Garran looks up as Callie shouts something, and sees...well...what clearly looks like a bug man. Realization dawns as he says, "We forgot to look up..."
Alika
Alistair
Garran
Me
Callie
Callie swings out at the bugman but he manages to parry her attack.
Meanwhile, a red mist begins billowing beneath the crack in the door.
The heroes are up!
Alika opens with a bless spell to give everyone on the team +1 to attack rolls and saves vs. fear.
"Remember the story of the Knight Davian? He fought the cult of the Cricket Queen... all too easily squished!" Callie begins recounting.
She thrusts her blade again, it glowing with magic as she attacks.
Alistair looks from the rafters to the door and back again. Seeing the attention that the would be monkey assassin is getting, the handsome man turns his attention towards the door. Not sure what the mist is, he waits for it to come through the door.
Garran climbed up into the rafters, then drew his sword and shield as he advanced towards the bugman.
Alika calls upon the power of Sarenrae, which settles upon the group like a warm summer day.
Garran joins Callie in the rafters and draws his sword
Alistair moves to the door and prepares to attack anyone who comes through. He doesn't have long to wait. As the door opens, mist spills into the room, and another bug man stands there, blades drawn. Alistair's blade finds purchase, let the thing in front of him makes no sound, as if he had struck an inanimate object.
Retaliating, the creature makes a lightning fast downwards stab at Alistair.
The creature's attack is quickly parried by Alistair.
Meanwhile, the enemy in the rafters drops to the floor and moves into a flank on Alistair even as red mist starts eminating from it as well.
Callie stabs the bug man as he dropped, and it, too, makes no noise as the blade slides into it. Callie then joins it on the ground floor.
Callie continues to taunt with a bug squashing tale as she first somersaults to the floor and then rolls past the bug-armored man so to flank with Garran.
Annoyed that he climbed up there, Garran dropped down, bringing his sword down in a two-handed overhead strike.
Seeing his position and knowing that he is at a disadvantage, Alistair steps away from the predicament. He gracefully moves to place the enemy between himself and Garran.
Unleashing a flurry of strikes that he hopes will find some sort of purchase that will elicit a verbal response.
I can just imagine how ugly you are on the inside.
Alika steps up to assist Alistair, bringing her scimitar up and ready to fight against the foe directly north of her.
Alika steps up and swings on the enemy who just dropped from the rafters, but it parries her attack.
Alistair steps south out of the flank and stabbed the same creature, hitting once and critting once.
You attempt to menace the creature with your blade skills, and it does appear to be shaken.
Garran fell from the rafters like a shooting star, stabbing the creature, but failing to critically injure it.
The wounds on the injured bugman close, and it launches into an attack on Alistair, stabbing down with both blades.
Managing to land a hit that nearly becomes a crit.
Callie then moves into a flank with Alistair and attacks the creature
While Callie is quick, it's not quite enough to beat the creature's reflexes and it takes a swipe at her as he tumbles into position..
it's attack fails to land, however; Callie's attack does land, thanks to the distraction by Alistair.
The one in the doorway observes the battle, sheathes one if it's blades, and swings an arm, a vial flying end over into into the wall by the fireplace, where it shatters, and unnaturally quickly, fire begins to spread across the entire wall.
Now on the ground, Garran attempts to cut down the bugman, saying, "Someone do something about the fire!"
When Garran speaks up about the fire...
I got nothing for the fire.
Alistair attempts to push the blade aside as it connects with his forearm.
looking from one opponent to the other...
The swordsman continues his assault on the flanked opponent...
Taking a step back he returns the favor by launches a series a strikes to bring his opponent's weapons out to his non dominate side. Once the weapons are out to the weak side of his opponent, the handsome man steps in close, stabbing at the exposed flank.
You are not used to being overwhelmed by your opponents. Sucks does it not?
Alika redoubles her efforts to drop this foe so that she can free up space to move.
"Stick together!" she shouts to the party, though it's not clear why yet.
Frowning at the admonition to stay together but also squelch the fire, Callie slashes open the dummy nearest her--as in the practice dummy, not anyone else :) -- Callie in desperation pulls one of her vials of cold iron weapon blanch and throws it at the fire near her, hoping the pint of metallic alchemical liquid helps slow its spread.
Alika's first attack misses but her second attack lands, and as it does, the creature's carapace and weapons clatter to the floor among the rapidly dispersing mist.
Alistair steps into the doorway to confront the remaining foe. His attacks both strike true, and through his vision, Alistair sees that his target's aura goes from Healthy to Fighting Off Death.
Garran moves up on the remaining foe and attacks, but his blade can't seem to find purchase between his companion and the doorway in his way.
The creature attempts to distract Alistair in order to get past him...
...and Alistair is distracted for the merest of moments, which allows him to slip through Ailstair's square. He does not, however, ignore Garran's blade, which cuts him down. Just as his companion bugman, this creature's carapace clatters to the ground, along with it's weapons.
Callie then calmly puts out the raging fire
As the fire is quickly handled, the smell that some of you smelled before is quite prevalent, and appears to be coming from the wall that burst into flames unnaturally quickly. A thorough examination of the wall shows that some sort of resin or gel had been spread liberally upon it.
"Ugh. This is... probably a deliberate fire-alchemical-substance," says Alika as the team finishes the fight and inspects the walls. "They meant to burn this place to the ground! We'd best finish searching the house, make sure there are no more Red Mantises in here."
"Red mantis, is that what they are? Why are they here? I mean, besides to commit arson." Callie casts prestidigitation on the gel, wondering if the cantrip is enough to clean it up.
"I think just the bedroom, yes? And we'll be sure to check the rafters next time... "
"The bug warriors who attacked Orsini, it seems. Red Mantis seems an apt name for them - they are bug-like in appearance, although that seems to be a function of their armor. What I wonder is what happened to the bodies. I suspect magic was involved."
With the fire out, Garran goes to search the room the second mantis had come from.
Alistair follows Garran and starts to search the area.
Garran enters and takes a look around, and sees a bedroom.
Vencarlo’s bedroom appears well lived in, but the bed is made and hasn’t been slept in. A desk and chair sit next to the bed, and a small clothes closet is to the north.
Callie joins Garran once she cleans the gel up on both floors. She focuses on the desk, closet, and under the bed.
Other than a large collection of clothes and accessories (including several noble's outfits and even more courtier's outfits), nothing of note is located in his bedroom.
As you're searching the room, you happen to glance up, and notice a very fine seam in one corner. After giving it a hard look, it appears to be a trap door in the ceiling.
Callie taps Garran's arm and points to the ceiling. "There's the trap door you've been looking for."
"I knew there had to be one around here somewhere. Let's see if anyone's in there. Did anyone notice a ladder or anything like that?"
"No, but maybe it's one where the ladder folds out as you open it?"
If the door itself is unreachable, Callie itself suggests Garran or Alistair get on the desk chair to try to open it. "I can try but you're taller than I am," she says.
Alistair will comply with the request.
The trap door opens to sky, and little ladder drops down to allow access. Climbing up, it leads out of the top of the second story roof. On the side that leads to the first floor roof, there is a coiled up and knotted rope that is pitoned into the small lip of the second story roof.
Other than that the roof was empty.
"This must be how the mantis men got in. That or Orsini's escape route if he needed to flee. Let's go search the rest of the house for clues. And we should remember to check the ceiling."
"Now that we know what the weird smell and what the fires are for and have gotten that out of the way, maybe we can find something useful. While you look, I'm going to take a look at these weirdoes' weapons and whatnot that they've left behind."
Callie sifts over the "carapace" and weapons left behind by the dissipating bug-men.
"I guess the question is whether these warriors were here to find Orsini, or to stop other people from finding him? Perhaps both," muses Alika while she lets the keen-eyed do the searching.
"Indeed. If they were here to stop others, no doubt they still have something to do with why he's missing to begin with. Given their penchant for burning things, they have to have been the ones to have torched the school."
The group begins the search in the bedroom, with Alika leading the investigation. Ironically enough, it is here you find the only real thing of worth: A locked black metal footlocker. Unlike many such boxes, this one has locks built directly into it. It is hidden in a small alcove built into the closet of the bedroom, designed so cunningly that only working together and focusing extensively on searching could your group even locate it.
Downstairs in the office, you notice that his bookshelves contain treaties on sword fighting, as well as a variety of both religions and spiritual philosophies from throughout the Inner Sea region and beyond.
The paperwork on his desk shows that before the death of the king, Orsini's school was doing quite well, but it's income dropped precipitiously as students stopped attending and Orsini spent more and more time away from his school.
you also discover more of the gel on several of the walls downstairs; it's clear the assassins intended to turn Orsini's home into a deathtrap for either you or him.
After spending some time to remove the gel from the walls of the house, you realize that you are all rather tired. It's been a long night.
After a long day of poring over the house, scrubbing walls, and searching for hidden clues, Alika is simply beat.
"Does anyone... need... any extra help with scrapes and bruises?" she asks, stifling a yawn midway through. "Otherwise I'm going to wrap my cloak around me and curl up on that overstuffed chair in the living room after barricading the front door."
"Definitely time for rest," Callie agrees. "If none of us have the means to open that box, I'll see if I can think of any fence-kens in the area who might help for a fee. Or Alistair, if you have any ideas..."
Re: magic items, Callie asks if she can hold onto one of the potions of bull's strength. She has no need of the armor, sabres, or cloaks. She suggests Only if no one else wants them, she can hold onto the alchemist's fire and daggers in her haversack--never hurts to have more things to throw at people.
The only other thing Callie does before resting is try to analyze the enchantment on the bug helm.
Then she steals various cushions and pillows and makes herself a bed in the corner of a room, using several cloaks from Orsini's closet as blankets.