Waiting for Bashiel to move out of the doorway Varor takes a quick moment to rehearse the little speech he's about to deliver in his head before moving it to attack the alligator. That was always your problem, "Little Lamb," you never saw your actions through to the end. Every single one of us here could have been a problem you easily avoided had you only taken the time to finish us off like you should have. Instead you let us all go for one reason or another, whether you intended to or not, you never finished any of us off, and now it's come back to bite you, you pathetic little wretch! I expected so much more from you, yet you became such a disappointment.
I spend all of round two running to catch up with the group. double move. "I'm Coming! Gasp!, Whew, that's a long run,, no, no let me.......... catch ....my .........breath." breathing heavily Brin makes it to the rest. placing his hand on the pillar. the other holding his chest.
Alligator tries to attack Tom but can't surge.
Quinlan: grab mooring hook
Gregor: pull on rope to lift Tom out of gator's reach
Kalem: grapple Gaedren
Ilsa: cast grease
Brin: run up
Varor: attack gator
Bashiel: attack gator
As Gregor and Quinn move to get Tom to relative safety, Bashiel and Varor both act to end the alligator's threat entirely. Both of their attacks connect but, though well placed, Varor's attack is mostly mitigated by an exceptionally thick part of the gator's armored hide.
Bashiel's strike proves exceptionally effective, and the alligator retreats into one of the corners as if trying to escape, but it is unable due to how tightly placed the pilings are.
Gaedren releases the crossbow he'd been carrying and, realizing how futile it would be for the weak old man to try to break free of the tiefling's grasp, instead manages to draw his dagger and attempt to stab the troublesome bastard. The blade scrapes across some leather but draws no blood, yet Gaedren's tongue is sharper still. "Go ahead, put me in a cell. I'll be out in days...with new lambs!" His cackle is half-strangled by the tiefling's grip.
For his part, Gobblegut tries to bury himself in the mud and muck of his pit, staining the murky water with his blood.
Kalem sneered at the man as he continued the grapple. He wasn't going to let up with someone as slipperly as Lamm. As Lamm taunted him, Kalem's grip intensified, hopefully in a way which would teach Lamm when to keep his mouth shut.
Quinlan, careful with the hook so as not to hurt the boy, tries to pull him to the side of the pit by grabbing the rope that holds him and gently drawing it towards himself.
Once the boy is securely over solid ground, he'll hold him there so Gregor can come and cut him loose.
Seeing that the boy was soon to be secured, Kalem looked down at Gaelan and hissed in his ear "You lose. Now give me a reason on why I shouldn't take that little shiv of yours and use it to give you a new smile?"
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With Lamm restrained and Tom getting pulled to safety, the anxious determination that painted Bashiel's face ebbs away. He lets out a deep breath but continues to focus on the alligator. No sense taking more risks. It may still lunge out after any of the others if I let up...
Bashiel pursues the alligator and swings in with the intention of finishing it off.
If that doesn't knock the alligator out, Bashiel looks over to Quinlan and Gregor and says "Get Tom clear of the water so the alligator can't reach him! Its getting desperate!"
Bashiel dispatches the alligator, putting the wounded animal out of its misery and ending its threat to all in the room. Gregor is able to ease the rope down while Quinlan, using the mooring hook, swings Tom to safety. Despite his rescue, the boy, still bound and gagged, thrashes in his panic.
Kalem, using his superior strength and size, pins Gaedren to he ground, twisting the old man's arms until the tendons pop. So close, Kalem can smell the stink of the man's diseased gums and rotten teeth as he half-laughs, half-screams. "You get nothing! Nothing from me! Once I'm out, I'll see all your families chopped into slurry and fed into Jeggare for the fish!"
He spits some blood onto the floor but... he seems to stop struggling.
"Well then, Lamm. You aren't giving us a very good reason for letting you live, are you?"
Gregor desperately tries to charm his son. "Tom it's me, it's your father." He moves to take off the gag and cut away the ropes. "I've got you.. After all this I've finally got you." He hugs his son still trying to bring him around. "I wont let anyone hurt you again please, Lamb is done he can't do anything now." He ignores anything else and focus fully on his son, the need for revenge sated by the need to be with his son.
Quinlan lets Gregor take over with Tom and steps back... He looks over at Kalem and Lamm. "He's right, you know, Kalem. Best just dispatch him... He'll never talk and he'll just set up shop elsewhere when he does get out.'
Varor dips his Scimitar into the water to get off anything that might be stuck on it, and after giving it a quick flick sheaths his blade and looks around the room. Noticing the door on the far side, and with everyone else preoccupied by their own concerns, Varor decides to take the initiative.
As he crosses the room to get to the door he briefly considered everything that has happened, it was almost too quick. He was half expecting some sort of dramatic final battle between him and his old friend, but instead it come out to little more than killing an alligator and wrestling an old decrepit man to the ground. Looking over to Gregor and Tom, Varor briefly considering helping them first, but this is dismisses, the boy will be fine physically and he is not equipped for the mental healing Tom will need like his father is.
Kalem takes the time to tie Lamm up so that he doesn't need to be physically held down.
"So, what? We torture him first for Ilsa? He makes a good point about us not needing him alive. I think at this point the only thing he can bargain with is how quick his death is going to be. And hey, Varor! You can heal people, right? Between you and Brin, we could really do some interesting things to the old bastard."
Brin steps around the dead alligator and makes his way towards where Kalem is holding Lamm. "I would like to try a friendship spell.(charm person), unless anyone else has a better idea to get answers. We should check the room first however. Just in case the answer could be in there. "
Gaedren listens to all of this with a contemptuous sneer before he finally starts to cackle. "Oh, yes, torture the old man. How about that, law man? An interesting group you've signed up with." He then looks over at the elf, "How about it, old chum? Heal me up just so this back street thug can torture me? Is that what's become of you? Did a little more of ol' Uncle Gaedren rub off than you thought? I didn't realize the Dawnflower accepted such blackheart tactics..."
"If I wanted your opinion I'd have given it to you. Brin, sounds like a good idea to me."
He thought to himself 'Damn that felt good. Waited a lifetime for that.'
Lamm is momentarily silenced, spitting more blood onto the floor. Though he then looks at Brin and says, "Try it, fat man. See if you can manage some words through those jowls. I shook of both of the tart's spells, yours will be no better."
A Little Lamb who doesn't know how to shut his mouth, I'm beginning to remember why I didn't miss you that much. So what's in here anyway since you feel like baaaing so much right now?
Bashiel pulls the bardiche free of the alligators corpse and listens solemnly to his allies discussing Lamm. When Kalem begins discussing torture, he gives a long hard look at the tiefling and then raises his voice "Kalem, that won't be necessary. No matter what this rat here has done, forcible healing and torture is a cruelty even he does not deserve." Close... but not quite. "Brin, I'd welcome your spell. We can keep him... safe, until it works. "
Bashiel places his weapon back in its sling across his back and moves on to the door Brin mentioned. "Whether he tells what he knows or not, this place is worth investigating."
~Now that the bloodlust is gone, you're just putting off the inevitable, Bashiel~ Harize's calm voice echoes in his head. ~Learn what you need to, but vengeance is yours to exact. Your duty is to ensure it happens. Osiris will guide this fool's soul into an appropriate form for his second chance.~
Bashiel shakes his head to clear the words. He inspects the door, checking for any traps on it that Lamm may have laid.
As he works, he hesitantly offers "Once we learn what he knows about Ilsa's niece, we have a question to answer. What do we do with him? In truth, while he deserves to be tried in a court, his words aren't entirely lies. He may find some way to manipulate the proceedings and get free. It's happened before..."
Kalem, Varor, Quinlan... really all of them, have reason to see him dead. Its not as though I don't. But how can I return to the Guard if I allow it to happen?
Annoyed, Kalem goes through the bound Lamm, looking for anything of use to take from him. He did this, if for no other reason, than to add one more petty annoyance to the object of his hatred.
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Ilsa continues glaring at the man, but once the alligator is slain, her idea to dangle the evil Lamm in the halfling's place is moot.
"Try your charm on him," she suggests. "He is nothing if not defiant, even in defeat. Clearly we cannot turn him over to the authorities. But I need to know where Briget is, and I am not afraid to cut some corners if I need to."
Brin steps up to Lamm while he is held. "Now Lamm just look into my eyes." as brin says that he thinks of Lamm and him being best friends and that they have been that way since birth. His thoughts to go along with his spell "NK ALLL SHARANSBELL HELNAN.."
"Now Lamm my good friend how do you feel?"
Tom heaves in his father's arms, half-sobbing, half-screaming until it eventually gives way to rocking back and forth in silence, then suddenly switching into throwing his fists against Gregor's chest. "No! It's not... Where were you!? Why did he do this? I almost... He almost..." And then he collapses, drained, sobbing quietly.
Gaedren looks briefly confused, his jaw going slack and his eyes glaze over, then he starts laughing. "You fools! You think I'm some dumb young punk swayed by petty parlor tricks!?" He stares at Ilsa and snarls, "Soon, you'll wish your niece had been fed to Gobblegut! You'll wish I'd been so merciful! You all will!!!"
"Well, I guess that means your Briget must still be alive, if he didn't feed her to the gator. That's a ray of hope at least... And you're the one who will suffer, Lamm... in whatever hell you're bound for."
"Every man has a breaking point. We've only threatened so far, he will change his tune after a few days, weeks, even months of leaning on him. So far he has shown us that he really doesn't mind giving up a tooth a day, eh?"
"I don't see the point in trying to keep him alive... just finish him and let's be done with it... I think we can find Briget without him... We have proven ourselves quite resourceful so far."
Kalem glared at Quinlan, pulled out a knife...and before anyone could stop him he was holding one of Lamm's ears. With a dismissive flick of the wrist he threw the bloody trophy to the ground.
"Oh, he will die. Letting him live was no longer an option once he opened his mouth. The question is when I let him die. He's got my brother's blood on his hands. The only thing which will cut short my fun is if he gives me a good enough reason to stop."
Gregor just holds Tom tighter as he lashes out at him, tears welling up in his own eye's. Turning to the others as they discussing killing Lamm. "You have him tied up, we're not killing him. It's over my son needs to see that monster dealt with by the law."
He then turns back to his son. "Tom please. It was my fault I did all this to you, I was a fool but please, I'm here for you now." He begs for his son.
A blood curdling scream tears from Gaedren's lips as Kalem slices off an ear, blood streaming down the parchment-like on the side of the man's face.
"Gregor take the child out of here." Brin says after Kalem slices off the ear. "He shouldn't see this" after another moments thought, "Was there anything else in this gods forsaken place. Kalem why don't you back away from him, also. Your too much on the edge, calm down." Brin walks up to take his spot if Kalem lets him everyone should see that Brin does not seem himself as if his cheerful demeanor vanished and replaced with a porcelain mask devoid of emotion or feeling.
Kalem grabs Lamm's face and with pure hatred in his eyes brings the dagger down with all of his strength. He gets up and walks away, leaving the dagger stuck in the wooden floor, next to the old man's head. "Lamm, I'll take a piece of you for every life you have ruined. Think on that."
The tiefling then walks out of the room for some much needed fresh air.
Kalem's brutal move interrupts Bashiel's efforts to inspect the door. Dammit, what is wrong with him? He stalks over to the tiefling and the bound Lamm and bends down to check the wound, hoping to stop the bleeding.
A hastily applied compress seems to do little other than to quickly get soaked in Lamm's blood.
Bashiel shoots a glare towards the tiefling and sets his medical efforts aside to join him outside the room. He lowers his voice and leans close to Kalem. "What do you think you're doing? Lamm is enough of a psycho alone, we don't need two of them. Don't throw your life away by sinking to his level." After a pause he offers "I hope you can realize what might come of that, at least."
He turns back to the rest of the group, his face showing that he's clearly disturbed by Kalem's bloodlust. Directing his voice to Quinlan he says "If you know where Briget is, I'm all ears. If not, we have one person here who does. Killing him would do no good for the girl, even IF we can find her without his secrets."
To the rest of the group, Bashiel raises his voice "I ask you set aside what hatred you may have for a moment. Doing what Kalem just did only spreads the sickness that Lamm here so eagerly cultivated. We can hold onto the old man ourselves until Brin's magic can help us learn her location. After that... trust me that he will be dealt with properly."
Kalem listens to Bashiel with his face as impassive as stone. When the paladin is done, he bitterly mutters "I'm a tiefling, what did you expect?" as he walks out the door.
Once outside his leans against the wall and slides down it. Sitting on the floor, listening to the sound of the waves, he lets out a deep sigh that he didn't know he was holding, and tries to forget what he had just done. And what he still planned to do.
With the others not wanting to listen to Gregor he picks up Tom and starts to leave. "I can't stand here and let you take him apart in front of my son. I've lost all my hate for the decrepit old thing, no one deserves this now. Atleast think about Ilsa and her niece Briget.." He pauses and then looks down at Tom. "Tom my son, if you're still awake can you please help this poor woman shes looking for a small girl called Briget do you know her?"
Tom sniffs and shakes his head without looking up. His voice is almost a whisper, "No."
"Thank you." He whispers and places a kiss on the boys head. "He doesnt know her, So I'm taking him now." He then moves out and heads towards the smaller ship to get out from under the fishery.
"Finish checking the room and surrounding area. Before we do anything else. we need to make sure we didn't miss a clue, check the drawers, dresser, under the bed, etc. " Brin says emotionlessly. " We shouldn't worry about what we do with Lamm until all avanues have been used to find Ilsa child. It should be our first priority." Brin just holds the rope. waiting to see if anyone finds anything. "Also can someone check the water where the croc was to see if gods forbid bones are down there or lamm could have lowered something down into the water."
that's what I would do......
"I don't swim... but I can check other places in the rooms... perhaps the prisoner we left upstairs might know where Briget is if questioned properly... without torture of course... I was speaking of more gentle persuasion... "
As Varor searches around the room he can clearly hear what is going on as everyone's making no attempt to be quiet or discreet with their "conversation" and is very disturbed with what he finds.
When Varor hears everything calm down he returned to the adjacent room. Seeing the injuries on Gaedren and Bashiel trying to help Varor moves over and decides to add his own assistance to the work, as he does so he look looks to him and says, "I'll talk to him later, right now I suggest you go into that room. You're not going to like what you see but I get the distinct feeling that the locked chest in there has some ill gotten gains and I doubt that Gaedren didn't have the key on him." As he says as he looks over to Ilsa and says, "you don't want to go in there, trust me."
Varor takes Gaedren's severed ear and calls on the Dawnflower's blessing as he holds it to the old man's head. It's a tenuous reattachment but lessens the gore on his visage. The old man let's escape a sigh of relief as the pain lessens slightly.
Gaedren looks up at Varor from where is he bound on the floor and offers a faint smile. "Ah, my old friend. I don't know whether to thank you for the mercy or curse you for dragging this out. You know that degenerate is just going to keep cutting pieces off of me."
[spoiler=Secret Message to Varor]Gaedren slips into his words some hidden meanings that you understand from your shared past. In essence: "Get me out of here, for old time's sake, and I'll see you're rewarded. I'll even leave town."
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Ilsa recoils in fear at Kalem's actions. She looks over at Lamm, and where blood should be spilling from his severed ear, she sees spiders emerging and crawling down his face.
All of this was a nightmare...she was becoming numb to it.
Upon hearing Varor's warning not to go into the room, she says "Why!? What is in there!? Is it Briget!?"
As if pulled toward it, she walks as if sleepwalking toward the back room. "If she is dead, I must see for myself," she says.
Bashiel utters out a "Thanks Varor" when the elf sends out his healing magic, but is caught off guard at Lamm's subsequent comments. Half to himself he murmurs "Of all of us, Lamm has no harsh words for you Varor?" Just because he healed him? Lamm isn't that kind of man...
Clearing away his speculations with a shake of his head, Bashiel follows Ilsa into the room. "Are you sure Ilsa? I doubt Varor would say anything like that lightly." He casts his eyes about looking for the reason for the warning.
Not even he...
Bashiel grits his teeth together as his expression wavers towards outright disgust. He feels his skin crawl. Nevertheless, he steps forward to open the hatbox, clearly far from eager to learn about its contents.
Bashiel closes the hatbox back up and searches the room for other evidence of Lamm's crimes, gathering together the various paraphernalia. He pages through the ledger to understand its contents. When he comes across the chest that needs a key (that Varor mentioned), he grimly goes back to the rest of the party to ask for it. When he comes outside, his emotions are painted clearly on his face: A mix of disgust and despair, along with a building rage.
Investigating the scene of the crime... I've done this before. Just focus Bashiel. What here might reveal Briget's location?
Some potential leads and evidence may lie within the ledger, but that could take time. A quick inspection reveals it is in some type of code or cipher.
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Ilsa stands passively at the door. The emotions that had been so close to the surface are gone for a moment. She has no more tears, no more anger. She appears numb.
She watches Bashiel as he inspects the hat box and the room. She awaits his report, seemingly having no energy for anything other than observation.