The Albatross loses another 1 hp...
The Merlin again takes aim with his pistol and another shot bursts forth from the barrel with a sharp report.
The vigilante then quickly roots through his bag and retrieves a potion vial, prepared to aid at least one of his comrades, if he can.
'You'll pay for all you've done against the people of Korvosa, you bastard!'
Merlin's pistol ball takes another chunk out of Gaedren, but the impact is less then Merlin would expect. Alabtross continues to bleed out, Headsman is stabilized but unconscious, and Machaera has moved up.
Io is up.
Io, finally faced with her hated foe, unleashes a pair of powerful spinning kicks at his wolfy face.
A mystical force seems to propel Io's frame at a more powerful rate then she expects, and her kicks connect with Gaedren's face, spinning his wolven head around 360 degrees with a massive crack. His frame crumbles, and the symbol of an avalanche appears above for an instant before vanishing. The wolf of woe will bite no more orphans this night.
Io lands nimbly on her feet, arm outstretched in a gymnast's pose, and spits on the fallen form, "Good riddance."
She then looks (somewhat helplessly) at the dying forms of Albatross and Headsman, unsure of what to do.
Yanis will crawl over to Albatross, applying some healing to the man to stop the bleeding.
"You are not ready to move on yet my new friend."
As it becomes clear that Lamm is going nowhere after falling to Io’s ferocious assault, Machaera realizes she can take a proper breath. Glad that she didn’t have to turn desperately to fireworks and prayers, she sheathes her weapons and hurries over to the others in time to see Yanis quickly lay a first dressing on the Albatross’ wounds.
“Can we help in any way, doctor?” she asks. “I’m afraid the most I can do is try to put a stitch in the right place if you guide me.”
She shoots a venomous look at Lamm’s corpse, but she doesn’t allow herself even a feeling of grim satisfaction until she can be sure that the group’s done everything they can for the masked man and the unlucky youth the old wretch has laid low. Instead, she runs an eye over what’s left of Lamm for any potions or such he might be carrying that could prove of use.
Io, after the initial shock of seeing her friends fall to the ground, and her goal of kicking Gaedren in the face is realized, she kneels down by Albatross, helping Yanis tend to the bleeding figure.
The Merlin watches as Io's fleet feet fell Lamm, stunned for a moment by the grace and brutality of her strikes. He revels in the lightness that briefly washes over him as the light leaves Lamm's eyes. The cold sucking vacuum of the rest of his life without his sister pulls him back to the present. The Black Merlin watches the others tend the wounded and remembers the vial clutched in his hand. He holsters his pistol and pulls another, identical vial from his pack.
'I have these, if they'll help. They're not very strong, but they work.' The vigilante holds the vials out for Yanis to inspect.
Yanis will take one of the potions and ingest it, directing its healing magic towards Headsman.
The other he will slowly pour into The Albatross' mouth
Headsman wakes with a start and, like a man possessed, immediately leaps onto Lamm's fallen form, pummeling the corpse's loose-necked head with brutal punches.
"GET UP! I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU!"
As it becomes increasingly clear that Lamm is not, in fact, in any condition to seek revenge upon, Headsman curses loudly and hurls the body against the wall.
"One chance. I had ONE CHANCE to get some words in, and AGAIN he threw me around like I was nothing!"
Still consumed in a hurricane of violence, Headsman retrieves his weapon.
"I gotta make sure the bastard doesn't stand up. You know how he is, Io. You know how many times we thought we were finally rid of him."
Headsman lays the body out and sizes the old man up, carefully lining his axe up with Lamm's neck.
It was time to live up to his name...
After handing over the vials to the doctor The Merlin carefully reloads his pistol. His work is interrupted by Headsman's abuse of their common foe's corpse.
'You don't get all of him. This ball here has his name written all over it. I owe him doubly, now that he nearly killed my partner.' The Merlin calmly walks up to Lamm's body and aims carefully for the fiend's stilled heart.
The vigilante watches Headsman to coordinate their blows.
I've got Unhappy Childhood, and but of course ;).
Io puts a comforting hand on Heads' shoulder, "We still got him in the end, though. He was a tough old man, and he's laid all of us out in one way or another."
Machaera watches with grim satisfaction as Headsman and the Black Merlin take position to make absolutely sure that Lamm is well and truly dead. What he did to her is bad enough, but to some of the others…
The thought suddenly reminds her that there are still other children present that should be spared any more horror this night. She quickly moves to get them safe out of their manacles and on solid ground again. Machaera supposes it’s some kind of mercy that they’re unconscious now, and she writhes inwardly with the storm of feeling that rises in her. She wishes she could safely wake the poor things, but then resents this one more thing that she might be expected to know. Of course, that makes her feel guilty about being frustrated with children who have been horribly abused.
First things first: get the unconscious children out of their bonds at least, so they’re not hanging like so much butchered meat, and then make sure that Lamm hasn’t left any nasty surprises in this last retreat. Finally, by focusing on the individual steps of each little thing she's setting herself to work on, Machaera manages to avoid being overwhelmed by her doubts about what will come of the events of this night.
"I can help our unconscious friend here more if we get him back to my office."
Yanis will turn his head away from what Headsman is about to do, "I don't feel the body of a dead man deserves such acts but I will not stop you. Just remember that as Io has said he has been stopped and the children are free. Headsman is this what you wish you family to see from you? To know of you?"
Yanis will change the bandages on Albatross.
Machaera gets the kids down. Both of them seem fine, but they do have bite scars marking on their thighs and upper arms. They are still unconscious.
On Gaedren you discover the following
A set of wolf-headed engraved bracers, each one depicting a wolf's head swallowing the moon or the sun, made out of silver and steel
An extremely well made greataxe, glowing with a purple light (equal to a torch)
A sheath for a sword, even though Gaedren had none on him
Two keys, one iron and the other brass
On Num-Num, you found a pouch containing the following (attached to his collar) Apparently even hounds like to spend money?
23 pp, 210 gp
In the room you find seven applications of vermin repellant (one of which says use against dung beetles...) and a coffer made out of darkwood, plus a unopened door.
Headsman pauses for a moment at the question, then frowns.
"I'm not happy doing this, doc. But sometimes I gotta do ugly things to keep those you care for safe."
He nods to the Black Merlin, and down comes the axe, punctuating the end of a chapter in his life.
"Thanks for getting the kids down, Miss Selanna."
Leaving his weapon embedded in the floor for a moment, he joins Machaera at the children's side, and notes their injuries.
"... he dared. I hope he burns in hell. Doc, what do you make of these wounds?"
As the Headsman's axe falls on the neck of Gaedren Lamm, The Black Merlin pulls his trigger. The fallen crime boss's chest erupts in crimson and the Merlin gives the corpse a kick. The Vigilante then sees to his partner. Seeing that the Doctor has patched up his friend and that he seems to be stable, the Merlin remembers an unfinished task.
'We need to find Zellara's cards. We owe her for giving us Lamm's location.' He eyes his unconscious friend. 'And we should probably hurry. Between the city guard and Gaedran's men, someone will be along before too long.'
Io, once she's confident that there is nothing more of value on Lamm, kicks the body into the water below. She then tries to open the coffer (using the keys found on Gaedren if it's locked) and see what's inside. Once the room is searched, she, holding her shield at the ready, opens the last door to see what's inside, prepared for any last surprises Gaedren might have pulled.
"the wounds look like ..."
Lamm's corpse sinks into the pool, where it is promptly seized by what appears to be a rather large shark and dragged into the depths of the pool.
"I think you will survive the bites my large friend, they are mean to cause an infection but you seem right now to be ok. I will keep an eye on you though." Yanis will stand up, the fatigue of the afternoon wearing on him and the wounds that he took from Headsman and others starting to fade.
"So we collect some things and head back to Zellera?"
As Headsman and Yanis join her, Machaera muses over the doctor’s findings. To Headsman’s final curse on Lamm, the young elf woman adds, “Or the Abyss tear his soul! I only hope your friends are alright. We’ll help you get them – home.” She hesitates just a second over the last word, wondering how these children actually live in the uncaring city.
Hearing Io kick the corpse into the water, Machaera snaps her head around and joins the search of the villain’s lair, still troubled as she catches a last glimpse of the transformed body. Could Korvosa have a lycanthropic problem? From what I gathered, Lamm was only a wretched excuse for a human… Something to ask the others about, I suppose. And it would probably be wise, given how resilient even his pet was, to get a dagger silvered, or the like.
Seeing Io pause over the coffer’s contents, Machaera takes a closer look herself, considering the possibilities both magical and mundane.
Text dump incoming
Machaera removes the fingertip she had dipped into the powder from her mouth. “Shiver,” she pronounces coolly, her level tone betraying none of the disgust she feels, as unpleasant memories of her route through Katapesh flit through her mind. “It’s not a conversation I’m looking forward to, but the guard should take this off our hands, and it will be kinder to the fishes than the alternative.”
The auras she detects on the sheath and bracers are rather more interesting, and Machaera switches her focus to those instead, trying to narrow down what magic they might possess.
“A moment, if you please, and then we can check next door. We’re rather running out of places where Lamm could possibly have hidden Zellara’s cards.”
"Yes that is a terrible drug, I have a contact in the guard whom I have given drugs that I have found to be destroyed. I will take you to meet him Machaera."
Yanis will move about tending to everyones wounds.
So moving towards the door...
Io finds that the brass key opens the door, and anyone looking in sees the following.
This foul-smelling room seems to be a combination bedroom and study. A wooden bed with a lumpy mattress stands against the east wall, while a round table heaped with dirty plates, bread crusts, stained goblets, fruit rinds, and scuttling cockroaches sits nearby. At the foot of the bed sits a large strongbox; a slightly rusted lock secures it and a moldy ledger with pages rippled from moisture sits atop its lid. A sagging dresser filled with moth-eaten clothes well past their glory days is in one corner. What appears to be a wooden hatbox surrounded by a small cloud of flies sits atop this dresser.
“Fascinating, an extradimensional space…” Machaera muses, turning the scabbard over in her hands. She tosses it to Headsman with a grin. “It might be useful, if only for those occasions when one doesn’t wish to announce that one’s carrying a greataxe.”
With that, she follows Io into the next room.
This foul-smelling room seems to be a combination bedroom and study. A wooden bed with a lumpy mattress stands against the east wall, while a round table heaped with dirty plates, bread crusts, stained goblets, fruit rinds, and scuttling cockroaches sits nearby. At the foot of the bed sits a large strongbox; a slightly rusted lock secures it and a moldy ledger with pages rippled from moisture sits atop its lid. A sagging dresser filled with moth-eaten clothes well past their glory days is in one corner. What appears to be a wooden hatbox surrounded by a small cloud of flies sits atop this dresser.
Machaera wrinkles her nose against the stench. She briefly considers drawing her sword just so she has something in hand to skewer any bugs that get too close, but then again she’s not sure there’s anything in the room she’d even want to wipe her blade off with.
“I imagine the other key must be for the strongbox. Maybe this will tell us what’s in it, or, better, how or when it got here.” Machaera gingerly grabs the ledger as if she fully expects something to scuttle out of it, and after giving it a careful shake or two, opens it at random and starts scanning the entries.
"Doc, what's with these bites? Do you think he's infected them?"
"I think you will be fine, I would wash them out now but the water here is fetid looking."
upon entering the room, Yanis takes one breath then puts his mask on, muffing his voice.
"This is well... not sanitary, we should burn ourselves clean after this room."
"I meant the kids, Doc. I can take a beating and then some, but these two aren't rough and tumble like that."
The Merlin waits by his fallen companion, keeping watch over the Albatross. He reloads his pistol and catches a whiff of the bestudroom.
'I didn't think this place could smell worse.'
Yanis will use 3 power points to bring the Albatross up to positive hit points.
The ledger appears to be in some form of coded Varisian.
Machaera frowns, deciding that one of these decades, especially now that she’s back in Varisia, she should see about eventually learning the local human languages. In the meantime, she admits, as graciously as she can, “I must confess, unless it deals with magic, cryptography is not my strong point. Nor, for that matter, is … Varisian? I believe.”
'Welcome back to the land of the living, chum. That was a close call. You probably owe the good doctor here a drink.' The Black Merlin helps the Albatross to his feet.
Io sighs and shakes her head, "You people are hopeless. Here, gimme that." she grabs the ledger and looks it over.
However, her first glance is unsatisfactory, and she re-examines it.
"I swear, I'm getting somewhere. Just... give me a minute to think, okay? This is a tricky code."
"... uh." Headsman tilts his head.
"Yep. I haven't a clue."
Yanis will look over the ledger, "I am not really sure I can make out some words but that is it." He will continue to tend to the Albatross.
Since the chest is locked and the ledger is beyond her, Machaera takes her chances with something that might not be so frustrating. To the youngsters who knew more of him than she did she says, “Did Lamm have a taste for fancy hats?”
Some people enchant them to allow for quick disguises. A handy trick for an old sneak, she thinks. The flies are disturbing, and she shudders to think how long it might have been since anything owned by Lamm was cleaned, but if it is something useful, maybe it can be salvaged. Machaera opens the hatbox and hopes for the best. She’s not much of a hat person herself, and she knows it’s probably too much to ask for a nice hood instead – practical, possibly elegant if draped appropriately. You know.