"Cut the s**t Lors." Riveh said, suddenly very tired. "Did you have any idea what Barley was? I distinctly remember you saying he was a 'person'. Well, he really, really wasn't. Frankly, I find it hard to believe even someone like you failed to notice he could swallow a man's head and had skin the color of old wallpaper. Save me the protestations of innocence Lors, I'm tired."
The anger slowly drained away though, and was replaced by resignation, "I'm not really in the mood to chat, Lors. Give me the name and an introduction, so we can be on our way. We did the deed you wanted, and I suppose I should thank you for 'helping' rid the city of some weird monster. Let's just call it square, all right? I don't want to come inside and I doubt you really want us here."
A sour grunt and the ifrit added, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder, Lors. Let's try it." Gods, Stig really was wearing off on him.
A twinge of annoyance passed the practiced mask of geniality as Riveh made it clear that he had no intention of playing along with the crook's theater. But it was gone as soon as it arrived. "Oh, you're selling yourself short, kid," he said fatherly, a grin playing upon his lips, at the suggestion of withholding information on the monstrous slum boss. "I had complete faith in your abilities. Besides, you're still alive and - relatively - whole, ain't ya? All's well that ends well."
A snide gaze roved across the ifrit's cheek and the Dame's arm at this observation, both less than entirely whole. A significantly more displeased look was reserved for Stig, however, who unlike the two younger members of the trio appeared largely unscathed. Better than when they had first approached Lors, in fact. "As for you being in a hurry," he went on, "beyond bein' hurt that you'd reject my hospitality, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that Brotherhood business isn't usually discussed on the open street. But I'll make an exception. For you. 'Cause I like you, kid."
With a nod of the head, the gorillas were directed to ring the immediate perimeter and dissuade anyone from approaching. With them in position, the crook smiled. "Here's the low-down, kid. You want the halflings? They're here in Crownsgate. 1198 Tributary Track, warehouse district along the channel. They're holed up an in abandoned depot. Go get 'em."
Wait, what? This was substantially more direct and simple, even helpful, information than Riveh had been prepared for. Suspiciously so actually, especially given the pleased smirk with which it had been delivered. And he wasn't the only one to think so. "The hell is this, Little?" the knight growled, clearly wary. "You can't just give up other members of the Brotherhood, not without expectin' a blade to your back. And don't you dare try to tell me the guild's changed since my time." Were they being lead into an ambush?
"Glad to see dementia hasn't set in yet, Skinny" Lors laughed. The ifrit didn't like this. The man was far too pleased with himself. "No, doin' so would mean death, it's true. If the little ankle-biters still were part of the church, that is. Which they aren't. They either defected or were excommunicated a few months back, depending on who you ask. You wanna talk to 'em? Kill 'em? Go ahead. Not my business."
"Explain. Now," Stig demanded. Lors obliged. "From what I understand, the cult of the halfling god was a minor, albeit occasionally useful, chapter within the larger church. They paid their dues, did their job and knew their place in the pecking order. Namely on the bottom rung. Except then they start gettin' ideas bigger than their dumb little heads. Some crazy firebrand of theirs starts speakin' up. And suddenly they've declared themselves a church unto themselves, separate from the Brotherhood of Silence: the Silent Circle." The Silent Circle, the organization named in Filibert's note. "'Course, the Brotherhood doesn't take kindly to this, but on the other hand it'd be a bad look to just murder what had been steadfast allies to the cause over a mere insult. So the higher-ups just elected to ignore them for now. Let them set up their own joke of a guild. Wasn't like they were ever going to become any real competition. And besides: stupid as these halflings were, the church would find a convenient excuse to eradicate 'em some day anyway."
The smile, not so false after all, faded a bit. "Which is exactly what happened last night. 'Cause apparently the Circle took part in the senate massacre. And for that the Brotherhood is going to kill every one of the fur-toed f*cks along with anyone they ever loved."
"Oh yes, of course!" Stig mocked. "Because we all know the Brotherhood are such f*ckin' patriots..."
"See, this is what you never understood, Stig." The crook's voice grew serious. "You never understood the economic benefits of solidarity. We may be a rat nest of thieves and murderers, but we are Taldan thieves and murderers. We don't go up against the system. We ingratiate ourselves into the system. That's how the church became what it is today. That's why we're one of the most powerful forces in the entire Inner Sea. And that's why the Brotherhood is planning to kill these little bastards as we speak. 'Cause sh*t like what happened last night is not just a travesty; it's bad for business."
Lors cleared his throat. "You wanna see the halflings, kid? I suggest you move fast."
So, things hadn't quite been what Lors had suggested before. This wasn't the case of Riveh needing introduced to other members of the Brotherhood, let alone 'higher-ups'. No, it was more of a case of renegade former members that Lors was perfectly free to sell-out. The butcher-shop gangster had risked nothing and gained a removal of a rival, and only the cost of an address of another known enemy. No wonder he looked as happy as a maggot in a corpse. Riveh was probably the best bargain to walk into his shop until they invented a three-legged chicken.
Still, he had an address and that was something.
"Thanks." Riveh said flatly. "You are as generous as you are charming Lors."
He considers adding the fact that he had been at the Senate Massacre, that he had fought and killed a member of the Silent Circle, and that Trant was a scion of a noble family of Senators....
But he didn't.
"See you around, Lors. I will take the memory of your patriotism to my grave."
"Been a real pleasure doin' business with you, Riveh" the small-time gangster smirked, answering the young man's mordancy in kind. "Don't know what you want with the Circle, but I wish you all the best and... Punt one of the traitorous little sh*ts for me, yeah? Bye bye now."
It spoke volumes that even in knowing him to be as false as Trant was tall, Riveh still had to wonder whether this last sentiment, the animosity for those who had decimated the senate, was genuine. Taldan patriotism really was a powerful force. So even the largest assassination guild in the nation renounced the Exaltation Massacre, huh? Even if they only did so for economic gain, this lent further credence to Treister's words, the Lion Blade agent the ifrit had spoken with, that the assailants had been a coalition of mercenary groups and foreign operatives. Regardless of circumstances, however, it seemed the Silent Circle's days were numbered; the group had made a grave mistake in taking on this assignment. It was merely a question of who reached them first. And on that note, it was time to go.
Happy to get the deceptive Lors out of his sight, Riveh made to leave, no one among the trio sparing the snake another word. Not even Stig, foul-mouthed and old acquaintance of the man that he was, spoke, he and the crook instead electing to share a glare full of measured enmity between them. Taking to the dirt street again, they left the big fish to his muddy little pond.
----------
1198 Tributary Track. The place hadn't been the easiest to find. Nearly every speck of space running along the mighty waterway that was the Central Canal was dedicated to industry, the channel being the primary means of domestic import to the city. As such it was no surprise that Crownsgate should house a warehouse district along its riverbank. Enter Tributary Track. A tangle of tightly packed two-story and frequently very dilapidated storage buildings, wandering its shadowy corridors was akin to searching some mythic minotaur's maze. It was massive, confusing, and took far more time to navigate than Riveh would have liked. But eventually they found it.
The warehouse marked 1198 looked promising, though only in the sense that it didn't seem inconceivable for it to house a death cult. Namely, it had guards stationed outside. None of the other depots the trio had passed could boast this distinction. Four guards roved about the large warehouse, a tall wooden construction. Even from a distance, as the ifrit viewed them, these seemed suspicious. It had been his experience that private watchmen such as these were often hired for their ability to be intimidating. These merely appeared shifty, trim men in surreptitious leathers and without obvious weapons. Worth noting was also that they consisted of two pairs of one human and one halfling each.
"How'd you wanna handle this?" the knight whispered to his side, leaning in a little too close; heavens above, that breath could scour paint. Still, it was a pertinent question. Riveh looked the building over. Plenty of doors, no less than five in fact, with another pair of large receiving doors. All were closed, however, and the guards' patrol seemed regular and comprehensive. Hm. The only windows were placed high up, at least 20 ft. from the ground, solely designed to let in sunlight. How to best go about this?
Riveh turned to Stig, but did not voice his first thought.
I have no idea
What did Riveh know about things like this? Storming a hidden safehouse, attacking a band of highly armed cultists? Rescuing a trapped Senator? He had no experience with this, no training. The ifrit was no soldier, no agent of the Crown. He was just another son of a nobleman, and a very fringe one at that. What right did he have to think he could pull this rescue off? he should have simply told that Lion's Blade and left it all up to them.
Self doubt coiled in Riveh's stomach like a sleeping snake, but it was too late now.
But how would do this? They couldn't just charge in, using brute force. They were outnumbered from the start, just the guards outside would overwhelm them and Gods only knew what waiting inside. Worse, pretending to be someone connected would be tough considering it was a halfing cult.
Then Riveh had an idea, a horrible, miserable awful idea.
"Stig, what do you say to another tromp through the sewers?"
Storming a hideout of murderous death cultists. It was enough to make most anyone pause, and Riveh had to count himself in that crowded category. Was he really up for this? Was reclaiming his legacy worth his likely, very untimely demise? Was it worth another sewer trek? Without any other promising ideas on how to tackle this, it seemed at least worth his time to ask his unlikely companions.
Despite asking the knight, it was the Dame who replied first. "Are you being serious?" She looked ready to quit not just the mission but the entire planet at the suggestion. "Getting blood and, urgh, vomit all over myself wasn't enough? Do we need to add sewage to this... this... painter's palette of everything awful now?"
And yet despite the belly-aching, the ifrit knew it to be just that. Trant was just venting her frustrations, remaining at his side as stubbornly and reassuringly as the great marble statue that she was. If a sewer trek was required, she would follow. Whatever his troubles Riveh was at least not alone. Not even thuggish Stig protested as such.
"Sounds a little f*ckin' thin, boy." Although his feedback was predictably harsh. "It's just a damn warehouse. It's meant to be nothin' more than a box; there's no guarantee there's any sewage line leadin' to it. 'Sides," he scoffed, "we're lookin' at no less than six bleedin' doors and all of four schmucks guardin' 'em. In pairs. It's a big building. We could probably catch two of 'em unaware while the others are traipsing round the other side. Could at least watch their pattern for now."
'And then what?' was the question that came to the ifrit's mind. Hope that the doors weren't locked for a start? However they approached it, this seemed a difficult conundrum they had on their hands. But for now they remained, peering at the depot from behind another like a trio of ragamuffins staking an apple orchard for its mean old farmer.
The smell oozing out of the manhole cover is worse then what issued from Barley's mouth. And considering the cult leader had been some sort of demon monster, that was saying something.
It alone is enough to change Riveh's mind.
"Let's eye the guards before we waste our time in the sewers. I fear you are right Stig, and the warehouse doesn't have a connection. Besides, it isn't like there will be signage down there."
So they retreat and watch the warehouse for a bit. It soon becomes clear the guards have a rotation and schedule. Maybe they could do something to distract them longer.
"New plan." The ifrit says, "You go hide near the south door. I'll go on the other side of the building, start a distraction. While the guards check it out, I'll hurry back and we can sneak in. If I don't show up...well, then it didn't work."
Riveh left Trant and Stig to linger a bit to the South, and circled the building, a few blocks back. Coming closer, he finds a pile of old scrap wood that looks quite flammable. Kicking a few old moldy straw bales near a cart, he lights it with Spark.
Then he does his best to flee the arson and re-join his friends.
Sparks danced in the encroaching darkness. Evening was swiftly falling over the still reeling city, newly transformed, and the alleyways created by the tall warehouses were quite dark, though not so dark as to impede one blessed by primordial fire. Riveh saw more than well enough to gather up various leftover construction minutia - the sort of things that inevitably littered all industrial areas - and ignite them via a shower of conjured sparks. Soon enough a trickle of smoke snaked its way up to the red sky and intermingled with the last rays of the sun. Right. Job done. Moving as quickly as he dared, the ifrit knew that the only thing left for him to do now was to hope that this ploy worked.
Well, that, and make sure he wasn't spotted in traversing the maze of depots back to his allies.
Alas, but all the best laid plans. In circling the area back to the fated warehouse, something caught the corner of his eye in passing by an alley leading to an open space between the buildings: it was two of the cloaked guards, trotting in the direction of his diversion. Success! They'd taken the bait, then. Or at least two of them had. Unfortunately, just as he noticed them, one of them noticed him. The halfling of the pair jerked his head in Riveh's direction, obviously noting at least the tail end of the figure that hurriedly leapt behind cover. Damn! The ifrit was out of sight again, standing around the corner of another warehouse, but he was certain that he'd been spotted. Now what? What happened now? Would he have to subdue these two alone? Were they both sprinting after him this very second? Did he dare a peek around the corner to make sure the halfling hadn't dismissed him as an errant cat?
Double damn. He had to risk it. The ifrit had to see whether he was being pursued before making any rash decision. It wasn't just his life on the line. Peering as surreptitiously as he could manage, Riveh looked to where he had seen the guards. Lo and behold, they were still standing there. The pair, human and halfling, were huddled up together as if speaking. Except he was pretty sure neither was saying a word. The two were staring intently at one another with dark eyes whilst gesturing alternately towards the growing plumage of smoke, to the alley where the ifrit was hiding, and to themselves. And doing so with some rather complex gestures, actually. Hold on... were they using sign language? Huh. Circle of Silence, indeed.
Suddenly and without warning they broke up, the halfling speeding towards Riveh's distraction while the cloaked human ran right for his hiding place. Now what? Fight this lone man? Or escape back to Stig and Trant?
Riveh used one precious moment to think. The guards had come quickly, too quickly for his liking. Just finding a small pile of burning debris....perhaps they would assume it was a homeless vagrant, a fire for warmth out of control but perhaps not. perhaps they would think it was a distraction and now the guard would be up.
Then there was one thing for it. He had to get back to Stig and Trant before the guard was raised. If he beat them there.....
Skulking away as quickly as he dared, Riveh darted down the narrow corridors made by the imposing depots. There was only one thing to do: get back to the others and make it inside the warehouse before the guards caught on. The race was on, almost literally so; the cloaked man investigating his shadow was at his heels. He could hear his footsteps in the quiet district, intermittently walking over stone and stepping into puddles. The ifrit managed to always stay at least one corner ahead, but never more so; the man was definitely on his trail and following. Or if not that, he was suspecting some ploy and hurrying back to the hideout himself. Riveh would have to be quick.
The sight that greeted him on the north side of the building brought mixed emotions. His aim had been to distract the guards from the south side, and this had apparently worked - partially. Of the four watchmen they'd spotted, two had obviously run off to investigate his distraction. However, now one lone halfling stood guarding the north side. Had the remaining two guards split up to cover both sides? Then how had Stig and Trant fared on the south?
Oh. That answer became obvious as the ifrit circled around the warehouse in a wide berth to join with his allies. They had dealt with the remaining watchman as could be expected: Stig was currently hurriedly rifling through the pockets of a very dead man sporting a single arrow sticking through his neck. "Geminus!" the Dame whisper-shouted as he came into view. She was doubled down in a crouch that only made her somewhat less noticeable than a kneeling giraffe. "Are you alright?"
"F*ckin' finally...!" the knight cursed, though this apparently wasn't directed at himself; Stig pulled a hand up producing an innocuous key. Ah. So the door they had meant to go through had been locked.
Riveh took deep breathes, a bit winded by the 'chase'. He glanced at the dead body with distaste. His moral qualms faded away as he recalled these were (at least) hired thugs or (at worst) members of a deadly cult who recently were part of a massacre and tried to keep him on several occasions.
"If you could shoot like that, why didn't you do it to Barley?" Riveh said, glancing at Stig. Then he smiled at the key and gestured, "Hurry! I think the alarm is being raised, we might not have much time."
"Oh, shaddup," Stig hissed quietly, obviously tense at more than just the biting remark. "As I recall, the yellow bastard died gurgling on my arrow. And I don't wanna hear this from someone who apparently couldn't pull off his own bleedin' idea!"
Ouch. More than just the typically vitriolic tit for tat, Riveh knew that the knight's agitated reply stemmed from what was an obviously sticky situation. With one guard hot on his trail, the alarm was indeed only minutes (at best) away from being raised, especially when said guard stumbled over a now very dead colleague. And on that topic, why was this guy dead anyway? That hadn't been the plan.
"This isn't my fault, Geminus!" Trant's whisper-shout was indignant and petulant as a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. "This... this knave wouldn't let me come with him to check on the door, and then - without consulting me! - just murdered the man!"
"Will you shut your giant trap, girl?!" The ruffian was clearly annoyed at both his young companions' gross inexperience and lack of professionalism, despite only growing louder himself. "Look at you! You stand out like a cock in a cucumber patch, you giant pink oaf! Why would I go sneakin' with..."
"You do not speak to me like that! And besides, you were spotted!"
"A fluke! And I put the son of a b*tch down quietly enough, didn't I?! And the door turned out locked anyway!"
Right. Lovely as this exchange was, the ifrit would have to break it up; they really didn't have time for this. Leading both his churlish confidantes to the designated door, he grabbed the key and turned it in the lock. A satisfyingly sharp click confirmed that it was now open. Mercifully, both Stig and Trant had shushed at this. While still agitated, both understood that they were about to step into a viper's nest of villains and that all of their lives hinged on cooperation. They nodded to him. That left only one thing to do.
Riveh opened the service door as quietly as he could manage. The layout of what greeted him wasn't overly surprising, given the large double doors that also led to this room: he'd entered the warehouse's loading dock. Stacked boxes and crates filled much of the large chamber, making it seem smaller than it truly was, especially given how big many of these were: some stood higher than a man. Or higher than Trant, for a more impressive comparison. The other side of the entry doors were now visible to him, opening onto a two-foot depression along the western side of the room. Of more immediate interest was a wide doorway leading to the north, however, its doors standing ajar.
And Desna not favoring him with her luck today, of course the place wasn't empty of enemies. The ifrit jumped back as he saw a halfling step into sight from behind some boxes. Had he...? No, he hadn't been spotted. The halfling had his back turned to him and was fiddling with a lantern; it was getting dark in the building. Craning his neck for a better look, Riveh spotted another halfling. Two more guards dressed in muted dark tones. Great. And no sign of a Martella, Lotheed or otherwise.
Riveh peered into the dim interior of the warehouse, which held little barrier for his enhanced senses. To him, the dark was merely an optical veil, detectable but little more then a trivial item of note.
So far they seemed to have beaten the alarm. Stealth might still be a cloak for them. Quite literally.
A moment passed as Riveh summoned powers of the Great Beyond and cloaked himself in a shard of nothing, a billowing robe of outer space. Dark with dark. It would make him a little harder to see and hear.
Riveh gestured for Stig and Trant to hang back.
The ifrit moved forward, darting among the crates. Riveh assumed they would have to take out these guards, and surrounding them would make it easier.
Whatever was he walking - nay, sneaking - into? A den of crazed death cultists? A hive of cold-blooded assassins, no doubt both flush and wary after taking part in the grandest massacre the Inner Sea had seen in centuries? Both? Whichever the case, Riveh knew that the boxes he crept about for cover might as well be Alkenstari powder kegs; at any moment the guard he had narrowly eluded outside would come across the corpse of his compatriot, realize what was happening, and sound the alarm. And then - then Hell surely broke loose. The stillness bearing down on him in creeping ever nearer to the two still unsuspecting halflings was merely the quiet before the storm. He could only hope that every careful step was bringing him closer to Martella.
And that the encroaching darkness would help help him elude these cultists.
Alas. Perhaps the stories of halfling ears being keener than most's were true, as the softest squeak from the ifrit's leather soles elicited a jolt from the nearest guard. Quicker than Riveh could react, he turned around. A coarse face, of the type that could only age into the rakish mug of a Stig, stared straight at him with no small degree of surprise. "Intruder." The ifrit barely heard the soft mutter, the cultist only slowly grasping what was happening. But he gathered his wits quickly enough.
"Intruder!" He looked to the other guard. "Sound the alarm! We have a...!" Just as quickly, he was rendered mute again. The low whistle of an arrow in flight followed by the sight of his companion was shocking, after all.
The other watchman hadn't gotten the chance to speak a word. Instead he was rather occupied staring aghast at the feathered projectile that had sprouted directly over his heart. Already on edge as they were, the trio of Riveh, Stig and Trant could react before the unwitting cultists, none quicker than the knavish knight. He had immediately let an arrow fly directly into one halfling's chest. And what a good thing too, as the ifrit knew he had to act fast. Perhaps if they could just take these two out quickly and quietly, their cover wouldn't be blown... hold on, was that recently perforated halfling still standing? He was! Riveh looked as the cultist, his dark cloak rapidly growing darker still with flowing blood, staggered backwards, gurgling, and yet remained on his feet, even reaching a fumbling hand to a pocket. The arrow must have missed his heart by no more than an inch. Tough little bastard.
Riveh silently cursed himself. Clearly, if he expected to sneak around cultist hideouts, he needed better soled shoes. To be honest the silence of his heels had never occurred to him. To late now.
Still, luck ran both ways. Stig's shot was quick and aimed very true, stifling the alarm of the second guard. The other one would be up to Riveh...best he be dealt with directly.
Smashing his head in would be direct, but would probably take too long. A simple attack would give the guard a chance to cry out. Better to try a spell and if that failed...well, they could always bash his head in then.
Riveh raised a hand, dipped into his well of divine power and cast Murderous Command on the uninjured guard,, sighting through he jumbled boxes. He also crept closer, in case they needed to be more direct.
Should it concern him that this was what his magic did? Should it concern him that when introduced to a susceptible mind, his magic induced blind, murderous rage towards - very specifically - one's allies and friends? What did this say about the nature of his powers? What did this say about the monstrous unknown, the darkness between stars, that he derived it from? Best not to think on it. Best to just count one's blessings, Riveh had to concede as an inhuman light began burning behind his spell target's eyes. The magic was taking hold.
From somewhere behind a stack of boxes, the ifrit heard heavy footsteps thunder into the room which he assumed could only belong to Trant, she likely slowed by her armor. Not so encumbered was the enchanted halfling who just at this moment dropped the lantern he had been fiddling with to the ground with a clatter and leapt at his already wounded companion, drawing a knife in the process. The dagger held high, the glassy stare of a mind dominated, the look of utter shock and betrayal on the other guard, all cast in hard shadows and muted light - it all made for a rather striking scene.
And like an embattled secondary character in the third act, the wounded guard dropped dead at this blow, hand falling to the floor in dramatic fashion clutching a small flask. A flask? Had he fumbled it out of a pocket in his last moments? No matter. The remaining cultist's final moment was similarly approaching if the groan of Stig's bow was any indication. Riveh could hear the knight draw the ugly thing tight only to release it, and...
Huh. Well, that was the end of that streak, he supposed. The arrow embedded itself into an innocent crate just as the ifrit heard a muttered curse flutter its way to him over another mountain of boxes. And just as the confused halfling threw off his enchantment with a confused shake of the head too, he noted. It was up to himself and the Dame to finish this, then.
One down, one to go. Riveh was happy they had taken out the guard before he managed to drink whatever was in the flask. It probably wasn't just whiskey.
On the other hand, Stig's miss was more then a little annoying. If he had pegged the be-spelled guard, they could have ended this without mush fuss at all. Ah well. If wishes were fishes, there would be no room for the water.
Nothing else for it, Riveh rushes forward, hoping Trant would dot he same and they could overwhelm the solo remaining foe. Raising his mace, the ifrit darted around the boxes.
And he missed so wildly, he smashed open on the crates.
Riveh's disappointment barely had time to set in. Even as his own mace went wide, smashing into and knocking loose a corner joint from an adjacent crate, Trant's sword caught the halfling in the gut with such force that the small man was nearly lifted from the ground.
Only just having regained his senses, the cultist's eyes had gone from enchanted stupor to full alertness in a moment, and now faded to glassy oblivion just as quickly. Had they not been standing as close as combat required, not even the ifrit and Dame would have heard the final soft death rattle that escaped him. "...I await... the night..."
With the sickening sound of flesh on metal, the person turned corpse slid off the weapon and fell to the floor. I Await the Night. The same mantra the impostor Filibert had shrieked to his last. My, but they really were fanatics, weren't they? But never mind the mad minds of these murderous madmen; had the trio been quick enough in dispatching these guards, that was what mattered. Riveh turned his ear towards the northern doorway, the one leading further into the warehouse, and its doors standing ajar. Had they been discovered?
Nothing. Silence. Only Trant's heavy breathing, rapidly leveling, could be heard in the darkening and dilapidated chamber. No, they likely hadn't been noticed yet, however inevitable that prospect was. Although there was something. The ifrit looked about him. What was that creaking? There was a strange growing whine in the air, as if of straining wood, that he couldn't... The sharp snap that followed really shouldn't come as any surprise. It was the innocent box he'd pummeled, one corner of it broken and unable to contain its cargo anymore. Old wood fell away to release a softly spilling avalanche of yellowed paper, quickly flooding the floor. Riveh couldn't see his feet beneath it. Well, at least that hadn't been overly loud.
"What are you idiots doin'?!" Stig's whispered reproach hardly seemed fair given his own blundered shot. "C'mon and let's be quick about this!"
Right, yes. They were on a rather strict timer, to be fair. The guard outside could raise the alarm at any moment. Best to move fast. Although one wouldn't think so looking at the Dame. Riveh had nearly turned on her to progress when he noticed her odd demeanor, odd enough not to acknowledge the knight's abuses. She was standing stock still staring down at the body at her feet, a very curious expression on her face. The stately features were uncharacteristically vacant, the imperious eyes strangely conflicted. "Hm?" she murmured, looking up at noticing the ifrit. "Y-yes, I'm coming. I'm with you."
Riveh watched in horrible fascination as Trant killed the cultist with a single thrust. His feet actually left the ground as the noblewoman impaled him. After a quick glance at the quivering corpse though, Riveh turned his attention to Trant.
Her glassy eyes, overly straight posture, odd breathing....yes. Clearly killing a man in cold blood was not something she was perfectly adjusted to, not that Riveh could blame her. He too felt the weight of the blood of the last few days on his soul. The ifrit wished he could say something, do something, to help her.
But Stig's harsh words were not inaccurate. They had no time to consider the morality of killing. Sitting down to consider the philosophical problems of violence would be...unwise.
All he said was, "This are the people who helped kill the Senators, Trant. And they have tried to kill us, more then once."
With that trivial attempt assuage her guilt, they hurried on. Riveh only stopped to grab the halfling's flask, hoping it was a healing potion.
He ran up to the door and stopped, checking them for locks or bars. That done, Riveh set his ear against it and listened. After that, he tried his best to gently ease on ajar and peek through. It took time, but throwing the door open might simply reveal a room full of armed guards.
Something of her proud self, her obstinance, peeked through the young noblewoman's strangely dazed expression as Riveh reassured her. "I know," she said, almost in defiance. "I know that. Any one of these... evil runts could have been the one to kill my father, and I'll never forgive them for that, but..." But that spark of familiar fire fizzled out almost immediately. "It's just... This is - I've never..."
'Killed before' were the words she was struggling with, Riveh knew. He'd gathered as much. And why shouldn't he? He had only recently turned killer himself, after all. It was a weighty act, taking a life, no matter how justified. Like the loss of a loved one, a passion turned purpose, one's first sweetheart, it belonged among those few experiences that incontrovertibly changed who you were, both in the eyes of others and yourself. You no longer had to wonder whether you were capable; you knew that you could be, and now were, a killer. Of course Trant was disoriented. She was adjusting to an entirely new identity.
"Thank you." And she appreciated his support in the transition. Had he imagined the words? The ifrit had to wonder, so softly had they been spoken as the Dame brushed past him, apparently unwilling to dwell on this topic any further. Not that they had the time to do so anyway. What a strangely sensitive creature this giant pigheaded bully was. Oh well. Better that than a black-hearted cynic, unfazed at any amount of spilled blood. And on that topic, Riveh turned to an impatient Stig at the doorway. Best to find out what lay ahead.
Opening the door with all due caution and peering through the thin crack afforded to him, the ifrit quickly realized what he was staring into: it was the main storage room of the warehouse and it was appropriately enormous. Barrels, boxes, and crates filled the vast space of this open floor, making miniature mountains through which scant bare paths zigzagged through the mess. Large windows were set high into the walls, but the encroaching dark only made these mounds appear all the more ominous. Obscured as the entire space was, he could only make out what he assumed to be half of it.
What was both noticeable and notable, however, were the metal stairs in the opposite corner ascending up to what had to be some sort of office for whoever normally worked here. The windows of the little hut overlooked the floor some twenty feet beneath it. Riveh couldn't make out anything within, but thought he detected some sort of light there. But all this would have to wait; the two people he saw patrolling the grounds were more pressing. A pair of cloaked watchmen, halfling and human just as with the outside guards, walked back and forth on the warehouse floor, throwing lazy glances hither and tither. Right. While certainly not good news, this was hardly unexpected. At least they didn't seem to suspect anything.
Or at least so they hadn't. Just as the ifrit was about to look away something most curious occurred. Both guards stiffened, as if suddenly startled, and looked to their gloved hands - their left hand. From there they looked at each other. Immediately their demeanor changed. From lax and idle both now appeared alert and combat-ready, drawing their daggers. The human even began chanting a spell, his mutterings obscured beneath a veil. Difficult as it was to accept, Riveh could only conclude that they knew. They knew that something was amiss. But how? What had just happened? What had alerted them?
A question for later, perhaps. At this moment the halfling of the pair directed the human to check on an opposing door - wordlessly, with a simple pointed finger - while he headed for another: the very door the ifrit was standing behind.
"Well, boy?" Stig whispered into his ear. "See anythin'?"
The alarm had gone out, that was clear enough. The tense postures, the alert faces...clearly the cult had some magical means of sending messages, something to do with their left hands. The sight of a man casting a spell makes Riveh's stomach turn to ice. There were any number of spells....
And the gods only knew what was being cast. No time now.
Riveh hissed back, "Two guards, the alarm is up. We might have to fight our way through. One headed our way."
Quickly the ifrit sees there is no point in sneaking around. As the halfling approach, Riveh carefully put his shoulder to the door, planning to slam it into the halfling's face once the cultist stepped into range. Then hopefully a mace blow to the face to end things.
Impromptu as their little scheme was, it was a rare pleasure to see a plan work out without a hitch for once. Casting tense but affirming glances between each other, the trio hurriedly got into position even as the steps behind the doors grew ever closer. Trant holding her elegant sword as an ogre wielded a cudgel and Stig's bow at the ready, Riveh only had to wait. The steps grew closer. Closer still. He stood with his shoulder to the frame listening... Now!
"Gah!" The cultist let out a flat croak, the only cry of pain appropriate to a wall suddenly colliding violently with one's nose. Riveh had timed the surprise attack correctly, smacking the door into the halfling just as the latter reached out for it, knocking him back and leaving him sprawled out on the floor. And his companions did not disappoint either. With the doorway cleared, the Dame took her cue to half-spring, half-fall onto their foe, sword first.
The blade sank into the cloaked cultist and did not stop until it met concrete. A gasp escaped him, then nothing more. They had dispatched the halfling quickly and efficiently. If only they could do the same for whatever remained of this damn cult. Because with this rude entry and the murderous lot apparently having caught on to their intrusion, they were surely only seconds away from all Hell breaking loose.
"To the stairs!" Riveh shouted to Stig and Trant, "What we need is up there, and I'd rather fight them one at a time. let's move."
However, before he started sprinting across the warehouse floor, the ifirit took a moment to cast a spell. He wove his fingers and muttered words of power for a moment. Then, about his already blurred cloak of nothing, a vague outline of black energy hovered in mind-air. It flickered and danced on the edge of sight, bewildering the eye.
"Follow me!"
Well. Riveh sure hoped he was right about Martella being kept in the elevated office. Because the next few seconds made it abundantly clear that there was no going back from that gut call. Not only did his two companions follow him, all three exploding through the doorway to rush onto the warehouse floor proper, but it was obvious that their action had an opposite (but not at all equal) reaction from their foes. He heard footsteps, many of them, all swift and overlapping and echoing against the concrete. They had woken the sleeping dragon. Every cultist in the vicinity, and even silent as they were he could tell that there were many of them, was out for them. It was on.
And it would have been reassuring to know that the trio could function as a reliable unit, but seeing Stig hurriedly overtake him in their mad dash for the stairs was less than encouraging. "You don't give me orders, boy!" the knight shouted in sprinting ahead, lean body kept low in a panther-like stance; he was faster than age suggested. In contrast, it was the much younger Trant who lagged behind, her rattling breastplate slowing her down. But the ifrit had more pressing issues to attend. Namely, the cultist who just now rounded the corner of a crate-mountain. Riveh heard him before he saw him; his rapidly approaching footfalls were perfectly obvious. It was the cloaked human he'd seen earlier along with the now dead halfling. He came rushing towards him, dagger held in a clearly practiced hand, and it was only through digging in their heels that the two avoided simply crashing into one another. In facing this villain, the young nobleson now found his path blocked. If he wanted to reach the stairs, he'd have to deal with this obstacle first.
Then again, perhaps someone else could solve this problem for him. From behind the ifrit came a now familiar battle cry. "Graah!" The Dame, never stopping her mad rush forward and merely altering her course, now stampeded towards the intervening party with her sword held high. Like a roaring buffalo she charged ahead and swung wildly.
The bloodied blade sang past Riveh's head in a great arch, straight for the cloaked cultist. But there - it was the strangest thing; it appeared for all the world as if a shadow over the man leapt up like a black sheet, taking a life of its own and deflecting the sword. It all happened too quickly for the mind to properly parse. Whatever the explanation, the result was clear: the cultist stood unharmed, a smug smile visible in his dark eyes, the one part of his face not hidden. Trant grunted in frustration. Riveh had been right; this guy did wield magic.
"They're here!" A door flung open. Huh? Who...? "They're here, they're here, theyrehere!"
A most incongruous voice, high and lyrical, interrupted the dimly lit warehouse fight with the death worshipers. In addition to simply sounding disconcertingly like a teenage girl, it also sounded as out of place as a pregnant woman at a pole-vaulting competition. Where was that coming from? Riveh looked up. There, some twenty feet above him, the door to the elevated office space had been flung open. Standing outside it and climbing the metal railing of the stairs was the person who'd just exited it. And my, but she was a curious creature.
"Welcome! Welcome, boys & girls, murrrr..." - she rolled her R's - "...rrRRRRrderers of all ages!" It was a halfling woman. Or at least so the ifrit thought her to be beneath all the makeup. Clad in a black and red jester's outfit and with her face painted a stark white, it somehow wasn't the clown apparel that stood out the strongest on the pint-sized woman: it was the smile. It was a wider, more manic grin than any he could recall seeing. Never mind the twenty feet, he could have seen that smile from across the Senate. Who was this?
As it happened, she went on to ask the very same. "I've been wai... You're not the Brotherhood." The round face dipped sideways in confusion, a theatrical gesture more at home on a marionette puppet. And yet the smile did not wane. "Who are you?" She did not wait for a reply. "C'mon now, Wyssilka, you silly-billy! You know who they are. They're stiffs in waiting, ah ha ha ha!"
Good heavens, that laugh. A shrieking, high pang of a snicker, sharper than the knife she wielded and now held high. "Oh, Daddy Gixx, be a dear and help your favorite girl, will you?" she giggled. Daddy Gixx? No, of more immediate concern was said knife; its blade suddenly turned from gleaming silver to inky black.
Riveh did his best to focus on the task at hand, and not get lost in judging this new cast of unsavory characters. One thing had been clear though, the lady on the stairs had been expecting trouble. Granted, from the Brotherhood, but the fact that this was an ambush wasn't very reassuring.
As for all the giggling and laughing well....death cults were that way, or so the stories said. Barley hadn't taken them seriously until he had been on the floor either.
Riveh smiled grimly and got to work. However the halfing in front of him seemed quite agile, having somehow dodged Trant's blows. Still, Riveh was not without magic of his own. The ifrit took a step forward, letting the halfling attack. They needed to get past this foe before they were overwhelmed.
Quickly Riveh grabbed and downed a vial in his robes. The hot liquid tasted like coppery blood as it trickled down his throat, but soon threw strength and power into his limbs.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, or so the old proverb said. Deciding upon this moment to test that bit of folksy wisdom, Riveh dashed forward and retrieved a flask from his robes all in one fluid motion, deliberately provoking the cultist before him to strike. The invitation was not ignored.
Swiftly jumping out of the way of the dagger sweeping towards him, the ifrit managed to down the potion; the blade passed mere inches from his quaffing throat. The cultist's eyes betrayed much irritation, but Riveh's attention was elsewhere: the sensation of what felt like his muscles transforming from flesh and sinew into tightly packed bundles of steel wires was too empowering not to be distracting. With the elixir came not just strength, but a curious wave of confidence. Let them come! He felt like he could take on not just a cult, but an entire church of these crazed assassins.
He would have to get in line, however. "Dodge this, ya fackin' lunatic."
A muffled cry of pain escaped the cultist's veil as an arrow not just entered his back but pierced right through his side to peek out front. Over by the stairs Stig had fired a beauty of a shot, even as he backed away. The older man was firing dark glances all around too, trying to keep track of their many foes amidst the massive stacks and encroaching darkness. He was hiding it, but Riveh could see that the knight wasn't feeling overly confident at the situation. And to be fair the ongoing onslaught of footfalls on concrete and ever enclosing forms, all silent, creeping among the crates was unnerving. It was difficult to even say how many they were fighting under the circumstances.
More surprising still was perhaps that the now pierced cultist, the same the ifrit had tried to circumnavigate, was still standing. "Gr... ah..." Albeit only barely. Groaning at the wooden shaft in his side, he swayed uncertainly as the dark spot about it only grew. Right until: "Hey now!"
That off-puttingly cheerful voice. It was the halfling woman. She was looking at him from up on the railing. "Why so glum, chum? You know what it's all about. You get the plan. You know the score."
Even with both Trant and Riveh right next to him, the cultist looked up to the jester. "I... I await the..."
"That's right, I know you do. So what are you waiting for? This is it. This is your moment. I'm right here. I see you. Don't disappoint now. Don't bore me. Don't go quietly into the night. Give us a show!"
Something changed in the cultist's demeanor. Where he had hunched forward in pain earlier, he suddenly flung out his arms and thrust his chest. The ifrit couldn't help but notice the medallion that hung there. He recognized the tiny thing, all lacquered and shiny: the holy symbol of Thamir Gixx. "I Await the Night!" No, he did not go quietly into the night. For a moment Riveh almost thought the man very literally exploded. But that wasn't the case. Something within the symbol did. Solid black waves of force burst out from the man, assailing both the Dame and himself - they being right next to him - but reaching as far as Stig judging by the latter's bark of surprise. It was like waves of ink, translucent yet tangible, murky yet irradiating. It was like negative light. And everywhere it touched, it burned.
"Ah!" Trant cried out in pain beside Riveh, both momentarily blinded. They could only barely distinguish the cultist before them, now a humanoid well of darkness. But that was enough for the noblewoman.
Cutting through the solid fog of onyx, Trant extinguished both the stream of energy and the life powering it. Lying on the ground was the bloodied corpse of the man. Gasping at the exertion, she said nothing. But the jester apparently had plenty to say. "Oh, bravo!" She clapped her little hands and jumped up in place like an excited child. Was she being genuine? "The gratitude of the house to the big lady for giving our man here such a great finale! I don't know who you are, but that was splendiferous! Magnifiant! I dare even say fantabulous..."
"Stop saying nonsense words!" the Dame, thoroughly irate and frustrated and confused shouted back. The jester merely laughed in response, a sharp giggle magnified in the cavernous warehouse. And then proceeded very fluidly into reciting some magic.
The unholy light cascaded over Riveh, freezing his limbs and heart. It is like standing out in a winter storm without a coat. His skin actually burned with cold.
Still, despite the pain, Riveh had reason to be glad with how the fight was going. The man was dead, slain by Trant and Stig and the stairs looked within reach. Having the high ground meant less chance of them being mobbed by the entire cult.
"Let them laugh, Madame." Riveh said grimly, "We'll have the last word. To the stairs!"
Still feeling as strong as a plow horse, Riveh led the way towards Stig and higher ground. He sprinted away from the gathering horde of cultists behind, leaping the odd box or crate with ease. The ifrit darted past Stig, while saying, "Get higher up. Trant can hold the bottom of the stairs. Take this and drink it. Should sharpen even your shooting."
With that the younger man vaults up the stairs, racing to come to grips with the obvious leader. This clown had to go.
It all happened so quickly. Darting down the corridors of crates with the fleeting forms of a dozen crazed assassins at his back, the ifrit held out the empowering potion to Stig in passing the latter. He'd done it; he had reached the stairs, and with them as much safety as that term allowed in this manic melee. The knight, true to his graceless self, merely snatched the flask from his hand in the hurry, and wordlessly put it up to his scowling mouth. It was only when he dropped the emptied canister to the rough floor that the older man grumblingly pointed to what Riveh had perhaps missed, perhaps hoped against in his hurry. "You mean if she can get to the damn stairs."
Riveh ceased his clattering footsteps up the metal walkway to look back. His new vantage point afforded him a good view of proceedings, though these were so distasteful he almost wished he hadn't looked at all. It was true; not as light-footed as himself, Trant was being swarmed. It was almost like looking at some macabre rendition of a children's fable, the Tortoise & the Hare maybe. Except here the tortoise was a young noblewoman, stronger than she was fleet and burdened by armor, being overtaken by upwards of eight knife-wielding, murderous hares. It was a disturbing sight, seeing the teeming halflings navigate the maze of boxes to surround and - he recognized this now seeing it all from above - trying to cut off the Dame from himself and Stig. Worse still was seeing that same recognition in Trant. Fear was building in that proud face.
The woman screeched to a halt in her rush forward, suddenly cut of by a cultist rounding one corner, only to give a yelp of surprise even as her breastplate gave a sharper screech of metal on metal; another halfling she hadn't even noticed had crept behind her to attack, the blade colliding with and dragging along the armor. "Get away from me, you little maniacs!" Anxiety slipped into the stern voice, robbing it of much authority. But authority was not what was lacking in one of the cultist's retaliatory commands.
"Fall." It was the strangest utterance, deep and reverberant, as if spoken by a church bell rather than the halfling standing just a bit outside the circle thronging the Dame. And why shouldn't it be strange? Riveh recognized it for what it was, namely an order laced with magic. The cultist held out a small hand towards Trant in speaking it, a lacquered holy symbol hanging from the wrist.
Immediately a jolt went through her, as if struck. "Wh...?" In the next moment her treacherous body obeyed the command given to it, simply folding at the joints and dropping her to the floor. Trant was now lying prone amidst an encroaching half-circle of knife-toting murderers.
And still she struggled. "Get away from me!"
Obviously sickly pleased as the cultists were at the dramatic irony of the scenario, a noblewoman three times their size brought low before a group of common halflings, all smiles were quenched when the Dame stabbed her sword forward and straight through the throat of the one who had dared to attack her. The blood spray was fierce as he joined her on the concrete, but this only marginally improved her situation. Trant was still in an awful predicament, facing a veritable rain of knife points in the next second. Even at a distance, her distress was perfectly clear to the ifrit.
Now if only he didn't have such troubles of his own:
"Blooddrops on marble and darkened small corners
Moonlight on cold steel and scared little mourners
Dancing in ruins where once there were kings
These are a few of my favorite things."
Singing? Really? As if the small jester's depraved enjoyment in all of all of this wasn't enough, now she was singing them to their deaths? Riveh looked at her, now only scant steps away from him. She was still standing halfway up the railing, still smiling her manic smile. Wyssislka the Fantabulous appeared to be having the time of her life as spectator to their life and death struggle. Only the blackened dagger in her tiny hand betrayed her demeanor as anything more than the exaggerated mannerisms of a children's entertainer. That and the ludicrous lyrics to her song. Wasn't this a popular children's rhyme? The ifrit thought he recognized it as such, and hearing it perverted in such a way only strengthened his suspicions that the woman was mad.
And then she looked at him and removed any doubt. The huge eyes turning his way could never have belonged to anyone sane. Too much white. Too much intensity burning in them. Too much... everything. Hold on, what was going on? Riveh suddenly felt dizzy. Even as he looked at her the halfing appeared to grow, her form shifting, the darkness about her deepening. The voice. She kept singing and the voice was like frozen barbed wire in one ear and out the other. What was...?
"Grand-Prince Stavian, dumped in the sewers
Poison and fog and all kinds of wrongdoers
Waiting on nightfall and all that it brings
These are a few of my favorite things."
Riveh stops, his high heart plunging into doom. He had misjudged the fight, drastically. The ifrit had thought Trant was just behind him, the imposing noblewoman keeping pace as he passed Stig and vaulted up the stairs. She would hold the stairs while Stig fired arrows down on the cultists while Riveh took care of this weird laughing jester. It seemed so good, so simple.
And now it might get them all killed.
Trant wasn't behind him. Instead she was still below, trapped on what was becoming the killing floor. Like a fox being overtaken by a horde of angry rabbits, the cultists were getting the best of her, even as she slew one with a massive thrust. She couldn't fight them all.
As doubt consumed him, the clown's rhyming verse filled his ears. Poison and fog...his thoughts became blacker. It had all been a mistake, and now he was alone facing this mad-woman while Trant was gutted like a fish below. What was he doing here?
Then, somewhere deep in his stomach, a spark flared. Some primoridal spark of firit fire perhaps or maybe a dim ember of House Geminus. Whatever it was, it caught and burned bright in his chest, driving back the dark thoughts and sickly words.
Maybe he had made a mistake and maybe they would all die here, but they would face it upright, knowing they did the right thing. These cultists had slaughtered countless innocents over the last few days and turned the kingdom on its head.
He points his morningstar at the giggling clown. "I'll be back for you."
And with that threat (which probably bothered the mad cultists none), Riveh jumped over the side of the rail, heading onto the boxes below.
Riveh hit his m ark, a tallest, stout looking box that merely creaked under his weight. Without pause, weapon still in hand, the ifrit crossed the boxes as nimbly as a child crossing a set of stepping stones in a running stream. The Gods, or luck, was with him, as none of the boxes shattered or toppled as his passage.
"You are not alone!" Riveh bellows, jumping down at Trant's side.
"To the stairs!" Riveh shouted to Trant, hoping this time they could make good their retreat.
And, to hopefully ease the way, he strikes at the nearest cultist.
Was it brave? Was it merely foolhardy? Whatever the answer, some - reckless poets and hopeless romantics all of them - would say that neither was the question; the question was whether it was heroic. The answer was yes. Riveh the hero overcome odds that would have given an axiomite enumerator a headache in jumping over the metal railing to fall onto a crate several feet below, wood creaking beneath the squatting position he'd landed in - only for the leg muscles to kick in and launch him forward, using the momentum like a spring. In short order he was leaping between disparate boxes in single bounds, outperforming any mountain goat that ever lived. And in reaching the chasm that was the top of one of the corridors in the warehouse maze, he knew he couldn't stop. Springing off a ten-foot crate into the melee below, the ifrit barely even heard the gravelly cuss of the older man he'd left behind.
"Oh, hells." Riveh actually thought he could see it for a second: Stig's black-tailed arrow sailed through the air immediately beneath him for the briefest of moments. It was a bizarre little instant in time, himself leaping through empty space, black cloak billowing behind and weapon held high, a projectile flying below. And beneath that was the mass of knife-wielding assassins, of course, a half dozen astounded faces all turned up to him. Veiled as their faces were, the ifrit couldn't see much of the cultist beyond their eyes, but that was enough; whatever the outcome, turning the tables and shocking them like this was undeniably satisfying. Though perhaps not as satisfying as the expression of the young woman lying in their midst. Riveh had a clear view in sailing past her. She was dumbstruck.
The moment passed. And just as the knavish knight's arrow flew true, striking and felling one of the crazed murderers, so too did the ifrit. Carried by sheer momentum, his blow was fierce, landing morning star first on an astonished halfling. The collision between skull and spiked metal was not kind to the former, as Riveh felt something crack at the impact. While he managed to just keep his footing in meeting the concrete floor, his foe did not get up again. Every combatant present took an involuntary half-step back, so impressive was the arrival of this avenging madman. "Riveh!" He didn't even need to look at Trant to know; he could hear the smile in the deeply relieved Dame's call. Hold on, was this the first time she'd called him by his...?
No, that'd have to wait. Having gathered their wits, the cultists surged forward to strike again. No less than three of them swiped their gleaming steel his way, though all seemed newly uncertain, even shaken. He easily dodged the two while the negative space that was his cloak swallowed the last strike harmlessly. And despite the distraction that was the chaos of combat, he gathered that one halfling had apparently dared to maneuver for better positioning over by Trant. By the sound of wet something hitting the ground she had taken the opportunity to disembowel him in doing so, even flat on her back as she was. Emboldened by the ifrit's arrival, the Dame scrambled back to her feet. "Ah!" And earned a swift dagger to the shoulder from an adjacent killer for the trouble. Still, she was standing tall once more, and tried retaliating this blow only to miss; the halfling were admittedly quite evasive.
And yet - another three cultists had been felled by as many strikes. An optimist might have been forgiven for thinking the battle slowly turning in their favor. So why was this damn clown so unconcerned? "That. Was. Awe-Some!" The shrill, seemingly genuine, commendation rang out in the enormous warehouse space, only for her to then make matters worse by clapping. The tiny hands (inky-black dagger now held in her clenched mouth) applauded Riveh's death-defying leap, clapping up a storm. "Who are you people!?" she giggled. "That was marvelible! You show up and just murder my minions and I don't even know who you are! Ah ha ha! This is great! This is almost better than the actually scheduled mayhem! Oh! Oh oh oh, I know a circus that would looove to meet you, Redhead! Always looking for new acrobats! Oh no, wait. I'm going to be killing you in a minute. Hah. Almost forgot." She laughed to herself. "Shame, considering that Fee-fi-fo-'n-fair over there almost certainly would have put out for you after this - I mean, she better! My deepest contrafibularities, Red."
Riveh didn't think he liked having this halfling stand up there commenting on his life and death struggle like some maniac commenting on a play from high up in her opera box. Nor did he enjoy that she was working more magic still.
"Then why don't you come down here and play?" Riveh shouts to the laughing maniac up on the balcony. "Surely you don't want to miss out."
Then he turns to Stig, "Maybe try to poke a hole in our ringleader up there?"
His blow went wild however, the mace swooping through air as a halfling cultist danced aside.
"I still want to retreat, Madame." Riveh said, more like he was inviting her to dance then run away from a horde of knife wielding maniacs. "After you."
Then he turns to Stig, "Maybe try to poke a hole in our ringleader up there?"
"Maybe you try not playin' heroics and be of some damn use, how about that?" came the harsh, and not terribly fair, reply, the knight obviously still not appreciative of anyone telling him what to do. It was therefore gratifying to see him nevertheless swivel his ugly bow towards the jester, that he wasn't above taking well-meaning suggestions despite the protestations. "F*ckin' kid, flyin' off crates like a bleedin' half-plucked, headless chicken escapin' the kitchen table..."
Grumbling as only an old man could, Stig fired another powerful shot, subtly aided by the ifrit's potion. And what a shot.
For a second Riveh thought that the fight was over. How could he not? Striking her square in the exaggerated grin, Stig's arrow knocked the clown-like cult leader from her perch with a yelp. An arrow to the head; how could this not be it? But she did not fall. While knocked back at the impact, she remained upright, one hand now on the railing and both feet on the stairs proper. Only slowly did she regain some semblance of her easy bearing, turning towards them, one hand over her face. Groans escaped from beneath it. And the, suddenly, like the jester she was, like playing peekaboo with an infant, she pulled back her hand to warble:
"BOO! Ah ha ha ha ha!" Heavens above. The arrow was still in her mouth. Entering through one cheek and exiting somewhere above her ear, visage now caked in scarlet blood along with the white makeup, Wyssilka the Fantabulous was terrible to behold. How was she still standing? How was she not curled up in a ball right now? How was she still smiling? "Auuuoh! Calistria's quim whiskers, this huuurts!" she howled, speech distorted by the wooden rod she was speaking through. Yes, clearly there was pain. Even at a distance Riveh could see the manic eyes watering and the near faltering of the perpetual grin. The halfling was not something beyond mortal to endure this; she was just that mad. What followed only confirmed this assessment. Gripping the projectile at the fletching, the cult leader yanked the arrow out and by the same motion - distressingly, grotesquely - through her own face. "Aaah! Hah... Am I still pretty? Ah ha ha!"
She had torn open her own cheek from ear to mouth, disfiguring herself. No artifice was necessary to maintain the crazed smile anymore; the mouth now appeared set in an impossibly wide, bloodied smirk. "F*ck's wrong with this crazy c*nt...?" an obviously affected Stig muttered.
"Oh come on now, old man! Don't run away now! You have to do my other side!" Riveh could actually see the knight jump ever so slightly as the halfling, finally, descended from her perch, scampering down the stairs straight for him. Even as all of this was taking place, however, the nobleson had his own foes to worry about.
Riveh heard the Dame grunt in pain behind him as he contended with his own cultists, no less than three of them. And even beyond their numbers, they proved devilishly tricky to manage. Halflings as they were, they used their size and dexterity to their advantage, dodging and weaving just out of reach of his weapon, very deliberately disorienting his strained attention. They were also notably well coordinated despite their continued silence; before he knew what was happening, he was surrounded. Which one did he keep track of? What dagger should he be watching? He couldn't... The question answered itself as one such dagger slipped through his ribs only to pull back before he could react. Damn. The bastards were proving quite slippery given the space to maneuver freely.
"You'd better be right behind me, Geminus," Trant breathed, replying to his 'invitation'. "Won't forgive you if you die here." Obviously not in the best of states herself, the noblewoman nevertheless did as he asked, unhappily pulling back from the melee whilst deflecting a blow with a swipe of her sword.
While it would have been nice to see Wyssilka the Fantabulous die instantly from an arrow to the face, the fact she doesn't fall instantly doesn't dampen Riveh's spirits...much. Whatever it took to kill her (and it was obvious this was a fight to the death) Stig's arrow brought that end much nearer. he'd had to buy the old man a drink....assuming they lived through this.
Then the cultists blade finds his ribs and for a moment all thought of tactics is replaced by a stab of white hot pain. The ifrit dances back but hot blood runs down his side, splashing against oddly cold skin. He feels a bit woozy. The fight is taking it's tool. Another hit or two like that, and he'd be down on the floor.
He need to get out of here and fast. "Right behind you.."
Once more onto the breach. Riveh's blood-soaked shoes once more found the metal stairs, though he wasn't able to climb them far this time. The pair locked in combat midway up impeded any such progress. The jester, manic grin only enhanced further by the newly torn cheek was pressuring Stig, the older man clearly compromised; she had the high ground, he was now wielding a bow in melee. And yet the loutish knight did not falter, wiry form dodging and weaving with his teeth gritted beneath the black beard. Perhaps his aging body was aided by the potion. Whatever the case he managed to slip out of the cult leader's immediate reach, right next to the ifrit, immediately raising an arrow to the ugly weapon and firing it at point-blank. "Will you shut up, you crazy bint!"
Short as its flight was, the arrow found its target. Travelling scant feet to burrow into the clown-leader's gut, the little halfling gasped at the impact. But damn it all if the red-painted lips didn't distort from a surprised circle to a beaming grin once more. "No way, no how, old timer," she smiled. "You're not - *KOFF* - sending me to the long night. But hey! You wondering why I lead this here circus?"
One moment she was there, the next she had slipped low to dash for Stig with her knife first.
"'Cause I'm a cut above the rest!" Chaotic as the din of combat was, the ifrit didn't quite catch all that occurred around him. He thought that what remained of the assassins tried to bring low the Dame, only to fail to penetrate her armor and for one of them to perish at her furious retaliation. What demanded his attention, however, was the cult leader's strike at the knight. Or at least what he could make out of it; Riveh had just taken a heavy spray of Stig's blood to the face. He didn't understand what had just transpired. Wyssilka dodging low only to thrust her dagger - the same implement so dark it appeared almost as a fragment of the void that was his own cloak - into the man's chest wasn't too hard to follow. This resulting in Stig's back bursting open as if the blade was no halfling sized knife but a giant's greatsword was harder to attribute to anything but magic. Whatever the case, the result was clear: the knavish knight crumpled down before Riveh's feet.
"You next, Red?" The halfling, grievously wounded though she was, appeared pleased at her handiwork. "So seriously though: who are you guys? Lion Blades? No offence, but I would expect them to have a bit more panache, you know?"
There was a certain irony that the bitter, crusted, misanthropic Stig might have just sacrificed his life for Riveh and Trant. The old man could have ran away or jumped over the railing but instead gave his all, even at point-blank range. Granted, Riveh doubted this was because of some great undying love for himself or the Madame, but still. It had been brave and Riveh did not intend for it to go without recognition (or saving). But first, Wyssilka had to go. Riveh had no idea how much vigor the clown had left, but two arrows to the face can't be good. Maybe another blow...
"I am the Night beyond the Night." Riveh says, weighing his morningstar in hand. "The dark beyond the dark and I am here to claim you."
Stepping over the fallen Stig, Riveh smashes down with the heavy mace.
Should he be surprised? Should it surprise Riveh at this point that his overture to the jester, even a wee bit aggrandized as it was, elicited anything but amusement? But then perhaps he should simply take what he could get for the delight visible in the maimed face was not derisive; no, it spoke of glee and anticipation. "Show me."
He proceeded to do so. Only the metal railing saved the halfling from being launched clean from the stairs as her small body was blown aside by Riveh's mighty strike. Though damnably quick, he had been quicker still, catching her in the side with his morning star. This was it, he knew. It had to be it. Ribs had audibly cracked at the impact. No matter how tough, no matter how mad, no mortal could possibly weather such a blow. And mercifully it seemed that Wyssilka the Fantabulous, despite all the affectations, was merely mortal. Clutching at the railing with a bloodied hand, this was all she could do to remain upright. The light behind the manic eyes was fading fast. And yet the smile wasn't. That remained, the painted and torn lips even muttering something the ifrit only heard due to his proximity.
"I am the Reaper's Right Hand
Ne'er to see the light
Even alone I shall stand
To Await the Night."
The hand slipped, and with it what remained of her crazed consciousness. The lifeless body of the cult leader tumbled down the stairs, past Riveh, past the struggling Trant to land on the concrete floor, right at the feet of what little remained of said cult. A rictus grin still adorned it. Even veiled as their faces were, the shock felt by those assassins was obvious. They stared at the colorful bundle that had been their commander for a moment before launching into yet more furious attacks at the Dame before them, she still blocking their path.
Even so, Riveh thought he detected some new hesitation behind the knives, even as one of them slashed open the noblewoman's thigh. Her cry of pain was brief, however, instead gritting her teeth and grabbing hold of the offender, only to then pull him close in burying her sword into his gut. Another halfling fell dead. From a dozen strong cult, now only two remained. And these suddenly appeared very unsure of themselves indeed. Exchanging a brief glance, this pair carefully danced out of the Dame's considerable reach only to bolt. Fleeing down the corridor of crates they were soon gone to all but the ifrit's supernatural eyes. Trant did not complain, instead just gasping with exertion both physical and mental. Still wary, she tried backing up the stairs only to fall bottom first onto the third step. She didn't bother rising again.
Heavens above, she looked a mess. Still bearing the bite marks of the monstrous Barley, Trant's tall form bore so many swipes and stabs in addition she almost resembled a sword training dummy. The black mourning dress now appeared burgundy, and she looked ready for a funeral of her own. Of course, the ifrit reflected, he probably didn't look much better. "Geminus..." she puffed. "Wh...!"
She got no further as the blue eyes abruptly wend wide at the sight of the wounded knight lying between them. She had evidently not noticed Stig's fall in the midst of combat. "Geminus, is he dead?!"
"It'll take more then some cultists dagger to kill Stig. He didn't get chance to complain nearly enough." Riveh quips, putting a brave face on it. Still, he was worried. It would be a poor victory if it cost Stig's life.
What an odd trio they had become, so unlike and yet so closely bound. Life was stranger then Riveh had ever guessed from the stories and legends.
"You just sit and rest, we'll see about you next."
With that Riveh turned his attention to the apparently unconscious knight.
Riveh rolled the man over and felt for a pulse, wondering if his heart was still beating. It was hard to tell anything over his own still pounding heart and all the blood was very distracting. Giving up, he pulled out the bottle of Cure Light Wounds that he had bought at the first town off his estate. He had always assumed it would be for him after some mighty combat for glory and honor, not used on a run-down knight in a crumbling warehouse. Still.
"Here's that drink I owe you, Stig." With that he carefully tipped the almond scented liquid down the knight's throat. He held his breath while praying to....well whatever god would listen, that the old man could drink it.
Yup, there it was. Riveh could breathe a sigh of relief as his fingers found a thrumming pulse, steady if weakening, underneath the black beard. The aging heart was evidently just as obstinate as its owner. Raising the potion to the knight's lips, he managed to coax the curative drops into him. Their effects were mercifully quick; the lined eyelids began to flutter.
"Adula...?" Who? The hoarse whisper, almost a whimper, escaping the man did at least confirm that he was returning to the land of the living from his trek halfway up the Gray Lady's spire, albeit only barely. The ifrit noted with some curiosity that the grievous wound that felled him barely healed up at all; the magic must have expended itself simply repairing his internal damage.
"Grah... That's no mug to wake up to..." Stig's complaint in finding Riveh standing over him was as sure a sign as any that the old warhorse was going to make it. Though his clear discomfort in trying to rise was enough to make one doubt. The wound was still such that most wouldn't be able to walk, and truth be told he seemed to have trouble with just that.
"Damn! No, I'm fine," he dismissed any concerns even in cursing at the clear pain. "I've seen these before..." He indicated the chest wound. "Might bleed to death in some four hours, but beyon' that I'm fine... Where's the halfling b*tch? She dead?"
Trant, appearing noticeably more cold than when she had first thought the man dead, indicated the bottom of the stairs. "Geminus finished her off. Did what you couldn't manage."
"Oh, piss off, you colossal c*ntosaurus..."
"Quiet! I won't have you speak to me like that!"
"I'll speak however I want, I have a title! And where were you when I put an arrow through the crazy runt's head, huh?"
"Where were you when I when needed help?! Geminus came for me! Where were you?"
"Girl, I shot one of the little bastards standin' over you!"
'An odd trio' indeed. Still, Riveh was fairly sure that his two companions were merely releasing justly accumulated tension in bickering. Or at least probably so. In any case, both were so wounded that they couldn't bear any more fighting; this wasn't likely to come to blows. Instead the ifrit merely smelled at the flask he'd pilfered from one of the cultist, trying to ascertain what it contained. Hm. Almondy.
Listening to them bicker, and catching the waft of almonds out of the vial, Riveh did a very strange thing. he lifted his head and laughed. A deep throated, real laugh that echoed off the mildewed walls and off the cracked crates. It was a weird sound in that empty place, littered with deaths.
But why not?
They had lived! They had tracked a dangerous and mad cult of killers, and taken them on right in their lair. Fought them man to man (or woman to man as the case may be) and triumphed. It was no small feat whatever else may follow. Oparra was a better place after it, despite the killing. The waves of stress, anxiety and pain welled up in him, releasing in an outburst of laughter.
Slowly it receded as the ifrit got hold of himself.
"You two..." he said, as they eyed him warily, probably wondering if he had finally cracked. "Never change. Stig, drink this. It'll probably not kill you." he hands Stig the mystery bottle and stands up.
"I'll search the bodies for more healing potions. All of us need some. Who knows what lurks in the final couple of rooms. Might be some fighters left to guard the prisoners. " If there are any...
With his laughter echoing through the large warehouse floor, reverberating off its drying pools of blood and cooling corpses, the Dame did in fact look at Riveh as if he'd gone mad. "What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded, very defensively, at his jocular request. Oh well. At least the mirth had snapped his two companions out of their bickering. And Stig for one even seemed to be in on the joke even if he didn't appreciate it. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up... It's all fun and games when you're a bloody kid..." Then he winced again.
Had the older man sounded just a bit wistful in his half-hearted reproach? Maybe Riveh was hearing things. Regardless, he took the proffered potion without arguing. "Worse for you if it does kill me. I'll haunt your stupid red mop til the end of your days if it does. Never be able to sh*t in peace again..." Then, with an experimental first glug, he shrugged and downed the bottle.
This time the knavish knight appeared much more heartened, his wounds visibly healing if not entirely fading. He rose from his lying position on the stairs without too much trouble, gave a half-nod to the ifrit in recognition, and then joined him in searching the corpses. Trant meanwhile only huffed and remained seated. Perhaps looting the dead was beneath a 'proper' noble such as herself. Then again, Riveh noted, with the fight over she was now strangely averse to even look at the bodies, keeping her head turned away throughout their search in what he was sure was supposed to be a perfectly innocuous manner. Leavening the Dame to whatever thoughts occupied her was probably best.
Said search proved a moderate success, however. Maneuvering lifeless limbs and digging through pockets clammy with blood proved a singularly unpleasant task (except for Stig who set to this work in characteristically crude fashion, this clearly not being his first time corpse looting), but the ifrit did in fact find another potion flask. This one too was unmarked, but it was virtually identical in both appearance and smell to the previous one he'd found. In addition to this he'd found another, more curious bottle, though this one contained some sort of fine oil, odorless, almost like the sort used for weapon maintenance. Mercifully it was labeled. Perhaps it was a commercial product then? Whatever the case, the fine label read 'Oil of Keen Edge'.
Moreover the two found a number of weaponry on the assassins - of course - such as simple slings, this implement being so endemic to the halfling race, as well as the daggers that the trio had gotten all too familiar with. Riveh's side ached just looking at one of them. They were all of exceedingly fine make, though. Especially the one he came upon last. Wyssilka the Fantabulous's broken corpse was undoubtedly the most uncomfortable to search if only for the stiff rictus grin still set on her white face. He couldn't quite shake the feeling that she would come to life again at any moment, no doubt screeching 'BOO!' and then laughing. But such was not the case. Instead he retrieved her dagger, a gorgeous example of its kind albeit too small for his hand. Notably its blade wasn't an inky shard of midnight anymore, now just gleaming - if bloodied - steel. Curious. Also of interest was the hole drilled midway through the blade. The ifrit's eye wandered to the lacquered holy symbol hanging by her neck. Yup, the knife had clearly been fashioned to resemble the cult's dark god's emblem. He wondered... Opening his mind to the arcane with a simple cantrip, there it was: magic hung on the blade like a deep, heavy shadow.
"What the hell?" Stig murmured in unhappy surprise. The man had joined Riveh in searching the cult leader's body, and now pulled back his hand from an inner pocket. In it he held... a hand puppet? The seemingly well-made doll was fashioned in the image of a fat, mustachioed nobleman with an evil grin, now severely bloodied. "Crazy bint..."
EDIT: Hm? He'd almost missed it, but Riveh's gaze was drawn to a glint from one of the halfling's hands as the very last of the sun's rays disappeared over the high windows of the warehouse. What was that? Looking the arm over, it proved to have come from the killer's glove. It was a strange little garment: a leather affair, fingerless and utilitarian, it sported an open cut over the back of the hand. There a thin glass disc rested, fastened with metal wiring. As a purely aesthetic sensibility it appeared more than a little odd, and that mystery only deepened as he realized that every single member of the cult wore an identical glove, all over their left hand. Some practice of the faith perhaps? There was no magic in the glove as near as he could tell.
And then it vibrated. The ifrit was just a bit startled as the embedded glass plate vibrated briefly, almost humming on its own accord. What in the world? There, it did it again! What was...?
"Stupid thing doesn't work!" Riveh looked over to the knight. He was holding a small metal whistle to his mouth, something he'd evidently found on a corpse. "What kind of idiot carries a whistle that doesn't work?" Complaining to the inanimate object as if it should be ashamed, he nevertheless blew into it again as if to chastise it.
The glass plate on the glove hummed again. They all did.
Riveh is just pocketing a few of his hard-won gains when he notes the strange gloves. What strange devices, what purpose did they serve? Luckily Stig soon answers it. So, some kind of silent alarm, a way to spread the alert without tipping their own hand. Clever, it must have been the reason Riveh didn't notice any type of alarm being raised after his fire gambit failed.
He explains the idea to Stig and then shrugs, "Should we grab a few? Might be useful to give signals, if nothing else. All else fails, maybe some merchant will buy them off us."
The ifrit takes the healing potion may to Trant and, with a formal bow, "Something fizzy for the lady?" A weary smile and then, "Drink this, you'll need it."
As Trant drinks, Riveh ponders the strange hand-puppet. Wyssilka was clearly mad and mad people did odd things. Was the doll just an affectation or did it mean something?
Whistles that emitted imperceptible sound? Glass that trembled at such emissions? The weirdest thing about the devices might honestly be that Riveh couldn't detect any magic about them. But however they worked, these items did explain how the cultists had suddenly and completely silently raised the alarm earlier; perhaps the man following himself back to the depot had come upon the corpse outside and blown a whistle of his own. In any case, even the stubborn Stig let slip an acknowledging look at a glove as the ifrit explained him this idea. "Hm. Maybe sumthin' the cult pilfered from the Brotherhood before they split up. Seems a little advanced for these jokers."
Even so he dismissed the suggestion of taking a few of these for themselves. "Too small. Unless Mount Prissy over there is secretly a master seamstress, neither of us are gettin' our mitts in those."
"I heard that!"
Ah, right. Still, retrofitting the device to a larger glove should hardly prove insurmountable for the right tradesperson, and it might still represent a fair bit of coin to the right buyer. But perhaps Riveh should see to the titular mountain, the objections of which the knight had pointedly ignored. Maneuvering his way back to the Dame, he found her still occupying one step of the stairs, sitting at rest with her back to the wall. No longer winded, she almost appeared at peace if not for her terribly disheveled state. And of course the wounds. While the cuts and bruises were many, none of them appeared overly serious; they simply added up. And yet these seemed entirely forgotten as she smiled in surprise at the ifrit's bow.
"You'll forgive me if I don't get up to curtsy, good sir" she replied through a wry little grin, a token he couldn't help but think was stubbornly masking genuine delight, more delight than she was willing to admit. "...Thank you."
The flask exchanged hands only for the noblewoman to pause. "Are you sure you don't need it? I can manage if..." Only with some assurances did Trant down the bottle. Once consumed the magic within set to stitching together the wounds, these unfortunately being too numerous to all be healed, but still; she was obviously much heartened by the tonic.
Riveh meanwhile set to ponder something more mundane in looking over the bloodied handpuppet. "What's that? It's ghastly," the Dame commented over his shoulder. Yes, that was what he wanted to know. Was the doll supposed to satirize any particular person? He hoped not because the thing really was a bit ghastly, blood or no. Its overall design, evil grin in particular, carried some sinister air to it. Hm. No, he didn't think it was fashioned after anyone in particular. Not anyone he could think of at least. Granted, its fat pouch of a belly and great big mustache could fit several senators he had seen at the Senate Gala, but he thought it more likely that the puppet was supposed to embody every such nobleman rather than a specific one. In which case it was a mean-spirited portrayal, to be sure.
But given what he had now seen of Oppara's less desirable districts, was the image of the feudal lord as a rotund despot rich of others' labor an unfair one? Perhaps not. Perhaps especially so if you were a halfling.
Pushing these considerations aside for now, his poor head plenty overworked as was, the ifrit decided to move on. There was still one place in particular in this hive of scum & villainy he wanted to investigate. Climbing the clattering staircase with his newly revitalized companions in tow, Riveh reached the elevated office space at their top. A simple door, left open from when Wyssilka had burst through it, swung open at his touch. Inside was... well, nothing much that he hadn't expected, sadly. It was indeed a little office. A humble desk with chair occupied most of the room, standing opposite a window overlooking the warehouse floor. A single candle burned brightly on top of it, most likely the same light he had spied earlier from the ground. The minutia scattered about was fairly notable, though.
Littering the floor and spilling from the desk's drawers were all manners of curious items. Were those... toys? The ifrit spied multicolored balls tossed haphazardly in every corner along with juggling sticks and more. These mixed in with what appeared to be wigs, big and small, and false eyebrows, makeup and other things he couldn't identify, some of which seemed to be more serious if esoteric tools. "This the clown's den, then?" Stig posited. Yes, most likely, Riveh had to agree. Except... where were the sleeping quarters? It seemed a mundane thing to wonder, but the cultists were mere mortals, no matter their divine inclinations. They had to sleep somewhere. So where were the beds? Was it possible that the warehouse had not been their primary hideout?
Wait. Wait, what was that? The ifrit's ears perked up at a sound nearby, a soft muttering almost like a whisper. It took him scant seconds to locate it: it was coming from the opposite end of the office, behind a door that couldn't lead to anything other than a utility closet. Now what? Alerting his companions and readying himself for trouble, he reasoned that there was nothing to do but open it, which he did only carefully, Stig and Trant at his back. The door opened easily enough. Yup, that sure was a closet, innocuous and dull as only an empty closet could be. Except it wasn't empty. More specifically there was something occupying its small floor. Riveh's mind didn't immediately recognize the bundle of bruised limbs, torn silk and rusted chains as human, not immediately. And it took him another moment still to recognize the discolored amalgamation of swollen wounds as the face of his employer, but there she was. It was Martella. Aroden's ghost, she looked like the great painters portrayed the petitions of Hell. These were not the bruises, cuts and burns of combat. Had she been... tortured? This suspicion was only confirmed as she spoke, one working eye looking up to him; where he had only known her voice as alternately playful and conspiratorial, now it was a cracked whisper, hoarse as only continual screaming could render one. Which was why it was so much more gratifying to hear its impishness wholly intact, despite it all.
"Tut tut, Sir Geminus. Didn't your honorable mother teach you not to intrude upon a lady when she isn't decent?"
Riveh tosses the unholy puppet onto the floor to join the other misfit toys. The thing was creepy and, knowing it's pervious owner, probably haunted. The last thing the ifrit needs is to have the shade of Wyssilka the Fantabulous following him around.
Even as moved to open the closet he felt a strange...draining sensation as the Bull's Strength potion left his limbs. It felt like a bathtub was draining, as his tendons and muscles relaxed and returned to their usual size and capabilities. It had been nice while it lasted...maybe he needed to buy more of it? It was useful in a fight.
All thoughts faded as he saw the very pathetic shape of Martella. The hurts the wounds....this was not simple neglect. It was not event he side effect of violence with a purpose. This had been torture, torture at the hands of a very mad and sick woman. The horror at being left to the mercies of Wyssilka made Riveh sick in a way Barley never could.
Martella and Riveh had their problem but right now, the noblewoman had just faced a potent evil. And surivied.
"Qadrian ways are more forward, m'lady." Riveh said roughly, trying to hide his own emotion at the battered woman. "I was taught it was better to beg forgiveness then ask permission."
And with that he moves to to free her.
"Either of you have any water?" Riveh asks, kneeling down to look at the chains. "I'm sure she'd appreciate it."
"We can do introductions after, although I believe you already know Stig Deadeye here." Riveh says, adding the joke to lift the dark mood of the torture chamber.
A smile, coquettish and cannier-than-thou, just as he remembered it, even beneath the heavy swelling. The fact that the Lady could laugh at his trenchant reply was surely only a good sign. Conversely, the fact that she winced in doing so, this apparently causing her some pain, was less so. She needed help. She could play at being ever so cool as was her wont, but that only made her state - looking as she did as if thrown down a flight of stairs deep enough to reach the Dead Vault of Rovagug - all the more pitiable in comparison. So Riveh set to helping.
Reaching for the manacles binding her arms, he nearly recoiled himself, however, even as he reminded himself to be careful in his aid; her hands were clearly broken. He'd seen gloved scarecrows with more uniform fingers. Locked. Of course they were. With neither Stig or Trant carrying any water canteen, he charged them with finding the key, a task they set to immediately, the former grimly and the latter with some slight relief; the Dame had looked inordinately shocked at Martella's condition and at a loss for how to help.
And in the meantime the Lady seemed perfectly happy to keep up her charade, the sweat on her forehead betraying her true state. "Of course," she replied the ifrit in mentioning the knight, voice just a bit too shaky. "Good evening, Sir Stig. I trust you've..."
"Shut up, you damn fool!" the man cut her off sharply in upending a drawer from the desk. "You f*ckin' blue-blooded ninnies, can't even keep from prattlin' on when you should be squealin'. Just shut up 'n concentrate on not passin' out, yeah?"
Another grin, another wince. "Always a pleasure, my knight. Such a charmer, isn't he? I knew that..." The noblewoman's face, the half of it visible beneath the swollen bruises, took on a look of mild surprise as the one eye she could see through fell on the third member of the trio. "Forgive me, but I may be suffering a minor concussion - is that Dame Trant?"
"Uh, y-yes, madam," the younger woman answered, more awkwardly than Riveh could recall ever hearing her. "I am, um, she."
Somehow the ifrit didn't like the far too knowing look the Lady gave him in response. "Oh. Oh, very good, Sir Geminus. Very good. See, this is precisely why I hired you."
Mercifully it did not take long to locate the damnable key. Trant finding the thing at the bottom of a drawer beneath a deck of scattered playing cards, she immediately passed it on to Riveh who in turn had Martella free the next moment. This completed, the knight moved to lift their employer up in a bridal carry so that they might all leave, only for him to nearly fall to the floor himself, cursing up a storm. Another cramp had overtaken his leg in the attempt, the spider venom apparently still playing tricks upon his body. "Quite alright, Sir Stig?" The polite concern from the battered torture victim only added to his clear humiliation. Ultimately the ifrit and he decided to support the woman at each shoulder, a maneuver that met considerably more success. The only slight hiccup occurred when Riveh put a hand to her side, hoping to add some support, only for his hand to sink into pliable flesh in the most disconcerting manner; Martella's ribs were broken. She suppressed a scream. Gods, how was she even conscious?
Strangely, this was not the question on Stig's mind. "Did you talk?" he suddenly asked as they descended the stairs, slowly, carefully.
"During my enhanced interrogation, you mean?" What? Had Wyssilka been torturing Martella for information? "No, good knight. No, I did not say a word."
He merely grunted in reply. "But..." she went on, with a new hesitation, halting and yet somehow... hopeful? "By your concern am I to understand that...?"
"Yeah," Stig replied curtly. "Yeah, I saw her. She's alive. She's fine."
Could you feel someone's relief on their very skin? Because Riveh swore that he felt a tension, a great weight of oppressive anxiety, leave the woman he was shouldering at this terse assurance. "Of course. I should not presume you to be here if not. Then... at the gala, the attack... How bad is it?"
Right. Unless told so by her kidnappers, there was no reason Martella should have the faintest idea about the outcome of the Exaltation Massacre. But if the knight was about to tell her about its scale, he suddenly found himself distracted. Justly so; Riveh too had seen what caused the older man to pause. They had just exited the depot, they carrying the Lady and Trant opening the doors. Outside the warehouse district appeared no different excepting that night had fallen. The long shadows and dark corridors of the place had transformed into a murky maze of black buildings. No different - except for the two corpses outside.
What in the world? Two lifeless bodies, halflings, were lying scant feet from the door out. He had no trouble recognizing them. These were the two cultists that had fled the battle, they being the only two of their faith left. Now they lay face down in the dirt, a small trickle of blood beneath them. How had this happened?
It becomes obvious, even after only a few steps, that despite Martella's rather jaunty attitude she is seriously wounded. In short order Riveh moves from 'concerned' to 'worried' to 'fearful' that the woman is not only very injured but actively dying. Internal wounds of all sorts could be bleeding her of life as they speak. His first plan to merely retreat to the Trant manor seemed foolish as they exposed broken limbs and possibly punctured lungs. No, they needed something far more serious. Riveh is about to raise the topic of close temples when they stumble onto the corpses outside.
Riveh mentally curses, halting their half-carry, half-walk. "Stay here in the shadows." he whispers to Stig.
With that the still cloaked ifrit slinks forward, eyes peeled for trouble.
Riveh sees no sign of the killer or killers and soon relaxes. Who had done this? Lion Blades seeking out justice for the Massacre? The Brotherhood hoping to finish off a radical fringe? Either group might be following them or, more likely, following their own leads.
Or some other group? Perhaps the force behind the Massacre? It was obvious this...Circle had only been toys, useful tools for a far grander conspiracy. Wyssilka had been sick and maybe even clever, but she didn't have the resources or ability to operate what happened in the Senate, let alone corner the diamond market weeks ahead of time. Perhaps someone wanted to make sure no halfling talked about such things...For a moment Riveh regrets having gained no information but consoles himself that questioning Wyssilka would have been beyond pointless.
Riveh hurries back to Stig, "No sign. Someone finished the job. Let's get out of here. Anyone have an idea which temple we can go to? Martella needs a healer, badly. Abadar maybe? Or maybe Desna, they might ask less questions."
He turns to Trant, "Let's get her into your carriage as quickly as we can, it should only be a few blocks away."
No tongues. It was this grisly detail that stood out to Riveh most strongly in looking over the two bodies, even beyond the curiously fine cut to the necks - so fine as to have been done with a giant razor over any conventional sword - that had apparently been their deaths. One clean swipe severing the vertebrae. They had probably died before hitting the ground. The tongues, however - those must have been removed afterward for whatever reason. Ghastly stuff.
But then ghastlier still was the fact that this must have all taken place scant minutes ago, and yet he couldn't see the faintest sign of the perpetrators. The warehouse district, every dark corner of it, was still as the grave. The tall buildings, heavy with neglect, revealed nothing, their empty windows unwelcoming and cloying shadows oppressive. Was it possible? Were the surreptitious Lion Blades hiding around some corner here? Was the just as secretive Brotherhood? Did it matter who? Either way, if they did not want to reveal themselves to him, then the faction was unlikely to be benign. Secret government agencies, assassination guilds, murder, torture, plots, grand political slaughter - whatever had he gotten himself into?
He should leave. They should all leave. Martella needed help and they weren't going to find any here. It then followed that they should leave. It wasn't much, but this much he knew. Returning to the others, the ifrit led them away as quickly as Martella's fragile state allowed, every member of the group perfectly content to never see the place again.
Of course, neither he nor most anyone else could be faulted for failing to note the figure now observing them leave, just as it had watched them fight and triumph over the cult. Few had the acute awareness to detect this entity, little more than a deeper shade within the total darkness nightfall had brung. Although the ifrit had guessed at its purpose. While there to carry out a church's sentence, this agent had been happy to allow this scampering third party to wear the hangman's hood. The fewer traces that led back to the church, the better. Father Skinsaw did so appreciate subtlety.
----------
"No, no church."
Within the racing carriage (whose coach driver, deliriously distraught at the sight of the bloodied quartet, had to be firmly shaken into action by Trant before they could leave), Riveh was wondering whether he could simply ignore the Lady's words. Barely had he aired his very reasonable suggestion to find the nearest practitioner of curative magic before Martella had shot it down. "Wisteria Walk," she said, one functioning eye closed and concentrating on not crying out every time the wheels hit a bump. "51 Wisteria Walk in Westpark. I can be seen to there."
Westpark? While it didn't have quite the history of Aroden's View, Westpark was largely recognized as the wealthiest district in the city. "And what's there?" Stig demanded, asking the question the other two might reasonably be wondering.
"Just an ally." Curse that mysterious grin. Or at least so the knight seemed to think. "Bah!" he spat. "Tell the driver, boy. And you - gimme your hands."
The Lady, the subject of the sudden request, looked at him questioningly. She had clearly taken care not to jostle the broken limbs unduly throughout their escape. "Hands. Give 'em here," the thug went on, just a bit milder. Although given that this was Stig, 'milder' more so referred to going from one length of sandpaper to a finer grader of the stuff. "You're never usin' them again if they're healed in that state. They're just goin' to be magicked together all helter-skelter, like reparin' a pot by pourin' cement over the shards. The fingers need to be set. So give 'em here."
"This can wait, surely?!" an agitated Trant protested, anticipating the unpleasant operation to come. Martella herself was obviously not best pleased, a heavy look coming over her battered features. Nevertheless she relinquished the limbs after a moment's silence, holding out her hands to the knight sitting opposite her. She then turned her head up the carriage's ceiling, jaw clenched and nostrils flaring. The Dame too turned away.
It was not a pleasant ride.
----------
Wisteria Walk if nothing else turned out to be inordinately beautiful, even in the darkness. No, perhaps especially in the darkness; the light of the artfully crafted lampposts lining the avenue was surely powered by something more than mundane oil, Riveh thought, so bright and soft their rays were. Everything was rendered somehow more romantic by their lighting, tender and appealing, not that the district needed any help in this regard; its architecture was gorgeous. It was a residential street Martella had led them to, though its houses were nothing like the grand mansions of, say, the Trants. The classical lines and spires of Aroden's View, drawn from Ancient Azlant, were far more muted here, instead giving way to more modern sensibilities. The smaller residences - though small only for the fabulously rich that dwelled here - were colorful affairs focused on comfort as much as opulence, all hedged in by private gardens fit to bursting with the flowers that gave the place its name. The royal blue wisteria hung out into the street in heavy cascades, fluttering almost like the proud flag of the nation.
The guards milling about somewhat ruined the positive impression, of course. Just as with Aroden's View before, the ifrit saw a great many guardsmen protecting the peace through the small carriage window, most of them seemingly in private employ. Such was also the case with the house the coach finally stopped in front of. Here too a great many guards, darkly dressed, waited as discreetly as could be managed. "Taldogis."
Huh? "Taldogis," Martella repeated patiently to him. "It's the pass code. Be so good as to pass it to them." Tal...? Wait, as in Taldaris? The mythical founder of Taldor reared by lions? Strange as this sounded, he supposed there was nothing to do but step out and approach these grim men. And the ifrit had nearly done so when he caught sight of the main entrance to the house past the lawn. Its door was open, light streaming out of it. It illuminated the woman standing in the doorway. It wasn't that she was fantastically beautiful, although she was certainly attractive even if some might say her best years had passed her. Nor was it the striking eyes, dark and almost scandalously inviting in their smokey quality. Even at a distance they were like looking into a lush muted bedroom through a haze of fragrant tobacco. No, it was neither of these that caused Rived to pause. It was that he recognized her. He had seen this woman before. If only he could recall where.
Riveh's mind is so awhirl that he barely pays attention to Stig's rough ministrations (or Trant's yelps of pain). So much had happened recently, it was hard to digest. A tangle of factions already seem to knot around the ifrit. A confused and beheaded nobility, the Brotherhood, the Silent Circle, the Lion Blades, the seemingly mad Grand Prince and...whatever moved behind him. Riveh still felt the ruler of Taldor was being controlled by some other group or person. Surely even the most stubborn and power-hungry Taldane wouldn't unleash such a blood letting on the Senate floor, including his own daughter?
Right?
And this didn't even touch on the more personal puzzles. For one thing, a scion of his most hated foes is sitting right across from him in the crowded carriage. Martella Coufas, actually Lotheed. The family who destroyed his own father and left the Geminus to rot in rural exile. Whose ruin he vowed and set out on this entire mission for. And now he was risking his life to rescue her?
And next to her sat Madame Trant, this strange towering noblewoman. The bond between them...what was it? A strange link brought on by battle and stress? A connection forged by saving each other's life several times over? Or was it more? Was there some sort of spark between them? The idea seemed at once ludicrous and...intriguing.
And there was also Stig.
His mind was still full of these thoughts as they hustled off to some unknown location. Riveh assumed it was yet another Martella safehouse. the woman seemed quite adept at secrets. Would they find another basement and religious cult?
The house seems well-guarded enough, even by Taldor standards (were having a private army isn't unheard of). With the city as it was, this was probably not the only guarded estate. Clearly though, Martella had greater resources then Riveh suspected. Was this, then, perhaps a Lotheed stronghold? Just where was he going?
Then all that is blown from his mind when Princess Eutropia herself emerges from the shadows. No, this is no mere noble family estate, armed for protection. This is the kernel of the current opposition, girded for war. Riveh is so stunned he forgets to bow and merely stares like an idiot.
Slowly though he manages to say
"I have a very injured woman. She led us here. Please help."
A half dozen well-practiced hands fell warily - and meaningfully - to their sheathed swords. This was the immediate reaction that greeted Riveh upon leaving the carriage. The guards of this little gated community, or more specifically those guarding the private pathway to this particular house, were clearly not best pleased at the sight of him. But then why should they be? An armed, blood soaked half-southerner was not a welcome sight anywhere in Taldor. Still, at least they seemed disciplined enough not to simply start swingin', even if most of them appeared to be of the 'Stig' variety. Which was to say the practical sort, all leather armor, light weaponry and mean looks, as opposed to the pomp and circumstance of the official and uniformed city watchmen.
Well, that wasn't entirely true, the ifrit noted. The guardsman standing nearest him and patiently waiting to hear why he shouldn't politely yet firmly turn him away had a funny clasp with an ornate emblem fastening his cloak. Riveh almost thought he'd seen the symbol before.
No, no distractions. Reminding himself that the woman who may or may not be bleeding to death just behind him came first, the ifrit addressed the guardsman. The man was not impressed.
"Sir, this is a private home, not an infirmary. Unless you have business with the mistress of the house, I must ask you to leave. I'm happy to give you directions to the nearest temple if..."
"'Ey!" The rough voice of a certain supposed knight sheared through the otherwise so placid evening air as the carriage door behind Riveh was kicked open. "You let us through right now, tw*t-face, before I give your mouth its first period!"
Sadly accustomed as the ifrit had grown to this vernacular over the day, by the guards' tight faces they obviously took some exception to it. As did the Dame within ("Language! Gods!"), although by her chocked little laughter the Lady at least found some amusement in it. Of course, the revelation of yet another armed, bloodied thug probably didn't help relations. "What are you doing?" Trant interjected, as bewildered as she was frustrated. "Just give them the passphrase. Taldogis! Taldogis, do you hear?"
The watchmen did hear. And judging by the shift in their bearing they obviously recognized the strange password too. Immediately the man with the emblem asked to see within the carriage, only to nearly recoil at the first sight of Martella. From there things moved fast. The guards let word pass to get the coach through as quickly as possible, something the poor Trant household driver, his nerves already so frayed at the state of the young noblewoman that was effectively his ward, took to so literally that Riveh only just managed to hop back on the carriage before it took off. He didn't manage to see much of the well maintained, walled wisteria gardens they raced through before reaching the house at their center. Nor could he truly take in the details of said house given the darkness, though none could fail to note its clear affluence. This was no fabled estate, the seat of power for a centuries old family, massive and storied as few other buildings could be. No, this was the home of someone not with famed blood in their veins, but rather plain old gold in their pockets. Large, modern and comfortable, it sported two floors and an extensive veranda. Despite the late hour every window was alive with golden light too.
The late hour was not the primary reason the ifrit failed to discern much of the grounds, however. This was more so due to the figure awaiting them on said veranda. He had noted her even at a distance, a womanly silhouette framed by the light from the doorway. And now as they approached he grew more certain with every inch that he had seen her before. Recently, in fact. Perhaps even - his remembrance tugged at him - at the Exaltation Gala. Could it be...? No, that was impossible. Surely not? The Princess herself? This was astounding!
Too astounding to be true. Which it wasn't. As the carriage skidded to a halt before the main entrance, it became clear that the woman wasn't the Princess at all. But Riveh's belabored mind, tired and overexcited from what had been a very long day indeed, could be forgiven for making this mistake; it had simply leaped at a faulty association, you see. For while the woman standing before him was not Princess Eutropia, he had seen her with the Princess just yesterday. Pale, slender, dark of hair and with what had to be the most provocatively sultry gaze he had ever witnessed, this was most surely the same woman who had accompanied her highness during the gala. Now she merely stood here waiting, cool as anything, whilst smoking from a fine, very feminine pipe. And he knew who she was too, or at least so he thought; he had learned as much during the gala. She was Lady Gloriana Morilla, famed for two things in particular. One of these was a supposedly spectacular singing voice; being able to procure the Lady to entertain at an event was said to be a high mark of Taldan fine society. The other was more curious, namely her involvement with the Pathfinder Society. What Lady Morilla's interest in the far-reaching group was remained unknown, but her involvement was apparently extensive, going so far as acting as venture-captain in Taldor for the explorers.
The carriage door opened. Out stepped Trant, carefully supporting the pitiable Martella. Lady Morilla did not stir. Instead she merely smiled, a painted little smirk that spoke of secrets, whether gossip, a lover's indiscretion, or an entire house's downfall. And then she sang. By the heavenly host, what song. While yesterday's chatter had informed the ifrit that she was a singer, that tattle did her no justice. The Lady was only a singer in the sense that a forest fire could be called a series of sparks. Hers was the sort of noble song that could hush a riot, her every urbane utterance not allowing for anything crass or artless. This was operatic at the highest level - the highest form of musical art as developed by the highest culture on earth: this was Taldor! It was a civilizing force; everywhere her voice touched barbarism was quelled. She turned a space as sophisticated as herself. By every god, why amass the legendary Armies of Exploration to spread proper Taldan civilization to the world? No barbarism could possibly withstand this one woman and her voice.
So beautiful was her lilting melody that Riveh almost forgot to wonder why exactly the Lady thought this moment appropriate to break into song, but this question answered itself as the tune sank into his skin, his very being. And something within responded. Truly, it felt as he was oscillating with the voice, that it had become part of him and that he was better for it. He even felt the pain of his wounds subside. It was when he saw the very same happen with his companions that he understood: she was healing them. Trant looked to her evaporating cuts as Stig stood taller, but the most gratifying and notable change was evident in Martella. There bruises faded so that the skin returned to the warm sun-kissed tone the ifrit was familiar with, she quickly regaining the strength to stand on her own as the song washed over them. Within seconds the face healed and he recognized the features of his graceful employer again. Dressed in the rags that once been a ball gown and with her makeup smeared beyond all sense perhaps, but very much herself.
The performance stopped. From her elevated position the noblewoman gave the quartet at her doorstep a smokey and supremely satisfied look. "Martella my dear, you look positively ghastly."
"Whereas you are radiant as always, Lady Morilla," came the quick reply.
Another coy smile. "It's good to see you. You've been missed as you no doubt already know. Informing our friends that the rumors of your demise were unfounded is sure to make me very popular indeed."
"As if her Ladyship isn't already the belle of the ball wherever she goes."
"Mh. Come in and we'll fix your makeup. You look like a Katapeshi harlot."