The man on the porch startles, noticing several people basically charging towards him, and places a hand on his sword’s pommel as he stands up from his seat.
”What can I help you with this time? Another ‘friend’ you need help finding?” he calls out to the group threateningly, obviously done with your tricks and games.
"Nah, I figured out where he was. Turns out he was to the left of" in the middle of her sentence she throw a fist out at the guy while screaming "A KNUCKLE SANDWICH!"
The man, stunned by the sudden attack and fist to the face, is obviously not as ready as you thought he was for this fight.
Combat order:
Thomas
Enemy
Felicia
Gilda
Terrence
Thomas, you’re up!
Casting ray of enfeeblement
( against flat footed touch ac)
(dc14 fortitude for half)
Thomas shoots a ray of enfeeblement towards the man currently engaged in fisticuffs with Felicia, striking him in the chest with it. As if this poor man’s day wasn’t already bad enough!
He takes the strength sapping magic in stride, reaching out to punch back at Felicia, apparently aiming to injure.
She tries bring a fist up to block the punch, and just winds up getting her fist knocked into her face at force. Stumbling back a bit, a small growl escapes her lips as her hands go to grab the massive birch and bronze club from her back. Ripping it from its place, she brings it down in a swing at the man.
Gil tries to get behind the lookout and swings weakly with her cane.
Felicia’s surprisingly strong attack catches the guard off his game, but it doesn’t finish him off. It takes the doctor’s precise cane strike to finish off the man. He crumbles to the floor of the porch, slouching against one of the pillars holding the next floor up.
The way is clear for you to progress!
"Quickly now." Gil motions for Felicia to lead the way inside.
”Sorry, I should have asked earlier, but can all of you see in the dark?”
If there are no objections he’ll cast darkness on his sword.
“Hey! What do you think your doing?”
“It’ll blind anyone without dark vision.”
“Obviously. But how are they going to be able to admire me in action?”
“Well, hopefully they’ll be dead so...”
“The least we can is give them a good show first. Let them get a good look at my splendour.”
“They’ll feel your splendour.”
“True, but it still feels like we’re cheating them out of part of the experience.”
“Who knows, maybe they’ll have darkvision.”
“Perish the thought. You may have to do some actual work!”
She grins a bit as the man falls and then blinks at Thomas. "No, I can't see in the dark?"
With that, she'll charge in the front door, Tetsubo out.
Terrence nods to Felicia and the Doctor as they take down the man. "I cannot see in the dark either."
He smirks as Felicia charges in. He draws his two short swords and follows her in.
”Very well.” He’ll cast shield instead.
“Lucky you. You get to splendid in front of everyone.”
“Yes!”
Gil brings up the read as the group heads inside. "If it is any consolation, Thomas, my sight is not inhibited by the absence of light," she quietly confides.
”Noted.”
The front door is actually surprisingly unlocked, as the inhabitants clearly expected the guard to defend it better than he did.
Entering the foyer of what looks like a decadent mansion on the inside, Felicia is the first to be exposed to the richly designed interior of the house. Thick silk curtains drape on the entrances between rooms, colored in a darker bloody red, and the curves stair case directly in front of you making its way up to the next floor is made of carved wood. It appears to be one entire tree, shaped with magic and tools into the magnificent staircase before you.
The room that Terrence saw the assistant with the knife lies to the left, on the first floor, through a set of the crimson curtains.
As they enter the house, Terrence points in the direction of the room he saw the assistant with the knife. "Its that way." He says to Felicia, continuing to follow behind her.
She looks over at Terrence and nods, charging over in that direction with a shout. "KNOCK KNOCK, IT'S A RANDOM WOMAN! SHE WANTS TO SELL YOU A CLUB TO THE HEAD!"
Gil follows the others into the next room.
The next room over, behind a set of the flowing crimson curtains, is every bit affluent as the opening foyer of the house. A large wooden dining table occupied most of the room, with a marble fireplace taking up the wall opposite the table end of the room. The fireplace has an unusually blue-colored flame inside of it, although there doesn’t seem to be any wood or other fuel on the bricks.
It is front of this fireplace that you find the few figures Terrence saw through the window. Several people are bound at the hands and wrists on their knees next to the marble blocks.
As you push open the door and enters the room, the assistant is in the final steps of reading out some incomprehensible language. You can tell she is done because her voice rises in pitch and volume as she slides her knife across the throat of the closest victim and kicks the unfortunate woman into the blue flames. As she lay dying on the marble, the blue flames grow brighter and seem to reach out to her, engulfing her body completely. The flames crackle loudly, drowning out any screams of the dying woman before finally receding, revealing no trace of the woman’s body behind.
“Who are you to dare interrupt the ritual?!” the assistant cries out, the bloody knife dripping onto the floor. “Explain yourselves!”
No time to explain, only time to fight! She lets out a roar as she sees the poor woman die and charges at the assistant. "I'm the club salesman, would you like to sample my wares?!"
The woman, notably surprised by the sudden attack, cries out in pain before raising her knife, which closer to a short sword, threateningly. Her two accomplices in the room follow suit, drawing their own blades.
Order: Thomas, Terrence, Them, Felicia, and then Gilda.
roll + ability (INT) + rank + class skill + trait (Precise Treatment) + untyped (Skill Focus)
glance around to see who’s in charge and attack
“You see who’s in charge?”
“No. You meat bags all look the same to me.”
“Let’s just hit the lady with the knife.”
“Whatever. Let’s get to chopping!”
Swift action to infuse black blade (+2 for one min)
As Felicia and Thomas rush forwards, Terrence follows closely looking for an opening to strike. Once he finds a suitable
The lady cultist cries out in some strange language after getting hit with the blackblade and Terrence’s off hand, and thrusts her short sword out at Thomas.
The two other cultists follows suit, crying out and joining her, making sure to flank Terrence from one side and Thomas from the other.
"...HEY! Why're you attacking them? They aren't the woman with the GIANT CLUB about to bash your HEADS IN!" Just to prove a point, she tries to do that with the woman she attacked earlier.
"Er, yes, well, um... excuse me..." Gil lowers her shoulder and charges the cultist assistant that attacked Terrence.
roll + BAB + ability (STR) + untyped (charge)
Terrence shifts to stop being flanked by the cultists. He then attacks the cultist that tried to strike him twice.
Gilda charges forward, and just barely manages to push past the sword wielding foe that attacked Terrence, making her way over to the incapacitated victims.
The woman of the trio falls under the assault from Felicia, her sword clanging to the floor even as the other two enemies press forward. The two cultists move expertly together, re-flanking Terrence in the melee.
She brings the haft of her club up to block the swords strike, growling a little before shoving it back. Shifting the grip on her club, she spun around to bring the club down hard onto the cultist that attacked her.
Gil begins treating the first of the noncombatants, to stymie any bleeding.
roll + ability (INT) + rank + class skill + trait (Precise Treatment) + untyped (Skill Focus)
Felicia’s brutal strike on the second cultist is enough to finish him off, as he collapses to the floor under the force of the blow.
Seeing his two companions fall (to their actual death), the third cultist drops his sword and nods solemnly at the group of investigators, seeming to accept defeat.
But just seconds later his mouth starts to shake, unholy cries echoing from the man’s lips as his face starts to disintegrate, not unlike those wounds the unfamiliar weapon caused on your dear friend the Senator.
Within moments, the third cultist is dead.
She turns to the third cultist and blinks a couple of times as he surrenders, a small smile coming over her face. Which is washed away with horror as she stumbles back away from the man as his face disintegrates. Looking towards the others for confirmation that had in fact just happened, she could say the only thing appropriate for this situation. "WHAT THE HELL?"
Kneeling down as she continues treating the would-be sacrifices, Gil looks over her shoulder at the others. "Leave the dead and dying here to me. Find Alabastor. Sweep for more cultists. Search for further evidence that connects this incident to our case."
roll + ability (INT) + rank + class skill + trait (Precise Treatment) + untyped (Skill Focus)
Terrence gives a nod to the Doctor. He turns to Felicia. "The Doctor has the right idea. We need to search the rest of the house and make sure no one else is in danger and that the house is no longer occupied. I have no doubt that anyone else in here heard the commotion."
Terrence turns, motioning Felicia to follow.
"Are... Are we not gonna talk about the guy who's face just MELTED off?!" She waved her hand at the corpse that just a minute ago had their face disintegrated, but follows after all the same. Still slightly freaked out over the fact that just happened.
As they walk Terrence says quietly to Felicia. "Its disconcerting to see the body of someone disintegrate, but we can't do much about it for now."
Gilda is able to stabilize the three victims left tied up after you finish off the cultists. The three cultists themselves, however, remain actually dead.
The rest of the house is apparently unoccupied, as Alabastor has already vacated the premises.
The majority of the house is full of the more commonplace trappings of a wealthy Azorius’ dwelling, full of the color schemes of the Azorius. Overlaid above the general theme of blues, whites, and gold, however, is a more sinister layer of decorations more fitting a Rakdos torture house: spikes and wheels and altars and knives.
Upstairs in what appears to be a bedroom, Thomas and Gilda (once she’s done attending to the victims) find what looks like the main resting place of Alabastor. Plenty of discarded cups and plates and utensils mark this as a comfortable hangout area. On one of the dressers in said room, the two hawk-eyed investigators find a hastily burned journal, indicating someone wanted this evidence gone before you arrived here, but didn’t have time to finish the job. An open window in the same room that opens out onto the flat roof of the building lends credit to this theory. You apparently missed him by mere minutes, as the pages are still warm.
From what you can gather from the remaining material, Alabastor seems to have fled inside the one place outsiders (and more importantly, Azorius agents) aren’t allowed: Rix-Maadi, the Dungeon Palace. There seems to be a larger segment of the cult stationed inside the Palace, and that is where Alabastor has most likely made his escape to.
Gil considers the bits of the journal that were recoverable. "How shall we proceed, then?" She taps the beak of her mask absentmindedly with her right hand as she thinks allowed. "We could pursue Alabastor to the Dungeon Palace, but I imagine that to be quite a physically dangerous path. We could return and report our findings, perhaps confront the Senator, but I am worried that we lack the evidence to disrupt the Senator, and if he is indeed malicious, he has the authority to disrupt us in turn; dangerous, but in a more subtle way." She turns to the others. "What are your thoughts, then? The path of violent danger, the path of subtle danger, or some yet-unknown third path of which I have not conceived?"
"Pursuing him is far too dangerous, we are investigators not soldiers. Returning to the Arbiter doesn't seem the right path either." Terrence pauses for a moment pacing back and forth in contemplation. As he paces he continues. " Perhaps a meeting with Arrester Lavinia, to update her on the situation. The assistant to an Arbiter being involved with the Rakdos cult, is quite unnerving and makes this situation quite complex."