Davina pulls out her crossbow and loads it. "I'll try to hit the flyer with this, but you know I'm terrible at it."
Falina's volley of magic missiles both harms and angers the strix spellcaster, who swoops close to the rooftop and then casts a spell that catches Falina, Davina, and T'chazzar* in a wave of flames
Although the low walls and railings give partial cover to the intruders, the three crossbowmen on the north building continue to pepper folks on the top level with bolts. T'chazzar takes a shot to the chest near his shoulder but the other shots miss^.
The Red Jill inside the south building hisses at Dom (who's still inside the billowing fog conjured by Leora), "You see now why we dare not oppose our leader! She'd just as quickly turn on traitors in our ranks!"
Despite his words, this tiefling doesn't attack Dom.
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T'chazzar collapses in a smoking heap.
Davina tries to avoid the flames. She just barely avoids most of the flames. "Leora! We could use some healing up here. I heard a thump, ad I don't think it was an enemy."
She raises her crossbow and fires at the flyer. "We really did just come to talk." Then she reloads.
Faliina was startled by the fan of flames from the flying woman but knew the strix had made a mistake in coming so close as to use it.
She hissed in pain as the flames washed over her but her body resisted some of the effect. She then said viciously, "Let's see how well you fly when your strength is gone!" She chanted and gestured and a ray of foul black energy shot from her fingertip at the flying strix.
It seemed that the flames had dazzled her eyes though and she missed her target completely.
"Get off the roof where they can't shoot you!" Leora is surprised her friends didn't rush back down the ladder as soon as they learned it was an ambush. "Do any of you have potions up there? Armor's slowing me down, it'll be a sec, especially if I gotta climb a ladder."
Leora is equally frustrated at her friends for standing in the ambush zone and at herself for not saving T'chazzar. It must be him since Davina and Falina were saying something up on the roof. She makes sure to talk a lot, maybe to provoke the flying thing that seems to be blasting her friends, especially now that she's visible at the bottom of the ladder.
"Hey flying bird thing! I'm the one you gotta worry about! You better come down here and stop me before I get my friends back in the fight!" Not sure what else to do, she moves towards the ladder.
"You see now why we dare not oppose our leader! She'd just as quickly turn on traitors in our ranks!"
Dom eyes the man warily. "I won't ask you to raise steel against her, but she's got to be stopped. Don't follow her down this path. Your comrades on the roof, could any of them be persuaded?"
Even after healing much of the damage from the strix spellcaster's initial scorching ray, T'chazzar's overwhelmed and dropped by the combination of burning hands and a crossbow bolt to the chest. Davina's retaliatory crossbow bolt sneaks past the strix's defenses, drawing blood. Falina's spell, however, is dodged.
Leora's taunt from below strikes a chord with the strix. "'Thing'?" she echoes in outrage, swooping southeast and then attempting to roast the cleric with another scorching ray. Meanwhile, the rooftop tieflings reload their crossbows and fire a new volley. The strix's aim is terrible, missing Leora. The crossbowmen, however, are on top of their game. With T'chazzar no longer a target, two fire successfully at Falina ; Davina's spared a hit only when the bolt hurtling at her strikes the railing on the porch/platform and careens over her head.
The Red Jill inside the south building pauses before answering Dom's question. "I don't know," the tiefling says. "If Scarplume were eliminated...well, your chances would improve. She rules mainly by fear, but recently her decisions, while risky, have brought in greater returns...and increased our loyalty in general."
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Davina moves down toward Leora, and fires her crossbow again.
Surprised that she managed to get the attention of the flying enemy, Leora decides it's probably best not to climb the ladder while she's right at the top of it and blasting fiery rays. In fact, she moves away from the ladder in case Davina decides to come down.
"That's right! You heard me! And your aim sucks!" Leora draws her crossbow and aims at the strix.
Davina retreats. She and Leora both take shots at the flying strix with their crossbows, but Davina's shot flies wide while Leora's seemingly accurate one is turned aside at the last instant, likely by some magical force or armor effect the caster has in place.
Knowing she couldn't take much more Falina beat a retreat back to the ladder and down and as she stopped next to Keora said, "i could use some help here, and T could too but he can't get here."
In danger of being dropped herself, Falina retreats from the three crossbowmen on the roofs. Meanwhile, Dom--bow in hand--moves through the fog cloud toward the ladder. He emerges in time to see the strix swoop overhead but is unable to get a shot away.
Scarplume swoops back over the rooftop and out of sight of all save Davina.
From your vantage point, you see Scarplume land on the rooftop not far from T'chazzar and dig a glass vial out of her belt pouch. Your crossbow spent, you're helpless to do anything but watch as the Red Jill nearest the bridge, seeing his opening, slowly scoots across the rope-and-planks bridge and then makes his way to the fallen drow. At the far end of your darkvision, you see the other two tieflings reposition slightly, reload their crossbows, and train them on the platform, likely readying attacks should anyone reappear there.
"Drop your weapons and tell your friends to do the same or this fellow you left behind will get a bolt through his heart," the tiefling adjacent to T'chazzar calls out.
From the rooftop, in the general direction of where T'chazzar fell, you hear a tiefling call out, "Drop your weapons and tell your friends to do the same or this fellow you left behind will get a bolt through his heart."
Thinking this is probably a terrible move, Leora drops her crossbow. She can't see any of the enemies on the roof, so she hopes they can't see her either but hear her drop the weapon. Fine, but I'm coming up there to check on him! I don't want him to die while we're standing here talking!
Leora mouths sorry and mimes drinking something as she sees her friend's wounds as she passes her to go up the ladder. She looks at all her friends, then up at the roof, curious if they will follow her or do something else.
She has no clue what else to do, with T being left on the roof, and hopefully alive. None of the options seem good at this point.
Falina glared at Leora as she went past and mimed drinking something and mouth, drink what? No potions. She looked at the others and mouthed, got a potion?
As she thought about it Falina remebered the potion she'd been given before they rescued Jessi and pulled it out, chugging it down. She felt her wounds begin to knit closed as the magic took hold.
"Do it. There are three of them all about to get T."
She drops her crossbow, and steps out of sight. Then drinks her potion.
Dom moves close to those gathered at the foot of the ladder. Though he usually does whatever Davina requests, he's reluctant to give up. As he ponders dropping his longbow, another Red Jill, armed with a rapier, turns the corner of the building to the east and stops, looking to see if the intruders are complying with his comrade's order.
As the lone Silver Raven on the upper level currently, only Davina witnesses the Red Jill looming over T'chazzar take a moment to reload his crossbow before bending and pulling back T'chazzar's hood. "Look at this, boss!" he exclaims, seeing the drow for what he is.
The strix leader quaffs a potion and waves for one of the tieflings on the next rooftop to join her. Her gaze shifts from T'chazzar to Davina before snarling, "No, foolish human! Toss your weapons--all of them--over the wall and step forward with your hands up!" Then she takes off, flying over the edge of the south building to see what the other interlopers are up to.
With no weapons on her person to begin with Falina was as disarmed as she could get. Deciding that Davina was occupied it was up to her to negotiate. "What are your terms to end this with no further death? What is it going to cost us?"
Davina nods and tosses her crossbow over the edge of the building. She waits to hear the response to Falina's questions.
We can't let him die. It's not right.
The tiefling standing over T'chazzar shrugs at Falina's question. "Unconditional surrender I'm assuming...right boss?" he calls up to the strix. "YES!" the red-haired mage roars/shrieks. "Else you put a bolt in the elf's heart and the rest of them...BURN!"
"Got it." Leora stays at the edge of the roof near the ladder. She continues holding her hands out, palm up, to show she isn't holding any weapons.
The tiefling that was on the bridge scoots across the rooftop to a hinge crate and opens it. "You want 'em tied up, right boss? So you can question 'em?"
The strix swoops around, landing on the rooftop not far from Davina and Leora. "Yes," the strix snarls. "Once the others are bound, I'll allow that one to tend to the elf!"
The ground-level tieflings close in cautiously.
Sighing in resignation Falina held her hands out, and waited for the tieflings to approach and tie her up. When they did she said, "Enjoy it while it lasts boys."
Davina will allow herself to be tied. This did not go like I expected it would. We really need to plan better.
When Davina surrenders, the remaining fight seeps out of Domitius. The ground-level Red Jills make certain to fully disarm those still on the street level, while up on the roof, one tiefling binds T'chazzar's hands behind his back before beckoning Leora forward to make sure he isn't dead. Once she's healed him back to consciousness*, her wrists are bound as well. One-by-one, the downstairs Ravens are ordered up the ladder, onto the rooftop, and have their wrists bound behind their backs. Then the strix orders the captives be seated to the northeast, their backs against the building's low railing/wall. The spellcaster and three of the surviving Red Jills keep an eye on the captives; two other Jills maintain a lookout on the north rooftop.
The strix spreads her magnificent wings like a preening peacock, but her face is twisted in fury as she begins her interrogation. "Who are you people who dare attack my home...and my children? Speak swiftly and truthfully or I'll hurl your worthless carcasses over the edge to the cobblestones below myself!"
During your capture and the process of being bound, a couple of the tieflings noticed that Dom is a half-orc and made the connection to the group of outsiders (which included a drow and a half-orc) that recently ended the tooth fairy threat in the tiefling slums.
The tieflings who recognize your group as the slayers of the tooth fairies might be inclined to show you mercy...but they're angered by Dom's killing one of their number AND they're scared of the strix.
Falina had heard about the Tooth Fairy Incident in the devil's Nursery and she quickly realized that some of the tiflings recognized Dom at least as a part of that operation. She didn't know the details but she knew that it gave them some goodwill with those that recognized him, even if it was mitigated by likely having killed one of their number.
Falina's eyes narrowed and she said, "We hadn't exactly come here to fight you, we had hoped to talk you into joining us. Unfortunately things seem to have gotten away from us." She shrugged as much as she could while bound, "We represent the Silver Ravens and had hoped to talk you into changing your targets from the innocent civillians to the guards." Looking at their state she continued, "Sadly it seems that isn't likely to happen now."
Falina considered trying to turn the tieflings but decided against it just now and instead looked at the strix and said, "You are quite pretty you know, the wings are magnificent, and in far better shape than those of an associate of ours. I suspect you might get along with her if you met." She sighed, "Sadly if you kill us I think she'll take it personally. She was kind of sweet on him," she nodded towards Dom, "and she has mastery of air, I think you wouldn't want her mad at you but she could be a hell of an ally."
She nodded at the rest of the group, "They all helped rescue our Strix friend's fatherfrom a Thrune labor mine and they helped the tiefling's of the Nursery deal with a nasty tooth fairy problem." She smiled and said, "It seems that they are mroe on your side than you might think and together we could do much for this city," Falina gave the strix a sly look, "And as the ravens intend to remove Thrune from the city you'd get a shot at real wealth when we managed to raid their headquarters one day."
Davina sighs. "It's as she said. We really just wanted to talk, but things got out of hand. Why are you here anyway? Your people generally have homes away from town." she asks the Strix.
We were interested in seeing if you wanted to work with us, but now?" she shrugs.
Leora slowly draws one of the wands and uses it to heal T'Chazzar. She talks calmly to him, not sure how he will react to being revived. "Hey, T, it's all right. We surrendered to the Jills, they're tying us up."
She stands up and puts her hands together for one of the tieflings to bind her while Davina and Falina talk to the strix.
The words of Falina, while not exactly making her a BFF with the strix sorcerer, are at least enough to change her tone from Burn them! to Perhaps there's another angle here....
"Silver Ravens? Never heard of them? Any of you boys ever heard of the Silver Ravens?"
None of the Red Jills recognize the name of of the city's past (and present), but those who thought this might be the group that dealt with the tooth fairies seem to nod their heads and whisper in recognition when Falina mentions that a strix was part of that group as well.
A crafty gleam appears in the leader's eyes. "These Silver Ravens of whom you speak...would they be willing to pay a ransom for your safe return?"
"Nnnfff..."
"Ugh. My life isn't worth the whole revolution. Now we either convert them, or we've let all of Thrune's most dangerous enemies, and the best hope of the people in this city, be eliminate by a street gang."
T'chazzar flexes his neck side to side but doesn't bother testing his bonds, yet. His eyes slowly focus and he winces, then adds, "You're new, aren't you," in a flat tone to the strix. "Probably just escaped slavery. Hungry to reshape your life now, using the Red Jills for that. Unfortunately you're just running this through fear. Waste of talent. Scoring small-time burglary in a city that's already creaking under the weight of Thrune's oppression. Stealing pocket change isn't going to protect you from corrupt dottari or Thrune's secret police. The only - only - way you're going to improve your lives - for everyone here - is tearing down Thrune. You've been mugging and robbing the wrong people."
Falina considered the strix's question of a ransom and said, "They probably would, if they were in a position to do so. I don't know that they have the funds for such a thing at this time and they can't sacrifice the rebellion for a few operatives. Besides, you've a chance to get far more than from any ransom if you join in the nest time they raid one of Thrune's holdings, and it would be much more money than you will ever make robbing and mugging the common folk." She spoke more to the tiflings now than the strix, "Besides, think of what it would do for all of us who aren't human if you played a part in bringing down the oppressors of Thrune, it would be the beginnings of a change in how tiefling and strix are viewed in this city, we'd become heroes of the city, people would even learn to respect us." She gave them all a challenging look and knew the buttons to push that were most likely to get the desired result, "What kind of city would you want your children to grow up in, one where they have respect from the humans they live beside, or one where they are cursed for making everyone's suffering worse?"
Scarplume scoffs at the notion of resisting Barzillai Thrune and his newly-installed government. ”Fools!” she hisses. ”The new lord-mayor already has this human cesspool in the palm of his iron fist! There is no wresting it back from him now!” The strix caster illustrates that point by balling her clawed hand into a fist, a fist encased in a gleaming gauntlet. ”How deliciously ironic that you despicable humans now get to experience a taste of what life is like 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for those souls in your precious city you deem lesser than your own!”
The Red Jills standing watch, who’ve shown signs of being afraid of their leader, utter angry words of agreement at the strix’s latest declaration. In reaction to T'chazzar's argument and Falina's follow-upwords, there seems to be some sympathy among her fellow plane-touched, but one mutters bitterly, "That's just some fool's dream."
Your prospects for escape take a turn for the worse when the strix orders two of her guards to carry the party's seized weapons across the rope bridge to the church building's belltower.
From the way the strix speaks, you believe she thinks you two to be humans like Leora.
If she hadn't been tied up at crossbow-point, Leora might have made a joke about having friends who were tieflings and strix. As it is, her friends are making good points and she doesn't have anything productive to add, so she keeps her mouth shut for now.
The longer you remain prisoners of the Red Jills, the clearer a few things become. Their strix leader, Scarplume, has zero interest in opposing Lord-Mayor Thrune (though she professes no love for the man either), she seems reluctant to kill you all outright (wanting instead to profit or benefit somehow from your capture), and her tiefling underlings seem unlikely to turn on the powerful caster, even if they do sympathize a bit with the prisoners for having helped rid the Devil's Nursery of the tooth fairy scourge.
"Bring more rope and bind our guests' ankles," Scarplume orders her underlings. Then she orders another one to, "Go fetch Firehorns."
Turning her attention back to her captives, she inquires, "Tell me--Who in your Silver Ravens should I speak with to obtain your ransom? And do you think that 1,000 gold sails per head is a fair amount...something your associates could gather in a short period of time?"
T'chazzar snorts derisively. "They can't rub two coppers together," says T'chazzar. "I was a slave for fifty years. I can wait. So you better figure out what you're going to do with us. You're not going to get rich off of me."
Scarplume hisses at T'chazzar's answer but then turns to the others to see if they all share his view.
Davina wiggles in her bonds. "The Ravens don't have that much money. There's no point in asking. I"ll stay here thank you." she gives the strix a look. "I can wait for a long time as well."
Falina considered the situation and knew it wasn't good. The easiest solution would be to try to arrange for a ransom but she knew that the rebellion itself didn't have the funds for it, particularly not in the amounts the strix b@$&$ wanted for them. It would mean convincing an ally to pay the ransom and for that they would have to name one which could be equally dangerous to them should the Jills be captured and interrogated by Thrune supporters.
Falina sighed in resignation, she would offer to go deliver the ransom request if that was the decision, it helped that she could always bring it back and appear to be someone else entirely, and she would try and track down Kiri and the tengu to provide backup because she didn't trust their captors to abide by their deal. She looked at the gang and their leader and said in resignation, "I don't know that anyone would be interested in paying for me, I'm too new and have only just been awoken. I spent the last hundred years in the tender care of a spider lich so I don't know much of anyone and my wealth was gone long ago along with my power." She grinned viciously at the group of captors, "Be glad of that, if I was at the height of my power you would all have been dead already and none of this," she nodded at her companions and their predicament, "would ever have happened." Falina sighed, "Unless someone wishes to pay for me I guess you're stuck with me."
"Do you fools think this is some kind of game? I assure you, it is not!"
The strix--angry again--orders the two Red Jills who previously carted off your weapons to bind the feet of the captives; then she crosses the bridge in a huff and whispers something to one of the crossbowmen on the north building. Meanwhile, the two tieflings left on the south building start binding ankles, starting on the ends with Davina and Leora and apparently intending to work their way inward to Dom.
She tells her minion to "Find Ballister and bring him here!"
Annoyed at the sheer stubborn stupidity of these fools Falina thought to say something that would cause her a lot of trouble.
She caught something said by the strix woman but decided it wasn't the time to talk about it. She looked at the two approaching tieflings and said, "You know there are so many more enjoyable ways to tie a woman up," her tone was naughty as she continued, "and many more enjoyable things to do with her afterwards." With one eyebrow arched she asked, "I'm game if you are."
Davina whispers to the "Let us go or at least give us a chance to escape. You are welcome to join us in the Ravens. You know we have allies among the Tieflings. The money working with us will be better. I can't guarantee that it will be safer, but I won't scream at you like a crazy woman."
The two tieflings look at Falina, each one's face a twisted mask of conflicting emotions: There's little doubt the pretty pitborn's sexually-charged banter has ensnared the libidos of the two hellspawn, but their lust is tempered by their inbred loathing for all things demonic. Davina thinks she sees a bit of understanding and regret in one of the tiefling's eyes, but his fear of Scarplume is too strong and he binds the assimar's ankles while his comrade does the same to Leora's.
That's when it hits the fan.
The crossbowman near the southwest corner of the church building reports seeing a dark figure moving below. Moments later, a door in a small enclosure—perhaps sheltering a staircase leading down off the church’s rooftop—opens behind Scarplume and the Red Jill she’s whispering to. Out of it issue two bipedal figures…but they’re not tiefling reinforcements. These feral things have dark, leathery skin, sharp teeth, and long, lolling tongues; Leora recognizes the figures to be undead ghouls. They move to engage Scarplume and the crossbowman who reported movement below. Out of the instinct for self-preservation, each of you begins trying to squirm out of your bonds in earnest, but you fear it may already be too late.
The strix escapes by going airborne, leaving her minions to take the brunt of the assault. The Red Jills discharge their crossbows before drawing short swords to engage the invaders in melee. A third ghoul emerges from the doorway, and a bit later a fourth appears on the landing to the southwest, coming up behind the defenders.
The Jills soon find themselves overmatched, but to their credit, the tieflings make no attempt to flee from the fight. Soon the ones on the north rooftop are paralyzed and left bloody and dying as the undead attempt to cross the rope-and-plank bridge. The two tieflings who were busy tying your ankles scant moments before are now your defenders.
The ghouls have no answer for Scarplume and her aerial fly-by attacks, however: fiery ray after fiery ray strikes home, and the sorceress drops some of the ghouls while the last Red Jill still mobile makes a stand at the near end of the bridge. Another tiefling joins the fight, but this one’s cloak isn’t red. It takes you but a moment to recognize Dom’s friend, Zea! Seeing the prisoners currently unguarded, she ceases slinging stones at the undead and scoots across the rooftop to begin working on the knots binding the half-orc. Once he’s free, she hands him her rapier and suggests that perhaps he grab a fallen tiefling’s crossbow, should Scarplume turn on the group once the ghouls are defeated. Then she starts untying Falina.
The last ghoul realizes the battle is lost and flees back through the doorway from whence it came. Scarplume, deprived of her original target, instead swoops up behind the unsuspecting Zea and unleashes one of the more powerful scorching rays she hit T’chazzar with earlier that evening. The ray strikes the young tiefling woman square in the back between her shoulder blades. Her cloak and hair both burst into flame and Zea looses an unearthly scream of agony. Scarplume swoops off into the night sky with a shriek that seems to be part frustration yet also part victory. Zea’s charred corpse falls atop Falina, who’s able to shrug it off quickly.
When scribing a scroll of liberating command a few weeks ago, Leora never expected it would be in her backpack on her very back while her hands were tied.
Leora watches on in horror as the ghouls consume their enemies. She's prepared to channel energy to harm them if they come near, but the combatants ignore the folks who are tied up. Helplessly, she sees the strix blast Zea. The tiefling was saved from the ghouls but it wasn't enough.
Leora blocks out the fear and ignores the awful things that are happening for the moment and focuses on worrying at her bonds instead. After quite awhile, she manages to get her hands free, then her ankles. She looks around to see if anyone else is still tied up. If they are, she gets to work freeing them too.
Davina works to get free of her bonds. She can't get free and finally gives up trying to get loose. "Could someone untie me please." Tears are falling from her eyes as she looks at Zea and then Dom. Not good this is not good at all. He'll do something reckless. It might get him killed. "Dom be careful. Think before you act. We need to get away from here, but we can't just leave the Tieflings tied up. We did promise we'd try to help them if we could."
Once someone finally frees them, she'll help get them out of sight and stabilized as best she can before trying to get away from the noise of the fight.
The sudden attack of the ghouls, the slaughter of most of their guards, and the sudden fall of the scorched and dying Zea was a surprise. She had no feelings for the death of Zea, other than she was sorry their rescuer was killed, and cowed she was going to bring that strix b@%~! down. With Dom seemingly bound up in grief over the tiefling's death, and the others struggling with their own bonds, she knew she had to get herself free. Fortunately they weren't guarded no and she knew a trick that might help. She focused inwards and triggered something her mind. It was hard to describe how she did it but her body began to shift and reform, popping and cracking as bones and muscles rearranged, her flesh stretching. Had anyone been looking it would have been a horrendous sight but she was glad the only who could see her seemed awash in tears and paying no attention.
After a little less than a minute she was done and rather than a tiefling Falina was now an elf woman. This change her proportions drastically and ropes that had been bound to a human frame simply weren't tight enough on her. She still wore the same clothes, though they fit poorly now, and she slipped out of the ropes with only a little effort. She looked to the others while Dom grieved and moved to help those still tied by using a fallen tiefling's dagger.