"Or at least kept in hands that would see them used against people like this." Ariadne responds to Nethen's thoughts on the dark tomes. while she understood the danger and vileness contained in those works, the destruction of knowledge wasn't something she had an easy time agreeing with.
"Either way, sounds like we have something that needs attending to in the next room," she says, placing the mace back on the hook on her belt and drawing her sword.
Brig's scarred hands clench at the idea of destroying books. She slips the books in her pack, clearly agreeing with Ariadne in this matter. Then she picks up her hammer again and is ready.
D13 Vreeg’s Chamber
This dry, well-kept chamber contains a narrow bed, a relatively empty shelf holding only a few books and some bones and skulls, and a long bench. A man’s torso, the chest bearing numerous tribal tattoos, lies on this bench. The right arm is still attached, and periodically thrashes and clutches at the air as if it were alive.
.
What are you doing now? You have a surprise round on him. Which is one action then we go to initiatives
Kayleigh casts bless on the party .
Brig closes the gap as quickly as she can.
Ariadne's body stiffens, her muscles tensing with rage at the sight of the vile necromancer further desecrating the corpse they'd come to retrieve. Uttering an arcane incantation, she raises her free hand, sending an arrow of coalesced sizzling acid into the derro's back, as arcane sigils once again flare to life along her armor.
The horror of the semi-animate torso and the capering necromancer causes Nethen to grind his teeth in anger. "Lady of Vengeance, guide your hand against this profaner of the dead," he mutters under his breath, the short prayer to Calistria barely audible. He grips his whip tightly and moves into the room to confront the evil within, his whip snapping out around the derro's legs.
Brigita moves in.
Nethen fails to trip.
Ariadne hits with her Acid arrow
Vedika moves in to get behind the Derro.
Luckily the Derro doesn't have a weapon in hand and so doesn't attack her.
Everybody goes first except Nethen. What are your actions?
With Kayleigh's blessing aiding her strong arms, Brigita simply raises her hammer and slams it down on the Derro.
Ariadne dashes into the chamber, a step behind Brig, sword lashing out with deadly precision, as the arrow of conjured acid continues to sizzle in his back.
Vedika draws her heavy, inward-bent knife and chops at the derro mercilessly.
Brigita, Ariadne & Vedika all hammer the foul Necromancer with savage blows. Their fury adding the damage they do to him!
Kayleigh closes on the battle but realizes she can't reach the derro and get in a whack...plus, she'll be in Nethen's way. She stops behind the Calistrian whipmaster, allowing him a clear shot at the blue creep.
He casts a spell, touching...
He doesn't have Improved Unarmed strike and so Ariadne, Brigita & Vedika get AOO's as he does this
When the necromancer moves to cast a spell of some sort and reaches for Brigita, Ariadne plunges her blade into him again, trying to take the vile bastard down.
The hand reaches for her Brig panics, stepping back and swinging wildly.
.
.
.
He also screech's an order to his Zombie to attack.
Which just misses Brigita
Back to Initiative order. Nethen goes then everyone else.
Kayleight waits until Nethen cracks his whip at the latest derro; then she closes in and takes a swing!
for
The blacksmith rears back her hammer to slam into the derro again, but just then the rotting corpse tries to latch on to her to feast, throwing Brig's strike off once again.
Distracted by the sudden animation of the zombie, Ariadne's blade misses the necromancer wildly, as she splits her focus, following up by quickly sending a ray of positive energy past him to strike his fell servand
Wiff!
.
The Derro steps back 5' and casts again.
He fails to cast Fly.
.
Nethen slashes him twice with his whip. The Derro is looking very battered now.
Everyone else can act!
Tight conditions where she cannot swing properly, the heat of the area baking her skin under her armor making sweat trick down her body, and a corpse trying to eat her, all combine to make her fighting ability get worse and worse.
She groans in annoyance at herself and throws an apologetic look at her companions for once again swinging wildly and uselessly.
Kayleigh steps/hops onto the bench to get out of Nethen's way before again swinging her morningstar at the derro. The bench rocks a bit and her swing is wild.
for
Ariadne steps in swinging with a deadly strike, hoping to cut the vile necromancer down, before turning her focus on the monstrosity.
Ariadne cuts down the Derro.
Loot:
Robe of bones,
Wand of ghoul touch (22 charges),
Blue whinnis (3),
MW dagger,
Ring of protection +1,
2 silver rings worth 100gp each,
A gold and pearl bracelet worth 150gp,
a mithral hip flask emblazoned with an etching of a house drake (worth 400gp),
A traveler’s any-too.
Spellbook:
3rd— Gentle repose, Fly, Vampiric touch, Water breathing
2nd-Blindness/deafness, Command undead, Darkness, False life, Scare, Scorching ray, spectral hand
1st-Cause fear, Chill touch, Feather fall, Magic missile, Ray of enfeeblement, Shield, Sleep
The torso and arm belonged to Gaekhan, without the necromancer fiddling with it it's no longer animated and can be returned with the other parts of his corpse.
That completes your mission here, you can return to the watch house and report the good news.
You can also level up to 5th. Then it's straight back into the fray. :)
After the zombie is put down, Ariadne carries out the gruesome task of severing the rest of the unholy amalgamation, allowing her to gather the torso and arm, adding them to the gruesome collection to deliver him to his family.
With everything gathered and packed up, they proceed back to the watch house to make a full report.
"Well, that was as much of a success as it could be." she says, taking a moment to use her magic to clean the worst of the filth off of herself and her companions.
Brig offers to carry the corpse, or at least the heaviest parts, since she isn't squeamish around the dead and is rather compactly burly. "I was glad I could help." the blacksmith says, referring to the dungeon not the carrying. "Do you all do this kind of thing often?" The things she saw down there under their city go way beyond muggings and gangs.
"Not...quite like this..this was especially gruesome... but yes. Since the recent chaos, we've been working with Field Marshal Kroft as a sort of troubleshooting team, handling things that might be a bit much for the regular guard to handle. Your skill and knowledge could be very helpful." Ariadne replies, gladly sharing the heavy load of the dismembered body.
After doing her job and casting detect magic to help pick out any magical items among the loot and then helping to identify said items, Kayleigh considers offering to carry the body pieces since she's already covered in mud and filth. Knowing that she probably can't carry all the remains herself, she stays quiet when Brigita and Ariadne offer to lug it back to Field Marshal Kroft. When Ariadne offers some magical cleaning later, the cleric gushes, "Yes, please!"
When Brigita and Ariadne start chatting about the work the group does for the field marshal, Kayleigh interjects, "That business at All the World's Meat was pretty gross, too--even worse than this foul necromancy, perhaps." Lowering her voice to a whisper, the young Milanite adds, "They were handing out butchered murder victims as meat to the unsuspecting locals!"
She also suggests finding Iorghil and the folks rescued from the pits before reporting to Kroft. "They might have some useful information we can use...especially since we never found that Rolth creep."
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Brig turns ashen when Kayleigh talks about the Meat market, suddenly aware she was one of the unexpecting locals of the story. "I... um... can't imagine." her stomach rolls even though she logically knows meat is meat and this shouldn't want her to throw up. Also it was long enough ago it wouldn't be in there anymore anyway.
The horror show inside her body solidifies her sudden need to help also "If you'd have me... yes, I would like to help. Please, in truth. This... That... can't keep happening."
"I'm sure the Field Marshal will be happy to have you. I know I will." Ariadne says sincerely. "And you're right, this all has to stop."
"This isn't normal, for us or for anyone," Nethen says, happily accepting Ariadne's magic to clean the blood from his whip before stowing it at his side. "Happy to have you with us Brig, the more hands we have to stop things like this the better.
The horror and sick inside her does alleviate somewhat with their acceptance of her. She feels it could be nice to be part of a group. "Thank you." she says simply but with a pleasant warmth, as she adjusts the bag of body parts on her strong back.
You only need to return Gaekhen’s corpse to Field Commander Cressida Kroft—she’ll handle the delicate prospect of seeing the body is properly handled and returned to Thousand Bones.
This is for the best, as the big news bustling about the city as you emerge triumphant from the Dead Warrens is that Trinia Sabor’s “trial” has
concluded. Queen Ileosa has announced that the assassin is to be executed at sunset and has invited many of Korvosa’s nobles, military officers, and anyone of any real import to Castle Korvosa’s public courtyard to witness the event.
Cressida Kroft wants you to be there. Something about the whole affair doesn’t sit right with her, and the way things have been going lately in Korvosa, Kroft worries that the execution might trigger another riot.
Iorghil has once again been called away on the hunt for his family. He left you a note expressing his regrets and his best wishes for you going forward.
What are you doing now?
Kayleigh listens meekly and quietly to Cressida's latest assignment. She tries to weigh in her mind how the execution might turn out. Definitely has the potential to turn into a riot, so....
The young cleric opts to keep her remaining Milani-granted powers intact, on the off-chance they're required at the execution. She pulls out the wand Vedika gifted her and uses a charge to heal at least some of the wound the derro inflicted upon Brigita with his sinister spell.
Bringing forth the courage to speak up, Kayleigh ask Cressida, "Um, are we just supposed to watch and report back to you or...intervene?"
Brig listens to Commander Kroft with a mix of wariness and respect. A rushing warmth pours through her at the healing, like she'd imagine running in a sunlight meadow would feel, making her gasp and then turn her chestnut eyes and says "Thank you" meaning it to her toes.
She listens as Cressida asks her question, and keeps her own to herself at the moment to listen to that one.
Convinced as she was of Trinia's innocence, Ariadne is troubled at the announcement of the sentence and scheduled execution. She might be wrong, but the young battlemage was becoming increasingly suspicious of Queen Ileosa's motives. Nevertheless, in the absence of anything concrete, she accepted their duty to attend the proceedings, hopefully preventing another riot or some worse chaos.
"We'll do our best to keep things form getting out of hand."
Vedika is pretty quiet during the return. She occasionally mumbles that she's just thinking about things.
"It feels like the whole city is fraying. Trying to put down riots is just applying an authoritarian hammer to unrest that is bubbling up from too many other problems all at once."
.
"If anything bad does happen, we probably don't want to be recognized, right?" she asks the others. Nor really understanding yet exactly how arcane magic works amongst its various practitioners, the cleric asks Ariadne and Vedika, "Isn't there some spell that helps you disguise yourself? If we bought a scroll, could you put it in your spellbook? If not, maybe we could find enough that we could cast it on everyone? Maybe?"
Vedika says, "I know a minor enchantment to change my appearance, but it only works on the caster. Usually I just use makeup and sometimes grab a funny prop if I want to disguise myself—people pay more attention to the prop than the person—and altering your hair color with a wig and then changing the contouring on your face can go a long way."