'Zellara's is closer, let's lie low there for now and see what we can learn. I'm not really enthusiastic about staying in this filth-pile very much longer.' The Black Merlin takes his share of the load and heads out toward Zellara's.
Yanis will carry the head in the box back to Zellera's home.
"Should we knock?" Yanis keeps an eye out for anyone coming, his new found crystal hanging out his shoulder.
"Couldn't hurt," Headsman shrugs, still cradling the little girl. He turns to check on whoever took the boy. "Still unconscious?"
'Zellara's is closer, let's lie low there for now and see what we can learn. I'm not really enthusiastic about staying in this filth-pile very much longer.'
"I don't know, it looked like Io was enjoying resting in a bed of spiderwebs."
"I don't know, it looked like Io was enjoying resting in a bed of spiderwebs."
'I was watching you catch that quick nap earlier at Lamm's feet. Didn't look very comfortable to me.'
"Couldn't hurt," Headsman shrugs, still cradling the little girl. He turns to check on whoever took the boy. "Still unconscious?"
“I’m afraid so,” Machaera says. It’s been a while since she’s been in anywhere near so desperate a plight, but she can tell that whatever Lamm was doing to the children, they haven’t been leading lives that would have helped them resist much longer. With a nod to Yanis, she adds, “Once we’ve had the time to rest, I’m sure it will be easy for the doctor to help look after the cuts and bruises, but if there was anything in the bite? Well, a healer would be better able than I to tell you how some things need to be watched.”
Machaera shifts her fragile burden awkwardly. It’s painfully obvious that she’s not carried many children in her time, is worried about dropping the boy, but has no instincts that could be plausibly described as maternal. Since Headsman’s friend is too big for her to cradle in one arm, Machaera decides not to stand on ceremony tonight and opts to aim a brisk kick or two at the base of Zellara’s door to announce the group’s presence. While waiting for any response, she offers, wearily, “I sleep lightly, but I can take the first watch. I’ve had an easier night of it than the rest of you.”
Io glares at the Albatross, "Do you want to fight? Because I will fight you."
Yanis pushes the door open then turns back to Io and The Albatross.
"Children I will not give out any candy if you fight like this before your turn. No please enter the abode." Yanis smiles a bit and enters the house. Once inside he will move to the room that they met Zellera in.
No response comes from Zellara's house when you kick the door in. Inside, the house is a completely different scene from the domestic grace you found when you first entered. The furniture has been broken into pieces, lying drunkenly around as if smashed during a bacchanal of Rovgaug. Dust lies in a coat at least several weeks thick, and only your previous séance with Zellara has made an impact on it. As you observe your surroundings, an image of Zellara sitting at a table appears in the room.
"Welcome my friends. Thank you for rescuing my card deck from Gaedren Lamm. I am sorry for the lack of complete truth, but I was limited in what information I could relay without my deck. My spirit has joined with the deck that you now hold, and with the fortunes granted by Cayden Calien and Phasrama, I can communicate with you via illusion magic once a day as long as one of you carries the deck, or use that for other purposes. I can see and hear depending on how you carry the deck, but if the illusion spell has already been used, then I will only be able to relay emotions to the one who carries the cards. In addition, I will be able to cast your fortunes at certain times which will empower you with the blessings of the Harrow, and also predict what was, what is, and what will be, though always through the eyes of misty and uncertain prophecy. They don't call this the Age of Lost Omens for nothing, apparently! I can also identify magic items for you three times a day, if you hold up a Harrow card to your forehead and concentrate on the item."
As to the past, my tale is true. Lamm is dead and your revenge is complete. Exposing his secrets and destroying his foul drugs will render full judgement on him, may he find eternal torment in the Abyss. The present and the future is what I fear for now. The city you live in will face tragedies and terrors far beyond what Lamm has inflicted upon it, though what they are beyond this I only have moderate inklings of. If you have questions, please ask.
As Zellara speaks, the group starts to hear from outside "The king is dead! Long live the queen!" "Hang the queen from a ship mast! Keelhaul her! Down with the usurper! My cabbages!" Alarm bells begin to ring from outside the shop, and the smell of smoke begins to waft in from the docks.
Headsman's eyes grow wide at the state of the house. "Did someone ransack this place while we were gone? ... wait, that can't be right."
His eyes only grow wider as Zellara appears before the group. He listens attentively as she speaks, having set Princess down on the remains of a sofa's cushions.
"Thank you, Zellara. It's just too bad that we couldn't get to the old bag before he got to you."
"... looks like it's a party outside. Good thing we made it here before things got too rowdy."
As Zellara's image monologues, The Black Merlin takes in the wreckage of the formerly quaint home. How were we able to sit in those chairs? Maybe I should have the Doc check my backside for splinters. The Vigilante absentmindedly wipes a hand across his posterior, checking for bits of wood. His mind is snapped back to attention by the shouts from outside.
'That's not good. There's likely to be riots tonight' He turns back to Zellara's form. 'You said that Korvosa would face tragedies, is all that out there the start of the tragedy?'
Zellara nods to Headsman and the Black Merlin, and says "It's alright, Headsman. What matters is that revenge and justice were both carried out, and the world is less one corrupted celestial. Sad when those who profess to be the ultimate representation of law and good fall to their own fears and misdeeds. Black Merlin, that would be one guess. What else will happen I don't know. I simply see misery, death, blood, and darkness. I also see some struggling against it. Who, why, how, and if they are successful I also don't know."
When the rioting starts, Io mutters to herself, "Karrabast. Just what we needed. And why did it start at midnight, of all times? Were people waiting up for this?"
“Mm. Bad timing,” Machaera murmurs. She tries to sort out what she can hear filtering in from outside and what she knows of Korvosa, and starts thinking out loud. “News travels fast. Then again, I gather the king is – was – considerably older than his queen, so it was likely to have happened eventually. But she is the queen, isn’t she, and not a consort? ‘Usurper’ seems a bit much…”
The words of Zellara’s ghost also ricochet through Machaera’s brain. “Corrupted celestial?”
First things first. As the severity of the disturbance outside becomes clear, the young elf turns to face back into the room and quickly makes her suggestion. “I didn’t realize the royals were that unpopular. Under the circumstances, it might be best to bar the door, keep an eye out, and try to get some rest until daybreak. It even smells like someone’s setting fire to something, and wandering through that sort of night is hardly my idea of a suitable end to even the most extravagant evening.”
Her eyes move, troubled, from the unconscious children to the fortune-teller’s shade. As she considers Zellara’s image, Machaera’s sympathy wars with her spine-tingling awareness of the horror of the question she feels she must ask: “Your spirit, caught up in your cards… how can – can you bear it? Would it give you peace if we tried to find a way to let you … pass on to the planes?” The euphemism is clumsy in her mouth, but while she’s seen many things, Machaera has hardly developed a familiarity with conversation with ghosts.
Zellara simply shakes her head."No, Machaera, I will pass on when my time is done. Phasrama makes that clear, no matter who you are. It's more important now that you help these children, the city, and yourselves survive what's coming. Besides, what type of mother would I be if I let children die while I go on to the afterlife?
"So do we go out in to the riots right now? I feel my cart will be safe for now, I hope this does not get worse."
Can this wait until morning at the very least? I don't even know what we could do at the moment.
Zellara says "If it were I, I would wait for a bit until at least the initial fury over the king's death dies down. You all look wounded, tired, and drained.
Io glares at the Albatross, "Do you want to fight? Because I will fight you."
"Sure, if you feel that you have something to prove. But it'll have to wait. As the Merlin pointed out, stepping between danger and this group has taken a bit more than my breath today."
As Zellara speaks, the group starts to hear from outside "The king is dead! Long live the queen!" "Hang the queen from a ship mast! Keelhaul her! Down with the usurper! My cabbages!" Alarm bells begin to ring from outside the shop, and the smell of smoke begins to waft in from the docks.
Did I just hear that right? What's going on outside?
The Albatross moves toward a window carefully to see what he can discern is going on outside.
'I can't sit by and watch the Midlands get torn apart. I'm going to go out and see what collateral damage I can mitigate.' If any of the firearms or powder back at the shop fall into the wrong hands tonight could get much, much worse. The Merlin makes ready to go out into the city. 'I'll be back in the morning, or whenever this quiets down.'
@Corvus. You see people beginning to riot, some shouting for the queen and other shouting against her. A wing of Sable Company hippogriff riders swoops overhead, angling toward Castle Korvosa at a breakneck pace. One of the badly wounded hippogriff mounts rains blood down on the street before it succumbs and crashes headlong into a statue, taking its rider and itself to a messy, bone-crunching demise. The others in the flight do not pause to check on their fallen ally.
A street doomsayer walks by the window, preaching worship of Groteus, the moon of the end times. Another walks by him, wearing a sign that says "Death is nigh, the Horror of the Deep awakens from his 10 million year slumber." A boy runs by holding a loaf of bread, beating off a flock of seagulls trying to steal it. Two women grapple each other, trying to prevent the other from entering into the house they live in, screaming something about murder and lack of authority. More men gather nearby a house down the street and pull out its owner, beating him with clubs and yelling "Go back to hell, stinking Varisians!"
"I might stay inside for a bit, my father is Varisian and being of a Dark skin tone I am more at a risk for assault by a crowd of angry men and women." Yanis' skin isn't just dark like that of a human it is more like that of a dark skinned elf.
"Yeah... Maybe if I was in any shape to fight, but I get a lotta dirty looks. 'Half-breed', 'Street rat', and all that trash."
Machaera silently ponders Zellara’s words. It’s the first I’ve heard of a ghost who’s not a heretic thinking their state is a gift from Pharasma, but I’m hardly a theologian. Nor have I talked with many among the undead.
She shudders. Still, if I can half believe the grace of the forest saved me, who am I to say that this spirit was not meant to linger?
As threats of ethnic violence carry more clearly from outside in the moment it takes for the Black Merlin to disappear back into the night, Machaera finds herself with nothing to add to the others’ discussion of the hate festering under Korvosa’s surface. As a fairly well-to-do elf, even a cause célèbre has only slowed her down rather than proving utterly disastrous. It would be another thing if she meant to actually carve a space for herself in one of the city’s formal organizations – or worse, society – but otherwise being a mad witch in Korvosa isn’t too awful, so long as one doesn’t get falsely accused of murder.
Salvaging what she can of torn and dusty chair cushions, Machaera tries to make the wounded children as comfortable as she can before pulling up a section of wall and propping herself against it with as much gracefulness as she can muster, keeping an eye on the door.
“Get some rest,” she urges. “I’ll take my turn later and prepare my spells properly first thing, but there’s too much in the air right now for me to relax quite yet.”
Nonetheless, she forces herself into the preliminary exercises necessary to clear her mind before thinking about magic in earnest, as part of the long process of shaping raw magic to something more practical.
The Black Merlin exits Zellara's home and seeks the quickest route to the rooftops. Best to stay above the riots, I'll make better time
The black-clad, bird-masked man then takes the quickest route back to his mild-mannered alter-ego's shop, Radnaick's Rifles.
@Corvus. You see people beginning to riot, some shouting for the queen and other shouting against her. A wing of Sable Company hippogriff riders swoops overhead, angling toward Castle Korvosa at a breakneck pace. One of the badly wounded hippogriff mounts rains blood down on the street before it succumbs and crashes headlong into a statue, taking its rider and itself to a messy, bone-crunching demise. The others in the flight do not pause to check on their fallen ally.
A street doomsayer walks by the window, preaching worship of Groteus, the moon of the end times. Another walks by him, wearing a sign that says "Death is nigh, the Horror of the Deep awakens from his 10 million year slumber." A boy runs by holding a loaf of bread, beating off a flock of seagulls trying to steal it. Two women grapple each other, trying to prevent the other from entering into the house they live in, screaming something about murder and lack of authority. More men gather nearby a house down the street and pull out its owner, beating him with clubs and yelling "Go back to hell, stinking Varisians!"
Works for me... although is it possible to return to our alter ego locations/safe houses and then return to the party?
So everyone but the Black Merlin is resting in Zellara's home? Just confirming for the next scene, so to speak.
"Miss Zellara," Headsman approaches the apparition aside from the group. "I'd like to ask for a bit of a favor."
"See, it's like this: I watch over a bunch of street kids like myself, and we have this hideout, but it's getting pretty cramped, especially considering the kids we just freed from Lamm. There's no way we can take in the orphans and the runaways from that group in what little space there's left."
"Is... is anyone going to be taking care of your house? I know it's a lot to ask, but would it be okay with you if some of us street punks crashed here for a while? I promise I'll get everyone to take good care of the place."
Zellara nods her head yes, and says "You, and any of your charges would be welcome to stay here, Headsman. Or any of you for that matter. My family is gone, and no one is left to inhabit the building at this point. You will probably have to go to the building commission and pay the yearly property tax fee, along with an orphanage fee, if you're going to maintain it as a home for children.
I doubt that will need to be done for a bit, while the queen sorts out her new government, but I would do it sooner rather then later. They may take a while to knock down houses after they're considered abandoned, but it's been my experience that new administrations in Korvosa like to show how shiny and organized they are by going over the tax and income rolls, and finding new ways to gain income at the expense of many without a lot of return until the government matures. King Eodred, may his soul rest in peace, was pretty cheap, and we're seeing the effects now. I don't think the queen is going to be anywhere as cheap, or the future bright, even without the cards.
Yanis listens to all this, worried about his own shop in Old Korvosa.
"On the morrow we might need to travel to our own respective homes to inspect them and then meet back here. Till then I am exhausted and need to rest."
Yanis will retire to a vacant room and rest.
Io kips up, making a makeshift pillow on the ground, and starts to snooze, regardless of who's around. A true fighter, she begins to breathe deeply (but not snore) within just a minute or two of laying down.
Machaera listens to and watches the others’ last questions to Zellara’s – ghost? shade? The undead are definitely not her strong point, nor is divination, though she’s stronger in that than in necromancy. She wonders if it would it be frightfully rude to examine both deck and ghostly image for magic, but all that is by the by, until such time as she can develop her repertoire of suitable spells.
She tries to focus on grounding herself in her exercises again, before her train of thought leads her too deep into the events of the past few years of her life, not least her passage through Geb. When that fails, Machaera tries to hold on to her happier memories of Garund. As if by instinct, her hand closes lightly around the pendant she wears at her throat.
I can rejoin the party for the next scene whenever we're ready.
The Black Merlin spends a restless night keeping watch over the street outside of Radnaick's Rifles. Mostly keeping out of sight, the vigilante takes shots at any looters attempting to get into shops and residences. The Merlin tries to get a look at the faces of the people on either side of the riot, taking special note of any that try to loot in his neighborhood.
So we'll fade to black for the next day. The Black Merlin is able to lessen the rioting without causing anyone permanent harm, protects his shop, and the rest of the group rests, with Zellara watching out for trouble.
"We should leave the kids here while we check to see the fallout from last night. Take a look around and see what amenities are left. Food, water, blankets. We can secure the doors and windows as best as possible before leaving."
The Black Merlin yawns and stretches, what little sleep he was able to get, was fitful. He moves to the window and checks the scene in the street out front of Zellara's. The mob had all gone home shortly after the forces of order had retaken the city. The vigilante frowns as he remembers taking aim at neighbors last night, always aiming to injure or frighten, but taxing all the same.
'Headsman, do you know any older children we could get to keep an eye on things? I hate to leave these poor kids on their own after last night.' The fatigue is clear in his voice.
Thankful for having had a full night's rest to mend his wounds, Headsman ponders the question for a moment.
"Maybe. I gotta stop by the Court to let them know about Zellara's. I'll ask, but they're probably already stretched pretty thin, I can't imagine the riots were too easy on the kids. Wish I'd been in better shape to help."