"Like f*ck I did, ya little runt!" the man pushes Brand away with a mailed hand, shoving him back into the crowd. "You ain't got anything worth stealin', ya f*cking guttersnipe." While agitated, his sword does stay in its scabbard, but his hand rests on its pommel. As he pushes Brand, the rest of the crowd begins to gestate violently, moving towards the man. At this point, his companion moves forward, to his side.
"If'n you di'nt steal it mate, let's see wot's in ye pocket?" says Twist, putting on an accent as the crowd moves in closer. "Wot's in your pocket, eh?" He says it louder this time, shaking his fist as he says it. He flashes a grin at the party as the crowd begins to pick up the chant, the chorus of [big]"What's in your pocket!?"[/big] growing louder and louder as the mob pushes them against the wall. Finally, one of them reaches into the pocket of his breeches, finding the iron ring. "Aye, then what's this then?" he shouts, shoving one man against the wall.
As he shoves the man, his companion's sword swings from his sheath, slicing the hand off at the wrist. "Back off, you rats! Get back!" he yells into the screaming crowd, scrambling to escape the two well-armed men. The other draws his sword, and they begin to move through the crowd, presumably looking for the party. "Come on, runt! Want your momma's ring back? Got it right here!" he shouts, shaking the man's severed hand in front of him.
As the pair's swords swing from their sheaths, so does Kierana's own, flashing in the sunlight. Such violence at being discovered - the knee-jerk reaction of a guilty soul, I'm thinking. You'll pay for your discourtesy! Finally, they've made the first move.
Ahto shouts over the noise of the agitated crowd.
He turns to the two men. "You will lay down arms, and submit yourselves to justice. If not, we are well within our rights to nullify the threat you present to the people of Absalom."
He tinges his voice with a warning menace.
"..."
Pyrrha's sword sings as she draws it from her side and speaks the somatics of a truestrike spell amidst the mob.
Zephyrion adds his now cold voice to Ahto's "You are out numbered and now the guards will be on their way. Will we have to hold you until they get here?" Gusts of strange wind whip through his clothing and hair as he speaks. He looks at the two men with unconcealed disdain.
He hopes someone is getting the injured man to a hospital, but it was out of his hands now.
Korihor ducks behind the bar as the cry goes up from the crowd. Hunkering down, she scurries over to a window, her drink still in hand. She glances down at her hand as a bit of the drink slops over the side, takes a sip, and grimaces, peering back out at the mob.
As the mob starts to turn on the party's pursuers a small smile crosses Brand's face. It worked... he muses to himself. But his smirk disappears as the sword comes forth and removes the innocent's hand. Blast it all to hell, how could they?! Damnit, I didn't want any of this to happen... they will pay.
Seeing others tend to the wounded man, he focuses on the aggressors. His grip on his walking stick changes, and he stands ready to wield it as a weapon, even as a dagger materializes in his other hand as if from nowhere. "I doubt this will end well for ye, but might be a touch easier if ye surrender now... just a thought."
Korihor mutters to herself as she watches the events unfolding out the window of the Naughty Nymph.
"Are we the good guys here...or the bad guys?"
As the party squares off with the two well-armed men, the crowd still mills about them wildly, making the prospect of fighting difficult. "Surrender? To the bloody runt who got me int'a this mess? Not f*ckin' likely." The other, blood still on his sword, snarls menacingly towards the party. They advance as a pair, never straying far from the other's side, shields raised.
As one looks to make a slash towards Brand, an explosion rocks the party off of their feet, smoke and burning wood spilling out into the street. "Sorry ta be leavin', but that'd be our cue," says the one with the bloodied sword. Taking off as fast as their armor can carry them, the two men rejoin their companions standing in the wreckage of what was a wall of the Naughty Nymph. As the party struggles to their feet, they can make our several figures in the ensuing chaos. Other than the two who they had confronted, three other men could easily be seen. Two clad in leathers hold Korihor between them, despite her struggling. In front of them stands a dwarf clad in a trench coat, an exquisite looking firearm held in his hands. As the two armed men join them, they make haste to move down a back alley, pushing through the crowd as fast as possible.
-----
While inside, Korihor takes a look around at the few patrons still inside. While most have left, one party that has been here since you entered has not. A half-orc clad in leathers, along with a dwarf shouldering an impressive looking firearm still sat at their table, playing a game of cards. After a moment though, a thought occurs to her. Weren't there two half-orcs earli- she thinks, just as she feels an arm wrap around her neck, and the pressure of a dagger at her back.
"C'mon now, princess, ain't gotta be difficult. Yer bartender friend, now 'e was difficult." He gestures to Groffin, a large bruise already forming on the back of his bald head, lying across the bar. "We're gonna go real quiet like, see?" The dwarf and half-orc, stand up from the table as he hauls her towards them. "Just gotta ask ye a question or two, eh?" As he finishes his sentence, the pressure on Korihor's neck is released as the tiefling previously sparring Blast wraps his tail around the half-orc's neck, throwing him to the ground.
"Run!" Twist shouts, his hands balling into fists. The half-orc wrests himself out of Twist's grip, coming to blows with the man as the other half-orc moves after Korihor. In the ensuing chaos, Korihor is caught off guard as an explosion erupts behind her, blowing the wall to the tavern to smithereens. Startled, the two half-orcs grab her again, and over her shoulder she can see Twist trapped beneath a fallen table, nursing a puncture wound to his shoulder.
As they haul her out into the street, Korihor can see the rest of the party getting to their feet as the two men move to join her abductors. "We'll lose 'em in the alleys," says the dwarf to the other four. "They paid a fancy sum to get a hold of her, and I'll spit-shine Asmodeus's iron boots before I let that payday pass me by." With that, the group begins to move through the crowd as fast as they can, but the absolute chaos makes it difficult to make a hasty retreat.
"Run!" Korihor yells towards the people she came with, as she tries to wrestle herself free of the men pulling her along.
"Told you she was trouble."
Kierana sheathes her blade and begins to make her way through the crowd, trying to keep Korihor and her captors in sight. As she pushes past Pyrrha, she hears the woman's cynical remark and turns. Trouble follows Ahto's hotspurs too, if I recall. Whether she be trouble or no, I will not abandon her to captivity.
Zeph dusts himself off as he pulls himself to his feet. "When she says run she means run after them, beat them up and rescue her. Right?" He smiles around at this companions, adrenaline bringing a state of cheer in a dire situation. He nods to Kierana's words and moves to follow her.
Korihor continues to struggle to free herself as the men drag her through the crowd. "Please! Stop! What do you want?!"
Seeing Brand and Kierana running after Korihor's captors, Ahto takes a breath in resignation and heads after them.
"Come on, Sunshine," he says to Pyrrha. "We don't want to be the last ones to the dance!"
He draws his darkwood cudgel from his belt and pushes through the crowd.
Pyrrha narrows her eyes at the nickname, but reluctantly follows off after the commotion, more than willing to let the others dive headlong into trouble.
While difficult, the party does manage to follow the men through the crowd of panicked civilians. Noticing their pursuit, the men get rougher in their attempts to move through the crowd, shoving and forcing people out of there way in an attempt to leave the party behind. As they finally break the crowd, the two half-orc men lift Korihor to their shoulders, and the group begins to run. She strains against their grip, but is unable to free herself.
As the party manages to break through into the open streets, Korihor's abductors have gained significant ground, dashing down the streets away from the party. While not impossible, catching up to will be a tricky endeavor.
While difficult to keep pace, the group manages to cover enough ground not to lose the men as they move through the alleyways. Pyrrha and Zeph surge ahead of the others, and with their help the group begins to gain on Korihor's abductors. As they notice the party still following them, the dwarf plucks something from his belt and chucks it behind him. After a few moments, the alley behind him explodes into a web of incandescent orange webbing.
-----
"Those bastards are still following us? Circle around, head to the Court. We'll lose them there." Korihor hears the men plotting, even as she struggles. Looking over he shoulder, a bomb explodes, covering the alleyway in some sort of residue. "And you," says the dwarf, looking at Korihor, "Quit squirming. Hate for somethin' to happen to ya."
Kierana sees Pyrrha and Zeph and follows their path, darting through the alleyways, gaining some ground - until she blunders straight into the bright orange webbing crossing the path. She lets out a screech of frustration.
Zeph grows weary and stumbles. He takes slow deep breaths and tries to center himself before continuing. He notices the dwarf toss a bomb towards the group. In a sudden burst of motion he dodges through the webbing like it wasn't even there.
Worried that his stumble would cost them catching up he tosses his hand out in frustration, a bolt of electricity travels down his arm and zaps out towards one of the Half-Orcs holding Korihor.
Pyrrha easily gives up the chase when she hears they are headed to the court and the sticking webs block her way. She draws on her knowledge of these parts of town and takes another less crowed and chaotic route to the court to try and head them off. She motions the others to remain giving chase.
Despite his ability to easily avoid the strange, orange webbing, Brand continues to have difficulty working his way through the crowds of the city, yet worriedly pushes onward.
Korihor continues to struggle. "Please, please, please! I'm not who you're looking for!"
"Trust me, missy, you really ain't. But that ain't my business, see? We were paid by someone else, and you ARE who they're looking for. That's all that matters. Nuthin' personal, for you or your friends." With that, the dwarf directs the others to move past as he lobs more of the explosives back at the party, some still stuck in the webbing from his previous attack. As he throws the bomb, Zeph's lightning bolt misses its target, instead slamming into the projectile as it flies towards the party. "SON OF A BI-" the dwarf begins to yell, before being engulfed in the explosion.
As the party moves through the sticky webbing, those who get caught feel the webbing begin to burn through to their skin, the alchemical concoction smoking despite its apparent lack of heat. As you begin to pry it off, it smokes and burns at the touch. As the dwarf's bomb explodes, it's unclear whether or not he was caught wholly in its blast or not. Regardless, he likely makes for an easier target.
As Pyrrha veers off from the group, she takes a path she's fairly certain will lead her to the route the rest of the dawrf's group seems to be taking.
Kierana's screech of frustration quickly morphs into a scream of agony as the webbing begins to burn through to her skin. Her efforts to remove the alchemical goo become even more frantic; her scratching and clawing begin to leave marks of their own.
Finally, the goo is cleared away, but the damage isn't; her dress hangs in shreds where the webbing burned through, and horrific burns cover most of her body. The pain is so great that she can do little more than hobble, and even a hobble threatens to elicit more screams.
I'll never keep up like this...no, I can't just leave the girl!
She painstakingly sheathes her blade; the hilt in her scorched hands is agony. She tries to push on, but the dwarf and his companions have long since disappeared with Korihor, and she sees little sign of their passage. Walking through the quiet alleys, trying to hold as many shreds of her wispy dress in place as possible to avoid running afoul of decency laws, Kierana begins to pray aloud, each word deliberate and clipped by her pain.
Forgive me, Savored Sting...I have wronged thee...guide my steps...I must retire, I can continue not...but I swear by my blade...by my life...I will find her on the morrow...even if all that remains is to avenge her passing...
Finally, she makes it back to the Pleasure Salon, calling out to Acharn as she walks past the courtyard. She arrives at her chambers and collapses onto the featherbed, stifling another scream and going to work attempting to bandage the worst of the wounds.
Korihor screams as the explosion rocks her captor. "Why?? I swear I didn't do it!"
Ahto gives a howl of frustration and pain as he tears the burning webs away from his skin.
"These...bastards...gonna pay...for that..."
He watches as Kierana limps away from the scene, speaking her litany of contrition and revenge.
Can't say I blame her. There's a bigger game, here, and somehow we're pawns. But I can't leave Brand and Pyrrha to fight them alone.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, he struggles on, trying to catch-up.
Zeph glances worriedly after Kierana as she stumbles away covered in strange burns. He trusts her to be able to take care of herself though, so he turns back towards the explosion he had accidentally set off. He jogs forward to see how injured the Dwarf had been by his own attack.
Having difficulty forcing his way through the crowd, Brand tries to instead cut around the crowd by moving over walkways, wagons, boxes and other such city decor as befits the street. If given the opportunity, he will draw his bow and attempt to snap a shot at the dwarf's leg, hoping to hamper his movement.
While Brand moved to take a shot at the dwarf, the blast of the dwarf's bomb catches him off-guard, and his shot goes wide in the ensuing cloud of smoke. However, as the smoke clears it seems clear the dwarf caught himself in the explosion; while he's not cemented in place by the sticky resin, he is peeling pieces of it from himself with distaste as he limps away from the scene. As the party begins to approach them, he waves his blunderbuss wildly before him, trying to keep them back.
"You wanna chest full of lead balls, huh? Try me!"
-----
As Pyrrha heads around through another alley, she catches a glimpse of Korihor's abductors, not 20 feet ahead of her. A decent surge of speed could likely give her the needed edge to take one of them down.
Ahto dives forward into a tucked roll, comes up moving, and makes a lunging swing with his club at the dwarf.
Zephyrion readies another bolt of electricity which he will launch if Ahto looks to be in trouble.
"Let. Go. Of. Me!" Korihor yells, punctuating each word with a fist beat against the man's back.
Disoriented by the smoke, and frustrated that he is loosing ground on the kidnappers, Brand recognizes that Ahto and Zeph have the dwarf and redoubles his pursuit of the others, hoping to free Korihor. As he darts away, he offers some kind words to the dwarf.
"'Ey Stumpy, looks like ye beard is more than a lil singed. P'rhaps me friend Ahto 'ere will forego cracking ye jaw, and instead tear off the rest of ye scraggly face fur!"
Pyrrha catches a glimpse of Korihor and pulls out a pad of butter in some foil, speaks a verbal component, and flicks a grease spell onto Korihor before making her way toward the kidnappers, sword still drawn.