“Whatever else there’s left doesn’t seem to be as interested in chasing intruders around as the peryton or the late, lamented watch-demon was,” Aithaloessa replies, going over the details. “If we can confirm that, we might be able to intervene if the gnolls decide to bring another prisoner out today.”
She speaks cautiously, hoping not to jinx things, but she’s guardedly optimistic. “If we just don’t draw too much attention to ourselves, we should still be able to move fairly quickly, I think: stick to cover where we can, but don’t fret about padding around like cutpurses? Let’s get to it.”
The used path through the pesh field starts to show. The trip to Kelmarene is again uneventful. On first sight there is no patrol around so you slip into the first building.
This largely intact building once served as an inn for visitors to Kelmarane who were unable to afford the plush accommodations of the upgrade hostels next to the battle market. Despite its sturdy walls and generally sound construction, none of Kelmarane’s current inhabitants have chosen to live within the inn.
As empty buildings are boring and don't bring any progress to the case you move on to the next building. A short hallway connects the inn to the neighboring stables . There is a lack of horses in this stable, but a frightened man wearing a not fitting helmet, and wielding a rusty spear cowers in the corner of the place.
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Antarah rests his left hand on his sword's hilt and raises his right hand in a peaceful gesture. As much as he knows he isn't the best diplomat, he says "Hello, we're not here to hurt you. We have rescued the priest Oxvard two days ago. He is alive and safe for now, and you can be as well."
However, he says it in a very aggressive tone.
“Truly,” Aithaloessa says, trying to keep her tone gentle, and her hands very far from her weapons, especially her pistol. I know I would think I was some weird wasteland mutant if I met me with stuff growing on me. “We know the gnolls have gladiators, but we’re part of an expedition to free Kelmarane from their bonds. How long have you been sheltering here? Can we guide you to safety?”
"Even if you don't trust us," she adds, trying not to glance, amused, at Antarah towering menacingly, "can we at least point you in the right direction? We have a lot left to do here, but we can form a buffer. Stay out of your way, but make sure nothing comes down the hill after you."
All the tension falls off the guy and he starts begging in a whimpering tone. "Yes, please. Bring me out of here! These horrible gnolls will kill me just for fun if they get their hands on me."
“Alright, we’ll get you out of here,” Aithaloessa soothes. After introducing herself properly, she asks, “And you are? Do you have any fellow travellers or anything still locked up by the gnolls that we should especially keep an eye out for? Like I said, we have an axe to grind with them.”
She gives the others an apologetic glance, and wonders if Garavel would allow her to borrow a couple of the caravan guards just to hang back and receive any civilians the adventurers can rescue before they’re ready for the final push, so the gnolls’ prisoners don’t need to be escorted one at a time.
The stranger introduces himself as Felliped, a member of the Lions of Senara - the failed adventuring group. "I managed to get away, but they caught my companions, and the already tortured some, if not all of them to death!"
Yasmeena encourages Felliped to flee to the monastery while they cover his escape. "We have arrows, so do not worry-- the gnolls won't get close enough to you to harm you as you run."
"My companions from the Lions of Senara, if they are not already all killed by the gnolls."
"But I'll wait here, til you're done with your work and take me with you on your way back." Flippe replies to Yasmeena's suggestion.
There is no patrol around at the moment and the short path to the next building is open.
This handsome, three-story mansion has a splendid view of Kelmarane’s dock and the tannery and mill across the river. This building is also free of any vermin, monster or gnoll infestations.
"But I'll wait here, til you're done with your work and take me with you on your way back." Flippe replies to Yasmeena's suggestion.
“Very well,” Aithaloessa nods curtly, before remembering how terrified the man must be, and adding, “Take heart. We were able to rescue Oxvard, and we won’t let the gnolls separate two Lions without a ferocious fight.”
“Give a shout if you need help before we come back,” she says, taking her leave. Hopefully that won’t be with a handful of gnolls on our heels, she thinks, but fortunately she remembers that it wouldn’t be helpful to say so out loud.
Back on the street outside, after confirming that next door is quiet, Aithaloessa looks thoughtfully at the bridge over the river. It’s relatively exposed, but with the peryton dealt with, also comparatively isolated. She suggests, “I think we should brave that last building on the other bank. Just to make sure it’s not hosting, I don’t know, giant scorpions or something.”
“We have all week,” Aithaloessa shrugs, “and I wouldn’t want to get outflanked. I don’t think I would presume to be able to repeat the trick of the conquest of Alesia.”
She points back across the street on this bank. “A compromise, perhaps? Check just across there to make sure nothing crawls out and scares the life out of that poor Felliped character, and then we can climb up closer to the battle market?”
“But I’ll follow your lead,” she concedes graciously.
And back to the ruins of the slave market it is. Fire claimed much of this building ages ago, leaving behind only a partially collapsed shell. An old ruined sign bearing the legend “—AVE MARKET” hangs above the gaping entrance on the north side of the building.
From the black ashes a giant black snake rises slowly. Only Tariq notices in time to react.
Once inside, you find the building is not uninhabited as the last few.
When he hears the comment about the giant scorpions, Tariq gives Aith a profound gaze, filled with the hate of all the past generations from all the planets in this galaxy and probably with the fury of generations to come.
So, when a snake appears when entering the building, Tariq can't help growl to his insides "Damn! You had to say it!"
Then he realises it seems only a common serpent, and tries to behead it before something goes wrong.
In the lands where Tariq lives, common snakes seem to grow really large. The mamba is as thick as Tariqs waist and might as well be 60 foot long. From the snake's view Tariq is a common appetizer.
Tariq hits the snake with his blade and cuts it deep, but due to its sheer size, that's not enough to behead it. The snake shoots out and adds nice bite morks to Tariq's armor on back and belly, the green translucent poison squirting from the large teeth.
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Antarah moves towards the snake while drawing his sword and putting a bit of his magical energy on the metal. It glows softly with a light blue light as he swings it at the snake that attacked Tariq using two hands.
Antarah's cut is violent, using the sharp cutting feature of his scimitar, cutting the snake in two.
Giant snakes are not what they used to be. Antarah finishes what Tariq started and beheads the snake.
Tariq gets pale for a moment when he checks his well directed strike fails to cut the serpent's head. He sees to animal's fangs too near for his taste, and finally Antarah finishes the reptile. "woah, thanks mate, that was close."
When he hears the comment about the giant scorpions, Tariq gives Aith a profound gaze, filled with the hate of all the past generations from all the planets in this galaxy and probably with the fury of generations to come.
So, when a snake appears when entering the building, Tariq can't help growl to his insides "Damn! You had to say it!"
“What?” Aithaloessa calls through the door, voice innocent in the way that only that of someone who grew up someplace where improbable and sometimes bizarrely distressing magical occurrences happen on the regular, whether or not one tempts fate, can be.
She swings through the door on Antarah’s heels, but before the guardswoman has so much as time to draw her own weapon, she sees the magus makes short work of what was obviously the problem. She cheers the two men’s deft swordplay, “Nicely done!”
She takes a look around to make sure that the snake wasn’t guarding a nest full of eggs that could still hatch if the adventurers are unlucky, before turning back over the bridge to the last stop before heading up the hill as Antarah suggested. It’s a good thing we did check, she thinks wryly, otherwise whichever of Almah’s poor beggars tried to clear this place up would probably have ended up swallowed.
Walking from the slave market towards the center of the town, and watching out what to check next the eyes fall on the Watch Gatehouse . A trumpeting statue of Sarenrae on a huge pillar abuts the guardhouse.
The gnoll that has the watch lets loose four hyenas. The hyenas are incrdibly fast. Running away from them is no option. The fastest one charges Antarah.
Drawing her pistol as she goes, Aithaloessa does her best to move a couple of paces from Antarah’s side, to where she can cover the approach to the group without getting in anyone else’s way, or catching them in her own spells. Her free hand dips into the pouches stitched into her belt for a handful of multicoloured sand…
Tariq maneuvers a bit around the hyena to allow better positioning for his friends in case they don't dispatch the beast quick. He lifts his scimitar and lets it fall upon the animal...
Yasmeena moves out of the way of Aithaloessa before stabbing at the beast herself with her blade.
"Wait for it," Aithaloessa mutters, half to herself, wondering how much time they actually have.
Tariq cuts deep into the hyena, but it stands. Yasmeena misses it. And there comes the whole pack at the group. Aithaloessa sends the wounded one and the one coming at her to sleep. The next two attack Yasmeena and Tariq.
Aithaloessa watches in grim satisfaction (and some relief!) as the burst of colours that marks her spell dissipates to reveal the hyena that went after her slumped at her feet.
Letting sleeping dogs lie, she draws her sword into her newly empty hand and circles around to help flank those which charged in a second too late for her to catch them with her magic too.
She keeps an eye out and her pistol ready in case the first two hyenas or anything else, start moving again to outflank her in turn.
With half his innards hanging from the wound he's just received, Tariq makes a final effort and moves to reach over of the non-stunned hyenas. He discharges a blow, then quickly calls for divine help.
With a combined eeffort Antarah and Tariq kill a hyena.
Yasmeena nimbly dances over the fallen hyena and stabs at the other that is menacing Aithaloessa.
The one hyena that is still active turns on Yasmeena. The gnoll moves behind the statue of Sarenrae and whatever he does there, the trumpet of the statue sounds - the loud tone echoing through the valley.
Antarah quickly dispatches two of the hyenas.
<“Bloody hell,”> Aithaloessa curses in Elven as the signal rings out, before she slams her pistol back into its holster and whirls back to keep flanking the last hyena before it shakes off her spell. At this rate, I really should ask Yasmeena if she’d be willing to offer us all some dancing lessons, she thinks, lunging at the hyena between them.
Her eyes flicker past the line of the other adventurers, and she calls out quickly, "Who needs healing? Engage at range or attempt a breakthrough, or withdraw and extract survivor?"
For the moment, she's still within bowshot and - more importantly - her magic fireworks have a prodigious range, but by the same token the latter are better at covering a retreat or encouraging enemies to take cover than doing much damage. Sparing a thought to Felliped, she muses, In retrospect, perhaps we should have encouraged him to tag along behind. Probably could punch through, but not if we have to worry about what's between him and us.
Tariq makes chopped pork of the remaining hyena . "Let's take that sentinel and thyen we'll see, the more we can thin their ranks, the better, and we won't be able to do that if they gather all together."