Quite concerned that a peaceful resolution is not to be had, Teldon readies himself to toss a bomb at the first man if anyone makes an aggressive move...
When Joanna draws her weapon and begins to move he throws it quickly before she gets close enough to be damaged by it.
As Briana starts to talk, a flash of doubt appears on the face of one of the men, he turns to the other, ”Maybe we should look the other way? We ain’t been paid anyhows”. The other man cuts him off, ”We’ve got a roof over our head ‘ere…that’s payment enough on a day like this…besides, did ya hear what ‘appened to the last guy who failed the mistress?”. Turning to Briana, ”You can use your sweetened words all you like, you ain’t getting past”
…as Briana’s words fall upon deaf ears, Joanna draws her sword…and, in the cold driving rain, all hell breaks loose…
Ziomarra glares at the thug who talked the first thug out of a peaceful resolution. Her expression is disturbing, causing doubt to enter his mind.
Hmmm... If they're pointing a crossbow at me, does that mean I can kill them? When Joanna draws her sword, it looks an awful lot like a yes. Fearlessly despite her size, Nalathi charges forward at the nearer of the two thugs.
"Gregor, I don't feel so great...somethin' ain't right 'ere"
"I warned you not to make me cross. Now surrender, or face the consequences." Joanna's voice is a steel blade that cuts through the sounds of the rain and wind as she straps on her shield and steps up.
As Joanna strides forward, adopting a combat stance, Teldon is quick to react...an alchemical concoction tossed high and long, impacting on the wall behind the thugs and showering them with shrapnel. Taking her cue, Nalathi plunges forward and tries to stab the nearest of the thugs...but his armour, glinting chainmail beneath the torn cloak, stops her trident from penetrating.
Standing back, Ziomarra and Briana call upon their skills, arcane and otherwise, to impede their foes.
Stepping back, both of the men let loose with their crossbow bolts, Teldon staggers backwards as one catches him in the shoulder...whilst the one aimed at Joanna is caught in the wood of her shield...
Dropping their crossbows in the mud, they both pull cruelly spiked morning stars from beneath their cloaks..."I warned you, no one gets past Lady Vancaskerkin's personal guard..."
How could I possibly have been so stupid as to have forgotten to move behind Jo or even dropped prone when he was pointing that crossbow at me... Teldon chastises himself as he moves. He repositions himself farther from the guards and with Jo and Nalathi between him and them, drawing an extract as he does so. Once in his safer new position he chugs it and prepares himself for whatever happens next.
Odd... I expected him to point that thing at me. Gritting her teeth against the weapons the men now brandish, she closes the gap between her and the thug and stabs forward again.
Joanna steps up next to the shadowy gnome and lunges at the thug in front of her.
"I gave you a chance. I hope you can live with the consequences."
As Joanna and Nalathi slip in the mud, one of the men sneers, "I think I will manage to live with those consequences... thanks!!!!"
Zee draws a card from her deck, incants strange words, and seemingly flings the card at the thug she hasn't yet hexed. The card itself remains in her hand, but a ghostly copy of it flies toward the thug, striking him right between the eyes. It disappears into his head without leaving a mark.
As Ziomarra attempts to cloud the man's mind, he swats at the 'card' flying towards him, "Trickery and Illusion...pay it no heed Gregor"
Swinging their morning stars, the thugs join combat with Joanna and Nalathi...any grace and skill lost in the appalling conditions...
"I want to see you grovel in the muck and dirt...to see how life is down 'ere in the Shadow"
As the thug rears back his morningstar, Nalathi smiles. Perfect. He swings forward, she dives under it-- right between his legs. Rolling to her feet, she's now standing directly beneath him, poking up into his groin with her trident.
Zee fixes the Sczarni that knocked Joanna down with a disturbing glare. "Șmecherie? Nu sunt de părere!"
Teldon repositions himself closer to the fray, concerned about how things are currently going for Jo... he tosses a bomb just south of Piotr so that the flames splash against him be cannot reach Jo (or Gregor and Nalathi).
The trip has her taken by surprise and her sword doesn't even put a tear in the man's cloak as she goes down. Mud and water splash up and splatter her clothes and her face.
"I. Don't. Grovel." She snarls as she aims for the man's legs.
She rolls to her knees and stands. Her hair is a mess, her once white tabard is stained with mud, but her eyes glitter dangerously.
"And my patience has run out."
As Nalathi stabs and prods at Gregor, her trident finding it's way through the chainmail on her third attempt, things suddenly go very badly for the second of the thugs. For a second time he is showered by sparks and shrapnel from one of Teldon's bombs...
...and then, from her kneeling position, a muddied Joanna slices through his armour...the blade cuts deep and, with blood turning the ground crimson, he collapses.
That is all it takes for the other man to drop his weapon and yield, "I...I...I Surrender"
...the crossbow bolt thudding into the wall just behind his head reinforces the wisdom of his decision
She steps away from the dead body. "Good idea." She wipes her trident on the dead man's cloak and thumps the butt of its shaft on the ground. "Now where is Natalya Vancaskerkin?"
"Sh...Sh...She is in th... th...there....But she doesn't see no-one these days... Says she's making plans... Gonna show them Tower Girls who's boss, that's what she says... Anyways, she don't pay good enough for this... Use the southern door.... Don't expect a warm welcome though"
"Why the southern entrance?"
"It's the only way into the building...mine and Piotr's room don't lead nowhere...I ain't never been in the house though...the lady never let us in...said we weren't good enough"
Zee casts detect magic, scanning the two thugs and into their guard room.
"Oh." She looks down at the fallen thug when Briana proclaims the man as still alive.
"I guess you're right." She bites her bottom lip with uncertainty. "Should... should we still kill him? I mean, it'd be a lot easier now. Only, he's not really a danger anymore, so... does it still count?" She presses one of the tines of her trident against the man's neck. "It'd be quick."
"So, if someone was quiet enough they could have snuck through the other entrance, and done whatever they pleased to Natalya?" Teldon asks with a mix of authentic curiosity and condemnation. Listening for a response as he moves, he walks over to the door and examines it for signs of forced entry or traps. On the way he pulls out a small flask and drinks it.
Ziomarra – You don’t detect any magical effects, either on the guards you have just defeated nor within the guard room.
Peering in through the open door of the room that Piotr and Gregor emerged from confirms Gregor’s statement that you can’t access the building from their ‘room’; their ‘room’ being little more than a lean to shack against the walls of the main building…it is, at least, warm though…a small stove burns whilst a set of cards laid out across a table indicates how the guards spent the majority of their time.
Answering Teldon’s suggestion that someone else could have accessed the building unobserved, ”No way…me and Piotr kept a good watch…ain’t no-one who could have got in nor out without us seeing ‘em” and then, seeing Nalathi with her trident poised, ”Don’t!!! Nuh…nuh…nuh, please don’t...he’s a good kid…we was only ‘ere for the pay…we won’t be no more trouble to yer…”
Teldon – the door seems untrapped and, although mud splattered, in a reasonably good condition. So far as you can tell, it doesn’t appear that anyone has forced entry through this door.
Joanna reaches out and grabs Nalathi's trident and point's the head of it away from the man laying on the ground bleeding. Her gray eyes blazing with anger as she glares at the gnome.
"I can see we are going to need to talk, Nalathi."
A look of horror crosses Zee's face at Nalathi's comment about casually executing the thugs, but she relaxes as Joanna takes command of that situation.
She steps to the door of the thugs' shack, and confirms their statement that the rest of the building cannot be accessed from there. She then notices the deck of cards they were playing with, and collects it.
Stepping out of the shack, she points at the fallen thug. "Let's tie them both up and gag them, and stash them in their shack. We can release them when we're through here."
"Perhaps rather than taking the time to tie them up we should move quickly to meet with Miss Vancascerkin... if she's feeling uncomfortable enough about company to hire this lot she may try to flee before we can even tell her why we're here or who sent us if she sees or hears us restraining them," Teldon points out, "wouldn't it be enough to take their weapons and let him drag his friend off to a temple or some other safe place to recover?"
As he speaks he straightens himself up and attempts to knock some of the collecting rain and mud from his borrowed cloak, then reaches for the door handle. As he attempts to open it he calls out, "Natalya, a mutual friend feared you might be in some trouble and asked us to check in on you... we're here to help, so please don't run away or attack us."
Ziomarra – Taking a second look at the cards on the table, your worst fears are realised. The dog-eared cards are indeed Harrow…an old set for sure, badly faded, but complete.
When the Varisian suggests tying the thugs, Gregor starts to protest, before realising that being secured inside the building is an immeasurably better fate than being stabbed by Nalathi...and when Teldon suggests setting them free, "You won't see us again...me and Piotr ain't hanging around 'ere no more"
Ok, apparently that's a no. She pulls her trident out of Joanna's grasp. "Hey, don't get mad at me," she says irritably. She slides the weapon back across her back. "A minute ago you were hacking at him too. Not my fault these rules of yours don't make any sense."
Getting no response from his greeting, Teldon opens the door…and is greeted by an abominable smell… Looking downwards, the cause of the smell is obvious; the entire floor of the room has collapsed into a pool of water below and, discharging into the pool, two oozing sewer pipes protrude from the wall. Between the entrance door and a door some fifteen feet north of you, a wooden plank has been placed as an improvised bridge over the sludge pit.
Above you, part of the ceiling has collapsed, revealing a crawlspace above…a rickety ladder leads from the water up to this crawlspace.
Zee picks up the old and tattered Harrow deck from the table, placing it in one of the pockets of her scarf. Exiting the shack just as the Sczarni begs for his life, Zee glares at him again. "Bine. Lasă. Dar, dacă vom vedea din nou, nu vom fi atât de milos și va preda la gnome nostru!"
To her friends, she says, "I think we should let them go. I don't think they'll bother us again." She glares at them one final time.
Heading over to the other door, she peers in behind Teldon.
Pointing to the shadows below, she whispers to Teldon, "There's something down there!"
"Fighting someone who's trying to kill you is one thing. Killing a man in cold blood is another."
Joanna glares at Nalathi for a moment longer before turning to the man she downed. She closes her eyes and grabs the silver symbol about her neck as she bows her head.
"A small mercy for those who might see the error of their ways. This is all I ask."
The stench that assaults her nose makes her eyes water and her face pale as she tries desperately not to lose her breakfast.
"Ar-are we sure she just didn't pass out from the smell?"
When Joanna's healing powers wash over the pair of guards, the fallen one coughs sharply into consciousness and, spitting blood from his mouth, stands...Gregor grabs his arm before he seeks to resume fighting....
"Piotr...we're leaving...Vancaskerkin gets what's coming 'er way..."
...leaving their weapons where they dropped in the mud, they hobble away...not taking a second glance back at the hut or you...
Teldon pulls out another vial and drinks it , then whispers to Zee, "where is it?"