Victor takes a quick look at the daggers, hoping to see one of higher quality "Thanks Laria. You happen to have a map or any info on how this thing is laid out?" He asks as they head down into the supply room, watching with earnest as she activates the secret door code.
"Looks like you guys sure do go through a lot of coffee here." He says with a bit of a ho hum, hoping to see something more interesting.
Before they head into the unknown, Victor pulls out the hand crossbow and begs a handful of bolts off Morvena "I totally promise to replace your bolts, I need to do some shopping ASAP!" He loads it and keeps it in hand as he cracks the door open when everyone is ready.
"It will be fine," Morvena responds, waving off Victor's concern. "Hopefully once we take care of matters here, we will be able to do a bit of shopping - or send someone who can do it for us," she adds, remembering that most of them are possibly wanted at this point.
She dutifully stays near the rear of the group, allowing Victor and the others who wish to scout a bit of time to move ahead before following in their wake.
Good thing, too, as she promptly stumbles over another loose rock.
"Pitchforks!"
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On her way back up the ladder, Laria responds to Victor. "It's a quaint little hideout, once used as a shrine. There's a pool in there with a statue of that Savored Sting goddess. It's how I named the place!"
The long, damp hallway opens to a large reservoir of calm, dark water. A wooden pier extends twenty feet into the water, while another twenty feet out rises the top half of a statue of a beautiful elven woman. A foul smell, like that of rotting meat, comes from somewhere near the pier. Two holes have been knocked into the northwest walls to provide access to chambers beyond.
You sense a faint enchantment aura from the single boot that the unlucky man wears.
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Issil keeps herself armed and ready...for something.
"Anyone got a light?" Offers/begs Victor "Life would be much easier if I could see in the dark like those Dwarves and Orcs." He glances back at the ladies as they trip over loose stones. "SHH"
"Oh nevermind." Victor mutters a word and waves a hand recklessly and 4 glowing balls of light spring forth and start moving through the room, illuminating a pool of water and a pier to a statue, along with sconces on the wall. "Oh, nice statue, I'm a big fan of that one... Calistria, she's fiesty, like you Issil!"
"Maybe we should light those up, get a better look at this place eh?" He pats his pockets for a spark but shakes his head in the negative.
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As the party enters the dark cellar tunnels, Pádraig Henry casts dancing lights, and detect magic before the party enters each new area, by now his standard operating procedure.
He points to the half-eaten corpse of a man wedged among the pier's pilings where the stone floor meets the pier. "Just a guess, but he probably died when something ate his arms and one of his legs. You think this is the man we're looking for? Can one of you healers take a look? It would be good to know what sort of creature killed him."
The halfling detects a magical aura emanating from the sole remaining boot. He fights off feelings of inadequacy, failing once again to identify the properties of a magic item.
"The boot's enchanted. Can one of you identify its properties?"
"Yes I do believe that is the goddess Calistrae." Geoffrey agrees. Once the remains are pointed out to him, he readies his weapon for trouble. "Whatever killed him is most likely in the water, but there is no guarantee this is Nan. We need to keep looking."
Issil grins as she sees the statue. "Now her I could get behind..." Issil's attention is cut off as she is directed to the dead body. "Oh, ew. You want me to touch him, eh?"
"Yup, he's dead. I can close your wounds shut but I can't save you if you're dead already."
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Once everyone has had a chance to identify the boot, Pádraig Henry stows it in his rucksack, hoping the other one will turn up.
"Once we clear this place, we can ask Laria what she'd like done with the body. The man deserves a proper burial in any case."
"I'm more concerned right now with what killed him. Did it come from the water or from one of the adjacent chambers? Let's look around."
Pádraig Henry send his dancing lights around the perimeter of the cavern and down the other openings in the area, within his line-of-sight and the range of his spell.
Morvena shakes her head, gingerly passing the boot back to Padraig to be stowed in his pack. "This enchantment is one that I am sadly not familiar with. Perhaps we will be able to discern its nature at a later time, after we leave this place."
In regards to the dead body, she grimaces and looks around warily. "Whatever killed him - or at the very least, whatever decided to dine on his flesh - is certainly still here in these tunnels, somewhere. Caution is most certainly in order."
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Issil and Morvena examine the corpse, and while they cannot determine the specific cause of death, the corpse has tattered, ripped clothes and bite marks along its remaining leg, yet, it also has stab wounds lining its chest.
The corpse indeed matches Laria's description of Nan.
When Padraig aims his dancing lights at the stagnant pool, he sees the distorted image of a large, scaly, white creature underwater. He also locates the cover of a compartment on the underwater end of the statue.
"Hey Morvena, can you summon a fish or something? No way am I stepping in that water. It probably tore Nan apart in the first place."
Geoffrey shakes his head vigorously, "Not a good idea, not yet anyway. Someone stabbed poor Nan here and left the body here for the fish to feed upon." He motions to the passage ahead, "Let's continue our exploration."
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"You sure, Geoffrey? I don't like the idea of leaving that big, scaly albino sea monster behind us. Might have been the creature that killed Laria's buddy Nan. Can we draw it out of the water and deal with it now?"
He stares at the thing beneath the surface, trying to figure out what it might be.
"I can see some kind of compartment beneath the surface of the water at the foot of the statue of the goddess, too."
Victor agrees with Padraig "Maybe we can drag its meal out and it'll come out after it?" Victor keeps his hand crossbow at the ready, Looking around at the others.
"Okay, let's move him out. I'm pretty sure the gator nibble on him slowly." Issil puts her weapon and shield away and prepares to pull the corpse out of the water. "Geoffrey, save me if I become gator chow."
Victor nods as Issil goes after the body "I've got that croc in my sights if it makes a move!"
He lines up his crossbow, ready to shoot if it gets near Issil.
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The gator moves not an inch as the body is pulled from the edge of the pier, and you stow the corpse in the storage room for later.
"Poor Nan, dead and decomposing. The smell is... awful, yet I find myself strangely accustomed to such things after that trek through the Livery," Rexus comments, shuddering.
Issil readies her gear again. "Well we found his body. And there's a gator. So where did the gator swim in from? I vote we explore further."
Victor lowers his crossbow as the croc continues his nap "Looks like we get to deal with him later, good work with Nan." After that grizzly work is done, Victor checks out the passage to the Northeast for signs of traps, sneaking ahead a bit, crossbow out.
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Victor moves away from the stagnant water, heading north. As he does so, he peeks into a sprawling series of rooms, complete with two private latrines. Here, a variety of human- and halfling-sized furniture fills the area, half of which has been smashed to bits.
If it weren't for Padraig's magical lightbulbs, the room's denizen - a humanoid crow with oily black feathers, glittering eyes, and a sharp beak - may not have noticed Victor. It halts its angry furniture smashing and caws into the adjacent room, angry of your sudden unexpected entry. In the place of wings, it instead has two muscular arms, ending in sharp claws as hard as rocks.
-- Bold is up --
Padraig, Victor, Geoffrey, Morvena, Issil
Human-like bird
Rexus
Issil sees the strange avian creature. "Maybe that's the invader? I hope it's weak to daggers."
She bounds into the room, a bit faster than you would expect. She readies her silver dagger and hurls it at the creature.
After throwing it, she fumbles with her other daggers for a bit. "Geof, you gotta show me how you draw weapons while moving so quickly."
Morvena pushes her way past Geoffrey and Victor to peer into the room. She makes a face at the sight of the strange bird-man, but hasn't a clue as to what it might be. "How hideous! It looks like some sort of mongrel tengu," she observes as she conjures a small dart of acid and flings it at the creature.
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Victor jumps a bit as he sees the freaky bird man Nasty! He yips a bit and pulls the trigger on his new hand crossbow hoping to catch the thing with its pants down. "Next time I should aim then pull the trigger..."
Geoffrey advances into the room his face resolute. "I give you this one chance to surrender..." he announces at the tengu (?) before swinging his blade in a wide arc.
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Issil lobs a dagger at the birdman with laser-like precision, impaling it through the skull. Morvena disintegrates half its arm with some acid and Geoffrey decides to end the fight with haste, dashing forward to remove the creature's torso from its hips with his blade.
Examining the creature's corpse, you locate three copper bracelets and a silver locket. The locket is engraved with an Elven rune. Inside the locket are a bunch of crumbled pieces of eggshell.
"Well, Nan is avenged. I guess." Issil goes to retrieve her dagger, cleaning it before eyeing the bracelet.
"Where to, next? Man, this room is a mess."
Victor looks up from working to reload the crossbow, only to find the bird dead on the floor already "Well then." He goes to look for the lost bolt, and afterwards plucks a few nice feathers out of the bird. "These'll make some good writing quills I bet. They only last so long before they get too short." He pokes the ends to test their strength.
"Lots of nice trinkets on that bird, kinda weird it kept some egg shells in that locket, creepy even."
He eyeballs up the stuff, not knowing much about it though, he then helps look around the busted up furniture with the others.
Issil takes a look at the silver locket and tries to gauge its worth.
"That was a rather graceful throw," Morvena agrees with Padraig. "Where did you learn how to do that?"
As the group works to appraise the items they found on the strange bird-creature, Morvena points out the Elven rune on the locket. "Is anyone capable of reading Elvish? I am afraid that my language studies came to a rather...abrupt...end before I was able to begin studying it myself."
Geoffrey, wondering much the same thing as Padraig, quickly moves out to the corridor with Rexus and keeps an eye out for any further threats.
"That was a rather graceful throw," Morvena agrees with Padraig. "Where did you learn how to do that?"
"Before I went into solo work, some of the other ladies were really good at throwing junk. I learned a little bit from them, although I could never throw the valuable stuff away like that."
As the group works to appraise the items they found on the strange bird-creature, Morvena points out the Elven rune on the locket. "Is anyone capable of reading Elvish? I am afraid that my language studies came to a rather...abrupt...end before I was able to begin studying it myself."
"Yeah, I learned the Elven tongue. Let me take a look." Issil reads the rune.
"Elven? Think that thing spoke Elven or it probably just picked it up? Elven is far too fancy for a beast like that." He looks over Issil shoulder as she eyes up the rune.
Seeing the sharpened claws on the bird, Victor points them out "Maybe these claws did the dirty work? Or the beak?"
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The rune is a single Elven one that translates to Mother.
Morvena determines that value of each copper bracelet is exactly 15 gold pieces. Pádraig is pretty sure that the silver locket is worth 120 gold pieces, whether full of eggshells or not.
Besides being filled with furniture, the room is devoid of anything else magical or remotely interesting.
Pádraig continues his magical lantern-assisted scouting to the remaining room to the west. Stacks of unopened crates—some draped in moldering tarps—fill most of the space, creating a maze. Two tables sit in the center, scattered with playing cards and a smoking, unlit lantern.
A group of four tengu sit around a table playing a game with what looks like a harrow deck. Upon noticing your arrival, the tallest immediately drops her cards.
"Folding already, Korva? Come on, it was just getting good!" Another tengu facing opposite of her says.
"Behind you, Maggie! Kintargan soldiers! They've found us!" The remaining three also drop their cards and stand from the crates they'd been seated on, holding their daggers tightly in their hands.
"Awww, man. I knew this was gonna happen, I just knew it! Ya drop yer guard for one second and this! They ain't soldiers, they're bounty hunters," a diminutive tengu with a birthmark in the form of a green feather exclaims. "You there! Whattaya doin' down here?"
"Good question, I was about to ask you the same." Issil grins. "There's a human in the basement, filled with stab wounds and half-eaten. We didn't hear from him in the last few days, so we came to check." Lowering her guard for a moment, she sighs. "Look, I don't want any more bloodshed than is necessary, but my boss is gonna have some serious questions. So how about you fess up, explain how you got here and what you know about the human's stab wounds and we can hurry this up."
Morvena narrows her eyes but stays her magic, allowing the tengu a moment to say their piece. As Issil attempts to coax them into being forthright about the reason for their presence in the tunnels, she nods in agreement.
"Yes, we were tasked by the owner of the establishment above these tunnels to search for her missing friend," she agrees. "Though I would rather not assume the worst, you must understand that your presence here necessitates some inquiry on our part. So please answer my companion's questions, honestly - doing so will make things much easier for both groups."
Unfortunately, her rather stiff and formal manner of speaking doesn't do wonders in offering reassurance or empathy.
Geoffrey steps protectively in front of Morvena, keeping the tip of his blade pointed down but ready to act should the negotiations turn south.
Did these tengu betray Nan? I don't trust them at all...
Pava flutters onto Morvena's shoulder.
"Ah...no offense Morv, but you sound as if you're reading from a book or something when you talk like that!" she says in a not-very-whispery-whisper. "Next time try smiling and I'm certain it'll be more favorably received!"
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"We're neither soldiers nor bounty hunters... Korva and Maggie, is it?"
"You heard why we're here. Let's introduce ourselves. My name is Pádraig Henry. I'm a singer, and I used to perform at the Opera House. Since things in the city 'changed' recently, I've been trying to scratch out a living busking around town. Like my friend Issil said, we're helping Laria find out what happened to her friend Nan, the man we found slain by the pool."
He smiles, "Can tell us who you are, and why you're here?"
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Tengu, you don't see those everyday... I hope we didn't just kill their weird pet or... cousin or something?
Victor gives the scene a quick look over and drops his hand crossbow to his side and smiles "Lots and lots of questions. Maybe we should all pull up a crate and stow our weapons and have a chat?" He says with a friendly face.
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The largest one, Korva, walks around the table to face Padraig. Her expression has visibly shifted from an anxious frown to something more netural. Perhaps this basement has her feeling a little... Cooped up.
"I'm Korva. This is Maggie, Jay, and Treep." She indicates the others with a point of her beak. "We're from Riddleport, sort of..." she trails off.
"Whattaya gunna do, Korva, tell 'em everything?" Treep groans, sitting back down on the crate.
"They seem like good, decent people, though the lady with the pet could work on her people skills a little," Maggie adds, a chortle in her voice. "Besides, we're going to run out of food eventually. So. Let me tell it like it is. We're escapees from a prison in Riddleport. Shipped here by our contact, Nan Comerivos, who was killed by that awful beast next door!" She says loudly enough for it to hear her. "That thing... Needs to be put down immediately. Hey, you came through here, did he cause you any trouble?"
"We ain't so great either, Mag. Chough was just imitatin' us, he just took it a little too far," Treep adds, casually shuffling the harrow deck.
"Quiet, you. We simply knocked Nan around a bit when he left us here on our own. Nothing so wretched as murder!" She retorts.
Geoffrey listens to the voice inflections of the tengu Korva closely, though he found the going difficult to say the least.
As yet unable to determine how truthful Korva was being, he remained silent. If they are telling the truth I am Thrune's escort! That other bird man we slew was not carrying any weapons!
"You guys spin one heck of a tale, a pretty unlikely one at that. So if this guy Nan got you outta Riddleport then why are you knocking him around? Sounds to me like you should be shining his shoes not getting him killed."
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"Like I said, he left us here! Do you not listen?" Maggie grumbles. "Nan came to us and said his contact here was arrested when the lockdown happened. That contact was supposed to be used to hand us over for further transport to Westcrown. I have no idea what's going on in this place, but it sounds too risky to attempt emergence from this basement, and there's that gator in the water so we can't even use the sewers. Geez, show some respect to a lady, will you?" She scoffs at Victor. He doesn't get the sense that she is lying.
"Yeah, calm down Victor. That thing in the other room was pretty bloodthirsty, but it's dead now." She shrugs. "So Nan's dead...Um, you guys need to leave, anyway. Or maybe we need a new base, here."
She sighs. "We're gonna have to take care of that gator, huh?"