"Lyla, you need to move." Demitri calls upon his goddess's might to defend him in this fight.
"Bad call, Boule," Ortik says, stepping into the hall. "Now you leave us no choice." He chants, and the city once again lends her aid to her chosen champions.
Karri steps into the passageway, her limbs moving almost like she is a marionette. Once in the hall, she again reaches into herself and pulls forth something the party has not seen. Oh, yes, bring this one into your world. You need it's strength... The tainted glob of Legion is hurled past Boule and into the next room. It hits the opposite wall with a wet *splorch*. The form rises up, a short but corpulent stain of corruption, that then waddles into the main room. As it goes it lets loose a foul belch, and the room is filled with the odors of the Abyss' rot.
The dretch wanders in front of Boule and promptly belches.
The emperor doesn't appear to be affected by the belch.
And neither are the roughs, though some of them appear to be inching away from the battle.
Nalun advances on Boule and lashes out with Willbreaker
Status:
39/57 HP
Fav Target: Boule
Both of Nalun's strikes hit their marks, gouging deep wounds in Boule's hide. The deranged man roars, more in fury than pain--it almost gets lost over the roar of the inferno.
Laori shrugs, then starts intoning a prayer. Some manner of unholy power gathers at her fingertips... and with a final punctuating snap, the smell of fire intensifies. A roaring pillar of flame engulfs the southern wall of the trophy room, causing the wooden timbers supporting it to practically evaporate. The wall comes crashing down in a cacophony of splintering wood and thirsting flames!
Salvador, living up to his surname, screams in terror and bolts for the other side of the room.
Lyla, seeing just how close Boule is to her, promptly backflips away from him and over Demitri's head...
...but Boule's axe whips back in a blur and nails her squarely in the chest. Bleeding, she dips past the inquisitor and throws open the burning door before her, letting Karri's summoned water elementals get to work putting out the blaze.
Boule turns his axe on Nalun...
...and with two extremely brutal blows, one of them biting so deeply into the man's neck that blood sprays everywhere, drops the man to the stone floor. He screams in mad rage once again.
Demitri's eyes widen as Nalun is cut down and almost instantly killed. "Stay behind me. We need to drop him before Nalun dies from the blood loss."
He empowers his weapon against Boule as he steps up to fight.
Demitri's sword cuts deeply into the man's side, and he whirls on him.
He stops yelling and howling for a moment, and a twisted, bloodied grin breaks out on his face.
Karri moves across the room as Legion drags another one of its own from her flesh. Hurling the bead of contagion across the room another Dretch manifests standing on the opposite side of the 'emperor'. Both dretches attack in a wave of snarling curses.
for
for
for
for
for
for
"I'll buy you some time, Demitri!", Ortik shouts, fervently praying to the Old Dame on Nalun's behalf. Almost instantly, his bleeding ceases, though his breathing is still labored and shallow.
The dretches claw and bite at Boule, drawing blood and flesh from his already battered hide.
He doesn't seem to notice. Or, more likely, he doesn't seem to care. The mad gleam in his bloodied eyes is that of a man with nothing more to lose, even as his body is ravaged beyond belief.
Laori steps forward, through the destroyed wall, and advances on Boule, an uncharacteristic angry glare on her face. She twirls her spiked chain around her head and swings it at him--
--and with a crackling of more unholy power, the spell that was stored in her chain is unleashed.
The expression on Boule's face abruptly shifts in a moment--going from exultant glee at finally, finally facing the man who ruined his life and destroying him--to one of sudden realization.
He lets out a scream--a scream of fright, of pain, and perhaps one begging for mercy. The strike from the Kuthite's chain was bad enough, but the magic within it...
...black tendrils of raw, ravenous shadow race from the links of the chain and along his skin, slicing it open, peeling it back like one would an onion. His armour is shredded, the skin beneath bursting from his body and revealing ruined muscle and shattered bone beneath.
He falls to the floor, still screaming as Laori's magic eviscerates him from neck to toe. Eventually, he mercifully expires in a pool of rent flesh and smoking blood, his eyes glassy and stuck open.
The onlooking thugs and aide are shocked into silence.
"Good work. Someone help Nalun. I'll take care of the fire." Demitri says before turning to the goons. "You lot should leave and never come back."
The remaining onlookers collectively turn and run for their lives, screaming and practically trampling each other to get away.
Laori gives Demitri an oddly apologetic look. "Sorry about stealing your thunder, there--I guess I kinda got carried away..."
Legion's voice booms out, "Kill any you catch."
The two Dretches scramble after the thugs hoping to catch any stragglers.
Once the demons race away Karri reasserts control, her body heaving with the effort. She wipes away a trickle of vomit and closes her eyes. Her voice is ragged, but her own, "Please, stop the screaming!
"I've got Nalun," Ortik said, rushing towards his fallen friend. He presses some cold moss onto the wound, rubbing it until the flesh knits back together under his stubby fingers.
"Boule needed to be put down. That's all that matters." Demitri responds to Laori. "You'll be alright. It's over." He says to Karri, though he lets slip a slight look of concern.
Nalun comes to, and groans
oof. We've got to get a better plan.
The trophy hall contains:
--A full set of exquisite silverware worth about 500 GP
--A platinum & crystal decanter filled with fine brandy. It's worth 750 GP.
Boule's corpse has:
--1 exceptionally forged greataxe.
Salvador recovers his senses and tentatively emerges into the sunlight. Karri's water elementals work on completely extinguishing the ill-thought-out blaze.
"S-so... s-so now what?"
"First we get out of here. Second, we were told that you were the last person to see the seneschal. We need him to save this city."
The sounds of pained screams fill the air as Karri's dretches catch up to one of the slower thugs and start rending him apart.
"First we get out of here. Second, we were told that you were the last person to see the seneschal. We need him to save this city."
Salvador swallows. "O-oh... um..."
"...y-yes. We m-must leave. T-to my home, then."
----------------------
The group grabs what loot they can and take off into the streets of Old Korvosa--and not a moment too soon. The rhythmic, metallic footfalls of a Grey Maiden patrol pound through the air as the party disappears down a side alley. Making their way back through the filth-encrusted, barren side streets and ruined thoroughfares, it takes some time before the group manages to make it back to the dilapidated shack Mr. Scream calls a home.
The former captive artist breathes a sigh of relief and looks back over his shoulder. "Inside. I c-can e-explain what I kn-know then."
Demitri raises an eyebrow but follows him inside nevertheless.
Once everyone is inside, Salvador sighs. "S-Seneschal Neo... y-you aren't the f-f-first people to come to m-me regarding him. Mr. Orisini sought me out t-to learn what I kn-knew of him as well."
"N-Neo and I..." The artist's face turns wistful. "...w-we go back a l-long way. W-we met after o-one of Exemplary Execrables' plays--"Tears of Abendego", to be exact--and ap-parently, he was quite a f-fan of my work. My deranged, pain-fuelled artwork."
"We would m-meet in coffee shops, and the like, to speak of many things... history, the arts, matters of religion..." His voice smooths out and his stutter noticeably fades. "...he was one of the few friends I ever had."
"When the plague was sweeping through the streets, Neo came to me, bloodied and... and frightened." Salvador's eyes dart to the floor. "He had barely escaped a Red Mantis attempt on his life, and he-he needed help to hide out in Old Korvosa." He grits his teeth. "He told me Ileosa did murder her husband, and the Mantis were hired by her to kill him."
He looks like he's about to say something else, but he starts choking back sobs. His eyes glisten with barely-restrained tears.
"It's alright. This just confirms what we all surmised. We just need to know where he is. Is he okay?"
Nalun watches with a grim look.
Salvador takes a shaky breath. "...t-th-that's..."
"...I-I was running out of places to hide him in, and friends to help me. I only had one place left to go." He paces around for a bit. "Th-they were my greatest patrons before th-this disaster struck. I trusted them..."
"...I gave him to the Arkonas..." He sits down and buries his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking with grief.
Ortik's throat tightens in fear as he hears Salvador namedrop the Arkona family. "Oh, bu**er," he mumbles to himself, trying to think of the best way to handle this, now that the rulers of Old Korvosa have the Queen's seneschal. "Do you think you can grant us an audience with them? If they're keeping him safe, then they're not exactly on Ileosa's side, so at least there's a chance we can get him to safety."
"I-I-I-" Salvador gasps for air for a moment.
"--I d-don't know. It w-was the l-l-l-last, and b-biggest favour I called on th-them for."
Laori is quietly sitting off to the side, idly wiping the blood from her spiked chain and only paying attention to the proceedings with half an ear.
"Well see if they'll give you another one. Worst case, we may have to do them a favor as much as I don't want to do that."
Salvador shakes his head. "L-Lord Glorio m-made it quite clear to me that h-h-h-he didn't want to s-see me again. 'No place f-for the arts in a c-crisis', were his exact words."
"Vencarlo ran off after them when I t-told him. I haven't seen him since."
Ortik rubs his forehead in mounting frustration. "This just gets better and better. OK, so, House Arkona has the seneschal, and might know where Vencarlo is. We just killed the leader of the Cerulean Society, who we believe is at least backed by the House, if not controlled. Now we need to go to Lord Glorio and ask him nicely to release these two to us? I mean, do we have anything we can go into that meeting to bargain with him with?"
"W-well..." Salvador swallows nervously.
"...y-you're the h-heroes of K-Korvosa, no? Y-you might have n-name recognition here--L-Lord Glorio might l-let you have an audience."
"I'm less worried about getting that audience," Ortik replies to Salvador. "And more worried about how we get out of it without owing him our souls."
"...oh." The artist nervously looks away, his fingers twitching. "Th-that I don't think I can help you with."
"Why not just stab him in the back?" Laori offers, standing up and winding her spiked chain around her waist. "Once you have your seneschal and company, he won't be of any more use to you, right?"
"Because we don't do things that way. Though it is likely they won't give us a choice much like Boule. But we should go in there and at least try to bargain for them peacefully."
"And because he'd probably be expecting it. They're the chessmasters of Old Korvosa, and we might as well be playing at checkers." He sighs, stroking his beard. "Sod it, then. If we have nothing, we'll try to get out of it as clean as we can. They're no allies of the Queen, maybe we can work something out for a post-Ileosa future."
Laori tilts her head in confusion at first, but when Ortik explains further she says a little "Oh!" and nods her head. "Sure, that sounds better."
"...does anyone mind if I question him now?" The Kuthite shifts from foot to foot, a little blush coming to her cheeks.
Salvador eyes her with a bit of fear.
"Go for it." Demitri nods.
Eventually, someone will realize that we are not to be trifled with. Besides, Arkona doesn't really have a quarrel with us...they've got more important problems.
Laori claps her hands in glee. "Alright!"
Then, she descends upon Salvador in a flurry of questions.
"--about your latest work: "In Chains and Shadow"--what was your inspiration for that?--"
"--your brush technique for "Wasteland" is amazing! Where'd you learn it?--"
"--do you take commissions nowadays? I've got money!--"
She continues onward in this vein. The bewildered artist is hardly able to get a word in edgewise. Eventually he looks over at Demitri with an expression that just screams "HELP!"
"Laori. We've worked really hard for this. Please give him a chance to answer at least." Demitri chuckles.
Laori stops in a moment, then gives Demitri a sheepish smile. "...right."
"Okay..." She takes a breath and turns back to Salvador, clearing her throat. "So, where'd you get your inspiration for your paintings from?"
Salvador looks around for a few seconds before he replies. "B-before the king died, I-I would... I would have th-these dreams. Dreams of a g-great, blue-scaled being, driving me t-to paint. T-to express myself b-b-better than my own w-words could."
"B-but now... it s-seems my muse has l-left me."
The Kuthite looks down at her feet for a moment, disappointment writ plain on her face before she looks back up at him, smiling. "Maybe you just need a change of scenery, eh? How about I get you back to the mainland, and out of this town?"
He blinks. "Y-you can d-do that?"
Despite the gravity of the situation, despite the dire straits he and his friends find themselves in, holed up in a rundown tenement in Old Korvosa, Ortik can't help but smirk at Laori's boundless enthusiasm. "You know, Laori, if someone asked me to describe a Kuthite to them a week ago, the description would have been almost completely inapplicable to you. I would have had 'spiked chain', and that's about it."
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Laori shrugs. "Eh, life's too short to be all gloomy."
"Smiling through the pain is the ultimate expression of triumph."
Nalun shivers as he looks at Laori if you are right next to him you hear him mutter Surrounded by craziees
"That's.. healthy. Anyways, we should get going to House Arkona."
Karri frowns deeply at Laori's words. She debates with herself about saying something and then after Nalun and Demitri speak their minds, "But you don't laugh only at your own pain. You inflict it on others then laugh. I have experience with sadists, and unless your victim is a masochist, there is nothing healthy about wanting to hurt people."
"I know you've been through alot Karri, but Laori has been nothing but helpful to us. She hasn't even asked for anything, except to talk to Salvador. We're all aware she's a Kuthite, but I judge people on their actions, not labels."
Laori tilts her head at Karri and frowns. "Hey, now, I have a strict code of conduct when it comes to that sorta thing."
"I only inflict pain on those who REALLY deserve it. Namely, those who cross me or my allies." She stands straight up and grins. "Or if they're willing volunteers."
"Otherwise, where's the fun in that?"
Salvador swallows and takes a little step away from her.