Demitri lets out a low growl as Lyla is dropped. "You will pay for that! Ortik, help Lyla."
Demitri's sword crashes against the wererat's armour, but doesn't hurt him.
Lyla gleefully watches the bombs flying in the air and exploding against the wererat. Only then she feels the deep cut in her belly, bleeding profusely. She presses the wounds with both hands, looking down, and barely notices the wererat leader approaching. Catching his figure with the corner of her eye, Lyla looks up only to see the monsters thrust its blade into her throat. Her eyes widen as she realizes the seriousness of the wound; she feels the taste of blood in her mouth and watches the room spin and fade away while falling to the ground. Then there is darkness.
The blackness lasts forever, and it is empty, lonely, and cold. And then, a dim light appears in the distance. Lyla stands up and stares at it. "C'mon, a shining light to the afterlife? That's, like, the oldest cliché ever." Instead of heading towards it, she sits down and waits, until a small halfling woman, silhouetted against the light, starts walking in her direction. A middle-aged halfling stops right before Lyla, and her features are familiar. "Don't tell me you're my mom, this is ridiculous enough as it is." The woman smiles and nods. "Well, I am,", she replies candidly. Lyla looks away. "Pharasma really likes to play dirty, huh?"
She offers her hand to Lyla. The girl slaps it away and says "You go back, I'm not going anywhere." To Lyla's surprise, the woman grabs her by the shoulders and starts dragging her towards the light. "Oh, but you are, young lady!"
"Already on it, Dmitri!", Ortik cries, instantly turning his attention away from the wererats near him and Karri and rushing over to her side. He drops his shield as he goes, needing the free hand to cast a restorative spell, and sends his most powerful spell into her still and pale form. "This isn't your time, Goggles, stay with us."
She was coming to us and the rancid dwarf stopped her!!! Karri shouts over the din, She Steps towards the remaining wererat and speaks with Legion's voices buzzing, "And for this you will find your path to the Abyss today. You are next, sweetmeat..." Her hands raise up and follow the pattern needed to turn her threat into the rat's reality.
The wererat's eyes widen for a second and his grip tightens on his rapier. "Not today."
He starts stabbing at Nalun, but his trembling grip throws his aim off somewhat.
While his first strike hits Nalun in the stomach...
...his fear shows in his subsequent strike, his stab going wild.
Then he lunges...
...and bites into Nalun's shoulder. However, the bite ends up being more of a scratch than anything else.
You shoulda just given up... Nalun says, swinging his sword again with a grunt
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Lyla struggles to get free while the woman drags her to the light, but cannot manage to break her hold. "Hey! Let me go!", she cries out, to which the woman replies "Don't worry, you'll like it. It's peaceful." The halfling girl kicks and curses harder, looking at the light approaching, till suddenly she feels something grabbing her foot as they come to a halt. Looking down, Lyla meets the phantasmagorical image of Ortik, speaking words she cannot quite understand. The woman dragging Lyla is taken by surprise, and the young halfling seizes the moment to escape. Lyla shoves the woman towards the lights and turns around to grab Ortik's beard, pulling herself in the dwarf's direction. "Let's get out of here!", she shouts; behind her, the woman stares at Lyla with a sad frown. "It was nice to see you, Lyla", she says. Lyla hesitates for a moment, without letting go of Ortik's beard. "You too, mom", Lyla replies.
She opens her eyes gasping for air, and sees her hand pulling on Ortik's beard. "Thanks for bringing me back, Ortik." Looking around, she notices the combat is still going on, and watches Nalun lunging against the wererat. "M*$%@#%@", she swears angrily, looking at the creature that almost killed her.
And there's a brown patch of fur on his head that's considerably darker and messier than the rest of his fur--almost like it's his human head of hair.
Nalun scores another decisive hit on the wererat boss, drawing a lot of blood and dropping him to one knee. "No! Not done yet!" He snarls, forcing himself back to his feet in a rage.
"Mmmph! Good to see you too, Lyla!", Ortik says, carefully prying the halfling's fingers open to release his beard from her near-death-grip. "Give me leave, I need to help Dmitri end this monster." He looks to Dmitri, and his voice seems to deepen as he speaks. "Strike this menace to Korvosa down, Dmitri. The city shall guide your blade."
Still lying on her back, Lyla assumes a defensive stance, ready to dodge any blows the wererat might send her way. She squints her eyes observing the monster squeezed inside the armor. "... Private Clay...?", she mumbles, trying to guess its identity.
Demitri keeps swinging at the air furiously.
Scraping out two of Legion, Karri hurls them at the rat-man with a hiss.
The wererat boss gets knocked back to his knees again as Karri's magic hammers his back. "AAAGGHH!"
He lets out a feral shriek of rage--
--and starts stabbing at Nalun with renewed vigour!
He drives his rapier into Nalun's stomach and twists it before launching himself forward to try to bite off a chunk of the bounty hunter's face. Nalun barely manages to throw him off before the bite lands.
Nalun swings back hard.... Not good enough bub.
Nalun returns the favour, driving his falchion into the wererat's stomach and ruthlessly cutting him down. The wererat collapses, twitching twice before going still.
The wererat starts transforming before your eyes--his fur is absorbed into his body, revealing sunburnt light skin. The *CRACKING* of bones can be heard as his skeleton shifts from a rat to a man. The wererat leader's true form is that of a pale, gaunt human, now mutilated by blade and spell.
From the sunken eyes, disheveled brown hair and pain-wracked expression frozen on his dead face, it's clear that the wererat leader is--or rather, was--none other than Private Simon Clay.
Without blinking Legion draws steel and begns slitting throats of the helpless wererats. This is best - they only threaten your beloved city... Karri knows Kasdaye is right, I just wish it weren't so gory.
"Private Clay?" Demitri then turns to Lyla. "Are you alright?" He says helping her to her feet.
Lyla takes Demitri's hand and gets up, her wounds healed but her clothes and neck completely covered in blood. "Thanks, chief." She looks at Private Clay and says "Yeah... I thought so. It must have started when he was assigned to sewer patrol, that's when he started losing weight. I'm assuming he wasn't a wererat before that, of course, which would mean that something down here turned him into that... and that's probably the one we're looking for."
"You're most likely right."
"So let's look for signs of Clay's boss," Lyla says, starting to investigate the body and the premises.
Demitri nods and looks around as well.
Simon was carrying:
--1 suit of masterwork chainmail
--1 mithril rapier
--1 potion of black fluid
--1 potion of misty grey fluid
--30 GP
As Demitri & Lyla search the warrens, they turn up a large arsenal of weapons in a cavern in the back of the den. Several crates, mismatched boxes, and poorly kept weapons lie stacked and scattered about this dingy stone chamber. Pinned above a desk at the back of the room is a crudely sketched map of Korvosa. A large rat’s nest, strewn with moldy pillows, fills an elevated hollow in the south wall.
There are crates contain quite a few weapons and pieces of armour, all of which are of masterwork make.
Standing on an armour rack next to the desk is a gleaming suit of breastplate, strangely immaculately polished compared to the filth surrounding it. It bears no particular marks or engravings.
Underneath the map of Korvosa are at least two dozen wooden cashboxes and what appears to be a note, written in a delicate, well-practiced script.
The crows must feast. The great work must continue.
Ensure the silver stays afloat, and your patience will be rewarded.
Serve our hunger for flesh, and we will serve your hunger for vengeance.
"We can't carry all this back. We should let Kroft know so she can send some men down here. This note is disturbing. Who would want vengeance against the poor folk here?"
"Nothing was said of the poor." Karri shrugs, Legion put away for now. "It does sound like someone want to see Korvosa fed to the crows..."
Nalun frowns at the note. This ain't good...
"Or maybe it is a good thing. We may have the ability todiscover the motive for revenge..."
Lyla reads and re-reads the note, mulling over its words. "I think this actually refers to Clay's revenge. Listen: 'serve our hunger for flesh, and we will serve your hunger for vengeance. Clay had a beef with someone, and he cut a deal to keep the silver coins in the street in exchange for help with getting back at someone. Who did he have a problem with? Perhaps Kroft, for making his life difficult? Seems a little petty. On the other end of the bargain, we have this anonymous sender who actually knows something about the coins. 'The great work must continue'... sounds like something you'd hear from a fanatic," she ponders, thinking about the major players in Korvosa's underworld who could fit that description.
"In any case, let's confiscate the arsenal for the guard, Kroft will be happy." Lyla picks up the potions, sniffs them and takes a tiny sip from each to identify them.
"Hmm. This one I know how cook. Here, slim", she says, offering the potion of blur to Nalun. She smiles sipping the other one. "This one's good... or rather, divine. Think fast, chief", she says tossing the potion of shield of faith +3 to Demitri. She also grabs a few flasks of alchemist's fire and stuffs them in her backpack before turning her attention to the cashboxes under the note. "Bet you guys the whole pile that this is the contaminated stash of coins", she says, carefully opening one of the boxes, resortig to her kit of lockpicks and her traveler's any tool and taking every precaution not to touch it directly.
"Let's find Raksi and get those potions she promised us, so that we can investigate the ship later. And maybe we ought to pay a visit to Clay's private quarters. Shall we?", she asks, starting to head back. Reaching the corridor, she shouts out "Zeke! Hey? Are you there? I wanna introduce you to a friend! Follow us!"
As the wererat falls to the ground, Ortik doesn't hide his shock at seeing Private Clay dead at his feet. "No," he breathes, his throat tightening. "No, that's...that's not right. Why would Clay be doing this?" Ortik kneels down next to the dead guardsman's body, passing his fingers over the man's eyes to close them for all eternity. "I'm sorry, brother, that we didn't notice the change sooner. I'm sorry that someone turned you against us, and I'm sorry that we did not recognize you until it was too late. I cannot change these things now. I can make sure that whoever turned you from a man into this half-form will pay for what they've done, and what they continue to do to Korvosa."
Ortik listens to everyone discussing the cryptic note, and his heart skips a beat. "This is what the Old Man was seeing," he says, finally standing up from his vigil over Clay. "A hippogriff, being devoured alive by crows. The Crows are our foes, friends. They've struck at us indirectly now - targeting our allies, rather than coming for us immediately. They know we're a threat." He takes a look at the penmanship of the letter. "If I recall, someone directed Verik to work against the city's interests. I wonder if the same person that turned him turned Clay."
Through the crack on the corridor's wall, Lyla sees Ortik bending over Clay's dead body and speaking comforting words to the poor man's eternal soul. The adrenaline from the combat starts to wear off, and the girls feels sorry for the whole situation, despite Clay putting a rapier through her throat just moments before. She sighs remembering all the dead in their path. "It just came back to me... do you guys remember when we arrested Verik Vancaskerki? When we got back to the citadel, Clay was guarding the gate... he'd just been assigned to sewer patrol, and he complained he had been bitten by a rat." She cringes, thinking of the person behind his transformation. "We need to end this."
"I couldn't agree with you more, Lyla," Ortik says, shaking his head as he gives up on the handwriting analysis for the moment. "We should break this to the Field Marshall gently. After all, she assigned Clay to the sewers herself. She might blame herself for all of this, when it's really the wererat that turned him in the first place."
"You're right, both of you. We should bring the body back to Kroft."
There's no reply to Lyla's call for the otyugh.
"To Raksi first. We shouldn't waste time bathing twice."
With Demitri leading the way, the party sets out into the labyrinthine sewers to find Raksi's home. It takes a while, but eventually the party reaches the stone door marking the ratfolk druidess' home.
"Raksi?", Ortik calls out once they're in front of the ratfolk's door. "We've arrived. Cl...the One-Who-Walks is...no longer a threat, to your people, or to ours. Are you at home?"
There's a brief silence before the *shuffling* of feet can be heard behind the door. The door opens with a *scraping* noise as Raksi peeks out. Her nose twitches as she sees the party and the body they're carrying with them.
"Indeed I am, Friend-Of-Rats. And who is this you have brought with you?" She asks, opening the door fully. "Hmm."
"He used to be a member of the guard. But he got bit and turned into the One-Who-Walks. He was a good man. "
Raksi looks at the private's corpse and sighs. "Indeed--a tragedy, it is. But better that he pass from this world peacefully than suffer, trapped between two worlds."
"Come, step inside--my little Kit has seen my people fleeing throughout the sewers. You have done quite well." She taps her oaken staff against the floor and starts shuffling away. "Now, I believe I owe you the tools you need to seek the sunken ship."
Lyla clears her throat while following Raksi. "Hm, Raksi, there's one more thing. You see, we have this friend, Zeke, who could use some help from you and your crew. He has a bad habit of always being caught and exploited by some lunatic, and I think it would be nice if you could look after him for a while... he really enjoy the sewers, and as longs as you canget him some food—which shouldn't be difficult, considering his diet—he could be a good friend, I hope. You might know him as the Otyugh that the One-Who-Walks had in captivity," she says, trying to get her to take Zeke in.
Raksi turns to Lyla and arches a furry eyebrow. "One of the garbage-eaters, hmm? Simple beasts, they are--but dangerous. My people know this better than anyone... but from what Kit has told me, not a single wayward son or daughter came to harm from it."
"Strange, to think you managed to befriend one. I suppose I could try."
"Many thanks."
Raksi nods. "It should prove to be an... interesting endeavour."
"Now, for your reward..." Raksi shuffles into the back of her home. About a minute passes before she returns, her arms filled with five potion flasks of teal fluid. "Potions to give you the lungs of a fish, one for each of you. However, those alone will not be enough, I fear--can you trust your weapons to see you through under the waters?"
I think I'd better get some kinda harpoon or something yeah? Nalun says