Penelope will get off her duff and help, manually labor and all.
Between Muziel's know-how, and the help of the others willing to pitch in, it takes a little less time than Muziel's initial estimate. Most of the work to be done was replacing the ropes that had been chewed through in the pulley system, and making sure that they were being threaded into the right place. Once the task is done, the mechanism inside makes the large heavy gate swing easily with almost no effort, and between the lot of you it's a simple matter to make it closed and re-barred.
To satisfy his curiosity, Muziel will take the body to Teagan Ruckleer for identification.
Town being the dangerous place it is now a days, Penelope will accompany him.
Tealan Ruckleer takes a look at the tiny corpse, or what's left of it, once he's let you back inside his house. In the time since you've been gone, he's apparently installed another viewing slot in his door at Gnome-height. As you hold the remains, he produces a pair of half-moon spectacles from inside one of the pockets of his robes and gives the body a cursory examination with some poking and prodding.
"Curious," he says as he wipes a smudge off one of the lenses with his sleeve. "This appears to be a species of Domicilium Ovinnik, or in more general terms what's more commonly known as a 'house spirit.' They're a type of fey that usually take up residence in a threshing house, or similar farm building. Simple-minded farmers tend to appease them by leaving out gifts of warm milk, pancakes or dead roosters since they can supposedly predict a person's fortune with their touch." He blows some breath onto the lens, whose smudge is proving stubborn, before resuming his attempt to wipe it off and continuing. "True scholars recognize, however, that they're just a mischievous type of fey creature that doesn't so much predict fortune as force fortune -- whether good or ill -- upon those they touch. Where did you run across this specimen, if I might ask?"
"A house spirit? We found this one at the Castle Gate. Said something about how the gate was its house, and we were all trespassing. But in the meantime it had chewed up the ropes to open and close the gate. And it was stupid enough to attack us."
-Posted with Wayfinder
"Like many through history, it was brought low by Pestilence, the great equalizer."
And I thought our bard was the poetic one. Penelope smiles.
Ruckleer nods along with Kolaiah, although it's clear that he doesn't have any idea what the antipaladin actually means by that, then puts a hand to his nose, thoughtfully. "It's not exactly a threshing house, but I suppose one big, ancient stone building is as good as another when you're a fey. Never could quite gather what makes 'em tick, fey. Unpredictable creatures, and often absurdly territorial." He puts his (still smudged) glasses back in the pocket from whence they came and prestidigitates his hands after the examination. "Is there anything else I can help you with, or was that all you needed?"
Um, yeah guess so, Thanks Ruckleer to the others What now, day to ourselves, do we visit the good doctor about her accumulating debts, or try and figure some other way to find out more about our target... or am I forgetting something?
"Yep, that's all we wanted to check out." Muziel packs up the creature's body again. "I'm gonna go back to the jail and spend a little time studying this thing." Which, absent some other better plan, is what he'll do to pass the downtime.
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After fixing the gate, Sister Ismene splits off from the group, having no interest in going anywhere near the necromancer or his undead hobgoblin slave. With nothing else demanding her immediate attention, she heads back to the Last Stand. Shaking her head at the wreckage, she sets to cleaning the place up. Somehow, despite everything that had happened, it seemed like the right thing to do.
Sister Ismene spends some time tidying up the bar. When she's all done it doesn't even look like anything happened there at all, empty tables and chair calmly stand waiting for patrons that, as things are currently, will probably never come. Whether the atmosphere this creates is more comforting or less is hard to say.
Muziel performs his own examination of the corpse. Experimenting with the body he discovers that the body doesn't catch fire, and is a bit difficult to damage normally. It does show a strong negative reaction to cold iron however.
Everyone else either spends the rest of the evening relaxing at the jail or helping Sister Ismene with the Last Stand. At the jail, Cimri has lots of questions about what happened out there, and listens intently to any responses saying that it sounds like it was a lot more fun than the big, fat nothing that happened while you were gone. Eventually it's time to get some rest in preparation for the next day.
About four hours into the night you're startled awake by the sound of a clattering can from just outside the jail, followed immediately by a surprisingly loud "Shhhh! Quiet!" immediately after.
Cimri has been woken up by the noise as well, and she looks around mouthing the words "did you hear that?" and draws her new knife with one hand while rubbing sleep crust from the corner of her eye with the other.
Muziel awakens from the sounds he hears outside. Stretching, he heads over to a sleepy Koliah and shakes him. "Psst, trouble outside."
Muziel's waking finds Penelope already sitting up, head cocked to hear, and sword laid out on her lap. And a lazy smile on her face. She nods to Muziel and Cimri, and gets up moving closer to the door, to be ready.
Kolaiah rises from his coff... errr, bed, and grabs Pestilence.. He wishes there was time to armor up, but his chain shirt will need to suffice.
A moment passes in silent preparation, then another. The time seems to stretch on and on until, finally, the front door to the jail slowly opens revealing a pair of figures in the darkness just outside. Light from the waning gibbous moon glints off their chain shirts while cloth masks obscure their faces.
There's a frozen moment of tension as they see you watching them open the door. Finally a slightly muffled voice from one figure stage whispers to the other. "Crap! We've been spotted! Run!"
Muziel is there to greet the visitors when they arrive. His grin is lit up by the glow of crackling energy that gathers between his hands, before the energy hurtles toward the first figure in the doorway!
;
Kolaiah will charge right up and attack the one in the door.
P/S 20/x4
"Whoever surrenders first gets to live, the rest do not."
+1 vs members of Chelish aristocracy
Muziel hits the figure in the doorway with a jolt of electricity before it has a chance to make good on its urgent, yet hushed, order to escape. Cimri rears back and chucks her dagger at the figure, which sticks into its shoulder quite painfully despite the distance. She then moves up to get closer to the action, drawing another dagger as she goes. Kolaiah follows that up with a nasty gash from pestilence, all before the figure even has a chance to react properly react. The combination of damages from all three sources are enough to knock the figure down, unconscious.
The arc of the blood excites the dark haired woman to no end, but sense is what sense is and occasionally gets in the way of fun. Thinking the devil boss man probably wants information more than bodies, she'll charge out and tackle Mr. Square.
Penelope rushes over the unconscious form of the first figure and grabs a tight hold over the second. As she concentrates on establishing and maintaining her hold on the figure she feels the sudden sharp pain of an arrow piercing her side. Looking up, now plainly visible is a small, marble-colored figure with wings and a bow. It could easily be mistaken for a statue if it weren't moving and actively drawing its bow again, an angry look on its face.
The figure that Penelope has grabbed takes the momentary distraction afforded by the surprise arrow to reverse her hold and take control of the grapple, holding Penelope in a lock instead of being held!
.
Muziel is surprised as the arrow appears. "That's a Kuribu Angel! It resists electricity, fire, and physical damage and is immune to acid and cold!" It occurs to Muziel that the creature resisted just about everything the party was likely to dish out.
Seeing that the other figure was busy grappling with Penelope, Muziel moves in close before trying to zap it.
;
"Oh really? Let's see about that!"
Kolaiah calls down the power of Apollyon and smites the accursed angel! He comes forward and swings Pestilence at his enemy.
Against flatfooted, right?
P/S 20/x4
With smite, my AC will be 19 against that opponent.
The second figure, busy grappling with Penelope, isn't able to take advantage of the opening that Muziel presents when the Gnome blasts him with a bolt of electricity, sending a jolt through the grappler's muscles.
Cimri drops her second dagger and instead pulls out her sap in order to make it more easy to take them alive and deal with them later once they know who they are. She through the door so that she's standing astride the unconscious form of the first figure and tries to what the second figure upside the head, but the frantic exchanges of grip and counter-grip doesn't give her a clear opening and the attempt is ineffective.
Kolaiah pushes past the grapplers straight for the angel, calling upon the added might of his daemonic patron as he brings pestilence down upon it. His swing is deflected at the last moment by the creature's benevolent aura of protection and the subtle change in the scythe's swinging arc is enough to cause it to miss entirely.
The first figure remains unconscious on the ground.
If you wanted to get all handsy, love, you could have just asked Penelope smirks as she tries to reverse the reverse.
Penelope finds that, now that the figure is fighting back, he's much harder to get a good grip on and is unable to shift the control of the wrestling match back into her own favor.
The Kuribu, meanwhile, beats its wings and carefully flies around the much bigger Kolaiah at an angle to achieve a much safer height of fifteen feet in the air. It looses another arrow at Penelope, but its second shot isn't as true as its first and the missile sticks quivering into the door jamb behind her.
The figure holding Penelope looks between her and the unconscious figure on the ground next to him, and seems to come to a decision. He lets go of Penelope and pulls a holy symbol of Iomedae out from under the armor. He concentrates upon it and a burst of positive energy heals the living close by, returning the unconscious figure to consciousness. The figure then takes a tactical step down the stairs next to Muziel.
"You should be more worried about yourself, pal!" Muziel tries to maneuver away from the figure that had been grappling with Penelope.
Regardless of whether he makes a clean getaway, he tries to zap the fellow again! ;
Kolaiah will charge and power attack the square.
P/S 20/x4
Muziel deftly maneuvers around the the standing figure, putting a safe distance between himself and the opponent before blasting him with a nasty jolt of electricity.
Cimri sees the first figure has regained consciousness from the channeled energy and pends down to thump him with her sap. The stirring figure slumps back down into unconsciousness once again. Kolaiah then charges the recently electrified figure on the stairs, generating bright sparks as pestilence scrapes against the chain shirt of the figure's shoulder, but doesn't penetrate through the armor.
The first figure once again spends its turn on the ground, blacked out.
With an arrow in her side, and being manhandled by a stranger, Penelope will drop into bloodlust and forget the whole lets catch someone mode.
Penelope goes into a frothing rage. All the red she's seeing appears to distort her vision a little, however, and when square flinches away from Kolaiah's scythe her sword takes a meaty chunk out of the porch railing behind him.
The flying Angel takes another shot at Penelope. With her a little more in the open and focused so intently on square the arrow sticks into her thigh, though in her state of total anger the pain barely registers.
Now surrounded and the active target the second figure looks quite afraid. Still holding his holy symbol he cries out, "Iomedae, protect me!" as he makes some careful gestures. At the end of his spell a shimmering envelope of gold appears around him, then he takes a tactical step further down the stairs and onto solid ground.
Kolaiah tells his friends, "once I finish this one, I will need a bow from one of you, so I can destroy the angel."
He swings Pestilence at the square creature...
P/S 20/x4
...and hopefully connects.
If the creature drops, Kolaiah will use his move action to put away his scythe, and wait expectantly for someone to give him a ranged weapon.
"Once we take care of these guys, we should head back inside!"
Muziel takes a step and attempts to zap the guy again. He feels an urge not to do so.
But he really doesn't like this fool.
;
Muziel uses his force of will to shrug off the magical urge not to attack the figure and gives him a strong jolt, knocking him into unconsciousness.
Cimri draws another dagger as she moves closer to the Angel and tries throwing it at it, but the throw goes wide and the dagger sticks into the ground a few squares away.
Penelope will let her bloodlust pass as the one she's trying to kill falls, regretfully. As the disappointment sets in she'll press the tip of her sword to the back of Circle's neck. Surrender you flying freak or your friends die
The Angel relaxes its hold on the bow a little as it hovers in place, though it still holds the weapon pointing at Penelope. "Stop," it commands. "I will parley with you on the condition that neither of these boys dies, for which you had better act quickly for that one." It nods to square and, as it does so, its face changes from that of a humanoid baby to that of an eagle. Square, meanwhile, continues to bleed out onto the dirt from the wounds sustained in rapid succession from Muziel and Kolaiah.