Waiting opposite Juliet, his curved sword already drawn and ready to strike, Vaenathis waits patiently for the moment their targets enter the room, striking as soon as they do so.
Loricks swigs his potion of Bull's Strength and snaps off the flimsy legs of the end table opposite the dirty pool not really bothering to be stealthy about it though his knowledge of carpentry does come in handy. He then sets it down lengthwise crouches behind it to try and stay hidden for a bit longer.
Action Two: Turn End table into something to crouch behind and do so
The first guard to enter dies immediately, impaled on Juliet's rapier; his companion, beside him, turns, seeing very little in the dim light. "Down! Anrak's down!" he calls back to Vancaskerkin, who is just behind him.
Vancaskerkin curses. "Get in there! Don't block the door!"
They haven't - yet - realised it's you.
Vaen's blade snicks off the other guard's head just after he calls out to Vancaskerkin; his lifeless body joins Anrak's on the soiled wood floor slats at your feet.
Vancaskerkin swears as he sees the two men go down. "Baldrago! Malder! Get through that door and behind 'em! NOW" He steps over the body of his former guard, jabbing his sword at Vaenathis. His companion keeps behind him and stabs at Juliet.
The two remaining guards throw themselves at the front doors, but the barricade holds - for now.
Turn 3: Holding position. Ready an action to move away from the first enemy to approach, maintaining a 5-ft distance if possible. She would move North, towards the catwalk where Evelyn stands.
Juliet snarls as the guard's sword finds her abdomen, leaving a long gash along her side. Bringing her sword around, Juliet stabs three times at the guard in the doorway, "Jaw! Slide in here and block his escape!"
Too Big TO Slide Anywhere Princess Lorick mutters each utterance booming like a roar across the room as the monk's enlarged vocal cords rumble and Lorick uses his enhanced reach and strength to try and grapple the traitor guard or at least knock him about some.
Action One and Two Grapple Attempt:
*IF* Grapple fails then last action is used for an attack ki flurry.
Action Three Flurry with Ki Non Lethal First two stunning fist DC 12 Fort:
AC is 10 due to Large.
Stack bonuses in your favour. Dice still laugh at you :_(
Round 2
Evelyn remains on the catwalk far away from the violence. She summons a second skeleton, using a quartered jaw bone, and focuses on controlling the both of them. The first she has aid the rest of the group while the second helps bolster the barricade.
Evelyn spends 2 acts to summon another Skeleton.
The first skeleton steps forward to F15 and claws furiously at the traitor guard.
The second skeleton moves to J16 and helps brace the door.
Juliet's first two attacks are enough to take down the guard, who clutches helplessly at the artery in his neck as he goes down, his life's blood pooling around the doorway. Her remaining action allows her to step in behind Vancaskerkin.
Lorick's large size apparently takes him some getting used to; the Captain of the Guard easily dodges the clumsy grapple attempt, and the monk's remaining attacks are far wide of their mark.
The skeleton is more accurate, and its claws leave trailing wounds in his flesh.
"No time for subtlety, I suppose," Vaenathis remarks through clenched teeth as his blood paints the wooden floor crimson. The half-elf lets loose with a trio of slashes, putting as much force behind them as he can muster considering his wound.
Vaen's first attack hits, but his other two swipes miss.
In return, Vancaskerkin's return stroke fells the half-elf, who falls, bleeding heavily from a wound in his chest; stepping away, out of immediate reach of Juliet's blade the (former) Guard-Captain turns to face the skeleton, with a shout. "Get IN here, you two! Ogres and skeletons and gods know what! We are going to TAKE these ****heads APART!"
His hasty swipe misses the skeleton, however, although the two guards outside - perhaps less than enthusiastic at facing ogres and undead - nevertheless force their way past the barricade. "'Ey! There's another ****ing dirty deady 'ere! Not ta worry, boss, we'll make 'im dead again!"
They strike with their swords at the newly-summoned skeleton, surrounding it and hacking it apart with ease.
Abandoning the attempt to constrain Vancaskerkin as it's obvious that the man isn't going to cut and run Lorick instead tries to knock him down with a full attack.
All non lethal
Action One Flurry
Spending four stamina to add 8 non lethal for 15 non lethal.
Action Two attack
Action Three attack
Juliet gasps as Vaen falls, twitching. Best thing to do now is end this quick. Better to lose some gold than to lose their sword. Especially before they get their shot at Lamm.
Stepping over the fallen guard, Juliet stabs at Vancaskerkin, twice, then utters a quick, barking command. "Surrounded, sucker! Drop your weapon and live!"
Round 3
Evelyn is unfazed as the second of her skeletons is slain. In her spookiest voice she chortles: "Huhuhuhu, there are plenty more where that came from!"
As if to clarify her point she summons a third skeleton while the the first moves away from Vancaskerkin to cover the rear.
Evelyn spends two acts to summon another skeleton. Only four more left!
Skeleton 1 moves to I17 and attacks the enemy at I18.
Skeleton 3 moves to K17 and attacks the enemy at K18
The combination of Juliet's blade and Lorick's fists proves to be too much for Vancaskerkin, who falls unconscious to the floor beside Vaenathis, who appears to have stopped bleeding. For now.
Evelyn's skeleton claws the unfortunate Baldrago to utter shreds; Malder starts in disbelief as the girl's haunting chortle is drowned out by his companion's screams. Dropping his blade, he runs back out the door, as fast as his legs will carry him, back to the safety of the butcher's shop; but he has overlooked one thing. Two things. He is in the uniform of the Guard of Korvosa; and he is alone in a rioting city.
Despite that, he actually gets quite a long way.
Only getting one hit in jibes at Lorick, but it was enough to keep Vancaskerkin from following all of his men into the afterlife. We need to get Vaenathis fixed and tie this traitor up and get him back to the fort as soon as we can. If only he wasn't so damn smart we coulda jumped him without having to go through his entire damn crew.
He brings out his rope and bends down to start working on binding the unconscious man up as tight as he can manage and hefts him up onto his shoulder.
With as bloody as we are It'd be a damn fool who'd mess with us. We go fast right? Not silent.
Hey, this guy stink of the same magic we felt afore?
"Let's find out." says Evelyn as she rejoins the group. By now she had dismissed her skeleton companions and returned their bone fragments to her pouch. Once she gets to Vancaskerkin she casts an enchantment, scanning for any significant magical presence.
Casting Detect Magic
Evelyn finds no active magics on the captain, although he is carrying a potion of Cure Moderate Wounds and a beautiful silver dagger, curved, ornamental and clearly not of Korvosan origin. It radiates some sort of magic that can't be immediately identified.
He was also carrying a masterwork longsword, which is liberally coated with Vaen's blood.
The other guards have nothing of interest beyond their weapons and Guard armour.
Evelyn nonchalantly pockets the dagger, making no real effort to overtly conceal doing so.
"Nothing like what was afflicting those two, just a few auras of interest. Potions and whatnot. Looks like he was acting entirely of his own accord."
Dropping his blade, he runs back out the door, as fast as his legs will carry him, back to the safety of the butcher's shop; but he has overlooked one thing. Two things. He is in the uniform of the Guard of Korvosa; and he is alone in a rioting city.
Despite that, he actually gets quite a long way.
Staggered for a moment as Vancaskerkin drops, Juliet stands motionless, holding her side, before springing into action. Kneeling over Vaen, she checks his pulse, breathing a sigh of relief. Alive, thank Desna.
She cocks an eyebrow as Evelyn pockets the dagger. Kid sure likes shiny things. "You want the dagger, kid, just ask."
Anyways, they've got more important issues than the kid's greed, which is, given her background, understandable. "Agreed, Lorick. Think you can carry him? Anyone got anything can get Vaen up and going? What's the potion, Evelyn?"
"Oh, and when we drop him off, we should toss their hideout. Make sure there isn't anything anyone's missing. Or, um, anything we can use to get loose of Lamm."
"I didn't think it worth asking, unless you'd like to painstakingly split all of the mans belongings. It's a curative concoction, by the by. Not particularly strong, though."
Juliet takes the potion and feeds it to Vaen, hoping that Evelyn is correct in her analysis.
Nah, no worries. Let's just get the package where it's going.
For one who was lucky enough not to get up in the actual fighting, Gehenna appears oddly lifeless for moment (although still more lively that Vaen). She leans slightly, unable to concentrate as she struggles to block out the macabre influence of the dead and dying around her.
By the time she regains her composure, Juliet is already administering some kind of potion to the still half-elf. Gehenna feels a pang of guilt, and frustration, but doesn't hold onto it. Not so long as she's standing in this place.
"Will the potion be enough for him to keep?" she asks wearily. "If not I can apply what little ability I have to assist. Otherwise... yes, let's be done with this place."
Gehenna wanders closer to the door and stumbles on one of the bodies in the process. She looks down for only a second, but it's enough to cause her "ability" to trigger and deliver a brief jolt of perceived pain.
Nothing but thugs after all she thinks. Got what you deserved then...
Vaenathis shakes his head to clear the cobwebs as it were as consciousness returns to him. Looking down at himself, he notes the closing wound in his chest with the detachment lightheadedness and arecent brush with death usually brings. And then, secure in his knowledge that it will be left at just a brush, he looks up at his companions and smiles.
"So," he quips, "what did I miss?"
Juliet watches as the potion does its work, still crouched in what she's beginning to think of as the Fishery of Death. Twice they've ambushed someone else's thugs here, and twice nary a soul made it out. If there was a place to be haunted, the sheer numbers of bad men who met grisly ends here, well... Juliet shudders, one quick crawl of the shivers climbing her back. Pushing the thought from her mind, she turns to Gehenna.
"I think he'll keep. The wounds close as we talk."
Extending her hand as Vaen shakes the cobwebs from his head, Juliet helps the elf up. "Didn't miss much, actually. That swing he took at you was the last one. Lorick put him down. The others came through the front? Evelyn's family scattered or killed 'em. Suckers."
"Think there's a cart about, we can pile the lot of 'em in? We probably shouldn't point the guard here," Juliet nods to the mouldering corpses of the first assault, mustache and his crew. "Seeing as we did that."
We'll have to tell 'em anyway Lorick says as he easily shoulders the unconscious guard captain. We're bringing an eye witness back. Now if our friend here don't remember anything then I'm willing to keep my trap shut about Loricks gestures Alla this
"Dead bodies and waterfront warehouses are hardly strangers in Korvosa," Gehenna says, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of carting the dead around. "And that's even during the best of times. Must we move them?"
"We can't leave them here, and they can't go in the river. Not all of them."
Looking at the work that they - she - had done in the past few days, Juliet is suddenly overcome with a melancholy mood. Mustache and his friends, yes, they'd tried to kill Juliet and the rest, but not before she'd killed one of theirs first. These were bad people, to be sure, and Pharasma's judgement would be harsh.
But, Juliet had known these men and women, or men and women like them, her entire life. They were her mother's people, a people with morals born of necessity, hard lives, a derth of expectations and opportunity.
Odds are, Juliet knows some of Mustache's family, and vice-versa. The dead deserved proper rights. Their families deserved to know their fates, time to mourn and let go.
The cook, he goes in the river, the sucker. But the rest, Juliet lifts, under their arms, and drags three blocks south of the fishery, to an alleyway. Once done, the singer removes Mustache's bloody cloak and spreads it over the corpses, as best she can.
She'll send word to the thieves' camp later - anonymously of course - that the Varisians temporary resting spot is here.
Lorick, not really a stranger to violent and senseless death, sighs patiently as he easily holds Vancaskerkin on his shoulder even as the Bull's Strength and Enlarge Person enchantments fade away while Juliet does her work.
Not moving the traitor guard bodies anywhere but worried about the cook's paid protection? Right. Let's go. Time's a wasting
Evelyn saves further quips for later. Obviously she little sympathized with Juliet's apparent sense of compassion, but at this point she'd rather just be done with the whole damn thing rather than drag it out by poking fun.
Juliet pauses her dragging of Mustache out the door. "I know, I know. May be related to these guys, or family friends. Varisians have big families, lots of connections. Their folk will need to know what happened. Just not who happened to them. Go on, I'll catch up shortly."
With Verik restrained and unconscious, and Juliet's grim work completed, it's a simple matter to drop the renegade guardsman off at the Citadel. Kroft isn't there - she's out pacifying the city - but the on-duty guardsman takes him off your hands, together with a brief report of what happened. Final debrief will have to wait until later; for now, there's the butcher's shop to investigate.
...
..
.
The sign All the World's Meat swings lightly in the evening air; but there are no signs of life at the shop. The front door is bolted - not, it turns out, enough to withstand your combined forces.
Once inside, you find yourselves back in the shopfront you were in earlier; moving around to the back of the counter, you exit into the slaughterhouse behind. This is one huge, stone-faced room, significantly cooler than the rest of the building due to the two huge blocks of ice located over a drain; currently melting, they will be gone by morning. Somehow you suspect that they won't be replaced. Half a dozen joints of various animal are suspended from hooks in the ceiling; there's a mess of bones, gristle and unwanted renderings in the far corner.
As you investigate, the pile of gristle and bone moves and two clawed, spiny horrors spring out, angry at being disturbed. They lash out at Juliet and Vaenathis.
Both of them are caught by surprise; both feel the sting of something beyond the normal as the claws tear at their flesh.
Sorry. Dice clearly hate you.
INITIATIVE
Vaenathis
Gehenna
Juliet
Things
Lorick
Evelyn
Wrong. Something's wrong.
Barely a thought, barely a moment to register, but its there anyways, in the back of Juliet's mind. Otherwise, the singer's going on full instinct, stepping forward, and with some difficulty, raising her rapier to stab at the spiny horror.
As a sense of weakness washes over him, Vaenathis takes a moment to glance at Juliet, noticing that the swordswoman is feeling the same thing. "Poison," he mutters as he swings at the creature in front of him again and again, unwilling this time to sacrifice accuracy for force.
Why? Gehenna thinks gritting her teeth as she nurses her head. They're only butchered animals.
As expected, the butcher shop is a veritable swarm of death, but for reasons beyond her grasp the feedback from her eyes is worse that expected. It's almost a mercy when the two reefclaws burst from the mortifying pile of remains. It grants her the focus to shut out the noise.
"Reefclaws!" she yells startled; too late though to be of use to Juliet and Vaen. "If they've nested here they probably aren't going to let us go easy."
Gehenna's hair bleaches itself stark white and begins to weave between the various bits of hanging meat and bone towards one of the reefclaws.
Juliet's rapier pierces the thing cleanly; it thrashes about in its death throes, but doesn't hurt her at all. Plus, the poison seems to be leaving her system: she's got a nasty inflammation where the claw caught her, and she feels groggy, but she's not getting any worse.
The same goes for Vaenathis: he's had better nights, but he's alive. He even managed to hit the thing, although he didn't kill it. Gehenna does that. She's also the one who pays the price for it.
Gehenna's weird hair tangles the other reefclaw right up, and starts pulling it apart. The clawed horror doesn't like that. Not. One. Little. Bit. As it dies, it thrashes around reflexively, catching the young witch over and over and over with its claws, flaying her skin as its coils spasm around her waist, crushing her almost to death - before it releases her and falls, limp and dead, to the ground. Gehenna is still - just about - upright, but an awful lot of her blood is now on the outside of her body.
Juliet, breathing heavy, leans against the wall and flicks the excess blood off of her blade. "Everyone feel OK? That thing that got me, made me a little sick. Think they've got any more pets? I'm not feeling so hot - maybe we should get back to Vaen's"
Before she can even draw her weapon the fight is already over. She blinks in surprise, and eyes the piles a little more wearily. Noting the human remains she quietly begins a ritual to summon her companion-knight.
"It'd be a shame not to at least give the place a cursory search before it gets looted tomorrow. If you three want to rest that's fine. I'll have Sir deGrey do most of the heavy lifting."
She stops for a moment.
"Though I suppose they're likely be a riot once the folk break here and figure out what it is they've been eating."
Lorick tries to hold Gehenna steady and gives her his last potion of Cure Light Wounds
Hey hey, easy there. You ripped those things apart right before they returned the favour. Yeah we need to get back. Think we've got just enough time to ransack this place
Juliet wills herself to stand, determined not to let the kid get herself into any trouble. Even if she's got her headless friend with her, Evelyn may need Juliet's help.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, kid. Good way to- wait, what? What're you... Ohh. Eww."
The room spins, and Juliet leans back into the wall. If I had anything in her stomach, I'd lose it. Best get something to eat soon... Ohh nnoooo.
Doubling over Juliet spits some bile to the ground, and then runs a cloaked arm along her mouth.
"You're saying that bastard was taking hits out on folks, and then feeding the hits to other folks? We shouldn't have handed him over alive..."
With frequent retching, Juliet gets about the grisly business of helping Sir deGrey look through the butcher shop... from afar.
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"Indeed." says Evelyn as she pulls half a broken skull out from the pile and places it atop the empty space of her armored friend. "If the skull fits, as it were."
Leaving the grisly secrets of the killing floor, Evelyn and her companion ascend the staircase up to the offices. There they find a slew of paperwork, mostly to do with the running of a conventional business: stock orders, payments, cash flow, that sort of thing. It seems that Verik Vancaskerkin and his little crew have been running this place as a side business for quite some time, escaping detection. Perhaps the collapse of Korvosa into chaos merely provided an excuse to go full-time.
Sir deGrey takes a more direct approach and simply rips the filing cabinet and desk apart. Amid the strewn wreckage and wood dust, Evelyn finds a cache of documents. These documents detail names and dates; and the paper trail makes it clear that this is a list of murder victims, who ended up in the shop. Or at least, most of them appear to have done. Some appear to have gone elsewhere, but it isn't clear. The only clue is a set of initials: Nothing more than that.
What is clear from the paperwork is that the pace of killings accelerated with the onset of the riots: nearly a dozen people have been killed since Toilday evening alone. The gods alone know which poor, unsuspecting unfortunates ended up consuming them for supper.
Under a loose floorboard, Juliet finds the gang's treasure hoard: 225 gold coins, 350 silver and a collection of precious gems: sapphires, rubies and onyx.
Life may be cheap in Korvosa right now, but murder clearly pays quite well.
Holding his stomach and fighting back a wave of nausea or two, Vaen joins the rest of them, his eyes brightening up as he sees the loot they manage to uncover.
"Oh my," he quips, unable to stop the smile that appears on his lips. "Not sure how much those are worth," he adds, pointing at the various gems, "but I am willing to wager a bundle."
Let's just take the papers back to the Fort and get out of here. We're not in good shape right now. Need rest and healing
It had been some time since Gehenna had been worked over this thoroughly. Her mind reels from the experience, but somehow wills the body into going through the motions of unstopping the potion and taking it down with a few deep gulps.
Although the potion does provide some much needed succor, the trauma that the ragged wounds inflicted on her body is not easily washed away. Vaguely, Gehenna feels the poison taking hold.
"Fufufu..." she chuckles quietly; her mind awash with pain and the memory of pain.
Despite her detached state Gehenna follows the party competently enough, but takes little heed of their findings.
*cough*