Suny does wince a little as the large person is unceremoniously brained by Silas.
"Got's to learn me that trick with th' belaying pin..." She mutters even as she moves over and helps with trying the restraints around 'Trixie'.
"Well...we could jus' try askin' Trixie agin, nice like?" Suny offers optimistically.
** spoiler omitted **
Karsielle watches unmoved as the vengeance of Calistra is wrought on the shemale by Silas, knocking her unconscious. Turning to Mishael she replies, "No, the powers granted by the gods to influence feeble minds has expired for today. It would seem she doesn't respond well to civilized conversation and kindness, you will need to show her another side to your nature to get the information."
** spoiler omitted **
Karsielle watches unmoved as the vengeance of Calistra is wrought on the shemale by Silas, knocking her unconscious. Turning to Mishael she replies, "No, the powers granted by the gods to influence feeble minds has expired for today. It would seem she doesn't respond well to civilized conversation and kindness, you will need to show her another side to your nature to get the information."
Trixie comes out of her paralyzed state just in time to start screaming again as Silas' hilt hits her head. It doesn't seem like the hit itself was enough to knock her out, but she drops to the floor in a daze, muttering to himself.
Mishael and Suny tie her up in rope using intricate knots that gets Karsielle's attention. Trixie's limbs are all secure and Mishael is able to apply pressure to Trixie's arms with just a lift of the end of the silk rope that she holds with one hand.
Soon after, Trixie is revived and her face looks incredibly sad as she sobs. "You people are sadistic!!"
Karsielle looks daggers into the she man's face, "It wasn't us that had hold of a table leg trying to beat up a poor defenseless man, now was it Trixie. You had a chance for us to be nice, but you chose to ignore it and try and bash the brains out of our friend here." she points to Silas. She smiles at Silas, before turning her attention once more to Trixie. As she does this, she takes out her whip and cracking it at the floor. Various small objects go flying, she draws the whip back across Trixie, letting its rough leather and metal cross her throat. With eyes that blaze anger, she speaks slowly and purposefully, "Well Trixie, you don't want this round you neck now do you?" A wicked smile appears on Karsielle's face, "You could give me pleasure as you scream.", a shiver of enjoyment crosses Karsielle's body "Mmmmmmm" almost loosing herself to the thoughts.
She returns back to her threatening voice once more, "But it would be easier for you to tell us where Topaz's room is now. You've lost your rent, your dignity and now the decisions you make will determine how many breaths you will draw for the rest of your life."
As Bloody over hears Karsielle's words to the she-male beast he smirks and with a few remarks and hand jesters the group can hear demonic crackling and growls come from the room entrance. As the noises get closer a figure appears and strafes from that area. Gliding on the ground that figure stops and stares down at the swine. In a disturbing calm dark mono tone voice Bloody says,"Gender confused creature, you dare strike at one of underlings. That is a pleasure only by me, and maybe another." He gives a sinster smile to Karsielle. "Now you must pay for trying to take what is mine, but the choice is simple one if you wish to tell me of this Topaz's room and all you know of this lady of the night, you will only be damned to die in few years. If you don't wish to share this information with me you will get to truly experience being a women until I get board of watching you bleed out and switch to a hotter methods of disposal." He ends it casting spark on something minor that will burn out real fast. "So what will it be my dear?" He grins while touching his blade.
Suny sits back on her haunches and watches the interplay between the humans with interest.
Trixie's eyes grow large and her face goes white. She mutters a few incoherent words and then whimpers. A dark around on the floor is spreading from his midsection.
"Topaz! Yes...um. Se-se-second f-ff-floor. Room 2a." is all he is able to get out before she faints again.
"And that's how its done." Bloody Flag gives a short bow.
He then pulls out a few of his picks, and goes "Let's have a look at that room. I so happen to have the key." He gives a sly smile and starts to move to the stairs.
Impressed with BF's performance, Karsielle returns the bow and plants a little kiss on BF's cheek. "Then lead on my hero." she says with more than a hint of irony. "And when we've done we can return and release her." confident in her friends ability to secure the strong woman. With Silas still splattered with his own blood, Karsielle offers, "You OK Silas, you did well to hold her off until we could help, do you still feel hurt? I could perhaps ask the gods to help make you better?"
Mishael follows Karsielle's bow with a mock curtsy, effect partially ruined by the lack of a dress. "Nice work. Let's go see that room." Without further ado, she follows Flag to the stairs.
Suny stands, brushes herself down and skips along after her companions.
The group walks up the stairs and approaches apartment 2A on the second floor. The horrid smell returns from when everyone had previously traversed the stairs when shown the room for rent on the third floor. As they get closer to Topaz's door the odor gets even more powerful.
It doesn't take Bloody long to pick the poor lock on Topaz's door. As soon as the door is opened, the odor overtakes anyone standing near the entryway.
Inside a round table dressed with a red tablecloth and a glass ball of cheap crystal serves as the room’s centerpiece while decorative strings of clay beads, carved fetishes, and charms hang from bent nails pounded into the crumbling lathe and plaster walls.
In the back corner of the room, a second door leads to a another room. Within is a small kitchen and dining area, and a bed divided from the rest of the room by a set of standing screens woven from stalks of shredded bamboo. The kitchen consists of a stone hearth fitted with a small cast iron pot-bellied stove whose gangly exhaust pipe bends haphazardly out the window.
Down on the kitchen floor, under the table, lay a body of a once beautiful woman. Her body is slightly decomposed, her limbs just skin and bones. A trail of black dried liquid crust trailing out of her mouth and onto the floor.
Mishael enters the apartment, covering her face as well as she can with the sleeve of her blouse. She stays alert for intruders or out of place items as she moves through the rooms with the rest of the group.
Reaching the kitchen, she sees the body, "Oh my, we may have just found Topaz..."
With little warning, she suddenly turns away from the body and throws up violently onto the floor.
Silas waves off Karsielle's offer of healing. "I think it's just a scratch. I can't feel a deeper wound." He sighs, and kicks Trixie once for good measure before he follows the rest of the group out the door.
On their way up to the room, Silas nervously fingers his blades. It's obvious he's still worried about finding something else like Trixie here. He seems almost relieved to find the room filled with abominable stench, but quickly covers his face with a gloved hand. "I don't like the smell of this at all. Well, let's see what we have here."
Despite the disgusting condition of the body, Silas holds on to his lunch. "I hate to say it, but Trixie's feet were worse than this." Silas begins investigating the remains, trying his best to be gentle.
Suny peers in around the edge of the door frame,
And staggers away to find a window to throw something out of...
*Hurk!*
As Bloody moves through the apartment puttin up his bandana over his mouth as he goes in, trying to bare the smell. When he gets to the kitchen he...
pulls away his bandana and moves to the side and pukes.
Mishael waits for her companions to get over the sensation of Topaz's foul corpse. Eventually everyone gets over it and the investigation can begin.
Silas finds a note laying not far away from the body. It lays open on the floor. It reads:
Where have you been? You were supposed to find more goods for me to sell. They have been asking for more, and part of the bargain was that you could provide at least one body a week. I don't want to find out what would happen if we don't keep up supply.
Forget our rendezvous point, just see me at the Saltshacks. I don't think Gartold suspects anything yet.
Welby
Once Silas reads the note Mishael asks, "Gartold and Welby? A body a week? This sounds like a new turn. Anyone have any idea who or what the author of that note is talking about?"
After Bloody cleans off his mouth and tries regain his composure, he ponders the two names as well. Along with a quick search around while detecting magic as he thinks about the names.
Karsielle, despite herself cannot hold back the tears, yet feeling the swell in her throat and the taste of bile, she manages to just stop herself from being physically sick at the nauseous smell of corpse. Her eyes, filled with her salty water tears, means her sight is blurred and she can't quite make out the details. As she listens to Silas reading the note, her black despair at a fellow companions death, turns into the red hot coals of vengeance. Through the tears she spits out, "Welby and his associates shall kneel to the vengeance afforded by Calistra, for this sweet maids bloody end. Let us make our plans her death to be avenged."
Mishael brings the sleeve of her blouse up over her mouth and nose, "Well, I unfortuately know nothing of these two. If none of you do, I'd suggest we take one more pass through this apartment and then head to the Saltshacks to see if we can find Welby and learn who Gartold is."
"I don't know who this Welby is, but I do know of Gartold. He is the leader of the halfling's that live in the Saltshacks, he is told to be the smartest out of the bunch but that's not saying much when it comes to that lot. Gartold is said also to be the oldest of them as well, to help to tell him apart from others that might pretend to be him." As Bloody finishes up with his knowledge on the halfling, he looks towards Karsielle's angered face and says in a said tone, "It appears also that Topaz died of a drug overdose." Then looks away from the cleric.
Despite the stench, the perfumed lace handkerchief keeps the majority of the smell just about bearable for Karsielle. She searches for a bowl and water, finding them and some of Topaz's personal cosmetics. She begins the laborious task of preparing the body and soul for the onward journey, not wanting to see her tortured soul raise once more in the pain of undeath. Washing her with the heavily perfumed water, she tries her hardest to make the body presentable to the temple. "If we can, we should make her body ready for burning in the cleansing flames of a pyre. Letting her spirit travel to Pharesma and thence to meet Calistra. " She searches the room's cupboards and chests to find Topaz's best clothes, dressing her in her finery. "If you want to help me in this please do, to make her pretty one final time."
After a few ceremonial prayers, Karsielle suggests, "Do what you must here, but then perhaps we should move her to the temple for her final rites of passage. I expect to meet Revel tonight, I must pass on this sad news. She may be able to help, but she will want to grieve for her friend. We can find those who threatened Topaz and seek them out in the light of day tomorrow. What say you all?"
Suny leans against the door frame for a moment or two but chips in and helps with the sorting of things in Topaz's room and...stuff...
"Aye, doin' right by folks seems right t' me." She agrees with Karsielle's comments about how best to move the lass along.
"We should see about maybe russtlin' up a cart or such, somat a lil' better'n just haulin' her about like a carpet..." Suny suggests, still while sprinkling her cantrip magic about to help with the smell and such. She then skips lightly down stairs again and checks on Trixie.
Karsielle and Suny work on making Topaz as beautiful as possible, but there is a fair amount of decay that has already made much of her beauty deteriorate forever more.
A few of the others scout out the street and alleys that surround the apartment building and after about half an hour they are able to find a makeshift wheelbarrow and silently steal if from some poor soul living in a thin-walled shack.
Mishael will join Karsielle to help take her to the temple and say farewell.
Silas will abstain from the burial of Topaz, instead heading out to the Docks to do a bit of asking around about the Saltshacks.
I'll help out Silas at the saltshacks.
Once every one's away from the place Suny will free Trixie of her bonds...carefully...and then help Silas and 'Fang' at the docks at the Saltshacks. (^_^)
Karsielle thanks her friends for helping prepare Topaz before wishing Silas, Bloody and Sunny luck. "Try not to get in any trouble, we should see you in the morning, where shall we meet up?"
"Anyone know of an inn by the Saltshacks? We could meet up again there."
At Karsielle's and Mishael's question,
"Well..."
In between The Docks and Scurveytown, anchored against the drift tides floats a hodgepodge structure of moored docks, shanty houseboats and derelict barges crudely lashed together with free floating gangways and protected by large nets strung between buoys filled with seaweed and flotsam.
The floating tenements are inhabited entirely by halfling fishermen from the southern coast who emigrated to Freeport to fish the rich shoals dancing with silver hake, herring, and scuttlebacks. Locals call the settlement the Saltshacks.
The sea-weathered residents of the Saltshacks remain simple traditionalists, content to live isolated from the larger folk except in matters of conducting business. They conduct the majority of their financial arrangements on shore and as such, remain unaccustomed to visitors. The entrance to the Saltshacks are always guarded.
The closest tavern to the Saltshacks is a little place on the western edge of Scurveytown close to the border of The Docks and just a minute or two walk from the Saltshacks. It is called Dread's Place, and most of the clientele is either a deadly pirate or a salty halfing fisherman.
"So, let's plan to meet up at Dread's Place in late morning tomorrow. Does that sound good? She laughs, "I'll be sure to bring my best pirate impression."
Karsielle and Mishael take Topaz's body to the temple. While Karsielle is talking with a priestess, telling her of Topaz's demise, Revel shows up. She breaks down when she learns of Topaz's fate. The priestess is very gracious and agrees to take in Revel while she needs some help in her life as well. She performs a small ceremony for Topaz that and then suggests a cremation for the body.
Suny and the guys are able to find out a decent amount on the Saltshacks and it's inhabitants. Mostly general information, nothing very specific on those who live there as the halfings mostly keep to themselves. They are able to find a rickety building with a port side room that has a good view of the Saltshacks. Silas suggests that Suny talk to the landlord to purchase the room for the next two days. Suny returns a little later with key in hand, this flophouse apparently free of hot-headed transvestite landlords.
Silas, Suny, and Bloody all take turns keeping watch through the night. They are able to see two halflings who guard a large gate which blocks off the entrance on a wide dock leading down to a network of other docks and boats all tied together. A few halflings walk up to the gate late in the night, some a little wobbly in their steps, and the guards open the gate to let them in without much conversation.
The next morning comes and after a make-shift breakfast, the crew ventures out to Dread's Place.
Suny, Bloody, and Silas walk a short distance down an alley next to the flophouse to Dread's Place. They look around and decide to enter the building, which was once built to look like the exterior of a corsair but portions of it have been haphazardly repaired with a regular building style.
Inside the place is damp and mildewy smelling. Not the rot-gut stench of Gentleman John's, but not far from it either. There are no customers, and the bar is empty except for a stout thick man who is walking behind the bar carrying a crate of rum. He is an older man with balding gray hair and a short wooden stump has replaced his right leg from just above the knee. There is a shortsword at his side and at least two daggers visible on his chest. It looks as though he hasn't bathed in several weeks.
He gives the three adventurers a glance and doesn't say anything, going about his work of placing the bottles under the bar.
While Kariselle and Mishael walk toward the Saltshacks, Mishael offers condolences, "I'm sorry about Topaz Karsielle. I wish we'd found her sooner."
Silas nods at the barkeep, making his way toward a small table near a corner. He puts a silver down on the table, and waits for the barkeep to approach.
Suny actually 'zips' to the bar and leans upon the counter top, bright wide eye'd and 'bushy tailed'.
"I see ye've some clinkers that have a waft of a sweet and allurin' bouquet." She says to the fellow with an open and honest smile,
"Might I be inquirin' as t' th' price of a dram or three?"
For now Bloody is just going to be part of the background and wait.