Paxs is going to continue moving foward and summons a celestial eagle. "I did not want to have to resort to this. Attack eagle. Ruptera get your healing ready so we can help her once we catch her."
Pshaw, you all can have her. I'm not breaking my neck for it. Majenko will track her for us," Pai yells to the others, noticing for the first time how high they all were over the town.
She takes her time and only advances one card.
Majenko circles overhead, enjoying the spectacle of the ducking, jumping and twisting of the party, as Pai carefully picks her way forward, mimicking Slumper.
Trinia, seeing the party circle around her, lets out another anguished cry. "Please, just let me go!" She move one tile forward and casts another spell, her hands wiggling and some soft chanting accompanying her movements!
Ruperta recovers from the spell and lurches forward, trying to climb a very steep roof to reach Trinia...
But she is unable to climb quickly enough so she doesn't reach her in time...
As Trinia casts her spell, Paxs finishes his and a pale glowing eagle appears in front of her. Before she can get out more than a surprised yelp, the bird rakes her arms with its talons and screams loudly in her face!
Ruperta attempts to scale the sloped roof, but doesn't do as well as she hoped. With a final exertion, she pulls herself over and onto the next tile behind Trinia!
Attack of opportunity
Damage
Sneak Attack (if she is flanked)
Corbyn's swipe at Trinia cuts open her arm and sends blood gushing from the wound.
However, gritting her teeth, she finishes the spell!
ROUND 5:
ORDER:
Trinia and Paxs
Ruperta
Corbyn
Pai
Slumper
Trinia is on the second to last tile. If she makes it to the next, she escapes!
Paxs lashes out with his dagger, while the eagle also attacks.
Slumper continues slow and steady.
"I did not want to resort to violence, but if you escape, we will find your corpse if we are lucky."
Slumper uses his sling on Trinia
sling
Pai continues to advance one card at a time.
"Keep watch on her, Majenko. She might be getting away!"
Ruperta makes a last desperate dash to try to get to Trinia before her companions kill her.
Paxs and his summoned eagle both score light hits on Trinia, who cries out in pain, while the others scramble to stop her before she can flee!
Corbyn throws his tanglefoot bag as Trinia reaches the edge of the tile... , but his aim is spoiled and Trinia dodges it easily! She leaps over the last roof and slides down a drainpipe to the street below.
Majenko's running commentary tells you what happens next: as Trinia races down several alleys, she is almost to the docks when a fruit cart blocks her way. She pauses just long enough for a Sable Company Marine mounted on a hippogriff to swoop down and snag her in its claws! With one last protest of innocence, she's swept away into the air, and off to captivity.
"Augh! The next time we are trying to talk someone into coming with us peacefully, it might be a nice idea to not try to rip them to shreds!" Pai wasn't used to failing her missions. She was wondering how exactly to break the news to her supervisor.
"Thank you Majenko, without you, we'd still be looking for her."
"A few bumps, bruises, and cuts, with Ruperta here to minister is preferred to the headsman or worse."
"Oh yes, I'm surprised she didn't turn right around and come back to talk to us after we started trying to slice her, and siccing an eagle on her. I'd have run too, and never looked back...," she mutters, shaking her head.
Ruperta drops to her knees, frustrated, her fists hitting the roof where she is...
"Damn girl!" she says for herself. "Let's go, we need to save her from the police! Hurry up!"
She presses her companions to follow her, while thinking a way of liberating the poor girl before she is murdered...
"Agreed, I was hoping to catch her and take her calmly, but I was willing to make her bleed in order to keep her from being tortured or worse by the mob. I would not have attacked at all if we did not have a priest with us, and we did try to reason with her."
Slumper will follow Ruperta, once he gets off the damn roof of course.
After some climbing, apologizing to residents whose balconies you utilize and a lot of embarassment, you make it to the ground, only to discover that the Hippogriff has flown to the Castle. Trinia is most definitely captured.
When you return to the Citadel, you find the place nervous and the guards jumpy. When you're taken into Cressida Kroft's office, she isn't alone: an older Shoanti man is there with her. The man is tall and rail thin, leaning heavily upon a staff fashioned of some great beast's femur topped with a cougar skull. His eyes are milky white, but he seems to be able to see just fine. A red feathered raven sits atop his shoulder.
When you report your failure, Kroft sighs. "Ah well. You tried. Her fate is beyond my hands now. But there is a matter that I need your aid with. This is Thousand Bones, a Way Keeper for the Skull Clan of the Shoanti. We have a situation brewing and I believe it needs your aid."
The old man does not smile as he begins:
"“My people have worked hard to understand yours, yet it seems each day we see new examples of how your people work just as hard to foster old hatreds. My grandson is dead, beaten to death by cowards in your city street. I do not blame you, yet still Gaekhen is dead, and my son and his kin are not so forgiving as I. They wish to return to the Skoan-Quah in the Cinderlands, to join with the Sklar-Quah and rally to war against Korvosa. This would be disastrous, for both our peoples. Amends must be made.
“Our ways are not as yours. If a body does not go whole to the fires of the gods, the smoke of a warrior’s spirit cannot rise to the Great Sky. If I could send Gaekhen’s body to the Great Sky with honor and dignity, his father and brothers would listen to me and stay their wrath—the talks of peace between my people and yours can continue. But he was not just murdered. His body was taken from the scene of his death, sold by a peddler of corpses to a necromancer named Rolth, a criminal to both our people. I have spoken with the spirits, and they have revealed to me that Gaekhen’s body has been taken to a place below your boneyard, a place the spirits call the Dead Warrens.
“With this knowledge, I could surely lead a group of my finest warriors into your boneyard to retrieve Gaekhen’s body, but this would be seen as an act of aggression by your people. No, it falls to you to make amends for what has been done. You must bring me Gaekhen’s body, lest we be forced to recover him ourselves. And although it pains my heart to say it—we will not be gentle if it comes to this.”
With this, the man nods to Kroft and leaves. She waits until he is out of the room, then turns to you.
"I apologize for his abruptness, but it is his way. Normally I would approach the Church of Pharasma about these things, but since I have you here... I need that corpse recovered, as soon as possible."
"We'll get right on it. Necromancers are the worst," Pai nods, eager to head out and put the memories of her failure far behind her.
"Agreed."
Paxs follows Pai.
Corbyn mumbles under his breath, "First, chasing artists over rooftops; now, trying to reclaim a corpse from a necromancer. This is getting ridiculous."
"At least this one won't be running away from us... I hope..."
Korvosa’s vast graveyard, a place known as the Gray District, is a mournful place even by day. Alone in the city, this place is quiet and calm in the face of the civil unrest, yet this calm is an unnatural stillness in the air, almost as if the graveyard were preparing itself for a vast influx of new dead. Certainly, this ominous feeling is nowhere more noticeable than in Potter’s Ward, the final resting ground for Korvosa’s poor and homeless. Mounds of unmarked dirt stretch far and wide, indicating sites of mass graves, while crumbling mausoleums from years ago, abandoned by their families as the Gray District expanded to the west, dot the bleak landscape, forgotten and empty. Mourners do not visit here, for the dead buried in Potter’s Ward leave behind few who regret their passing.
Perception
"Guys, check this out," Pai points showing the group the tracks and the rut. She quickly follows them, and she points at the trap door behind a head stone. "Can any of you check for traps? Last thing we need is to get us smashed by a headstone..."
Ruperta will try and detect magic...
Perception
I can try looking for traps but I am out of practice.
Perception (looking where Pai pointed)
Corbyn examines the trapdoor, but finds no signs that it is trapped. Cautiously, he opens it to reveal stone stairs leading downward. The stairs terminate in a large stone room. This large room is supported by four wide pillars of stone. The ceiling above arches in a dome nearly twenty feet high. The walls are lined with skeletons caked into the mud—human bones mostly, but here and there smaller bones might be from halfings, or perhaps children. Fifteen-foot-square pits sit to the east and west, each filled with a large heap of hundreds of bones. To the south, a crude hole has been gouged into the wall, providing access to a tunnel.
You've heard of such places as this: ossuaries, where the bones of the dead were collected prior to being put in crypts or tombs. This one appears to have been forgotten or deliberately abandoned by the Church of Pharasma...
"Hmm normally bones don't bother me, but this is totally different.."
Slumper moves towards the tunnel to guard the room.
Perception
Perception
"Do you hear that? Rattling and clanking! I've got a feeling we aren't alone down here. Everyone look alive!"
Paxs:
Slumper:
Corbyn:
Pai:
Ruperta:
Foes:
Initiative:
25 Ruperta
15 Corbyn
13 Foes
11 Pai
10 Paxs
9 Slumper
From the east alcove lumbers what seems to be the skeleton of a beaked bear, while six humanoid skeletons lumber from the west!
SURPRISE ROUND!
Surprise Round
Pai quickly casts a protective spell, gaining some protection against the oncoming attack.
Ruperta sees her companions react to something, but she is not aware of the skeletons in time to react quickly enough...
I will pull a vial of alchemist fire and throw it at the beaked skeleton.
percp
Slumper was so distracted by the giant pile of bones he didn't notice the one's walking toward him.
Surprise Round!
Corbyn throws a vial of fire as Pai prepares by armoring herself!
Round 1:
Initiative:
25 Ruperta
15 Corbyn
13 Foes
11 Pai
10 Paxs
9 Slumper
Ruperta moves to get the 6 humanoid skeletons in range (30'to the farthest ) while she prepares her Morningstar. When she have them in range she elevates a prayer for Desna, and let's her grace be channeled by her body.