Anabel steps back away from the horrible snake monster. She prays to the spirits to guide Lyra’an.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
With Anabel's magic guiding her steps, Lyra'an takes a more acrobatic approach to engaging with the amphisbaena. The kayal takes a running jump and leaps off the stairs to stab the snake!
Both of her daggers sink into the amphisbaena's black-scaled head, and the beast lets out a hissing roar and thrashes about before the kayal nimbly dismounts and lands next to Brevka.
The snake's two heads bite at both the half-orc and the acrobatic shadow-born...
Lyra'an ducks under the black-head's bite, but the white-head's fangs sink into Brevka's sword arm.
Brevka just snarls back as the snake's fangs punch into her bicep, hurling it back before she strikes!
Anabel moves behind Brevka to heal her.
Teeth and tusks still bared in a snarl, Brevka gives a surprised grunt of thanks as Anabel's magic soothes the sting of the serpent's fangs
Kaxatja sighs and climbs down to the battle.
Kaxatja scuttles into place with ease.
Brevka's wounds continue to heal as she hacks away at the twin-serpents!
The amphisbaena rears back as Brevka swings her falchion again, causing her to miss.
Lilamma attacks, trying to jump on the snake veeeeeeeeeeeery long neck to apparently strangle him with her spiked chain.
to the total disreguard of her personal safety, of course.
The amphisbaena's other head tries to bite Lilamma as she leaps atop it and wraps Taki around it's throat, but to no avail! The tiefling is just too quick!
Lyra'an flashes her knives and stabs twice more...
...and she drives her off-hand dagger into one of the serpent's heads, finally bringing it down.
Anabel takes a few deep breaths as the snake monster goes down. "Is everybody okay?" she asks her companions.
Still clutching her spiked chain, Lilamma finishes strangling the two headed snake, first one head, then another, just to be sure.
I could only be better if the fight went worse for me.
Kaxatja frowns, sure something is not right. She looks around gor the supposed infiltrator she saw by the cages earlier.
”Look alive, here comes the plum...” the drider murmurs to her cagemates, indicating the stairs with a jut of her head.
"Plum?" Brevka mouths, confused.
Oh.
Brevka lets her scars darken with a heavy breath, but continues after the beastmaster without pausing.
Traxivus walks up to the dead snake, a company of guards behind him. "Well. That's going to cost me a bit." He remarks, not even glancing at the two dead guards around the amphisbaena's corpse.
"No matter. What's more concerning is that someone thought that letting it loose would inconvenience me." He shrugs and turns back to the gladiatrixes. "Now, if you would follow me, the specimens you're here for should be waiting outside."
--------------------
Outside the warehouse, a large, wrought-iron cage is being hauled in on a wagon towed by a massive riding lizard. Inside the cage are a pair of hunchbacked, green-skinned humanoids with frog-like heads and mouths filled with sharp fangs. Manacles of fine make hold their arms and legs together, limiting their mobility.
A group of burly drow males moves in to bring the cage off of the wagon, with two more drow carrying longspears poking at the skum inside the cage to dissuade them from acting up. Johysis observes the proceedings with her head tilted in interest.
"Two skum, in reasonably good condition, as House Parastric requested." Kinlith rubs his hands together. "Not sure what your mistress wants with them, but I figure that isn't my business anyway."
Brevka glances over at Johysis. Probably for us soon enough. Making us go and fetch our own rivals feels right.
Anabel eyes the skum with distaste. "Thank you. If there's nothing else, we'll be on our way."
Eyeing the pitiable caged creatures dully, Kaxatja flexes her spindly legs, keen to move on.
The drow guards unlock the skum's cage and they shuffle out with the gait of defeated men. Johysis twirls one of her crossbows and gestures to the party.
"Right. Kayal, Princess, on either side of them. Make sure they don't get a chance to flee. The rest of you fall in behind them." The overseer points her crossbow at the two skum before turning and marching off.
-------------------
The streets leading back to House Volatexia's ludus have become remarkably crowded by now, with countless milling citizens, animals and wagons. Johysis lets out a grunt of frustration and leads the party down a few side alleys, hoping to avoid the throng. "Dammit, I was hoping to finish this up before this hour..."
Lilamma walks innocent as the sacrificial lamb to the slaughter
Anabel is likewise oblivious to danger.
Brevka is far too focused on the skum to notice any other dangers.
Kaxatja concentrates incredibly hard on the skum n front of her, sure that at any moment they will cut and run, or turn on their overseers and commit to battle.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The kayal's expression darkens and her knives seem to fly to her hands of their own accord. "We're being followed."
Brevka tries to take another look under the guise of cracking her neck, but mostly stays focused on the Skum.
"Sure you don't just have an admirer, Baby Blades?"
"Nope, definitely being followed. Purple skinned drow male." Lyra'an says softly. "I can probably lose him in the shadows of the alley and get the drop on him if there's a momentary distraction to take his eyes off me."
A distraction? I'm not sure I can do that...
giggling, Lilamma starts a sensual and exotic dance, using her spiked chain to remove the few clothes she wears, until she stands in the street wearing nothing but her scars.
She's always ready to suffer for her art...
"Where? I don't see anyone--" Johysis starts before Lilamma starts her elaborate exotic dance. Her eyes promptly fixate on the tiefling's sensual movements and sheer lack of modesty--and so do the skum, surprisingly enough.
Lyra'an effortlessly fades into the shadows, forcing herself not to look at Lilamma as she silently creeps up on the slack-jawed drow. Moving around him, she gets close laying the edge of one of her blades against his neck before whispering. "Move, and your blood waters the fungi that'll grow in this spot."
The drow freezes.
"...F!!@."
Kaxatja keeps an eye out on the general surroundings, concerned tgat Lilamma’s...display might engender untoward advances...from...everyone.
The male drow raises his hands up. "Alright, let me explain."
"I've got no quarrel with you--my boss wants Kinlith humiliated. She figured the best way to do that was to set his merchandise loose and steal whatever deliveries his people make." The man's voice is small, but sharp. "They're waiting for you in the next alley--I was supposed to spring a trap to cut off your escape."
"Alright, drop any weapons you're carrying on the ground, try anything and I slit your throat!" Lyra'an whispers, nodding to Kaxatja to get the others' attention.
*tink*
*tinktinktink*
The drow drops a knife, a hand crossbow and a case of five bolts on the ground.
Kaxatja growls low and loud to alert her sisters-in-arms.
”Our dark sister is making a point yonder.” she tells Brevka and Annabel, keeping an eye on Lilamma’s antics all the while.
Anabel follows Kaxatja's alert and heads down the alley to where Lyra'an is holding the drow at knifepoint. Once she fills her in on what he said, she looks to Brevka. "An ambush! What do we do? Try to go another way?"
"A trap isn't a trap if you know it's a trap." Brevka muses, sounding like she's quoting someone else. "They don't really want to kill us, I don't care if we kill them, but I don't think we can sneak the skum away without being spotted."
"Let's proceed, then. Keep your eyes and ears open, and be ready for a fight." The elf unlimbers her bow and holds an arrow at the ready.
"Leave. Your weapons stay here. If you try to warn them in any way, I'll come find you....and I promise the next time you hear my voice in your ear, will be the last." Lyra'an says in a soft, yet unmistakably deadly tone as she removes the blade of her weapon from the drow male's throat.
Watching Lyra’an now, Kaxatja waits for the shadow-woman to return before moving on with the rest of their group.
Lilamma picks up whatever is not totally shredded out of her clothes, barely managing to cover the essentials, before asking as innocently
as possible
Do you think someone was distracted or should I have been a little more provocative?
The drow swallows, nods and turns on his heel before running off into the shadows.
Johysis' hands twitch and her crossbows practically fly into her hands.
"Do you think someone was distracted or should have been a little more provocative?"
"I know those two were, at least." She points a crossbow at the two skum. "Come on--let's go."
Brevka nods as Johysis doesn't demand that they charge into the fray. There might actually be a way to just go around the ambush after all. Rather than reveal that she's paid any attention to the twists and turns of the city, Brevka tries to find a moment to talk to Kaxatja.[smaller]"Legs, you know the city better than I do. Could we use those side streets over there? Across the thoroughfare?"
.
”Most definitely - a very good idea Brevka - cut across, get us...back” Kaxatja says forcefully, tripping up on almost saying “home”.
"Alright, let's get moving I guess." Lyra'an says picking up the drow's discarded gear and rejoining the others with a grin.
Johysis gives the party an askance look as they start to move, but seeing as how they look like they know where they're going, she follows behind them. The skum are forced back in between Brevka and Lyra'an as they leave the alley.
After crossing the main thoroughfare and entering a collection of wider side streets, the crowds thin out greatly. The side streets the party walks down are mainly residential in nature, with multiple houses in various states of disrepair on either side of them. Most of the populace in this part of Zirnakaynin take one look at the assembled group and either scuttle back indoors or otherwise make themselves scarce.
When the party finally returns to the Volatexia ludus, they see Lady Chardalyn standing out in front of the entrance to the Chapel of Nurgal, flanked by a pair of long-haired and musclebound female drow in immaculate grey chainmail. The noblewoman's face breaks into a grin when she sees the two skum being dragged with them.
"Excellent. Excellent indeed." She claps her hands once and her two bodyguards move forward to take the skum off of the party's hands. "And the money We are owed?" Lady Chardalyn asks.
Anabel gestures for whoever is holding the money to step forward.