After briefly trying and failing to jump from the doorway she was in to the one upstairs, Lyr ground her teeth in frustration for a moment, then channeled an unlikely spell.
Here. It's the best I can do right now.
Upstairs, the area in front of the kitchen door (where Vex was invisibly hovering) suddenly burst into a cloud of reeking smoke.
The sound of Vex's mental giggle rose to full-volume telepathic cackling.
Oh.... gross. This is going to be fun...
Brenna lays into the two drow still blocking the doorway; while she could just crush over one of them, that would take up too much time for her to reach their boss and do anything, so she settles for just being a juggernaut of destruction for now.
Downstairs, Brenna manages to score a hit on the drow brute while Besh dismisses the tentacles, and the earth elemental fails to do damage.
---
Upstairs, the wizard loses his temper as the scroll vanishes and a puff of stinky smoke appears. He orders the dark stalker with him to attack the smoke while he grabs a wand. The dark stalker misses, but the acid arrow manages to hit Vex!
"Death was my errand and the date they had earned." Zoso continues while letting loose arrow after arrow at Fain.
Saphren eyes the drow across the room. He spring attacks over, flanking with the elemental and jumps back.
Twin arrows fly into Xomos Fain's back, and then Saphren lunges in, his falchion plunging right through the dark stalker. Xomos is almost killed outright by the attack but he somehow, somehow isn't killed by it.
However, he knows the next one will do him in.
"I SURRENDER!" he calls out in his strange, raspy voice. "CALL THEM OFF, STYLIX!"
His voice is heard well enough shouting up the stairs, and the wizard and dark stalker who were battling with Vex both look at each other with expressions of panic, not quite sure what to do.
Xomos collapses against the door frame, blood oozing from his several wounds. "I know when I'm beaten. Go on. Do whatever you came here to do."
End of Combat
"Now Fain, you and my Lady were called together, and thus we have come. Speak of Gemcutter. Be quick unless Stylix must be involved in our ritual as well." Zoso finishes his performance and eludes to Lyra as the threatening companies matron.
Vex swiped the wand right out of the wizard's hand and zipped around the room leaving a trail of nauseating smoke behind her, making sure to bathe Stylix and all his allies with it.
Then when they moved out of the smoke, she followed them, bathing them in her disgusting trail to keep them in it.
Don't even think about going anywhere. she said mentally to her retching victims.[/i][/b]
On cue, Lyra opened the door Fain had tried to escape from and walked back into the basement like she owned it.
She let Zoso do the negotiating, simply standing implacably watching Xomos squirm. With a few hand gestures in Drow sign, easy to understand even for those who didn't speak the strange language well, she directed Brenna and Saphren to check the unopened door.
Brenna lowers her bloody axe, then when Lyr gestures she moves to the other door and raises the axe again, standing guard as Saphren checks it for anything... suspicious.
'Be ready to corral the two coming down stairs. What do you all want to do with these once they break?' Zoso telepathically sends to everyone.
Beshtori will stand importantly near the base of the stairs. If the Stylix and the stalker come down, ze'll take the lead in tying and gagging the 'caster, roughly, and will strip them of weapons and magic.
It's hard for a dark stalker to look incredulous, given that they're wrapped head to toe and only have two pinpricks of light showing for eyes. However, Xomos Fain manages to convey that.
"WHAT?!" He groans and clutches the spectacular wound in his torso from Saphren's lost shot. "You... you want information on f!*@ing Gemcutter?! I would have sold that to you for fifty gold."
He stares at his slaughtered gang. "My empire in ruins..."
Upstairs the caster, presumably Stylix, and the dark stalker simply double over coughing from the spell and finally just go sit down. The rest of the occupants of the bar are quickly exiting.
Zoso shakes his head, "You're better off without them, they harassed us in the street and then led us right to you. But fallen empires of trash and Durthee Gemcutter are just the start of your woes. After you tell us where to find her you're telling us everything you know about the Last Hope."
They aren't coming down. They're too busy vomiting. came Vex's telepathic reply.
"My empire in ruins..."
Beshtori snorts loudly, surprising zirself. Ze tries to cover it up with a cough, and ends up choking for real. As ze starts to (unintentionally) gather attention, ze looks considerably embarrassed: "sorry... go back to your questions... it's just... well" looking apologetic: "maybe you aren't very good at being a crime boss...?"
Xomos starts laughing despite himself, a horrid, wheezing noise from the strange fey. When he finally recovers, he starts speaking. "You f#*&ing drow are all alike. You go in my territory, my men are gonna ask why you're here. Standard procedure. So you storm my base and slaughter them and leave me a wreck because you wanted directions."
He shakes his head and shifts a bit. "I don't give a s@+@ about Durthee, if you want to kill me after this so be it. She's an independent drug dealer, but her living is running the underground railroad for driders. I've helped her smuggle some goods out to Last Hope. It's not too far from here, but never been there. Think the population is just a few dozen. Stylix can lead you to her, if Stylix is even alive."
"Your mistake is thinking this territory is yours." Lyra said in a flat, expressionless tone. "Nothing is yours. Your existence itself is at our behest. As long as you remain insignificant enough to be beneath our notice you can do whatever you wish. You were never our target. We had no intention of coming here. You simply made the mistake of getting our attention."
"You have the rest of your life to reflect on that lesson."
A quick examination of Xanthir shows that most of his equipment is magical, although none is obscenely powerful. His cloak, rings, armour, and longsword are magical, as well as some potions and scorlls on his person.
"So, what are you going to do with me?"
"Take everything you have, just to remind you of your place. You can start over, this time without your delusions of importance." Lyra said in the same flat, almost bored tone, a slightly disgusted sneer on her face.
"Put everything of value on the desk."
Do we want to give him the ability to strike back at us at some future date? Seems like we've made an enemy rather than a friend.
Besh will attempt identifications, once we've gathered up the goods.
He does not know who we are, his 'empire' is ruined, and we should not be here long enough for him to rebuild and come after us. He will likely turn this defeat into further hate of Drow in general, which undermines their rule. If he dies a more competent or complicit person may rise in the power vaccum. I am comfortable leaving him alive as a lesson to others. I may simply be rationalizing my own discomfort at killing defenseless people. I would prefer not to cross that line.
'An anti-drow timebomb, how fitting. Maybe we should leave him some surprise and anonymous patronage while we're on our way out of these caverns for good. It'd be satisfying to cause some rebellion.' Zoso thinks back at everyone.
I'M GETTING HUNGRY HOW ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE?
I could eat. Not sure we can trust the food here though.
There's a whole kitchen up here. Booze too. And Also the Drow Wizard that I've taken prisoner. I'm not saying you should eat the wizard. I'm just reminding all of you that I defeated a wizard by myself. Vex said from upstairs.
"Lets round up Stylix and some food if it doesn't look suspicious then. We don't want word of this getting a head of us."
And maybe incapacitate or hobble Xomos et al. - we don't want them following too closely, and he knows where we're headed...
With Stylix having fled and the guards having surrendered, you round up what remains of the gang and settle down to start going through your considerable haul:
- 3 potions of cure serious wounds
- 2 potions shield of fatih
- 2 full plate +1
- 2 bastard swords +1
- 3 cloaks of resistance +1
- 16 drow poison bolts
- 4 potions of cure light wounds
- 4 sets mw studded leather
- 4 mw hand crossbows
- spell-storing scimitar, +1
- ring of protection +2
- mithral chain shirt +1
- 14,357 in mixed coins (lockbox in the room)
- a very healthy supply of shiver, a potent drug made from dream spider venom
"Good idea. Saphren, would you mind?"
You march Stylix into the room and recover the following items:
- scroll of summon monster IV
- scroll of chain lightning
- wand of acid arrow (18 charges)
- cloak of elvenkind
- ring of protection +1
- bag of holding (II)
- 250 in gemstones (flawed rubies)
Sapphire will sap Fain like any self respecting draw would, leaving him unconscious for hours.
Your prisoners are now all rounded up in the basement and just look at you sullenly, waiting for you to do somethign else with them or leave them in their humilation.
Quite without realizing it, Beshtori's lip curls in a half-smirk as Saphren saps the prisoners into unconsciousness.
With Xomos Fain tied up and emasculated, it's clear he wants you gone. One thing required for that - Gemcutter. The bar is closed, and after a short amount of time one of Xomos' surviving gang members stalks in, shoving in a rather put-upon svirfneblin at daggerpoint.
"Hang on hang on what's this? Xomos what silly game are you playing at here?"
You're left alone in the bar with her, and presumably your run of whatever you want from the bar. Might makes right. She looks all of you up and down bravely, although you can tell she eyes Brenna with a little trepidation. "Who the hell are you people? I'm trying to run my business here."
The top floor, when the group makes their way up the stairs, is trashed. The few remaining patrons look varying degrees of confused and sick, the pile of weapons on the floor as been haphazardly kicked through. Most of the cups, plates and bottles have been broken by what looks like the aftermath of a particularly impressive bar fight, and the whole place faintly reeks of something awful.
Vex sat calmly on a table in the middle of the mess hording a small pile of stolen goods and keeping watch on her sullen wizard prisoner.
When the brash woman came in, Vex eyed her with amusement and let out a hissing laugh.
"Lady, your mouth is placing a bet that your ass can't pay up. You might want to take a mulligan and try again."
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Brenna turns her magical adamantine axe blade side up, carefully balances an empty ceramic bottle on the blade, then lets go and lets the bottle slide down into two neat, perfectly-separated pieces.
The rogue watches the gnome with interest but lets other more skilled in diplomacy speak.
"Finally, our guide to the Last Hope has decided to arrive. I'd have you beaten now for you tardiness if the Lady did not wish to be underway hours ago, so your punishment will come on the road."