The Scathels are little more than thirty feet distant from the group as they take chase... yet, ducking down a side alleyway, it is clear that their knowledge of the labyrinthine Liquorice gives them the advantage...
Rigo, quiet until now, lets out a roar and races after the Scathel that bit Moira! He reaches out, and mindful of the request for them being alive, hooks his claws into the biter's clothing, unconcerned about anything like minor 3 inch shallow scratches that are likely from grabbing him this way.
Audria looks from Moira to Alexis after being told to catch the ratty halflings alive.
"B-but how?" Her question comes out as a squeak and her eyes are wide with indecision-born panic.
Rigo is the first to catch up with the fleeing scoundrels... and his claws, evolved over the ages for just this sort of thing, easily capture his prey. The Scathel, his face still distorted with the repugnant features of the rat, squeals in dismay... whilst his companion, turning very briefly to see his friend's predicament, continues his headlong charge into the increasingly tumbledown maze of alleyways.
Rigo's catch, increasingly panicked now as the tabaxi's bulk looms over him, bites... a wild snapping of jaws that is utterly devoid of finesse...
"You really don't want to do that," Audria tells the snapping halfling.
"RATS!" says Moira, when the Scathel fails to collapse in gales of magical humor. She will chase the one that is getting away--if she can, she'll fire off another Hideous Laughter at the schmuck.
Running past Rigo and continuing to chase the other ratling.
Rigo snarls and slams the ratlings head into the wall to make a point.
Rigo then slams him into the ground and drives a foot into the back of the ratlings head, pushing his face into the alley muck hard enough to make it feel like his neck is about to break due to the 400 lbs of feline standing on him. "Now stop wriggling or I'll snap your neck like a twig, even your kind can't heal from that, ratling."
"I told you so," Audria tells the halfling in a singsong voice after Rigo knocks some sense into him.
Rigo, with Audria and Salom watching on, threatens the Scathel... and backs up his words with enough force to make the thug desperately gasp for breath. His eyes, no longer glinting in the ratty way that they first were, roll back slightly and his features relax somewhat... the fight, such as it was, has been squeezed from him...
Meanwhile, rushing ahead - and deeper into the labyrinth of alleyways, Alexis and Moira shout out to the fleeing man - and this time something, only the funereal Moira would know what, causes their quarry to stop...
...and collapse in fits of uncontrollable laughter - a horrid, squealing giggling that echoes along the darkened lanes in a perverse way.
"Might want to start talking, Rigo looks like he's not happy with you trying to bite him. Tell us, have you seen a man with a swan tattoo around," she asks.
Yes! Yes! Burn him if he doesn't speak! Burn him slow!
Should I? No, I shouldn't. It'd be wrong; it'd be cruel.
Would it be any crueler than the rest of the world? Would it be any crueler than burning you and beating you and leaving you to die?
No, but I shouldn't.
But we want to.
Rigo bares a lot of savage looking teeth, and growls. "I know what you are, I can smell it. I know what you did, biting the girl. Tell the girl what she wants to know, or you'll get your own bite, and then get burned alive."
Any petulance or pretence of bravery is gone from the pinned Scathel, and the transformation that had seen his rodent features become so prominent is now starting to reverse... leaving in place nothing more than a poorly nourished halfling, "Seen lots of tattoos miss.... you wanna get a mark, a memento or some art then you could do worse than come to Festival..."
...the man is clearly obfuscating, trying buy some time for one reason or another - but it is nothing that a slight flexing of Rigo's claws won't fail to fix, "Okay... okay... you're after that man who was working for the Grasts, yes? Nasty fellow he was - something about him that made Pa Scathel sit up an' take notice... 'e weren't no friend of the Family if you get my meaning? Anyways, we 'ad eyes on him... wanted to know what 'e was up to and where he was sniffin' about. And then one day, he jus' goes and disappears".
It takes a final bit of persuasion from Rigo but the Scathel does have a little more to share, "We were watching the pier... the man, went by the name of Uriah, he was working for your damned circus. See, he never left there... one evening he went to work - an' he ain't been seen since. Say, you lot work for the Grasts... why ain't you askin' them this stuff?"
"Because we want to know what you know, not what we know! Idiot!" Rigo tightens his claws into the ratling again. "How long have you been spying on the circus? And did you tell anyone about his vanishing?
What was your purpose today?"
Meanwhile Moira rushes up to the laughing Scathel and points her sword at the ratman.
"Hold it right there, partner! I'll tickle you with this next--and we've got your buddy. Stay calm and you both walk away. You were mad at him for biting me: tell me why or I'll skewer you."
Moving to the other side of the the giggling halfling and aiming her blade as well, "I would answer if I were you."
Seeing that the others have the two halflings in hand, Audria finds a perch for herself and watches with a bemused smile.
The fight gone from him now, the halfling pinned by Rigo - by now, the ratty features have entirely subsided - complains about the weight of the large tabaxi, "We were just sent here to warn you off - the Grasts have been musclin' in on our business in Liquorice ever since they took over the Circus Macabre. This is our patch and the Scathels ain't gonna take this lyin' down"
...and, as far as it is possible to tell, the halfling doesn't seem to be lying.
Meanwhile, further along the alleyways, Moira's sword - pointed with certainty at her captive's chest - also gets answers. The laughter that the halfling had been afflicted with subsides quickly and leaves the Scathel with no ambiguity about his predicament, "Okay!!! Look, it just ain't right... you haven't been chosen for the gift. Scathel shouldn't grow the ranks of Grast... he was stupid to do that and he will be punished..."
"So this gift, what is it? I mean, we've all got our own special talents, but most of them don't require us to get bit first."
Moira is her usual oblivious self.
"Oh, brother. I've got a really, really bad feeling about this. You say you're growing the ranks of the Grasts... but doesn't this mean that I'm a Scathel? Oh, brother. Ha."
"You're a Keening, as far as I can tell," Salom offers politely from behind the situation. "Is there a way to prevent the effects of this gift?" he asks the Scathel.
"Pretty sure we would rather return it since I doubt we can sell it."
Shifting her wrist and crouching down with her blade still pointed at the halfling, "We don't want a fight, even if it is obvious that we won this one. So you get to live if you keep your family away from me and mine."
"I dunno, I think we should pay them back a little first," Audria says as a small, cruel smile twists the corners of her mouth. "Maybe their boss will forgive them of their obvious stupidity if we make it clear." The air around Audria becomes uncomfortably warm as she holds up her fingers and starts rubbing her fingers together, giving off some faint sparks. "wouldn't even need a branding iron to do it."
The Scathel thug captured by Moira sneers back at the group, an ill-advised thing to do given his predicament and Audria's rising ire, "Not everyone is worthy of the gift... maybe your body won't take to it or maybe you'll be half blood mongrel - forever on the edge of change. Ain't no taking the gift back though..."
The conversation, one sided as it was, comes to a sudden end when the shapes that had been emerging from the shadows become dinmy illuminated halflings... climbing over crates, wagons and detritus in a way that is decidedly non-halfling, they hiss as they approach, "Let our brother go... thissss is Sssscathel territory... Grasssst, family or not, you are nottt welcome"
...their voices are lispy and full of sibilants - and, glinting slightly in the gloom, they are all carrying steel.
Salom can't shake the feeling they've been ratted out. He glances up and around nervously.
"Oh, look at the time! It is getting rather late, isn't it, dear hearts? Mayhaps we can continue this conversation another time."
"If you insist,"] Audria says, noticing the nervousness in Salom's voice and deciding against the voice's wishes to not burn the rats to a crisp.
"We don't really want to start a brawl here, do we? If it makes them less antsy, we can just let them have this alley."
Glaring down at the halfing who is ignoring her before glancing up at Audria. Great she is getting bloodthirsty. Looking up and smiling, "Sure, lets go."
Moira glares at her--kin? She hauls the Scathel to his feet and shoves him towards the rat pack. Then she follows her friends out of the alley, brooding.
Discretion, it seems, is the better part of valour... with little chance of overcoming the increasingly poor odds, the group elect to release their captives - who are emboldened once more - and back out of the alleyway. Several of the Scathels, their hands resting upon their belts just enough to show the hilts of the daggers that they are carrying, follow the group until they are back in the square... and then, ducking out of sight, they are gone.
All told, from the moment that the Scathels beckoned the group over to now - with the rival family having 'scurried' out of view - no more than half an hour can have passed... yet, as storm clouds start to rumble ominously overhead, the mood in the streets has changed. No longer are the townsfolk meandering through the streets, enjoying the fayre and planning their evening's entertainments - instead they are ducking into sidestreets, into bars or gathering beneath awnings... it would seem that a hard rain is coming and that the time for selling the attractions of the Circus Macabre may have passed...
Whatever fire was lit in Audria is doused as she sees the clouds gathering and the people fleeing for shelter.
"We should go back. There's no use letting the signs get ruined if no one's going to see them."
Moira sings softly to herself
"I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
It's a hard rain's.... gonna fall..."
Otherwise she keeps quiet as she slouches back to the circus, hat pushed forward over her forehead, collar turned up to keep out the wind.
Sighing, "So are we not gonna look for the tattoo guy or Aishe?"
"Our information leads us straight back to the circus where, it seems, the heart-stopping thrills are aptly named."
"Are we going to be using the storm to sneak into the house they use?"