Faedrin looks uncomfortably from Sheila to the shard and nods in understanding. He closes his eyes in focus briefly as he holds the shard, though it's obvious the elf doesn't trust the object and is uneasy.
"It- It's in Magnimar. In- in the Crow!" He opens his eyes, slightly surprised to still be himself after using the artifact. "There's another shard in the Irespan." After regarding the coppery metal for a moment, he slides the shard across the table to Dareon. "I don't know if it's the shard I don't trust or myself, but I'd rather not be its keeper."
With Tanjvats' healing, Natalya's eyelids flutter briefly before she starts awake. She looks around confused trying to take in all her surroundings, lightly pulling at her bonds, before she looks right at Sheila and suddenly grows calm. She lowers her gaze, her features filled with what appears to be both shame and disappointment.
As Faedrin states the whereabouts of the next shard, Sheila's eyes alight, "This is wonderful, if you guys could go in and find the next shard it would be a noteworthy achievement for the Pathfinder society. For now, however," She withdraws a large pouch and begins to pay out the reward.
As they discuss going to the Crow, Natalya actually looks a little concerned.
|
As the magic swirls about, Oz feels his insides sooth as the various damage heals carefully. He places a hand to his chest and breathes easier, glad to feel that the damage is reverting to its old, wonderful function. Happy, he thumbs about, grabbing his coin purse and placing the respective gold inside, grinning wide underneath his mask.
"Job well done. Indeed..." He said, feeling the tension in the room rise a little as he accepted the payment, despite going off on a tangent. Turning his head, he looked back at the group, who also happened to be associating the money with their wallets much like he.
Looking down, he looked to Natalya, with her look of concern. "Our hostage is troubled." he says, walking next to her and looking straight at her at eye-level. "Why."
Faedrin stops Sheila as she starts to pass a pouch of gold to Oz. "Hold a moment. Why don't you tell us what you've been up to and where you've been all night first? We went through at least one hell tonight to find Natalya and bring her back safely. What did you do though?"
|
|
Oz sighs, forcefully taking the bag of gold from Sheila with a quick flip of his hand and losing the contents among his wear. "Nearly died. Does that help?" he asks, shrugging. It's very obvious that Oz doesn't really take well to accusation.
With a sigh, he followed through on his promise to himself. "Heard rumors. Headed out to the docks. Waited till nightfall. The building lit up. I went to it. Almost fell asleep. Heard something about a "Corporation". Attacked him. Sorcerer..." he said, sounding somewhat defeated as he rubbed his stomach. "Nearly died. Failed. Thought I was a "Consortium Assassin" he says, bending his fingers for the second time.
Tilting his head to the side. "Almost died today. Not lazy. Proficient. Made mistake. Apologies." with that, he returns to looking at Natalya, obviously bothered with the assumption that he'd done nothing all day.
Dareon sighs as his wounds close, but neglects to thank Tanjvats. That's what the half-orc was for, after all, wasn't it? Band-aid duty?
As Fade passes him the artifact, he eyes it greedily. He knows that it affected the elf-man negatively, but...it was dormant now, wasn't it? Right? He reaches for it, hesitantly, biting his lip.
Making a snap decision, he reaches for it further, and the second his fingers touch it, he feels his mind expand. He curls his fingers around it as he trembles slightly from the input of mental power.
Dareon smiles, looks up at Fade, and says, "Thank you, Fade. I'll take...good care of it."
Natalya's demeanor is made of much less bravado than it was with the shard. There is a certain level of defeat in her voice when she speaks, and she comes across as morose. "The Crow is where the Tower Girls are holed up. It was there I found the shard." she indicates the one Dareon now holds, "Well, at least before I left them."
"One of the Tower Girls found us while we were bringing you back here, Natalya. She wanted you dead and threatened to kill us too in order to see the deed done, but she and her goons scattered like rats once blood was drawn. From your tone it sounds like we can expect stronger resistance in the Crow?"
She actually doesn't look surprised at all about the word of wanting her dead, almost like she was already expecting it. "What did she look like, and the other women with her, what did they look like? If you go to the Crow, expect them to be there, and expect them to be treating the place as their hideout. They'll want to get rid of any witness that knows they're there."
"It was just one woman, a blonde. She was pretty, I think, but I was covered in sewage at the time and under the influence of some ancient artifact, so I'm not sure how much faith should be put in that particular opinion. She had three men with her, though they seemed to have less stomach for a fight than even her. She bolted as soon as I tagged her with my sword and her goons followed suit right after."
Natalya looks a little puzzled at the descriptions, "Well, I can tell right now the men were probably hired muscle. The Tower Girls is just that, all girls. A pretty blonde, sent for me? Sounds like Terisha, Ayala's right hand." she muses to herself, absently biting her nails as she mutters "So I was important enough to send your second in command, but not give her any help or come for me yourself you stupid b!#$&?"
|
|
Oz rolls his eyes beneath his mask. "Girls, girls. Both pretty." he says somewhat sarcastically. "So. No one worried? About me? Nearly dying? Hm?" he says as he flips the gold about beneath his clothes.
Scoffing, he puts his mask back on, pulling out one of his daggers to fiddle with; the silver one. "This hideout..." he says as he twirls the blade between his fingers. "How good security? Could scout. ... With assistance." Damned, he would be, before he went off on a tangent again.
"So, to get the second shard of this ancient star, we've gotta infiltrate the hideout of the very same gang that just tried to kill us?"
Dareon smiles, but it isn't one of mirth. It's really more of a baring of his teeth, a feral expression of glee.
Turning to Oz, he says, "I suppose I could accompany you in a scouting mission...just to get an idea of the reception that the others expect to receive."
Natalya just scoffs at the idea the two men just suggested, "Scouting? You just said you almost died," she points at Oz, "and you and the rest of your buddies had a hard time with just me and the few smelly goblins I managed to gather. Yet the two of you want to 'scout' the hideout of one of the local Sczarni gangs holed up in an Irespan piling standing alone in the Magnimar bay? A good half hour trip by rowboat."
"We didn't mean leave the rest of us here," replies Dareon, "right?" he says, gazing daggers at Oz.
Ignoring Dareon and Oz with a roll of his eyes, Faedrin turns to Natalya and nods calmly, "If we were to try to breach the Crow, Natalya, what do you think would be our best bet? Is there any approach or way in that might afford us an advantage?"
She gives a little snicker at Faedrin's reaction to the two men, before looking thoughtful at his question, "Well, they could see you coming across the water unless you went when it was dark. Also, there's an opening way up top of the arch at the landing. If you could climb up there safely, you could probably get the drop on a few of them, but not a lot."
Dareon passively fingers the horacalcum shard in his pocket while he cocks his head at Natalya. "Should we expect them to be hostile to us? If so, how many of them should we be expecting?"
Tanjvats listened to the planning with a growing sense of dread...and excitement.
Natalya looks at Dareon incredulously, "Well, now that Terisha knows what you all look like, and that you plan on walking into their hideout uninvited, I would say, yeah, they'll be hostile. Heck being mostly men trying to overpower them is secondary. Overall, I'd say your dealing with about," she looks up and to the side as it appears she is going through the count in her head. "ten maybe? That's not counting Ayala and her converts Sasha and Karisa."
|
|
Placing his hands to the base of his chin, producing an "Evil Triangle" with his hands, Oz sits down and crosses his legs. Thinking for a moment, he considered a few options.
"Curious. Expected more..." He says as he leans foreword maintaining his triangular hand symbol. "Darkness. We go under cover of darkness. Darkness... Capable of seeing Darkness. Have they anyone who can?" he asks, putting together pieces.
The women described weren't uncomely in appearance, for sure. "Have they Dwarves? Gnomes?" he asks, curious.
"Ten gang wannabes?" Dareon scoffs, crossing his arms. "As if we're in danger from them. We fought them before and they just ran away."
He looks down at her, arms still crossed and chin up, only his eyes meeting her gaze. "Any chance we could count on some aid from you or do you need to lie down for a few weeks to recover from your terribly exhausting ordeal betraying us?"
"There's no need to be rude, Dareon. Honestly, you and my sister have more in common than I initially thought." Shaking his head, he turns his gaze back to Natalya and waits for her to answer Oz's question before adding, "Natalya, I've been wondering: how did you come across that artifact to begin with?"
She sneers at Dareon, more like a grimace in the form of a fake chuckle, as she answers the other questions "Ayala and the other two can see in the dark, but everyone one else is pure human. I wasn't planning on coming with you, that's for sure." she looks crestfallen, and a little dissappointed "Just think about it, I left and betrayed them. I would be target number one anytime we came across any of them. Trust me, you will be fighting them on their turf, in their home and they will fight like.... well, like cornered rats." she actually gives a wry chuckle at this last turn of phrase.
As Faedrin speaks to her, her expression softens, and she looks at him with at least respect if not admiration. That quickly changes to shame, almost as if she realized her bearing had changed. "Well, I was the one that found the previously undiscovered entrance in the first place. So as we moved deeper into the Crow, there was an odd shaped room, like an 'X'. I noticed a small closet hidden in the wall, and when I opened it there was the skeleton of some dead guy. He had it."
"Were the Tower Girls aware of the second shard in the Crow before you- ah... struck out on your own?" He nods understandingly, it not being hard to imagine how the shard's influence could have led him to do much the same given enough time.
She becomes a little morose at his questioning of the shard, clearly understanding the reason for his careful choosing of words, "Doubt it. I didn't know til you just found out yourselves. I found it, showed Ayala, and she tried to claim it as her own. Told me anything we find is hers to decide what happens with it. So, I took it and left."
"As bad as it seems things have gone, Natalya, that decision to leave likely saved your life." He offers her a smile, then turns his attention to Sheila to give Natalya a slight reprieve from all the attention and questions. "I'm not well versed in Thassilonian magics, Sheila. More wasted time at the Academy, my father would likely say. But you mentioned the shards are in sequence? Do we know what the other shards are or maybe even which one is next after Pride?"
Dareon's nose crinkles. "Cornered rats?"
When the conversation turns back to Sheila, she sounds proud as she begins to explain. "Over the past several years, I’ve become something of an expert on Thassilon—the legacies of this ancient empire and its monuments and magic are, after all, the primary reason that the Pathfinders have become interested in Varisia. The story of the Shattered Star is one of the most oft-repeated legends of that time among those who write about ancient Thassilonian artifacts—surpassed only by the Seven Swords of Sin in popularity. Even so, the Shattered Star legend is still relatively obscure, yet I have long hoped to stumble across the location of a shard. Never in a thousand years did I even dare to hope that a shard would simply fall into my lap like this." By the time she finishes, her excitement is palpable, clearly overjoyed by the discovery.
"Although, I have no knowledge about what order the sequence follows, I promise to do some more research about the other shards and the Sihedron itself, and should have the results of that research for you all to use anywhere from several days to a few weeks." she sounds apologetic, before warning. "For now, I advise you to remain low-key about your goal. The longer you can keep the fact that you’re rebuilding the Shattered Star a secret, the bigger head start you’ll have against possible competitors for the prize, after all!"
Finally, she clarifies where they stand as far as her and the Society are concerned. "Now, I can’t promise specific rewards for you, but as word of your quest spreads, your growing fame will bring with it its own rewards, and allow you to bolster your reputation in the Pathfinder Society as well."
As Sheila goes into her long discourse on the shard and the goal, Natalya answers Oz and Dareon, "Not sure what 'things' you are asking are unsafe, but I don't expect it to be a cheerful stroll through the park. Usually there is someone watching from the opening at the top of the arch, and one near the bottom with the boats." When Dareon questions about the rats, she realizes they didn't know, and maybe she hadn't told them yet, "Oh, yeah, Ayala is a wererat, and I know she has converted at least the two others I mentioned earlier, Sasha and Karisa."
Dareon begins to smile as Sheila begins to explain the context of the mission they're to be sent on - finally! A goal worthy of his talents. His smile grows throughout her speech and doesn't lax. He couldn't be more overjoyed. Still, though, he was a little bit worried about the wererats that Natalya promised them. He tried to recall what he remembered of lycanthropic creatures.
To Shiela, a big smile on his face, he says, "I promise you that I will attempt to recover these shards to the best of my ability."
To Natalya, he says, "Are they there to merely warn the rest of the Tower Girls that intruders are there or are they there to shoot and kill any who approach? Are there directions that are blind to their watch?"
Faedrin nods as Natalya explains the presence of wererats but continues to focus his questions on Sheila.
"Do you have an ioun stone for us to set into the shard on-site, Sheila? Or will that shard afflict one of us similar to this one until we return here?"
Natalya just shakes her head at the question, "Yeah they will try to kill you. It's their hideout. I guess if you went wide around the piling, like a ways wide considering it's open water, maybe you could ease around to the front. But you still have to come in the front to get in."
Sheila looks apologetic as she answers, "Until I do more research, I don't exactly know which will be next, and what stone is tied to it. You may have to risk bearing the shard at least until you return here. I hope to have learned all I need to, and have acquired the required stone in that time, so we don't risk another curse."
Dareon shakes his head. "This is gonna be rough, then. I'm thinking that swinging the wide way around is gonna be the easiest on us. Gives us the most amount of the element of surprise. If we can't afford to do that, I'm afraid we'll have a tough battle ahead of us. Perhaps it would behoove us to purchase a tower shield or somesuch, so that we can hide behind it as we approach the lair?"
He paces a bit, patting his sword. "Even if we are puissant enough to get past all of the Tower Girls, there's no telling what the gem might do. Do you think, he asks, addressing either Shiela or Natalya, whoever has an appropriate answer, that one of us would be able to tell which of the stones it is before we pick it up? That might help determine who would be the best to give it to, if they're keyed to the seven Sins."
Faedrin nods but his expression falls as Sheila confirms his fears. He turns to Dareon and the actual task of their waterborne approach, "If we use a boat I can conjure fog to shroud us. I could also, if it was really needed, create an illusory decoy if we felt we needed the extra distraction."
"I think, responds Dareon, that if we were to use illusory decoys, the illusionary powers of the Shard would be much more appropriate. We could, however, combine them. Go with two illusory decoys. We could even try to fool them into thinking we had a very large force coming for their heads."
Faedrin shakes his head, "Or maybe we could be a little more subtle and save one to cover our retreat should we need it. If we can get to the crown of the piling without being noticed, I'd like even the thirty seconds of surprise that might gain. Making them think several boatfuls of guards are storming their base may help get us across the water unnoticed, but we'll have a lot of on edge, violent, and battle-ready women waiting for us once we get there."
|
|
Oz takes a moment to think roughly on the idea of wererats and considers all of their options, typically enjoying the idea of just not being seen at all. "Wererats...Shards..." he says, just sitting in the chair and rubbing his head. "Would prefer to stay hidden..." he says, in relation to the silent images of boats.
"Likely, they won't send large group to attack if seen." he states, before looking at Faedrin with his head in full tilt. "They also prepared for us, yes? Perhaps better to wait?" he asks.
Tanjvats thought about where he might pick up some alchemical silver bolts for his crossbow.
"Well, we should wait at least long enough to have a night's rest. Should it be longer? What do you think is best, Oz?"
"I definitely need a rest....and a think. And don't worry, I can procure a silver weapon or two for us. Oz, for one, already has one."
|
|
He laughed openly. Someone finally asked his opinion on something. Good to see he still had some credibility. "You." he said, pointing at Faedrin. "Repelled right hand, yes?" he asks, tilting his head. "... They don't know of me." he states, looking at them and pointing at himself.
He sat, thinking rather thoroughly. "No boat... They bring boat, yes?" he said, tracing a circle around the floor. "They on island. Have to get off, yes?" he asked, pointing at the top of the traced bit. "Defeat people. Take boat. On time? Wait. Be patient."
Standing up he pointed at Faedrin. "We watch. Check out times, yes? Give others time to prepare." he asked of the Elf.
Faedrin's brow furrows and his eyes narrow as he tries to draw meaning from Oz's fragmented statements.
"You... suggest we... starve them out? Steal their boats and starve them out?" He cups his chin in his hand as he considers the idea. "That does seem safest, but it assumes they have no means of communication from the Crow and no allies or other affiliations in the city willing to help them." He shrugs and looks around the table, "There will be risks either way. We can attempt to breach their hideout discreetly by boat and try and work our way through their ranks or we can try and wait them out by attrition. I think the first approach will afford us more control over the situation, but who can know?"
|
|
Oz shakes his head, knowing what he said all too well. "Best if not all at once. Regardless. Need silver, yes?" he asked, pointing at his own dagger. "Best if ambush. Cannot be seen. Too worrisome." he said, suddenly turning to the woman.
Walking up with the dagger in his hand, he proceeded to cut away her bindings. As he did, he asked simply; "12 Women, yes? Climb to top? Go at night? Simple enough." As he stood up, he finished cutting the woman's bindings. "We prepare." he says simply.
Natalya rubs her wrists, nodding with each question Oz asks "You know what? You kill that dirty rat, Ayala, the head of the gang, and I'll give you my boots. Yeah, I know they don't look like much, but they are this sweet little burglar's pride. They are a great help sneaking in a high window, and have just saved my butt a time or two."
"What about the interior of the Crow? Do you think you're familiar enough with it that you might be able to sketch us a layout of the place, Natalya?"
"Indeed, or the schedules of the Tower Girls?"
Dareon fidgets with his sword, with his clothes, and with the Shard, which he has in his hand. He looks distracted and impatient.