"You try, you fail, you lose, you die! Surrender and release Natalya!"
She was nowhere to be seen...I hope not in the sewer tunnels...we should take one of them prisoner...
Drawing a blunt arrow from the quiver, Ran takes a moment to aim, then fires at the one already wounded by Ikit.
Zhai moves defensively across the rafters, her plan is to lure the stirges to the goblins.
Magnimar - Underbridge -
Ikit fires again at the Goblins the boom rumbling the house.
RTA:
KRAKOOOM:
His shot drops the one he previously wounded, it falls out of the rafters and into the muck below.
Ikit hears the buzzing from above, the darkness obscures his sight of the Stirges but he knows that noise just can't be good.
As Zhai begins to move across the rafters and the stirges break for her, Ikit trains his weapon at one and fires.
RTA:
KRAKOOOM:
The shot just misses and the Stirges close in!
Stirge 1 vs. Zhai
Stirge 2 vs. Zhai
The goblin returns fire at Ikit narrowly missing the Ratfolk.
The Stirges race towards Zhai but she is too nimble and races across the rafters away from them.
Granite and Ran both find their mark slaying the last of the Goblins who crumples down onto the rafters dead.
A shriek can be heard from above that of a human woman, "My minions! You'll pay for that!" You see but cannot hear the source of the voice.
As your eyes adjust to the elevation without rafters or part so the ceiling obscruring your view, you can see at the far end of the room a brick area, likely what was once a fireplace. It appears that part has been chipped away to create a large hollow within, it is before that hollow that one of the Goblin bodies now lies dead.
Ikit puts away his pistol and begins to climb up to get a better vantage point
yosh!!!!
The little rat in his laundry pile, quickly scampers up
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Magnimar - Underbridge -
Ikit scampers up the rope subjecting himself to danger which manifests itself immediately as the Stirges split off each attacking one of the adventurers!
Stirge 2 vs. Zhai
This time, the creatures manage to latch onto each Ikit and Zhai!
Drawing a new arrow, Ran aims at the Stirge attached to the moving pile of cloth. The girl seemed capable of handling herself well enough, but the Ratfolk seemed to prefer ranged weapons, which might be...difficult in his current situation.
Ran's aim was good, but it was hard to aim at the Stirge without endangering Ikit...
Nodding to himself as the goblins go down, Granite turns his head when he hears the buzzing sound behind him. The disembodied voice would have to wait for the oversized flies to be taken care of. Unfortunately the shot only clatters harmlessly into the wall.
Zhai jumps over to the brick area and rolls on the brick floor to crush the stirge underneath her.
"Ahhhh! No no! Get off off!" he squeaks in surprise. He fires his pistol at the grappling monstrosity
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Magnimar - Underbridge -
Zhai jumps runs across the rafters and jumps into the brick room. Despite the desperate roll, the damn thi8ngs barbs still clings to her arm!
Kneeling there seemingly ready to head down a ladder into the section of the fireplace that leads to the first floor is a human female who fits the description of Natalya. She is unkempt though, terribly unkempt. Next to her open are two journals.
She stares at you in horror, "Cyvis aid me!" You do not clearly see who she is talking to but then you still have a Stirge trying to kill you!
---
As Zhai disappears somewhere up above the two below set their sights on helping Ikit.
Granite's shot misses hitting a rafter. Ran's just grazes the thing and its hold remains firm.
You both hear that same voice that screeched speak once more but it is harder to make out what it says as it is not said in a shout. It is a good bet that whoever it is, Zhai just found her.
BOOM! The rafters shake with Kit's shot and his ears ring from how close the barrel as to his head. The Stirge though, clutching to his body falls away dead.
The stirge continues to sap Zhai's strength.
"We are not your enemies Natalya!" Zhai says as she slams the wall, trying to crush the stirge. "A friend of yours sent us to find out why you disappeared!"
Still a little annoyed about his fall into sewage, Granite hears Zhai's call and mutters to himself, "Not sure why you'd want to live here anyway..." Taking a deep breath, he tries to shoot at the stirge near Ikit.
And still continues to prove that he's more of a scholar than a fighter.
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ikit, breathing a bit heavily begins to reload his gun before moving closer. Ready to fire as soon as he is able
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Magnimar - Underbridge -
Zhai slams the Stirge into the brick wall
her slam certainly injures it but does not dislodge or kill it.
Ikit reloads.
A female voice from above, "Friends? What friends, you just killed all of my friends!" She peers down the fireplace looking something or someone...
Granite waits for Ran to go first and then attempts to climb up after him. I miss the library...
"Didn't have a lot of choice. We tried to be all peaceful and simply asked to speak to you, but then they tried to kill us. It's sad, but it happens. Someone does something stupid, starts a fight and people get hurt for it. And quite honestly, we had no idea whether these folks were your friends or your enemies, and we simply couldn't leave without knowing which at the very least. We said we were not your enemy but they took that as a cue to kill us. Not capture us, not talk to us, but to kill us. Well, we can't find you if we are dead. We can't find you if they move you elsewhere because we found this place. And we'd rather not find you dead because we got too close." Zhai is fairly calm, mostly, but it ever so slowly increasing in sounding quite a bit like she is venting quite a bit of frustration. As she speaks, she cleans herself up best as she can, being gentle with the bug, as she is unsure if the stirges were able to be tamed as pets or were simply pests that happened to be here.
Magnimar - Underbridge -
"No! You just want it!"
She leaps down into the fireplace to get away from you!
---
Granite climbs up just in time to see the female human jump into the damned fireplace.
---
The Strige drains more blood from Zhai and dislodges itself, seemingly bloated and full of her blood. It begins to fly away.
---
Ran, you hear a crash and see dust billow up from the fireplace across the room! You see two legs, soot covered, from your vantage point.
Zhai looks down at her, rubbing the strige bite, "Paranoid much? I don't care about whatever petty trinkets you may have found, but I am starting to suspect something, or someone, has been meddling in your head."
Granite groans as it looks like he's immediately going to have to climb back down again. Hoping to delay the inevitable slightly, he takes a moment to look around the area up top.
"What we want, m'dear, is some information."
"Flying blood sucker, no no. Bad!
Magnimar - Underbridge -
Ikit shoots and kills the last stirge!
Zhai watches as she heads down the chute the woman is quite clearly a bit mad.
Granite focuses on her filthy lair. A brass comb, buttons, a few gem stones, some gold and silver litter the floor of this "room".
Seeing someone crashing down from above, Ran takes a step back, drops his bow, then rushes forward, leaping across the room with great speed, fully intending to impact the person who came crashing down, and get a hold of whoever it was...hopefully Natalya.
Zhai rolls over the lip to drop down, intending to hang first to make the landing easier, but suddenly finding Ran under her, she holds on till he's out of the way.
Seeing nothing of use up in her den, Granite because climbing down, hoping to get within sight of their target without having to jump back into the muck.
Magnimar - Underbridge -
Granite climb down in time to see Ran make yet another amazing jump across the floor in the next room. He lands in the fireplace, surprising the hell out of the woman.
Granite pulls out a blunt arrow and prepares to try to hit the women if she escapes Ran and Zhai.
Zhai is avoiding falling on anybody, and waiting to see how the struggle between Ran and Natalyia goes.
Magnimar - Underbridge -
Ran grapples the woman by the legs and she immediately begins to struggle.
Ran has her and his strength and size wear her resolve down. She even tries to fumble through a spellcasting but he is able to cover her mouth and prevent the casting from going off successfully.
Finally, after a few minutes of no one coming to her aid, she ceases. Still, with Zhai above and Granite and Ikit covering Ran and Natayla, the position here is precarious. There is no easy way to get her away from this side of the room should she begin struggling once more...
"Well, anybody care to talk to some sense in to her?" Granite then lowers his voice to speak softly to those near him so as to avoid Natayla overhearing them. "I suspect she is unlikely to listen to reason. As such, she's probably to put up a struggle and draw attention to us if we attempt to drag her back to the manor. But carrying an unconscious body might draw just as much attention. Any thoughts?"
Zhai, bracing herself between the walls of the chimney so she is more comfortable, and looks down on the scene. If she manages to get free from Ran, Zhai will drop on her.
While maintaining his hold on her, Ran speaks, softly:"Now, lady, thanks for calming down. Things were a bit hectic there, but I assume you are Natalya? Is that right? If so, lets start over and maybe help us understand why we were sent on a rescue mission for you when you so clearly did not need or want rescuing?"
"Yes yes, very expensive, yes yes. No need to shoot shoot if no need to" the bundle grumbles
Magnimar - Underbridge - [ooc]Abandoned Boarding House Lead[/opc]
"Rescue? No, no rescue, they want it but I won't let them have it!" She attempts to struggle once more but Zhai is prepared, she slides down the chimney and secures Natalya's feet. Her struggles thereafter are in vain.
Ran, from your vantage point, you see that in her shirt, connected to a platinum chain is a piece of copper unlike anything you've ever seen before in shape and consistency. Its not copper but something else...
While Ran and Zhai old on to their new "friend", Granite sidles over to Ikit, still keeping his bow at the ready if Natalya gets away. Or if she secretly had more minions lurking about. "If she keeps up like this, we'll likely have trouble getting her out of here. There was lots of balancing and jumping involved. But it looks like that wall over by Ran and Zhai isn't the most well built of structures. We could probably punch through it with the right weapon. I don't suppose you have anything that might be of use? Best I have is a crowbar."
"Hm. No. Pretty certain it's a rescue. Admittedly, if memory serves, that something you may talk about was also of particular interest to a person you had an agreement with. Now, you do seem slightly fixated. On this, maybe?"
Ran slides his hand into her shirt, yanking free the platinum chain and taking possession of the weird object by forcing it over her head.
"If so, I'll take possession of it. So nobody can take it from you any longer. You can relax."
Oh, it was a cruel form of logic, but logic nonetheless. Ran hoped to have taken from her what she feared would be taken...and by that, trigger one last outburst of struggling before she gave up.
If he had the object of her desire, it would also make it significantly less likely that she would attempt to flee. Of course, he could be wrong in his judgement, but it would be worth the gamble.
Magnimar - Underbridge -
The pile of rags that is Ikit shakes it's head in the negative.
As Ran pulls the necklace over her head, Natalya's affect immediately changes. She appears disoriented and becomes withdrawn. Her struggles cease and the tension that Ran and Zhait from her immediately disappears.
Zhai realizes what happened, "Ran, drop the necklace quick!" and she ignores Natalya to try and make Ran drop the necklace if he doesn't immediately drop it.
Not really sure what was going on from his high vantage point or why Zhai was talking about a necklace, Granite looks for a way over to the wall that seemed weaker than the rest.
Magnimar - Underbridge -
Zhai calls out for Ran to drop the necklace.
Ikit watches the interaction from afar while Granite looks for a way to get out of here more easily than they entered.
"What's all this ruckus about a necklace? We're not here to loot her. Just to have her explain herself."
"Aye, why would I drop it? We came here for Natalya, and it seems holding her precious trinket has made her more docile.", Ran holds on to the necklace, tightly. "We did not come to loot, but it would certainly make a nice price, and I am holding on to it for now."
Still watching Zhai, Ran addresses Natalya:"So, will you come willingly? No need to knock you out and hide you in some sack to get you back to the lodge?"