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Altorin steps back out of the darkness, waiting for a target. Sir Durant and Eka round the corner, searching for another entrance, but finding none. Belmiir prepares his defenses to enter. Cyclic casts her wayfinder alight but is is quickly overwhelmed by the darkness within the building. Qiroyo peaks in and sees the foe in the center of the building. He steps back, drops his sword and pulls a hefty looking crossbow from his shoulder, leveling it at Cyclic. With a snap of his hand he loads a bolt and lets it fly but it sails harmlessly over her head.
Orange Little Man
Altorin -4 Strength
Sir Durant -1 damage
Belmiir AC=21
Eka -1 damage
Cyclic
Mange -4 damage
Qiroyo
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Without another way in or out, Sir Durant finds himself stymied. He turns and cranes his neck to look over the barrels to see if any of his allies are nearby, but the darkness seeping out of the building obscures his view. "If any of you can hear me," he calls to his companions, "See if you can draw the derro out! Our forces are cut in half by this darkness! Qiroyo, do you know how long this darkness might last, or if the derro can summon it at will?" For his own part, Sir Durant sheathes his blade and draws his bow to be ready if the creature should emerge from the darkness unexpectedly.
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With Qiroyo's hints, Altorin lays down a sheet of ice in the room to stymie the derro, who barely keeps his legs under him. Sir Durant shifts tactics as Belmiir dives into the fray with an accurate but weak strike. Eka returns to the darkness and orients herself. Cyclic blesses all as Mange moves further into the blackness to bite the derro savagely. Qiroyo ceases directions long enough to weave a necromantic spell.
Reeling from the brave assault, the derro tries to slink away but falls flat then snaps out with a spell that fizzles around its outstretched hand.
Orange Derro -11 damage <prone>
Altorin -4 Strength
Sir Durant -1 damage
Belmiir AC=21
Eka -1 damage
Cyclic
Mange
Qiroyo
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With some careful maneuvering to get her bardiche through the doorway, Eka feels along the walls with her weapon's dangerous end pointed upwards, sometimes grazing the ceiling. Not able to see the size of the room, she calls out in a voice modulated for a rather larger space: "Make noisse sso I can hear where you are! And make it make noisse, too!"
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With Eka diving into the darkness, Sir Durant realizes that no true paladin of Iomedae would cower outside the darkness, but would plunge in to bring the Inheritor's light! He casts aside his bow and draws out his sword once again as he moves carefully into the shadows and follows the walls. "IOMEDAE!!!"
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Sir Durant disappears into the blackness. Belmiir lands a heavy swing into the ground next to the squirming derro. Eka guides her swing by the sound of Belmiir's fallen axe and pins the derro to the ground. It starts to pull away just as Mange clamps down on his legs. With a squeal of pain the creature succumbs to the shock and the silence matches the darkness.
Orange Derro -32 damage <unconscious>
Altorin -4 Strength
Sir Durant -1 damage
Belmiir AC=21
Eka -1 damage
Cyclic
Mange
Qiroyo
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As the darkness subsides, the room comes into clearer view. Near the barrels is a large chest in which the derro keep their "earnings" (about 250 gp).
The next room is filled with straw pallets and stacks and stacks of cages full of normal rats. On a small table next to those cages is a small, shiny black rat statue. There is also a ledger next to it written in a strange language.
Qiroyo could possibly speak with the derro if he is revived with healing magic.
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"Ha! Well done, my friends," Sir Durant calls out in the darkness, perhaps a little too loudly. "Now, if this darkness will just let up, we can begin the search for our missing nobles and this Jet Rat thing, then we can get them to their proper places and head back to the venture captain with yet another success to report!"
Durant follows the others through the building, collecting the derro's earnings and then carefully opening the door into the next room, where they find a statue of a rat--almost certainly the Jet Rat they were sent after! He leaves the others to study the thing for a moment and steps outside.
As he waits for the others to examine the artifact, Sir Durant makes his outside and looks around. "There are several other buildings here, by the way," he calls back to his friends. "Perhaps the other captives are in one of them!"
He waits until one of his companions joins him, then cautiously opens the door of a nearby building.
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When Durant and his crew search the adjacent building, you find they hold dozens of cages full of Cassomiri citizens waiting to be transported to who knows where. The poor townsfolk have been down here so long they have almost given up hope, and seem to be more excited to see your torchlight than you yourselves.
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As the group leaves the derro in their wake, Eka spots a shiny bronze key tucked into his belt strap.
This turns out to be the master key for all the holding pens. One by one, the bedraggled prisoners form a tidy queue and proceed up to the surface once again. Only when they see true daylight do their faces brighten and a modicum of humanity reappears.
Assuming someone is brave enough to retrieve the statue, it can be returned to Venture Captain Themis whose eyes widen at its presence.
"This will certainly slow the derro's plans for the near future but I wonder if we have stopped them all entirely. Reports of kidnappings will certainly slow within the city itself, your actions have raised enough awareness indeed...But..."
She looks to your faces and her mood darkens.
"I've heard rumors of more kidnappings outside in the countryside around Cassomir. Some whisper even darker tidings... a recent spotting of a derro inside the walls of Swift Prison, a rumor the Taldan authorities heatedly deny. I shall look more into that, stay at the inn a little longer. I may need to call again on you soon."
Although the rat bites become infected over the next few days, both Eka and Mange overcome the affliction with little difficulty.
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After a week or so of rest and recovery for the sick and injured, the group is lounging around the inn, when the missive comes to meet the Venture Captain.
Hestia Themis, the petite, raven-haired, black-eyed Taldan beauty, paces her office within the Pathfinder lodge in Cassomir and addresses you once again.
“I am perplexed. A new kidnapping spree plagues my beloved city. It seems our citizens make easy prey to those who profit from such exploits. While this disturbs me, I am more troubled by reports that some of those kidnapped return to the city as undead monsters who accompany this Cult of Nature’s Cataclysm plague, a plague that I can’t seem to excise from my beloved city."
She pounds her diminutive fist on the desk.
“This ends now! For a third time we battle Groetus-worshiping dogs and there will not be a fourth!” Taking several deep breaths, Hestia regains her composure. “I am sending you to Swift Prison to interrogate the cultist we captured who was trying to kidnap a local engineer. Meet my man Garver out front—he’ll take you in to see the Nature’s Cataclysm fool. Find out where the other cultists hide, where they’ve taken their recent victims, and how they’re turning them into skeletons. Free as many Cassomir citizens as you can—the good publicity never hurts. Any questions?”
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Oh, my. And we are VOLUNTARILY going in there. Still, it is my fate to combat abberations like this.
"I think skeletons were mentioned? Still, there are all kinds of skeletons, aren't there. Mange likes bones, don't you boy!"
Mange looks like a different animal. Following his surprising (at least to Cyclic) perfomrance in the last mission, Cyclic has been feeding him all kinds of goodies, typically something made from rat, and he looks more sleek and healthy.
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Over the course of her time in the area, Eka has overheard some talk of the prison.
Interrogation. Hmm...
Solemnly nodding, Eka suggests to her comrades: "If the prissoner doess not resspond well to our quesstionss, I can..."convinsse" him to be more cooperative." There is a menacing gleam in her reptilian eyes as she finishes the last phrase. She is really looking forward to this mission. And what could be better publicity than a large Nagaji warrior shattering skeletons left and right with her swiftly swinging bardiche? The image of bystanders witnessing her battle prowess as she singlehandedly defeats half a dozen bony foes flashes briefly into her mind. Setting the fantasy aside for later, Eka turns her attention back to the present.
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"This prison sounds quite unusual," Durant says, his brow furrowed with some degree of confusion. "I was under the impression that those who broke the law should be held accountable, not placed in some slightly more restricted area of confinement where one's personal wealth can buy one's freedom. Still, I don't think I have the position to overturn an entire prison facility's systems at this point, so I will have to abide by their rules. We should find out where our prisoner friend is residing and pay them a visit. I would certainly be open to allowing Eka to have her way with them."
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The Venture Captain nods to Sir Durant's query. "A name? No. For his family's safety, he declined to tell the authorities. But it it curious. At least fifteen Cassomirites — all of them engineers, city planners, masons, and the like - have been the recent targets. It would seem as if those Groteus-worshipping fools -- the Cult of Nature’s Cataclysm -- that you dealt with, is at it again. But with their leader Dalirio dead, it seems unlikely that they’ve reorganized themselves. I still suspect derro influences. But why such specific targets?”
She listens along as Belmiir fills the group in with his knowledge of Swift Prison and only remarks when Eka begins to swoon.
“I would be a little less direct, dear Eka, with our captive in the prison. He’s a bit… unstable, but when he’s lucid he does provide good information about the cult and their plans. He could potentially provide us with future information and serves us better as an ally, alive and unharmed.”
Straightening up, the slight Venture Captain makes way for the door.
"Well, that is unfortunately all I know, so I will let you attend to business with Garver at the prison. You have done so well so far, I expect your success to continue. Good luck then and I await your return."
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Swift Prison’s formidable gates loom over those who pass beneath them. Out front, a gilded statue stares uncaringly at those who serve time beyond her sentry-like gaze. The wrinkled, dirty faces of Cassomir’s prisoners are briefly illuminated behind the bars of the ground floor begging cells. Their pathetic drone as they beg for coppers fills the courtyard in front of the prison.
Hestia’s man, Garver—a tall Taldan man with a slim physique and plain peasant’s clothing—approaches. “You made it. Good. Follow me.” Garver turns and enters the prison, marching through myriad hallways that twist and turn and finally end at a plain but thick wooden door. Garver produces a key and says, “Our captured cultist enjoys visitors, and if you like his work, it’s all for sale.”
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Garver shrugs. "Well, I don't exactly work here, I'm more of a local guide that works for dear Hestia whenever she asks, but I get what you mean. This place can seem rather odd to the foreign eye."
Turning the key in the door and opening it, you here the sounds of frenetic whistling and odd grunts.
"That's him down there. No one knows who he is, really — he hasn’t given his name and no one has discovered it yet, so the guards simply call him the “crazed painter,” a nickname he either doesn’t mind... or isn’t coherent enough to understand."
Garver leads you through the door and down several stone steps into a dingy, shadowed room with three cells. He slips the two guards there some coins and with practiced discretion they head back up the stairs, closing the door behind them. In the center cell, covered in globs and streaks of paint, a man dressed in torn beggar’s rags, his feet shackled to the floor by a scraping length of chain, throws lines of color onto a dirty canvas.
The man stops painting when you arrive, but only long enough to look through the bars, and exclaim with a toothless grin: “For you, my master, always for you!” He then lays the painting atop a small pile of recent works and sets up another blank canvas, madly attacking it with his brush.
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Sir Durant carefully follows Garver down the stairs into the cell, nodding to each of the guards as they pass. He approaches the cell with his travel cloak pulled closed to cover as much of his armor as possible. "Hail, Painter," he calls through the bars, "If Shelyn is your master, then she must be pleased with your enthusiasm at the very least! But will you tell us what canvas you practiced on before you came to your current studio?"