Kazador looked at the space where the halfling was in confusion. It took about ten seconds for him to realize that she wasn’t invisible, but that she gone.
”Nay idea where she is, but she isn’t in here. I’m-“ he coughed ”-going to check on the surface. I’ll meet ye all where we came in.” It had taken thirty seconds for the halfling to flee and another thirty for him to make up his mind on what to do. He hoped that he was right and that it wasn’t too late.
”Gromthi! Dringorak-ha!” He slammed his hammer to the ground, and in a similar flash of light, he teleported to the surface.
When the halfling vanishes for the second time, Perrin stares for just a moment before realizing that Ev's superior senses are mirroring his confusion - and what that implies. "To the surface!" He turns and darts back to the grate, scaling the wall with an inhuman agility. His bat swoops along behind.
Once up in the open air, Perrin burns through the last of his curative power to keep the nausea at bay. He scans his surroundings for any sign or sound of a disturbance, while Ev circles above.
Perrin sees "Daisy" hundreds of feet up in the air and falling fast.
(1) Kazador uses martial flexibility to get a feat
(2) The feat, advanced weapon training, let’s him cast a spell
(3) The feat lasts 1 minute, unless all uses of the feat are used up
(4) The feat requires him to pick the spell type to use
(5) So once he has the feat active, he can’t change the spell type until it expires
(6) Here, round 1 he uses move action to activate feat and chooses to cast see invisibility
(7) For the next 5 rounds he can’t cast dimension door because he has to wait for the feat to expire
(8) So we had another round of combat. That means 4 rounds left until he can cast dimension door, as it requires activating advanced weapon training againThat’s my reading of it. And I was supposing that he knew how far down they were, so he could teleport up. Enough not to get stuck in the ground [/ooc]
Upon seeing the airborne halfling, Ev lands on Perrin's shoulder and the doctor calls down into the sewer. "She's up here! Falling from the sky!"
Mel rushes after Perrin, her feet pattering unnaturally fast in the darkness of the corridor. She scrambles up the ladder, heaving a sigh of relief as she reaches the surface. She scans the skies for the target.
The halfling plummets at terrifying speed but casts a spell on herself as she does so. Mel judges the falling speed, accounting for acceleration, and fires but her arrow misses as the falling form slows suddenly and begins swerving off to the south.
Kazador watched coldly. He prepared to cast another dimension door to keep up with her as she fled. Then, with that ability of his hammer over...he would be able to activate the next rune. That of dispel magic. He would see how well she could fly when her magics failed.
Perrin grimaces with frustration at the halfling's fleeing form, then blinks as he realizes what he needs to do. The doctor quickly reads a few runes off a stone tablet, then presses a few concoctions into Ev's claws. Then Perrin takes a step forward, chokes out the word "Go-" and promptly doubles over, vomiting.
The bat gets the message and takes off like a bullet, soaring after the airborne figure. Passing beneath the halfling, Ev tries to judge the severity of her wounds.
Mel watches the halfling flying away, carrying information that could spark -- or prevent -- a continent-spanning war. She takes a deep breath, raises her bow, and fires faster than she's ever done before. One shoulder twinges in protest.
All three arrows are in the air before the first one gets close to the fleeing halfling. Mel watches anxiously to gauge whether they've hit.
Daisy looks like a punch from a teenager would bring her down.
Mel's first two shafts fly wide but the third connects solidly in the flying halfling. She goes limp and immediately starts careening toward the ground, landing out of sight.
The snake has moved out of the cloud to where the halfling was when she disappeared. It has been retching and coughing but now it lashes out at you.
The massive serpent throws its coils around you in the blink of an eye and begins squeezing.
"I saw where she landed," she says. "This way!"
Completely failing to note the absence of Kazador and Roet, Mel takes off running. Her new cloak streams out behind her with the speed of her passage.
Rounding the final corner, Mel comes skidding to a halt and looks in horror at the splattered mess that was once a woman. "Well, you were right and wrong," she says. "I did get you -- but it was your own magic that really finished you off."
But the words hold no comfort. That's five, she thinks. Five.
Kazador's spell fizzles out ineffectively while Roet finally recovers his breath outside the cloud and prepares to head back into it to aid Kazador.
The doctor looks with indecision from Mel to the sewer, then turns and clambers back down. "Hey, everything alright?" As Kazador comes into view with a snake around his torso, Perrin starts with surprise and lets out a burst of magic, filling the creature's mind with fatigue.
Meanwhile, Ev circles above the halfling's body, keeping an eye out for trouble.
The serpent falls asleep, uncoiling from around Kazador.
As expected, you find the mangled body of the halfling. Her crash into an alley attracted attention and a few people are looking in to see what's going on.
Mel picks out one of the gawkers -- a weedy young man in his late teens with an enormous adam's apple. "Hey," she says. "Would you run and fetch the guards, please? I'll stay here and guard the body."
The kid gives a start, tearing his gaze away from the horrific mess in the alley. "Oh! Uh, sure," he says, and runs off looking for a guard.
Turning back, Mel takes off her cloak and spreads it over the dead halfling. It fully covers the much smaller halfling, even though the arrow embedded between her shoulder blades holds it up like a miniature tent.
Mel winces as blood begins soaking into the cloak where it touches the ground. Maybe I can get it cleaned later, she thinks.
She turns to the slowly accumulating ring of spectators and says "All right, people. The guards have been called. Let's show some respect for the dead by not gawking at her. And anyway, if you're still here when the guards arrive they may want to talk with you."
The young man runs off to fetch the guard but a large, rough-looking fellow doesn't seem to like your tone. "Maybe you should back off from the body, eh? Who put you in charge?" He eyes the small robe-arrow tent.
He seems to want to rifle through the halfling's pockets before the guard arrive.
Mel raises her chin and narrows her eyes. She pulls her dagger and holds it at the ready - not aimed at the ruffian, but clearly and obviously in her hand, ready to go. "Who put me in charge?" she says. "I did."
And she stares at him.
Seeing the man snort derisively at her, Mel adds sadly: "Make no mistake, friend - I will stab you if you start something. Don't be number six."
Kazador breathed a sigh of relief. ”Thank ye! A fine mess I got meself in and ye got me out of. Let’s leave yon serpent and go find the others. That halfling is about and she’s mighty dangerous.”
Perrin lets out a breath as well, one that he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "I'm just glad you two are okay. Oh, and I think Mel shot down the halfling, so hopefully that's one less problem to deal with."
Perrin makes a quick check around the hideout for items of interest. Then he climbs up to the surface with Kazador and Roet and starts leading them in Mel's direction.
The man is far from convinced and steps forward. Though he's only slightly taller than Mel, he's much broader. "Put that away, little lady. You look more suited for nicer things." He lunges forward to grab Mel's wrist, thinking it will be easy to wrench the knife away from the woman. But he's sorely mistaken as Mel dodges deftly out of the way.
The snake is wearing the belt of strength.
As the man lunges, Mel sidesteps neatly. As he stumbles forward a bit, Mel cracks him sharply across the back of the head with the blunt hilt of her dagger. Twice.
"That's a warning," she says. "Keep it up and I'll use the sharp end. Besides, the rest of my team will be along any moment, and the guards not long after that. Don't be an idiot."
The man falls to the ground, nearly unconscious, then curses and spits out dirt. Then he gets up slowly and shuffles away, dizzy.
The others arrive in an ally and find Mel dispersing a crowd as she stands over the body of the halfling with her cloak draped over it.
Perrin very gently, carefully unbuckles the belt from the sleeping serpent before returning to the surface and hurrying after Mel.
When he reaches her, he stares flatly down at the corpse. "Well. We sure showed her, didn't we."
Within a minute or two, city guards arrive on the scene. Their sergeant exclaims "Holy bricks... A magical murderer crashing from the sky... Shall we escort you back to the guardhouse?"
Kazador gladly swaps out the belts.
”Wait up! We’ve got a bounty to collect on her. Just need to scrape up enough that’s recognizable...”
When you arrive back at the guardhouse, the colonel is waiting for you.
"My my. I heard you made quite the spectacle in my streets. It seems I owe you a bounty."
He pays the bounty. "Did you obtain any useful information?"
Mel nods at Perrin's words. "I guess we did," she says tonelessly. Then she gives a little start and says "Ah, heck ... I have to go back to that lousy sewer. I dumped my backpack in the doorway hoping to trip her if she ran out. It's got all my stuff in it -- spare clothes, gear, everything. At least there's nothing down there that's likely to kill me this time ..."
Mel expresses her intention to head back to the sewer.
As they wait for the guards Perrin collects the scrolls and other items from Daisy's body. At Mel's comment he looks up in alarm. "Oh. Um. It's a little bit... snakey, down there, I think. That is to say, there's a snake." He frowns. "But that fog should still be blocking its view of the doorway, so as long as you're quick and quiet you'll probably be fine."
Mel shrinks in on herself a little -- she has a bad history with squirming things in small, dark, enclosed places. "All right," she says, feeling faintly panicky. "You wait on the surface ... but if I start screaming, come get me, all right? Kazador, Roet, can you two keep an eye on things here until we get back?"
Mel eyes the cloak currently concealing the body, and decides that "Daisy's" dignity in death is worth less than Mel's life. She picks it up and puts it on. Perrin and Mel make their way back to the sewer, and Mel goes in, swift but cautious.
Mel slinks into the tunnel and out again with blinding, silent speed. Back on the surface, she catches her breath outside the sewer grate.
”Well done. Back to turn this in? Don’t want to hold onto halfling gibblets for too long, lest we get called to the guard for carrying around body parts in public.”
Perrin waits for a short but tense moment while Mel braves the sewer, then relaxes as she returns to the surface. "Hey. It's been a long and kinda sucky day, but... I'm glad we pulled through." He holds out a couple of items. "These might help with that going forward. Keep them if you want, or sell them and give the money to an orphanage - it's up to you." With that, he starts heading back to join Kazador, Roet, and the guards.
Mel looks at the patches of fresh, wet halfling blood on her cloak.
"Let's go meet up with the others and head back to the guardhouse," she says wearily. "We can worry about all that once we've had a chance to catch our breaths and clean up a bit."
Mel looks at the neat rolls of gold pieces. "I need a bank account," she says. "I don't like carrying thousands of gold and platinum pieces around in a backpack. They're heavy, and it's an invitation to get robbed. Maybe tomorrow, though. It's been ... a very long day."
Smythe takes a look at the corpse. "I'll presume you didn't obtain any information. Nevertheless, the reward is yours. Coroner Fuller came by earlier. She arranged lodging for you at the Cozy Badger, a reputable inn and tavern very close to the guardhouse." He sniffs the air and coughs suddenly at the stench. "I'll leave you to that. Good day." He then turns on his heel and heads back toward his office.
Kelian, who had been waiting in the guardhouse on a bench, comes up to you with a nervous half-smile. "It looks like you all made it back. I'm glad. Should we head to the Badger? The guards told me they have an incredible lamb coddle there and I'm starving!"
”Aye. That sounds good to me. I’ll meet ye there, somethin’ I’d like to get done first.”
"Perfect, I've got a couple stops to make as well."
"Do what you like," Mel says dully. "Just now I'm going to go to this inn, where I'm going to bathe, eat, and then tumble straight into bed. Kelian, can you show me where it is, please?"
The young man nods and shows her the way. As Colonel Smythe promised, it's not far from the guardhouse, situated just a few minutes walk to the east, on the way to the mercantile district. The sign out front shows a cut-away view of a badger's den in deep winter, cold snow outside with a badger curled up asleep inside. The Z's emerging from the badger waft upwards until the largest of them becomes the Z in the word "COZY" curled around the top of the sign. At the bottom, the word "BADGER" forms the floor of the den.
It was just growing dark as they reached the inn. "Better hurry if you want to catch the merchants tonight, guys," Mel says. "They're probably closing up for the evening, if they haven't already. Me, I plan to catch them tomorrow morning."
And with that, she opens the door to the inn allowing light, music, and the scent of good food to spill out into the street.