Because she's tangled up in a grapple with #5, Golloriel manages to hit him with the charged spell but it glances off, not doing as much damage as she'd hoped. At least it didn't resist it and take even less.
Earnest really shouldn't have shown up to this gig drunk, that's going to make it a lot less likely he gets hired for the next job. Very poor marks.
Cal, on the other hand, fires an acid dart and hits #4 center mass, splashing hideous, bubbling yellow-green slime all over its left pectoral. The flesh immediately disintegrates and the acid eats a deep divot into the meat of its pec before dissipating. #4 howls in pain.
Thulae do what bird do.
#4, furious at the pain of the acid, circles around Cal like a hungry wolf and comes at him from the other side, blocking his escape. Instead of trying to slam him with its fists, however, it reaches out to grab him, dead eyes radiating an unnatural hunger.
#4 wraps its cold, vice-like grip around Cal's arms, squeezing tight so the squirrely little wizard can't escape--only for Cal to vanish in a puff of smoke again. #4 roars in fury, eyes mad with pain and hunger.
#5 has a grip like a vice... but Lori has been training like a madwoman since before this damnable epidemic started, and she's damn strong now. She uses her shield for leverage to pry the spawn's arms off her and kicks it hard in the gut to push it away.
[color=green]ROUND 7
Creature 2 (45 dmg, destroyed)
Creature 4 (16 dmg)
Creature 3 (45 dmg, unconscious)
Creature 5 (3 dmg)
Reyhan (45/49 hp, 1 negative level)
Golloriel (54/58 hp, 1 negative level)
Earnest (17/17 hp, AC 17)
Andakos (37/38 hp, delaying)
Caladaer (36/36 hp, Mage Armor, 2 Images)
Thulae (18/18 hp)
Creature 1 (63 dmg, “unconscious”)
[/color]
Rey does a little twirl with the bloody stake in her hand and drives it down into the heart of #3, ending it permanently.
Golloriel says a little prayer of thanks to Sarenrae for this wand. She can't remember where they found it, but it has been much more useful than she would have been with the scimitar, and it still has plenty of charges. She spends another one now on #5.
Earnest looks incredulously at its massive hands. It roars in frustration and tries to slam #5 again.
---
Hey, guess what? 5' step and acid dart!
Andakos moves adjacent to #4 and tries to take its attention
Thúlae says, "Hey! Watch it!" as Cal's acid dart explodes on the eave next to him. (Everyone else hears "Ca-caw!!")
Unfortunately, the spell from Golloriel's wand doesn't quite hit as hard as she'd like; #5 resists the brunt of it. She does leave a few streaks of burnt undead flesh, however.
Earnest fares slightly better, finally connecting with his rocky fist. Even though #5 ignores a fair bit of it, he still feels the satisfying crack of ribs under his brutal ministrations.
Cal fares less well, very nearly serving seared fowl for dinner. Even to those who can't understand Thulae as Cal can, he makes his displeasure inescapably clear.
While Andakos can't quite connect against #4 with his longspear, he feels confident he's at least distracted the thing enough to hamper its chances of hitting the wizard.
And sure enough, the spawn swings at Cal, but the haft of Ducky's longspear distracts it and it instinctively alters the course of its swing to try and hit the spear, swatting it for no real effect. The miss is so complete that it doesn't even pop one of Cal's images.
#5 has almost as bad a time, swinging clumsily at Lori while still trying to regain its footing from being kicked away and instead sort of aggressively caressing her breastplate with its fist.
[color=green]ROUND 8
Creature 2 (45 dmg, destroyed)
Creature 4 (14 dmg)
Creature 3 (45 dmg, destroyed)
Creature 5 (12 dmg)
Reyhan (45/49 hp, 1 negative level)
Golloriel (54/58 hp, 1 negative level)
Earnest (17/17 hp, AC 17)
Andakos (37/38 hp, delaying)
Caladaer (36/36 hp, Mage Armor, 2 Images)
Thulae (18/18 hp)
Creature 1 (63 dmg, “unconscious”)
[/color]
Rey slides into a flank with Lori and stabs out once with her mithral dagger, bloody stake still in her off-hand as a gruesome reminder to #5 what fate awaits it.
Rey steps behind #5 and stabs into its lower back, right at the kidneys, and rips the blade out the side, sending ancient guts and the vile stench of half-rotted meat into the air. The spawn utters an inhuman shriek of agony, and suddenly fear begins to seep into its eyes, as if it finally understands the futility of facing this unstoppable crew of slayers...
#4, however, seems utterly unperturbed by the futility of its situation.
We all know what Lori's gonna do by now. (Now with flanking!)
Slam @ #5!
---
5', acid dart.
5' step, spear, bodyguard.
Thúlae thinks that Cal should get some more spells that take advantage of having a familiar.
#5 gets pummeled into the ground by Golloriel and Earnest, and Cal and Ducky put some hurt on #4.
#4 steps back, looks from Cal to Ducky, and then its eyes take on a strange, golden hue that Ducky can't seem to look away from...
The investigator feels an insidious presence in his head, but he shakes it off.
[color=green]ROUND 9
Creature 2 (45 dmg, destroyed)
Creature 4 (31 dmg)
Creature 3 (45 dmg, destroyed)
Creature 5 (42 dmg, unconscious)
Reyhan (45/49 hp, 1 negative level)
Golloriel (54/58 hp, 1 negative level)
Caladaer (36/36 hp, Mage Armor, 2 Images)
Thulae (18/18 hp)
Andakos (37/38 hp, delaying)
Creature 1 (63 dmg, “unconscious”)
[/color]
Rey slams the stake down into #5. It squirms and squeals weakly before crumbling into dust.
Golloriel curses her stupid leg. She knows that Andakos and her father are still fighting, but she can't get there to help in any reasonable time. "Help them!" she yells at Rey, then drops the wand, draws her stake, and steps up to #1, prepared to send it back to Pharasma.
Andakos accepts Cal's invitation to take this thing down. He steps up and tries to put his spear in its brain.
Earnest waves at his friends, then blinks out of existence.
---
Three Cals nod their thanks at the tiefling. They call, "Thúlae!", and the hawk swoops down and lands on their shoulders. It is an odd thing to see one bird landing on three shoulders, but here it is, happening.
They point at the unconscious vamp. "Reyhan, if you please?"
Ducky's spear rips through the spawn's undead flesh, bursting out its back and cracking its spine in the process. The fiend collapses to the cobblestones with a wheezy groan, clearly unconscious--but already the wounds are beginning to seal up.
Fortunately Cal lazily flicks a glob of acid onto it, disintegrating the flesh of its bicep and neck, to prolong the process.
Thanks to this, Golloriel has no trouble staking #5, and Rey saunters over to finish off #4 with plenty of time to spare.
The party stops to enjoy a cup of tea and chat unhurriedly over some lovely cookies (Lori and Rey even throw together a nice little charcuterie board, lots of different fun cheeses, it's just divine) and clean up after themselves, then finally Ducky thinks Weren't we supposed to be doing something? OH RIGHT that last guy and goes over and stakes #1.
COMBAT OVER
Maybe it was the thrill of battle wizening you, or maybe the gods shine on you this day. Maybe it's Maybeline. Whatever the reason, you all hit
Andakos points at the piles of dust on the ground while glaring at Cal and Lori. "See? VAMPIRES. And those were just the spawn. With this many spawn around, it's only a matter of time before we run into a fully mature one. This is dangerous. One of them tried to dominate my mind. Be ready!" He instantly feels bad for admonishing them, but ... yeesh. His cheeks flush and he is glad, not for the first time, that he is too red for anyone to notice.
It occurs to him, then, that even he was not as prepared as he should have been. He pulls an alchemical allocation extract, downs it, then swishes his heroism potion around for a bit before spitting it back in the vial. The potion is probably 50% backwash at this point, but it still seems to work, and he's not sharing it with anyone, so he doesn't let it bother him.
"Come on," he says, and heads to the front door of the shop. He checks the door.
Golloriel hides her embarrassment by picking up her various discarded implements from the ground. She restows the wand in her wrist sheathe (absentmindedly mumbling a quick prayer of thanks to Sarenrae as she does so), then picks up the scimitar. She gives it a few practice swings and still just doesn't feel natural with it. It felt wrong that fighting with a wand was more effective than her diety's chosen weapon. She makes a mental note to talk to that halfling that helped her train as a paladin . These doubts can't continue.
She rests a hand on Rey's shoulder and nods the nod that only people who have been through battle together understand, then joins Andakos at the door.
None of the three Caladaers has anything to say. They follow Andakos and Golloriel.
Elsewhere in the city, Brother Ephraim looks up from tending to a sick woman and mutters, "Why'd I get the feelin' someone jes' forgot me name?"
Even a cursory glance at the door shows it is no means of ingress; it has been heavily boarded, and some prodding shows they aren't trick boards. It would also explain the smashed-open window #4 busted through to cut off Cal's means of escape.
Of course, seeing as the vamp was able to smash through the boarded window, that means the boards are probably old and rotted. A little elbow grease could probably open the front door. But Lori did also see most of the spawn come out a back door in the alley...
"Hey guys, I saw most of the spawn come out a back door in the alley."
"Oh."
Andakos leads the others around to the back. He stops at the open door and looks inside.
+3 traps
Dozens of glass eyes--crooked and crazed--glare from the heads of malformed and half-carved dolls lining skewed workroom shelves. Rat-gnawed stuffed aurochs, disembodied doll limbs, miniature rolling elephants, unseaworthy miniature wooden ships, and blocks illustrated with deformed or poorly painted animals fill bins and racks about the room. A cracked wooden door leads to the north, while a rickety trap door breaks the sawdust-covered floor to the east. In one corner lies the drying corpse of an old bald man amid the wood chips, rusty tools, and oily rags of a scored workbench.
There are five battered coffins leaning against the walls in various spots in the room, presumably owned by the now-destroyed spawn. There are no additional coffins; if the spawns' master is in the city, they are not here.
After checking the trap door for traps, Ducky throws it open, perhaps expecting to find stairs leading down into some dark, musty dungeon whereupon greater threats--and hopefully some damned answers to this plague--reside. Instead, all he finds is a dirt-floor crawlspace maybe three feet high. He does find a pile of valuables, likely taken by the spawn from their victims.
- a ring of jumping
- a set of pipes of haunting crafted from bone
- three pouches containing a total of 300gp and 15pp
Awkwardly stitched stuffed animals, poorly equipped toy soldiers, and dolls exhibiting myriad accidental deformities stare blankly out of the filth-smeared front window of the toy store's showroom. Several heavy-looking kites dangle purple and crimson tails from the ceiling above, and a dollhouse recreating Castle Korvosa's intimidating towers dominates one of the room's side tables. Festooned with tiny bells, the shop's entrance stands to the north, across from a doorway marked "Private" and a counter cluttered with dusty jars of candies.
There is a rusty lockbox stowed away behind the counter. The lock has eroded to the point where it can simply be opened with a little elbow grease. Inside isn't much: 2gp, 8sp, 22cp, a silver tooth of all things--and a brass key shaped like the symbol of Abadar and bearing the number "261."
Andakos immediately recognizes it as being the style of key used by the Bank of Abadar for their lockboxes. If brought to the Bank of Abadar, you can easily use it to open whatever lockbox this belongs to.
Rodolfo Giottori, the man who owned this shop, was an ex-convict. This shop was his attempt at "turning over a new leaf." As you can see by the craftsmanship of his toys, it was a disaster. Nevertheless, he kept at the business, trying to make a good run of it, until he died of old age two years ago. The shop was condemned, and being in such a dangerous neighborhood, the property never sold. It was eventually boarded up and mostly forgotten by the locals.
There appears to be nothing else here, including any clues toward stopping this plague. On the bright side, several corpses in the alley are decidedly vampire victims, not plague victims, and your group has likely saved other innocents from suffering the same fate.
Andakos explains what the items do. He hands the ring to Reyhan. "This is probably most useful in your hands." He stows the rest, mentioning that they should go to the Bank of Abadar tomorrow to see what the key opens.
"I suppose we should head back. Meet at the Citadel an hour after sunrise?"
Rey had held her breath when Andakos threw open the trap door, and found herself sighing in disappointment rather than relief when it was only a crawlspace. The Hells is wrong with you? she mentally chides herself. Hoping for a bloody dungeon. They're dirty! And dangerous! And gross! There's... oozes and s+&+. Get it together, woman. You're a noble, for gods' sakes!
The thought immediately makes her blanch. What is that nobility worth, if it comes at the cost of being... well, who she is? Who her family is?
She stares around at the dilapidated shop and feels an immense sadness. The place practically reeks of broken dreams. Hopes, wishes unfulfilled.
Also, the dolls are creepy as f!$&.
"Yeah," she finally replies, rubbing her arms for warmth despite the hot summer night. "Let's get outta here. I'll meet you guys at the Citadel in the morning."
She hurries out, not waiting to see if the others follow her.
The party disperses to their respective homes. The streets at this hour are usually pretty sparse, but there is absolutely no one out right now. It feels like a ghost town, giving you what you can only imagine is a rather accurate portrayal of what this city will look like if the plague continues to run rampant.
The sun splashes across the cobbled streets of Korvosa, filtering through the great stained-glass window in the House of Dawn in spectacular and dazzling rays that fade within a few minutes; the windows were specifically designed for this purpose, offering a stunning light display at dawn, but brief and ephemeral in its nature.
There are no fantastical light displays at House Viden, but there is light humor at the breakfast table as Andakos' mother regales Lyse with a rather scandalous story about one of her friends who got drunk at the spring salon and hit on a Chelish dignitary with reckless abandon, much to the horror of the woman's husband.
Soon, however, it is the appointed time, and the party meets at the gates of the Citadel to report their findings at Racker's Alley to Commander Kroft.
However, when the party arrives, there is already someone else waiting for them. The guards at the gate look... sheepish?
The woman standing before them, her back turned in what you suspect is a very purposeful way, considering her crossed arms and tear-streaked scowl. She is slight, with dark hair and sharp features that notes her as at least partly Varisian in descent.
She glances at the quartet in turn before stepping toward Gollariel, apparently deciding she must be the leader.
"A-are you the ones who've been helping the guards?" she asks hesitantly, absently wiping her wet cheeks. "Please. They said they can't help me, that they're spread too thin already. But I know something terrible has happened to my brother! Please!"
She looks on the verge of tears again.
Golloriel glances quickly at the others, still a bit unused to doing the talking for the group (outside of the Citadel, that is). Catching herself, she recovers and looks back at the woman. "Come over here away from the gate." She leads the woman to the side. "Okay. Can you tell us what happened?"
Andakos is relieved to not do the talking for once. It gives him a chance to study the woman and try to suss out if she is on the up-and-up.
So far as Andakos can tell, either she's a god-tier liar or she's telling the truth.
She lets Lori lead her away from the gates, still sniffling and wiping at her eyes with a dirty rag. "M-my name is Deyanira Mirukova. My brother, Ruan, is a musician. He is so gifted! But it is difficult for us to find work. Several days ago, he comes home very excited. Says he will be performing for nobles at a fancy party! A masquerade, at Carowyn Manor."
The Carowyns are an influential noble family who has the Queen's ear, though rumors abound that the Queen finds Ausio Carowyn, the small, weaselly patriarch, to be tedious and useless.
"Come to think, it was the day after people started getting sick. I told him, with something going around, should he be in a manor packed full of people? But we needed the money badly, so he was adamant. I should have told him not to go! Made him stay! It has been three days and no word of him. The manor gates are locked, and no one is there to let me in. I..." Her cheeks flush and she looks down. "... I hopped the gate. Tried the door. It was also locked. In my frustration I tried the windows, but they were also locked, and the curtains drawn. I saw not a living soul anywhere on the property. And..."
Her face blanches, and tears well up once again. "... there was... a smell. Sickly sweet. I don't know what it was, but it was... wrong." She grasps Lori's shoulders. "Please! The guard will not help. They say they are stretched too thin. No one else will help me. Please..." She collapses onto the paladin, sobbing.
Golloriel gives her companions a knowing look. There is no way this ends well, and this woman in deep in denial. Still... if there is nothing else to do...
She raises her eyebrows at Andakos, wordlessly asking if they should help.
Andakos steps forward and takes the woman's hand. He looks deeply into the woman's eyes. "We will help you. We have business we must attend to here at the Citadel first, but your brother will be our first priority afterwards. I give you my word. How may we reach you after we have looked into it? Should we get a message to your husband...?"
Cal throws up in his mouth a little.
No one knows who the Carowyns are, never heard of them what a mystery this is.
"I vaguely recall Father mentioning them before, but I don't know anything about them."
She scowls at Andakos taking the girl's hand. Is he f@%+ing serious right now? The woman's freaking out about her missing brother and he's... hitting on her??
Deyanira pulls her hand back from the investigator and gives him a guarded look. "Uh. T-thank you." She takes an involuntary step back from him and turns to Golloriel again. She gives her the address of Carowyn Manor and, after a hesitant pause, her own address to find her after. "Please hurry. He's already been gone three days. I don't know what I'd do if--" Her face bunches up again, but she manages to keep it together. "Just... please hurry."
With that, she gives the group one last desperate glance before hustling off toward the Shingles.
Given the address of Carowyn Manor, it is unfortunately on the opposite side of the city from your other errand, the Bank of Abadar.
First, though, Commander Kroft is expecting a report on last night's events.
As soon as Deyanira is gone, Rey raises an eyebrow at Andakos. "Smooth, dude."
She shakes her head and starts toward the Citadel. "Let's get this debriefing done with. Then I vote we hit the bank and check out that key. Meaning no disrespect to Miss Mirukova, I think if her brother was going to come out of that place alive, he would have by now. Unless the Carowyn's kidnapped him for some reason, but considering it's definitely not for ransom, I can't imagine why he'd still be alive. Besides, maybe that old ex-con had something stowed away in the bank that could be useful while looking into the manor."
Golloriel smiles at Deyanira and assures her that they will do what they can.
Andakos leads the party into the Citadel and to Kroft's office. Once admitted, he tells her what happened, making sure to emphasize that, though they cleared out the spawn, it is very likely that a fully mature vampire remains somewhere in the city. And a mature vampire inevitably means more spawn. "We handled the spawn fairly easily... this time. One of them tried to dominate my mind. And they drained Golloriel and Reyhan, though I expect they will both feel better by tomorrow. Finding the sire should be a priority."
Kroft looks like she's torn between pulling her hair out in frustration and laughing at the absurdity of it all. In the end, all she manages is a sardonic grunt. "If I had a single body to spare. You are all I have, and it sounds like you found no clues as to the master's whereabouts. We must keep our ears open for information, that's all we can do for now."
She considers for a moment before adding, "If more spawn pop up, it might behoove us to try and capture it alive. Perhaps we can question it. I doubt it, but that's the best I can come up with for now."
She scrawls something on a piece of parchment, blows it dry, rolls it up, and seals it with wax. "To the quartermaster. I'm afraid our coffers are beginning to run dry, as far as gold. I hope this will suffice."
She returns to her paperwork before speaking again. "If we find any clues to the location of this 'master' vampire, I will send for you immediately. I hope you'll extend the same courtesy. Good day."
She looks exhausted. Her eyes are puffy and her short black hair has several more gray strands in it. Another week of this plague and you're sure she'll be full-blown salt-and-pepper.
An organization as large and expansive as the city watch requires a healthy amount of gold on hand, not just for guard pay but for emergency expenses and the like. For them to have almost-empty coffers is an exceptionally bad sign.
Andakos takes the parchment. "Thank you, Commander. We will keep our eyes open."
He leads the party down to the quartermaster to retrieve their payment. On the way, he says, "Maybe we should ask around about the vampire, see if anyone knows anything."
The quartermaster raises an eyebrow at the party. "Ya got any of my stuff left?"
Rey hands over two of the three stakes (the third surreptitiously vanishes without a trace). After looking them over, she sighs and shrugs. "Y'know what? I'll just mark the leftovers as 'destroyed in use.' Probably better in your hands anyway." She plucks up the writ from the commander, breaks the seal, and reads it, eyebrows rising until they vanish under her graying bangs. "Huh. Well, if the commander says so."
She begins digging around in one of the large trunks behind her. As a halfling they're basically as tall as she is, and she has to use a step-stool to see into them. Metal and wood clank loudly against each other as she roots around inside. "Picked up this thing as evidence in a murder investigation about ten years ago. Nobody from the family came back to claim it, even after about a dozen letters to the estate saying the case was closed, we didn't need it anymore, and for gods' sakes could somebody please take it off our hands. No response, so it's been sitting in here."
She pops her head back up, pursing her lips in thought for a moment. "Guess it's the ugly history of the weapon that made people hesitant. Used to murder a teenage noble in a 'duel.' Lord... ugh, what was his name? Hammond? Hander? Started with an 'H' anyway. He was like... forty, and had trained dunder Vencarlo Orisini. This kid hadn't had any training. Lord H basically baited the kid into a duel he couldn't possibly win. When the kid's older brother tried to interject, Lord H killed them both. Claimed self-defense. It was a right sticky wicket, legally. Took a helluva lotta legalese to bust him. Still sitting in prison, far as I know." She shrugs, then dives back into rooting through the trunk. "Guess his family didn't want anything to do with him after that, including the weapon he used for the killings. I don't even think it's ever been checked out for use during watch duty. We do that sometimes, use unclaimed items from cases older than a few years. Once we've tried enough times to reach the owner or next of kin, they go in a bin and we use 'em as we need 'em. Nobody wants this one though."
Finally she pulls out the scimitar, and admittedly you can see why maybe people don't want to use it. The hilt is bronze wrapped tightly in leather strips dyed blood-red, and the blade is made of a dull, almost sullenly matte metal. You can see this blade being used to commit murder.
The quartermaster rests the blade in her hands and proffers it to Golloriel, seeing as she already has a scimitar on her belt. "Cold iron, believe it or not. Don't look it, but one of our alchemists confirmed it when we first logged it into evidence. Got a bit of magic on it, too. The commander must really trust you lot, giving you this when we're broke. Use it better than its last owner, yeah?"
Golloriel reaches for the scimitar hesitantly. A murder weapon? When her fingers touch the sheathe, she jerks them back like she touched something hot. She instantly knows: cold iron. Her father has never explained her aversion to it, but over the years she has pieced together that it has something to do with her mother.
She almost imperceptibly shakes her head and defiantly snatches the scimitar out of the quartermaster's hand. She instantly regrets what could be considered an aggressive action, but she is too focused on the weapon to do more than mumble a "sorry". She grabs the hilt and draws the first few inches of blade from the sheathe. Sure enough: cold iron. But she can also feel the magic coming off of the blade. This is undoubtedly a far superior weapon to her well-made but otherwise unremarkable scimitar.
Why this weapon, Sarenrae? Is this a punishment for doubting you? Or a test? What do you want me to do? She looks at her companions and she can see that not a one of them understands her hesitance. Well, she's not going to figure it out standing here like an idiot while everyone watches her. She attaches the sheathe to her belt, right next to her mundane scimitar, nods her thanks to the quartermaster, and turns to leave. She hopes no one notices her hands trembling as she walks.
Andakos cocks his head at Golloriel. Why the weird reaction? Sure, she's a paladin, but using a murderer's weapon in the service of good couldn't be more paladinny if ... well, he can't think of an example right now, but it's pretty damn paladinny.
"You okay, Golloriel?"