Gideon spends a few minutes thinking about the offer, considering the options they've been presented with. When the thought of the half-elven Shensen comes to mind, though, all doubt is gone from his mind. Who knows? Maybe he would even get to cross paths with the famous bard; she was certainly no friend of the diabolists. If her recent disappearance from public theater was a result of going into hiding, he might get to meet her during their little quest.
"Sure. We'll never know unless we try, right? I'm in. I'll take you up on the offer of the bunkhouse. Not like I was staying anywhere special to begin with." Gideon adds.
The next morning, weather you're return the the coffee house or just coming downstairs, Laria greats you with a friendly smile. Rexas leaves the bunkhouse and steps into the study next door. He begins his work on the documents found in the silver raven's old hideout. When you guys are ready, she leads you behind the bar and into the pantry. Once inside, she moves a crate of coffee grounds and reveals a hidden trap door.
The trap leads into a basement containing numerous crates of cooking ingredients, sacks of coffee beans, and other supplies needed to maintain a thriving business. Laria makes her way to the eastern wall and shows you a secret door.
Beyond the door, a long, damp hallway opens to the southeast into 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.
The statue depicts Calistria, the elven goddess of revenge and lust. Worship of Calistria is outlawed in Cheliax.
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Xeno returns home, climbing into her room over the roof. After she changes into her Elenora clothes and goes down stairs to have dinner with her father dutifully hear about the horrible riot of the ungrateful populace.
The next morning she gets up early and studies her spell book, memorising shield and grease. Then goes to the cafe for breakfast.
Johan gets a good night rest and wakes feeling slightly better. After a good good breakfast he feels ready to proceed. Following the others through the trap doors and secret doors he is amazed to see the underground body of water.
"What is this place? I thought that the worship of Calistria was outlawed!"
The underground chamber you step in to is 15 feet wide and over 100 feet deep. The holes in the western wall are 15 foot wide and lead into another chamber. The waterway to the east is 30 feet across with a makeshift dock stretching 10 feet wide and 30 feet into the waterway.
Searching the pier, you notice the partially eaten remains of what appears to be a man wedged against the pier's northwestern most piling just under the lip of the stone floor.
Through the hole you see a sprawling series of rooms filled with a variety of human and halfling sized furniture filling the area. Half the furniture seems to have been smashed.
The night passed uneventfully for Gideon, though he did initially have some trouble getting his mind to quiet down enough for him to sleep. Still, it was restful once he did, and he got enough of it to not be tired the next day. He supposed that was as good as he could hope for at the moment.
The next morning as they begin their explorations anew,
Gideon gives a nod and a slight shiver. "Banned, but if you ask me, Calistria espouses the kind of philosophies that I'm alright leaving to the wayside." he remarks, looking at the statue of the ethereally beautiful elven woman for a few seconds before moving on.
At Xeno's call, he goes to find out about this body that she found. What a wonderful start to the day...finding a corpse near a statue of the elven goddess of revenge and lust. "By Shelyn's glaive, what a stench..." he muttered as he got nearer to the source of the rot. Still...Xeno was right, and he kept his mace ready. Perhaps it was also high time he started actually making use of his other abilities, as well...now that he was committed to this job, holding back would do a great deal more harm than good.
Those of you that search where Xeno indicates, you notice the partially eaten remains of what appears to be a man wedged against the pier's northwestern most piling just under the lip of the stone floor.
While not the strongest person in the world, Gideon was at least of an average build...hopefully strong enough to dislodge the remains of whatever poor soul had been so assailed. Expressing his intent to get the corpse out of the water, first looks to see if he can tell how deep it is. If it's shallow enough to walk through, he simply gets in and attempts to dislodge the body. Otherwise, he looks for something that he could maybe use to reach the body and dislodge it from a distance.
The water is dark and it is hard to tell how deep it is. Raven can tell you there is broken furniture in the next room. A 2x4 could be easily found inside.
Unable to simply discern how deep the water is, Gideon finds as long a piece of wood as he can to lower into the water and try and find out how deep it is.
Inside the next room you see a sprawling series of rooms filled with a variety of human and halfling sized furniture filling the area. Half the furniture seems to have been smashed. Searching through the debris, Gideon and Xeno find what used to be the long base of a human sized bed.
Realizing that they're not going to find anything any better, Gideon enlists Xeno's assistance in slowly lowering the base of the bed into the water.
Raven, as you make your way into the other room, you notice a few other rooms off-shooting from this one. One to the south and one to the north. Whatever creature you spotted earlier, you've lost track of it now among all the furniture in this room. It was somewhere near the northern wall last you saw.
Gideon, you're able to use your tool to knock the body loose and send it floating into the water.
Tom headed towards Temple Hill, he had no taste for Asmodeus worship, his childhood in a strict orphanage saw to that. Abadar wasn't much better, being a god of Watchmen made Tom nervous, but Abadar was also god of cities, and he'd known no other home.
"What good are clerics but for fixing a sprained ankle after a clumsy jump? He thought to himself as he approached the temple. The House of Golden Veils was near to shutting up shop before curfew when Tom arrived, he could see a few acolytes shuttering stalls.
He caught the attention of one.
"Hey mate, where might I find someone who might help a fella out after being bitten by a nasty looking rat? And some potions?"
The acolyte, looks at the dirty, and somewhat smelly boy. He raises an imperious eyebrow and begins to say something, but thinks better of it when Tom flashes a shiny silver piece.
"This way boy," The acolyte leads Tom to a cart, tinkling with the sound of glass bottles jostling against each other, and the cleric who was directing a donkey to move the cart into a secure storage area.
Tom filed that away for later. After purchasing some healing and potions.
Tom heads to the most likely location to find some street urchins, orphans and runaways living rough. He knows the usual hang outs and finds a couple of beggar children eking out a safe spot to sleep behind a trash pile in an alley.
"Oy you blighters," he calls out.
"Tom!" One of the kids calls out, exploding forth from their hiding spot in a tent made of torn canvas and broken pallets. She runs over and gives Tom a hug.
"Hi Sootface Sally, you keeping your little brother safe?"
"Yas Tom I am."
"Good girl. Here," Tom pulls out the pastries he nicked earlier in a flourish, giving them a bit of a juggle as Sally's eyes widen, "Dinner tonight, and breakfast tomorrow. Don't eat them all at once, they're rich and will surely make your tummy twist"
Sally grabs the pastries excitedly.
"Dudley! Look what Tom brung us!"
A young boy no older than 7 pokes his head out the trash pile, wiping his runny nose on his sleeve. Excitedly he tumbles out the makeshift tent and grabs one of the pastries immediately stuffing it into his mouth. He says nothing. Tom knows why, Sally and Dudley were both escapees of the orphanage he was once trapped in, but Dudley with his stutter and nervous nature took the brunt of the Sister's of Asmodeus' sinister attentions. Tom pats the boy on the head.
"Listen, there might be some trouble on the streets in the near future. There's a spot a bit safer than this that you might want to take shelter in."
He hands the children some copper coins.
"Buy some jerky, or bacon with this, and head to this abandoned Livery," he gives the kids the address of the livery he was in earlier that day. "Don't get too close to the dogs, but give them a bit of food each day, until they get friendly. They'll help keep you safe, and the place is warmer than this spot. I'll come check on you in a few days." Tom smiles at the kids.
He looks at the thin sliver of sky between buildings, it gets later every minute. He gives the kids a quick hug, and then heads back out into the city.
He heads to the Bellflower network hideout, not to go inside, but to watch whether the bread or wine that's been left there gets taken by anyone. He waits a few hours, before getting cold, tired and sore from hiding and heading back to the coffee house to bed down.
The next morning Tom awakens, and washes his hands and face in the basin of hot water provided. One of the few luxuries allowed by the Sisters that he sorely missed in his years on the streets. He meets with his fellow "rebels", and heads out to the Bellflower network letting them know what he's seen, and distributing to each a potion of cure light wounds.
He also tells the others of anything interesting he spotted overnight during his few hours of stake out.
At this point he has followed Raven into the smashed furniture room. Searching for trouble, such as traps or nasty things what bite.
With rapier drawn, Johan will follow Raven and seach in the room(s). "I got your back, Raven. But be careful"
"Yup. I'm on it." he answers, using the broken piece of furniture to guide the cadaver into a position where it can be reached from their side.
As you peer into the furniture room, you spot the black tarry feathers of some sort of creature hiding in the shadows of the room. The creature seems to duck lower as Xeno and Gideon walk into the room.
Gideon, is able to push the cadaver over to the pier and Xeno is able to grab hold of it helping to lift the body up and out of the water and onto the pier.
"Sure Xeno, I'll be right over. I just found an interesting trinket here, that I might have trouble dislodging from the debris." Tom calls out to Xeno, but he is in fact passing a secret message:
"There is trouble in this room, everybody get ready." Everyone in earshot should understand the insinuation, except for the
Tom says this and then takes cover behind some debris, pretending to pull out an interesting item, but is in fact readying a dagger.
Johan will also turn and is ready to attack with his rapier.
Gideon looks down at the body, hating to just leave it there...but he takes a moment to pull it free of the water before following the others out of the room. "What've you found, Tom?"
As you make your way into the room with Tom, those of you who are still near the hole hear a loud splash behind you. Turning to investigate you see the man's body you worked so hard to pull out being pulled back into the water by a pure white gator that seems to be attempting to swim back under with its prize.
Raven's arrow bounces off the creatures naturally thick hide. The reptile lunges out of the water with shocking speed, Its jaw gapes open in a roar, its powerful tail lashing behind.
Turn Order: Johan, Xeno, Gideon, Crocodile, Tom, Raven
Johan starts to sing inspiring his compatriots to greater actions.
Gideon takes a deep breath, focusing an intense gaze on the crocodile, raising one hand and putting two fingers against his temple as he does.
In addition, he reaches forward, putting a hand to Xeno's shoulder, telling her simply to trust him before muttering a few words under his breath.
The crocodile sinks down out of site in the water and appears on the opposite side of the pier. It quickly moves up onto the land moving towards Xeno only to be met by her rapier.
Turn Order: Tom, Raven, Johan, Gideon, Xeno, Crocodile
HP 20/22
Hypnotic stare -2 Will
Tom sidles along the wall behind Raven, and draws a dagger.
He gives it a flip, and then throws it at the killer croc.
Unfortunately, the chaos of the melee in front of him is enough to cause the dagger to bounce harmlessly off the croc's scales. He'd have to get in closer if he was to have any real impact.
Johan, still singing, does a double move to get opposite the beast from Tom
Johan is singing to inspire courage
Tom's dagger bounces harmlessly off the crocodile's scales. Raven's arrow on the other hand pierces the creatures flesh and the beast lets out a painful wail. Johan moves into position and continues to inspire his allies. Gideon draws his mace and cracks the croc's head. Xeno uses her own blade to pierce the croc as well. The creatures bleeding wounds make it too week to make successful strikes.
The crocodile growls fiercely and attempts to bite at Xeno, his powerful tail sweeping back at Gideon.
HP 5/22
Hypnotic Stare -2 Will