That the painter had been taken by the self-styled Emperor of Old Korvosa was not too surprisingly, the two had been associates in the past, after all. As the others react to the news, and Olenna examines the scrap of fabric, another question weighs on Yaziyah's mind.
"Those skulls you have, who did they belong to, and how did you come by them? Where are the rest of their remains? " There is a cold, threatening edge to her tone, and those who accompanied her in the catacombs in the Gray might recall the import that the Shoanti place on the bodies of the dead being whole.
She thinks, and replies, ”let’s see. Jeonia Chirco (a costumer), Boathar Kaay (a toymaker), Velaka Hoon (a writer), Maxtel Erns (a sculptor), Yvos Tanguany (a tattooist), and Imon Vernell (a poet). I told you before, I didn’t kill them. I found them at their homes, dead.” She shrugs, and Yazi gets the sense that Laori is unconcerned about any cold edges in anyone’s voice, usually. ”When I talked to them later, I found out how they died - but it’s not really polite and it made me sad.”
She cheers herself up and volunteers, adding,”their bodies are buried at their homes, according to our practices. It’s not sanitary to leave rotting corpses out.”
"I... see. Thank you for burying them. Once this is over, I hope you and I can inter their skulls in the same place, and perhaps we can see if they had any last wishes." Yaziyah seems mollified, for now.
Marcus didn't seem to care about the bodies. When we're dead not like we give a s+$+ anymore. We all return to the mud the same. He cocks his head. I suppose some undead don't. I wonder if it matters what kind? He tucked away the question to ask a cleric later.
Mags had also not shown any interest in the bodies. To her once the person inside is gone, the rest is just meat for the rats... and she liked rats, and they needed something to eat.
Laori nods, ”if that would make you happy, it would make me happy, Yaziyah.” She’s done packing everything up, but she notes ”I saw some magic in the fungus in the kitchen, but can’t figure out what it was.”
"Something, grumbling, and big..." Magda says, but she doesn't know what. "I could go look?"
"Not alone. I'll come with you."
While Yaziyah had never been good at figuring out magic beyond what the spirits granted her, other potential hazards were more familiar - if there was something poisonous out there she would sense it.
The seneschal.
Well, they had come to Old Korvosa looking for both Neolandus and Vencarlo, and the latter because he thought he had found the former. Of course they weren't the only ones who knew that and went following the same trail. Their enemies had just been a bit faster.
Hells.
The hope, which could be confirmed through some divination magic, was that they were both still alive. Well, all three. Seneschal Neolandus Kalepopolis, Vencarlo "Blackjack" Orsini, and Salvator Scream.
Olenna doesn't even notice Yazi's threatening aura flaring towards Laori, but rejoins the conversation when a magic fungus is mentioned. Although the ex-guard had no ability to discern magical auras, she could try to figure out something.
"I'll look in the kitchen," she offers.
Olenna moves over to the kitchen and sees that this room appears to have once been a combination kitchen and storeroom, but is now a bewildering riot of brightly colored fungus and mold. The stuff grows everywhere and in every color, over tables, across cupboards, and in swaths along the floor and walls, but it seems thickest to the southwest, where puffy sheets of yellow fungus cover several objects so completely it’s impossible to make out what lies beneath.
Olenna knows this yellow mold is… yellow mold.
If disturbed, a 5-foot square of this mold bursts forth with a cloud of poisonous spores. All within 10 feet of the mold must make a DC 15 Fortitude save or take 1d3 points of Constitution damage. Another DC 15 Fortitude save is required once per round for the next 5 rounds, to avoid taking 1d3 points of Constitution damage each round. A successful Fortitude save ends this effect. Fire destroys yellow mold, and sunlight renders it dormant.
********************
Magda and others head towards the back of the building and sees something of a ruin.
What once might have been a small house has been obliterated, collapsed from within by a twenty-foot-diameter sinkhole. Water from the Narrows fills the hole, creating a muddy pit strewn with jagged bits of timber and flotsam. The edges of the hole are slick and patchy with fungus. Immediately south of the sinkhole, the boardwalk has also collapsed, creating a dangerous tangle of timber and crazily tilted pilings.
Within the sinkhole, it looks like a handful of green-hued, orange-eyed humanoids are engaged in a scrap with a few otyughs. The humanoids seem to have the upper hand, as the otyughs seem wounded. Magda watches one of the humanoids take a slashing tentacle to the face, but it seems to be slowly healing even as she watches. The humanoids seem to be wearing crude, but decent quality armor, but are armed only with extremely long and vicious claws.
Recognizing the yellow mold for what it is almost instantly, Olenna backs out of the room and retrieves a bit of cloth from elsewhere in Salvatore's house to tie around her face. She takes a deep breath and goes back into the kitchen. There was no need to threaten to burn the place down. It would be far better to treat the room carefully, burning away bits at a time. Of course, she couldn't get close enough without getting into trouble.
But Olenna was a Lamplighter.
Was.
She reaches to her bandolier and pulls off an vial of indigo-hued liquid. She gives it a vigorous shake, pours the contents onto a makeshift, and snaps her fingers to create a small flame. This she touches to the soaked torch, producing an utterly blinding light that ought to at least simulate sunlight.
"Oh no, the Otyughs!" says Vera in worry. They were friends to Magda, which meant that Vera needed to protect them! She yells out at the attacking humanoids. "You green things, get away from them at once!"
Vera casts Haste on the party so they can intervene more quickly.
Magda almost instantly runs in to help, but she pauses someone to think...
At the sound of Vera's voice calling out, Yaziyah rushes outside and takes in the scene.
Sewer trollards were always best to give space too, and she'd like to now as well, but Ot-yu-ghs need space as well, and there's been plenty of killing already.
"HEY!" she yells along with her best friend. "Why are you fighting??? We can get food for all of you, find you a way back down, all that. No reason for that."
She hopes they listen, she hopes she doesn't have to pick a side
They look confused, because they don’t really understand. They lower their claws and the otyugh does the same briefly. They speak to each other in rasping, guttural voices to each other.
”What is she saying? Why is she yelling?”
”I don’t know, should we eat them?”
”We are outnumbered maybe we should run!”
”Just kill the meat sack and grab some meat - there’s no children on the street now!”
”Quiet, maybe they’ll go away!”
They look up at Magda after conversing with each other in an animated way, but don’t look like they’re going to stand down.
Back in the kitchen, unaware of the drama unfolding on the street, Olenna hums quietly to herself as she undertakes one of the fouler cleaning operations she has ever done.
"I don't understand what they are saying, and I don't think they understand us either." Yaziyah backs up a few paces, making 'wait' motions at the creatures, and bellows "OLENNA!"
The woman spoke so many languages, perhaps she speaks this one.
Magda nods at Yazi's yelling sense, but doesn't wait for the result. Slowly as they look up at them, she lays down her spear. Hands out in a way she thinks means I don't want to fight so please don't fight me. "We could eat?" she says tapping her hand to her mouth which opens and closes.
Her sunlight torch in one hand, Olenna draws out her rapier in the other and starts rushing back outside towards the sound of Yazi's voice.
Unfortunately, Olenna doesn't fully understand what the trolls--sewer trolls--are going on about, but it looks like they are at least not actively killing anyone. For now.
Fortunately, she picks up words here and there, as the tongue of giants has some semantic relationships in common with both Shoanti and Varisian. But the bulk of it that she even halfway recognizes is the ancient Thassilonian tongue that she learned during her studies at the University of Korvosa.
Spoken by the Shoanti people of Varisia, this language has many similarities to Hallit, Varisian, Giant, and ancient Thassilonian. A person who speaks any of these three language can communicate basic ideas to a Shoanti...
Varisian is the language of the native Varisian people of Varisia. Vocabulary and grammar are based on a mix of Orc, Taldane, Giant, ancient Thassilonian, and a now defunct proto-Varisian language.
The language of the various races of giants—sometimes called Jotun, or more simply, Giant—that exists today is a mixture of Cyclops and Thassilonian.
"Uh..."
The ex-guardswoman tries to piece together what little she can understand so that, if at all possible, she can craft a response.
Marcus looms as he does, prepared for violence but waiting to see if cooler heads prevailed.
The only thing that can be easily understood are two concepts: wanting food, and that they are about to run away sooner than later. The majority speaks of being afraid.
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Olenna's face shows her deep focus and consternation as she tries to piece something together. After a bit, she moves towards her companions. "They're hungry and scared and about to run away. That's about all I can get. Jotun is not something I have studied." But that might change if this was going to become a regular thing...
The lamplighter hands her bright torch off to Vera and sheathes her blade, raising her hands and stepping tentatively forward. Through a mixture of Thassilonian, Taldane, and slow, exaggerated gestures, she begins attempting to convey to the gathered horde that there is no reason to be afraid or to fight, but that the small two-legged folk are willing to help.
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Magda who was wading deep into stabbing range, pulls off her pack and empties every conceivable edible delight from her haversack for the trollers, from biscuits to dried bacon, a bowl of porridge somehow preserved, an entire frosted cake with sugary sprinkles. All on top of an abundance of rations.
A street kid who has spent many MANY nights with the gnawing ache in her belly, feeling like hunger is just eating her from the inside, is never ever without a LOT of food.
She even has a good stock of nice worn boots for the ot-yu-ghs. Plenty of earthen funk backed in. Since Yazi bought her the pair on her own two feet she wouldn't think of giving them away, unless a life depended on it, and even then the ache of giving them up might be a bit too much for the half-orc girl.
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Marcus's stoicism falters. "How the hell was she keeping a cake in there?"
Vera takes the torch that Olenna hands to her, wishing she could be of more use in negotiating. She waits and prepares to protect the otyughs if the situation came to that.
The trolls don’t know what to make of the situation, and seem bewildered, but scurry forward and grab all the food in their sinewy arms then rush into the outfall and disappear from sight.
The otyugh says in a ponderous voice, ”thanks magda - im new … here… lucky you showed up. i don’t … know what’s going on… “ he gratefully accepts the shoe and eats it delicately.
Laori watches curiously but does not comment.
The otyugh continues, ”… what should I do if they … show up again? … this has the most garbage.”
Magda scratches the bridge of the ot-yu-gh's snout "I'll talk to them... once I figure out how to talk to them. Get them out of grabbing kids, if they have really, and it ain't just stories. Cause we won't have any more of that, Ever. And no more going after you lot either. More than enough for everyone as long as we don't fight over it."
Mags isn't sure when she'll get to talking to the trolls, given the list of things needing taken care of just to keep the city from burning to cinders. But she will.
And she knows talking might not be the solution that they end up with, which is another weight on them, just one more on the bundles of them all.
"Numbers til then?" Mags tells her new friend where to find the others down in the sewers, and to tell them they should band together for a bit, move in packs down below to their areas to eat. "Show each others your collections of nifty bits." she suggests since Mags herself LOVES seeing what the ot-yu-ghs gather as treasures.
Olenna sighs in relief as Magda's efforts seem to prevent further bloodshed. She's heard similar rumors, but of course the young half-orc knew these sides of the city far more than Olenna did. "We do have other things to focus on," she says. "But they're part of the city, too." Even if they didn't have citizenship and weren't recognized as such by most people. Even Olenna was having a hard time coming around to Magda's way of thinking, but...damn, she was just so good with them.
She retrieves her torch, ducking it behind her back so that it's not quite so bright as she talks to the otyugh. "You know Magda, at least by reputation. I'm Olenna. Like Magda said, we'll try to help. It might be a bit. Will you be okay until then?" She thinks about whether she would even understand the answer to her next question, given that it might come as much in smells as in sounds. "What's your name?"
"Do you think our Ratfolk friends could help?" suggests Vera. "If these sewer trolls are aggressive, seems like the other sewer folk need to stick together."
Honestly, the politics of the sewers was outside her league, but it was the only idea she could come up with.
The otyugh responds by emitting a smell, which Magda recognizes as his true ‘name’, but he verbalized the word ”Choruk,” in the common tongue, or as close as possible.
He sits down in the muck, and though his wounds have ceased bleeding, he still is injured ”Okay, Magda… I will find the others…. and stay with them. They … told me there was food and safety here… but maybe it is too dangerous...” He waves a tentacle, which Magda knows means he’s a little confused, ”what … rat people? I … eat rats. I do not… understand.”
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Olenna tries not to wrinkle her nose at the name, which she probably wouldn't be able to recognize even if she smelled it again, and accepts the name "Choruk" as what she can grasp. She reaches into her bag, wishing she knew more about otyugh physiology to know whether what she was prepared to offer would even help. "Well, Choruk...it's not food, at least I don't think so, but I have--" she pulls out a little glass vial, glowing slightly blue, and holds it out, "--this little analgesic. A pain-killer."
Laori might find the prospect offensive, but Choruk wasn't a Kuthite.
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"Choruk, well met. I can heal your wounds, if you like." Yaziyah adds, before offering her own name. "I am Yaziyah."
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"I eat rats too, but these rats are like... well you know how some of us two legged folk have pointed ears and some don't, some are short, some have teeth like mine, well there is a group of people down in the sewers that looks all normal like most of the time but can change how they look so they are part rat, part person." she uses her hands to mimic stretching out her nose and curving fingers into teeth.
"Rat people. And yellow eyes is their boss. And don't worry, we'll get this place settled in time so you can come back for good, Choruk." the half orc promises.
She grins at Yazi and flame hair as they help the guy out.
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The Otyugh is healed, the trolls are sated, and Choruk waves his tentacles amiably at everyone in thanks. The smell, Yazi notes, is absolutely awful - much worse than Dafne, who devoured the vats of blood veil for them. In some ways, she was an aberration among aberrations.
In his low voice Choruk says ”oh. i won’t eat any people i see… then… if you say so. because maybe they are rat people… and they are your friend. i will … remember.” He pushes himself up from his stubby legs and ambles back into the outfall, feeling better, with the sewer trolls nowhere to be found.
Laori is on a wooden landing up above, leaning on a rail as she watches. She seems delighted. ”Aww, you guys. That was so nice of you. You’re all so sweet.”
She offers each person a high five as they come up, as if she is trying to cheer on their good deed. ”Not to be a nervous Norman, but we should get to Pilts’ Palace before too long. I think Olenna was going to clean out that fungus - the daylight was a great idea!” She smiles brightly at Olenna, ”I mean - I don’t know what that fungus does, but it’s a great idea to try new things. Maybe it will work!”
Sure enough, the presence of the daylight and an open window immediately kills the yellow mold. Scraping away the dead hazard, Olenna sees that underneath the fungus is a nearly full set of Marvelous Pigments.
Olenna is starting to come around on Laori. She was not at all what Olenna had expected of a Kuthite. And, well, in a way it was nice to have an elf around. Most of the elves she had known were far too aloof. So in a way, Laori's earnestness was refreshing. "Thank you," she says with a smile and a nod. She returns the high five and then heads in to test her daylight trick. When she does, she marvels at the marvelous pigments.
"Incredible," she whispers breathlessly. "I can see why Mr. Scream would want this." She looks at the others. "To think it was almost lost under all that fungus." And then--an idea! "Let's take it with us. I doubt any of us will be able to do much with it, unless one of you has been hiding a paint brush in your bags. But as a gesture of good will to Mr. Scream, who might be able to create something useful with them when we find him...well?"
Ultimately, Olenna agrees with Laori. It was time to get to Pilts' Palace, and hope that they didn't have to shed too much blood to set things right.
After a brief hesitation, the Shoanti meets Laori in the high five. Her skin is dry, and the fingers calloused.
"We found them in his residence, so I assume they belong to Salvator Scream," Yaziyah remarks, studying the pigments. "My canvas is the human skin, and I confess that I would be... curious to try these in one of my designs. How do they work, exactly?"
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Olenna turns one of the jars (filled with a pink emulsion) around to look for instructions. Finding them, she reads. "Using a brush (bristle, hair, or fur preferred), apply Malvolio's Marvelous Pigments (TM) to any flat surface, taking care to depict three-dimensional effects as accurately as possible. Once dry, the painter should concentrate on the image until it rises from the surface. Warning: Do not attempt to create living creatures with Malvolio's Pigments (TM)."
Vera smiles and returns Laori's high five. Her enthusiasm was infectious. "Who would've expected to find something so amazing in that mold! Do you think it'll still work?"
"It should," Olenna says, handing the cleaned-up jar of pink emulsion to Vera to check out. "But unless you have an idea of something to paint that will help us rescue our quarries from Pilts, we should save art time for later."
Laori reminds everyone cheerfully of their shared task and the party gathers up their things and moves east towards the reputed palace of Pilts Swistle.
The streets surrounding the palace are littered with bodies, rubble, and refuse; feral dogs, stirges, drain spiders, and other vermin scuttle around with a bravery not seen in the city before the quarantine. The farther one ventures into Old Dock and the closer one draws to the palace, the fewer citizens appear behind boarded windows, and the more signs of the emperor’s mob grow. Vandalism, brutalized bodies hung up on display, remnants of fires, and other evidence of public violence are everywhere.
The Emperor of Old Korvosa’s palace is located at 11 Silk Street in Old Dock, a collection of tenements and abandoned stores that barely escaped destruction during a recent fire that consumed much of the city block to the west. The palace consists of six buildings, the lower floors of which have been gutted and destroyed by mob violence. Only the upper floors of the northern buildings remain intact; to the south, the roofs alone remain, leaving hollow shells of buildings below.
The thugs seem to be giving the party a wide berth, but the party is obvious, being watched, and is noticed in the approach.
The Queen knew what she was doing quarantining off this area. She didn't care about the well-being of the people in Old Korvosa. She was willing to let it tear itself apart.
Those who had taken in with Pilts were at least complicit if not actively engaged in this horrific violence. Some were surely opportunists, eager to unleash violence in the anarchy of Ileosa's vengeance. Others might well be lackluster participants, choosing what appeared to be the winning side to save their own hides. Regardless, any who chose to get in their way would receive no mercy for the part they had played here. This was unacceptable.
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The farther they walk into the so-called Emperor's domain, the more her fury grows. Grinding her teeth until she is danger of cracking a molar or two, Yaziyah grates out as the 'palace' comes into view. "This cannot stand. Pilts Swastel and his abominable reign must end. This is no man, this is the worst kind of monster."
"He's a Lamm" Magda says simply. "Which means we kill him." she didn't think flame hair would argue but in case she would Mags thinks its better to be up front with her out of respect.
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During the walk over towards the dock part of Endrin Isle, Laori falls into step next to Marcus. The elven woman’s steps are light, and she seems to have no issues wearing her viciously spiked armor - her hands are calloused as she nimbly manages her chain, spinning it here and there to pass the time She seems to be humming a pretty melody to herself, and as she walks - she speaks softly to the much larger fighter, though she carefully minds where she walks and keeps her dark eyes forward, Marcus gets the sense that she’s stolen a few glances at him.
”So. Marcus. Mhmm.” flip, spin, twist. ”I think - well, I see the pain you’ve felt recently. Would you like to talk about it?” Her voice is gentle, but bright. Soft, and warm like a velvet shawl draped over shoulders on a chilly autumn day. flip, spin, twist. ”I know what it’s like to feel alone, even when I’m surrounded by friends. To feel like nobody understands me. To hurt so much, that the hurt inside me … boiled up - like a teapot on the fire too long.” She emphasized this word with an intense amount of emotion, her voice cracking as she speaks. She’s obviously explaining something very private, and emotional and important to her. flip, spin, twist. Her dark eyes glisten.
Before they leave Salvatore's house, Olenna uses some of the macabre painter's clean materials to mix up a few more chemicals for their infiltration. One more batches of her coffee-flavored stimulant, a batch of rapid-fermenting mead for the lot of them, and the gritty, her metallic-testing mutagen.
Looking at the reagents she has on hand, she raises a point to the others. "I have enough here to mix five tinctures that will render us invisible, if we want to go that route. I don't know if any of you are familiar with the arcane or divine means of glamers, or have prepared them today, but we don't necessarily have to storm the gates. We can be subtle."
Until we move up behind Pilts and slit his throat, ridding the city of another plague.
Olenna shudders at the thought. It wasn't far from what she wanted, but it was dark even for her.
---
It's almost impossible for Olenna not to overhear Laori's overtures to Marcus. She almost has to wonder if the elf knows she'd struggle not to eavesdrop. Still, for Marcus' sake, she tries to distract herself. None of her business.
Mags also hears everything all the time, and on top of that was never taught anything close to social graces. So rude it is.
Marcus narrows his eyes and keeps them forward for a time. On the surface, she threw off all kinds of red flags. The servant of an evil god trying to charm him in with pernicious interpretations of her faith. But she was so...authentic. Although he had seen liars far beyond his capacity to follow.
But perhaps he could still learn more of her, either way.
"What is it that leaves you so alone and misunderstood?" He finally says, turning the questioning to her.
She skips a step, "I said I know what it's like - that's not the same as feeling that way - now."
She looks up at him, grinning. "but do you think other priests of Zon Kuthon are as cheerful as I am?" She shrugs one shoulder, rolling it back with a pop, then snickers to herself.
Continuing walking, in a low, mocking, faux masculine voice, Laori notes "they are very serious, with very important business - harumph harumph." She spins the end of her chain around in a graceful loop, wrapping it around her forearm, then spinning it out again.
She switches back to her normal voice, "I... just got a sense you needed to be seen, Marcus..." she interrupts herself, and adds "I see you - and I'm here for you if you need me." She extends her mailed hand, and pats him on the plated shoulder. The touch is light and gentle - though he suspects the spikes on her gauntlet would feel otherwise were he not heavily armored.