Zyrel backs away a little, and murmurs the spell to send whispered words to Elsa's ears. "People in the back room. Aware of your presence."
Elsa looks at the whimpering man.
Leave. Never come back if you value your life
She looks at the internal door.
They know we are here. Get ready
If needed, she renews her mage armour
"You got it.", replies Kristleifur, suddenly approaching a serious tone. For a moment.
He stops looting baked goods, grabs his rifle with one hand, and clicks his fingers with the other.
And his appearance promptly starts breaking into an indistinct haze, his grin just about visible.
Zyrel steps a little further back in the alley and quickly enchants his bow - a minor enchantment, but enough to turn the tide in a difficult fight.
The party makes their preparations and assembles outside the door to the back. Words in an almost alien language can be heard, and odd vapors begin to billow from beneath it.
Something bizarre is happening.
Kristleifur is practically twitching.
"Let's do this!", he quips, as he slinks along the wall, ready to sneak in.
Someone big kick the door in. go!
Elsa drinks an antitoxin.
One of the party members bashes the door down, and smoke billows out into the room. Colors wisp past the party making most vision nearly impossible. A voice yells out from within the room, "What in the Hells was that for?"
Elsa sniffs. Uncouth louts. She replies.
It was in the way. Are you coming out, or not.
Elsa moves to the side of the door. Then she goes quiet.
Kristleifur didn't see who kicked in the door but he's glad that someone did!
He stays in the shadows, looking for a target for his new rifle.
”We ain’t comin’ unless you’re willing to talk!”
"We are always willing to talk", Armanus spoke with a silky menace. "For those who are willing to listen."
Kristleifur says nothing, still waiting to see if jaw-jaw or war-war is about to start.
He keeps peering at the smoke, hoping to see someone or something of interest.
A brief discussion can be heard, too quietly to make out anything specific, before two
men and a woman come outside. The men hold rifles and the woman is unarmed, though wrappings on her hands suggest unarmed skill. She says coldly, ”Why in the Hells did you kick down my door?”
Zyrel lurks down the alleyway. Like Kristleifur he waits quietly and readies himself to fight, while Armanus engages.
Did you think you would get away with interfering with the pesh shipments? Or are you that foolish? Came out here, without weapons, and you will likely live. Or stay in there and likely not.
Then she moves to keep her location indistinct
The woman’s face pales slightly at Elsa’s intimidating display, ”Listen, we’ve been short on funds, bakery hasn’t been doing well. I guess gnolls don’t like bread. We started taking mercenary work for, eventually ended up working someone named Brinagar, said he needed pesh shipments to Dogtown disrupted. Things have gotten strange since then.”
Kristleifur keeps looking, eager to have something to do, but relishing the excitement of not knowing what will happen next.
"I see, so you're just hired help?" Erick rubs the side of his nose. "In that case, busting your skulls isn't really what we were hired to do. We're supposed to find out who is messing with the Pesh. Knocking hired hands around doesn't really do that. So, tell you what, let's come to an understanding. We need information on who hired you, and you need to not get your head busted by our bosses. What say we trade? You tell us who hired you, and we tell our bosses we investigated, and you weren't really involved, but we found some leads that led us to who was. Makes us look good, gets the heat off you. Right?"
Elsa sees erick's plan and supports it
it really is your best option here. I would come clean
A gnome waits, slightly less twitchy with *something* happening.
”A fella named Brinagar hired us, said he needed less pesh and more slag in Katapesh. We meet with him every month or so, just to coordinate ops. Still, understanding doesn’t buy food. Unless you can help us out, we’re gonna have to keep doing what we’ve been doing.”
Erik nods, rubbing his chin. "Interesting. We might be able to work something out after all. I understand about the eating thing." He turns to look at the rest of the group, trying to include all of them without singling out any one as maybe being the leader, taking on the obvious 'face' roll. "What do you think? They've done a decent job of disrupting the Pesh, think our most recent employer might hire them as adjuncts to guard their shipments?" Then he grins evilly. "After all, they'll soon be out of work, as Mr. Brinagar will soon be unable to pay anymore salaries..."
Kristleifur finally cracks and speaks up, likely not having been visible to any of the locals up until now:
"Yup! I think that deal will work out nicely!"
The woman in the front starts slightly at Kristleifur, ”What the...where did you... Gods, nevermind. If you can get us a better job than this, we’ll stop.”
Elsa looks a little stunned. Hiring the ones to be roughed up? She held her tongue and hoped their employer had a sense of humor.
"Sooo...we getting them a job then?"
The tiefling responded coldly, "I was not asked out here to help the lazy get employed. But to stop the slag shipments, which had better happen. Or else!"
Erick covers his face for a moment as Armanus tells the hired thugs their true purpose, rather than the cover story they'd been working on. "That's right, now that we know the person behind the slag shipments is doublecrossing our employer, we should absolutely stop his shipments as retaliation for doublecrossing our employer. You know, the nice Gnoll lady in the bar, who's paying us?"
The woman raises her hands and says, ”Woah there, don’t want any trouble, just like you. Guess I’ll tell you, gods. Brinagar’s holed up at a safehouse in the Nightstalls. Guys seriously paranoid, so getting to him is gonna be tough. Any case, my crew won’t pay for itself, and unless you can get us a contract with someone we might have to rumble.”
amateur hour Elsa rolls her eyes
oh please, if you were that much of a threat, you wouldn't be in this situation. You have an opportunity to get out of this intact, and you want payment? How about this. You don't give us any grief, and we will speak on your behalf to our boss to employ you. Otherwise, you are all going to have a very bad day
"And here we were trying to be nice!", says Kristleifur casually, as if he weren't casually holding an ornate rifle.
The woman sighs and says dejectedly, ”Whatever...just go...”
Zyrel, still hidden, waits patiently for a combat. 'It is good they talk first, I suppose. Not as impatient as most off the mayfly races.'
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The party makes their way through the winding streets of Katapesh until they finally reach the Nightstalls. Commodities of all sorts are sold here, from drugs to exquisite art to extraplanar artifacts. Tucked at the end of a small dark alley off of a slightly less small and dark alley is a heavy wooden door, a solid metal panel covering what was once a window.
"So. Many. Closed doors", the tiefling sighed.
we could knock?
Elsa recasts shield
these places will have a back door, probably several. Rats don't like only one entrance.
She looks up at the rooftops.
also they will likely have lookouts
Kristleifur nods, then sidles up to the wall.
Then tries to climb.
With a bit of time and effort, Kris manages to scramble up the wall. The view of the Nightstalls from the roof is impressive, the throngs of humanity greater than many other cities that Kris has been to. At the top of the building he isn't able to find much of note, aside from a small metal knob set onto the roof.
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Zyrel nods to his smaller companion, and starts to climb. He leaps to the top of a nearby bin, then to almost the top of a a nearby wall, immediately kicks off to land to the top of a roof overhang - and promptly passes straight through the desiccated wood and onto the ground with a loud crash and a cloud of dust.
Disgusted he grabs a chunk of overhang from the ground nearby. "Worm rotted, and they just painted over it."