Felgar will again attempt to move in and grapple the woman, taking an AoO.
Grapple:
Once again the woman twists and dances just out of Felgar's grasp, her grace is remarkable. In her fluid movements away from the dwarf, she nips out at him with her dagger. It finds a hole in his armor, and hits well for a small blade.
Rutter tries to circle around the not-just-a-painter, drawing a single kukri as he does. He turns it over in his hand, wondering if the blunt edge can subdue her, and cursing himself for not carrying some sort of sap.
Copper's fingers begin forming shapes; first a circle, then a triangle, finally a star. "Mijn vijand niet te kunnen treden tegen mij niet." he says defiantly to the woman, trying to stop her from hurting his friends.
Pravlox will nudge Rex to the next rooftop in order to cut off the escape route of their target.
Copper tries again for the short jump to catch up to the rest of the group, and mangaes to make the leap to end on the same rooftop as Felagr, Rutter, and the girl. Pravlox instead decides to go for the long jump, and manages to get ahead of the group, cutting off her avenue of escape, leaving her nowhere else to go but back towards Neva. Felgar went for another grab, but only got rewarded with a strike from her dagger for his efforts. Rutter, on the other hand, decided that she would be easier to deal with if she were unconscious, and rapped her hard in the kidney with the butt of his weapon, swaying her but not knocking her off her feet. Neva continues to nervously make her way closer, and with the chase slowed to this rooftop, may just get there.
Seeing both her forward and rear egress blocked, and her being surrounded by three people, she looks around in panicked desperation. She seems undecided on what action to take, her hand tenses on her knife, then her other goes towards her belt, before she begins the words to a spell, looking for which target to go for and with which option. Instead, she slumps to her knees and begins sobbing, her arms limp at her sides, tears stream down her cheeks. "I don't... want to die... I didn't... do anything... just painted a picture." Her words come out strained between sobs and gasps for breath. Her hands cover her eyes and she cries into them.
"We didn't come here to kill you, Miss. We came to protect you. We apologize for attacking you, but my friends here were just trying to defend themselves from you. Will you please come with us?"
Rutter looks around to his nearest allies and gloats, "Told y'all she was just a painter."
He turns to the painter, "Our client might believe you, but there's a mob on its way that's not even going to listen. Your best bet is to come with us."
As Copper speaks she turns to him, her eyes red and scowling, Her sobs break with her anger, tears still streaming down her face.
When Rutter speaks her focus moves from Copper, "The mob? Are they really that hell bent to see me strung up? Why are they so willing to have this blame laid at my feet?" she stares at the ground before her in confusion "Come with you? You are not here to capture me then, and if so, then why did you come for me. Surely not to defend yourselves." She turns a glare back in Copper's direction.
"We were sent by a party concerned that perhaps not all the facts were being fully presented to the public, and wished to confirm them before official action was taken in regards to yourself."
"OH! I'm sorry! So that is your blood lying at my friend's feet and not his? Gods forbid he try to protect himself, or we try to protect him, when there is some possibly dangerous person who is unknown to us and wanted for killing the King trying to attack my friend here when we have been sent to retrieve her and keep the mob from killing her so the truth can be found out."
Turning to Rutter and Felgar, Copper's anger with the ingorant girl continues to flare, "Just leave her. I bet she did kill the king."
Felgar rubs the blood from the knife wound she inflicted,
Ma'm you'd be better off comin' with us than dealin' with that mob.
Rutter rolls his eyes at the painter's emotional outburst, and then chuckles to himself when Copper responds in kind. He looks over for Neva to help ease tensions, but he sees how far behind she is, and realizes it's up to him.
"Get a room, you two!" He sheaths his kukri, and is still grinning as he turns to address the painter singly. "Hey, if it's any consolation, I believe you. I mean, who assassinates a king and then hangs around town waiting for people to find her? If you'd done it, you'd've been on the next boat halfway to Magnimar before they even discovered the body." Rutter's smile fades as he recalls his own "escape" nearly a year ago.
Neva saw the young woman ("She's just a girl, really") fall to her knees and gave a small prayer of thanks that the chase was over.
Copper's last seems to have really struck a nerve, and she turns to him red in the face, and yells all the while clenching her fists, before finally at her last, swinging wildy out to try and punch Copper in the stomach.
Come now, lady..we be wastin' time, preciuos to yer survival if'n this mob arives afore we spirit ya away.
Pravlox just sighs as Rex speaks. "While I understand your fury, good lady, perhaps drawing even further attention to yourself in this manner is not the best course of action."
"Do we have any way to disguise her, in case some of the mob knows what she looks like?"
Copper leans back at the punch comes in, dodging it. As he comes back to his full, and very unimposing height, he takes a few steps back, drawing a wand which he aims at the woman.
"Regardless of our action or what you think you know", Copper tells her in a much more calm voice than before, "We are here to make sure the citizens of our fair city don't find you and dish out a serving of mob justice. If we were here to kill you, you would be dead by now. Since you aren't, I suggest you come with us if you want to live.". He turns and begins making his way back towards where Neva waits, tucking the wand back into his sleeve as he goes.
Her fury simmers none when facing Copper, but seeing the others' willingness to help, she can ignore him for now, "How... Where..." Confusion blankets her face as she tries to decide where to start, "If the city wants to be rid of me, where or who can I trust to keep me safe?" She looks to Rutter, and at his words, decides to try and bury her features. Her cloak and scarf work well enough, but may not entirely do the trick depending on how many people in the area know her.
Neva watched Trinia's renewed struggle with alarm, but was soon relieved. It appeared the girl would join them. She began waving the others back towards her.
Felgar says with a smile as he heads back to Neva.
Come, mi'lady. No bad feelins' for stickin' me. I be knowin' dat you be just defendin' yerself. Sorry fer tryin' to grab ya, eh?
"Here. Try my hat on."
"Don't stretch it out on your big head."
Turning to the others: "Maybe we shouldn't go back the way we came. We may run right into that mob. Let's keep along the Shingles and make our way down somewhere else."
"I agree with Rutter. Taking her out her own building is probably a bad idea." Copper adds. Turning back to the woman, his civility now fully returned, he asks, "Is there anything you desparately positively have to have from your apartment that would likely still be in one piece, despite our barging in, or are you good to go now?"
She nods in thanks at Rutter's direction for the help. At Copper's question, she looks at him somewhat haughtily, before addressing Rutter with the answer. "I live in the Shingles, everything that is worth holding on to, you tend to carry with you." Her reaction showing that, though her anger may have passed, she won't soon forget his words. Looking around to each, she questions "So, you guys didn't say where you expect to take me that you can assure that I'll be safe."
Rutter cranes his neck as he pretends to look for Neva. Really he's just buying some time to remember the story he had come up with on the way over.
"We.. uh, work for some people who liked the king and don't think you did it and are afraid that if you get blamed then people will quit looking for who really did it."
He shrugs and slightly turns his body sideways to the painter, a subtle, but more defensive stance, in case she gets all petulent and fighty again.
"As I said before, we were asked to secure you from the mob so the truth could be obtained. We do not know precisely where you are to go eventually, only we we are to meet our contact." Pravlox answers the girl as he and Rex hold position looking out for signs of further trouble.
While Rutter and Pravlox talk with the girl, Copper pulls Felgar aside, "You guys work on finding a way down. I'll go back and help Neva this way so we can get moving. I think we ought to get her out of the open as quickly as possible. Even if she is disguised, something could go very wrong very quickly."
Copper carefully picks his way back towards the cleric, making sure to note an easy route back towards the others. When he reaches her, he extends out his hand, offering to help the woman, "Are you ready? We are going to try to move her now, and we dont think heading out her own building is a great idea. I'll help you back over to the others."
Felgar nods to Copper,
Aye, I be on it!
Felgar starts to examine the rooftops for a route down.
Perception:
"Good idea. Thanks, Copper, for the help. I'll try not to drag us both to our deaths."
You are all able to make your way across the shingles, with Trinia's guidance you are shown the easiest way across and down into the alleyway. Only a few streets over you meet up with one of Cressida's trusted agents, with him cleaned up you almost don't recognize the man. Sgt Grau Soldado and his two fellow guardsman take Trinia with them, and he salutes you as he departs. As he leaves, you hear him reassure the young lady, "Don't worry, we will conduct a thorough investigation, and as long as you are innocent, then you will be fine."
As you return to Citadel Volshyenek you can tell that there is a palpable anxiety amongst the guards. The irritation is apparent in the way they respond when you tell them you're here to see Field Marshal Croft. "She's in her office now, trying to talk some sense into the Shoanti ambassador. It seems one of those Shoanti kids got themselves killed, and now the rest of the savages are all worked up. As soon as one riot gets settled, another one rears its ugly head, in fact I think the Field Marshal was looking for some outside assistance. You may be just in time." The guard jerks a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of her office, and nods to you as he continues on about his business.
-----------
When you are given leave to enter her office with a hasty "Yes?", Cressida Kroft is not alone. In the office with her is a tall, rail-thin Shoanti man of many years. He could easily be the Shoanti ambassador the guard had mentioned. He leans heavily on a walking stick made from a single bone of some very large creature, polished with care and topped with the skull of a great hunting cat. His shirt is decorated with countless jangling animal bones, many of which are carved with painstakingly detailed tiny carved symbols and glyphs. A bearskin cloak is draped across his bony shoulders, and warpaint in the shape of a skull decorates his face. The old man's eyes are a milky white common to blind men, but he does not look past you as you enter, and instead looks as if he is seeing deep into you. Standing perched atop his fur-covered left shoulder is a large regal crow, who's wings are tipped with blood-red feathers. After his initial scrutiny on your entering, he seems to pay you no more mind.
Cressida introduces him to you, frustration obvious in her voice, "This is Thousand Bones, he is a Way-Keeper for the Skoan-Quah, the Clan of the Skull." She explains. "Please, have a seat." She indicates the group of chairs in her office. "As you may have heard, even having Ms. Sabor in custody only leaves room for another riot to spring up. We have a dead Shoanti that we have to deal with, and people's resolution thus far has been mob violence. Thousand Bones, can give you more information."
The old shaman speaks with a deep voice, his words carefully chosen but delivered with a barely restrained anger. "My people have worked hard to understand yours, yet it seems each day we see new examples of how your people work just as hard to foster old hatreds. My grandson is dead, beaten to death by cowards in your city street. I do not blame you, yet still Gaekhen is dead, and my son and his kin are not so forgiving as I. They wish to return to the Skoan-Quah in the Cinderlands, to join with the Sklar-Quah and rally to war against Korvosa. This would be disasterous, for both our peoples. Amends must be made."
"Our ways are not as yours. If a body does not go whole to the fires of the gods, the smoke of a warrior's spirit cannot rise to the Great Sky. If I could send Gaekhen's body to the Great Sky with honor and and dignity, his father and brothers would listen to me and stay their wrath - the talks of peace between my people and yours can continue. But he was not just murdered. His body was taken from the scene of his death, sold by a peddler of corpses to a necromancer named Rolth, a criminal to both our people. I have spoken with the spirits, and they have revealed to me that Gaekhen's body has been taken to a place below your boneyard, a place the spirits call the Dead Warrens."
"With this knowledge, I could surely lead a group of my finest warriors into your boneyard to retrieve Gaekhen's body, but this would be seen as an act of aggression by your people. No, it falls to you to make amends for what has been done. You must bring me Gaekhen's body, lest we be forced to recover him ourselves. And although it pains my heart to say it - we will not be gentle if it comes to this."
The Shoanti wise-man rises, nods curtly to Cressida, and leaves the room. After he steps out the Field Marshal apologizes for his behavior, but you can see that she begrudgingly agrees with his assessment of the current situation. It would be in Korvosa's best interests if someone representative of the city could return the boy's body to the Shoanti people. She asks if you would be able to handle the situation.
"Pffft. If they didn't want to feed the Korvosan rats when they died, they shouldn't have come to Korvosa. Not saying I won't do it - I just hope the money's as good as it has been. And are we at least able to kill this guy? The nekkermancer?"
"You can count me in, ma'am." Copper says with a nod.
Pravlox listens quietly as he ponders his own knowledge before asking questions of his own.
You be havin' the aid of me and me axe, Cressida!
Listening to Thousand Bones' tale, Neva blanched. The perversion or prevention of a ritualized burial was an affront to Pharasma and it thus offended Neva as well.
But the mention of necromancy and black market corpse-trading was even more disturbing. Less for the religious implications (though they were severe) but for the simple fact that Neva simply could not abide the undead. They made her nauseous. They frightened her.
There were those in Pharasma's church who held no such qualms; who looked upon the dead as a form of being no less important and deserving of respect than the living. Neva, however, felt too keenly the loss of precious life to embrace such a view. It was the primary reason her worship had led to midwifery at an early age.
As the shaman's request ([i]"No, demand"[/i)) became clear, she took a deep breath, sighed, and nodded her assent.