Khaz nodded. He collected all that he could. Finally, he said ”I will pray for ye. Think about it. Come to Defender’s Heart and ask for Khaz.”
2,310 cp, 759 sp, 122 gp, 11 pp, five silver holy symbols of
Iomedae worth 25 gp each, a masterwork longsword, two
masterwork scimitars, 450 gp in various fine housewares
like silverware and table settings, a wand of bless weapon (18
charges), and a currently broken phylactery of faithfulness.
Wand is DC 15
Phylactery is DC 13
"I will give it some thought." He smiles at you, not moving, Khaz does see what looks like a Scorpion skitter up on the table, a hit of red on the stinger.
Seeing the scorpion Khaz hesitates. Was the man going to attack? He trusted his full plate to protect him. He had to know though if the man was defending himself or betraying him. The dwarf hesitated, enough to give the scorpion time to strike if that was his intent...
The scorpion crawls up the arm of the Tiefling and sits there. "Mox here is sorry that he had to stab you while on the stairs, we didn't know that this could be talked out."
Khaz nodded. He put his fist to his chest, said ”I hope we meet again.”, and with that, walked back up the stairs.
——
”A blessedly peaceful resolution. Now, I’ll be heading to the docks. My parents might yet be there. Nay many dwarves in this city, so I’ll at least know their fate. If the rest of ye must return without me, I understand, and will go alone.”
"I'll go with you," says Jocasta without hesitation.
"I'm with you." Firinn says quietly. He's pulled his sleeves down again and shows no signs of being anything other than a grizzled human, much like many many others in the city.
Lorena stays up on the ground level, satisfied at the tiefling's answer. It was nice to avoid having to risk her life to resolve a situation, for once.
As Khaz returns and they set off towards the docks, Lorena follows wordlessly, her spear slung across her back. She's a bit sore from all the walking and talking and fighting in her new, heavier armor, but she wouldn't be able to find her way back to the Defender's Heart place on her own, so she doesn't have much of a choice.
The Group makes their way west, almost even walking that way without the Ward Stone for protection feels as if you are walking straight into the world wound. Gone is the Blue haze that was once the barrier wall between the Demon infested wound and the rest of Mendev. The group passes many more buildings in varying display of destruction, some only having minor cosmetic damage to those that are leveled to the ground. Approaching the Warehouses that you would hope still hold supplies that could be used at Defenders Heart signs of a battle show on the ground. The bodies of a few what looks like soldiers lay with wounds on them.
What are you doing now?
Jocasta slows and draws her blade again, then kneels down to check one of the soldiers for breathing.
"Any survivors?" she murmurs softly to the team.
Firinn hangs back, bow out, scanning the environment for who or what-ever did this.
Khaz was far too worried to search effectively. Scenes of tragedy played through his mind, distracting him from the task at hand.
Both Firinn and Khaz note the signs of battle but nothing more particular than that.
Bump
Not seeing any immediate dangers Firinn moves carefully across the room to examine the bodies.
Khaz looked around. Where could his kinsmen be? Well, they wouldn’t be in the open. They’d find someplace Defensive. He looked around trying to figure out where he would hole up if he and his kinsmen were here.
He also looked for any signs. Such as runic writing on the walls to indicate to survivors where they should go.
Firinn insepcts the bodies of the dead men and women, they bear wounds that appear to be form hammer and axe, a tell tale sign of Dwarves as they tend to favour those weapons.
Khaz looks around , eventually he sees a find marking on a building, from as far away as they are Khaz cannot tell exactly what the symbol is but it looks fresh. The building is the warehouse, solidly built and looks like it could be easily defended from what Khaz can see.
Khaz, inwardly thanking whichever god was looking over him for his mercy, approached the building. Taking his mace, he banged on the door.
"Khazukan Khazukit-Ha!"
He called out the traditional dwarven warcry. From a young age he had been taught that in times of war, this cry would be taken up by every dwarf in the contingent, until their roars drowned out the foe. He figured that either the doors would open and his kinsmen would know him for one of their own, or it would be the precursor towards vengeance against whatever traitors or demons took residence within.
"Lorena, Jocasta. Take a look at these." Firinn says, "Classic axe and hammer wounds. These men were killed by dwarves - but I can't tell if these were our men or not. Khaz might be walking into a trap..."
Jocasta pauses to look at Firinn's revelation. "Yeah... we have no way of knowing which side is which, now. Maybe they were cultists whom the dwarves killed, or maybe the dwarves were possessed and wound up killing crusaders, or maybe it's just an unhappy collision of two desperate groups of people in a terrible time."
With a sigh she says, "I sure hope that this is a happy reunion."
Looking through the corpses for anything salvageable, Terry also tries to watch for the return of the force that killed these men. "Can't afford not to check for anything useful, guys. Let's slow down and take a look."
Lorena simply shakes her head at the all-too familiar sight of dead bodies. There's not too much for her to do now though, so she just keeps her eyes open and follows Khaz from a slight distance.
Terry finds some mundane gear, a few coins between the men.
[dice=K. Nobility/Local DC 15]
The Heraldry they wear shows they were a mercenary company known as the Bones of Pharasma. They were an Osirian group.[/spoiler]
Khaz calls out, after his loud call only silence can be heard. Terry finds no traps around the bodies or on any of the surrounding buildings.
"Not much, but a little useful gear still here. These guys wear the heraldry of The Bones of Pharasma, a mercenary group. Maybe letting whoever's inside know we aren't with them might help?"
Terry stows whatever's both useful and portable.
"Ideally Khaz's knock and recognition phrase should've done that," says Jocasta. "I hope folks are still alive in there."
”We have to assume the worst.” Khaz said, grimly. ”Let’s go inside and get to the bottom of this.”
Khaz moves up to the door, getting closer he can see that the symbol is that of Borka, a bit of a more obscure one but one that his mother made him see every day. Trying the door Khaz finds it barred from the other side. There are only small windows into the warehouse but they are up high and would be difficult to climb up to not to mention squeeze through.
The ware house is about 50' long from the side you are standing on.
”Look! The symbol of my goddess. My people were here at least. Fook. It’s barred. And the windows are too small to get through.”
He looked around to try and find a way in. ”Any ideas before I break it down?”
Terry looks at the building like the puzzle it is. "No, if I can get up there, I should be able to squeeze through one of those windows. They're easily big enough, it just might take time. Or we could see how tight the doors are. Depending on how they are barred, we might be able to simply lift the bar out of the mounts with a thin enough piece of good steel. Or we can work around the building looking for other ways in. Lot's of warehouses have a second set of doors just big enough for people."
Khaz looked around with utter futility to find something that would help Terry. With mounting frustration he said ”Any of ye having better luck?”
Khaz looks around but finds nothing that would be thin enough to lift the bar, plus if he really thinks about it, his family and any self respecting dwarf wouldn't' leave a door so easily opened.
Feeling exhausted from the curse, Khaz leaned against the wall. Sweat rolled down his cheeks. His armor felt like it was made from lead. ”This...is bad. Need to find a Cleric.” Khaz muttered. If they ran into any enemies he didn’t know if he was going to be any help.
Terry shrugs. "Well, I DO have a tool or two with me specifically for this kind of problem." He takes his pack off and reaches inside, pulling out two coils of rope, one knotted every couple of feet, and a grappling hook. "Not as easy over-all as moving the bar would be, but if we can get the grapple to break the window, it should prove easy enough with the knotted rope." He looks over to the tiefling. "Almost a shame you're not smaller. Going in solo doesn't really seem like a good idea, but . . .."
Terry takes the time to secure the rope to the grappling hook with a fisherman's knot, losing a little more of the length on the knotted rope in order to feel more secure about the rope staying on the grapple.
He moves to a position to start throwing the grapple. As he starts spinning the rope before loosing it the first time, "Well, anybody inside is going to know I'm coming. This could take a while." Unless someone stops him he will throw the grapple at a window until it breaks through and catches on the lip.
Scanning the area none of the group see or hear anyone coming to disturb them.
Terry releases the grapple, trying to hit a window . . ..
The grapple successfully smashes the window and falls through. Terry begins pulling in the slack, as he moves closer to the building wall, angling himself slightly to try to pull the grapple into a corner of the window for better purchase. When he hears the metal of the grapple hitting the frame, he slows his pull on the rope even further, hoping to get a good bite as the base comes through the corner.
A slight thunk is matched by the rope fighting his pull. Terry grins. "Like I said, they're going to know I'm coming. One thing this is not is quiet." While he talks, he gives a couple of good yanks on the rope, before reaching well up, pulling his legs up off the ground, and swinging to directly below the window. "Looks to be a good enough grip. See you soon." He winks as he starts climbing the knotted rope up the wall of the warehouse.
Once at the window, Terry takes the time to make more noise, freeing the frame of glass shards so that he won't cut himself trying to crawl through the tight space. Looking into the (dark?) room below, he says simply "You could have just opened the door. It would have been much easier.", before beginning to squeeze through the window.
The room is pitch black as Terry gets up to the top, pearing in he can see small bouts of light that come through a crack here or a small hole in the room. The building is almsot dead quiet from the vantage point that Terry has at the top, feeling around Terry finds as small ledge under the window probably something to tie off to for whatever they store in this building.
What is everyone doing?
Khaz wiped the sweat away as he caught his breath. He focused on listening for any sign that Terry needed help. If so, he was ready to try to break the door down. He didn’t quite understand the severity of his curse as of yet.
Lorena waits patiently for Terry to do whatever he's doing.
Jocasta keeps her sword handy and waits for Terry to finish, standing by Khaz and ready to enter once access is available.
Terry Sits on the perch inside the building.
Listening for any sounds Terry hears some mumbling coming from the opposite end of the building.
Firinn waves to Rio and the giant butterfly glides silently over the warehouse before arching around and back to her companion.
Failing to fit, and to get a reaction from anyone inside, Terry pulls out his dagger and starts trying to pry apart the top of the window frame as a prelude to trying to hack the opening just a little bigger. As he starts, he calls out to those watching. "Hunh. Must be living too rich a life . . .. Gotta make the opening a bit bigger."
Rio flies up and around for a bit, not seeing anyone around the building she does spot another slightly lower window facing out towards the world wound and the docks. There is also a very Large set of doors there for unloading and loading cargo into the warehouse.
"There's a loading door on the other side." Firinn reports as Rio conveys her findings. "That might be easier than trying to follow Terry..."
”Let’s give him another minute. If he can open this door then great. Otherwise we may well be leaving him out to dry.”
Taking the grapple and positioning it so the rope will naturally dangle inside the building, he then pulls the rope up and starts lowering it into the building, slowly and quietly, since he heard the mumbles. Then he begins climbing down the rope as a prelude to moving to the door as quietly as he can manage.
Terry makes his way to the door, in the dark he fumbles around with the board trying to get it up and off of the braces on the wall.
Terry struggles to move the board, after a few seconds of silently struggling Terry moves his hands along the board. Feeling some metal in the board Terry deduces that it must be nailed shut as well.
Fully focusing on moving the board Terry doesn't hear the knife? poke into his back.
"Who be ya sunny?" A rough voice says behind him.
"Me? I'm Terry. We heard there were some dwarfs holed up down here, and it was really important to Khaz Cloudbreaker that we see if any were his kin. Nobody answered when he tried to get your attention, so, we were gong to try to let ourselves in to see if there was any sign of his kin. Obviously, this isn't going to go as planned. You?" Terry answers without turning or moving his hands.
There is no noise for a few moments then Terry feels the knife pull back slightly. "Cloud Breaker you say, Khaz? We here he died in the plaza when the Storm King attacked. We heard yer knockin' but there been lots o' people who looks friendly but ain't." The voice doesn't soften up one bit. "How many are with ye?"
As Terry's eyes get slightly accustomed to the darkness he can see what he thinks are shadows flickering around, maybe more Dwarves or maybe just his imagination.