Seeing no immediate signs of a threat or trouble, Kali slowly looks around the room for hidden threats and useful items or information.
Finding nothing, she moves directly south of the door to the north and raises her bow and prepares to fire should someone come through or she take sight of a threat.
Kaliyah spends a full minute searching and listening. She hears a very faint noise, like scraping or shuffling, coming from the grate in the ground.
Kali holds up her fist to signal a halt to Magda. Pointing at her ear and then at the grate below them, she listens and takes note of a sound. She then backs off a little bit, weapon readied if Magda wishes to investigate further.
Vera follows, though not too closely.
Magda looks a What look, but figures it out, hunching down she'll figure out how to open the grate and try and do so, quietly.
Magda strains...
Strains HARDER....
strains something...
then!!!
With some effort. Magda gets the sluice grate open in this part of the abattoir.
She takes a breath, and moments later, three creatures emerge from the old sewer tunnel. The creatures resemble a lobster in the front, and an eel in the back.
The LobsterEels look like they are going to climb out of the tunnel in a moment.
Magda whispers loudly to the ones outside "THINGS!" she'll grab her spear from the ground (since there was no way to hold it and open that grate) then stab one of them before taking a step back
Guess we're loud than. Marcus runs inside to start closing the gap.
Speaking a single command word, Vera uses her Wand of Magic Missile to hit a creature that others have hit!
Krovak moves next to Magda and gets ready to strike one of the reefclaws should it come close.
The LobsterEels try to climb out of the tunnel awkwardly and attack everyone. The one next to Krovax attacks from inside the tunnel.
Marcus is grappled, and grabbed by the LobsterEel. The LobsterEel's claws are dripping with Venom
Marcus' strength is sapped by the LobsterEel's venomous claws.
Vera shoots a magic missile at the previously injured LobsterEel, which falls unconscious.
Once her enemy is down, she looks at Krovax and Marcus and decides that the dog needs more attention. She turns a quarter step and fires a shot by the ugly eel all wrapped around his body. It's a tricky shot to not hit her companion and her hand moves up and down as she tracks the creature across his body.
Asoka continues to keep an eye out front, running over her cover story should the other men return. She waits by the entrance to the shop.
Marcus rips free of the creature, stepping back and steeling himself.
"I guess the quiet way is long gone." Magda says what Marcus was thinking. "We need to trash'em quick before the man upstairs has a chance to bolt."
Magda steps behind the wall of steel, and stabs the little clawed devil with her spear
Krovax thrusts his blade again at the strange monster.
Asoka doesn’t seem to hear anything over the sounds of the city in the early evening. She keeps a sharp eye out for the Cow Hammer Boys.
The LobsterEel next to Madga drops unconscious from Krovax’s attack.
The LobsterEel next to Marcus keeps attacking him after having gotten hit by an arrow.
The LobsterEel misses Marcus and then descends into the sewer pipe.
Marcus tries to shake off the effects of the poison.
Marcus is able to get the poison out of his body with no additional negative effects.
Krovax walks forward to the next beast, thrusting his blade through its side!
Marcus moves into a flanking position with Krovax and brings his sword down!
As the fleeing LobsterEel tries to escape, it is killed after dropping unconscious. In it’s death throes, it lashes out at all adjacent creatures.
But the creature dies with no additional effect.
"And here I was expecting to have a nice conversation with Verik," concludes Vera, as the fight ends. She searches for magic in case anything noticeable was present.
Pulling his sword from the flailing beast, Krovax looks to Marcus and says ”Alright. The time for stealth is past. Let’s move,” before moving to the next door, raising his shield, and pushing it open.
"One second" Magda takes a moment to stick her head down the grate to see if it is a way out or more of those things are down there ready to boil up once the group puts their back to them.
"A finger!" Magpie says a little loudly, reaching down to grab it from between two stones. She straightened up, holding it proudly up "Oh, and a ring. Looks expensive." she slips off the ring and flips it to Vera.
"Does this mean these folk are killers of more than just cows?" she asks, thinking their mystical one could see it's history. Then she sees that Krovax is already on the move, and gets herself to her feet, and hurries after. "I'm here, ready now"
"You could give me the finger, too. I've become a collector of body parts," says Vera half-jokingly. Still, the ring would probably suffice. "Allow me a minute, and I will tell you what I see."
Vera takes the ring and begins to concentrate on it, hoping to learn something useful about its former owner(s).
Kali shivers at Vera's comment on collecting the body parts. She shrugs it off and when she's done examining it she will notify the group. "I'm opening the door, prepare yourselves."
Two foul-smelling animal pens take up the majority of this room. Each pen is defined by a wooden fence set with a gate. Inside each is a long water trough and heaps of filthy hay. The floor here is hard-packed earth.
The room does not appear to have any animals in it at the moment.
Seeing no exits, the party does the same actions at the next door in line. Kaliyah searches again for traps and sounds, and finding nothing, opens the door for Krovax. The party sees a 10’ wide hall with two doors at the northern end and a staircase leading up. One of the doors appears to be the door to the shopfront, and the party had seen into this hall earlier, briefly, when speaking to the cow hammer boys.
Krovax gives a quiet whistle, barely a wind through his lips, to signal the others to come along. He then begins leading the way up the stairs alongside Marcus.
Magda nods and moves along with the man who makes quiet whistles but whose footsteps sound like a sack full of pots and pans.
After a quick search she is back with bits of hay and animal much on her, but with a grin she tells them "I found their loot pile, quite a haul."
"Storm and clear first, then we count loot." Marcus moves forward with Krovax.
Asoka whistles a little tune to herself, looking up at the stars while she waits at the storefront, continuing to keep an eye out for any of the cow hammer boys to return.
Kaliyah searches the stairs and landing above for traps, briefly. Kaliyah finds no traps on the stairs and landing, but gestures for the others to continue.
A round table sits in this room, surrounded by four wooden chairs. A stack of cards sits on the tabletop. A cabinet to the southwest hangs open, revealing a tangle of dirty clothes and blankets. Four thin bedrolls lie rolled up against the north wall.
Magda quickly reconnoiters the room once they are inside.
Magda finds nothing of interest. There is a door in the south wall.
As the party reaches another room, Vera casts a spell to detect magic, sharing anything she sees in the room.
If she sees nothing, she nods and lets others proceed to the next door.
Finding no magic and signs of traps, Kali checks the door again before signaling quietly to one of the beefier brawlers open it and head inside. She backs up and puts an arrow in her hand, loading into the bow and drawing it back, ready for trouble.
A single large desk stands in the eastern part of this large office, transformed into a makeshift bed by a bedroll and several blankets and pillows. A chamber pot sits under it. A table and three chairs sit to the west; several papers lie strewn over the table’s surface. One of the papers is pinned to the tabletop by an exquisite silver dagger.
The party sees a handsome man wearing Korvosan Guard livery and armor, sitting in a chair at the western table.
she shouts loudly, her arrow locked on the man. "Drop whatever you are holding, rise from your chair and put your hands behind your head. Do this now and I will spare you this arrow through your thigh. I have a contingent behind me that will bring you down if we must, but I will give you one chance to get through this alive."
The man is startled as Kaliyah rushes into the room, aiming a bow at him. He stands and draws his own bow, and Kaliyah’s aim is true. Her expertise at dealing with the most common people in the city is evident, as the shot enters the man’s upper arm and passes through the muscle. He grimaces and snaps the arrow off, pulling it out, blood welling a bit are the wound’s exit and entrance.
He narrows his eyes and says in an attractive voice, ”a marine? Why are you here? We’ve hurt no one! No matter; if you request an exchange of arrows - so be it.”
He takes aim at Kaliyah’s thigh and pulls back mightily on his bow, his aim shaking a bit from his wound.
The vicious arrow barely misses, and he curses under his breath.
Krovax barges into the room, moving to put himself between Verik and the window. ”Surrender, Verik, and be grateful you are wanted alive...” Krovax snarls.
Vera moves until he can see Verik. "Here goes nothing," she says. Vera begins casting a spell, hoping that the bold warrior would be susceptible to it and fall asleep!
Realizing her magic might put her allies to sleep also, Vera changes her mind and tries to simply daze Verik instead!
Verik sees that he is outnumbered, and curses, fear in his eyes. ”s+&!, fine. Wait, is that Krovax? I remember seeing you... didn’t you leave the guard, too? Why are you coming after me! I just left to help people!” He looks frantically around for an escape route before lowering his bow to the table and raising both of his hands in supplication, ”I surrender.” He swallows and looks fearfully at Krovax, and the others.
”You shouldn’t be worrying about what I was doing, right now,” Krovax says as he steps over and forcefully pulls the man’s hands behind him. ”Perhaps I could believe that, if not for the jobs you have your men doing and the amount of coin their taking for it.”
Once he is securely bound, he says ”When your men get back, you will order them to stand down and surrender as well. Understood?”
Krovax then turns to Magda and Vera and says ”Go inform the girl outside to either come in or scram. Target acquired. We will wait for the rest of the deserters.”
The man looks confused, genuinely, ”jobs? What are you talking about? The only jobs we are doing is butchery. We make no money off of this.” Krovax, when binding the man with Marcus’ manacles, realizes that the man is stronger and much more capable, from a fighting perspective, than anyone in the party. Sonya and he would likely be similarly matched, despite his handsome mein.
”Your men just took a very unscrupulous side job, so your defense case is rather poor at the moment, Verik. If you wish to improve your chances, you’d do well to convince them to surrender when they return, as well as return the coin they took.”