Ruke takes the opportunity to uncurl the whip from his belt, and then says in a loud voice, "This makes me remember the time when Ortis the Bald was wrestling with an alligator in one of our shows. The thing got a little wild and had to be stomped! Ortis crushed that thing and skinned it on the spot. Next day he had a new set of boots, and they were sharp!"
He lets the long whip in his hand snake down to the ground, and gives it a little shake, working it out to the full length and staring coldly at Lamm, "Now, you and I are going to have a little chat. And I promise you one thing old man, you will most certainly not enjoy it. Your shiver pushing days...are over."
Krojun's axe comes crashing down and bites severely into the alligator's flesh, riling up the animal only further as its blood begins to color the water.
"You're a fool if you think all the shiver in this town comes from me, half-pint! I just take a cut from some of the profits in exchange for a few favors to a few friends. If you think you can bring the whole thing down, you're just as foolish as you are small!" Lamm croaks before cackling.
"Thanks Krojun! The rest of you -- don't let Gaedrenn get away!" Still disoriented from the fall, Silvio nevertheless slices toward the distracted alligator.
; .
Seing that Krojun is going to the aid of their friend, Staryth instead closes into glaive range with Lamm and strikes if he can.
"You think because others do evil it excuses your own? Perhaps you are only one stone, but a fortress can be stripped brick by brick if need be."
Seeing his spell fail to affect either villian, Nicolai pulls his crossbow "Looks like we'll have to do this the old fashioned way"
Seeing his spell fail to affect either villian, Nicolai pulls his crossbow "Looks like we'll have to do this the old fashioned way"
Gaedren and Yargin will need to make a DC:14 Will save to avoid the effects.
Staryth rushes over and lunges at Yargin, catching the man right in the neck and slicing his throat ride open.
Yargin gurgles some general approximation of a swear and collapses on the spot, sitting against the wall, eyes wide open with a shocked expression. He drops his wand and it rolls off the edge, planting itself in the sand in clear sight.
"Ha, you'll need more than parlor tricks to stop Old L-"
Nicolai's spell catches Lamm unprepared mid-taunt, leaving him stunned.
Meanwhile, Silvio's dueling sword scrapes against the Gator's tough scales, just leaving a scratch.
Seeing an opening with Lamm stunned, Sera steps in and bashes the old man upside the head, inflicting a solid blow.
Gaedrenn is too dazed by the assault to react, slouching over a nearby desk.
"No... This isn't ending just yet..."
Enraged by the axe blow, Gobbleguts whips its tail at Krojun as he snaps onces more at the rogue. Silvio avoids the alligator's cruel teeth, but Krojun isn't as lucky; the alligator's tail strikes his left leg hard and snaps his tibia in two, its rough scales shaving much of his thigh's skin right off.
"Krojun! Seeing the mighty Krojun nearly leveled, Silvio tries a desperate stab.
The slice is off the mark. "Okay, maybe we need some help here after all!" He steps sideways to allow others some room.
Furious, standing fierce even on a broken leg, Krojun lifts his axe up high and brings it down fiercely in a swinging blow, severing the alligator's tail from his body and leaving the animal's spine contorted in an unlikely position.
With an odd whine, the animal attempts to disappear in the depths, but quickly passes from bloodloss.
Staryth moves over the man he just downed and closes on Lamm, "You show no remorse for your actions, you prey on and use the innocent. Shelyn have mercy on your soul, for I can find none in myself for you." the bloodied edge of his weapon lurches forward
Seeing Yargin down, Sera takes a step to the side and vents her rage on Lamm's stunned body. "A jury of those you have used and discarded have found you guilty of crimes against Korvosa and humanity. The punishment for this, is death!"
With surprising agility for a man his age, Gaedrenn ducks under Staryth's swing reflexively, only for Sera to catch his ribs on the way back up. He gives a wheezing cough as the impact is made, blood spurting out on his lips, and some of his ribs can be heard cracking.
Surrounded, defeated, demoralized the old Lamm collapses onto the nearby table, hacking up a copious spurt of blood.
"Hurk... No... This can't be..."
His right arm numbly sags off the table, and his face meets the old wooden surface, dripping with both blood and drool.
"... I guess it had to happen some day. Hah. It's been a good ride. Pretty sure I deserve the beating I'm gonna get on the other side, but I'll be damned if I don't take it fighting right back. Do your worst, you wolves, you've certainly earned it."
Gaedren hacks once more, bleeding from the nose.
His voice is reduced to a mere wheeze.
"Just... Do this old rat a final favor, would you? I just wanna know..."
Gaedren's eyes slowly close, now deprived of that eye-defying brightness.
"I just wanna know how you lot found me out in the end. Who told you where to find me?"
Anyone with Sense Motive can tell that Lamm is being, for one of the rare few times in his very long life, absolutely honest.
"Does it really make a difference, at this point? Will you really be happier with yourself knowing you let me die wondering that?"
"Well, I'll tell you." Silvio pauses for effect. "It was Gobbleguts!" He laughs at his own obvious lie.
"Abadar set me on your path. I think you should take it up with him." replies Sera with a voice of ice.
"Happy? No, but too many have been betrayed to you already. Perhaps whatever afterlife awaits you has the answers you seek."
Ruke's face smirks slightly, and he quickly glances around the room for any other obvious threats. Seeing no one else around he ducks through the group and comes up beside the quickly dying man, whispering into his ear, his normally bold voice dropping to an imperceptible mutter, "This death you have earned, and in Varisia we pay our debts. This is for Desmin," as he produces a sharp little knife which he runs between Lamm's ribs, "and for Zellara's son. She sends her regards..."
"... her? ...I guess even thatcouldn't shut her up."
And those were the last words Lamm would ever speak.
Lamm's lifeless body collapses on the floor, marking the end of a quest for revenge, and the culmination of months or years of anger...
Still, one small rooms taunts the party in the corner; who knows what kind of riches a man like Lamm might have amassed, the more gold-hungry amongst you may ponder.
As he dips his sword into the briny water, Silvio watches as the tiny bit of Gaedren's blood dissipates into nothing. "I can't believe it. He's gone!" The monster of his childhood nightmares had finally and truly been slain.
He climbs up from the water and takes a good look at Gaedren's lifeless corpse. Thank you, blessed Sarenrae, for granting me justice.
As Gaedrenn passes, the realization of what has just transpired hit the cleric. She stares for a moment at the corpses of the one who introduced her to the life of drugs and whoring, and the one to pimped her out to his twisted clientele. Knees going weak, she excuses herself as she needs to get away, anywhere else. Can't let them see me like this! she thinks as tears begin to well up in her eyes.
Bursting out onto the ramshackle dock, she collapses against the wall, tears of joy mixing with those from years of frustration. I am free of my past, finally, after all this time, I am free.
Outside, the ruckus is still going, a stern reminder that there is still trouble at hand...
Meanwhile, Ruke conducts a thorough search of the bodies and Gaedren's room, turning up much of interest...
Found on the two thugs upstairs:
- Two sets of studded leather armor; one medium, one small.
- Kukri
- Dagger
- Flail
- Light Wooden Shield
- Disguise kit with 8 uses remaining.
Found in upstairs cabinet (you guys already know about this one)
- 17 gp in copper and silver.
A cursory search of the unexplored room upstairs reveals it to be where Gaedrenn's three underlings spent their nights, though none of them trusts the others enough to leave any valuables about.
Found on Yargin:
- Leather armor
- Light crossbow with 10 bolts
- Wand of acid splash (Unknown remaining charges)
- 3 Acid flasks
- 1 Tanglefoot bag
- 1 Thunderstone
- A finely crafted garnet amulet of some value
Found on Gaedrenn:
- Masterwork Chain Shirt
- Masterwork Dagger
- Masterwork Hand Crossbow (with 9 bolts)
Gaedrenn's room is an absolute mess; A wooden bed with a lumpy mattress stands against the east wall, while a round table heaped with dirty plates, bread crusts, stained goblets, fruit rinds, and scuttling cockroaches sits nearby. At the foot of the bed sits a large strongbox, a slighty rusted lock securing its lid. A sagging dresser filled with moth-eaten clothes well past their glory days is in one corner—what appears to be a wooden hatbox surrounded by a small cloud of flies sits atop this dresser.
"I can't believe it. He's gone!" The monster of his childhood nightmares had finally and truly been slain.
"Yes, many are safer now." The paladin cleans his blade, glancing at Yargin. Then he turns to the cleric.
"Sera I know you announced your desire to deal with him alone... I am sorry for taking Yar..." But by the time he stammers it out, Sera has left for privacy.
Staryth instead turns to the corpse, and prays over it. He has no doubts that Gaedren's soul heads to a dark end indeed, given the life the man led, but still, what they did was not something he cares to rejoice in. It was merely necessary.
And even the blackest of souls deserve some form of dignity with their ending.
Ruke casts a glance around the room, looking to the strongbox and lock and then over to Silvio, "Seems the old nob has a bit of something locked away over here, if you've a mind to work through that lock." He continues to look around the room noting with disgust at how the man lived, "Old geezer was a slob, sure as I'm standing here. What a mess." He spies the hatbox, something that should not attract flies. He carefully moves towards it, and with the tip of his small scimitar, flips the lid, immediately dropping back into a defensive stance in the event that a horde of winged beasts depart the container and begin their assault. Either that or he has likely stowed away more discarded food, which would smell something horrid to pull in that many of the buzzing vermin.
Other than a handful more flies, nothing comes out of the box. It just sits there. It does, however, let a terrible smell propagate further.
Silvio goes into Gaedren's bedchambers and sees the mess it's in. "He's just a miserable old man. How did he bring so much sadness and misery?" He scans the chest carefully for traps, just in case. Then he'll open the lock.
Blech! How could anyone live in this filth?
He quickly forms his free hand in a series of gestures, allowing an arcane phrase to escape his lips. "Smellius fiximus." and lets out a little grin.
Ruke inches closer to the dresser, daring a look inside, his hopes of treasures obviously dashed to the ground with the horrid odor.
Silvio fidgets with the lockbox for a few moments, and finally gets it open without incident, revealing a wealth of stolen items.
- A narrow teak cigar case, inlaid with tiny bits of jade.
- Four gold ingots bearing the Cheliax coat of arms
- A silver ring bearing the inscription "for Emmah-the light in my nights"
- A thin gold chain necklace, holding an emerald necklace with the approximate shade of a three-sided pyramid.
- A highly realistic (and even more scandalous) ivory figurine of two entwined succubi.
- A masterwork shuriken
- An adamantine arrowhead
- An abalone-shell holy symbol of Shelyn
- A flask of some clear oil
- An elegant crystalline vial containing a dose of silversheen
- An ornate obsidian wand
- An ivory wand
However, the last object in the box is the most valuable, visibly, and by far; a circular gold brooch depicting a pseudodragon and an imp coiled around each other in an almost yin-yang pattern. The pseudodragon’s eye is an amethyst, while the imp’s eye is an emerald.
---
Meanwhile, Ruke looks into the hatbox, and is met with Zellara looking back at him. More precisely, her severed head; poorly preserved, and decorated with unsightly makeup in a crude attempt to give her sagging flesh the apparence of life.
Ruke recoils from the box quickly, stammering and panic quickly escaping from his otherwise slick and collected demeanor.
"Folks...we have a problem here. It seems Lamm found out about our plans, or meeting, or something. You need to see this."
Given the time frame between you guys leaving Zellara's home and fighting Lamm, it's more than clear that a clear impossibility is at hand, for the record.
In his sudden movement back, Ruke accidentally nudges the box, and the head rolls to the side, revealing a small wooden box under the stump of her neck.
Seeing the small box, Ruke fights against his natural urge to get as far away from the head as possible, and quickly reaches in, snatching the treasure before swiftly retreating from the grisly scene.
in response to Ruke's outburst Nicolai will enter the room. peering in the box at his his grisly discovery
"I don't think Zellara told him anything as he was quite unprepared for our assault."
Staryth looks the scene that's brought to his attention in confusion.
The box turns out to contain a harrow deck of exquisite make; in fact, you recognize it as identical to the one Zellara earlier used to conduct a harrowing for your group; an unlikely feat given its hand-painted unique nature.
A few minutes later, after recovering herself, the red eyes Sera returned to examine the head, and is clearly distressed at what she finds. "This head has been dead for weeks. There is no way the amount of decay and insect activity here happened in one day." Continuing her train of thought, she drops the head back into the box. "This leads me to two options. One, The person we met last night was an imposter disguised as Zellara who sent us here to disposed of Gaedrenn for her own purposes. Or two, Abadar himself saw fit to send an emissary in the disguise of a fortune-teller to set our paths on this quest for justice. Clearly the later makes more sense as how else could our invitations have arrived without notice or cause of alarm." I am sorry Golden Fisted one, for ever doubting the signs you've given me.
"Dead for weeks? The poor woman. Perhaps her spirit will know some measure of peace now though" Staryth says in a gentle tone.
"Gah!" Silvio drops his thieves' tools at the sight of Zellara's severed head. He fumbles to pick them up, trying to regain his composure. "None of this makes any sense."
"There is no way the amount of decay and insect activity here happened in one day." Continuing her train of thought, she drops the head back into the box.
Ruke gathers up the wands and other trinkets and brings them over to Nicholai, "Looks like an odd assortment of baubles. Maybe your skills can help us sort out the wheat from the chaff eh? Anything to be as far away as possible from the you know what of the late you know who. I'll gladly help however I can."
"Might want to have a look at this as well", Ruke adds, indicating the harrow deck in a box, "Just another mystery in this already mysterious affair to be honest."