"What? You have something against Otyughs?" Wednesday jokes.
"Not really....as long as there's a bath afterward." she replies, sharing a tiny grin with Cassandra.
"Ah, so now you have even more of reason to go down there, great bath afterwards!"
Bert shakes his head and chuckles, "I can see you're set to experience the finest airs Old Korvosa can provide. Have a care or they'll smell you coming," he laughs harder. "If I can't dissuade you, I'll take you to an opening. We will keep it unsealed until sundown if you need to pull back out, but after that we'll have to head back to safety ourselves." And with that, he takes up spear, some tools, and leads the way. The young man, who finally introduces himself as Tesh Zobberdin, tags along.
A few minutes walking brings the group to a grate covered with a wooden door held down with some beams. Bert levers the beams aside and lifts the door. "Well, there you go. I expect the sewer tunnels all meet up and can get you where you want to go. May Iomedae guide your way to good works. Take care, Tolly, and I'll see if I can't cobble together some treats for you and your friends when you come back... after a bath, I hope."
"Here we go." Amira says dropping down into the sewer and whispering an incantation in the ancient language, as Cassandra drops down beside her, her senses immediately orienting to feel true north.
"Thanks." Wednesday says with a chuckle to the baker-fence before hopping down after the Vigilant Lovers.
"I look forward to it, Bert." Tolenn says with a smile, giving the baker a kiss on the cheek.
She pauses before dropping into the fetid hole, "Strange, I spent most of my childhood hopping about above the streets of Korvosa, now when I'm all grown up , it feels I'm spending all my time below..."
With a wave to Bert and his men, she gathers her shield to her chest and jumping after the others...
"Just bringing a much needed light into the darkness is all." Wednesday calls up to the Paladin.
"I hate sewers." Cassandra mutters as she drops down. "No room to maneuver, all dark and smelly..."
It could be the agile little teleporter is a bit claustrophobic.
As she scans the area, Amira reaches back t gently squeeze Cassandra's hand for a moment, providing silent reassurance without taking her eyes off her surroundings.
As part of the old city, the sewers on Endrin Isle are older than the ones on the mainland and smaller, more cramped. A stream of foul smelling sewage runs along the floor of the tunnels about shin deep with no space for walking. High water marks along the walls indicate that the tunnels occasionally flood.
The immediate area is quiet and Amira's magic, checked periodically, easily keeps you well-oriented in the tunnels and able to track east and a little north toward the tenements where the Emperor holds his court.
After a couple of hours slogging through the muck, the group comes up through a grate estimated to be near the tenements taken over by Pilts as the Emperor of Old Korvosa. A quick survey suggests that is truly the case, as there's the sound of a cheering crowd just to the north. The surrounding buildings are mostly rubble with plenty of burnt timbers and there is the scent of decay in the air, possibly from bodies scattered about in the debris.
There are clearly people about, from the cheering crowd on rooftops nearly overhead to a few small knots of toughs visible up and down the street.
From the sounds of things, Pilts is holding court or some event is going on. The crowd sounds a bit rowdy and an occasional call that sounds like a cry of pain can be heard, followed by a cheer from the crowd.
The goons at street level don't seem to be particularly vigilant.
"So you wanna just knock?" Wednesday asks no one in particular.
"We could try sneaking in or we can simply make an entrance." Amira comments taking in the scenario
"Either works for me."
Tolenn considers both ideas for a moment before saying, "Let's do both. Wendy and I will make an entrance, " she says, smiling at Amira, "Amira, you and Cass, keep close but hidden."
She looks at the others for thier opinion of this option.
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Wednesday nods. "Right beside you T-um," he stops, "Would it be okay if I called you Tolly?"
Amira and Cassandra make themselves scarce in the building and ground debris (not a difficult task given the amount of it) while Tolenn and Wednesday make a more direct approach.
The guards react swiftly to their approach, brandishing axes and issuing a challenge. "Hey, you! What are you doing coming armed to the Emperor's Palace?"
"Everybody else was doing that. Why, we need an invitation?"
The guards don't back down and the talking one retorts with, "You gotta be in with the Emperor and you ain't in with him. You wanna get to the Court, you gotta give up your weapons."
He sniffs the air a bit.
"Did you walk in the sewer or something?
No but my boot is about to walk through your ass. Wednesday thinks but says "That ain't fair, you all got weapons."
Tolenn ignores the question about the smell, and asks "What does the great Emperor Pilt have to fear from us? And look at you, I wouldn't dare cross weapons with the two of you."
Scimitars are fun like that, very fast, very deadly. You might not even notice the cut till your entrails are pooling at your feet, Wednesday thinks to himself as Tolenn tries Diplomacy.
The thugs are unmoved by Tolenn's argument. "Then you won't dare to withhold them from us neither. Now hand them over or crawl back into your sewer like the rest of the s~@&."
A couple of the thugs just to the east have noticed the discussion and have started to amble their way over.
"Hmm," Wednesday lets out while stroking his chin, apparently giving the matter deep thought.
Amira and Cassandra watch silently from the rafters, counting the number of potential enemies and escape routes.
From Amira's point of view, escape would not be all that difficult - the off map terrain is a bit rough considering so many of the surrounding buildings have burned and collapsed. But the group now knows the sewer route at the very least. Getting away via the streets would almost certainly mean fighting through a cluster of 4 or so toughs, all relatively lightly armored (studded leather is typical) but armed with axes and swords. They look generally tough, but as none of you have assayed their competence by crossing blades with them...
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Tolenn fixes the 'guards' with a withering stare, the shrugs.
She takes her belt with scimitar and flail and hands it to Wednesday, "Hold these for me ,please. I'll go in, no need endangering the two of us." she says, holding her hand up to forstall his protestations, smiling.
She turns back to the guards, indicating with her hand that they should lead the way.
Wednesday's head snaps towards Tolenn's direction, but as she easily predicted her hand and smile cuts off any comment he was about to make on reflex.
His eyes go back and forth between her and the guards for a moment before he reluctantly takes her weapons.
The thugs shrug, "Awright. This way...". The two thugs start leading Tolenn around the bulk of the tenement building and toward a smaller shop just to the northwest. The two other thugs who had started moving forward fall in with the first two and the paladin. There's a bit of swagger in their step and other thug-guards offer some cheers and guffaws as they lead their guest forward.
At the shop, Tolenn gets a better look at the approach to Emperor Pilts. The way is choked to a pair of rope bridges - from one lower building, to a slightly taller building, and finally to the main tenement cluster where the crowd has gathered.
Another sudden cheer rises from the crowd and there is possibly another sound mixed in - a squeal of a pig?
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With a wink at Cassanndra, Amira begins a spectacular free climb, effortlessly shifting from one hand hold to another as she moves toward the roof of the larger structure.
Letting out a little sigh as she watches her paramour put her extremely talented body to use, the little teleporter spends a while enjoying the view, before locking her eyes on a spot at the top of the roof. With a moment of focus, she vanishes, a soft rush of air that races to fill her previously occupied space the only thing she leaves behind as she pops into existence, sitting at the edge of the roof, her legs dangling as she smiles down at her partner, only just approaching the top.
"Hmm," Probably shouldn't chop my way in since Tolenn just talked her way in. She wouldn't like that. Hopefully Amira and Cassandra are already in.
Amira and Cassandra, now that they're on top of the roof, can see the reason for the intermittent cheers that erupt from the crowd. On the flat-topped building between themselves and the Emperor's Throne, there seems to be a game in progress in which the game ball appears to be a small pig. Considering the punches being thrown, the game seems fairly violent.
Tolenn is brought before the Emperor and, with the four thugs, that leads to a fairly crowded platform. It has a brightly colored canvas roof to keep off the weather, held in place via a wooden framework. About the interior of the canvas are decorations of gruesome scenes - battlefields, executions, torture, human-eating monsters. The Emperor's throne seems a mock-up of the Crimson Throne with blood-red cushions, silks, and spikes. Nearby stands the guillotine carved of wood and bone with its base depicting a demon's feet and the blade's housing a demon's face.
Pilts Swastel himself is thin and has a pock-ridden face, partially acne and partially the legacy of a recent bout of the blood veil. His clothing is an ill-assorted rag tag of fancy clothing that have gone stained and threadbare. He has all the appearance of a vagrant more than a king. But his voice is stronger and deeper than his thin body would suggest.
"Who is this brought before the Emperor of Old Korvosa? And why do you interrupt our entertainment?" he says with some irritation.
Tolenn spreads her arms out to the side and gives the 'Emperor' a shallow bow, "Greeings, your Grace. I and my friends merely came to see this same entertainment. But your men here forbade me my weapons, and thought it important enough to disturb you with my presence."
As she talks , she looks at Pilts, trying to determine if was merely misguided or truely a diabolical man.
She also tries to remember if he was a contemporary of hers back in the day, or if any of the surrounding thugs were known to her back then.
Pilts looks down at Tolenn from his throne. "Well, then, welcome to the New Empire of Old Korvosa. Our men brought you to our august presence because you brought arms to our palace. People who do such things are punished most severely." He takes a meaningful look in the direction of his guillotine. "But we are not without mercy since ours is a very new political order. We forgive your transgression since it seems to have been in error. You may enjoy yourself with the rest of our subjects as they witness a sport of our creation - Blood Pig."
He motions to the first two guards who escorted Tolenn to the throne. "You two. Find her a good seat and make sure she enjoys the spectacle."
Tolenn bows her head, "The Emperor is most wise.".
She takes a good look a the guillotine then allows herself to her seat, where she waits to see what depravity this 'Blood Pig' turn out to be.
As Tolenn is escorted to a rough bench by a couple of the emperor's toughs, she gets a good look at the royal sport of blood pig (as do Amira and Cassandra). It seems to be nearly as much a brawl as a game. The object of the game is to score points by getting the "ball" to one of the defended goals (really a hole in the roof that forms the playing surface), each team punching, head-butting, and elbowing its way through their opponents to get there. The game is, however, complicated by the nature of the ball - it's a small, live pig.
The crowd reacts to game play with cheers every time the pig changes hands, usually because it takes a savage blow to get the player to cough up possession. The cheers are louder as the pig gets closer to a goal.
The two goons, one on either side of Tolenn, watch her more than the game with surly looks on their faces. When the crowd cheers, they elbow the paladin. "The Emperor says to make sure you enjoy the game. So start enjoying like everyone else here," one of them instructs her.
Meanwhile, Wednesday finds he's getting more than a fair share of suspicious glares from the scum that seem to make up Pilts's forces. They haven't done anything more than glare, but it's clear they've marked him as a threatening element in the area.
Amira and Cassandra, near the rear of the crowd, find that the enthusiasm for the game is lukewarm at best. The spectators near them cheer, but not as much as the ones to the front of the crowd. There's a bit more rumormongering going on. They overhear people talking about the Emperor's 'little executioner' being a real devil and not a real gnome at all. They also hear that the Emperor is recruiting the artists that used to be in-residence at the Exemplary Execrables again - including his old gem in the crown, Salvatore Scream (famous for his disturbing, yet compelling, imagery - and a certain painting owned by a gentleman known as Carowyn and with Terri Riverrun as one of its subjects).
Tolenn looks up, a doubtful look on her face, "This is the entertainment I heard about...tossing a pig around? Is there nothing more interesting to come?" she asks, pointedly ignoring both the goon's surly looks and their non-too-subtle encouragement.
"Well, there's always the beheading of people that don't do what the Emperor says they gotta do. But I don't think you'll like it very much the way you're goin'," one of the goons says.
"Yeah, what he said," the other chimes in.
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Tolenn smiles at the goon, "Now that sounds much more exciting! Let's do that instead!" she says, leaning back ,looking very, very bored.
Taking in the information around them, it becomes clear that Pilts' "rule" was one of force, and could easily be toppled should he be challenged and taken down in public.
How the f~*~ am I getting into this dump? Wednesday thinks to himself while waiting outside.
The two thugs look at each other, a bit surprised by Tolenn's response. It's rare that people seem to ask for their own beheading and for a moment they seem at a loss for what to do. Then one of them shrugs, "Pfft. If that's what you want, then that's what you get. Get up and Jabbyr will introduce you to the tall knife." He shouts to be heard by the crowd around him, "You hear that? We got us a volunteer for the Demon's Maw!"
The crowd around Tolenn and the thugs cheers.
Tolenn claps her hands together once, loudly, "Excellent. Let's get this show started!" she exclaims, rubbing her hands together, waiting for the thugs to lead on.
As she does, she looks around at those nearby, cheering for her spilt blood, meeting their eyes, holding gazes where she can, judging, condemning.