Rayhan breaks away from the thugs.
But he doesn't get far. The thugs grab him again and hold him in place.
Tamir, the halfling from the earlier, busies himself rolling up the Scroll of Kakishon with a grin on his face. As Aithaloessa steps in he speaks the magic word and is gone and with him the scroll.
Aith stops short when she sees Tamir – if only for a moment, before he vanishes who knows where, making her wonder about dimensional beacons, unless it’s only invisibility – but, right, more importantly, poor Rayhan doesn’t get far with the thugs chasing him.
She really hopes the halfling got away with the Totally-not-a-decoy® version and not the real deal, but she was never any good at the shell game. Chess, regular or mathematical, sure, but not something that requires a good eye for quick movements just under one’s nose.
Dammit. The mood the situation is putting her into isn’t helping matters, but she also knows that Tariq is much scarier than she is, so while she doesn’t lower her pistol, she does try to keep negotiations relatively amicable.
“Alright, boys, you’ve got what you came for. Let our friend go, and we can talk about where yours went, and nobody else needs to get hurt tonight.”
Right now, she's about ready to point out that taking Rayhan hostage is counterproductive to actually getting out of the room quickly, and if they actually hurt him... Well, it's not going to make her less inclined to, say, test how much powder she'd need to give a firework a passenger.
She hears what sounds like Yasmeena’s voice coming up the stairs, and she tries not to sag with relief, knowing that Yaz stands a much better chance of getting through to the thugs. What passes for angry mad wizard logic probably isn't going to cut it.
The thugs let go of Rayhan and try to get past Aithaloessa through the door. With mixed results. The one that makes it past flees to the roof.
As for the scroll - hope dies last, but the decoy was carefully prepared and laid aside to later fool someone it would be handed to, while the one here was the original Rayhan studied.
Tariq reaches the first store and finds an angry sheriff, a mauled host and a pair of thugs. Before he can blink, one of them is out of the equation.
"Hey!"
He walks to the remaining enemy and points the tip of his scimitar at his chest.
"Stop! Get down! We are the strong arm of the law!"
The thug is not interested in a surrender, and so he goes down when hit with the blade.
With the stable intruder identified as a summoned nuisance and gone, Haleen storms inside to help her companions if necessary.
With the slaughter inside it doesn't look that way, but better safe than sorry. "Where are you all?" she calls into the room.
“Upstairs in the library!” Aith calls down, before adding ruefully, “I’m afraid there’s good news and there’s bad news…”
She turns to Rayhan for now, looking over how he’s been roughed up by the goons. “Are you alright? Under the circumstances, that is. I’m sorry it took us so long to get up here, but they were dreadfully good at what they were doing, and there were a few of them.”
She sighs. “We’ll clean up as best we can, while we think about how to proceed.”
With a quick gesture and incantation, a warm glow surrounds her free hand. As she does so, she grudgingly admires Tamir’s cleverness or sheer luck in breaking in while Rayhan was still up and studying the scroll, bypassing the need to track it down and risk getting his hands on the decoy instead.
Either way, it looks like they'll have to do things the hard way now. Aith makes a mental note to look into spells for dimensional interdiction when she can, so she can try to make sure scoundrels can't get away like this on her watch going forward.
Outside Yasmeena witnesses how the last thug jumps off the roof onto the stable and from there over the fence to flee into the dark.
"I'm good, but the scroll is gone!" Rayhan replies in a tone as if they chopped off his arm and ran away with it.
Haleen finally reaches the library too. "I see." she comments when looking at the somber mood.
"I left some of them alive" Tariq comments. "If I were the guy who planned this, I wouldn't let them know much to prevent them from revealing any useful info, but I guess it's worth the try." Then he shrugs. "In any case, we know who did it."
"If that was the best they had to offer for an assault, then they are in for a bad surprise when we come after them. The One Source Merchant's Guild has a sign at their building, don't they?"
"If they pulled that in Kelmarane, the whole city watch would take their place apart. I'm not sure, is stealing legal in Katapesh?"
Outside Yasmeena witnesses how the last thug jumps off the roof onto the stable and from there over the fence to flee into the dark.
Yasmeena, disappointed at having grabbed her scimitar instead of her bow, rejoins the others to address the situation. She hopes Sarenrae will forgive her for her violent and angry thoughts about the thieves and their employers. "We can assume they were sent by one of the people who came here to scope out the layout?" she says, shaking her head.
“It was definitely that Tamir fellow,” Aith explains, holding her hand at halfling-height with a nod as Yasmeena enters the library. “Tariq and I were just able to get a glimpse of him before he used magic to escape.”
She considers the nearest thug Tariq’s subdued and how they’ll have to tie him up and interrogate him before delivery to the Zephyr Guard. She knows that in their place she would look askance at civilians interesting themselves in official procedure, even if they are qualified. She’s never been sheriff before, granted, but Kelmarane’s a fair distance away, so it might not tip the balance in the right direction.
She tries to remember Katapesh’s property laws as best she can, given Haleen’s train of thought. “They normally fine, brand, and mutilate thieves, I gather. Execute, on a repeated offense. I can’t quite recall, but I imagine burglary might well be judged more harshly than daylight robbery, too. Mind you, coin speaks quite clearly in the city – possibly even louder than precise justice.”
Even the flat of her Sarenite friend's blade can send a goon to quite a deep sleep, it seems, so Aith figures she has time to help clean up before providing an audience for any interrogation, which is best left to the others.
"I also left a sleeping beauty downstairs. Let's check he doesn't want to leave the party and take a souvenir with him." He climbs down the stairs again to check.
"I bring him into the garden shed. I guess I'd find some rope there. Or do you prefer an interrogation in the comfort of the living room?" Haleen tells and shoulders the guy. "We could also do the interrogation in the bath. Water can be very persuading to get answers."
"Ehhh... I don't know..." Tariq thinks of some nasty ways to interrogate in the bathroom, and suspects what's in Haleen's mind is even worse. "I'm no expert."
With Tariq hesitating, she puts the guy on a chair in the living room. Maybe it isn't necessary to show the instruments to the guy to have him talk. The gal in front of Tariq's room that still breathes also gets seated.
"You want to check if some of the others can be saved, or shall I pile them outside?"
Aith decides maybe she should just pretend all that’s flying over her head.
“I can go check if any of the others are still bleeding,” she confirms. Or sizzling with acid or whatever, but anyway. She’s kind of hoping not, just for the idea of going cleanly, but she’s not necessarily heartless enough to just leave someone at least half-civilized to suffer their last few moments alone in a gutter, if she can help it.
On her way out, she pauses. “Do you think we could tie them up and leave them to stew overnight? I’m not much of an enchantress, but I might be able to peek into their heads in the morning, with the right preparations. Or Yasmeena might just be able to get them to open up mostly willingly?”
Leaving, for now, the more intimidating and/or charming folks the joys of preparing the survivors for interrogation, Aith heads downstairs to at least make a start of cleaning up the rest of the mess.
It’s morbid, but as she hauls bodies to one side to cart off later, she checks pockets and pouches for in the vain hope that their paymasters would be reckless enough to give incriminating instructions in writing. She doesn’t actually expect anything to come of it, but she does her due diligence.
As she does so, she goes over best practices for magical interrogation from her early training, in case she’ll need them in the morning. It’s a bit of a mental stretch, since that was Skyside stuff, and in her time in Alkenstar she was posted in the rougher part of the city, where magic wasn't an option. Hmm. 'First, establish a baseline for active magic countermeasures (nondetection, misdirection, &c.); next, begin applying chosen techniques, monitoring as necessary for effect. Psych. strategies (bluffing) possible if target magically unsophisticated…'
Once woken, the thugs are surprised to be alive, and horrified to be at the pointy end of the blades that cut their companions lives short.
They are more than willing to share what little they know. The boss of the One Source Merchant Guild is led by a notorious crime lord known as the Jackal. For undisclosed reasons, the Jackal wanted the Scroll of Kakishon really bad. Not at all costs, at least not if it was at his expense, but he wanted it - full stop.
The plan was to create a distraction and abduct Rayhan to blackmail the owners of the scroll to hand it over. And either there should be a note left behind, or they would be contacted soon, where to deliver.
"Well, it seems their plan went better than expected" Tariq comments once the interrogations are finnished and out of the thugs' reach. "Luckily for us, we know where to find them, and we shouldn't hesitate."
"Just let me get dressed first," quips Yasmeena.
Once the burglar lumber has been cleared up, Aith checks in with the others, glad that the interrogation of the prisoners seems not to have been particularly arduous.
“For all that it’s appalling that they got away with the scroll, at least Rayhan is safe,” she considers. “It could have been much worse.”
“I don’t know about this Jackal, though,” she says, wondering about the better part of – if not valour, diplomacy. She’s all for kicking up a fuss at the One Source imminently, but she does have to wonder about what Almah would have to say about her sheriff doing so, especially since she can’t imagine that the guard in Katapesh, and by extension, the Pactmasters, would be particularly pleased by Kelmaranian direct intervention.
Still, they have witnesses to back them up, so maybe forgiveness rather than permission is the way to go after all, and it would leave less time for the scroll to – gods forbid! – disappear forever into some other party’s hands. “But what we do know is that I’m not the most unobtrusive arcanist the world has ever known.”
Aith has the grace to look a bit embarrassed. “If we don’t want to burn daylight figuring out disguises, invisibility, or other subterfuge, should we bring one of the lackeys to bolster our chance of admission? In case a stern word isn’t enough, I mean. Wouldn't refusing admission to one of their own guild-members would be tantamount to an admission of guilt? Rather than resorting immediately to kicking in the door or sending a fireball through the windows.”
The sun finally comes up as Yasmeena discards the grumpy fresh out of bed looks.
Rayhan sends Eramin to inform the city watch of the nightly intrusion.
An armed group of Zephyr Guards arrives at the villa to determine what occurred. Accompanying them is Kazim, the same cleric who attended the dinner party the previous night.
Kazim does not waste any time on pleasantries. She suggests that the party have a conversation in Rayhan’s common room, where she gestures toward the seats. As soon as all are seated, she sits herself, and
begins to speak.
"Greetings. I apologize for my abrupt arrival, but there is a matter we must discuss. Know that I am here on both the authority of the church and that of the Pactmasters—and I bring word of their displeasure. Both have been troubled recently by your arrival in our city. They had hoped your claim was false, or that if it were true, you would conduct your business swiftly and be gone. The traffic of powerful artifacts is welcome in Katapesh, but it also causes the worst of men’s natures to rise. What has happened here last night is proof of that."
"While the city respects the value of an individual’s property, and theft violates the highest laws of the land, inciting riots and disrupting trade is equally offensive to our codes, and you currently walk a fine line in that regard."
"Know that several parties have come to the Pactmasters and demanded that the city force you to relinquish control of the Scroll of Kakishon to the highest bidder. Specifically, the One Source Merchants’ Guild is threatening a trade embargo if they are not allowed the opportunity to bid for the map. Though you are the rightful owner and cannot be forced to sell, they therefore ask you to choose a buyer within the next day or else leave the city. It is one thing to hold out on a trade for the best price, but another to hold out so long that our merchants lose sight of their civility."
"You have but one other option. If you can find out who perpetrated this crime against you and the master of this house, and if you can bring me proof that the situation has been resolved before the time limit elapses, both the church and the Pactmasters will be appreciative of your efforts and turn deaf ears to the complaints of a few jealous merchants."
Obviously it wasn't mentioned to Kazim that the scroll is gone.
Tariq follows Kazim's instructions with the dearest attention. When she finishes, he raises his finger, asking for permission to talk.
"Sorry but... well, first of all, they took away the scroll anyway. Other than that, what happens if we follow the Pactmasters' command and choose to leave the city? This is an option they offered us against the other option which is to sell the scroll. Therefore, if we choose to leave, we don't have to relinquish its possession. Will then the Pactmasters do something to return the scroll to their rightful owners?" He breathes, finally, for first time in all his diatribe. Then he follows. "And if we choose to sell, will the Pactmasters force the One Source to pay us for what they stole?"
Feeling a bit bold, and before anyone can add anything, he stands up and puts both hands on the table, leaning his weight on them. "Does the One Source usually threaten the Pactmasters with trade embargoes when they don't get what they want? Just saying."
"That is really unfortunate. But the city will not resolve that issue for you." Kazim replies.
"So the city will allow robbery to go unpunished. Would that happen if it were the other way around? Would we be able to steal from the One Source with the city doing nothing?" Tariq goes on.
But before an answer can be issued, he turns his whole body and starts walking away. "Nevermind. We're losing time here. We need to go get what's rightfully ours or soon the law will defend the thieves' agenda."
He leaves, set on checking if he's ready to go kick some One Source arse.
"As you are no longer in the possession of the map there is no need for me to be involved anymore. We'll take the intruders with us."
The guards shackle the living ones and shoulder the dead ones and retreat.
"What an ass."
Tariq is about to say something, but in the very last second he thinks better. There's no time to keep talking. They're on their own.
"If you're in charge and you side with the bad guys, then you're either bad yourself or weak. What do you think it is in case of the pactmasters?"
Yasmeena frowns, remaining silent when it seems clear that negotiations with the Eagle Guard cleric will yield no meaningful results.
When Kazim and the others are gone, she says: "For what it's worth, I don't think Kazim is working with the thieves. I can't think Abadar would approve of that. And she seemed to smile when she learned we were going to try to take the scroll back."
She sighs. "While it may seem like time is of the essence, for our spellcasters' sake let's at least ensure we have a good night's sleep before we go to confront our enemies," she suggests. "It sounds like the One Source may believe they have a right to the scroll, so perhaps they will not be anxious to get rid of it quickly. Also, it would be nice if we had some more intelligence about what we will face when we get there. It might be worth asking some questions in the city. And those women who are coming with us when we leave, maybe some of them know something?"
After the local guards arrive, with Kazim in tow, Aith is confused by the non-explanation that follows. She can understand a certain amount of variation in establishing the preliminary outlines of a case, from the point of view of an investigator, but then it just seems to … stop. Worse, as Tariq seems to be suggesting, it looks like some sort of shake-down with plausible deniability, if Aith’s following.
Once again, she proves effortlessly that she belongs in a lab calculating whether a given weapon could have been used in a certain crime, or a particular sort of magic, and so on. People, though, are a mystery beyond the mad mage’s ken. She was expecting, at least, a “Sorry, but my hands are tied!” A bit penny dreadful, but a useful marker for people whose usual objections run more towards the “Well, it’s possible, but it could also summon horrors from beyond the veil of worlds, or explode, or just flash very strange colours for no very good reason.”
"If you're in charge and you side with the bad guys, then you're either bad yourself or weak. What do you think it is in case of the pactmasters?"
“Bad, I’d warrant. The markets here are fabulous, I’ll grant, but that’s no excuse for letting just anything slide as long as trade is unaffected. And what does anyone really know about what’s behind those masks, anyway?”
“You don’t think they could be playing both sides, do you? Either we get the One Source to settle down for them, or we get banished and when the scroll gets sold, a consider sum starts percolating through the city. With enough middlemen, they could even get their hands on it themselves while giving any business involving a plausible scrap of parchment a boost. Or something like that.”
Aith’s terrible with money. Which doesn’t quite entirely explain why she’s so sympathetic to the wizardly habit of trading in knowledge, but it doesn’t hurt. After the night’s excitement, she politely covers a yawn and thinks a bit more sleep would help her avoid frantic conspiracy theories, nodding in agreement with Yasmeena’s suggestions.
“It’s a start, and maybe we could find that sticky-fingered Radi fellow again, from the road into town, and ask some awkward questions. With Tamir’s tricks, anyway, they all seem like a rather slippery lot. Should I keep preparing for explosions, or something else? I think I learned a bit about those bloody gremlins…”
"Personally, I would try to do the most damage possible. They need to realise how costly stealing is."
Yasmeena considers. "Sarenrae does love fire, though she prefers we practice mercy. I worry that a fireball could damage the scroll, but I suppose Captain Aithaloessa's judgment is paramount when it comes to not destroying valuables with her explosions." She winks at Aith. "Then again, rogues do have an uncanny ability to evade those kind of spells. I admit, part of me delights in thinking that we could use the dreaded pugwampis' magic against others. Ah, happy memories."
"The scroll of Kakishon is a major artifact and none of your or my magic could destroy it. Blast away." Rayhan comments, visibly frustrated with the outcome of that meeting.
"I've seen evasive fighters. The ones they brought last night aren't among them. I just wonder if they have a legitimate storefront, and if we should be worried about not blasting up the wrong ones."
"On the plus side, no one questioned that there were a lot of dead people on the front yard, even though they only attacked with saps. So beyond personal moral qualms we're free in our actions."
"As long as it doesn't hinder trade. Which we all know now is already if you're not willing to sell the pants on your ass if there is someone who wants them bad enough."
"I'm willing to bet the One Source values more their trading goods than their employees."
A longer nap is due for the spell casters to be refreshed enough to prepare their magic. In the early afternoon, Eramin has prepared a meal for meal for all so the excursion to the One Source Merchant Guild hasn't to be done hungry.
Finding the One Source Merchant's Guild is no big deal. The warehouse lies within the docks district—a single-story building constructed from wood. It is in reasonably good repair, with several large doors in the main portion of the warehouse that open to the outside.
During this daytime the doors are open. Horse- and camel-drawn wagons load and unload crates here aided by a workforce of slaves. The slaves constantly climb up the massive shelving to retrieve items, which are then brought to the carts below and sent out with the merchants. The slaves are overseen by the same kind of thugs that visited Rayhan's home last night.
After a bit of refreshment, Aith makes sure to go over her preparations for the day with as much care as she can, hoping that she’s figuring the odds correctly. She does, in the end, swap out wide-ranging evocations for something comparatively more nuanced.
She’s not particularly inclined to humour the Pactmasters as such, but there is something to be said for avoiding unnecessary friction if possible, and setting a major trading house ablaze probably is the sort of thing that would really annoy Katapesh’s powers that be. Fire would also be particularly liable to spread in a crowded city and with lots of merchandise crated up, presumably, compared to old ruins and monster lairs, so there’s also the humanitarian angle.
Once she and the others are peering through the doors to the place, she draws herself up to her full height and fiddles with her pistol, preparing for a show of authority in the hopes that that might knock a few layers off the hell that’s almost bound to break out in a few moments.
Satisfied that the suitable bauble is attached to her sidearm , she carefully removes her hand so that she doesn’t swing through the doors like someone spoiling for a fight. She takes a breath, and asks, “Does anyone else want to do the honours, or shall I? Should we announce ourselves, so the workers can take cover or, even better, get clear?”