With its unevenly mortared stones and barred windows, this squat structure looks like a miniature fortress. Despite the row of horseshoes hung beneath its sign, nothing can make the plain word “Jail” look welcoming. Two wooden pillories stand empty in front of the building.
Cimri asks, "So what do you want to do first, head in and give the news or nail the proclamation to the post?"
Rurisa listens to Cimri's story as the group walks. "I recommend joining a merc outfit, Hellrazors or someone else reliable. You get to see the world, get paid to be a b##$@, and most folks fall all over themselves to stay on your good side."
Surveying the jailhouse, Rurisa shrugs. "She's the sheriff, which means she has authority that gate guards and barkeeps lack. No sense in antagonizing her unnecessarily. I'll be the messenger." So saying, she steps up to the door and raps her gauntlet loudly against the wood.
"Perform as reliably as you have in your last two tasks, and I’ll pay what we agreed upon for your first task. If this assignment goes smoothly, the Archbaron would like to meet with you. It sounds as though he might soon have some civil positions to fill."
Kayal remains quiet through Cimri's explanation, offering brief nods as his scroll-toting shade morphs into vague shapes of bottles and chains. Abandonment is something he is all too familiar with, and while he does not truly understand the notion of revenge in such circumstances, it is a motivation he can respect. Both Cimri's sudden slap and Rurisa's suggestion earn a raised brow, but after a moment of consideration he nods again. "The Lord speaks of knowing all this life has to offer. Expanding one's experiences. I am not aware of your company, Ms. Thelvarn; but should they mimic your effectiveness, I can only concur."
Upon approach of the jail, he forces the rogue shadow back into place, placing the loose scroll back with the others and pooling back around his feet. "If you wish. Though perhaps Master Penance can offer a better foil in keeping the woman civil," he answers to Rurisa, blinking. "If not, there shall be two in the cells."
The door opens to reveal Sheriff Staelish who looks surprised by your visit. "Rurisa, Cimri, everyone...What are you doing here, coming to report something? This is not about those decrees posted all over town I hope..."
Rurisa snaps off a salute Last salute I'll be giving you, Sheriff/ and nods. "It is ma'am, this is our last stop for today. Though there is one other matter as well. May I come in?"
Pulling out the decree, she unrolls it and hands it to the other woman. "Rhona Staelish, by the Archbaron's decree your services as the Sheriff of Longacre are no longer required, effective immediately."
Vokrin stands a bit shocked, both at the sudden dismissal of the sheriff and the fact that Cimri was here for it. Heartless, this baron. I like it. He doesn't show much emotion, shocked though he is, a raised eyeridge being the only evidence that he has noticed at all.
Unable to help himself, Penance grinned as Rurisa made the announcement. He didn't really care about the sheriff, but any law enforcement agent not willing to extract information from a captive was really just letting an opportunity to to waste. Who knows how much information someone is his profession could have overheard. It was almost too tempting for Penance to resist as his hand slowly went to the handle of his little mace.
Rhona steps back and allows you inside. Her deputies all freeze as you enter, several of them holding cups of tea. Inside, a large common room contains three desks and a table with four chairs. Two doors exit the common room to the north, opening onto a narrow hallway with two jail cells. To the west of the common room, a waisthigh railing separates the sheriff’s office from the rest of the jail. Rhona cocks her hip against a table and asks, "Ok, what's this about now?"
Upon accepting the archbaron’s letter and rereading it two or three
times, Staelish removes her black vest—embroidered with the symbol of Cheliax—and slaps her ebonhandled longsword on her former desk. She retrieves her personal crossbow, as well as a few effects from her desk before replying, "It's too bad the archbaron is too much of a coward to do his own dirty work. I'm really not worried about me, I’m worried about what the townspeople are in store for with thugs like you in charge." She says no more and leaves quietly refusing to make eye contact with anyone.
Staelish’s deputies, on the other hand, aren’t willing to give up quite so easily. One draws and loads his light crossbow, saying, “This ain’t right. You can’t just throw out this town’s only justice. It ain’t right!” The other deputies share similar sentiments.
"Drop... it. No need to raise arms at a time like this boys. We're just the messengers. I'm sure you don't want to throw away your lives by committing the very crimes you've sworn to stand against."
Penance wastes no time summoning the power of his voice, his infectious tone beginning to sap the will of the one holding the crossbow.
"I'm certain Lord Fex has more pressing issues to address," Kayal sighs at Rhona's backtalk, bored as he is of stating the obvious. Otherwise he remains wholeheartedly still throughout the exchange, not much caring for the (now ex-) sheriff's measured responses with a bolt pointed at them. At first the shadow priest simply stares, unused to borderline unrelated personnel taking a stance against official orders, but on review a latent anger seems to flare as Penance voices his warning, and for a moment something hideous seems to claw out from behind the Fetchling's eyes.
Fire, and I'll have you swallow it.
"Thugs like us are what hold Cheliax together, Rhona." Rurisa watches the other woman carefully, with something like approval in her eyes. She obeys without bluster, admirably. She's angry, though she contains it well. Don't do anything rash, Rhona, or our next meeting won't be so pleasant.
Turning a contemptuous look upon the crossbow-wielding guard, she carefully meets the eyes of him and every one of his fellows. "I'm quite certain you're not implying anything like a threat to persons acting under the Archbaron's lawful authority." Though no explicit threat is voiced, the mercenary's quiet menace is unmistakable.
All of the deputies shiver under Kayal's gaze and Curtwyn drops his crossbow under Penance's command. Rurisa successfully stares them all down, allowing Ertha to step up. "There's no reason for this, but you won't have our help." She strips her vest off and drops it to the floor, collecting her personal affairs and heading out the door. The rest of the deputies soon follow suit, Curtwyn spitting on the pile of vests before leaving. Very soon it is only the four of you in the jail with a pile of vests on the floor.
Cimri has been quiet through the entire confrontation, but speaks up as soon as everyone is alone. "Well that could have gone better. Could've been a lot worse too. We're the only ones here, want to check things out before we head back to Razelgo or head back now?"
Rurisa quietly watches them leave, them moves to the desk and searches for any documents on the employees--names, addresses, family, all of it. She then checks for keys and moves room to room.
Once this is completed, she returns to the others. "I believe we're done here, let's lock up and report back. We can turn the key over to Razelgro and collect our reward in plenty of time."
As Rurisa goes through drawers and documentation, Kayal hisses a whisper and yet another of his mage hand shades crawls out to pluck the abandoned vests from the floor. One by one the items of clothing are taken, lightly dusted, and folded neat into an orderly pile that hovers just a touch out of reach.
"Loose ends make for frayed tapestries. A moment more will do us no harm," he muses to Cimri, chin jutting to their roaming Hellrazor as he wills the cloth to settle on a desk before moving to wait by the door.
With no direct threat or order given, the oracle sees fit to speak his mind. "If it is not too much to say: your reward may lack violence, Ms. Staelish, but even this small piece of vengeance is more than many ever know." He begins placing up one of the declarations against the wall, smile audible as he pins it into place. "Perhaps you are favored. The abandoned often are."
The jail contains three cabinets, two in the common room and one in the sheriff’s office. The cabinets are locked and there are no keys to be found. Cimri gets out her tools and pops each lock in under a minute revealing an assortment of weapons and armor: three suits of leather armor, four light wooden shields, six clubs, four light crossbows and 40 bolts, four longswords, and six saps, as well as six potions of cure light wounds clearly marked with the symbol of Iomedae and two potions of remove disease. One of the cabinets also holds a key etched with the word “pillory,” which unlocks the sturdy padlocks on the pillories in front of the jail.
In addition, a lockbox sits behind the sheriff’s desk. It’s locked, but again Cimri brings out her tools and cracks the lock. The lockbox contains an assortment of weapons and contraband confiscated over the years. Inside is a wand with small lightning bolts etched into its sides, a masterwork bronze scizore decorated with a sculpted skeletal lion, 1 dose of blue whinnis, 10 doses of pesh , a collection of 17 pornographic Taldan quartos containing scripts for two-performer “plays” (including “Her Highness’s Tea Service” and “The Guardsman’s Fine Salute”, seven skull-shaped onyxes, and a pouch containing 10 pp and a bill of ownership for a “Halfling, male, 20 years, service-trained. Missing toe on left foot. Responds to the name ‘Ardin.’”
Snorting at the sight of the Inheritor's symbol, Rurisa ponders for a moment. "I believe pilfering the jail would be stepping well beyond our orders, but the lack of keys concerns me. I've no interest to see these supplies stolen by the newly unemployed guards. I think we should stash them elsewhere for safekeeping and request the magic from Razelgro. Cimri, can you re-lock these cabinets once we're done?"
Having finished pinning the scroll into place, Kayal lends his eye to Rurisa's discoveries and hums a sound of agreement as he thumbs through the would-be 'collection' of literature with growing disinterest. Upon skimming the bill, he comes to a brief pause, muttering "Curious. Is it in Longacre's nature to confiscate a leash?" before giving his surroundings one last courtesy glance.
"Pity the brute was not detained...But if we are done here?" Kayal seems visibly perturbed at the lack of prisoners—what sort of jail does not make use of its primary function?—but nonetheless stands to attention, ever ready to answer and assist.
Cimri nods and twirls her tools around her hand, "Yep, that'll be no problem."
Penance signed at the realization that not only was no one being tortured, but no one was even being imprisoned in the jail. He turned and headed back to the front door, muttering under his breath as he went. He cracked the front door slightly to have a peak outside. He was almost hoping that the former guards had found their courage while they waited.
Cimri begins to whistle merrily, seemingly happy with how things turned out as she turns to head to the south of town and out the gate back to Ash House. Everyone else however notices four distinct shadows hanging around the corner of the street, waiting in ambush.
Hauling a sack full of the jail supplies, Rurisa trusts her helm to keep her from giving away that she's noticed. Softly she says to the others, "Everyone else sees our new friends, yes? Cimri, sweetheart, slow down, let me take the lead."
Adjusting her bag so that her right hand is free, she heads towards the would-be ambushers.
Kayal doesn't offer much acknowledgment himself, but there's a distinct darkening of his skin as shades spill and crawl out from beneath his clothes, trailing faint wisps of smoke in the sunlight.
Cimri nods and falls back so Rurisa can lead, pulling out her sap because she's still in town.
A cry of "Get Archie's dogs!" can be heard as the former deputies pile around the corner to attack. Rurisa is faster and her blade leaps from her scabbard as they move in with saps.
Rurisa's quick pull drags her greatsword in front of the sap aimed at her skull, stopping it thoroughly. The other former law enforcement shuffle to get a better position.
Rurisa exhales a thick, acrid smoke, and behind the helm her eyes widen and grow black, seeming to drink the viewer in. As she speaks, her voice takes on a sinister echoing quality.
"Your mistake was turning in your badges. You're not lawmen anymore, your just common criminals...assaulting the Archbaron's officers. No survivors."
Kayal twitches a little at the ex-deputies' cry, and a black ichor spills from his hands to roam and coat not only his own weapons, but those of his allies in a terrible, hungering sheen. The Lord's favor won't last, of course, but a few precious moments should be more than sufficient for this petty rabble.
That done, Kayal's shades urge him to move, and the inky Fetchling recklessly skims by the raging Hellrazor and those hostiles beyond, cutting off the western alley
The newly minted criminals take their opportunities to attack Kayal as he bounds across the open space.
The shadows surrounding Kayal move to anticipate the swings of the saps coming for him but misjudge and leave him woefully exposed. Rurisa's follow-up nearly cuts the woman in front of her down leaving large blood spatter across the hard packed dirt of the road. Cimri sees her opportunity and rushes forward to drive her sap into the injured woman. The blood on the ground is slicker than she anticipates and her swing is brought up short because of it.
Vokrin raises his hands in arcane gesture. Words of power echo from his lips in a vile tongue, before a pair of missiles strike one of those who had hit Kayal.
Vokrin's magic bursts forward, one missile hitting the woman bleeding causing her to fall unconscious and drop to the ground. The other veers unerringly around the corner to hit the other person who managed to hit Kayal on his way to block the alleyway.
"Flee, coward, while you still can. Here is not where you want to be" the young gnome commanded, his voice carrying an unusual air of authority with it. As he spoke he freed the small crossbow slung across his back and started to load a bolt.
As the eldritch bolt streaks past her shoulder to strike the ex-guard before her, Rurisa's face splits into the grim smile of a swordswoman who loves her work. Bulling past the collapsing woman, spinning right with a low slash to the thigh of the guard who had been around the corner.
The woman still standing shakes as Penance's power washes over her. She continues to shake, though she stands her ground. Rurisa's strike takes the man behind the corner by surprise and follows the same pattern as the last target of her strike. More blood spatters the area, though the man remains standing.
A flurry of activity comes from the former deputies as they swing about wildly. Somehow each of them hits their target, taking down Kayal and injuring Rurisa and Cimri. The woman at Rurisa's feet continues to bleed on the ground.
Creeping up the alleyway, Penance began whispering, calling out to something unseen, something hidden, like a lost child looking for his mother but too afraid of being too loud. Suddenly, out of the darkness crept a mangy, feral dog. Eyes glowing red with fur that reeked of sulfar. With putrid yellow teeth it lunged at one of the guards, sinking fangs into flesh.
"I'm sorry, did someone says dogs?"
Kayal manages to look his assailant in the eye as the hit connects, and the Kuthite can't help but grin and spit a lob of bloody saliva in their direction before dropping directly to his knees. A second later his skull rebounds on Longacre ground, complete with a rather nasty sound that suggests his nose may have taken the brunt of the impact.
Penance's dog rips into the uninjured man's calf, distracting him from Cimri's angry strike.
The dog that smells of hellfire continues to hold on to the man's leg as Cimri's sap takes him in the head, dropping him the way a lumberjack fells a tree. His skull also makes an unpleasant sound as it cracks against the hard-packed dirt.
The ex-deputies begin to look worried now that two of them have gone down, one in blood and one in bruises.
"Bad luck, fool. Thought the wizard would finish you off, but it looks like you're mine." Too close to properly swing her Hellrazor, Rurisa grips the blade with a gauntleted hand and releases the hilt as she side-steps, allowing the heavy crossguard to swing towards the injured guard's neck.
The last man standing, Curtwyn, the one who drew his crossbow on you in the sheriff's office, looks at the devastation around him and quietly drops his sap, tears streaming from his eyes. "Please! Please, we'll follow quietly, just save my friends."
Acrid smoke still pouring from her helm, Rurisa tilts her head and regards the blubbering ex-guard with black soulless eyes, curious despite herself. Shifting her stance to ready guard, she asks with that same sinister echo, "What exactly were you fools hoping to accomplish here?"
Curtwyn continues looking at his friends lying on the ground and bleeding out, hands by his sides, palms up as though he were a supplicant. "It's a travesty, an injustice. Rhonna was one of the best things about this town and now she can't help the people she swore to protect. If you were knocked out, dragged to the forest, taken down a peg, then maybe the people could continue to hope..."
Drip. Drip. Drip. The sounds of his tears hitting the earth are loud in the silence.
Rurisa is silent for a long moment, forcing Curtwyn to meet her eyes.
"Your stupidity has probably cost your friends' their lives. The man you battered to the cobblestones was our priest. Lie face down, you're under arrest." With a shudder and a pained spasm, Rurisa's eyes return to their normal blue, and the brimstone-scented smoke drifts away.
With the immediate threats neutralized, Penance is quick to use his magic to stabilize those that were down, both friend and foe. It was much harder to question the dead, and the living were so much more fun. They made much more interesting sounds.
Struggling not to wobble as the post-fury fatigue sets in, Rurisa silently watches Penance's spellcasting upon the wounded. Shrugging at Curtwyn, "I stand corrected."
Rummaging through the sack of supplies taken from the guardhouse, the mercenary turns over Kayal and carefully dribbles one of the healing potions down his throat.
A few moments of gargling pass before Kayal begins to rouse awake, the potion's contents visibly helped down by the insistent silhouette of a fist at his throat. For a short while he simply lies there, squinting up at the daylight and swallowing the blood from his nose, before his hand rises to his face and forcibly re-aligns the cartilage with a sickening crack. The priest doesn't offer much in the way of vocal gratitude as he calmly pulls himself upright and dusts off the street from his already tarnished robes, pausing only to take in the scenery of three bloody masses—tended to by Asmodean magic—and a man in miserable surrender.
Spitting off more red saliva from his teeth, Kayal casts his gaze between Rurisa, Penance, and the rebellious deputies at their feet. While he may still restrain himself from speaking, the risen brow and rattle in his eye broadcast the thought well enough: What do we intend?
That the priest personally wants to wants to break the whimpering man's kneecaps and compound his grief is, to that, a secondary concern.