray in places, one of his eyes is clouded over with a white film, and his clothing is caked with filth. His breathing is raspy and gurgling and smells of bad meat - he's plagued by a wet, hacking cough. Fenster is a truly vile wretch, a carrier of several diseases who hires himself out for any foul job that might come his way. In the past, he's worked as a garbage scavenger, a goblin baiter, an alchemy test subject, and a disposer of bodies.
Talon does his best to not make his disgust at Fenster's hygiene apparent. There was a reason to put the coin in the broken chest rather than in the hands of such a wretched person. This man could be their link to finding Natalya finally. He speaks to him as politely as he can.
"Fenster, we're looking for Natalya Vancaskerkin and the Tower Girls. We heard that you sheltered the Tower Girls for a while. If you can tell us where they are, Natalya in particular, we'd be very grateful," He informed the man, rubbing his fingers together in the universal symbol of coin.
K'nyaz hopes that the disgusting man can help them, but he is irritated that he chose to not prepare prestidigitation this day, as its cleaning qualities would come in handy.
Taize watches as Talon deals with the disgusting little man, cynically accepting that such ways are the same the world over.
"The Tower Girls, eh? Yes, I'm their landlord. They're gone for a bit, but they'll be back, they always come back to ol' Fenster!" He chuckles, which turns into a wheezing, wet, hacking cough. He spits something large and disgusting onto the ground and continues, "Natalya? She don't work with the Tower Girls no more, she setup on her own now. She wants to stay unobserved, but nuthin' in th'Shadow gits by me good peeper!" He taps his sallow cheek under his non-clouded eye. He makes the universal gesture for 'gimme more money' and says, "I seen her lurking about in the shadows, I know where she's laird up."
He leans in conspiratorially, his overpowering body odor threatens to knock you over and the rotten meat smell coming from his breath makes you nauseous, and tells you, "She's hanging out in a nearby abandoned boarding house with her new gang, a bunch of sewer goblins."
He growls and coughs come more, "Nasty pieces of work those sewer goblins, I'll have to sic me wee blue dwarfies on them and make them disappear like I did all those other folk what displeased me."
"Wee blue dwafies? They sound like useful beings to know."
"So you're behind the disappearances?" Talon asks, unconvinced. No, this wreck of a man couldn't have done anything like that - these 'blue dwarfies', on the other hand, were probably just a fever induced hallucination. He just hoped that he was sane enough to have given them good information on Natalya's whereabouts. "Well, good day. Thanks for the information."
He gestures for everyone to huddle once they've put some distance away from Fenster and his stench. "Okay, odds are we're definitely going to find ourselves in a fight or two if there are goblins involved. It's kind of peculiar a bunch of nasty cretins like them would follow a human woman, though - I can't help but feel like there's something wrong. So, if she is leading the goblins, and fights with them, the important thing is to take Natalya alive, if we can. There's no guarantee she'd have this important artifact on her, and Lady Heidmarch did want her alive anyways. Any questions?"
Once the 'campfire' is over, Talon leads the way towards the abandoned boarding house, keeping his two-bladed sword extended in one hand for now - best to be ready for whatever fight might be thrown at them.
Taize shrugs. "Let's get going then. Thank you, sir, for the information. I hope we can do more such beneficial to us both business in the future."
K'nyaz perks up at the foul man's words, "You made other people to dissappear? Like ones all over town? How and vy you do that?" He halts the others' eager departure. "I yam think there is more information to gain here."
Keeya yawns barely paying attention. "So we need to fight some goblins?"
"K'nyaz, if when we fin' this woman, you wanna go back and deal with him I'll go wit' ya."
Keeya sighs, "This has been an interesting day of my nose." she adds oddly.
"I mean, I woke up today smelling like Talon." she decides it will be more amusing not to elaborate on that to her comrades. She giggles slightly, "And now I smell like.. uhg... that thing... and soon I will smell like sewer goblins. So... definitely going to have a bath tonight."
Natalya's hideout has seen better days. The boarding house's clapboard sides are dark with mildew and marred by scorch marks. In places fire has gutted portions of the roof's moss-covered tile shingles, but the building appears to be structurally intact. The building stands near the stark wall of the Seacleft, and scree from several decades of minor rockfalls has piled up along its southern face. The building's windows are heavily boarded over. There is a front door that looks like it's not boarded over.
"Okay," Talon speaks up to the group as they arrive, leaning forward and shading his eyes, taking a good hard look at things. He's not sure what to expect inside - hopefully they could make Natalya see reason, but if not, they'd probably be in for one heck of a fight. "If you have any long lasting defensive spells, now might be the time to employ them," He suggested to the spellcasters of the party, standing up and keeping his two-bladed sword unsheathed. "Look sharp, people, we're going in."
Talon leads the way, his armor preventing him from being too stealthy, unfortunately.
"I can provide some minor benefits to us all."
Taize casts Bless on the party.
As they prepare to enter the building, K'nyaz dons his protective spell, as part of his routine. Waiting toward the back as the others move in, to follow last. He moves as quietly as he can, but again his thoughts are more focused in, and he relies on Voroan to warn him of any threats.
As you approach and it becomes apparent that your destination is the boarding house, two large and unpleasant looking Varisians emerge out of a small, ramshackle shack leaning against the left side of the building, probably a storage shed of some sort. It's small window facing the front is boarded up, but there are cracks between the boards. They're wearing chainmail, with shields thrown over there shoulders, morningstars at their side and light crossbows in their hands. They radiate menace and intimidation and if you were closer, an awful smell.
The larger of the two, with multiole nasty scars on his face and arms yells out, "Oy! You lot! Go away! You aren't welcome and you have no business here." He pulls the string back on his crossbow in one quick, smooth stroke, cocking it and inserting a quarrel. The other one follows suit. He keeps the crossbow pointed at the ground, not directly threatening you, but obviously ready for anything.
"Go on, leave!" he adds pointing with a small flip of his chin.
Talon looked over the two thugs. He'd expected goblins, but they would probably have stood out as guards for this place. In which case, they were probably working for Natalya. He had no problem with slaying the little monsters, but perhaps a lighter touch was necessary with these two. Hopefully they'd surrender after a quick show of force.
"Sorry," He apologized before charging forward, moving to take them out before they can get a shot off.
Keeya grinned as Talon attacked. "FINALLY! Somethin' I can fight!" She pops a knife into her hands. Its a standard dagger, though she honed the edge on this with a whet stone. She rushed with in 10 feet of the man and tosses it at the guard Talon was not fighting.
Crit Confirmation
total damage 15.
" A'right whose next!"
Keeya's Initiative
if the guard is caught flatfooted (If she beat him in initiative)
Initiatives:
Bigger:
Smaller:
Talon: 11
Keeya: 17
K'nyaz is uncertain what to think. They were told there were goblins, but these were definitely not goblins. He didn't trust the foul man, claiming to be involved in the kidnappings. Maybe he was looking to get rid of some rivals. Before there is much time to try and question the two thugs, both Keeya and Talon hare off and jump the men. K'nyaz is at a loss for what to do.
Round 1:
Init:
K'nyaz: 23
Keeya: 17
Big Thug: 15
Small Thug: 12
Talon: 11
Taize:
Talon charges the two thugs, who are caught off guard, the smaller one fumbles a bit with his crossbow to bring it into line to shoot Talon. The bigger one reacts quickly enough to take a hasty shot at Talon but misses.
Attack: vs AC 19 -2
Keeya runs forward a bit, throws her dagger at the smaller one who is taken unawares, and it buries itself to the hilt in his left eye. He drops like a stone, instantly dead.
A moment later Talon crashes into the bigger one, wounding him greatly.
On to round 2...
"Um... theres no chance you'd be willing to surrender to us now is there?"
Keeya is completely in shock over the death of the guard. Her eyes vacant, but she did not stop, she moved as if repeating a drill she had performed a thousand times she popped her second dagger, readying it, aiming at the second man.
Taize sighs, then moves in with her Tanbo, striking ot subdue.
Talon stops in front of the thug, more than a little surprised by the almost immediate and quick death of the other man - Keeya certainly didn't pull her punches at all, it seemed. So long as they had the advantage, though, he wasn't going to let it all stop him from doing what needed to be done - though he went for a gentler touch this time, using the flat of his blade.
K'nyaz hesitates, uncertain how he should act. Most of his time was spent in study, with books. He pauses, waiting to see if the man surrenders, otherwise he will need to defend his fellow Pathfinders. His conviction to the task less than resolute.
Keeya is delaying her action until the thug responds.
Taize strikes the remaining thug who looks very groggy afterwards. He drops his crossbow and falls to his knees, "I give up! Just don't kill me." He glances out of the corner of his eye at his dead companion, a look of fear on his face as he hangs his head in defeat and resignation.
Seemed they'd all been quick enough here, as the remaining man surrendered without much of a fight now. "I promise not to kill you, but you'd better answer my questions," he informed him, glaring hotly at him. "Natalya, is she inside here? What's the layout of the warehouse? What kind of defenses are inside?" He demanded the answers from him, keeping his blade drawn, switching over to the unused side, still razor sharp from whetting.
Once he'd wrung out what information he could from the man, he confiscated the man's weapons before letting him run away with his tail tucked between his legs. The crossbows he gave to K'Nyaz and Taize - they'd make good use of them when they wanted to conserve their spells. He knelt beside the dead man, retrieving Keeya's dagger and wiping the blade clean of blood and gore, before taking a moment to close his wide open eye. "Pharasma judge you fairly," He offered in a quiet whisper - he'd hoped to avoid killing them, but his blood was easily on his hands more than Keeya's, initiating the attack. He'd shed no tears, though - in this line of work, one might fight and kill many people they didn't want to kill.
Keeya took the blade, inspected it and placed it into a sheath that ran down her thigh. Removing another dagger from a similar sheath and resetting her wrist sheath with the fresh dagger.
She stood silently for a moment, "I... I didn't mean to..."
she lowered her head sadly and sighed, 'I am sorry..."
Taize checks the body, to see if there's anything she can do.
If there's any possiblity of saving him, she'll cast a Cure Light Wounds on him.
The large thug looks up at Talon and says, "Thank you Sir for not killing me, I was just trying to do my job." He gulps and continues, "The boarding house is mostly broken down at this point, those nasty sewer goblins have opened the place up to the sewers. Most of the floors are nothing but open holes into the sewage below. There are planks laid over the openings, but beware the goblins below the planks will try to tip them over if they can and dump you down in the muck with them." He grimaces at the thought of the goblins.
He continues, "Back amongst those nasty creatures is their 'leader', it looks like a snake and a goblin went at it and had kids. Natalya is up in the 'attic', with some vampire bat things. Watch out for the floorboards up there, they're rotten."
So not just sewer goblins, but some kind of serpent goblin leading them - Natalya must have had some sort of power over them, though. At least they knew now what to expect inside for the most part. "So, we've got to get up to the second floor, but there are rotten floorboards. Plus most of the first floor is made up of nothing but planks."
This was definitely annoying for Talon - as the most heavily armored, he wasn't as mobile as the rest of them, meaning it would be easier to dump him down into the muck - now he was really glad for putting on that ring. Since he doubted there would be room for close quarters fighting, he folded his two bladed sword and drew his shortbow instead, checking his quiver.
"Okay. Keeya, I'd like you to take point here - you're probably less likely to lose your balance and fall into these holes." Now he wish he'd brought some rope - they could have had her run across and tie it off so that they could cross more easily without slipping. A grappling hook would have been good for getting up to the second floor. He made a mental note to procure that equipment the next chance he got.
"Everyone, be prepared to fight at range. We're going in."
Keeya nodded quietly with out saying anything, he walked quietly into the house. I don't weigh much... that will help... She thought to her self. Moving quietly across the old planks she slowly edged her way forward.
K'nyaz takes the crossbow reluctantly, so used to relying on even his minor spells when the need arises, he doesn't think he would use it over much. He waits until the others enter, once again taking up a spot at the back, trying to move quietly. He is comfortable that they are at least making decent time, and his armor spell can be expected to last a little longer. It's a good thing too, as the new crossbow, sits rather oddly and he finds he has to keep readjusting it.
^ Just incase any enemies are lurking about...
Keeya keeps her hands free and her bow on her back, knowing that she could access her knives in short order if its required. She advances very slowly, lightly touching each plank with her tie, nudging it slightly to feel if its steady before putting her weight on it. Any plank that feels like its buckling below her she will note and point too with her finger as she shakes her head in a 'no' motion. to the rest of the party. The wind that normally follows her seems to die down while she is inside.
The entire floor of this chamber has collapsed into the pool of water five feet below in the subcellar. The earthen walls of the flooded subcellar ooze with foul rivulets, and the smell is abominable. Two oozing sewer pipes protrude through the east wall of this pit just above the level of the sewage. Part of the ceiling above the entrance has collapsed, revealing an attic crawlspace above; a rickety ladder leads up from the water into the crawlspace. A door stands in the far wall across the sludge pit. A wooden plank balanced between both doors makes a precarious bridge between the two doors.
Taize readys her crossbow and follows cautiously.