"In three days one of us hangs. There is no 'playing for time'."
"If you have some idea on delaying the executions then speak your mind, otherwise don't tell me to be patient again."
He says all of this low and quick, keeping his voice hushed enough for any guards outside. "Of course if it be more yer own life ye be worried for..."
Afterward when Torea shows up she smiles and calls out to her "Thank you lovely miss Torea." before quickly sneaking over to the receive the writing tools.
She quickly goes to work writing the letter. Though she writes it in common, her common is plagued by slight spelling errors as she tends to write things half elvish as she does so. On the outside she writes To: Captain Wen
Note:
"Firstly, my lady Silvers, if you are reading this I would ask that you cease and pass it along as it concerns you. I see this as a conflict of interest and wish the letter to be most genuine for Wen."
"Now on to business. My good Lord Wen, I am writing you on behalf of our lady Silvers to plead on her behalf. I know that your job requires sternness and and stubbornness and a harsh hand, but I want to impress upon you that Silvers is the finest woman you could have put in charge of the Sharks. This speaks well both of your judgment and her talents. So I ask formally that you forgive her for being ill prepared for the chaos we have wrought behind the walls of your fair city. ~Even the finest warrior flinches at dragon fire.
Thank you sincerely for your time, and your fairness with us.
Most humbly, Trissae Darkwhisper - AKA The Bandit Princess"
she smiles to herself with that last bit, and then folds the letter and sets it on the stool to be recieved. She goes to the door and knocks.
"I am ready now, I just need to a change of clothes."
When she gets the clothes she'll change and get ready to head back to the cell.
"You get to live because you're helping us. Any other man would be dead for that."
He lets Tease go, setting a hand on Ozz's shoulder and his cold-hard expression turns cheery and relaxed again.
"We're family, the lot of us. Either we all get out, or we all die trying. I'll not see a shark hanged while I'm still breathing."
... The door unlocks once more, and Triss (Dressed in a fresh uniform) and Rast enter the room. Ozz and Adrien on one side, Tease slunked into a far corner with a bruise blossoming on his cheek. Ozz and Tease giving each other angry looks from time to time.
"Err...", says Rast.
Rast speaks to Tease in dwarvern who responds curtly in the same. Rast shrugs and says a few more words before turning to the lot in general. "We'll have some lunch brought in shortly. It sounds like we might return you to the building, but probably not. Wen and Silvers are out looking at things to decide if its worth getting in more work today." with that, he leaves the room, locking the four of you together once again.
Rast: You want a bath?
Tease: Go f$+# yourself, Rast.
Rast: Fair enough.
Triss gives a concerned look when she enters glancing between the two parties. "You okay Tease?" she asks lightly but notices that Ozz is fuming and assumes some kind of chaos ensued.
"Well.... here goes..."
Then Trissae walks over and reclaims the poster from Adrien. She then turns to her friends, a thoughtful if weary look on her face. After a moment she steels herself and addresses them. "You were right Adrien.... I have been scheming without your knowledge for some time now. But, before you judge me too harshly there's something I want you to consider." She looks down, gathering herself. Looking at the poster and clenches it tightly, drawing some bit of confindence from holding it.
"Wen would love for his judgement, his sense of justice, to be fullfilled. However, Wen is our keeper... and not our executioner. He must report to the one that holds that honor, our biggetted noble Lord Frostheight. And who, do you think, will anger our lord more? The two Bogshark thugs roughing up the peasantry? Or the magical Drow whore seducing his guards? No my friends... Wen and Frosthieght both have spoken to me in private and have all but assured me that it will be me who hangs first, beyond whatever fairness he pretends." The sound of the poster trembling in her hands undertone her statement.
"So I have made it my purpose that with what little time I have left, I will buy you every friend and ally I can. So that when I step out onto my last stage, and sing my last song, Bogshark and Shield alike are brought to tears. So that hopefully a Shield will grow consious enough to do the right thing, and aid you in your escape to freedom. I will make such a show of it!" Her resolve has steeled her expression and voice but her body speaks differently. She trembles with fear at the self assured oblivion she believes she faces.
Her wispy eyes glance up at them, but come to rest on Adrien."I'm so sorry for my deciet. In time I hope you may forgive me."
Cavell smiles cheerily when Trissae returns, but his face turns to worry as he listens.
"No one is going to hang. Least of all you, Triss." He looks to Ozz for support.
"We're getting out of here, and Tease is going to help."
Barring any disturbance, he spends the ride in boring fashion: not risking discovery by coming on deck. He is looking forward to seeing everyone again, and washing away the taste of failure with song, spirits and sparring (alliteration unintended but accepted :P).
Tease nods, a bit teary-eyed. "Merchant King save me, I'm in."
He looks to the three of you. "So, what plan are we goin' with then, and what exactly do ye need me ta arrange?"
You all continue to plan. Eventually lunch is brought, along with news that the building isn't going to be worked on anymore today, and that you'll not have anything to do until tomorrow's chores. Later, dinner is brought. Eventually sleep comes.
--------------------------
Part of the way through the night, during her trance, Triss hears a low whisper in elven coming from the cell while the others sleep. It takes only a moment before she realizes that it is coming from Tease.
"Where do you come from, drow lass?" The lowborn style of speaking gone entirely from his elven dialect.
During the pause of hurt feelings, while Cavell and Ozz sit together with Tease on the other side of the room waiting for Trissae's return, Ozz speaks low to Cavell.
"Caira has a poster too..."
"Imagine you turned traitor to the sharks, got us all caught for a juicy deal with Frostheight. You think he wouldn't just throw you in a cell right after and piss on your deal?"
Adrien grabs Triss in an embrace after telling her no one is going to hang. Once he composes himself, he answers Tease.
"If it was just me, I'd get my gear, go upstairs, and rappel off the balcony--but four sets of feet are a lot. If we wanted to go that route we'd need a nice distraction to empty the building of guards. I'm for going over the wall. If someone from the outside can't toss a rope over, then I'll climb the wall myself and hang a rope down for the rest of you. The rest of the plan stands; unless you have something to add, Tease."
Trissae twitches stunned when Adrien embraces her, but quickly melts in his arms. Her head buried in his shoulder, he can feel her trembling for a little while longer but it subdues. When it does she pulls away and looks at them all, eyes and nose purple flush from tears but a smile on her face.
"Told you Tease, you'd make a good Bogshark."
As they discuss the plan she chimes in. "Once I'm unshackled I have a spell which will allow me to pass as a Shield guard. I just haven't had the proper opportunity to use it. However I could move more easily unnoticed than anybody here." She glances over at Tease as if to head off a question.
"The spell will only fail if they inspect me physically. I could get to their armory then dress properly and the illusion would be all but complete."
She steps back, hand on chin in thought.
"Let's also not forget we have bought ourselves goodwill. We know at least one Shield that owes us his life, that could be quite useful. Maybe to procure some rope in a location we can find..."
She muses further to herself.
Before bed she makes it a point to give each member a tight hug and a light thanks.
"Well done Sir prince." She shoots him a smile in the dark.
"Your question seems strange though. I am Drow, I come from Menzoberranzan. Was there a specific answer you were looking for?"
A shrug. "You may be from Menzoberranzan... But you are no Drow."
--------------
Upon waking the next morning, Trissae and Ozz find themselves stiff, sore, and rather unwell. They each are showing a fever and feel a bit shaky.
"Morning time!" Silvers sing-songs from the door with some guards, all bucketless. "It's getting kind of awful out, so I hope you got your rest!" She beams into the cell.
Another thing you notice upon examining his ship, is it doesn't seem to function as an up-stream vehicle, no oars/oar-locks can be seen on the vessel, and even so, the might of one halfling alone couldn't move it against the current.
Cavell answers Triss from earlier: "With my belongings is my burglary pack. It has rope."
"If we can get that bootleg booze delivered, maybe we let Triss go first through the building and anyone she runs into she tells them about the booze outside--disguised as a shield of course."
"Morning Silvers, you look beautiful. By the way, Rast has rough but firm hands. Wasn't my preference but wasn't the worst I've had either. Still, maybe next time...?" he grins at her.
He glances down at Triss and Ozz as they get up stiffly, worried.
Grellik looks the boat up and down. "Hmm, just how is this vessel going to carry me up the river? No oars, no pole, no sails. Oh, and I am sure I could find a vessel for 30 Dragons." He smiles slightly, and adds, "One who does not find my appearance so odious. , Though it would be less bother if I didn't have to go looking"
Triss sits up slowly, normally she never trances laying down but sometime during it last night she did. As she does she coughs, only barely covering it in time and looks up at Silvers.
"My lady... it appears I've caught the local bug..." she coughs again and groans as she slides back and then against a wall, being much more sore and stiff, especially around her waist were she dangled from the rope.
"Tell Giant to make his bog chowder, that always perks me up when I'm feeling sick."
"No Giant..." Ozz coughs. "Citadel, remember?"
Silvers' jaw drops, her singsong fading as she appraises the two sick prisoners from the rain spattered doorway.
"Triad's mercy! No wonder you live in the Moors, cities try to kill you lot at every turn!"
She stops, thinking.
"Our healer is still at the Happy Hall tending to the sick there, he didn't come back last night. Apparently quite a few people have wandered in for search of aid and respite. Others still have been brought there, dazed. Best I can do for the time being is give you rest, better shelter, and some better food until he comes back. Come on you two, follow me."
Pause.
"The other two of you fine?"
Tease shrugs. "I'm good."
"Fine..." Cavell trails off, glancing at Tease before watching Trissae and Ozz, worried.
Tease gives a look back to Cavell and scratches a bad itch off the tip of his nose.
"You let my ship worry about getting you up the Dessarin, yes? Now ugly, you're business. If I were to charge extra for bad looks, no one in Skullport could afford me, I swear on my mum. The ONLY reason why I'm giving you such a deal at 40 is because I've already got a guy who wants to go that way, and he's been getting impatient waiting for me to fill out a shipment. If up the Dessarin is where you are going, you, with all your size, are the rest of the shipment."
He turns his head and spits off the pier. Removing a small tin from a pocket, he pops some of its contents into his mouth and begins to chew thoughtfully.
"Tell you what, good lookin'. The other guy has probably drunk himself stupid he's been waiting so long. If you were to go and fetch him I could take 5 shiny bits off the price for the effort. His name's Frug, a one-eyed bastard probably wasting away at The Pick and Lantern. We'll leave as soon as you get back him with, alright?"
Shaky Triss gets up and heads to follow Silvers. In no spirit to object, but Adrien would see the look of worry on her face as she walked by.
"How are yours faring my Lady?" she stifles another cough as she asks.
"Well, I'm a big fan of bad weather", she says. "We might actually get a bit of a storm!" Her voice is up-beat once more, though her mannerisms are concerned. Silvers leads Trissae and Ozz into the indoor cell.
"It seems they caught the illness..." Spearwoman Torea.
"By the balls of Talos!" Wen shouts. "Is one single f!*&ing thing going to go right in this city!? Can't I have a day of peace after returning. S$%$. S%#%! F!+$! Gods damn it all!" He turns and shakes his fist at the sky, teeth bared, clearly not a fan of the rain.
"Clearly Frostheight's plan displeases the gods as they are trying to f$$%ing kill you all off before the noose has the chance!" He fumes for a quiet moment, thinking.
Watching the two other Bogsharks be led away, Cavell's face is blank, but Wen's shouting brings a subtle smile to it.
"Out in the moors we call this a nice day."
He turns to Wen, grinning. "Thanks for the drink," and offers a hand to him.
When he says no on could afford him, Grellik lets out a "hah!". When he is finished, he will nod, smiling. "Alright, I'll fetch him for you, if only to get a chance to see how this miraculous vessel functions! I will return shortly with your other passenger, friend."
Wen looks down at Adrien's hand, and nods at him firmly, accepting his words if not his hand. "We're on layabout duty today. Tie them up, Spearwoman."
Spearwoman Torea ties Adrien and Tease together in the similar way, and mounts his horse. "Get the cart. We'll be keeping an eye out for anyone passsed out in this rain and take them to the Happy Hall. Inside it are some cloaks, put them on." Indeed, even the guards, Wen not included, wear a cloak to keep the rain off of them. Wen himself is dressed the same as always, as if challenging the rain to do its worst.
After Adrien and Tease get the cart, he and a perimeter of only 4 guards signal the gate open and leave the tower's yard. "If you see someone, point them out!" Wen barks as you march through the rain.
The foot traffic this morning is a sparser for sure, maybe because of the rain, maybe because of word of the illness spreading. Those walking about do so with purpose, quickly moving to their destinations to avoid getting wetter than needed.
"Friend? Bah! Now hurry up, I want to get back to my wife by the end of the month. You'd like her, she'd make you look pretty by comparison." He puts the tin back away into a belt pouch and chews away as he relaxes on his small boat.
The implication of what he said, if at all reliable, is interesting; the trip would take much less time than you'd expect. Maybe similar to the portals out of Skullport that the Regret used, there could be a portal that would be closer to your destination than leaving from Waterdeep itself would be.
You've gotten somewhat used to the general layout of Skullport from your original trip in, trying to find a ship that could take you to Amn, so finding The Pick and Lantern is an easy task.
You walk the streets where those who would usually be skulking in a civilized settlement walk openly; clearly Skullport is not a civilized place. There is a law, of sorts here, but is built more on mutually-assured-destruction/profit than any sort of desire for good and order. The cave-city is lit by a gentle light of glowing fungus, Gloam, and a bell rings to mark the passage of another 4 hours in the sunless place.
You leave the waterside portion of the dredge (the lowest of the three tiers of buildings built on-top of each other) and into the venter (the middle) as you leave the water behind. Eventually you come to the tavern, a building with a ship lantern and miner's pick painted on the side of it, and enter.
The tavern is a decent place, all things considered, and most of its walls are taken up by what at first looks like miss-matching posters with incomprehensible designs on it. Upon closer look, they reveal themselves to be an assortment of maps from people who have tried to explore Undermountain. It is said that the taverns proprietor, a dwarf named Wilgold, will pay silver for anyone who brings back a map found on what remains of these adventurers.
The room is dimly lit by lanterns burning low, and is well populated with all sorts. One table has some of The Mandible, a local gang, playing cards. A nearby table is occupied with some of The Riverborn, pirates, doing the same, and the two groups seem to almost be in competition with each other for having a good time. You can see another table occupied by some the local slavers and another member hidden by a deep hood. All you can see of this person's features as it apparently conferences with them are smoothly moving, elegant tentacles emerging from the hood.
In addition to these skulkers are many others, people having a knife throwing competition toward a painted wall (Stained with blood when the usual target is replaced by a pirate mutineer or an attempted do-gooder reserved for personal attention instead of given to the "local law", whatever that might be. There is another table with two elven women, clearly slaves, dancing seductively with each other on top of it for the amusement of those near by. There is a table with a sleeping person, child-sized, by himself except for two skeletons sitting in seats near him entirely motionless. A final table of interest has a group of orcs and half-orcs leaning toward each other and having a hushed, and urgent seeming conversation punctuated by an occasional fist slam or exchange of small objects hidden by their hands as they pass from one to another. Whores walk amongst the crowd, soliciting their "wares", other people walk looking for their "friends, and more yet holler from their table to the bar, or any visible employee for more food and drink.
There is a back room that leads into a flophouse for those short on cash to stay in most other places, and the bar itself has a mess of broken glass swept up in front of it (potentially to act as a kind of hazard for if the crowd tried to rush the bar in a swarm?) and is unused except for the small force of employees zipping back and forth in a room behind the bar (Past a sign that reads Those who pass beyond this point agree to the following: "Please, Wilgold. I am a stupid son-of-a-b*++$ who desires to die. End my suffering.")
The room is filled with the noise of many conversations, laughing, sobbing, shouting, short fights, breaking glass, and even music and singing.
He puts the cloak on and stretches, glad to go for a walk. "Don't suppose you're able to spar yet. All this labor is good exercise but it's not the same. I'm rotting away. Rotting, Wen."
Cavell nods towards an alleyway towards a lanky figure passed out under a pile of brown rags.
"There."
"Rast make sure and wear a facemask if you have one, we have a ragged cough and I don't want to spread it. If this sickness gets more out of hand, skilled ones like yours will be necessary."
after eating some soup and drinking some tea Triss hunkers down in the bedroll, cover pulled over her head, and begins to inspect the hair pin. she makes sublte movements with her fingers as not to arouse suspicion.
after a bit she gets frustrated and tucks the pin away in her pants before pulling the cover back down to see what's going on in the room
As you approach the table with the sleeping figure and knock, the skeletons turn their heads to face you. The sleeping figure is small sized, appears to be a gnome. He is well dressed in the manner of a city commoner of some pay, has messy auburn hair sticking in every direction, and appears to be missing an eye as eyepatch bands wrap around his head.
He is breathing softly, but otherwise doesn't respond. A glass of spilled wine rests near his hand and by his seat are several big bags, two of them apparently empty.
Wen continues to ignore your pleas for sparring with a restrained dignity, and Torea blushes slightly as you tease her.
"Ah! Good find!" Wen says, you spotting the first person of the day. He turns the group of you toward this person and commands you and Tease to bring them and lie him down inside of the cart.
As wen turns back toward the Happy Hall, Tease notices someone.
"Ho there, friend. Yer not lookin' all too well. Why dontcha take a ride here with us, ya?"
An elven woman, probably fairly young, is stopped by Tease. She appears quite flushed and short of breath, kind of walking in a daze to the point where she almost crashed into the guard on the side of the cart.
"Huh...? Wha?" She says, confused, apparently not processing what is happening.
having plenty of time and privacy Trissae goes back to work trying to discern the magics that affect the hairpin.
she tries everything from wearing the hairpin and saying words to handling it in weird and extreme ways. She'd all but given up when the memory of her mother crops back up in her head, this time of her own volition.
The memory is of her singing a haunting tune, and before Triss realizes it she's singing it too. The song is full Drow and might sound like a curse of sorts to those who don't understand but in actuality it tells a story of how darkness reveals truth as there are no shadows in the dark.
As she does so she almost instinctively casts Identify on the pin the purpose of the song inline with the spell.
If they do not move against him, he will shake the little man's shoulder raising his voiced and calling,"Frug. Frug! Your boat is ready to depart! It would be a shame for it to depart without you!"
As Trissae thinks of her mother, her memories start to drift toward specific characteristics of her mother. Her composure, her authority, and the respect she commanded comes to Trissae's mind, and as she softly sings her song she suddenly realizes that despite her lack of projection her words are leaving her mouth at a much louder volume.
A minor ability, true, but an interesting one.
As you reach out toward the sleeping gnome, the skeletons choose a somewhat middle option. They slowly get out of their chairs, watching you with hollow eye sockets, and stand. They are armed with short swords and wear scraps of armor, but have so far not drawn steel.
They look at you motionless, assuming you've at least paused when they began to move. One is right next to you, with you separating it and Frug around the bend of the table, the other stands across the table.
A red scaled dragonborn woman, missing a few teeth, watches as this goes on. She slurs her words as she speaks. "Annoyin' bastards, eh? How're we s'possed to rob the sleepin' fool if hes got theeese baaby sitters watchin' over him?"
Ozz watches Triss curiously, noticing that her volume doesn't match her mouth.
"What..? This fever.. Ugh..."
Cavell sets a hand on her shoulder, steadying her. "You alright?"
the symptoms seem to be generally different. She doesn't look quite the same as your friends do, and even her dazed expression as she looks at your hand as if she's trying to understand what is happening seems very different.
She puts a hand on your arm, as if she is trying to make sure you are actually there, and as she does there is a strong static shock that gives an audible, but quiet "crack!".
The dragonborn squints at you for a second, getting a good look before she begins to talk again. "Why d'ya talk like dat? No maaaatter, no matterrr. Once they get all attn.. attentss... Atten-ta-tiivvee. Attentive... like that, we gr'nerally just go 'round." She gives a careless shrug. "Thrr 'nnoying, but dasssts about it."
"Ah!" Cavell jerks his hand away from her, but will catch her if she stumbles or falls after that.
Strangely, she doesn't react much at all after that. Your hand pulls out and she just kind of stands there. This is very strange, very unlike Triss and Ozz. Even from what you saw the last two days, when symptoms were less obvious, you think that this is something different from what your friends are afflicted by. Stranger yet, that shock... You don't think it was coincidental. Your instincts finds this very strange, but you don't know enough of the medicine behind what is going on to know how exactly.
Captain Wen gestures to the cart with the other dazed man and Tease guides her softly toward the cart from behind. "Just sit down here, miss. We'll getcha ta help."
Rain continues to patter down around you as wind blows through the streets while you walk toward the Happy Hall of Fortuitous Happenings.
Your group stops outside of the large, stone building and Wen orders you and Tease to help the woman in while he carries the dazed man in rags. The four guards keep a perimeter around you as Torea, in the front, opens the doors for the rest of you.
The inside of the Happy Hall contrasts much with the outside. While the cold stone is there, it is well covered in hanging wall curtains, tapestries, and paintings. Fires blaze in sconces all across the Hall and two great staircases lead upward from the sides of a wide hallway that stretches back into an area for group worship.
Many bedrolls have been laid out and dozens (at least, of what you can see) of sick people are laid out on them. Some are standing, staring blankly on their bedrolls, and some are sitting. Others are animate, and these are flushed, or pale as they seem out of breath and a bit scared, looking at those dazed around them with a detached horror, knowing that soon they'll be equally as confused as these dazed people.
You see a cleric of the temple tending to someone standing, one of the dazed people, who is apparently trying to walk somewhere but is being hindered by the cleric. This dazed person has a look of frustration growing on his face, almost childlike.
Captain Wen calls out to this cleric. "Hey! We've got a couple more. Where do you want them?"
"What?" The cleric says, looking over. He notices the woman you and Tease are guiding forward. "She's already been brought in here! Must be another one who wandered out... I don't get why some of them keep trying to get out into the streets! They are much safer here!"
Your warhammer crashes into the skull of the skeleton as it draws its blade, not surprised in the least. The sword rings from its sheath in unity with the paired blade on the paired skeleton as your blunt hammer powders down through its skull, its collar bones, and half of its rib cage. The rest of its bones falling apart from each other, the magic defeated and no longer holding the pile of bones together.
You advance on and attack the other skeleton, your attack quickly dodged by the thing.
You stay where you are and wait for the second skeleton to come, who acquiesces.
The second skeleton bares into you with its short sword, but misses with its sloppy attack, your shield spell not even needed.
The drunk dragonborn laughs and cheers as you pulverize the first skeleton.
"Blood!" Another creature calls from her table, and as the skeleton misses you he, and many others nearby in a circle of tables around you groan in disappointment as you easily defend yourself.
Adrien watches her, worried. He tries snapping his fingers in front of her face, giving Wen a look. "Odd. She doesn't seem like a drunk or drifter, and touching her shocked me."
He gets back to work though, helping her onto the cart then keeping an eye out as they make their way to the Happy Hall.
Inside, he watches the sick with hard, uncaring eyes. As the Cleric talks about the woman who wandered out, Cavell asks, "Do they all shock you on contact?"