Tessa pauses and looks back to Erick, clearly not what she expected to find behind the door. She responds,
After speaking she relays the contents of the room to her companions in quick short bursts. Afterwards she whispers quietly to her group, "Gavin. Bedu. One of you get in here and weave some words like you do. Ismaire, there's a reptile in here. Can you ID it?"
Erick waits for Gavin or Bedu to speak, but those who've been with him for awhile can tell he's got something to say eventually...
Bedu takes his cue from Tessa and slips into the room and stays near the door against the wall. He slides his left hand down the front of his robe and smooths it down, picking a speck of bugbear juice off as well.
"Bedu Bakander at your service, madam. My mother said it is politeness itself to introduce myself and with your interesting offer to take us on it would be pleasant to begin with your moniker too, please." With a bow.
The halfling grins at the lady and her reptile beyond the bed.
"Oh and it would be pleasant to meet with the other Vanderboren...Valanthus too. Perhaps we can discuss everything at once over a quiet drink and some macaroons?"
Gavin stands against the wall, just out of sight, ready to spring into action as the opportunity presents itself. The reluctant priest has nothing to say to this woman. She was involved with, and perhaps even responsible for, Gavin's family tavern burning down. Her fate would be the same as the rest, once Bedu wrangled what information he could from her.
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"Well... you heard my voice and you will soon see my face one way or the other so no reason to keep the secret, you can call me Rowyn, as in Rowyn Kellani, heiress of the Kellani family."
at the mention of Vanthus name Rowyn giggles.
"Is this what is this all about? Vanthus? As far as I know you met already, not the most pleasant meeting I reckon but you are out of luck, Vanthus is not here at the moment, as a matter of fact by now he probably isn't in Sasserine neither."
The woman sighs
"So what would that be? allies or enemies?"
"No macaroons? Perhaps our leader, the Owner of the sword Bloodthirster, the Dreadful Deadeye, Erick Bonestihl will step forward to complete the deal. However beforehand while he listens and decides perhaps you can sweeten the pot and tell me what we get in return for our obvious talents? What share are you offering as a start for our discussion?"
Bedu smiles at the reptile, "a crested felldrake, not a creature I see often as a pet. Hard to tame and feed."
The halfling looks back through the door briefly to see if Erick is happy for the conversation to continue or intends to step forth.
Erick listens, and then pushes his hat up with his pistol barrel. "Well, now... see, I do have to agree with the lady about the Lady Vanderboren. She's quite naive, and we're all as likely as not to get killed taking her coin as not, mainly because she's not likely to see reason about her brother, when the push comes to the shove. And I have to agree with her as well that working for her would likely be a better decision in the long run, as far as money and safety goes..." He shakes his head. "Me and my Mentor always butted heads over stuff like this. One thing he and I did see eye to eye on though... When a man takes someone's coin, he keeps his oath, or he ain't much of a man..." The gun snaps down toward the drake and he pulls the trigger.
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The beast respond with a growl of pain and rage and charging forward outside the room. Bares his fangs and try to take a bite out of Erick.
but all the beast can bite is hard metal.
Rowyn herself follow suit getting out of the room, she moves in a circular pattern almost as if she was dancing and moves around Erick.
and position herself on his other flank, produces herself in a bow and smiles at Erick
"Let us Dance, shall we..."
she says as she resumes her twirling on the spot. There is clearly no mockery in that act as every movement of that dance seem to do nothing to lower her guard or put her at any disadvantage.
Tessa shouts, "Bedu, get out of there and let me take a crack at this piece of work. Also, some musical accompaniment would be fantastic."
Spinning into the room with her rapier lashing forward towards the woman she asks, "Dancing? Without me? That's jut rude!"
The little halfling breathes in at the sight of such quick reactions, then he points at the girl and murmurs a few soft words round the corner of the doorway.
Then he steps back to let the others fight.
Erick steps to the side, dropping the pistol for now, figuring if he survives he can pick it up later, and if not, he won't be concerned. Both hands move to his ring sword. "Now now, if we're going to dance, I should have been informed. These hob-nail boots aren't fit for dancing..." He brings the sword around in a slash at the woman as he moves to deny the duo a flanking position.
Ismaire gestures forward with her hand, and Cormag springs to life running past Gavin and into the room. He stops next to the other creature and attacks it. His talon misses its mark however. Ismaire stays behind Gavin, trying not to get in the way of everyone else.
Gavin Bot
Gavin touches Tessa and suddenly she feels a wash of goodness drench her body, she is covered in holy energy briefly as it seeps into her skin.
His words are as strange as normal but the effect may help Tessa some.
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Tessa tries to attack Rowyn but the hit is deflected as she twirl her blade keeping up with her dance. When Erick strikes the blades connect again, but the sheer force of the blow do not allow the guildmistress to deflect it completely as the blade draws a deep cut on her flank
Distracted maybe by the pain she seem to weaken not only in body but also in mind as Bedu's magic does it work on her and make her hesitant and dancing no more.
Her pet, seeing her master injured moves in her defense.
He finds his sword arm and he bites hard in the attempt to defend her.
Bedu starts to exhort the party to greater efforts and his voice sounds back up the corridor and into the chamber where the rest are fighting for their lives.
"By the power of our arms let us triumph for Gavin's parents and all others that the Lotus Dragons have hurt with their evil!"
A shiver shoots down Tessa's spine when GavinBot protects her from some potential baddies. Using Bedu's inspiration she lashes out at the creature before her with her rapier, preparing to parry in case of a counterattack. She repeats "For his parents!" as she thrusts the blade forward.
Erick tries to bring the sword around into the now danceless woman's side, but the creature hanging off his arm makes the blow go wide. Looking down, he grunts as blood drips down the thing's muzzle. "Good gecko, I'm sure your mistress is proud. But if you don't shut up and sit in the corner, I'm going to make a new cloak out of your hide..."
Stepping forward, Gavin grabs a javelin from his pack and throws it at the creature by Tessa. "යන්න!"
Ismaire, unable to get a good view on any of the people they are fighting, stays in place and yells at Cormag to continue his attacks.
Round 2
Unable to see the action directly, Bedu keeps up his rain of words, inspired by Erick's blunt comments and Gavin's family and their home, his invective gets a little louder as he shouts.
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Tessa plunges her sword in the dragon, an act that surely instigate his enmity.
The creature aims for her throat
the flightless dragon aimed for Tessa's throat and almost closed its jaws on what could have been easily a life ending bite.
But the dragon bit the steel of Tessa's sword instead, masterfully placed in the way.
With the dragon firmly locking its jaws on the blade, Tessa lifted the creature from the ground by raising her sword.
Enraged by being treated like a dog, the dragon opened its jaw freeing the sword intentioned to attack again, only then he realized the mistake and the fact that Tessa was waiting for this all along.
As soon as the jaw opened and she felt that the sword was free, Tessa redirected the blade towards the creature mouth and pushed into it several inches of polished steel, the dragon tried to close the mouth again to stop the blade but it was already too late, when the jaws closed on the rapier they were biting the guard. the dragon led down lifeless along the blade in a pool of its own blood.
At that sight Rowyn reacted with rage and horror, She looked into Tessa's eyes and said "you will pay for this" as she grabbed a wand and pointed it at the corpse of her pet.
The dragon twitched and then rose up again, the cunning and ferocity in his eyes replaced by the blank stare of the undead.
Erick frowns. "Someone shove that wand up her nose... or another part of her anatomy..." He brings the sword down on the zombie creature...
"Come on Gavin! For your parents who died at the hands of this she-worm, shouts the halfling
When Rowyn's creature rises again, something in Gavin breaks. The young man pushes past Tessa to the other side of the zombie, and brings his flail around towards the creature's head screaming in rage.
"තේ ලව්ස් ඔෆ් නටුරේ මුස්ට් බේ රෙස්පෙච්ටෙඩ්!"
Fueled by her expertly placed attack on the dragon, Tessa steps over and thrusts her rapier at Rowyn. Smirking she taunts "I think you're on the wrong side of things lady. Perhaps an apology to Gavin would go a long way, no?" Tessa prepares to quickly dodge away from her opponent, hoping to keep Rowyn focused on her and let Erick finish her off.
Round Three
"An apology written in your blood! Faithless thief and cold hearted killer I name you Rowyn. Heroes I name those that slay you. Come on heroes, come on!"
Cormag continues his assault on the woman, not even noticing the small dragon fall and stand back up.
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The beast gets maimed and slashed and bashed by the party, Cormag though directs his aim towards the guildmistress herself. its talon hitting her leg leaving a bloody mark on her.
She can see that no matter what this fight is not going well for her, especially when her enemies will manage to dispatch her late pet and focus their attacks on her.
So she reaches for her belt, removes the cork from a vial with a flick of her thumb and throws the green liquid inside it down her throat
in less than a second the figure of Rowyn start to fade as if she was no longer made of solid flesh and was breaking down in a cloud of gas.
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slashes fly on Rowyn direction but she expertly dodges them all with her usual dancing pattern until she is too dissolved to be hit again, one of the last things she says before seeping through some small holes on the floor is "mark my words lackeys, we will meet again, and you will repent turning down my proposition"
The undead dragon, lacking both direct instructions from its master and a will of its own, gets easily cut down a second time.
After that, silence, broken only by the sound of the burning torches. It appears that you indeed just defeated the dreaded Lotus dragons in their own turf, but still no sign of Vanthus. Maybe the chambers of the guildmistress could still hold some clue on his whereabouts
When the silence grows and the gas is gone, Bedu pops his head around the corner and grins at the cut down lizard then frowns, "my little eyes are not at their best. But it would seem that you do not have the body of Rowyn. She is under the bed, perhaps? No. I am sorry Gavin but she promised you would have another chance to kill her."
The halfling starts looking for anything of use in the rooms, whistling as he goes. But it slowly stops as he gets busy.
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On the lounge, the bookshelves on the north holds several minor objects of value. The book themselves are novels, mostly adventure stories or erotica, none of particularly high value. Some of the statuettes are valuable though, including an alabaster statuette of a succubus worth 450 gp, an onyx statuette of a displacer beast worth 200 gp, and a silver statuette of a rearing unicorn worth 700 gp.
The stuffed animals consist of small but dangerous creatures like striges, cobras, small monstrous spider, and even what looks to be a giant shrew the size of a cat. None of those are worth much more than a few gold coins.
Two coffers on the shelves are jewelry boxes, one of darkwood and one of Iron each worth 250 gp, the first containing seven silver and gold chain necklaces and bracelets worth a total of 400 gp, the second containing dozen rings and earrings worth a total of 750 gp.
The wooden cuboard contains several different articles of clothing sized for a human woman, including 3 courtier's outfit, a noble outfit and a flowing (and scandalous) robe of shimmering lavender silk that looks like the most precious piece here.
In the bedroom, a search of the dressing table turns up a large collection of exotic and expensive perfumes, 24 vials in all.
20 of these are worthy 10 gp a piece but the last four are truly exotic imports from places with names like Nirvana, Elysium and Leng. each of these vials is worth 200 gp. The final vial comes from a place named Midnight Isles, and contains six doses, each worth 200 gp although you reckon that a perfume this intoxicating could be of use.
this is what you find with a very quick search of the room but you are sure that with a more accurate search the room of a thieves guildmistress is likely to hide more than just fancy clothes and perfumes.
"Let's all take our time and go through this place like our lives depended on it." He begins to tap on the wall with a knuckle, after retrieving his pistol and reloading it.
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while searching the bed with care you find a cache of letters hidden between the mattreses. These letters are Vanthus; they are exceptionally racy love letters written to Rowyn and dating back several weeks. Taking your time to read them you manage to isolate a few pieces of interesting information from them.
another finding in the room is a secret door on the north eastern corner of the room. You find the keyhole but the door seems to be locked and the key is nowhere to be found, probably in the hands of Rowyn herself.
"Well, we have proof of patri and matricide by Vanthus, and proof of the dock master's being bribed. That should go a long way to securing our employer's position. Also, if we can find these pirates before Vanthus, we could warn them of his plans." He gets an absolutely evil grin on his face. "I think they might skin him alive and keel haul him, what do you think?" He rubs his chin, obviously enjoying the thought. "As to the door, if we can't pick the lock, we could break it down or blow up the lock."
Ismaire can't help but shudder at hearing the idea of someone being skinned alive. "I know these people have done wrong to you all and our employer but I have only been with you all for a few short hours." Ismaire pauses for a moment, a bit shy to speak out. "What I'm trying to say is that I don't see how one of them could deserve such a painful and horrible end."
Erick hands the letter sections to Ismaire. "Hmm, let's see, he burned his own parents, and their crew, alive, and masturbated while he watched. Then he trapped us in a pit hoping we'd starve to death, or better yet eat each other to avoid so. He did the same thing to his ally, and we found his body. He probably had a hand in burning down Gavin's family inn, not sure if anyone died in that one, but he probably watched and hoped. He plans on putting multiple ships to fire so he can watch the people burn alive. You ever seen someone burn alive? Their muscles contract until they break their own bones. It's one of the worse ways to go. This piece of human filth gets his jollies watching people burn alive... So yeah, I'd say after all that, he at least deserves death via burning at the stake himself. Skinning alive isn't half as painful."
Gavin scowls. "I'm sure he had a hand in the arson of my parents' tavern. He deserves everything that's coming to him, and he'll get more when his soul passes onto judgement."
Tracing his fingers along the door, Gavin turns to Bedu. "Think you can open this?"