"Maybe we can find a barrel of salted fish or something and hide the head within that container as we move it to Zellara's place? We likely stink of fish already and with some luck we won't draw the attention of the guards."
"I still say it would be easier and safer to dispose of it here, but I can't argue if Tim wants to give the fortune teller rites and a respectful disposal. If we do make it to her home safely, what do we do with it then, after rites are performed?"
Ill take the head to Gray District and dispose of it there. I know a couple of the Priests of Pharasma. Picking up the hatbox he glances once more into it and chokes down the rising nausea. grabbing up the lid and replacing it before heading back out into the main area. Upstairs? or check out the barge tethered against the dock?
"I had forgotten all about the barge. Before following through with that, I could use some healing, if it is available. I'm more or less out n my feet."
Callie arrives with the girl behind her in the lift. She calls out "What is going on?"
Of Course Crain. I am sorry, I should have noticed that sooner. Setting the hat box down on one of the tables in the outer room, Timerus move next to the big man. Lowering his head he prayed to dismiss the Commanding Prayer and recall the Healing Prayer. Then he touched the silver Key around his nec and began intoning calling upon the direct healing energies. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Callie come in with the girl and nodded at them.
His prayer finished he touched The leg where the alligators tooth marks still stood out.
The glow upon his hand healed a few of the wounds his friend had taken.
Then he turned to Callie and the girl. As he approached, he said softly to Callie What it is in the hatbox is both repulsive and quite shocking. I cannot say in front of mixed company. But steel your stomach afore you look. I am really not sure what to make of it.
Then he moved toward the young lady and to distract her away from Callie for the moment he began How are you feeling? I am Timerus. Surely this must be shocking to you, awaking and seeing your captors undone. We mean you know harm, and will see you safely away from this place, to a destiny of your choosing. What should I call you?
Eleazar let his gaze drift off, presumably looking off in the direction of the barge when it was mentioned. The young man seemed to be trying to work things out in his mind and seemed rather detached from the moment. Running his hands together, he traced several arcane runes in the empty air, before he spoke with new certainty.
"We should investigate the barge. It may provide us with further information necessary to unravel this puzzle. Perhaps when Callie returns she will return with evidence from those cabinets." Shortly after those words left his mouth, he saw Callie returning with that drug addict in tow.
"Do we want to finish looking around upstairs before we head over to the barge? Callie, please come over here for a second," he asks sweetly, seeing Timrus with the young girl. After getting Callie alone, he describes the horrific contents of the hatbox to her.
Callie raises an eyebrow at Eleazar, sighing a little impatiently. She wanted little more than to be out of here. Not to mention the choking air of the fishery was getting to her. "I gave one of you the key to look into the cabinets. I thought I said quite clearly I was going to check on the girl and would wait for you upstairs. I only came back because Crain called out." She pauses, seeing him look at her and the girl, perhaps with a faint gaze of derision . "Her name is Lindy."
Callie's brow furrows as Timerus approaches and tells her about the hatbox. "You wanted me to come back down... to look in a hatbox? Why are we wasting tim-" she pauses, catching a whiff of the horrendous scent of decay coming from the box. "If you don't know what to make of it, I don't see how I could..." she drifts off, deciding not to argue. But she is not sure why they thought a street performer and would-be swordswoman could do anything about something rotting in a hatbox, if the three of them could not already think of anything.
Regardless, they asked for her help, so she lets Timerus steer Lindy away, and then gingerly lifts the lid on the hatbox.
She gasps, and just manages to hold down the gorge that begins to rise upon seeing its contents. She lets the box fall to the ground, a further stench rising as it falls. "Good gods." Callie tries to piece together whatever logic she could find in what she saw. "A daughter? A sister? I thought she said he'd killed her son."
"Oh for the gods' sake, what did you have to show me that for?" She clasps her hand to her mouth, letting her disgust turn to irritation in her voice. "You're the bloody priest, consecrate it and burn the thing. And then let's be out of here as soon as we can!"
At Callie's Comment, Timerus looks back I wanted to find out your thoughts. That has been there for longer than we have been here. Don't you find it a bit strange?, and as for leaving, Im all for that...once we've made sure there are no more innocents inside the barge. What if he has more children there? Im not going to burn it though, It's coming with us back to Zelara's where I will prepare it for internment in Potters Ward in Gray district.
"What kind of f@&~ing thoughts do you expect me to have about a rotting severed head?"
Callie stopped herself, taking deep breaths (away from the hatbox), trying to calm herself. Timerus was right about making sure there was no one else here. She knew shouting would do no good.
"Look, if you want to carry a rotten head with you, I give you all my blessings. If that's the case, at least put it in a pot or a metal bucket--there's got to be some around here, I think I saw over there." She points, forcing herself to think, to talk, to keep going.
"Fill it with brine, there's more than plenty here, that'll keep it from rotting further, even if the last thing we need to take from Lamm's is a pickled head.
"I am all for making sure any other children here are safe," she looks back at Lindy. "But the ones who fled must have raised up a ruckus when they ran off, and you made it clear we would not want to attract the guard, so I suggest we move quickly.
"If you take care of... of... of the contents of the hatbox and keep an eye on Lindy, I'll take the key back and go back upstairs and check the desk and cabinet, while Eleazar and Crain search the barge and anywhere else we haven't checked. Does that sound like a fair plan?"
"Agreed." Eleazar could understand Callie's impatience to a degree, but he did notice that from the beginning the woman had a bit of a chip on her shoulder. Still, she had been through much thanks to Lamm. He urged himself to patience and kept his own temper from rising.
He did not hesitate much longer and began striding confidently in the direction of the barge, waving his hand over his shoulder. "Crain, let us examine what lay in store for us on this barge." As he began to stalk away he pulled out his crossbow. The weapon had been reloaded and if there was another associate of Gaedren Lamm's waiting for them on the barge, Eleazar told himself he would not hesitate to fire.
Timerus is taken aback by Callies outburst. Obviously she didnt see the import of what was going on here...
He nodded his head though and moved to pick up the pot with a handle on it for hanging over a fire that she indicated and shielding what was going to happen from Lindy's sight he grimaced and reached in grabbing the head by a some hair tested it to make sure it wouldnt come loose from the scalp, and pulled it out of the hatbox setting inside the pot.
Callie nods to the others. She likewise could not fathom what Timerus expected of her. The head's similarity to Zellara disturbed her, certainly, but she could make no sense of it other than obviously the woman had other relatives who had tried to recover her deck and had been punished for it. They could question the fortuneteller about it when they returned to her.
Occam's Razor had not descended yet upon her thoughts to allow her to accept the more disturbing, if obvious, option.
She recovers the key they found earlier and goes back upstairs, starting with the cabinet and seeing if the key unlocks it.
Crain nods and follows the sorcerer onto the barge. "Let's be quick, so we can get out of here.". Crain was still very worried about the possibility that the guards would be here soon, but the others were right. There could be Others held there that needed to be freed.
@Callie: The keys you found open both the cabinets in A6 and in A7. The cabinet in A6 contains a large number of scrolls covered in lists, figures, and other records. It appears to document all of the business conducted in connection with the fish slurry. A quick look-over of the documents reveals nothing illegal or sinister. The cabinet in A7 contains 6 small, leather pouches. 2 contain 50 sp, 4 contain 40 cp.
@Crain and Eleazar: The rotten deck of the this ancient barge seems to be barely intact, its hull worn and thick with seaweed and barnacles.
The barge is held together primarily by the layers of old rope that lash it securely to the pilings that support the fishery and the nearby boardwalk. A single wooden door leading into the aft cabin bears a crude painting of a red fish on its surface.
Once you've stepped onto the deck of the boat, make a Reflex save.
Callie still collects up the documents, at least the ones reasonable to carry. There might at least be names on the ledgers of those who did business in this area. She then goes through the desks and anything that looks interesting.
Once she is finished searching the area ( ), she rejoins the group.
Per bad. And you find nothing particularly interesting.
Bag, not bad.
Reflex
Crain, as you step onto the deck of the rotting, old boat, you hear disconcerting creaking and cracking beneath your feet. You're able to dance to a more stable spot right up next to one mast.
Not much experienced with boats or docks, despite having grown up in Korvosa, his feet move without any adjustment upon the wooden boards. The creaking he foolishly accepts as normal to these type of vessels and continues to look about obvlivious to the rot in the wood.
after transferring the head to the pot, Timerus checked the hatbox to make sure there wasn't anything important there before throwing it in the pile of garbage.
"Careful, El! The flooring is weak, at best. Perhaps it would be better if just one of us looked around the boat. I'd hate for you to fall through," the big half elf says as he stands on the safe spot he has located.
Eleazar's weight seems to be the straw that broke the camel's back. As he steps aboard the barge, the creaking turns into cracking and snapping and, before Eleazar can do anything about it, the floor gives way and he drops.
Crain, make another Reflex save.
@Timerus: After removing the head, you do indeed find something else in the hatbox - an exceptionally well-made (and familiar) deck of Harrow cards. Most of the cards now have some amount of blood on them.
Reflex save
Crain tries his best to maintain his balance, even as he watches Ele fall through the rotten wood. "Help, Tim, Callie!"
Timerus stared at the harrow deck in the bottom of the hat box for long seconds, before muttering a prayer and touching his holy symbol warding off evil spirits
He reached down and picked up the case the deck was in and carefully wiped the blood off them with a rag picked up from the junk pile and tucked them away into his pouch for review later.
Just then he heard Crains shout and muttered By The tipping Scale of the Great Merchant and looked at Lindy...Stay here!
he ran out the door and down the tied dock looking for how they went up to the deck.
As Callie descends on the lift, she gasps to see the barge's deck collapse, seemingly swallowing the sorcerer.
She rushes toward them, looking for a way she can help--obviously boarding the barge won't do any good.
@Callie: Lots of rope lying around, none of which seems to be in great condition though.
As Eleazar drops into the black void of the hull Crain makes a diving save and just barely catches Eleazar's hand.
Callie gathers whatever rope looks most usable--it's better than nothing, at any rate. Coiling a length up, she tosses one end to Crain, to help him pull up Eleazar.
"Okay, maybe searching that was a bad idea. Sorry."
"I gotcha lad, hold on!". Crain keeps the sorcerer dangling above the briny waters as he tries to use the rope thrown by Callie. "Nope, nothing over here except rotten wood. And splinters...lots of splinters," the half elf weakly jokes, trying to get both of them back to the safety of the planks.
Eleazar is suitably speechless as he dangles by one arm over the black abyss below. Under normal circumstances he would have used his dancing lights to illuminate what lay below, but at the moment he was too busy trying to secure his other hand so the large man could haul him back up.
Standing below on The dock, Timerus looked up to where callie sat on the lift, ropes in hand and saw Crain holding Eleazor up from plunging below by 1 hand as they stuggled to get him topside.
He said in a muffled shout Whats below in the hold El?
@Callie, no it's a simple enough throw. Crain's got it.
"Pull me up! Gods, now! Pull me up!" Eleazar says with sudden animation. He focuses his mind to cause the globes of dancing light to dance downwards and whizz past the spiders. They would do no damage, but perhaps the bright fast movement would momentarily distract the arachninds.
He himself tried to scramble upwards, sweat clearly streaming now as he tried to get as far away from the giant spiders as possible. "It's a spiders nest! The whole interior is a nest of vile, eight legged monstrosities! Get me up!"
Crain needs no further prodding. Once the rope is in hand, he hands a loop of it to the sorcerer. "You might need to jump for it, Ele. Callie and Tim should be able to hold your weight. You can then toss the rope back for me!"
Don't think about spiders, don't think about spiders, don't think abou spiders
The monstrous spiders recoil momentarily as the lights zoom past them, but then continue on up the webbing toward Eleazar, fangs now dripping with venom.
Crain (assisted by others with the rope), make a Strength check.
Strength check
Crain, aided by Callie, gives a heave to lift Eleazar back onto the deck, but isn't in a good enough position to get the result. The spiders inch closer and closer, their mandibles working eagerly as they approach the biggest meal they've had present itself in a while.
Suddenly, Eleazar feels a weight on his shoulder and hears soft, rapid clicking. From above, Crain sees a fourth spider, previously unseen, slink from the shadows onto Eleazar's shoulder.
Timerus frantically looks for a way to get up to where his allies are.
Crain again tries to pull the sorcerer up, attempting to ignore the spider bearing down on him. "Here goes nothing," he grunts as he pulls with all his worth.
Str check
The board upon which Crain is lying snaps and shifts just as he tugs on poor Eleazar's hand and he loses the strength of his effort.
The spider on Eleazar's shoulder finds an exposed spot at the neck and bites. Eleazar feels 2 rather large pricks, like nails, on his neck and then a burning sensation starts to spread from the spot. (Eleazar, make a Fort save, please.)
The remaining 3 spiders arrive and climb onto Eleazar's flailing body.
Initiative:
1. spiders
2. Callie
3. Crain
4. Eleazar
5. Timerus
Callie is up. Timerus, let's go ahead and assume that you're already up there, as the map shows. You had plenty of time.
Rope still in hand, Callie moves closer to the boat (but does not board for fear of simply making things worse for all of them), and calls out. "Hang on, gentlemen, remember we have defeated the greatest and slimiest vermin in Lamm less than a half hour ago, we can handle his lesser cousins. Stay strong, Eleazar, focus on your arcane training, focus, calm down, we'll get out of this." She continues on with encouraging words.
Crain was at a loss. With no other options he again tugged at the sorcerer.
Str