Saeras swears to him self. Of course they would call for more goons! There were always more goons. He really wished they had taken the time to procure a swarm of goblins or something to distract and drown their enemies with. But not today. Gritting his teeth he readied his sword as well. "We have already stirred the nest. Better to purge it quickly then try and fight two fights at once." And with that he followed the path Nate had created.
The little rats are hiding behind the furniture., Nate calls out.
Saeras narrowed his eyes and looked around in the room, levelling his crossbow at the closest piece of furniture. "Is that so?"
He wondered why everyone seemed to go about everything counter to what was in their best interest. He carefully and rather ungracefully entered through the broken window.
"Shields are supposed to remain rather close you know."
Is his only comment before he begins casting a simple spell. No matter how good someone was at hiding, if they had magic. They couldn't hide the aura's.
Hakk and Nate glare at the drow figures in two separate rooms. However, when the targets fully come into view they are met with a shock. The drow are not fighters, but women clutching children as young as babes and no older than 5 years! There isn't a single fighter in sight!
Just then Vicalan feels a wave a magic incoming. He spots a tiny ember, or rather a tiny ball of fire, flying into the room....
BOOM!!
The furniture, spartan though it may be, bursts into flame immediately and the walls quickly catch as well. The women scream, the children cry. Several women are obviously unconscious or possibly dead, you can't tell. The whole thing is a scene out of nightmares, and you're in the middle of it.
Hakk and Mourn: You hear the burst and immediately smell smoke. There are four woman/child pairs in this room and the only way out is down unless you want to start tossing people out windows. What do you do?
Hakk identifies the situation immediately and send out a warning!
Its a TRAP! Get OUT!! OUT!!!
Without thinking about it, Hakk immediately grabs a chair in the room and rushes the stairs down, using the chair as a makeshift shield for now.
If he sees where the fire cam from or obvious enemy, he'll let lose with his Wand of Magic Missiles!
- NOPE!
"If this what i think it is....
He began following Hakk down the stairs.
Having barely felt the sting of flame,
Nate immediately realizes the origin of the magic?!;
and runs toward the building across the street.
The huge 1/2 orc easily hops over any obstacles in his way.
It came from across the street, he yells.
While not the fastest, mages had to have good reactions when things went badly. That allowed him to get a chair between him and the expulsion of fire. Protecting him somewhat from it's effects. Of course no one checked the surrounding buildings. They were to busy converging on their target, paying no attention to the area around them. Amateurs even in their thuggery. That was it.
"Enough."
With that deep growl of a word he cast a spell and disappears from sight. Invisibly following the half orc at his own pace, no need to be with in range of another fireball. Not that it was likely, the mage would have bodyguards and they would be confident in making short work of a lone enemy. Not that he couldn't change that in short order.
Phae, blessed as he was by the divine power of Lloth herself, manages to casually side-step out of the way, avoiding the worst of the fireball. He scans around looking for where it came from .
With practiced ease, he spots their true target across the street.
"Are we sure that too isn't a trap?" He asks his companions as they head to the smaller shop.
Having someone try to turn you into a crispy snack was mostly unpleasant; if he hadn't had so many people try to kill him already he would have thought he was having his worst day ever - by now he already knew that! In an effort to see another morning, Saeras quickly assess the state of the room and does his best to blend in.
Then, with a moment of respite, he taps into his dwindling stash of healing potions. The bitter liquid tasted like ambrosia to his singed lips, but the effect was awfully short lived. Bah. he thought darkly At least the alchemist is already dead so he won't need more punishment for this failure.
The party, or some of them at least, bolt after the mage. The scouts and one of the bruiser teams flow you. Youall burst into the back room of the shop to find nothing but discarded scraps and a reinforced, bolted door.
Women and children are fleeing into the streets, many badly burned. Chaos erupts in the busy shopping atmosphere and civilians are suddenly everywhere! Ship owners are reaching for shutters and street vendors are packing their wares as fast as possible.
The first building, meanwhile, is going up in flames at an alarming rate. Just a few seconds more and the stairs will be completely engulfed along with most of the first floor!
Disturbed by the alarming rate the place is burning from below, Hakk starts backing up the stairs.
"No good! Back out the window Mourn! Climb down!"
Pushing his way back into the room with the furniture, Hakk makes to head back out the way he came in.
&^%$#@%# her scouts are terrible!
He began not bothering with trying to climb out of the death trap and just leaping out the window.
Cursing, Nate peers around for a foe!
"Somebody's at the back door, trying to trap us inside. Don't let them close the door!" Phae says urgently, warning his allies.
The 1/2 orc roars, charging the closing door!
Vicalan can be heard cursing.
"Enough of this. Clearly it was a set up, they were waiting. The best course is retreat."
He voice can be heard as it retreats the way they came. He was not going to get trapped. Anyways it was one thing to catch an entrenched enemy by surprise. It was a whole other monster to attack a prepared entrenched enemy in their stronghold, clearly forewarned. That was a bloody and costly affair. One they clearly could not afford.
As Hakk and Mourn vacate the building via window and Vicalan throws in the metaphorical towel Nate lowers his bulky frame and hits the closing door so hard he knocks the sneaky drow straight over on his rump!
Nate proceeds through the door and nearly falls over him.
That drew is easily subdued by nature and Hakk dismembers two more who try to intercept him. The rest of the gang, however, is absent and the wizard has made good his escape.
It takes Vala about thirty minutes to determine the traitor, one of the scouts. He is presented to you in the torture room/lounge bound and gagged.
Rivul, you filth. I should have know, really. He's the hardest of my men to pin down when I need him. Typical male. She spits on him.
So, how do you all want to handle this?
Still covered in the blood of his enemies, Hakk just sits quietly and stares at the traitorous man.
"I'm not hungry just yet. Give me a few minutes to digest...and we can see what happens? Yes? YESsssss.""
The huge 1/2 orc--still covered in drow blood--approaches the traitor.
Nathaniel says in drow, S$*!!
Vicalan not looking very happy about the whole thing, speaks nonchalantly.
"I do have spells useful for interrogation. As well as spells to locate valuables using his corpse. So ether way their is gain to be had. Of course if the information he gives us is worth more then his dead body, I suppose he may have a chance of walking out of here alive."
He cast that lure, given how prone drow were to betrayal and their high sense of self preservation. He was perfectly willing to let him leave if his information proved exceptional. Bribes are far better then the promise of pain and certain death. More so when those were the only alternatives, anyways he doubted this one had much material treasure to begin with. Not worth the spell.
"I too can aid in extracting information from him. In fact, let me start now"
When it becomes apparent that there are not going to be any more fireballs dropping by Saeras takes a moment to sigh in relief and then, as discreetly as possible, evacuate himself from the scorched building. Hopefully he'd be able to find his comrades (and the nice safety of someone to hide behind) again. Whee! Wonderful day. he though to himself as he tried to cover his burned flesh the best he could, wincing in pain as his clothes made contact.
Phaenox receives... Nothing much. This guy will be a tough nut to crack without killing him.
Someone, get healing, preferable a spell so its renewable."
He began clearly angry. This was to be their grand entrance to something big, and this worthless peice of s&+$ ruined that. He moved to the dead body (ie the prisoner) and turned to face Vala.
"Which one is his sword arm?"
He asked coldly.
She points left.
"Don't say I didn't give you a chance to help yourself. Regeneration is expensive, I doubt you'll ever get that arm back once it's taken."
Blunt and wasteful but apparently this one had the strangest illusion that they were bluffing. Personally he would have worked up to an entire arm. Start with some finger nails, that would wake him up. A knuckle if he kept playing the hard one, then the fingers. Go for the whole hand then or maybe the arm if your short on time or patience. A whole arm right from the start was going to get him talking or make him hold on out of spite. Alas he didn't really care, their enemies had thrown him away by not accepting him after his betrayal. Doubtful he was all that useful to them or in general then.
"Keep the head undamaged. We can always have him speak when he is dead if his living self refuses to be reasonable."
Hakk smiles gruesomely at the idea of talking to the traitor's dead head.
"Oh HO! That would be fun Vic! Can we jump to that part? I can't wait to see his dead expression when he has to give up the information we want!"
He moved quickly grabbing the mans left wrist while brandishing the dagger. He slammed it down hard onto the top of his hand crucifying it with the dagger.
"I dont intend to kill you if you dont talk, I intend to drag out the pain inflicted upon you until Lloth herself comes down to gleefully watch your pain. I am going to hurt you until you last breaths are almost spent... then I will have you healed, and I will start again."
The huge 1/2 orc grins.
As Saeras dragged himself trough the pandemonium out to the street it grew increasingly obvious that this wasn't really what they had expected. Big surprise! Now the question was really *what* had they actually firebombed? And more importantly - was there anyone competent enough that cared enough to retaliate?
"Beautiful @#1!% day." Saeras muttered as he help himself to whatever store of hard liquor that was available then making himself comfortable (as was possible) in one of the nicer chairs. With a grunt and a swing of his mug he glared at their traitor and muttered. "Lets just get some rats and honey. I'm all for automation right now."
Dumb grunt. And then there were this matter of their hostess. It would be foolish to trust her more then necessary - which they were already doing. I wonder if Phaenox has taken a proper look inside that silly head of hers. If things continue this way I might have do it myself. Surely finding a saw wouldn't be too hard around here?
Seeing his new 'family' in bad shape physically, Hakk feels that could be a bad thing if other/new enemies show up suddenly. His delicate drow-like hnads pull a slender wand from his sash and offers it out to Phaenox.
"Phaenox? Take my healing wand again and go around healing those who need it most. Starting with ME. We can't afford right now to be caught with our pants down around our mushrooms!"
Hakk laughs hysterically at what he things is a funny joke.
He then wander offs a bit...bored at the torture session since they aren't aren't actually killing and animating the traitor's head. He begins using one of his large claws to carve Abyssal language graffiti on one of the walls of the 'hideout.'
In the end he passes out under your pressure. There is blood. So much blood. And screaming. But he spills it.
He was working alone, but the Lows have a man in every major criminal enterprise in the bazaar. That's how they've managed to keep their status with such low numbers without getting overrun by the weekly goblin raid.
Their leader is a displaced noble not so different from yourselves. He was from a low house that was destroyed a couple decades back. Their mage is an illusion specialist that isn't above the occasional explosion, as you have seen. The building you attacked was their public base, a face that was easily abandoned and destroyed in case of emergency. So yes, he betrayed you, but it only just bought them the time they needed to evac and pull in some random innocents just in case you had a heroic streak.
He gives you the general area of their true base, but can't pinpoint it.