Iolaire watches the combat, unwilling to draw a weapon but not well equipped to fight without them...
Concerned that the woman will make her escape while the group is distracted by her thugs, Nicoleta dashes between the two of them ...
... her timing could have been better, but once she reaches Veandra she attempts to put the woman on the ground.
Aurelia's spell blinds both of the thugs, allowing Nicoleta to slip past them to get to Veandra. Unfortunately, the woman dodges her attempts to trip her. "The shop is closed! Everybody out!" she shrieks, slapping at Nicoleta. "You brute! You brute!"
Roz rolls her eyes, and once the faeries stop tickling her, she casts a spell on the shopkeeper. The woman falls to the floor, howling with laughter.
The blind thugs stumble towards Nicoleta and swing their saps, but neither one hits. Veandra recovers from her giggling fit, while one of the thugs is able to wipe the glitter from his eyes.
Iolaire closes in and wrestles the blinded thug for his sap.
"Alright, that's quite enough out of you, Miss Cheat." Aurelia says, turning her attention to the shopkeeper. Staring her down, she shouts "Still!" and tries to hold her in place.
With the woman on the ground, Nicoleta turns her attention to the thug that can see. She attempts to place him in the same condition.
Iolaire wrestles with the blinded thug, but is unable to take the sap from him. Veandra manages to resist Aurelia's spell, and the thug who can see resists Roz's atempt to make him laugh. Nicoleta misses with her attacks.
Now that the other customers have fled the shop, Veandra's expression hardens and she draws a dagger as she stands back up. She stabs at Nicoleta's back while the thug attacks from the opposite side. Neither one hits. The blinded thug swings wildly at Vox before regaining his sight.
Growling in frustration at Veandra's will, she says "Fine, fine. Lay down on the floor, put your hands behind your back, close your eyes and count to five hundred."
"Ok, b#~&&," Nicoleta snaps, her expression turning angry. "You want to play that way, I can play that way, too."
Forgoing her attempt for a non-lethal solution, the dhampir resorts to more lethal measures, beginning with an extended strike to the woman's nose.
Iolaire tries again to claim the sap for herself, making a note to carry one in future as she does so.
Iolaire manages to disarm the thug this time, taking the sap for himself. The other one resists Roz's spell again.
Nicoleta punches Vendra in the nose, causing her to squeak in pain, but the woman narrowly sidesteps the monk's leg sweep. However, Aurelia's suggestion takes effect, and the shopkeep lays down and begins to count.
The disarmed thug steps away from Iolaire, pulling a hand crossbow and firing at her! The elf manages to barely twist away. The other one tries to bash Nicoleta but misses.
With Veandra taken care of, she turns to one thug and as she stares at him she points to the other. "Isn't he just the sexiest? Don't you just want to put your tongue in his mouth?"
With the woman down and counting, Nicoleta turns her frustration to the nearest thug.
Aurelia throws her hands up in frustration at Nicoleta "ARE YOU EVEN TRYING?!"
The dhampir's head snaps around at Aurelia. Her teeth bared, she growls at the woman.
Iolaire ignores the others and closes on the thug with the crossbow, whacking him over the head with his weighted club.
Iolaire bashes the thug with his own sap but Nicoleta misses. Roz sends one thug into a fit of laughter while Aurelia fills the other with lust for his comrade. Soon both cravated men are on the floor, one giggling while the other kisses and caresses him.
The man recovers from his laughter but not his embarrassment.
Nicoleta tries to hit the incapacitated man ... but doesn't.
Snarling in frustration, she lashes out against him again.
... and still misses.
Aurelia crosses her arms, satisified "Ah. Isn't it adorable? We're all one big happy family now. Do you think you can beat their asses now or should I help with that too?"
With cockiness exuding from every breath, she fires a bolt at the the prone man on the floor. Not only does the bolt miss badly, it comes so close to hitting Nicoleta's heel that it cuts the skin but does not draw blood.
She laughs nervously "Uhm. Whoops. Just trying to motivate you, dear?"
Iolaire meanwhile continues to apply her sap, aiming at the man who is no longer laughing.
Roz sends the man into fits of laughter again as Io bashes the other one. Nicoleta and Aurelia miss. The thug grabs his friend’s sap and bashes Io back.
The other guy keeps laughing.
"I swear, Sweet-Cheeks, if you shoot me in the arse with that thing, we will have words!" Nicoleta snarls out at the mesmerist before returning her attention to the thug she's attacking.
Aurelia drops her crossbow "Yeahhhhh, you know what? I'll practice that later. Let's go back to mind f&*!ing."
She turns back to the non-laughing man and tries to daze him.
The thug stands in a daze, making him an easy target for Iolaire and Nicoleta to pummel into submission. You are able to subdue the other thug and Vendra before they can recover from their debilitating enchantments as well.
If you want to raid the store, in all, you can gather exotic perfumes worth 800 gp. A simple wooden box and a sturdy iron safe sit behind the counter. The box holds random coins worth 422 gp—the proceeds from the last few days’ sales. Vendra has the key to the safe, which contains 65 pp, 112 gp, and three empty but elegantly carved lapis lazuli perfume bottles (worth 45 gp each).
Upstairs from the shop is Vendra’s apartment. Delicate wall hangings, artistically shaped candles, and the fine scent of cherry blossoms fill this well-decorated apartment. A table sculpted with swirling ivy leaves bears a fragile porcelain tea service and an exotically curved hookah in a kitchen nook to the east. A door adjacent to the kitchen opens into a bedroom furnished with an antique armoire and a bed heavily laden with round pillows and draped with purple silk bedding.
Searching around uncovers a secret door connecting to the adjacent apartment, which appears abandoned from the outside. Bits of broken crates and barrels cover the floor of this dilapidated apartment. A tub of oily liquid, its lip about four feet high, fills a corner of the room, a well-used oar sticking out of it. Next to it squat several large casks of murky water and two stacks of boxes. One holds dozens of small ceramic vials with magenta stoppers; the other holds a mismatched collection of delicate perfume bottles. The apartment’s kitchen nook holds another crate, this one filled with broken shards of multicolored glass. Despite being in shambles, the apartment smells delightfully of spices, flowers, and exotic oils. All told, there is 800 gp worth of raw alchemical materials here.
The mesmerist slaps a CLOSED sign on the window, barring the door as she spots the circlet.
Aurelia scoops up the circlet and places it on her head "Oh. Oh, yes." she says as a chill runs down her body. Modeling off her new head attire, she turns to Nicoleta and asks "How do I look, darling? I bet it is just manificent."
She helps scoop up the remainder of the items which she considers compensation for their effort given their deal with Kraft.
"Shall we take her back to Kraft?" she asks, pointing to the liar and cheat.
Iolaire nods, having secured the womans hands behind her back. She declines to join in the looting, its easy to see that she finds the whole situation awkward.
”You’re missing out!” Roz tells Io as she affixes Vendra’s earrings to her own ears and slides the bracelets over her wrists. ”Pretty!”
You escort Vendra and her goons back to Citadel Volshyenek. Sergeant Grau Soldado leads a group of guards to raid her apartment and collect the evidence that the so-called miracle cure is a sham. With hard evidence of Vendra’s completely spurious claims and criminal activities, Lavender is closed for good. Gossip about the shop’s fake cure-all spreads quickly and Vendra Loaggri’s reputation will no doubt be permanently ruined. You have no doubt saved numerous lives by preventing many souls from unknowingly contracting and spreading the illness while they would have assumed the elixir was protecting them.
Still, it’s a small dent in the overall toll that blood veil is taking on the city. As the dead start to pile up, the church of Abadar starts to offer discounts on its healing services to those who serve Korvosa as plague carters—people who travel the streets, load the dead onto carts, and haul them to the Gray District for disposal in mass graves. Rather quickly, plumes of rancid black smoke become a common sight on the southern skyline.
It’s not long before disturbing rumors spread that some of the lazier plague carters aren’t delivering their bodies to the Gray District as ordered, and are instead disposing of them in one of several secluded alleys in Old Korvosa. Two days after you shut down Lavender, Field Marshal Kroft summons you to investigate one of these sites: Racker’s Alley.
”The problem,” Kroft explains, ”is more than just lazy carters. I fear that the large accumulation of dead bodies in the alley may attract dangerous scavengers, or worse, could trigger the manifestation of an undead monster. I would like you to travel to Racker’s Alley to confirm the presence of an illegal corpse dumping ground, and if you find one, to ensure that the region is safe from scavengers and undead before reporting back so I can send a group of guards to haul the bodies away.”
Aurelia sighs heavily "I was really hoping to visit more perfume shops actually. Aren't there any more fools like Vendra around?"
On the way to the alley, she pulls Nicoleta aside and whispers "I've been practicing this new trick. I think I can help you with that bright light problem you told me about last week. Let me know when you want to try it out, okay?"
”You’re missing out!” Roz tells Io as she affixes Vendra’s earrings to her own ears and slides the bracelets over her wrists. ”Pretty!”
Nicoleta raises an eyebrow as Roz snatches the jewelry that she had just noticed. "You're not the only one that appreciates sparklies, you know," she says with a quirked lip.
~~~~~
"Bright light?" Nicoleta questions from underneath the wide-brimmed hat she wears during the day. "You can do something about that?" She gestures towards the bright sun. "If you can fix that, I'll give you a big, wet kiss on the mouth."
A broad, knowing grin takes over the mesmerist's face "You're on."
She turns to face Nicoleta and stares into her eyes, though it is clear she's looking deeper than just the physical features of her face. Aurelia forces her way into Nicoleta's mind and find the appropriate place to plant it, temporarily tricking her brain that the light isn't so bright after all that the monk can see just fine.
Only a second passes before she says "Done. Ready to test it? Either the sun won't bother you orrrrrr, you will go completely blind. We'll see. Do you trust me? I can only hold this for a minute."
With a smirk, she snaps her finger. She doesn't need to snap her finger, but the physical action and auditory sound sell the act so much better.
Once she has finished snapping, she takes off Nicoleta's hat and asks, "Well?"
The dhampir cringes when her hat is pulled off. But when the bright light doesn't cause her head to spin as it normally does, she looks up in surprise. She blinks her eyes and tips her head back letting the bright rays rain down on her face for the first time without the effects that normally follow. "So this is what it's like," she says, her eyes still closed. "One could get used to this."
She basks in the radiance for as long as the effect lasts. When she feels the normal headache and dizziness begin to return she looks back at Aurelia and smiles. Grabbing the woman in her arms, she dips her low and presses her lips against her in a kiss just like she promised. Once she stands the woman back up she grabs her hat and returns it to its normal place on her head.
Aurelia takes in Nicoleta's first time of basking in the sun. She stands with a huge grin on her face, folding her arms and enjoying the wonderment in the women's eyes.
She didn't do it for the kiss, but she appreciates the interaction of course. Nicoleta doesn't often offer such public displays of affection outside of the bedroom. When she goes to pull away, she leans into her ear and whispers "I'm yours."
As much as Nicoleta's kiss was a surprise for Aurelia. Aurelia's declaration surprises the dhampir. Even with it being whispered, she looks around quickly for any onlookers. Turning back to the mesmerist, her smile widens. Grabbing her hand she pulls her along towards their romantic getaway of Racker's Alley.
Racker’s Alley lies in the tangles of western Old Korvosa. The high walls of the surrounding buildings throw this awkwardly bent alley into constant shadow. Although littered with garbage and filth, the refuse isn’t the most stomach- turning trait of this rundown side way. Heaped against a bent wooden wall rises a pile of more than three dozen plague victims, their faces blistered and flushed, eyes open and staring. The scent of death is overpowered by the reek of rot, suggesting that some of these corpses have been here for days, but even a casual glance reveals that certain bodies seem strangely pale compared to most of the victims who succumb to the sickness.
The monk's eyes narrow at the sight of all the bodies and at the state of some of them. She holds out a hand to prevent the others from advancing and takes a moment to sniff the air carefully.
The alley is thick with fat flies and rats gorging themselves on the corpses. Nicoleta detects four undead auras of moderate strength coming from somewhere beyond the pile.
As she gets closer, the monk confirms that not only are many of the bodies drained of blood, but that nearly half of them bear no signs of blood veil at all—merely twin puncture wounds on their necks, wrists, or inner thighs. A hole in the eastern wall is obvious beyond the bodies.
The feeling of her blood running cold is not a familiar sensation to the dhampir. She draws back from the bodies and brings the others with her out to the main street and the bright sunlight.
"There are four undead ... things ... through that hole in the wall," she says in a low voice. She reaches up to adjust her hat and her hands are trembling. "And at least one of them is ... is a vampire." She looks around at the people passing by before turning back to her friends. "Who else here knows how to fight vampires?"
Aurelia is surprised at their impromptu romantic getaway, but treasures every moment of it. That is of course, until the scent of death and rot overcomes her senses and she feels like she is going to puke. She pinches her nose and covers her mouth. In a nasally voice she says "You've got to be kidding me, a real vampire?"
"Alright, tell me what you want from me. I have expanded my repeotoire slightly, but I don't think the bright light trick is going to be any help here. Here's what I can offer you."
She turns to Vox and Nicoleta and ticks off on one hand [b]"First we have the duplicates, you are familiar with that one. Second, I can help you delay the onset of certian things that might take you out of the fight. It's delay, not cure. Lastly, I can bind you to my mind to allow us to work together to overcome any attempts to mess with your mind
Just tell me what you'd like.
"They're heavy on messing with your mind. So that will thing will probably be important. Along those lines, don't bother trying any of that stuff with them - it doesn't work. If we can find a wooden stake and the bastard's in his coffin we can end him quickly."
Nicoleta looks around for a moment. "Can someone find some wooden stakes?" She spends a few minutes looking around the area and comes up with some shards of a broken board. (The fact that it wasn't broken when she first found it is irrelevant.).
She sticks her own stake into her waist-band and shakes out her hands. "Ok, we're gonna do this, yeah. We're gonna do this," she repeats to herself as she creeps back down the alley towards the hole in the wall.
"I've got some faerie magic that should keep your minds safe from being dominated," Roz says. She proceeds to apply her magical wards to the party.
Nicoleta moves the bodies out of the way to give the group easier access to the hole in the wall. Fortunately, the dhampir's purity of body means she will not risk contracting blood veil from handling the infected corpses.
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.
Examining the man's body reveals eight puncture wounds up and down his neck, as well as a ring of small keys.
Nicoleta's spell indicates the undead auras are coming from the crawlspace below.
"How's it look up there, Peaches?" Aurelia calls from 30 feet behind her, not daring to move in closer to that pile of death.
"Ok, even ignoring the threat of a vampire," Nicoleta whispers. "That is creepy as f%%#." She gestures at the watching toys.
She moves cautiously over to the trap door. "They're down here. No one has any magic that will ..." She takes a deep breath. "That will make a really bright light?"
The floorboards creak ominously beneath Nicoleta's feet. There is a moment of silence, and then suddenly a creature surges up and out of the trap door, clambering on the wall like a spider! The creature appears to be a pale, emaciated elf with glowing red eyes and pronounced canines. It hisses at Nicoleta as it prepares to attack!
The undead creature's eyes glow even brighter, and were it not for Roz's protective spell, Nicoleta would find her mind under assault!
Nicoleta stares at the creature for an instant, all her fears and doubts resurfacing. The warmth of Roz's spell brings her back again, though, and she moves forward to make a fumbling strike at the elf.
Aurelia knows Nicoleta just told her that her spells won't work, but she has to try. Staring at the vampire she holds out her hand to it and tries to force the vampire to hold in place.
The vampiric elf snarls as it ignores Aurelia's spell.
Roz curses as she moves forward and invokes a prayer to aid the party.
Vox, who has faded into the shadows as a matter of course, carefully nocks an arrow before firing - aiming for the heart!
The vampire cries out in pain as Vox's arrow impales it. Even as the wound starts to seal up, the creature leaps over Nicoleta's head and rushes the drow, attacking but failing to hit.
Three more horrific undead elves clamber out from the trapdoor, converging on Nicoleta. But they bicker and snap at each other as they attack rather than work together, their distraction allowing the monk to dodge their blows.
"Listen to her hearbeat! This one's blood flows slowly!" one snarls.
"It shall till taste as sweet! And it will be mine," another growls.
"No, mine!" the third one hisses.