GM Harrow’s Curse of the Crimson Throne - AE

Game Master GM Harrow

Girrigz enunciates carefully in response to Audria's offer. "We neither require nor desire your assistance, smoothskin." He shifts his glare to Shane, and sneers. The wererat hisses at Shrike's threats. "Of course we would not hurt Yelloweyes! What do you take us f- no, don't answer that." He snorts. "House drake? They don't come here. But we'll find them." He jerks his nose towards the cavern ceiling.

Shane raises a brow as HE is glared at, "Everyone needs help, now and then, Girrigz. Distrust can be even more dangerous than trust when division is used as a weapon against all who don't fit in." He taps his horns. Then he turns to follow Audria

"Pride's a good thing to have, Girrigz, but if you carry too much it just gets in the way. Don't have to use us, but just think of us as an extra knife in your boot, yeah?"

The wererat leader makes no response, just waving them all away. Once it is clear that the intruders are leaving and they are no longer in danger of being skewered and slashed to death, the other wererats come sheepishly forward as Girrigz begins to berate them for their cowardice. His shrill, angry voice echoes behind them for a while - but at least the shrieker mushroom has mercifully stopped screaming.

Once they are out of earshot of the wererats, Audria lets out a groan.

"Pava. Shrike. I know you think that I'm just some silly girl that doesn't have the sense to pour water out of a boot, but could you please not vaguely threaten the people we're asking help from? I could feel you menacing Girrigz over my shoulders the entire time I was talking with him."

Girrigz enunciates carefully in response to Audria's offer. "We neither require nor desire your assistance, smoothskin." He shifts his glare to Shane, and sneers. The wererat hisses at Shrike's threats. "Of course we would not hurt Yelloweyes! What do you take us f- no, don't answer that." He snorts. "House drake? They don't come here. But we'll find them." He jerks his nose towards the cavern ceiling.

Shrike tilts her head to one side measuringly, and does not otherwise respond even as the others offer further cooperation. She is not a knife for them to wield. She does not turn her back to the wererats as the group departs, and only hooks the silver mace stained with blood and bits of fur back to her belt once they are out of the den and into the sewer tunnels again.

"Pava. Shrike. I know you think that I'm just some silly girl that doesn't have the sense to pour water out of a boot, but could you please not vaguely threaten the people we're asking help from? I could feel you menacing Girrigz over my shoulders the entire time I was talking with him."

Shrike rolls her shoulders and places her feet carefully as she considers her response, wishing to be out of this cramped and stinking place. The croak, when it comes, is flat but not especially harsh. "Soft words alone don't always work. Threats saved their lives today. And us some blood." Audria had given the wererats multiple chances to stop fighting, but it had been Pava — and likely Elric's putting two arrows in his chest quick as blinking — that had actually scared the underlings into a confused retreat, and Girrigz into hesitating long enough to back down.

Shrike pauses for a moment, so they can all faintly hear the sound of the wererat leader still excoriating his own crew. He had seemed genuinely surprised at the idea that he and his gang would punish Yelloweyes for betraying their location. Perhaps she had misinterpreted his expression, and he had thought they had offered the old fishmonger harm themselves, in order to find him. Perhaps he is a very good liar. Either way, she isn't sure they have done right to leave him alive. What if he does find the Urgathoans, or Lamm, and makes common cause with them out of mutual hatred for the city and most of its people?

"You gave him Yelloweyes' name. Think he's kind to 'traitors to the cause?' Better he know where we stand. You heard him. He only respects strength."

"I--" Audria starts, but the rest of the words die unsaid on her lips. She can't argue against Shrike's points, especially about how a soft word doesn't always work and how Girrigz only seems to respect physical and martial strength.

"How badly have I erred," she asks instead.

"Didn't say you did." At some point in all the fighting and tumbling about, Shrike's hood had come down, revealing the tangle of long pale hair with her pointed elven ears poking through, almost to the top of her head. She had mostly managed to avoid dragging her hair in the muck, but its usual loose waves are no more, and there is one small dark-clotted splotch near the tips that doesn't bear examining too closely. "It's a gamble. Could pay off. Wouldn't've happened with threats alone either."

Pava's still keyed up from the aborted fight, a smile escaping their poker face even as they disagree with the younger paladin. "Before we can go from bared blades to a nice cuppa, we have to actually stop the fight, Duckling. 'Sides, everything after was just good advice. I hope he takes it. Hope he learns some of the basics of proper solidarity too, but that's in his hands, innit? Oh, give us a hand with this wound? Don't want to take it for a sewer stroll before getting it seen to"

Pava's still keyed up from the aborted fight, a smile escaping their poker face even as they disagree with the younger paladin. "Before we can go from bared blades to a nice cuppa, we have to actually stop the fight, Duckling. 'Sides, everything after was just good advice. I hope he takes it. Hope he learns some of the basics of proper solidarity too, but that's in his hands, innit? Oh, give us a hand with this wound? Don't want to take it for a sewer stroll before getting it seen to."

"I'll admit, Audria, I was also worried he might have vendetta after yelloweyes, but he seemed sincere when he said otherwise," Though Shane can't keep his concern out of his voice, "Frankly I thought a temporary 'you scratch my back I scratch yours' was the goal... I am a complete hypocrite when it comes to lycanthropes I fear. They alarm me a great deal. The curse of their nature is said to literally eventually shape their soul... I'll have to study more but I've avoided becoming the evil bastard others think Tieflings are all my life. The notion of... a curse that takes the choice from one alarms me on levels deep." A breath "But you managed to pull everything back from a fight. In these belligerent times, that's no small feat."