"It's you..." begins Dareon, picking a foot off the ground and pushing off with the other, beginning to run while raising his sword, "...That was warned!" He dashes past her two bodyguards, trusting his reflexes and his armor to keep him safe, right to the woman, and swings his sword at her.
Elrawien scoffs, muttering something about ungainly, homely cows trying to boss their betters around. She follows up her derisive remark by gesturing at the woman as sparkling motes of magic spring to life in front of her.
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"Foolish girl." Faedrin, for his part, springs into sudden action alongside Dareon. Summoning up a bit of magic and quickening his steps, he dashes nimbly between two of the thugs and slips behind the impertinent woman, jabbing his rapier cleanly into her side. He whispers angrily in her ear, "Wishing you'd listened yet? You still have a chance to run away. Best take it!"
HP: 8/8
AC: 19 (15 T / 14 FF)
CMD: 16
F/R/W: +2/+4/+3 (+2 vs enchantment, immune sleep)
Arcane Pool used: 4/5
Spells Prepared:
Cantrips (3) - acid splash, daze, disrupt undead
Level 1 (1) - expeditious retreat [ ], jump [X]
Ongoing Effects
Spell Dance: 1/10 rounds
The group seems mostly ready to fight on normal flat ground with a certain eagerness, as three of them spring into action. Elrawein steps up beside her brother and tries to give the woman pause. Sadly, for the group she just manages to shake it off.
Dareon, getting the jump, dashes right up between two of the brutes at the woman, but in his reckless advance, his precision is hampered. Whereas Faedrin speeds up as well to use Dareon's position to his advantage.
The woman, shocked by their speed and tenacity, rolls to her left toward the shelter of an alleyway and out from between them. Her tuck and roll is hindered, however by the cut Faedrin delivered and she stumbles at the worst possible time.
Round 1: (AoO's)
Woman - 6 damage
Thug 1 -
Thug 2 -
Thug 3 -
Gaileyon - 1 damage
Tanjvats -
Elrawein - 5 damage Cast Daze on the woman, she saved
Dareon - 4 damage Charged the woman, missed
Faedrin - Rushed to flank the woman, hit her
Dareon savagely slices down...right onto empty air. He growls at his own imprecision before readying himself for the melee between himself and the men near him.
What began with threats and bravado is almost instantly turned directly into a rout. The woman, and her misstep, is in a seriously bad way. She turns what initially was a failed attempt at dodging blows into a ful-blown escape. The alleyway, which was to be her cover, has become her escape rout as she hurries down it holding the hole Faedrin just put in her, blood seeping through her fingers.
The three men, all turn in surprise at the hits, see the woman run off, and decide their work is done here. They also decide to make their escape.
Round 1:
Gaileyon - 1 damage
Tanjvats -
Elrawein - 5 damage Cast Daze on the woman, she saved
Dareon - 4 damage Charged the woman, missed
Faedrin - Rushed to flank the woman, hit her
Woman - 22 damage, moved to G18
Thug 1 - withdrew to G0
Thug 2 - withdrew to G2
Thug 3 - withdrew to M16
Tanjvats watched the thugs run off with only a little satisfaction. The taste of a small victory couldn't overcome whatever had seeped into his mouth in Natalya's lair.
"Well done, you two. We needed that." He raised his arms in praise of small blessings, and a tiny swirl of energy ruffled his and his allies' filthy clothes.
Gaileyon moves up toward Dareon and Faedrin, deciding against giving chase due to the load he bears of the unconscious woman. Otherwise he would have to drop her to the ground to run off after them. Tanjvats sidles a few steps closer and offers a minor burst of healing energies to the group as a whole. Luckily for them, it wasn't enough to bring Natalya out of her injuries.
Round 2:
Elrawein - 4 damage Cast Daze on the woman, she saved
Dareon - 3 damage Charged the woman, missed
Faedrin - Rushed to flank the woman, hit her
Woman - 22 damage, moved to G18
Thug 1 - withdrew to G0
Thug 2 - withdrew to G2
Thug 3 - withdrew to M16
Gaileyon - Moves closer to the group
Tanjvats - Moves closer, channels
Faedrin watches as the thugs scatter like rats. "Perhaps now we can be on our way without being troubled any further. I don't know about you all, but I'm ready to put this miserable day behind me."
Dareon drops his sword and draws his bow, snapping off a shot at the ring-leader woman. "And stay away!"
"Perhaps we ought to hurry. I would prefer to make it to the showers without being accosted again."
Dareon fires a parting shot in the woman's direction, flying wide. With that the group makes their way through the city as night grows deeper and street lamps are lit. As you top the rise and move through the upper city, the looks that you had been receiving over your smell and appearance begin to grow heavy with undisguised disgust. No look is more fierce than that of the majordomo of Heidmarch Manor. Your arrival at the newest of Pathfinder Lodges, coated in dried filth, carrying the unconscious form of an equally filthy woman causes a look of combined panic and quick thinking. He speaks quickly before you move further to enter the house, "One of the guest houses is available beyond the garden near the exterior wall. If you make your way there, I will inform Lady Heidmarch that you have returned."
Flicking his hands on the ground in one final gesture of disgust, Dareon shakes his head, sighs, and walks to the guest house. He is already unbuckling his breastplate before he even gets to the door, and removes most of his clothing, leaving only his smallclothes on, before he enters.
He dumps the rest (taking a few moments to lay them out carefully on the lawn and separating the armor from the clothing) outside before he continues inside.
The filth, disgustingly, continues to drip as he walks through the house, and he makes a beeline for the bathhouse to begin heating up some water.
Tanjvats stayed to make sure Natalya and the others were situated before tending to his own needs. The desire for a shower was strong, but didn't overwhelm his desire to have Natalya secured and alive for Lady Heidmarch.
Besides, Dareon and Faed needed to go first, as they were the strongest.
"Indeed. See that you do." Faedrin says dismissively of the majordomo as he turns for the guest house. As he begins to disrobe, he glances toward Dareon as the man begins arranging his clothes and armor in the yard. "Don't bother fiddling with that, Dareon. Go ahead and draw some water." He gasps then as he looks up to see his sister disrobing, likely deliberately, in plain view of Dareon and the others. "Wasp! Get behind the curtains! This is not the place for your impropriety or obtuse flirtations!" He and his sister then settle into a quiet argument as Faedrin leads her to where she can disrobe modestly.
Oz stumbles back to Heidmarch Manor through the cold dark of night, mostly his choice based on his preference of staying unseen. After his run in with the ambush at the dilapidated bar, he stays focused on maintaining his diminished visibility.
As such, Sheila is a little taken aback by his appearance on the manor's front step as she emerges to meet with the others. She bids him to join her and makes her way to the furthest outbuilding. By the time she meets with the others they have all had time to clean themselves up, and even give Natalya a gentle wipe down without overstepping one's bounds, mostly wiping clean any already exposed skin.
After knocking on the door of their temporary quarters, she greets the dreary-eyed explorer that answers with a few simple direct questions, "Have you succeeded in bringing back the item I had requested? Additionally, I am told you had a woman in tow. Is it Natalya, and what condition is she in?"
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Finally back among familiar faces, Oz is rather exstatic that he is among allies once more. His entire body throbs at the pain from being in combat, and barely escaping with his life from that sorcerer, wizard, or whatever they were.
Rather concerned with how long it took them to become "presentable" he can't help but wonder what kind of mess they'd gotten into. He stands tall and eerily, swiveling his mask to look about everyone. "All went well?" he asks, somewhat sheepishly as he cocks his head to the side.
Faedrin regards Oz with an irritated glance before rolling his eyes and offering, "No. It didn't."
---
Faedrin turns as Sheila enters, still drying his hair with a now dampened towel, "We found Natalya, yes. She's probably still unconscious and would likely be dead twice over if it wasn't for me. The trouble she and her blasted goblins gave us I had half a mind to let Dareon run her through." He then looks up at meets Sheila's gaze and holds it, "As for the item, I do not think you've earned it, Sheila. You can have the girl Natalya, but the object has passed to me now and mine it shall remain."
Tanjvats toed the carpet a bit, unwilling to speak before the others.
Irritably, Dareon emerges from the bathroom, silken pants on but his chest bare, and a towel at use scrubbing his hair.
"We swam around in s&*~ for a few hours to get a little gem and now Fade wants to keep it. Understandable, it would be a good research subject. We brought back a traitorous woman and got attacked in the streets for trying to keep her alive and take her gem."
"A little compensation would be nice."
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Oz's whole head perks up as soon as the word "Gem" hits the air. "Where is it? The gem?" he asks, looking at Faedrin. Turning his head to Dareon, he smiles a little under his mask, thankful they can't really see it. "Did you properly search?" he asks, pointing at the unconscious woman. "Were her wounds binded?" He extends both of his surprisingly thin arms out to the crowd. "What of disease? Healthy?" he asks, recoiling a little at the thought of sewer infection.
"It's not a gem, you greedy fool. If you don't have faith in Tanjvat's ability to search for the precious baubles you're obviously so interested in, you're welcome to head back and swim through the filth on your own." Faedrin's tone is tight and harsh, it's obvious the day's and evening's events have worn on him and the barrage of questions are not well received in light of it all.
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Oz throws his hands up and backs up a little, shaking his hands a bit. In the literal sense, he even makes spirit fingers before balling them into fists and hiding his hands again. "He said it first..." he said, pointing his head towards Faedrin. "Nothing quite wrong with appraisal, eh? No. More curious about hidden weapons."
With that bit, he actually raises the left side of his cloak, revealing nothing short of 10 daggers well-hidden inside his layers. "Thiefs tricky. Good to remember." he says as he hides the daggers again, raising it again to show they've been hidden. "Give some credit..."
Sheila is taken aback by Faedrin's denial to hand over the item, so much so that it seems he had pushed her with his words. She lifts an eyebrow as if to question the seriousness of his statement, like maybe he had been putting her on and she was waiting to see a recant.
When one is not forthcoming, she looks at the elf and states "Mister Lantherion, the agreement was to find and return with the item. If I am to reward you for its retrieval, I need to see what I'm paying you for. Without the item, none of you get the reward, and without the reward there is no bonus for bringing the woman back alive. There is no money to be had by any of you until I am given the item you found."
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As the crowd goes silent with the sudden incursion of Sheila's not so unexpected frustration, Oz finds himself just looking around, waiting on something to happen. His hands, firmly in within his drapery. Giving each, obviously agitated party full head swivels. "Was deal..." he says somewhat sheepishly.
In the back of his head he's thinking about seeing how much the item itself was worth, and if it was worth the reward, really. Frankly it didn't much matter to him. He was half dead and somewhat loopy from tussling with sorcery. A fact he wasn't about to reveal until someone took interest in his endeavors.
"You know, Sheila, you're being awfully bossy for someone who didn't have the means or skill to get the job done. Look at it if you wish, but I'm done being your lackey. As for the terms of the deal, I have altered them. The shard is my payment and you will toss in the extra gold for recovering Natalya. Pray I don't alter them further." Faedrin punctuates his stance by tossing the pouch containing the shard to Sheila, an imperious scowl plain on his face.
Tanjvats knitted his brow and gave Faedrin a surprised look. The day had been stressful, but he didn't think it'd been that hard on the elf.
"Look, Faed, we're all tired, but I don't think this is helpful. Why are you so upset?"
Sheila avoids catching the pouch, letting it hit the floor at her feet. Scowling at the audacity of the elf to be so demanding she kneels and opens the pouch to look inside. As soon as she does her eyes widen and her jaw drops in shock as she steps back from it as if it were a snake about to bite her. She obviously recognizes what it might be, but isn’t immediately forthcoming with what she knows. Instead it appears as if her demeanor toward Faedrin has completely changed. "It would do me a great honor if you all would join me in the manor parlor and discuss this item further. Would you all be amenable to granting me an audience there? Especially you Sir elf? If it would please you, I will head over right now to prepare the room for our meeting?" She bows politely at Faedrin, and hope in her eyes, begins to turn back toward the manor proper.
Dareon watches the proceedings with interest, growing slightly uncomfortable at the fact that he's shirtless, and when Sheila changes to be suddenly more accommodating and respectful, all he has to say is, "Um."
He goes to put a shirt on.
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Oz just sort of stands there, rolling his eyes beneath his mask as he watches the woman's reaction curiously. Such large, full-body movements were silly at best but revealed quite a bit about a person's true facets.
Shaking his head, he said in a somewhat sarcastic tone. "Last time we were there we were attacked..." With that, he begins his venture towards the door. Waving the lot of the group over. "Hurry. Best not to separate..."
His body surged like a complete bruise at the idea of even losing sight of these people again with that ironic remark.
Faedrin calms visibly at Sheila's deference, and nods. "That would be fine, Sheila. Thank you." If she leaves the pouch on the floor Faedrin picks it back up and turns to Tanjvats, "Why am I upset?" His face clouds in thought for a moment as he thinks on Tanjvats' question.
Because the one in the mask is an unreliable, sneaky bastard who's planning on taking credit for what we accomplished tonight when he likely spent it sitting by himself in his favorite tavern, you're half mad on a good day, Dareon's a murderous thug, the dwarf is a graceless, bearded oaf, and my sister is a salacious harlot! Why wouldn't I be upset?!
"Because sometimes it takes getting upset for people to stop acting like idiots, Tanjvats." Faedrin straightens his tunic and takes a breath then continues in a more even tone, "Now. Finish getting dressed." He looks up at his sister and claps his free hand over his face in frustration. "Get dressed, Wasp. In something other than your undergarments! Gods above, why do you have to be so difficult sometimes?"
"You know," Dareon says, buttoning up his shirt and deliberately trying not to look at Elrawien, "We never took care of that other guard back at the s!~~-place."
He doesn't say more, he just leaves it out there.
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Standing at the door, leaned up against it with his back at the wall, Oz chuckles a little. "Getting frustrated. Doesn't help ignorance, no? Breeds more. Simmer..." he says, lowering his hands over and over again.
"Guard will likely warn others. Infiltration more difficult? Not sure." he says with a shoulder shrug.
Once everyone has collected in the parlor, she begins "I suspect I know what the shard that you found actually is. I believe it is based on Azlanti magic similar to what we the Pathfinders based the design of our wayfinders on, and if this shard reacts to an ioun stone in the same way, my hunch will be proven correct."
With that, she dips her hand into her pouch, and withdraws a scarlet and blue spherical gemstone. She holds out her hand, palm up, offered forward toward Faedrin, but says nothing. The gem is almost exactly the same size and shape as the small indent in the shard Faedrin carries.
Faedrin shrugs, his curiosity piqued, and takes the proffered stone. After a long moment of examining it, he draws forth the metalic shard liberated from Natalya's grasp and sets the stone in the divot.
Once the stone is placed, it flashes with coppery light and fuses to the shard, its appearance changing to look as if it were made of the same material as the shard itself.
At the same moment, Sheila clears her throat and speaks once again with her commanding demeanor “What you have found, my friends, is nothing short of a miracle. Varisia has seen its share of miracles of late—the discovery of Xin-Shalast and the defeat of Runelord Karzoug, or Korvosa’s release from mad Ileosa’s rule come to mind—but this discovery will soon be remembered as an equal to those events."
She points to the shard in Faedrin's hand "This is a powerful Thassilonian artifact, a fragment of horacalcum and a portion of the Shattered Star of Xin: to be precise, the Shard of Pride. I suspect that the shard’s current carrier already knows more about it than I do, in fact...”
Faedrin shakes his head briefly as the stone sets into the shard, his expression softening once more to his typical demeanor. "That... that was strange. I felt- I felt... odd." He glances over to Natalya, understanding dawning on his face. "You can release her now, Dareon. She'll be herself once more." He sets the shard down on the table before them. "There's dangerous magic in that shard. Very dangerous. I- I don't think I care to go through those... those feelings again."
Dareon sets her down on the ground, face-up, but doesn't unbind her. "Are you sure?" he asks, looking up at Fade. "Don't you want to wait until she wakes, first?"
Pointing at the shard, he continues, "But hey, if you don't want it, I'll take it. Dangerous magic is the best kind."
"No, it really isn't, Dareon. And unless I miss my guess, Sheila intends to keep the shard, yes?" He looks to the Pathfinder questioningly.
Sheila looks at Faedrin incredulously at his assumption, "Not quite Faedrin, what you have in your hands is an opportunity for great glory. By questing for the six remaining shards, they can rebuild the Shattered Star into the Sihedron and give Varisia a powerful defense against the dangers the region will doubtless face in the future—and in so doing prepare yourselves to be some of Varisia’s great defenders! As the keeper of this lodge, I am unfortunately effectively retired from any excursions into the history of the world."
She thinks of something, before explaining "Each fragment of the Shattered Star is linked to one more fragment in a set sequence, and that by concentrating on the Sihedron while holding a shard that’s been “awakened” with the proper ioun stone, one can receive a vision of the region in which the next shard in the sequence is located. Close your eyes and focus on the Sihedron shape, who knows where it could lead you and the glory of the Pathfinders."
Despite Oz's scrutiny, he is unable to determine what kind of value the shard could have just off the material itself. All he can tell is that it's not copper, but some unfamiliar copper colored metal.
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Winking for a moment at the strange piece of metal, Oz scoffs beneath his mask as he places it back on. Frustrating metal... Certainly more valuable?. Certainly metal. He immediately loses interest, and slinks back into the group, looking about.
Standing about, Oz reaches deep within his maze of pockets and retrieves the oddball silver dagger and fiddles with it almost immediately. [b]"This metal I understand. Nothing special. Exquisite, no?" he says, looking to Dareon. He stands in that same place for a moment, not swiveling his body at all, eyes locked with Dareon for just a few seconds. Without moving an inch, he follows with; "What now?"
Tanjvats felt relieved as Faedrin returned to his more reasonable self.
The explanation of the shard and its effect on its owners intrigued him. But Sheila's words about becoming "Varisia's great defenders" awakened his own feelings of worthlessness.
With a frown, he decided to do something to distract himself from thoughts of heroics.
He helped Dareon prepare Natalya for healing, and then provided that.