Tern grimaces as he misses the man with the flat of his blade, and his expression darkens as the wretch takes to swinging at him with his bare fists. Thankfully, he was pointless in melee. Failing to even connect with Tern's armor as he shifted and sidestepped the blows.
He looks down his nose at the tannery owner and calmly takes up his blade again. This time he aimed not for a clap to the man's head, but a broad swipe at his abdomen. Again, with the flat of the blade.
After weathering all the offenses from others without taking damage, Louslik takes a blow from Tern at his abdomen. He gasps, left breathless by the blow. It looks like he is on the verge of collapse, but for now, he remains standing in defiance.
Standing defiantly before the intruders, Louslik holds his fists up again and tries to punch at Tern again. It is hard to see in the darkness, but he seems certain that this one particular intruder has a punchable face.
Meanwhile, Cimri tries to deal another blow to Louslik's head with her sap.
Leontiana attempts to catch the stubborn old man with the shaft of her spear, but her blow fails to connect.
Kehlysch curses under his breath as he lunges once again into the confused fracas surrounding the tanner, and once again, fails to connect.
Tern gives an amused huff as the defiant man fails yet again to even graze the trained fighter. The fact he was punching down didn't seem to mean much. Not even irony as he brought the pommel of his sword down atop the man with a closed fist.
"Well, this has been charming." he reasons as his opponent finally slumps to the floor, "I suggest we move quickly now."
Despite his best effort, Louslik is just one person, and while he did put up some fight, he's just a tanner, ultimately. The sword pommel hitting him right on top of him is enough to knock him out. The fight is now over.
Cimri sighs in relief. He grimaces at the dogs that were slain by her fellow collaborators earlier. Now that there is no immediate threat around them, Cimri decides to address one important question first.
"So... what do we do with him?" Cimri asks the others as she points at the unconscious Louslik. They can start looking around and taking his stuff after this.
"Is he going to cause trouble if he recognises us later?" Leontiana asks. "If he knows his place, then we can take the money he owes, plus interest of course." she smiles. "But a stitch in time saves nine, as my grandmother used to say. Don't let small problems become big ones."
Tern scowls down at Louslik. "You think your backers would get us out of jail for murder as well?" he asks Cimri, "I don't put my faith in shadows. Let's get what we came for and get out of here. It would be his word against ours so long as we get away without anyone else spotting us."
Tern sheathes his sword with a heavy click. He moves toward the office in search of the coin they came for, doing his best to stay silent.
Head still pounding from her hangover and feeling weak from the stench, Clarissa croaked "Yeah you're right. A beating and a shakedown that's sending the message they wanted. We not authorized to kill him, still if one of you has got any rope we could tie him up. But let's be quick about our business here unless you want to fight a pair of dirty gong farmers too..." She shivered at the prospect as she set about helping with the search.
Kehlysch sheathes his sword cane, looks down at the unconscious tanner, and sighs.
"Well, back to business I guess," he says, looking around for valuables.
Leontiana replaces her spear. "Fair enough, I'm not going to argue with whoever's paying us."
She murmurs a brief prayer - "Mammon, help me find wealth" - then bends over and retrieves Louslik's crossbow and pats him down for anything else he's carrying.
Samara sheathes back her longsword, looking at the ado around her in disdain. The man is alive, which gives her some level of comfort (murders are way too messy to handle), and she doesn't much care for dogs - but the blood splatters on her clothes are really annoying, and she chants some words in Infernal to clean the best way possible.
I'm not really concerned in being authorized or not to do something. It's a job, I'm working on a contract, but I'm not any mortal's servant. - the Elf says, before continuing - Yet, we should focus at the task at hand. Haste is in our favor.
With that said, she focus around pronouncing yet other outsider words, focusing as her eyes seem to go blind for a moment.
With Leontiana checking on the unconscious Louslik's body to see if he has anything in his person, she will be able to find a potion of cure light wounds, a thunderstone, 9 crossbow bolts and a pair of keys.
Those who make their ways to Jabral Louslik's office will be greeted with the sight of a normal office. Inside, they will be able to see two leather tapestries on the walls as well as antique tools. All these things bear the initials "L.T".
"Let's start looking around. I'm sure Ol' Louslik's got his safe hidden somewhere in his office..." Cimri says to her fellow collaborators.
”My, this is nice,” Kehlysch remarks, running a hand over the masterwork studded leather.
Leontiana gathers everything from Louslik, then joins Kehlysch at the crate.
"Remesiana Constabulary. Probably a job for them - brand new armor should be worth something, although I hope the constabulary don't investigate their missing armor too hard. Have you heard of them?" She asks, thinking over it herself.
Entering the office, she announces "Picked these keys off the old man - have we found anything that needs unlocking? I can grant a small blessing to help search if anyone wants it."
Casting guidance on herself (and anyone else who asks), she joins the search.
Tern was already down on a knee in the office, letting the others take point outside of it. Especially since he didn't much have an idea of what they may have found. At Leontiana's offer he gave her a brief nod. "Help me then, I' more arm than eye." he admitted.
Still grimacing from the stench of the place, Clarissa tried her best to ignore it as she considered the implications of their find. "Peculiar that police gear from the next town over would end up here. Something smells rotten here and I'm not talking about the fruits of the gong farmers... Let's keep searching, I bet he's up to something and that's why he got targeted."
She attempted to search but the smell was bothering her more than she liked to admit and her wine addled guts were twisting in unpleasant ways.
Samara casts resistance on herself and any of the others needing it that ask, as they search the office.
The thing everyone is looking for, which is a small lockbox, is located under Louslik's desk. It seems that the box is locked, though right now, Leontiana may have the key to unlock the box.
"I guess this is what we're looking for..." Cimri muses as she studies the box. She gives the one who currently holds the key, Leontiana, a look, motioning to her that she should try using the key to unlock the box. If not, someone has to pick the lock.
While the others are looking at the box, Kehlysch strips off his old armor, and dons the set of masterwork studded leather. He places his old armor in the crate amidst the stacks of ordinary leather.
"Very nice. Quite satisfactory," he says to himself.
Leontiana takes the lockbox reverently. "Riches come to those who take them." she says with a small smile. "Although I will take up your offer of magical protection." she adds to Samara. "You should guard your own wealth, and assume that other people do the same."
Looking at the two keys carefully, she selects the most likely looking one and unlocks the box.
---
After they locate the lockbox Tern watches anxiously as the procured key is brought forth. Tern found himself distracted from what he should be doing at the prospect of coin. Namely playing lookout as other Leontiana prepares to open the lockbox.
Before Leontiana tried the keys, Clarissa urged her "Wait just a sec..." She whispered a droning chant and squinted at the box. She explained saying, "I don't really expect it to be enchanted but there's nothing wrong with some healthy paranoia."
Clarissa finds nothing magical about the box.
Once she gets the all-clear, Leontiana opens the box.
Samara simply gives space to Leontiana, aware that the box could be trapped and trying her best to pretend she actually cared for what could happen to the Human. In her core, she is just glad she isn't the one trying to do so. The Elf's eyes fall over Cimri, trying to analyze if her attitude is any suspicious at all - beyond what would naturally be, of course.
Now that the lockbox has been opened, they can see that it contains the tannery's recent profits. The contents are divided into numerous small leather purses, with the "L.T" initial on each of them. These leather purses contain silver pieces in 10, 20 and 50 sp increments. The funds are worth a total of 800 gp. The box weighs 20 pounds, but can easily be transported.
"Razelago wants us to bring these to him. I'm sure he'll be giving us our rewards once we hand them to him..." Cimri says, though she still looks at those purses, as if wanting them for herself. "It's better for us to leave soon. If you want to take anything from here, now's the time..." she tells the others. Besides the lockbox, there are still a few things they can rob in this office, like the tapestries on the walls and the antique tools.
"Eh..." muttered Clarissa as she idly searches through Louslik's desk looking for anything interesting, but the only shinies she had eyes for was the considerable sum from the box, no wonder it had been so heavy!
She nodded at Cimri and said, "Yeah. Let's get out of here before we're forced to smell those gong farmers."
”If this is what we came for, let’s go,” Kehlysch says. ”The tapestries are too big to take, anyway.”
As she notices Cimri so far seems within what she would consider normal, Samara takes her time to search around for anything else that could be valuable. Not only this would be some extra profit, but also it would make it look like they weren't there just to kill some dogs, beat an old man and steal this exact box - it was better to make it look like they were just normal robbers grabbing anything of value.
As she completes, she shakes her head towards the others.
Yes... We already spent enough time here. - Samara agrees, immediately following to leave with haste.
Tern's eyes widen at the display of wealth they found, but he collects himself. Even frowning at the momentary lapse that showed plain his greed. "Yes, let's finish. We needn't stay." he reasons as he turns to peek out of the office check their escape route. "Cimri, these people you're working for better offer more than a pittance for this job. Otherwise we're all getting screwed."
"Tapestries and the tools will link back to here unless we can remove the monograms - probably not worth taking them. The armor we should grab though - it should be easy to sell on. If there's nothing else, we should get out of here." Leontiana says.
Clarissa gave Cimri an appraising look and muttered, "This better be worth it Cimri..." When Leontiana mentioned the markings she nodded, "Yeah about that, those studded leathers are well made but anyone wearing them is going to look well out of place."
Now that they already got what they wanted, it is time to leave. But before they can leave Louslik's office, they suddenly hear a loud creaking sound coming from the front gate outside. For those who are aware of the people working here in this tannery, this means that Louslik's workers have returned.
Clarissa's expression fell into a scowl upon hearing what must be the gate creaking. Softly she hissed, "We've overstayed our welcome, time to go!"
Clarissa didn't want to get close to the dirty gong farmers, and she hoped they could sneak out but it wasn't her decision alone and she glanced at the others to see what they intend.
”I suggest not drawing further attention to ourselves. Let us slip out the back, if we’re able,” Kehlysch suggests.
Agreed... - whispers Samara, immediately trying to hide herself.
"The old man's still outside - we've got to go quick before they spot him and raise the alarm."
"Have a care to cover your face if you can." Tern cautions as he pulls out his shield and lifts it up to cover his features and upper body, "I don't want to be recognized if they do see us. He felt silly, covering his features this way, and a slight blush came to his cheeks. The indignity of it all!
He hurried off in the lead if no one else was taking point. Eager to make his escape even if it meant leaving others in his wake.
"Let us move on. Split up if we're spotted. We'll reunite back where we first met," Kehlysch suggests.
Leontiana makes sure her face covering is in place, casts a quick guidance, and clanks stealthily after the others.
Leontiana shakes the lockbox as sneaks out, enjoying the satisfying rattle of the coins inside.