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Badriyah successfully pops the lock on the door, and the two slowly open the door together.
A loud alarm bell, audible both inside and outside of the chandlery, rings freely. No one immediately appears within the back room.
The back office is decorated with a nautical theme. A shelf along the south wall holds a collection of ships in bottles and other sailing collectables decorated in the Taldor’s blue and green shades. A desk stands in the middle of the room on top of which rests a glass-fronted shadow box containing a shattered shield. Multiple paintings depicting Taldan naval battles and historical scenes from the Shining Crusade line the walls.
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Her satisfied smile at the sound of the opening lock, quickly turns to panicked fear when the alarm sounds. Nearly dropping the pin she spends an extra few precious seconds fumbling to get it tucked into a pouch while stepping through the door. Wide eyed, she frantically looks around the room to try and find the wall safe or the source of the alarm.
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The alarm sets everyone on edge as Lady Finley, Giovanni, Marcus, and Badriyah spill into the backroom and cast their eyes about, hunting for signs of the elusive safe.
Just before Badriyah is able to act, a small ship in a bottle on the table nearest to your group rotates slightly as the poorly-disguised grippli moves into the room. In slow motion (as it would seem to Badriyah), she can see the tiny ballista inside the glass bottle retract and then fire directly at Lady Finley, shattering the bottle in spray of shards that pierce the presently-gathered Pathfinder force.
The tiny ship levitates from the table and rotates to aim the tip of its prow at the reeling grippli.
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Seeing Giovanni head for the same picture she had spotted, Badriyah draws her sickle and does her best to knock the magicked model out of the air or at least disrupt its aim. At the same time, her eyes frantically look around for a tapestry, loose rug, or other large piece of heavy cloth that she could grab easily.
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Marcus nearly panics at the sight of the hovering ship, and quickly draws his sword, spits out a curse, and slashes upward in a classic rising vertical strike. While it technically meets the criteria for the cut, it is very clearly done in an incredibly ham-fisted frustrated manner rather than with the elegance and grace of a trained duelist.
"What a stupid defense! Too poor to employ proper guards and has to resort to a child's toy?"
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DONG! DA-DONG! DA-DONG! DA-DONG! DA-DONG!
The tiny ship, the name The Precursor emblazoned on its prow, moves back a wee bit in the room and fires again at its main target, Lady Finley!
The shot flies wide as the alarm blares on. Lovissa comes into the room as Badriyah slashes at the ship, though she notes her sickle does far less damage than she thinks her blow should have done.
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as Badriyah slashes at the ship, though she notes her sickle does far less damage than she thinks her blow should have done.
"The ship may be protected. I'm not much of a sword swinger, but I should have done more to it with that last blow." She shouts out. Hearing Lady Finley's warning about the pearl, she ducks and dodges over to the table to get a closer look at the pearl and its arcane markings.
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Giovanni scans the wall behind the painting that he's ripped off, and is just about to move away when he spies a sliding wooden wall panel. Sliding the wall panel to the side...
...he finds another painting. This one is unmistakably of General Arnisant in Shining Crusade-era mail effortlessly fending off a pack of ghouls. Lady Finley in the meantime fires her crossbow at the floating ship, striking the Precursor but doing no discernible damage to it.
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Marcus, slashing successfully at the ship previously, attempts a further parry, but misses the tiny construct. Gnashing with his teeth instead, the unorthodox duelist connects with the ship, but his bite only meets firm fortified wood, leaving him sore gums and a puzzled look on his face. It's at that moment that the ship fires its ballistae again at Lady Finley, a singular focus to its purpose.
The Precursor successfully fires on Lady Finley again while Badriyah examines the lustrous pearl more closely and the alarm rages on.
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Lovissa brings her longsword down savagely on the ship, shearing off a chunk of the prow, but not doing as much damage to it as she thinks she rightly should have.
Giovanni pulls up the painting of the venerated General Arnisant and spies a wall safe underneath. It's at that point that everyone in the room (and Amelia as well, I'm assuming, wherever she is) hear the sound of a signal whistle blast three times in the night air over the klaxons of the alarm bell.
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Badriyah snatches the pearl from its resting place and slips it in her pocket. She frantically searches the desk for a few seconds, grabbing any papers, journals, ledgers, or anything else that might contain some information of interest. Knowing she is running out of time, she finally grabs the fragments of the shield, not thinking twice about shattering the glass of the shadowbox. With the shield pieces secured, she dashes for the door taking a quick look to see if anyone is in sight before moving back into the alley.
"Come on." She shouts. "We've no time left. Have to find another way or try again."
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Marcus cuts through a few more inches of wood and fabric, but still the boat presses the gang and fires on Lady Finley after shifting a few feet to the side!
The ship misses and Lovissa comes up swinging as Badriyah snatches the pearl from the table top and dashes to the desk on the far side of the room to search for paperwork.
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Lovissa connects with the 'flying toy' but her sword glances off the side of it, inflicting no damage on the thing. Her second attack misses wide.
"Four-digit combination. I can try to crack it with my tools but I'd wager that would take me too long. We need the combo. Sink that ship and help me find it."
Giovanni moves to the desk that the flying ship previously sat upon, tears open a drawer and begins rifling through papers.
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With the ship no longer protecting the other desk, Badriyah searches it for the combination or any other information useful to their investigation.
Unable to really find anything quickly, she slips the pearl back into her hand. "I wonder if this has something to do with the safe or that blasted alarm?" She says, seeing if there is a way to activate the stored spell.
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Landy Finley looks around the room for four numbers. "Hurry. Why didn't anyone say something about the code before. At least that thing isn't shooting at me anymore."
That time someone said something about the code ;)
Think, Giovanni. He's a narcissist with delusions of grandeur. Where would he hide his code? Giovanni tries to put himself in the Earl's mindset to diving the code's location.
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[bigger]DONG! DA-DONG! DA-DONG! DA-DONG! DA-DONG! DA-DONG![/bigger
Badriyah fiddles with the pearl taken from the centre table as the group searches and thinks frantically.
[ooc]Marcus and Lovissa may act!