Zeph sighs in relief, impressed with Aemon's quick thinking. His hands press against his stomach wound to stem the blood.
"Ah yes the guard, good, you wait here for the guards while we catch up on some more errands maybe?" Pyrrha says looking to the others while she heads towards the back exit. "Those not wanting to bother the guards are free to join me. "
"I'm with you, Pyrrha.
Zeph rises unsteadily to his feet, he tears his own shirt and ties a strip around his wound tightly. "No use leaving if someone can follow the trail of blood." He follows after Pyrrha slowly.
Seeing Zeph and Ahto struggling through their wounds, Kierana reaches out to each with a gentle caress, intoning her healing incantations.
There. Now there shall be no trail to follow.
Ahto nods and gives a smile of thanks to Kierana. He then walks over to the fallen sailor who started the brawl.
"Poor sport, this one," he says, kneeling beside the unconscious man. "But he owes me my winnings, plus expenses."
Ahto quickly rummages through the man's clothes until he finds his coin purse.
"Alright, let's get out of here," he says to the others as he takes another moment to put his lamellar back on and re-buckle his weapon harness.
Aemon stands his ground, glancing around at his companions but never taking his sword-tip from the thugs.
As the party leaves the Crow's Nest through the back door, you can already spot a few of those who scattered at the start of the fight looking for the Guard, but none have approached the tavern yet itself. While battered and bruised, the party now has a lead; a man by the name of Eran in the Puddles. While bystanders still scramble to call the guard to the scene of the brawl, the party has an easy avenue to leave the carnage behind on the way to their next objective. While Eran presents a tempting target, gathering information from Johnny might also provide some valuable insight.
What do you do?
"The Puddles are a good place to lay low, with heat on us. We can track down this Eran chap while avoiding getting pinched. Even the people that live there would rather be somewhere else. I think the guards would find better things to do than to chase after us in there," Ahto offers, still nursing the half-healed cut on his ribs.
"I hope that sorry sack of sea biscuits had some decent coin," he grumbles, looking into the pouch he took off the man.
"Why sure the Puddles is as good as any place for now. No more fighting bouts or matches for you Ahto; its too much trouble."
"Agreed"
Aemon, now back to regular size, is shaking his head.
"Never mind dangerous, that was insanity. We left one man dead, another might die from his wounds, and I feel like the last two would have fought to the death if I hadn't made them back down. What possibly could have possessed those men to lose their minds over a friendly bout like that?"
He sighs.
"At least they did back down. Leaving a man dead in a bar fight leaves a bad taste in my mouth."
"Blood leaves a bad taste in my mouth," Ahto replies, "especially when some bully boy sailor decides he can't handle losing and decides to gut me like a sea bass. What I hate is that this ruckus will be noticed, and it will make it harder to make our way around town without drawing attention."
"To the Puddles then is it?" Zeph sighs, "I don't expect we will have an easier time there than we did here. I can see more dead men and more blood in our future." This is all madness, but... all I can do is keep moving forward, I certainly cannot abandon my friends now.
Kierana shakes her head at Aemon's comment. What matters it why they began the altercation? Drink, demons, dastardly schemes - what matters is that they began it. And we finished it, thanks be to the Savored Sting.
But I am in accord - let us go to the Puddles. And quickly. Ahto is correct; this will certainly make subterfuge more difficult, as if the Nymph yesterday hadn't done enough on that account already.
As the party makes their way through Absalom's streets, they manage to avoid any confrontations with the guard. Once out of the Docks, the guards don't seem to be actively searching for them anymore, and they can move with relative freedom. It takes them a few hours to reach the Puddles, and by the time they arrive the sun has begun to dip low towards the horizon. If they don't find Eran here soon, they'll either have to head back to the Zephyrion farm or make camp in one of the dilapidated buildings. Left to rot by the rest of Absalom, the entire district is comprised of broken down buildings and flooded streets, and as the party wades through ankle-deep water they can feel the eyes of squatters on them. The Puddles are home to all of Absalom's disenfranchised; criminals, addicts, and the poor all make their homes among this earthquake-ravaged district.
Other than the man's general description--tall, blonde and likely not too bright--you don't have much to go on in finding Eran here. A cold wind blows in from the cliff face, stirring up the water at your feet. What do you do?
"I hate the Puddles, truth be told. No one ever wants to come here. It's dank, it's smelly; just thieves robbing and killing each other for the most part. This Eran fellow knows it's a great place to lay low. Now we gotta find him in all this."
"Now that we're here, I've got no idea where to start looking," he says, sighing in frustration.
"I spent a little time here, and I wouldn't know either. It's a bit of a dire-rat eat dire-rat world out here."
Zeph peers around warily as they walk, why did it have to be this place?. "I'm not a fan of this place either, spend as little time here as I can. This could get ugly if we spend too long wandering about looking suspicious."
"We need to go to the Siphons. If we're lucky our man is there, if we're not, 'Grand-master' Torch might let us know where if we're willing to part with more coin." The title was emphasized with an eye roll and a drawn out pronunciation of the word, but Pyrrha begins to head to the Siphons without so much more as an explanation as to why she is so familiar with the puddles; too familiar.
"Grand-master...what? Okay. Off we go."
As Pyrrha leads the party towards the cliffs, you notice the splashing attracts the attention of the residents, who watch you intently from the dilapidated buildings. None of them move towards you or attempt to stop the party, but they clearly talk amongst themselves and even trudge off towards others, presumably informing them of the party's presence in the Puddles. Even so, the rest of the way remains uneventful, until Pyrrha leads the party towards a large section of pavement that has been broken and pulled apart, exposing a large metallic tunnel beneath their feet; the entrance to the Siphons. The faint stench of sewage wafts up towards the party, mixing with the brine of the nearby sea. While dropping down does necessitate some degree of care, it shouldn't be too hard to get down or climb back up.
Korihor stops short. "Tell me again, why? Why are we doing this?"
"Because we'd like to know who's trying to kill us, instead of waiting around for them to do it again at their convenience?" Ahto responds in an atypically pointed tone.
Perhaps realizing he sounded a bit too much like Pyrrha. He pauses, and takes a breath.
"We're in survival mode. We gotta hunt or be hunted," he adds, with considerably less irritation in his voice.
"Drawing one's hands away from the fire would be survival. No, this is about settling the score now. No transgression overlooked, no harm forgiven, every last one." Pyrrha finishes saying with a clenching jaw as she moves forward first, taking care more as a demonstration than a necessity. "Watch your step. The footing and holds here can be tricky. We're lucky it hasn't rained recently."
"My mum used to say something like that." Korihor says whistfully. "No good deed goes unpunished."
" Your mother was being sardonic. Everyone suffers in their way, no one gets a break."
"No, I think she just didn't like me trying to help. Things always went sideways, it seemed. Once, I tried to bathe the neighbors cat, after it got all muddy in a rainstorm. It lost all its fur, for some reason. I was always in trouble for trying to help out with something."
Zeph listens to the cynical conversation in silence. While he couldn't help but agree with the others he heard a voice that sounded suspiciously like Dahlia in the back of his mind, questioning their right to to take revenge. He squashed the voice and grit his teeth, Dahlia is dead. People like these killed her. He nods to Pyrrha and follows her into the tunnel.
"It doesn't matter if you were trying to help if you mess things up all the time. Poor cat."
The party drops down into the abandoned Siphons, the waterways carrying away what water has dripped down from the Puddles. They find themselves in what appears to be a network of tunnels and rooms, all cordoned off through doors that were likely once installed by the city. They now sit, rusted by exposure and clearly warped from moisture, and the locks have likely rusted away to nothing. The room they fall into has two doors off the main room, and another farther down a southern corridor. The gentle roar of the ocean echoes off the stonework, loud enough that you almost need to shout to one another to be heard. The water here is not so deep, not quite submerging your feet, but it still produces quite a bit of noise.
What do you do?
* * * * *
After a moment, you spot something lying in the pool towards the top of the room. Taking a closer look, you notice a brick has been removed from its place, and a small sack was put in its place. The sack contains three small vials of glowing liquid; two potions of Cure Light Wounds and one of Shield of Faith.
* * * * *
With a little bit of examination, you see what look like claw marks gouged into the stonework. If you examine the sword with Detect Magic you detect a faint magical aura, but it seems to be fading ever so slowly.
Korihor pushes uselessly on the door to the west in the main room. "No way I'm budging this...they're jammed."
"I might be able to," Ahto replies, "but it most certainly won't be quiet."
"Are we trying to be quiet?"
"Noise or no noise, we have to move on. I say make the best of it and move quickly so we can catch anyone who tries to run when they hear sounds."
"Alright, enough talk then," Ahto says, putting his shoulder to the western door and giving a shove.
As Ahto slams his shoulder into the door, its rusted lock snaps and the door swings open. The room is much like the first, but the uneven floor has led to a stagnant pool of water trickling down towards the northern wall of the room. Other than that, two more doors stand in this room, but the southernmost door stands open, revealing a T-shaped hallway leading in three different directions, but one of them clearly leads back the way you came. The westernmost door still remains shut, leading farther into the labyrinth of the Siphons. While it takes a moment, it looks as though the other doors aren't as rusted as the first, and would likely open and close a little more easily; not to mention close behind you.
"Which way now?" Ahto asks, looking to Pyrrha, "or will this Torch fella come to us, now that we're wandering around his turf?"
Let's hope we don't need the Torch." Pyrrha says walking over to a seemingly random spot on the wall and pulls a sack made to look like a brick from the wall. She pulls three vials out. "Healing salves and protection oil."
"Those may come in handy soon, in fact I could use one of those healing salves right now if no one objects. South or west next?"
* * * * *
After a moment, you can place the smell in the room. It smells something like an alleyway, and then it finally hits you; rats. The room smells overwhelmingly of wet fur and rat droppings, but more so than you'd expect from a simple rat colony. Looking around, you do spot what almost look like large nests pushed farther back into the room, although they look largely abandoned.
* * * * *
With a little bit of examination, you see what look like claw marks gouged into the stonework. If you examine the sword with Detect Magic, you detect a faint magical aura but it seems to be fading.
"Split the difference," Ahto replies, laying his shoulder into the southwestern door.
"Whew, what a smell!" It smells like a nest of dead rats in here."
"Among other things." Pyrrha adds.
After examining the network of chambers south of the room, you find only two more doors leading away from the room; one back towards the east while the other heads farther south into the tunnels.
* * * * *
With a little bit of examination, you see what look like claw marks gouged into the stonework. If you examine the sword with Detect Magic, you detect a faint magical aura but it seems to be fading.
Opening the South door, Ahto instinctively reaches for the axe at his belt as the smell of blood and death fills his nostrils.
"Something went down here," he says to the others in a warning tone.
He cautiously enters the room and examines the corpse, revealing the wounds and the sack of coins.
Following behind Ahto, Pyrrha wrinkles her nose, and casting detect magic to observe the room. Then she raises an eyebrow over Ahto's shoulder. "Did the dead guy give it away, or the fact that no one bothered to pilfer his purse. We could use that money." Pyrrha cautiously moves toward the corpse to pick over his valuables.
Despite Pyrrha's caution, she approaches the body without any trouble. While certainly off-putting, the body doesn't appear to be anything more than that. As she picks over his valuables, it's obvious that even with the damage his chain shirt is likely quite valuable, and could probably be easily repaired. The work is well-done, much better quality than one might expect from a standard smith. While his body has begun to stiffen, it's surprisingly easy to maneuver the corpse to get at his things, meaning he likely hasn't been dead for very long. No doors lead away from this room, meaning the party will need to pick a different path to continue on. As far as they know, they've only found two other paths; one from the room they just left, and another closer to their entrance point.