As the man recoils in pain from the agony of Nalathi's first stab, she presses the attack with a second thrust. This time, in her over enthusiasm, she loses her footing on the damp floor and misses her target.
Regaining his composure and seeing an opportunity to retaliate, the man steps backwards, points forwards with both arms and intones something unintelligible...the air around Nalathi explodes in a spectrum of colour, light and patterns...she whispers "SO beautiful" and slumps to the floor.
Outside, there is an incredulous voice from the boat as flames splash around it...
"Sclavi ?!?! Ce vrei să spui proștilor ?!?! Nimeni nu se pune cu Washside Storcătoare și scapă basma curată ... Mama Flytongue va auzi de asta ... capetele voastre vor fi marcate!!!"
Wreathed in smoke, the man at the front of the boat cuts the rope loose and, with a shove, pushes the boat away from the pier. With the boat untethered, the other passenger uses his oars to move away.
"Mama Flytongue va auzi de ce ? Cum ai bâlbâit incomfortabil în ceva care a fost treaba ta și nu la sarcina simple pe care le -au atribuit ? Mult noroc cu asta !" Teldon shouts back at the fleeing men. "Rând pe 100 de metri și să aștepte ca noi să plece . În cazul în care Marius -ul nu are nimic de -a face cu sclavi , atunci el va apărea la momentul numit și puteți obține livrare , fără a fi nevoie să spun nimănui despre acest dracului!"
Row out 100 yards and wait for us to leave. If your Marius has nothing to do with the slavers then he'll show up at the appointed time and you can get your delivery without having to tell anyone about this f#ck up!"
Hopeful that the smugglers will continue rowing, and concerned about what might be going on inside, Teldon finishes calling out to them as he walks briskly into the derelict establishment after Briana.
"Cele Nidalese masterat sclavi folosit această stație de andocare pentru a încărca de pe captivii lor. Eu cred că tu ești Sczarni, și nu Nidalese. Lasă acum!"
Ziomarra turns and follows Teldon to the doorway, and looks around the barroom, trying to find Nalathi.
Seeing how dimly-lit the place is, she casts a spell. Four ghostly glowing Harrow cards rise from her spell deck and float above the center of the barroom.
The old man chants and waves his arms. Even with her inexperience she can tell it's probably a spell. Expecting some kind of missile, she braces herself to dodge out of the way. Instead, the air around both of them explodes in color. Her eyes are treated to the most intense colors she'd ever seen. So overwhelmed is she, in this dark room, that the magic of the colors takes hold of her completely. So beautiful! she thinks. Then she loses consciousness.
"May our hearts know no fear and may our weapons strike true against those that champion wickedness in their hearts!" Joanna shouts as she bursts from hiding. Hearing someone in pain is never good, and she could swear that she heard a muffled thump from the Pelican.
Divine power glows from the holy symbol hanging from her neck, and faint celestial runes appear on her sword as she marches to battle.
[ooc]Cast Bless and move twenty feet towards the dude force feeding Nalathi Skittles.
---
Bless - 10/10 Rounds
+1 Morale bonus on attack rolls and saving throws against fear effects.
As Briana gets closer to the doors behind the bar, she sees the unmistakable form of Nalathi laid out on the floor....and tiptoeing away, a figure...a figure that appears to melt and meld into the shadows...
"Briana, where is Nalathi? And, where are the slavers?!?"
"Nalathi? Nonono, please don't be dead."
Joanna moves closer, to where Nalathi has fallen, and looks about, worry quite clearly in her eyes.
This is bad. I can't see anyone. Are they waiting for all of us to get closer for an ambush?
Teldon moves up to Briana and Nalathi, and readies his longspear to attempt to defend them from hiding attackers.
Zee rushes into the dusty barroom, standing in the doorway to the back room. Seeing an unconscious Nalathi, she exclaims, "Vrăjitoria?
Uttering strange words and gesticulating, she holds a Harrow card over one eye. Both the card and her other eye glow faintly with an eerie bluish light.
As her concerned friends run to her side, the figure that Briana had caught a glimpse of reappears from out of thin air...
...a tattered man with a sneering smile, well recognised by Joanna as the man she had met earlier during the day, raises his hand...
"One of you...four of you...it makes no matter"
...and Briana and Joanna's world fills with hypnotic colours and patterns...
A brief look of shock covers Joanna's face as kaleidoscope of colors washes over her. She shrugs the effects of the spell as if they were nothing, and when the spell is gone, her face is a mask of barely restrained fury.
"How dare you," she says in a low deadly voice full of barely contained fury and rage, "How dare you mock other people's fear, and pain, and suffering!"
She moves up to him in a rush, determined to deliver a swift end to this fight. In her haste, however, she misses the man entirely.
Teldon steps up behind Jo and, raising his longspear up over her shoulder and stabs at the mysterious attacker.
Seeing the burst of colors, Zee shouts, Vrăjitoria!
Zee rushes into the dusty barroom, standing in the doorway to the back room. Seeing the strange man engaged in melee with Joanna, she utters strange words and gesticulates, seemingly drawing a card from her Harrow deck. As part of the incantation, she apparently throws the card at the enemy, and a ghostly card flies through the room, hitting the man in the side of the head, and disappearing into his head!
Ziomarra – You recognise the spell as Colour Spray, a particularly potent spell that can cause unconsciousness in an area of up to 15ft.
Whilst Joanna and Briana (with less lethal intent) both fail to strike the sorcerer with their weapons; Teldon does, at least, make contact…although his spear merely scratches the man….the man whose concentration had clearly been on the apparition of a card flung towards him…
…as the vision of the card disappears into the man’s cranium, he clutches his head between his hands and moans in pain.
Teldon hesitates for a moment, frustrated by how ineffective his last strike was. Deciding he has no better options at the moment, he stabs again.
And then frowns harshly at his own failure as his next strike fails to even make contact with the enchanted opponent...
Joanna pulls her blade back and presses the attack, and manages to score a hit.
Ziomarra steps next to the sorcerer, and casts "beguiling gift." She then offers a pair of manacles.
With the cuts and bruises from the fight, the man is looking perilously close to unconsciousness.
Taking the manacles from Ziomarra, the confused man slips them on and mumbles some words of gratitude...and then looking down at his wrists again, he curses in frustration and, with his hands bound, attempts to reach for something beneath his robes.
Briana steps forward and wrestles the manacled man to the floor...beneath those robes, the man is surprisingly small and frail. As he tumbles backwards, a knife falls from his robes and lands out of his reach...
"Okay, okay...I give up...kill me, turn me in or whatever it is you plan to do...just keep that damned witch out of my head!!!"
...behind you, Nalathi gradually regains consciousness...
"Briana, be a dear and let go." Joanna asks, her tone tightly controlled and the anger from earlier not in evidence, or not in as much evidence. Once the young girl is away from the man, she lunges forward and pins him to the wall with her shield.
"Start talking." She commands, pointedly not drawing attention to the sword still in her hands.
Forced against the wall, the man breaks down in tears apt Joanna's forcefulness, "I'm a wretch I know...I'm sorry...but a man's got to eat hasn't he? Hasn't he? It was only a few people...I only did it a few times...and no-one ever got hurt"
Slowly she opens her eyes, regaining consciousness. She sits up and shakes her head. "What..." She looks around. "Wh-when did you guys get here? And where'd all the colors go?"
"Did what, exactly?" Joanna asks acidly. Her eyes shimmer in the dim light and her and tenses around the hilt of her sword as she leans in, squeezing the wretch between her shield and the wall.
"Right now, I am almost certain you are a slaver, or in league with them," she says icily, "you have already tried to play me the fool once tonight, I don't think you'll enjoy it if you try it a second time."
Teldon holds the door between the bar and the backroom open and while Jo questions the craven man behind him. He looks and listens carefully for any signs of other people in the bar and prepares a bomb for any would be attackers .
"A Slaver? No... No, No, No...there aren't any slavers...", between sobs, "That was me...I whispered of the Nidalese in the taverns around the docks...and pretty soon everyone was sure that was where their loved ones had gone". The man wipes his nose with his sleeve, "Then people started asking around...and I told them to come here at nights...gave them hope...and...and, and then I robbed them". Once more the wretch breaks down, "I'm sorry...I really am...but I was starving on the streets...I promise I never hurt anyone"
Above the sniffling and wailing of the man, you can't hear any other noises within the derelict tavern.
"Ask him about Swampseer's Poison..."
"What is Swampseer's Poison? I never heard of that... I just sent them to sleep for a short while like I did to your friend...I didn't never poison anyone"
Slightly relaxing as Joanna hasn't yet harmed him, "Can I go? I promise never to do this again...honest"
Ziomarra steps closer and fans her Harrow deck, drawing one card and showing it to him.
"So if there are no slavers, what's happened to the people who disappeared?"
"Wh...Wh...why are you showing me that? I'm telling the truth... I don't know what is happening to these people. It started a few months back...only a few at first but it's two or three a week now...they disappear from the streets, from taverns...even from their own homes...I figured they were gone for good, so that's why I spread the rumour of slavers...but there have been sightings of a few of the disappeared in Magnimar over the last couple of weeks. Strange thing though, they all seem to have been robbed of their memories...and, in the worst cases, of their minds"
Panicking again, "You have to believe me...this has nothing to do with me!!!"
"We can't stand around talking to this guy forever," Teldon reminds everyone, "we know this Marius is going to show up before long and those smugglers will likely be back. If he doesn't have any useful information we should kill him or turn him in to the city watch."
"I'm relatively sure that those men on the boat were Sczarni smugglers with the Washside Wringers gang, probably importing pesh or exporting flayleaf. Sczarni may be many things, but they are not slavers. I say we should march this wretch up to the Arvensoar and hand him over to the City Watch. We could also tip them about Marius and his smuggling operation, if we want to."
She leans in toward her friends and lowers her voice to a whisper. "While we're there, we can ask the guards if they've picked up Natalya, or if they have any other information about her."
Leaving the sorcerer in manacles, you march him from the building where he had intended to rob you, through the streets all the way to the Arvensoar. The streets of Magnimar are nigh on deserted so late at night but those who are out and about seem unsurprised to see a person in chains being shepherded through the streets.
With your stumbling prisoner, it takes around half an hour to reach your destination; the Arvensoar looms in the southern part of the city, high above the districts of Lowcleft and Naos. The tower itself is about 400 feet tall, with the lower portion built into the side of the Seacleft that splits the city in two.
Greeted by an initially uninterested officer of the watch, you gain his full attention when he sees your captive. "Ahhhh, Plutivarch Dremis as I live and breath...how nice of you to join us sir...I think we have a little conversation scheduled...a lot of people want to know where their gold has gone...a lot of very unhappy people". Turning to you, the officer commends you for apprehending a criminal that they have been seeking for a good while and promises a reward of one hundred gold if you return on the morrow..."Ask for Officer Kasadei...if I were you, I'd get here before eight..you'll beat the queues accusing us of not doing enough about the disappearances", the officer spits on the floor in disgust.
After delivering Plutivarch to the Arvensoar, and giving her thanks to the watchman, the fire and anger vanishes, leaving behind a tired girl that acts more like the Joanna from that morning, and less like the Joanna during and after the fight.
"I think we should head back to Heidmarch Manor," She says quietly, "We need to report in, if nothing else."
Whether or not she heads back to the manor and, with profuse apologies, gives a brief update before retrieving her forgotten pack and shedding her ill-fitting armor. Her knees shook as she stood by the couch. She'd just sit for a minute, maybe two, then she'd see about finding someplace to sleep.
Less than five minutes later, she was fast asleep on the couch.
Ziomarra thanks the guards for taking the prisoner and for telling them with whom to speak on the morrow. As the party walks back toward the Ascent near Dockway, she comments, "It seems we have two meetings scheduled for tomorrow: First, to the Arvensoar to collect our reward and to speak with Officer Kasadei. After that, we need to report on our progress to Lady Heidmarch."
When they get to the foot of the Ascent, she asks if anyone needs a place to stay the night. "I have space in my tent in Dockway and a spare bedroll if anyone still needs accommodations."
"B-but she asked us to report in this evening. We're already late, and what if she's up waiting on us? Besides, I need to get my stuff that I left there."
Joanna's nerves don't quite make up for the fatigue she's feeling and her conscious was railing against her. She was already late, she was not going to be a no-show if she could help it.
"I need a full night sleep... plus time to prepare some more tonics... It's already too late for me to be back here before 8..." Teldon says with some trepidation, "the less travel time we have tonight the closer to 8 we can get here in the morning... If Zee's tent is our closest option that's where I'm headed... Unless anyone thinks they might be able to talk the guards into letting us sleep in the tower?"
Nalathi yawns and stretches. "I agree. We should get some sleep, it's been a long day. Lady Heidmarch can wait until morning."
"Joanna, I'm fairly sure Lady Heidmarch asked us to check in tomorrow." As more than one person takes her up on her offer of space in her tent, she adds sheepishly, "Um, as much as I hate to say it, I only have room in my tent for one guest. I had assumed that most of you had rented rooms in inns. There are several nearby, and most should still have space to let. I hear that The Old Fang is decent, and I'm sure they would still have rooms-- or at least space by the fire in the common room. If money is a problem, we have almost all of the advance that Lady Heidmarch gave us this morning. Actually, there's an inn right there!" She points to a modest-looking inn and tavern called "The Shield and Sheepdog," across the street from where the party currently stands.