"Very well. I shall leave at once, you have my word. At least one gamble you've made has paid off: I do value my life above everything else. When threatened with murder I tend to think...you know, life...is a question, and how we live it, the answer. Hmm..." he nods to himself affirmatively before adding "Life isn't about finding oneself, but about creating oneself. Yes, that's my motto."
Out in the streets, you hear the distant bells of the Citadel ringing...an ominous sign, given ordinarily they are only wrung in the highest states of emergency. Each *dong* has Gorn's companion wincing while each *ding* prompts a minute peeing of his pants. The smell of Gorn's breath and a not forgotten promise however keeps him rooted to the spot.
Across the way in the same dark alley the party recently emerged from stands a mysterious teenage girl donned in heavy armor, which is poorly hidden with a ragged cloak. Indeed, she seems to think herself quite concealed there in the shadows...
"Uhhh...friend of yours?" the guard mentions, clearly seeing the failed sneak as well.
Mal finds some paper, quill and ink and writes out a confession for Amrik to sign, I, Amrik Vanthampur, conspired with my brother Thurstwell and mother the Duke Vanthampur with the cult of the Dead Three to murder people of Baldur's Gate.
He leaves room for additional confessions. "Amrik, you need to sign and seal this confession before you abscond the city."
It takes a minute or two for Mal to ink up the document.
Amrik reads it over with great interest, taking a bit longer than it really should "...mmhmm. Well, I think the wording here is a bit problematic, from a legal standpoint I mean. Perhaps you would allow me to draft my own confession? I've grown up immersed in the high courts, I know the language quite well."
Grim, you recognize the shadowy figure as the very same tail that's been following you since the Low Lantern.
We picked up a tail as well, a dozy youth spotted back at Low Lantern...
Oi!!! You!!! From the Low Lantern!!! Spotted you then, spotted you on the way over and spotted you now!!! Get your arse over here...
She raises her empty hands in a sign of peace, and a strong voice that carries a timbre much older than a teenagers calls out "Hold on, I think we're on the same side, I just want to question Amri-"
But she is cut short, as a wet-bladed dagger flashes from behind, held aloft by a crimson eyed, black-beaked kenku...
Initiative
...and she turns just a fraction of a second too late, taking the blade fully in surprise.
The assassin's blade somehow crunches through the splints of her armor at the coif, and the girl lets out an angry growl as she staggers forward. It was a terrible blow, but it would seem to take more than that to fell her...
The kenku's shape ducks behind her after and is gone.
Round 1:
Girl?
Kenku
Gorn, Grim <--UP
Mal nods, "Sign and seal that one. And draft your own. Let's read the difference." The halfling watches ready for Amrik to try to escape with a quill and ink.
From inside the cell he finds no sealing wax "Wasn't there a stationery's supplier a few doors down? Perhaps you could bring some...I'll get started on the draft in the mean time. But for example, in this first version you make no mention of me being not coerced to sign...something even the most bone-headed barrister would exploit. 'Oh, someone just forced him to sign...' they'll argue '..threatening to kill him if not' and so forth. It should really begin, in my own hand, 'Of sound mind and of my own accord...' See what I mean?"
"Just sign it. And then draft your own. Or you will make me angry." Mal says ending a whisper.
Keeping one eye on Amrik, the halfling digs into his bag for some sealing wax.
His face betrays a slight displeasure as the wax is rapidly produced "I see here no mention of the scar-faced hulk. I can only imagine what you might have been told. But no matter, as you see I am happy to cooperate without violence..." he takes the first document and signs it against the stone wall of the cell.
*crrk* the unoiled iron hinge on the trapdoor above creaks and oddly stays open a few inches, but there is nothing there.
Mal fishes in his pack where he produced the sealing wax and palms a sack of flour, while demanding Amrik, "Seal it. Hand it here. And start your volunteered, more thorough confession."
"Ah yes the seal...of course I would need a small flame to melt the wax?" he shrugs helplessly from within the barren cell.
"Just pass me the confession and your signet ring. I'm not going to give you a flame." Mal replies, dropping his other hand in his pocket to grip his arcane crystal.
He whispers to Donal, "we have two imps at the trapdoor in the ceiling. Get ready. They're invisible. I've got my flour to mark them."
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Gorn was surprised by the assassin, and when it disappeared, his brain couldn't quite latch on to a stimulus to attack.
It was then, in the limbo of surprised confusion, that a part of himself he had not known existed, reached through his person and opened a gate he had not known was there.
Suddenly he could feel himself open to to perception unknown to any but the most learned, and even they could not know this at will. He stood and stared and tried to comprehend what it was he was seeing.
Gorn, the ogre portion of your blood pounds with adrenaline...and boils forth with something extra. Faintly glowing Dethek runes of Jotun fall like raindrops before your mind's eye, and seem to funnel into the alley and coalesce near the struck girl. There, the script arranges itself into a small circle on a dense bulge of shadow...one you hadn't noticed until now. The kenku is pressed alongside that wall, somehow sickly collapsing his entire body to only 1 inch thickness, as if his bones and muscles have no structure at all. The runes linger on his torso region.
Dammed if I can see a thing... but this may make us ready for what comes next.
Lord of Bones, he isn't perfect... but he's what we got.
The healing of Gorn is a dramatic change from the last time, frost burn glowing before it sloughs off revealing healthy tissue underneath.
I suspect Kelemvor wants you to keep us both alive there Gorm, he says under his breath.
When Donal starts on the ladder, Mal throws the sack of flour at the heads of the two imps peeking from trapdoor.
Amrik struggled to relieve his finger of its ring, or pretended to, but it mattered little as things came to a point in the whispered tactics of Donal and Mal.
Round 2:
Donal, Mal
Girl? <----UP
Kenku, Imps
Gorn, Tiberious, Grim
The Tormtar approached the weapons rack slowly, appearing to relieve himself of his shield...but in a sudden blast of energy he leaped to the 4th step of the ladder, extending his arm and the hard tip of his mace straight up into the hatch! At the same time Mal chucked the soft bag directly at the hard stone ceiling where it burst, covering the invisible imps in freshly ground wheat.
After much high pitched squeaking and coughing, a childish micro-voice uttered "Uh oh Achlys...they founds us..." one complains. "Just kill thems quickly! Break your stinger offs in their fleshes...or master will feed you to the Barbazu!" The other sighs and continues coughing up moist flour a few moments.
Outside, the girl stumbled forward into the light of the afternoon. A metallic ring accompanied a swift pull of her longsword, her other hand gripping the wound at her neck. Despite her shock she drew her blade close, angled down her eyes trying to tilt its angle to reflect the sunlight into the alley...but the present return of the ravens above quickly rained splotches of shadow onto the streets below, making a patchwork of dancing lights and darks as she struggled in her defenses.
"What treachery is this?" she scoffed, unable to see her assailant.
Gorn noted the circle of runes was in motion, but did not leave the shadows of the alley. Then, for a split second the form was whole again, the nasty kenku pulling a dagger and streaming it forward...
The girl catching it in the stomach, screaming yet still standing her ground.
As if all that weren't enough, from far up the street clopped a squad of cavalry coming right for you, their red plumed leader barking them onward at a hard pace.
The priest takes cover near a barricade.
Do you see it?, he hissed. I can barely see it when it attacks!
That lass is going to the Grayspire... it's like she's being carved up by a demon! And damn me if I don't think that Calvary isn't coming to OUR rescue! Where the hell is Mal and Donal?!.
He yells back to the building where his party members were at.
Bad company out here!
Struck with a moment of inspiration, he casts light spell on a hastily dug out coin and hurls it towards the woman.
Maybe that will break the shadows up?
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Finally knowing where the enemy was, Gorn was DONE with not kicking butt.
"Confound it, girl! Get behind the cleric! You taken enough pain...time to dish some out."
Gorn advances steadily throbbing stink of magic. At the same time the leash he keeps on his patience snaps and his blood SINGS with the rush of adrenaline.
At the same time...
...the multicolored lights from before return and he lights up like a gay Christmas tree come to life--dazzling and beautiful to some, horrifying and odious to others.
"Playtime," he rumbles, lifting his hammer high.
With his flour hand empty, the mean-looking halfling pulls and throws a dagger at one of the imps next to Donal in one fluid motion. But he sneezes mid throw causing the blade to his the ceiling.
His other hand comforts his warm Shar-crystal for confidence. Keeping Amrik in his peripheral vision, he threatens, "Seal that confession, or I'll gut you like a fish and blame the devils."
Donal vaults off a nearby table and swings at both imps in a sweeping blow!
Tibs gathers wind and elemental air around him, moving him away from the immediate threat while simultaneously point his staff at a space just above the imps. A loud, intense, crack of thunder erupts from the point and washes over the Imps.
Zreerbaq the Imp thought he was clever for dodging the Tormtar's pounding mace, but he has only a split second to grasp at his ears before exploding from the massive pressure wave care of one
Tiberius Vorrack Kerrhylon.
The party was no stranger to deaths, but here witnessing the death of a devil for the first time...something tells you more than a flash of life before the eyes, seeing grandma one last time, or accepting a light was going through the mind of this litte guy (which was now many tiny pieces of snot-like material on fire). The body was consumed in a growling blaze, smelling of the dirtiest sulphuric forge...that wave of burning metals and feces striking you as the fire raged without leaving a single ash behind. You could almost see, there in the flames of hell, the image of an old man being dragged off a cliff into the shrinking portal consuming its soul. Nothing was ultimately left behind for Zreerbaq, save a few grains of wheat.
Achylus fared slightly better, the bones in its tiny arms merely fracturing and shredding through the thin layer of red leather encapsulating the evil entity. A thick blood like octopus ink gushed from the wounds, reacting with the moisture in the air to make a green-tinted slightly noxious fume. It was a momentary respite, unfortunately for the imp, as Donal let his body fall into the earlier missed swing...and land fully on the imp midair. The final *crunch* of the imp's tiny ribcage ignited a second blaze much like the first. Again a fire burning without ash, but this time the image of young woman slipping from a ledge and being consumed by a roaring river of hot lava.
Above the extraplanar scenes the stones of the second level danced and shook on their rafters supports, raining grit and sand down on everyone. A few stones the size of pebbles worked themselves free and tumbled lazily across the floor. For a moment it seemed the entire upper story would crumble, but by some chance combination of forces it remained in place. A split second later the tiny *dink* of Mal's dagger striking the ceiling, and the followup hatch slamming back down into place had everyone holding their breath.
Out on the streets of Baldur's Gate, Gorn the scintillating yuletide saucier rushed across the yellow cobblestones in the defense of a stranger.
The assailant, a black feathered birdman with scaly orange talons for feet and a long polished beak, winced his eyes shut in agony at the burst of Grim's divine light. From Gorn's perspective (had he any rational mental facility at the moment besides pure berserk fury) after a minor splash like throwing a stone in water, Shellcracker seemed to pass under the feathers of the kenku's stomach into some large void of space beyond...like sticking your hand in a backpack...nothing like a person's chest at all. It pained the strange shadow assassin, but not as much as one would hope.
"Uh, you guys want me to go ring the bell, or..." the moron guard inquires, rather than doing jack squat. As if on cue, a giant thundery explosion is suddenly heard from inside.
Round 3:
Donal, Mal
Girl? <----UP
Kenku, Imps
Gorn, Tiberious, Grim
"Never! You'll not rob my blade of sweet vengeance..." the girl answers Gorn's wise suggestion of a tactical withdrawl. Her body becomes a solid frame whose every muscle orchestrates to keep a level swordpoint, as she too rushes to join the back alley brawl. "I see you clearly now, foul ambusher, and will see clear your demise!" she promised, raising her blade slightly in the final thrust...
...a feint or a miss, it was hard to say, but when the girl took two steps past the bird her swordtip traced a clean arc in reverse, striking the assassin true. "What sorcery is this?! A body made of pitch?" as she danced into a defensive stance.
Parrying the probing taps of the meleer's, the black bird moved like oil on water, amorphous and impossible, changing size and shape at whim. Like a great tide, its dagger arm seemed to receed, seeking the shadows of the alley behind only to crash forward in a massive surge upon the young girl...
...but nimble she was, drawing her neck backwards just as sharply, and the blade only scraped across the bridge of her tiny nose.
From up the street the horses continued to gallop forwards, covering half the distance between you in a glance. Above, the ravens spiraled in a great roiling corkscrew.
Get inside and check out the damn explosion!! He yells at the guard.
Damnit... horses coming in! Shadow monster out front, explosion in back, he thinks rapidly.
Maybe... maybe more light...
Casts sacred flame at Kenku thing...
, before moving to join the melee.
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I've had it with your trickery, Amrik. We gave you an opportunity, make peace with your maker, Donal grabs the man by the throat, raising his war mace to finish the job.
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"I'm the last one to preach about caution, girl, but seeing as how you're getting your butt kicked while I'm fresh as a daisy, I thought I'd give you an out. Your ride, though.
STAND AT YOUR POST, SOLDIER!" Gorn blares at the guard, stepping on Grim's rational advice. "We got three highly trained professionals in there. Ain't nothin' a teat-wet baby like you can do to help if it's more'n they can handle, but if this alley-sneak has a friend, we're gonna need more eyes."
That was enough talking, Gorn's brain told him. More fighting!
Mal reeled from a series of shocks. First, Tibs exploded an imp! Then, Donal squished the second imp. Finally, Donal started aggressively interrogating Amrik.
He noticed the ceiling about to collapse. That couldn't be good. He looks for a desk to hide under in case it does.
He grabs his crystal and whispers to Grim, "Grim. Mal. Tibs just blew up two imps. The stone ceiling is about to collapse, but we're secure now. What's your status?"
Gone to s!#@ here. Shadow demon thing fighting Gorn. Calvary of questionable loyalty closing in. Deal with Calvary if you come.
The Oxygen Thief (AKA Fist Travis Munson) hesitated at Grim's command, his open mouth quivering in the afternoon breeze. The guard gave merely a meek, quasi-apologetic shrug to the Doomguide at the sound of Gorn's booming command...as if to say 'thems the breaks' before the professional effort dodger glanced back for his leather tea thermos. The watchtower remained closed, but not tightly enough for Mal's shadow magicked message to leak through.
The blackbird uncannily sensed the small portal Grim opened to the light of the divine, its feathers stiffening and muscles recoiling instantly in horror in the presence of such anathema to shadow.
Gorn spots some discarded rhubarb out of the corner of his eye near a compost barrel, and as his subconscious runs through a few possible recipes his grip slips a fraction of an inch.
"I've had it with your trickery, Amrik. We gave you an opportunity, make peace with your maker."
Sensing his impending demise "...look. You'll never breach the Villa without me. I can...I'll get you inside. That's what you want, isn't it? To hold the secrets of the Vanthampur? You know as well as I the courts will need hard evidence to even glance at your claims, forced testimonials will be eviscerated by noble sophists..." he nods, believing his words hold weight "I can lead you there-ah, of course, the 1248 vintage. Yes, please taste the grapes of my ancestors as you survey the whims of my mother."
Round 4:
Donal, Mal
Girl? <----UP
Kenku
Gorn, Tiberious, Grim
You do know that you have squandered any value that your word holds with your latest antics, and I cannot trust you further than I can throw you, Donal points at the floor about ten feet away, Which is about that far. What makes you think that we can trust your word now?
Amrik paces in his cell, stroking his tiny black goatee "Ah yes, trust. How is it anything but a gamble? Chips only fall when action meets words." sounding disappointed, perhaps in himself.
"*ahem* Meaning, perhaps we might view it as an opportunity? No doubt, you and your friends will be famous...'the arresting officers of Amrik Vanthampur'! Word of our present parade will be a juicy earwig to all walks of life. The scribes at the Baldur's Mouth will ink your visages and fabricated life details for weeks."
Raising a finger to emphasize the point "But if it all comes to a head at mere speculation in the eyes of the Law, what then? They will turn, and nothing but disgrace may come, I fear...let me help you find the truth. There is nothing in my words that can convince you, sir, as you say. Let us instead take action together." offering a handshake through the portcullis bars.
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