You wait until the night begins to close in, moving into the rough vicinity of the center of the murders. Both Krizta and Tasha make it to the top of nearby rooftops, though Tasha just barely. Dawnilea huddles behind the ruins of an old broken wagon along one of the wider alleys, while Ganner and Bardigan tuck into a side alley south of the chosen avenue. Lastly, Zea, looking a little less brave than she did when volunteering, strides loudly up and down the alleyways between.
The night wears on, and as the sun sets you don't worry about being out past curfew with so little actual Dottari presence in Redroof, let alone the Devil's Nursery itself. The hour gets late and dark, each of you growing weary from having been out and about during the day, with only the brief respite between the hatching of a plan and the beginning of its execution.
Krizta remains hidden with her bow in hand, staying alert for a shout from Zea.
Krizta listens.
Bardigan veritably vanishes behind a plume of vapor wafting up from a drain and distorts the outline of his body by wrapping his cloak tightly around himself. He waits and listens, worried for Zea, but passes the hours speaking ever so softly with Ganner.
The night gets into the darker hours when suddenly from the darkness of the south alley, Ganner and Bardigan hear giggles of mischievous glee. Though they see nothing in the sheltered darkness of the Nursery's alleyways, only dimly lit at best by what little candlelight flickers through the shanty windows. That is until the rush of little creatures is upon them, flapping tiny wings, with gnashing mismatched teeth, dark eyes, and a metal tool almost as big as they are.
"What the Hells are those?", mutters Tasha to herself, as she lifts her bow upwards. And they don't look like they're here to tell me how much they enjoy my article., a thought passes through her head as she nocks an arrow, and fires it at the swarm of... things approaching down the alley. "Watch out, there's more of them!", she shouts, then fires another arrow into the group.
Krizta hears the shouts and fires at one of the creatures [Enemy a29].
Unfortunately, she is too surprised after the long wait to shoot straight. She takes a deep breath, and tries to steady her nerves, and prepares to shoot again.
Able to get the drop on the unsuspecting creatures, Tasha steps to the edge of the roof and fires at the very small figures flitting about in the heavily shaded alley. She hits one hard, dropping it to the ground, and clips another, but can't really see just how well given the light or lack thereof.
The second one hit darts to the right, into the same alley that holds Bardigan and Ganner, but nobody other than the two men see it pass them right by and continue on flying down the alleyway. The last of the line of them zips up to where Tasha fired from. Zipping up to her, its pliers opened wide, it reaches out with the overlarge tools to pinch angrily one of the fingers holding her bow.
Krizta steps to the edge as well, and fires at the forward most enemy, but her shot is hasty against the little creature. It does not connect, but it gets the thing's attention, which may not have worked to her advantage. The creature flits quickly up toward her, gnashing pliers at the fore. Seeing the filthy things come for her precious teeth, Krizta easily jerks her head away from the potential pull.
Krizta, assuming your initial target is down, you aim for the next closest upright enemy? You also would need to step up to the edge for line of sight.
Dawnilea draws both her blades and rushes into the alleyway, "Ugh. What are these things?"
Dawnilea rushes from her place of hiding, drawing two serrated blades as she comes to stand before Zea, waiting for one of the things to dare come at her.
Two of the creatures continue to ignore her, as they had already chosen their quarry in Bardigan. Two pairs of large pliers snap at his face, the first pair snaps quickly onto a tooth and yanks it harshly right out of his face. The resultant reeling back by Bardigan causes the other one to miss with a metallic snap right in front of his face.
Bardigan grunts loudly in pain as his tooth is ripped so suddenly from his jaw. He staggers back, into the wall behind him, and the wall is the only thing that keeps him from falling to the ground.
Shaking his head and blinking away the pain, he narrows his gaze on the plier-wielding devil that took his tooth and pushes back off the wall, brandishing his rapier. The flesh on his face begins to blacken like coal and crack, each split glowing with an infernal, orange light. He growls as he casts a quick spell and a disc of shimmering light appears between the noble and his attacker, "You'll regret that, bug."
HP: 19/20
AC: 20 (12 T / 18 FF)
CMD: 16
F/R/W: +6/+3/+5
Hellfire strikes used: 0/3
Eldritch Pool used: 1/5
Lvl 1 Spell Slots used: 0/3
Ongoing Effects
shield (1/20 rds): +4 AC
Eldritch Focus (1/2 rds): can use hellfire strike as swift action
1 Cha damage
"Eek!", screams Tasha, as she moves her pinched finger to her mouth to stop the bleeding. "You runty, dentally challenged imp!!", she shouts back at the gnashing and thrashing flying gnat, as her other hand moves to draw her worn rapier. With a swift lash, the tip of the blade runs a long line through the creature's hide, drawing a smile to the writer's face. "Ha!", she grins a bloody smile, finger still on her lips.
Ganner looks baffled by the assault of the tooth fairies. He grits his jaw, keeping his teeth where they belong and attacks the closest imp.
for damage!
for damage!
for damage!
As the obnoxious little creatures assail Bardigan, Ganner shifts his stance, and attempts a combination of strikes. His first swings was narrowly avoided by the spry little git, but it didn't see the follow-through until it was too late. The creepy little thing lay sprawled on the worn alleyway.
Bardigan, taken aback by the ruthless tooth pulling, goes more on the defensive. Causing a magical shield to coalesce before him, he focuses his energies while drawing his weapon.
The two critters dropped by Tasha and Ganner can do nothing more than lay still on the wet ground, as their blood slowly drains from them. Zea, though, seeing the flitting things, goes for her crossbow, pulling it out and fixing a bolt into the carrier.
Clearly, not ones to give up an opportunity to gang up on a single target, the last impish creature of the bunch joins the attacks on Bardigan. Even in spite of his increased defenses, the critter manages to also pull one of the man's teeth.
Tasha doesn't take any chances by firing on the thing point blank, but instead pulls her blade to jab the little thing with it. Despite her aim, the weapon doesn't quite do as much as it should, nor bring the creature down.
Although the hit doesn't do as much as it could, the thing doesn't stick around for another. It flits away to avoid any more attacks, joining the path of its previously fled brethren, who also flies away from the fight.
Krizta steps from X-27 to Y-26, and attacks Enemy 6 (at Y-28)
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"Oh, no you don't, you teethstealers!", shouts Tasha back at the impish monster, as she drops her rapier, which clatters down along the rooftiles. Lifting her bow, she draws two arrows, aiming them at the two monsters terrorising Bardigan. "Duck!", she shouts.
The first arrow barely grazes one of the creatures viciously holding a tooth, but as another one victoriously yanks yet another tooth, an arrow lands straight into its chest, impaling it on the nearby wall. "Gotcha!", Tasha howls victoriously, raising a fist in the air.
Krizta backs down the slope of the roof toward the center, giving herself just enough distance to fire on the little creature with her bow. Even in the darkness of the city night, she fires on target, hitting the creature just hard enough to knock it out of the sky. The thing spirals unconscious to smack against the ground some fifteen feet below.
Despite both the arrow and the fall, this one seems a little more hardy than some of the others, and his wounds do not bleed out.
Ganner steps SW and flurries again!
for damage!
for damage!
Dawnilea sees that the fight is not coming her direction, but staying around the corner where Bardigan and Ganner were hiding. Moving up to the corner of the building, she swings at the nearest of the little things. Managing to pick its form out of the darkness, she swings with precision
The remaining two quickly realize that they no longer have the advantage, and decide to beat a hasty retreat. Flitting back toward the building opposite the alley from Ganner and Bardigan, they turn and zip off in the same direction as their previous fleeing allies.
Bardigan curses as the creatures beat a hasty retreat, the broken lines in his face flaring with heat. If he could see better, he could maybe give chase, but instead he spits a glob of blood to the street and kicks one of the bodies with another expletive.
Shaking his head, he looks to Ganner and shrugs apologetically even as his face returns to normal but for the two new gaps in his teeth. "Does anyone know what these wretched things even are?"
HP: 19/20
AC: 20 (12 T / 18 FF) (includes +4 from shield)
CMD: 16
F/R/W: +6/+3/+5
Hellfire strikes used: 0/3
Eldritch Pool used: 1/5
Lvl 1 Spell Slots used: 0/3
Ongoing Effects
shield (2/20 rds): +4 AC
2 Cha damage
Ganner shrugs. "No idea. Not my forte, I guess."
Bardigan notices as they flee, that the one Dawnilea dropped still had his tooth in its pliers. Meaning that his other pulled tooth may just have flown of when the other one ran.
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Tasha stares at the creatures as they flee, before tumbling her way down from the rooftop, pausing only to grab her rapier. Upon seeing the others, her eyebrows jump up at the bleeding Bardigan, as she hurriedly rushes towards him. "Damn!", she blurts out as she tears out a piece of her shirt, tears it in two and folds the two scraps in neat rolls. "Quick. Open your mouth, where the...", her face relates an expression of compassion and apology, "uh, your teeth were.", before non-chalantly shoving them inside. "Hold it tight and don't speak for a while, unless you like bleeding out. And, uh, I washed my shirt the day before. It should be clean.", she continues blurting. "I'm sure there's a magical way to grow them back, I guess? Because they were nice teeth, I mean." Stop talking.
Bardigan spits again before biting down on the fabric Tasha offers. He nods gratefully at first, then his brow furrows in brief confusion before he mutters around the cloth packings, "Ummmm... fanks, I think?"
Seeing that the battle is over, Krizta takes her time, carefully climbing down from the roof.
Once she gets down, she examines the bodies of the little things they were fighting. Some kind of fairy? She pulls up detect magic and carefully checks to see if they have any magic or other loot on them. If she finds any of them alive, she'll bring the body over to the rest of the group.
Ganner watches the awkward flirting and smiles slightly. Usually it's him making the awkward noises. "Why would these things steal teeth?"
Bardigan starts to try and speak but resorts to simply shaking his head and shrugging. Then, he turns back to look up the alley way northward and waves Zea and anyone else still not caught up forward.
Dawnilea keeps her blades out, scanning as the others try to replace the lost teeth. "I really don't like this... including the fact a handful of those little monsters got away. Can't really say we've solved the problem."
Did anyone see which way they went? I think we might have to dig them out. Not necessarily tonight if people are hurt, but soon. For now, we can tell people what to look for.
As Tasha tends to Bardigan's bloody sockets, Krizta climbs down from her perch to check over the bodies of the things. There is nothing magical about or on the bodies of the little creatures, and she discovers that three of the fallen have stopped bleeding out, and still live. These she brings over to the others of the group. The last one still bleeds out, and looks like ti will continue to do so unless stopped.
Seeing Bardigan move and try to speak, with no seeming injury, Tasha flashes a (fully-toothed) smile, and quickly rushes towards the fallen creatures brought over by the elf. Seeing one bleed out, she sighs, tearing out another improvised bandage. With surprising caution for the haste, she begins bandaging the wounds. I mean, we can't just leave them to bleed out alone, can we? Even if we did cause the wounds..., she thinks to herself as she stares at the arrow she bandaged over. Biting into her pinched finger, she looks up and starts gently moving the bodies together. "We can ask them about the murders when they come to.", she suggests, leaning on her longbow. "Not saying they'll help us, since, after all, no good deed goes unpunished, but it can't hurt to try, can it?", she finishes with a dry grin, shrugging as she catches up with the rest. "I sure am glad nobody else is injured, since I'm quickly running out of shirt."
Dawnilea asks, "Do we know what it is and how to restrain it? Probably need to know that if we're going to talk to it."
It flies, so I am going to guess that tying it up so that its wings are restricted will keep it captive. Can't promise that though. Just hoping.
Bardigan points in the direction the others had flown off, "The othersh wen thash way." He stops then, frowning at how difficult all the rolled fabric is making it to speak. He speaks more slowly, taking care to enunciate around the swabs. "We could chase the ones that ran or question this one. Who knows what, or even if, these things speak though."
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Tasha pouts a lip, deep in thought. "Well, length of rope and a heavy rock should do the trick. I personally find it hard to fly by myself, and I imagine it'd be harder if I had a stone five times my bodyweight tied to me.", she laughs. "But I think they'll be out counting teeth for a while, so we can bring them to the locals and have them, uh, restrain them." Tasha looks around. "As for speaking, I speak Infernal. My grammar's a couple centuries out of date, though."
Yeah, agree. They will be out for a while. Let's take them to the locals.
We might have to hunt down the others in order to stop additional murders, but might as well see what these ones know first, and show the locals that we at least got some of them.
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"Hm.", says Tasha, leaning over the wounded teeth-devils. Wonder if they got a name. Scratch that. Wonder if their name is teeth-devils in True Infernal., she shrugs, picking up the small bodies. "Let's go see the tailor. If we're lucky, I might even pick up a new shirt.", she smiles, leading the way towards the shop.