Tyrandro replies extra loud as Iolana is muttering her spell to cover it.
Sebastian stabs the thug nearest him and Iolana hastes the party.
Emperor Pilts rattles off commands to his men. His words inspire courage in them.
The emperor's crazed gnome executioner, Jabbyr, goes into a berserker frenzy and leaps down from his podium onto the rooftop where you are standing, axe held overhead, and brings it down on Ayako. Ayako only takes a glancing blow, but even that hurts.
Iolana taps Tyrando with her Wand of Cat's Grace.
Augh! Ayako withdraws past Iolana and away from the nasty axe.
Tyrandro steps into the gap Ayako leaves and stabs at the gnome.
After making short work of his opponent, Sebastian takes a step forward, drawing his dagger and whipping it at the Emperor.
Sebastian kills the nearest thug with his first attack.
Sebastian's second attack hits the foaming barbarian but the gnome hardly notices the wound in his frenzy. Sebastian's third attack hits the unsuspecting emperor, himself, who stares at the embedded dagger in shock and rage.
Ayako escapes the barbarian's grasp and moves to the back of the fight and Iolana increases Tyrandro's dexterity.
The thug nearest Tyrandro gains his wits and attacks back but Tyrandro parries the attack and finishes him off.
The two thugs on Laori attack her. The magic of her sadomasochism spell seems to draw in the attacks but she still avoids one of them. The one attack that gets through threatens to shake the thugs confidence as Laori moans with pleasure but the emperor's inspirational words bolster his will.
Up by the emperor, one thug shouts back to the others in the barracks,"The emperor is under attack. Git yer lazy arses in here and defend him quickly!" Two more move directly in front of the emperor to protect him and the last one throws an axe down at Sebastian but Sebastian easily bats it aside.
"Oh no. I think we have enough playmates already." says Laori. "Blade Barrier!"
Laori evokes a curtain of whirling blades around the area, blocking off the thugs coming from the northeast and any other further away. The blades appear on top of Thug 8 but he quickly leaps backwards to avoid getting sliced into pieces. Laori also activates her destructive aura grants you all a +5 morale bonus on damage again any target within 30 feet of her. You can't see the aura but you can feel the destructive power in the air.
The emperor points his wand at the middle of the group and suddenly the area becomes dark.
"Take this! Whoops!"
+17 on attack? Seriously?
The executioner barbarian turns to Sebastian for attacking his master. His attack is too powerful for Sebastian to avoid but luckily the back swing is slightly slower and Sebastian dodges a second hit.
Iolana moves and taps Sebastian with the Wand of Cat's Grace.
Tyrandro concentrates on the gnome to end this axe in the woods.
Battle fully joined, Sebastian takes another step around the crazed one-eyed gnome. "Give it up now, and you might even get to keep your eye," Sebastian jeers. Attacking the gnome, it somehow isn't as satisfying as when his sword bites into a human opponent. The darkness does little to hinder his ability, though it somehow suits Laori, and Sebastian finds his attention split between her and the gnome despite himself.
Ayako's eyes turn pitch black as gloom descends on the battlefield and things look as bright as day. Shuffling closer to Tyrando, Ayako makes a clutching motion at the gnome, seeking to deprive him of his deadly axe. Fingers of shadow seem to flow from the globe of darkness and wrap around the axe.
Sebastian hits the gnome hard. Even raging, he can't ignore that kind of punishment and lets out a primal scream.
Ayako magically tugs at the gnome's axe but he tugs back and with his supernatural strength he hangs on to it.
Iolana, still invisible, speeds up Sebastian with cat's grace.
One of the thugs attacking Laori hits her with his attack. Laori moans again and this time he can't help but be shaken by the woman's strange behavior. The other thug on her, steps into flanking and critically strikes her. The smile is wiped off her face after that attack as she coughs up blood. "Okay, that one hurt." she says.
The next thug steps down off the emperor's stage to attack Tyrandro and succeeds in delivering a bloody gash.
The two thugs guarding the emperor rain axes down upon Sebastian but neither hits its mark.
The thugs in the barracks try to join the fight but stop short of the whirling blades and curse in frustration.
Tyrandro stabs the barbarian two more times and he can't take any more. Jabbyr falls to the ground dying.
Laori turns to the thug who badly wounded her and grins with a wicked twinkle in her eye. "You've been a bad bad boy." Laori twirls around and does her best magical girl pose. "In the name of the Midnight Lord, I shall punish you." She slashes the thug twice with her spiked chain and then it releases the inflict serious wounds spell stored within it, literally flaying the skin from his body and he collapses into a skinless pile of gore. She gets off one more attack against the remaining enemy but darkness causes her to hit nothing but shadows.
Emperor Pilts, desperate to hit you all as his forces dwindle, throws down a confusion spell right in the middle of the fight, hitting everyone of you and thugs 3 and 5 in the effect.
"I've got you now! If my men can't defeat you, you'll fight among yourselves."
Ayako takes out her wand of CSW and taps Laori with it.
Small pitch black angels flutter out of the tip and climb over Laori's body. licking at her wounds with long tongues and nibbling away ragged edges with sharp teeth.
Tyrandro has enough of this stupid emperor. "Now you're going to die!" He drops his blade steps away from the tug and takes the bow instead.
Turning away from the gnome, Sebastian avoids the thrown axes with ease. Between his boots and magic-enhanced nimbleness, he feels light as a feather and decides to prove it. With a single step, he leaps into the air, somersaulting over the guard and taking a swing as he passes overhead for good measure. He lands gracefully next to the Emperor, sword in hand, and he doesn't hesitate to point the tip threateningly at the acne-scarred Chelaxian's throat. "I am prepared to accept your immediate surrender."
Iolana moves back, and drops a Grease spell right in front of the guards coming up from the East.
Sebastian tumbles up to the emperor and holds his sword to the emperor's throat. The emperor holds his hands up and his knees shake beneath him.
Ayako heals Laori and she giggles. "Hehe, that tickles."
Iolana drops a patch of grease in front of the thugs on the southeast just within the darkness where it won't easily be seen.
The emperor's confusion spell backfired, confusing only his own men. The first bashes himself in the face, bloodying his nose with the flat of his axe. The second maintains his bearings for the moment and attacks Tyrandro again. This time he succeeds and hits Tyrandro with his axe.
Thugs 6 and 7 glance back and forth between the emperor and Sebastian. "Emp'ror?" one asks, clearly looking for direction.
"Shut up fools!" reprimands the emperor, "Stand down, I got this."
The thugs obey and don't attack.
The two thugs by the grease do no so the effect and step onto it at full speed. One maintains his footing but the other doesn't and slips onto his rump.
The rest maintain their distance.
The emperor is too busy watching Sebastian that he doesn't see the incoming arrow shot by Tyrandro and is impaled by it.
Laori swings her spiked chain at thug 3 again. Again the darkness protects him and 2 out of 3 attacks miss.
The emperor casually takes a step back from Sebastian with a grin. "You may have won, but you won't catch me." With a magical word, he vanishes.
With the emperor gone, the remaining thugs lower their weapons in defeat.
The Emperor's magic is just out of reach of Ayako's knowledge, the tip of her tongue. Did he go invisible or something?
"No ideas what that spell was. He'll turn up again. Let's find our friend." Iolana whispers.
Tyrandro is no big fan of letting someone go who tried to kill him moment ago and who might continue doing so if the circumstances become more favourable again. He takes a step back from the thug that hit him with the axe and ends him with a few arrows.
After the thug finds a gory death he shoots the last arrow at the thug that is the farthest away .
Sebastian, frustrated at the Emperor's escape, puts on his glasses and activates the lenses.
Ayako will tap Sebastion with the CSW wand. This time, little angels pop out and kiss his boo-boos.
"The emperor used dimension door. It is a short range teleport. He can't have gone far. Quickly, let's check the area behind the throne before he gets away."
Laori drops her blade barrier and after Tyrandro makes an example of one of the thugs, the remaining ones flee in terror.
If you open the back door, it opens to a long hallway. There is a door along the left wall and another along the right wall. At the end of the hallway is another door and the hallway curves to the right. Continuing on, the hallway ends at another doorway and a collapsed stairway that is impassible.
South door first
"I'd take one of these too." Tyrandro tells Ayako. Turning to Sebastian "Let's go down here. You kick down every door and if there is something behind that looks like the emperor I'm going to shoot it. What do you say?"
Iolana taps herself with her wand of Cat's Grace on the way down the hall. The South door sounds good to me."
Sebastian kicks down the western door which opens to a storeroom.
Crates, boxes, and barrels fill this long storeroom, making it difficult to judge the room’s actual dimensions.
The majority of the props, tools, and other bits of salvage Pilts scavenged from Exemplary Execrables are stored here. There’s little of actual value kept here, as most of the contents have been damaged by fire.
You uncover a small, unlocked jewelry box. Most of its contents are relatively worthless costume jewelry, but one of the rings is magical.
Not finding the emperor through that door, you open the opposite door to a trophy room.
The air in this room smells sickly sweet—a combination of flowers and vinegar. The unpleasant smell likely comes from the fourteen poorly preserved heads mounted on the walls of this grisly trophy hall. Most of the heads are human, although two are those of elves and one is from a dwarf with a beard roughly sheered off to match the cut to the neck. To the north, a small, child-sized bed sits against the wall opposite a wooden table decorated with a magnificent set of silverware.
The silverware set on the table is the best that Pilts could steal—the full set is worth 500 gp. A platinum and crystal decanter filled with fine brandy sits on the table as well, and this item alone is worth 750 gp.
There is another door in the back of this room and you can hear a commotion of cursing and rattling of furniture.
"On to the next door. Let's see who makes this noise." Tyrandro tells and moves through the room and opens the door to the next room.
Ayako follows Tyrando
Sebastian stalks through the halls, kicking down doors. Truthfully, there was a simple pleasure to be had from putting boot to door, and the crack of splintering wood as the door springs open never gets old. Though they haven't found the Emperor, the decanter of alcohol looks like something worth coming back for after this mess gets sorted out.
Ayako takes the opportunity to heal herself, little needles of darkness stitching up her wounds.
A fail, however, Sebastian has one minute of detect magic. Does he notice the ring?
Sebastian gives a quick look over the storage room and is about to leave without finding anything but Laori points to a small jewelry box, "Hey! Check that too. I might not be the kind of girl who wears a lot of rings; well at least not in the conventional sense. I have a couple of piercings that might make you blush. But I know they can be valuable."
You then quickly move on to the next room. The door past the trophy room opens to the emperor's chambers.
This extravagantly decorated bedroom would seem to belong in the richest of noble villas or monarchs’ castles—at least, until one looks a little more closely at the sheets on the four-poster bed and notes how stained and frayed they are, or examines the tapestries and bed curtains and sees the patches of mold and threadbare edges. A tall, well-stocked bookcase to the south turns out to be leaning against the wall for support; the contents of its sagging shelves are poorly produced books with violent or erotic names on their mildewed spines. Everything is slightly musty, stained with age, and well beyond its prime. Only the three paintings hanging on the wall hold up to closer examination, but their grisly subject matter might make them difficult to show in most public venues. To the north, a simple wooden door is secured with a lock and a heavy wooden bar.
The emperor is scrambling around the room trying to pack his valuables to take with him during his escape. He startled by your appearance and drops his bag to the ground with a clatter. A couple of coins and books spill out.
"Leave me, you mad men!" The emperor screams. "You wanted to see Salvator Scream, right? His behind that door. Take him. Just let me go!"
Ayako nudges Laori. But we have such sights to show you.
Iolana starts to cackle just to upset him more.
"Oh, you want me to help?" asks Laori when Ayako nudges her. "Okay!"
Laori flings her spiked chain at Pilts Swastel and it wraps around his neck multiple times. As the emperor clutches at the chain fruitlessly, she yanks it downward and forces him to smash his face into the floor.
"Now I think we have your proper attention. And, no, I don't think we'll be letting you go."
Whispering back to the party "Will we?"
Iolana's cackling is disturbing, but not enough to cause Pilts to be intimidated.
"No we won't." Iolana whispers back.
"I made you a promise. I intend to keep that." Tyrandro answers his question. He puts away his bow and grabs the emperor.
"Let us bring him to that nice guillotine."
Hold on, we need to see about Salvator. Ayako unbars the door. Salvator? We are here to rescue you from Pilts.
Tyrandro grabs Pilts up from the ground. "No, please! Have mercy! I'll do anything you want. Don't kill me." Pilts snivels with panic in his voice and tears and snot running down his face.
With the emperor detained, Laori gleefully exclaims, "Do you guys see these paintings! They are Scream originals. Can I keep them? Please, please, please?" She puts on her best puppy dog eyes.
There are three paintings. The first depicts a full portrait of a thin humanoid wearing shadows as he stands framed by a dolmen of great size. The figure's brilliant blue eyes are the only true points of color in the piece, and they seem to almost glow with anger.
The second picture depicts a rugged mountain range above a desert under a harsh blue sky. In the foreground, a quartet of Vudrani tusked camels ridden by N'darr tribespeople race across dunes that, upon closer examination, consist of tiny skulls.
The final portrait is the most disturbing, for it depicts a handsome man in the process of peeling away the flesh of his arms as if he were taking off a pair of gloves. Underneath, his arms are muscular and covered with glittering blue scales. The man's expression is one of delight, yet his eyes are empty pits of blackness. Half seen in the shadows beyond him are thousands of humans impaled on towering wooden poles erected in the shadow of an indistinct shape looming on the horizon—perhaps a castle, maybe a mountain, but likely something more.
Ayako then makes her way over to the barred door and opens it.
The air in this room is an unpleasant mix of body odor and paint. A lumpy straw mattress lies on the floor in one corner of the room, partially covered by a few blankets, while in the other stands a large easel on which rests a nearly completed painting of immense fiends attacking a village.
Salvator is a plain-looking man dressed in paint-stained rags. Flea bites cover his skin, and his eyes are sunken since he's barely been sleeping an hour or 2 at a time. Upon seeing that Ayako isn't the emperor, Salvator immediately falls to his knees and breaks into desperate sobs, begging for rescue between each heartbreaking shudder.
"I don't know who you are but please save me from this nightmare! I've been tortured and beaten and forced to slave away at the easel. The emperor?..."
Tyrandro raises a brow. Having no clue of art and also none of religion the pictures are appalling to him. "What's so great about these pictures?" he asks Laori.
On Salvatores plea he replies "Stop whining. The lady told you we're here to save you from this sorry sob. Do you know where Vencarlo is." Tyrandro inquires impatiently.
As now almost everyone is where he wants to have them he notices he got quite a few cuts. "Ayako, would you poke me with that healing stick."
Ayako's head bobs up and down as Laori squees over the pictures. Well I guess they would be a good reward for your aid. She looks at the haggard man as he falls to the floor. We are here to help you, we are here at the request of a friend to save you from this wretch.
Ayako touches Tyrando with her CLW wand
Sebastian raises a skeptical eyebrow at the paintings. Naturally, he knew Salvator Scream by reputation, but these paintings were... "How... inspired..."
With the Emperor in hand, they could get back to their mission. Scream could direct them to Vencarlo, who would direct them to the missing Seneschal.
"Nice paintings if a bit disturbing. Are they worth much Laori? I don't know much about art." she tries to help the man to his feet. "We have the emperor he'll pay for his crimes quite publicly. Let's get you some food, and then we can ask about a mutual acquaintance Vencarlo." She pulls out a trail ration, which is all she has to fead him, and hands it to him.
Ayako offers water. Bath will do you good and a good night's sleep.
"Is there a way to wash a whole district? Because everything in Old Korvosa looks like it could use some cleaning." Tyrandro comments.
Plague and riots tend to smudge up the cobblestones.