Aldern struggles against the vines that twist around his arms and legs, freeing himself with a few swipes from his longsword.
Lia moves up towards the Glass Window the fake Aldern broke, and opts to take advantage of the distractions provided by her allies.
Forming a ball of Ice, she slings it at her target, breaking the invisibility concealing her: "Fire and Ice. Antipode III. You are not me, and you won't be!"
Lia's ice ball strikes the already smoking Aldern in the chest, coating him in a sheathe of frost that hardens instantly, rendering him immobile.
,
Seeing the writing on the wall, Jili nocks an arrow in a single swift motion. It strikes true, burying itself in the frozen Iesha's shoulder.
Seeing little benefit in staying, Iesha flees out of the hole in the garden door. She is somewhat slowed by the writhing vegetation, but makes it across the garden to a small garden door in the back wall.
Iesha has taken 19 points of damage, Aldern is down.
Sighing again, Karmid uses his now free hand to pull his longbow and fires an arrow at the current 'Iesha' in view.
Mirroring his companions, Drasven too aims his crossbow at Lesha.
Unfortunately it seems that marksmanship has eluded the dwarf as none of his shots seem to find their mark!
He may need to get more ammunition then.
Although Karmid's arrow takes a nick out of the fleeing Iesha, Drasven's bolt strikes the wall next to her head.
Ro moves to get a sight on Iesha and throws her starknife. It's a bad throw. Her starknife joins Drasven's bolt in the wall.
Lia waits until all her companions are done assailing Iesha, then follows her into the garden.
Immediately, some plants wrap around her legs, snaking up her thighs and holding her in place.
"Look, my scarf. Is it not pretty? The colors sound like a melody, don't you think?"
Ro's starknife embeds itself in the wall next to Iesha, missing her by nearly a foot.
Iesha seems not to be distracted by Lia's magic as she scrabbles for the back door out of the garden.
Jili sighs and fires her bow again.
Jili's bow catches Iesha in the shoulder and she drops where she stands. Both "Aldern" and "Iesha" seem to be alive, but in very bad shape.
Karmid dismisses the entanglement and puts away his bow. Picking up his hammer he then finds a chair and sits down quietly and closes his eyes to try and rest while he can. Meditation was never his strong suit, but he needed clarity more than anything else at the moment...
Lia drops her Haze, then rushes towards the imposters as Karmid dismisses the angry plants.
With trained movements, her hands take care of the worst wounds - having them die would be satisfactory, in a way, but not helpful. Finding out who they were, and more importantly, who sent them, seemed more useful in the long run.
When she is done, she looks to Rojava: "Do you want to question them? I'll mix things up..."
Drasven pulls out rope.
"Bind them and check if they have any poison secreted on them as well."
Ro certainly does search both of them well. She wants independent proof beyond just their admissions, if they ever come, they are not Aldern and Iesha.
"Tie them up and remember, doppelgangers can change forms. If they shift to something small sized or whatever, those ropes need to still bind them."
She goes back to the kitchen to check for evidence there was ever actually a meal being prepared. Ro plans to be well-armed with information when the time comes to question the two. Before beginning she casts a spell to sharpen her senses.
Drasven considers his options and decides that no matter how he binds them, shape-shifting will just get them out of their bonds anyway and so he instead carried each of them inside the house, clears the furniture tp create a small space ensuring that a mini holding area is made and then placing them inside that room before binding them.....
"I think I be done here." he looks at his handiwork.
Ro looks around the kitchen and is pretty sure "Aldern" and "Iesha" were not cooking. It looks like there isn't anything perishable in the kitchen at all.
While searching the two, she also notices something very stranger. Their clothes seem to be attached to their bodies, not simply with an adhesive, but actually a part of their physiology. Whatever these creatures are, they are not human.
Ro comes away from her check of the two captives with a look of distaste.
"Not doppelgangers, faceless stalkers. If you need more proof Karmid, check how their clothes fit them. Skin tight is no exaggeration. You'll see what I mean."
After a sweep through the kitchen she comes back to the rest of the party with one more piece of evidence.
"There's no hint in the kitchen they were making dinner for us. There's no food in the kitchen. I'd not be surprised if these two barely even know what cooking is. Faceless stalkers are bloodsuckers like leeches."
Karmid sighs, and doesn't bother getting up.
"Yeah I've heard of them. But they were impersonating Aldern and his wife. So they must know something. They were sent here for a reason to trick us...or somebody else obviously."
"Can they change shape into something smaller? If no I guess I should wake them up and we can question them"
You do your best to tie them up as tightly as you can before waking them up.
Iesha wakes up first and looks around at you in obvious panic.
"What have you done? Why have you attacked me and my husband?"
Karmid stands around for the interrogation, and tries to look menacing, but his heart really isn't into it for some reason.
"Drop it sister. We know what you two are. You might as well switch back and relax."
Ro also stands in front of them expecting some answers, and she really IS into it.
"Or don't change, it doesn't matter. We know you're faceless stalkers. The clothes you're wearing aren't even clothes. You're mimicking them."
Ro breaks off talking to the faceless stalker to tell the others "if you see even the slightest hint one of them is slipping their ropes, kill them." Then she turns her attention back to the conscious prisoner.
"So we know we're here to intercept us, and that you were sent to do it. Who sent you? We won't be spending a bunch of time on this. Tell us what we want to know or we'll kill you. We've been dealing with shape shifter b$~*#@&! for a while down and we're out of patience."
Iesha (along with Aldern, who has woken now) look taken aback by Ro's aggressiveness and look at the floor.
"Then you might as well kill us and get it over with. Whatever you choose to do will be mild compared to what she has in store for us if she learns that we have betrayed her."
Ro pauses, considering their response. She doubts either of the faceless stalkers will be moved to name any names, but there may be some things of use they will divulge.
"Why not just flee the city? Does 'She' have such a long reach there's nowhere you could go?"
Karid scoffs, leaning on the wall in front of the two.
"Don't your kind live in swamps? At least that's what I've heard. Why not just find one far away from here and lose yourself in one. Or on a mountain somewhere. I can make some recommendations of places you can easily lose yourself in..."
Aldern and Iesha look at one another for a moment, then Iesha speaks up.
"You would just let us leave? You would untie us and let us walk out of the door?"
Karmid looks at Ro, wondering how far she would go here.
"I can't speak for those who are in charge here, because I'm NOT in charge here, but I think it would depend on how helpful you were in answering the Lady's questions here."
He waves at Lia and the others.
"Many may consider you monsters, but I personally could care less about you as long as your not robbing, killing, and eating sentient people...or whatever it is your kind does normally."
"We would, but not immediately. I'll be honest, I think you're parasites who suck the blood of our kind. I'd normally be happy enough to eliminate you as a threat. But, that sort of thing isn't as important to us as shutting down your boss."
"Here is the offer I'll make, and it's non-negotiable. If you don't like it we can still kill you both and be done with the bother you'll be. You will remain here and you will be confined until were done with your boss. After that you walk free. Until then, if you try to escape we'll kill you. If you lie to us or double-cross us we'll kill you."
"Now of course if your boss kills us, you're screwed. Nobody to come back and free you if that happens. So you better give us the best and most complete information you can. If you do, I like our chances, which means you get to live."
"What do you say?"
Drasven crosses his arms as he waits for their answer.
Aldern and Iesha look at one another again and then talk with Ro.
"The one you want to talk to is an elf called Justice Ironbriar. He's the one who sent us after you. He's a judge here in Magnimar, but also leads a Norgorber cult calling themselves the Skinsaw Men. Take a look around this house, I am sure you can find some incriminating evidence to justify his murder to the authorities."
Iesha pauses briefly before asking: "Are we good?"
Karmid scoffs a little.
"A judge? Wow...a cult too? But what do they have to do with a ghoul king and his army of infected sub-ghouls in Sandpoint? Aldern didn't seem to be much of a 'cult' guy really. Although he gave me the creeps...sometimes. When he was alive of course. Especially when he was 'undead' too I guess."
"So after telling us all this. Where would go?" Drasven asks.
He checks his crossbow for impending rust as he cleans it.
"Who else knows that you're here and were there any other reasons why you were sent here to occupy this house Specifically?"
Iesha shrugs in a way that makes it clear her internal structure is not human at all.
"Don't know much about the cult, other than that they had been fronting the Foxgloves money for decades. Ironbriar sent us here because he figured that you'd follow the breadcrumbs from up north. And what will we do? Go back to the swamp and hope that the mistress doesn't find us. "
"We're going to need search this house more thoroughly." he glances at the rest.
"So...." He turn back to the duo.
"How did you find living life here as?"
Ro hunkers down into a squatting position, putting her at roughly eye level with the two.
"I'm feeling like we're maybe about halfway to good. You see, you're afraid of 'The Mistress', but you only tell us about the judge. What this tells me is the judge is a middle man right? You might be getting your orders from him, but he's getting his orders from her. If that's the way it is, we don't want him much more than we want you."
"You see, our problem is this. For quite a while now we keep having to deal with problems. After we deal with one, another one comes along, the next one in line, worse than the problem before. Now what we're discovering is all the problems are originating from the same place."
"So what you're telling us is just another turn of the wheel. We deal with you, then we deal with the judge, and then we're left waiting for the next thing to come along. We want to end this, and that means finding the top, the point of origin. So, are you going to tell us about the mistress?"
Aldern and Iesha look at each other momentarily then turn back to Ro. She shakes her head, "Sorry, lady, her name is Xanesha and that's all you will get from us. And Ironbriar doesn't work for her, they're just ... allies, I guess you'd call it. She is very, very, very bad news. She will probably kill us just for telling you her name. I don't want to think of what she might do if we give away more. You can kill us if you like. I'm sure you'll be much nicer about it than she will."
Ro stands up and prepares her grip on her starknife.
"Is that your final answer?"
"Who do you work for? Ironbriar sent you here, but you are afraid of Xanesha. If they are just allies and you are in his service, why would you be so fearful? Are you really hers? Who else is?" Lia interrupts Rojava, then quickly follows up with another question: "And this cult, these Skinsaw Man - they wouldn't happen to wear masks and holding meetings near non-salty water and cut peoples faces of?"
Aldern and Iesha hiss at Ro as she asks her question, ignoring Lia. "Do your worst, man child."
Ro responds by pushing some magic into the weapon in her hand. She probably doesn't need to, she knows she's lucky, but she wants a clean kill in a single blow.
She steps forward and jams the foremost blade of her starknife into the throat of the one the looks like Aldern. Odd that even though she knows they aren't who they look like, Aldern is still the easier one for her to kill.
Drasven watches as Ro delivers the coup de grace.
"Aldern" gurgles on his own blood as it comes pouring from the wound on his neck. He quickly crumples and begins a slow transformation into a long, slender humanoid figure with leathery greyish-green skin and long claws. It continues twitching for a few more seconds before growing still.
"Iesha" looks straight ahead, never looking down at her companion and never saying a word.
Ro moves to the stalker posing as Iesha and gives her the same treatment.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ro doesn't want to dwell on killing the faceless stalkers afterward. She both feels like s%%!, and completely justified at the same time.
Best to get everyone moving and busy.
"We have a house to search. We've already been told we should find helpful information about the judge, assuming it was true. Let's get this done."
"They did tell us things we can use. I'll include them in my prayers for a forthnight.", Lia states when Ro is done, her voice empty of criticism or approval, completely neutral.
Karmid gets up with a huff and moves off to search without a word.
Everyone helps to search the town home from top to bottom and you find several interesting things. First, it's clear that no one has lived here in a while, judging by the layers of dust over everything. Secondly, Karmid notices that the lions in a third floor fireplace mantel seem to be a duplicate of the lions on the bronze key you found on Aldern in Misgivings. What could it mean?