Pel breathes a sigh of relief as one of the otyughs falls. There is still one to go, though. Perhaps he could get in range for a different ability this time around. Moving closer to the creature, Pel unleashes a wave of fire at it.
As Kalem and Bashiel advance on the second otyugh, it tries to bite Kalem and rip off an appendage but the wily tieflif easily dodges the lumbering creature's attack. They then follow up with a pair of deveatating attacks.
The otyugh retaliates against the two of them. It's attacks against Kalem are fruitless but one tentacle slaps into Bashiel for trivial damage but manages to lift him off the ground and pull him in, waving him about in the air like a rag doll.
"Bashiel! Let go of him!"
He swung, but with Bashiel grappled it was hard to hit without hurting his comrade as well.
Zamanda moves and shoots again.
But she is too hasty and trips over her own feet, shooting the arrow harmlessly into the ground.
Like Zamanda, Quin aims and tries to hit without harming Bash or Kalem...
"AGGHHHHH!" Bashiel squirms in place, but finds the creature's tentacle to have an iron grip. Rather than struggle against it, he drops his now-useless bardiche, draws a longsword, and stabs the tentacle grabbing him.
When the first otyugh falls Varor moves in to engage the other while it is preoccupied with Bashiel.
The party, concerned about accidentally hitting their comrade, is cautious with their attacks and the enraged otyugh is able to deflect one after the other. However, already. Adult wounded from Kalem and Bashiel's earlier attacks, it finally succumbs to Pel's blast of flame. It collapses to the ground, its grip on Bashiel released, and begins sliding back into the hole from which they burst forth.
Gradually, the screaming and hysterics from the commoners begins to subside and several come up offering their thanks and gratitude including one mother clutching at her toddler-son.
Zamanda smiles at the thanks, but hurries west quickly, worried that this delay has allowed someone else to get to Trinia first.
Quinlan will spend a moment fielding the attention from the crowd, allowing the rest of the group to head to see Trinia unimpeded... "You're welcome.. these brave heroes just did what anyone with the proper training and weapons would do. Now, please, get to your homes or businesses and be safe. Korvosa will prevail, my friends." Once he can get free of the crowd, he follows the rest.
Bashiel disentangles himself from the grimy, sewer-y tentacles, takes a look at himself, and sticks to reassuring and waving at the citizens from a distance. With a quick "Thanks Quin" he gathers his gear and joins the rest of the group. "I've never heard of otyughs bursting up to the surface like that. You don't think that this has something to do with what was happening at All the World's Meat? They were feeding sewer creatures there, and then there was the powder that we never identified..." He shakes his head.
"It can wait for later, we have that girl to track down."
What happened at All the World's Meat? Who was feeding sewer creatures? Zamanda is bewildered by this new information. After hearing Bashiel say that it can wait for later, she agrees and continues to hurry towards their goal.
Kalem watched approvingly as Quin handled the crowd, as he wiped the gore off of his hammer and began following Bashiel.
"Devargo." he replied, to Zamanda's question, as if though that was enough to answer it completely. As they moved, he said "Once saw a mage. Had a spell he called presteegation. Let him clean himself right quick. Really wish I could cast magic right bout now." He said he looked down in disgust of where the otyugh touched him.
Zamanda casts Prestidigitation to clean Kalem's clothing.
Kalem flashes her a smile. "Thank you. Much obliged."
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Ilsa considers Bashiel's insight about All the World's Meat. "If the creatures weren't being fed anymore, perhaps they looked for food elsewhere...like, here, for example," she concedes.
"This place is getting worse and worse. Let's do what we can to help."
She follows the others toward Trinia's neighborhood.
Once the crowd has begun to disperse or at least leave the party alone, Quinlan follows, doing his best to catch up.
Pel lowers his hand from preparing to cast another spell as the second beast falls.
Korvosa isn't becoming more dangerous by the day, Pel thinks. It's becoming more dangerous by the hour.
"I, too, would like to know more about what happened at All the World's Meat, but that conversation will have to wait for another day."
Pel hurriedly follows the others toward Trinia's tenement.
"Exactly what I was thinking Ilsa, though I have a few guesses as to how the powder relates."
As they move through the streets, Bashiel tries to shake loose some of the sewage picked off the otyughs before finally giving up and asking "Zamanda, would you be able to do the same thing for me as you did for Kalem, once we get there? I don't want to give our friend any bad impressions."
Zamanda casts Prestidigitation to clean Bashiel's clothing.
"Thanks" He gives the aasimar a grin "I'm starting to think after all this is over, I might try to learn some magic myself. It's convenient, to say the least. Though 'amazing' might be more correct."
Varor, after talking to the townspeople and making sure that none of them were injured, catches up with the rest of the party, "There's not actually much of a story to All the World's Meat. It was being used as a chop shop to get rid of dead bodies by feeding them to whatever would eat them. And plenty of people are going hungry right now." He says sadly.
It's not overly difficult finding 42 Moon Street and, once you're away from the scene of the fight with the otyughs, you're able to do so without much notice. You find the address in a densely built section of the city, a place where, at ground level, direct sunlight is a rarity. Above, jury-rigged catwalks, overhanging roofs, lines of laundry, and homemade bridges of rope and boards create a cluttered tangle, a multi-level mess of gutters, upper floors, and rooftops. This is the slum above—a sprawl known as the Shingles.
Most of the people in this area take little notice of you but, should you loiter for too long, you suspect that will change.
So, cover the exits, right? Who is talking the way in?
Pel nods at Zamanda. "Yes, we should cover as many exits as we can, though it may be difficult to find them all given how dense and cluttered this place is."
He pauses for a moment at his own words. His parents would never have let him come to a place like this when he was younger. Yet, here he is, in the heart of Korvosa's slums. So be it. He never had seen eye-to-eye with his mother and father.
"I can give one or two of you a safer entrance. Depending on where exactly Trinia's flat is, you may be able to get fairly close without being spotted at all. What I'm referring to is basically a shortened version of invisibility. Brief, but still quite useful. Say the word and I can cast it on one or two of you."
Pel doesn't mention the fact that he actually has the arcane acumen to cast three more spells that day. He wants to keep one in reserve, just in case. In case of what? Considering the beasts that erupted out of the ground earlier, the reserve spell is for the inevitable unknown. Even with the beasts, their trip to Trinia's had seemed too smooth and too easy. He needs to be ready should their circumstances change.
Bashiel squints up at the mess of catwalks above. "Yes, cover the exits. This is the Shingles, right? Hm." He looks at the sides and back of their target building, trying to estimate the heights of any adjoining platforms, passageways, or buildings.
"I could attempt to talk my way in, but I've been scolded for my... straightforwardness, before."
~YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN BASHI! HYEEEH!~
"Maybe its best some of you try it. More than one would be safer, but also more suspicious. I'll try to get up to a higher level. If anyone wants to escape capture in the Shingles, they'll try to take to the roofs. And I want to be up there beforehand, not struggling with a rope afterward. Might be worth having two up there, just to cover more of the exits."
"I'll try the direct approach alone," Varor says. "She might be more willing to talk to a priest, and one who's not being flanked."
Zamanda nods, but steps inside the building anyway, to get away from curious eyes on the street. She remains by the front door.
Quinlan hurries to catch up with the group and stays outside watching the windows in case Trinian tries to escape that way. One diplomat (BAshiel) inside he figures should be enough.
Kalem stayed behind with everyone else, merely saying "Go ahead Varor. It's your show. We'll watch outside."
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Ilsa looks around. Places like this were not unfamiliar to her. "I wonder if I might be able to find some information. Maybe if I ask around without looking like I'm part of a group, I can find something out. You go ahead and try this route...I'll see what I can find."
Ilsa tries to find some information from some of the locals, but it seems tougher than she thought it would be.
Pel is a bit surprised when Varor decides to walk into the tenement on his own. If Trinia had murdered the queen, it could be dangerous to go in alone. Perhaps a contigency plan is in order.
"I'm going to see if I can find a vantage point above the building, in case she decides to bolt. If no one else is going in, I think we should go ahead and spread out."
Bashiel: Going up. Give me a climb check (DC 10).
Ilsa: Gather Info - diplomacy 13
Kalem: Guard outside - perception 14
Pel: Going up. Climb check (DC 10) or spell?
Quinlan: Guard outside
Varor: Heading inside for diplomacy
Zamanda: Guard outside (Correct, it is a multi-family residence. A tenement, to be precise.)
Bashiel joins Pel in attempting to reach higher ground. If there is an accessible way up (a ladder, ramp or other obvious entrance) he'll take that. Otherwise, he'll look for a secluded alleyway and use his knotted rope and grappling hook to climb up to the Shingles. Once he's up top he'll meet back up with Pel to determine how best to keep watch.
As varor's walking to Trinia's room in the apartment building he considers what he's doing. He could be going to confront a dangerous assassin who killed a king, or he could be about to confront a painter scared out of her mind. If she's an assassin then he's guaranteed his own death, but if she's a painter she could be terrified for her life and desperate.
However the scenario doesn't sit right with him. If she was an assassin why didn't she leave the city by now? She had a sizable head start, if she killed for money than she would have got in a sizable payout and left, and even if it was some sort of philosophical reasoning that doesn't change the fact that killing a king and not expecting consequences makes no sense. Anyone would have ran after doing such a deed. He considers all of this as he makes it to her door considering how he should proceed.
"Hello, Trinia, I'm a priest of Sarenrae, I just want to talk," He says, knocking on the door. "I know you must be in there, where else would you go? Half the city is looking for you. You don't even have to open the door, just talk to me, I want to help you."
Varor briefly wonders if he should feel bad that he's hoping he's dealing with a terrified woman.
Bashiel and Pel are able to make it up to the Shingles with a modest amount of effort. The view of the city is entirely different, a vista of rooftops, imps and drakes, wisps of smoke. To the east, the Jeggare River and farmlands. To the west, the ocean. The air up here is cleaner, fresher. But there it is also the "slum above", with shanties built on rooftops amid jungles of chimnies, peaked roofs and eroding gargoyles. Even if fueled by desperation and poverty, it's not hard to understand how some of Korvosa is able to make the rooftops their home. After a moment to catch their bearing in the different environment, the two begin making their way back towards the tenement.
Ilsa begins to try to ask around about Trinia, but her efforts to avoid raising any alarm result in oblique questions with no particularly helpful answers.
Kalem and Quinlan take up positions outside while Zamanda goes into the building and sets up at the bottom of the stairs. Meanwhile, Varor heads up to the third floor. He is stopped periodically by other residents of the tenement who interrogate him on his purpose. He manages to deflect the interest of several but one of the last, just shy of what he suspects is Trinia's apartment, lets out a peculiar whistle after he steps away then promptly disappears behind a locked door.
While Varor arrives at the door he suspects is Trinia's and knocks, Bashiel sees a blonde waif slipping out of a window and onto the rooftop, perhaps 60' away. She looks up, sees him, recognizes she's been spotted, and flees.
-------------------------------
Kalem continues to watch. With Varor inside, he stood up a bit taller and looked around with a wary eye. He hoped that the priest knew what he was doing when it came to that scimitar of his. It struck him that they should have come up with a signal incase the elf needed help. Oh well, too late for regrets. I suppose if he screams in pain that'll be my cue.