Maccha holds her breath to not scream as a crocodile jumps out, her heart speeding in her chest. Of course!!
She runs around the creature with her dagger in hand and tries to stab it, hoping to break through the scales.
Aoede doesn't hesitate to charge into the fight to help Believer and Maccha. She rushes up past the oracle to deliver a powerful overhand blow.
Tessa then runs up and tries to leave a path open for the others to use to retreat.
"Did it hurt you," she asks Believer, wishing she wasn't already drained of any magic she could use in this situation.
Llewela rushes forward and brings her axe down into the creature's scaly head.
It looks like Milani is with everyone this day, as the group makes quick work of the surprise crocodile. With combat over, you can positively identify the half-eaten corpse as belonging to Nan, unfortunately. A quick search of his body reveals a finely crafted boot on one of his legs, while the other leg is unfortunately missing.
Tessa can't immediately identify the magical boot, but what she does know is that it's useless without the companion shoe.
With that taken care of, you can also take a look into the nearby room (C3) and see that it's some sort of former bunk room, and a variety of human- and halfling-sized furniture fills the area. A quick glance from where you're standing reveals that some of it has been smashed into pieces by something, violently.
"I think we should make sure there's no more surprises like that one waiting for us before we go looking for the other boot," Tessa tells the others after figuring out the boot is magical.
Aoede heads into the old bunkroom and looks around to make sure it's safe for the others.
Tessa stays close to Llewela after finding Nan's remains. The discovery has shaken her more than she cares to admit. Still, she does her best to move quietly and keep an eye out for danger.
Maccha walks to the corpse of Nan. It's hard to maintain composure, but she needed to make sure of something.
"Was he eaten by the crocodile or killed and thrown here to be disposed of?" she says as she crouches to examine the body, in search of wounds caused by weaponry, perhaps.
With the examination done, regardless of the outcome, Maccha joins in with Tessa and Aoede, still wary of the possibility of intruders.
Maccha takes a look at the corpse and it does seem like he was killed with a slashing weapon before being partially eaten by the crocodile afterwards.
As soon as Aoede rounds the corner she spots what likely destroyed both the furniture in the room and killed Nan with its long claws. A five foot tall humanoid form with raven-like features lies in wait, hanging onto the side of the wall in the corner of the room. As soon as Aoede turns the corner, it screeches loudly in anger before preparing to pounce.
Init
19- Llewela
12- Believer
11- It
7- Maccha
5- Tessa
Oh, this is going to hurt, Aoede thinks as the thing screeches at her.
Oh, that does not sound good, Tessa thinks as she hears whatever Aoede sees.
Llewela murmurs a quick prayer over Nan's remains.
"You don't suppose the crocodile ate the other one?" Llewela asks as they look at Nan's one leg and the missing boot.
===
At the screeching, Llewela dashes rounds the corner and plants herself between it and the rest of the group. She whispers a prayer to Milani and feels the warmth of her faith protecting her.
Believer nods to Llewella's guess. "It's very likely, but even so it might be salvageable. Perhaps Laria will wish to butcher it for meat." She suggests as she refreshes her guidance on herself.
☙❦❧
She was about to cast detect magic to see if the boot was indeed in the reptile's stomach when a loud screech brought her attention to the other room. Longspear still in hand, she moves after Llewela.
Believer identifies the man-bird hanging from the wall as a dire corby, monstrous humanoids that live underground and are intelligent but have little use for society outside of the rough, squabbling pecking order of their rookeries, where their social order is little better than that of the mundane birds they resemble.
The dire corby launches itself off the wall with surprising speed, charging towards Llewela.
Both claws bounce off of the warpriest's protection blessing, however.
Init
Round 1
19- Llewela
12- Believer
11- It
7- Maccha
5- Tessa
Round 2
19- Llewela
12- Believer
11- It
7- Maccha
5- Tessa
Maccha analyzes the body and notices the wounds caused by a slashing weapon, clearly made before it was chewed by the crocodile.
"The crocodile was used for disposal purposes. Nan was killed by a weapon."
---
Silver ravens, giant crows... Sounds like the setup for a bad joke. Not really in the mood to think about any further if there were any implications in such a coincidence, Maccha just draws her dagger and gets closer to the creature, standing next to Llewela.
She attempts to strike it with her silver dagger. It is not as affective, but who knows if that is a fiend of any sort. Are those claws the ones responsible for killing Nan?
Aoede loops around Believer and Maccha to get to the other side of the monstrous brute and tries to put it down.
"Tessa! Stay back. Run upstairs if things go badly," she calls out over the din of the fight and screeching birdman.
Believer takes a step up beside Maccha and takes a stab at the Dire Corby, but misses badly.
Llewela fends off the crow-creature's attack with her shield. She counterattacks with her morningstar, but is unable to get past the creatures claws.
The man-crow takes damage from two strikes, Aoede and Maccha teaming up to get small knicks in its feathery body.
It lashes out instinctively at the one who did the most damage, Aoede.
One scores a good hit, but the other claw swings widely, missing.
Init
Round 2
19- Llewela
12- Believer
11- It
7- Maccha
5- Tessa
Round 3
19- Llewela
12- Believer
11- It
7- Maccha
5- Tessa
Aoede bites back a scream as razor sharp talons tear into her arm and shoulder. She pushes through the pain and moves to put the vicious birdman between her and Llewela.
She grimaces through the pain and stabs with the spike of the polearm.
Tessa peeks around the corner and sees Aoede bloodied by the birdman's frenzy.
"Aoede!" Her cry rings out in the chamber as she fears what will happen if this fight continues much longer. Fear and pain surge through her link to her eidolon, her sister, however they'd become that. There's the feeling of her flesh parting as wicked talons tear through it. Then the pain hits and she screams as crimson blood begins to soak through her shirt and her cloak.
After landing a telling blow on the raven menace, Aoede hears Tessa scream in pain and notices her arm no longer hurts, but before she can help her, she needs to make sure this monster is dead!
Seeing her friends struggling to strike the thing, much as she herself is, Believer calls on Milani to bless them all.
"Hey, look this way!" Llewela shouts at the creature as she brings her morningstar into its side.
Maccha pulls out her other dagger and tries to finish off the creature before it hurts Aoede any further.
The party stands together to take on the dire corby, and with a concerted effort finish the thing off. Or, they thought they did enough damage to it and yet it is still fighting.
It focuses on the last target it attacked, tunnel visioning on Aoede.
Init
Round 3
19- Llewela
12- Believer
11- It
7- Maccha
5- Tessa
Round 4
19- Llewela
12- Believer
11- It
7- Maccha
5- Tessa
Llewela slams the bird with her morningstar again, then shifts around so its back is against the wall.
Aoede ducks the first set of talons aiming for her face, only to be too low and too slow to get out of the way of the second set as they rip open her leg as she scrambles back. She keeps her footing, but she can feel her leg threatening to give out as her blood runs down and stains her pants leg crimson. She aims for the legs, hoping to cut them out from under it.
Tessa grits her teeth against the pain. The fight before her blurs as tears well up in her eyes, but she can feel Aoede's pain and building panic. She looks for the source of the pain and takes it when she finds it.
Aoede's wounds close up as if nothing happened, and she feels her leg returning to its normal strength. She hears Tessa cry out in pain again and sees her fall to her knees as blood begins to soak through on her thigh where Aoede had been wounded.
"Someone help Tessa! She's hurt," she calls out as she focuses back on the beast before her.
Maccha moves to where Llewela was standing and unleashes on this tireless creature once more, even if it's probably dead considering Aoede and Llewela's efforts.
Believer finds the scene playing out before her... difficult to comprehend. The Dire Corby seems to defy logic in how it stands against the repeated blows and though she had seen Aoede take repeated slashes from the creature's claws, she seemed to be healing spontaneously.
She stabbed again at the birdlike thing, hoping Milani's blessing can do something for her aim.
The bird-man does eventually fall under the combined blows of the party, its body sustaining damage that even its rage could not continue for long.
A quick search of the room doesn’t reveal much of interest beyond the furniture (of which most of it is useless and smashed by the corny most likely), but a search of the dire corby itself reveals three copper bracelets worth 15 gp each and a silver locket bearing the Elven rune for "mother" worth 100 gp which has had bits of a large eggshell stuffed into it.
Looking around in the aftermath, Believer finally noticed Tessa's condition. "Milani's Thorns, girl! What happened to you?" She drops her Longspear and rushes to her side, laying hands to heal her.
Maccha gives the bird's corpse a small kick, just to guarantee it is actually dead. She rubs her coat on the wall to try to remove the blood from the creature from it, only to make it worse. After all that, she walks to Tessa.
"Are you ok? I didn't even notice how the bird hit you... In fact, how did it hit you?"
With the collapse of the corby, Aoede runs over to where Tessa is on her knees with small puddles of blood to either side. The young mage's face is pale from the blood loss and shivers from anemia. Looking at where the blood is soaking through Tessa's still intact clothing and where Aoede's clothing has been shredded but underneath the blood and shredded cloth is smooth skin, it appears as if the monster hurt Tessa when it struck Aoede.
Some of the color comes back to Tessa's cheeks as Believer heals her wounds. The deep gouges in her flesh are mostly mended, leaving behind ragged cuts that quickly scab over.
Aoede drops to her knees and hugs Tessa as she sees that she's alright, at least for now.
"Thank you," she tells Believer as Tessa gathers her wits.
"Aoede was hurt, so I took it away," Tessa answers Maccha in a pain-rasped voice. She looks terrible even with Believer's healing magic mostly closing up her wounds.
Llewela lowers her weapon as the dire corby collapses. She wipes a bit of sweat from her brow, watching the fallen creature to make sure it doesn’t rise again. When it's clear that it's dead she looks it over and pulls out the locket in surprise.
"This is Elvish for mother" she explains. “And eggshells. It seems strangely sentimental for what attacked us. Maybe it went crazy from being trapped down underground? I wonder how it ended up here.”
--
She looks over Tessa in concern.
"I guess that's the first time you've had to do that?" she says gently. "Let's rest a minute until you're feeling better." she says kindly.
Llewela stays on alert though and looks warily at the doorways for the room they're in. "So, do we think that the corby was the one stealing the food in the cellar, or is there someone else down here? It seemed too wild to be that careful. But with the locket.. I'm not sure."
Tess nods at Llewela's question.
"I d-didn't know I could do that," she says before looking up at Llewela. "I-- I think I took the wounds Aoede took. Could you see if they look the same as the wound Maccha said came from a weapon on Nan," she asks before slipping her cloak off and undoing enough buttons to slip the opening of the neck of her shirt comfortably past her shoulder and the marks left by the talons. At least she's not in pain. Her mottled flush as she partially exposes herself says a lot about her own comfort with the situation.
Believer nods at Tessa's words, her worry somewhat allayed. Her own powers manifested in a similar manner, suddenly and without full understanding of the consequences at the time. "That is a very interesting ability. You clearly care for Aoede a great deal, and she for you. Keeping Aoede on her feet is useful, but she will not thank you to sacrifice yourself in her stead. Try and reserve your personal healing spells for yourself to offset the damage if you plan to do this frequently." It was clear she was intrigued by the potential of it, though.
"This is Elvish for mother" she explains. “And eggshells. It seems strangely sentimental for what attacked us. Maybe it went crazy from being trapped down underground? I wonder how it ended up here.”
--
Llewela stays on alert though and looks warily at the doorways for the room they're in. "So, do we think that the corby was the one stealing the food in the cellar, or is there someone else down here? It seemed too wild to be that careful. But with the locket.. I'm not sure."
"From what I know of Dire Corbies... they are naturally subterranean. But if there was only one, surely the food Laria was providing would have been enough?"
"Could the locket be Nan's, somehow?" Maccha walks over to Nan's corpse once more, trying to check the wounds "I said caused by weapon, but I admit the thought of giant claws from a Corby did not go through my mind at the time.... Could be it." she tries to check and compare with Tessa's wounds.
Maccha cares about the damage Tessa took, but as someone without these kinds of magical powers, she felt extremely unprepared to deal with it at the moment, only getting herself to offer some words, turning to Tessa: "Hope you are feeling better, Believer's cures are amazing, speaking from experience."
"I-- I will," Tessa tells Believer when she suggests that she save her spells for herself from now on. Aoede stays close by as the others look over the corby and compare Tessa's wounds to Nan's.
When Maccha comes over to offer her some encouragement, Tessa gives her a weak smile.
"She does. I'm feeling light-headed still, but at least it doesn't feel like my arm and leg are on fire anymore."
Once you've recovered and explored the rest of the current room, you discover the two adjoining rooms are two private latrines which apparently haven't seen much use lately. There isn't anything else of interest in them, unless you were specifically on the lookout for bath tissue.
Stacks of unopened crates—some draped in moldering tarps—fill most of the space, creating a maze. Two tables sit in the center, scattered with playing cards and a smoking, unlit lantern.
Maccha walks around, inspecting the crates but as soon as it's become apparent they all seem to be useless or hold no hint to what happened down here, she sits down on a chair around the tables in the middle, trying to inspect if the game of cards was stopped midway.
Llewela approaches the table and eyes the cards and lantern suspiciously. She carefully puts her hand near the lantern to feel how hot it is.
"Someone put this out in a hurry" she whispers.
After the others finish comparing Tessa's wounds to Nan's, the mage quickly buttons up her shirt and pulls her cloak back on. She starts to cast a spell to mend Aoede's clothing, but the Ediolon stops her and shakes her head. There will be time later to do that, but not now. The pair of them follow Believer, Llewela, and Maccha into the store room. Seeing the playing cards and the still smoking lantern, both of them ready themselves for another fight.
"Stay close," Aoede whispers to Tessa as she gently shepherds her between herself, Llewela, and Maccha.
Looking over the playing cards, Believer agrees with Llewela that someone is here, whether she can see them or not... but she did keep her spear out and ready.
"You like cards, do you? Or are you just so bloody bored of being stuck down here? If the crocodile had you trapped, we've taken care of that issue. Same for the Dire Corby. If you're hungry, we have food. If you killed poor Nan, then we're probably at an impasse. But if you attack us, I fear my ability to hear you out will swiftly flee. If you want to talk, now is the time."
"We would really rather not fight. I'm sure you don't want to get hurt either," Tessa adds as she takes Believer's cue, hoping her voice isn't too shaky after her recent experiences.
Within seconds of the group letting their guard down and taking a look at the playing cards, three smaller birdlike figures slink out of the crate maze. Peculiarly long, curved daggers in hand (but not held at the ready), they are able to get way closer than you feel comfortable with without you noticing, before finally speaking.
"You're going to tell us exactly who you work for, who gave us up, and how you found us down here, or things are going to get ugly, quick." the left-most one says, clearly acting as the leader.
How did Nan's fatal wounds compare to the ones the Corby left?
Believer scoffs, "Well, the dead man gave you up. Or did you imagine he wouldn't be missed? He was, so we came to see what had become of him."
Maccha stares at Believer and Tessa for a minute before realizing what was happening Who are they talki- Oh. She gets her weapons again just in time for the three Tengu to show up.
Maccha thinks about identifying as Silver Ravens but bites her own tongue.
"We were after, well." she gestures in the direction of Nan's body "Does not look like you were responsible yourself. So now, why don't we calm down and, since that we've answered your questions, you also tell us who are you."
Well, the dead man gave you up.
The lead tengu looks somewhat awkward at this, looking away flustered. "We, uh, do owe you for that one. We thought it was another tengu baby when we 'adopted' her, but we obviously learned our mistake quite quickly. Wish it hadn't come to that, but we couldn't control her. She wouldn't talk to us."
"My name's Korva, and these are my three broodmates: Jay, Maggie, and Treep." the lead, Korva, says. "We got on the wrong side of some of those Hellknights and were on the way to one of his prison cells I'm sure when we managed to break out and got in contact with Nan: he was going to smuggle us out of the city almost a week ago, but you know how that turned out."
"No one can really do anything with how oppressive that bastard is being, and we've been stuck here for far too long. That corby, Chough, ended up going crazy down here from the lack of hunting I guess. I'm sorry about how your friend died, I didn't want it to happen." she says, sounding genuinely remorseful. "If he was your friend, I mean."
"I don't think anyone will blame you for what happened," Tessa says. "Aoede and I didn't know Nan, but he was a friend of the person who owns the shop this is connected to. She wanted us to see what was going on and what had become of Nan. She might be able to help you get out, too. I don't know why he didn't ask her."
Believer nods her understanding and sighs heavily. "You've been down here a week then? I wish I had better news, but unfortunately, things have only gotten worse topside. There was a protest, quickly followed by a riot and now Barzillai Thrune has declared Martial Law. We're all fast becoming enemies of the state."
"Do you know how Nan meant to get you out? There's a bloody curfew now which would make sneaking out nearly as dangerous at night as it would be during the day. We won't hold you, but you might want to wait to see if the proprietor has some ideas. She doesn't seem like one to hold a grudge, but we do need to let her know what happened to her friend. We'll do our best to explain the situation."
She considered their appearance as she took off her kerchief and gloves, running her shining black nails through her feathery lilac locks. "I have some skill with crafting a disguise. I might be able to help you hide in plain sight if you do decide to head up."
Maccha did not know Nan, so she did feel somewhat disconnected from the situation, but it was hard to guess how Laria would feel. What if a friend of mine died due to such stupid circunstances? Like my parents did.
It was hard to not feel sympathy, however. From her time living in the streets of Kintargo, no sight would be scarier than a Hellknight clad in their black armor walking down the street.
"Not a lot to say the others haven't." Maccha puts her daggers away, relieved at least this is not going to be another fight. "We'll do our best to explain the situation and hopefully still smuggle you out."
Believer's words bring a sharp exhale through the beak of Korva, who looks over to her sisters with a tough expression.
"Well if that's true, then I don't think it's possible for us to leave at all. Those hellknights are all over the place now surely, its not worth the risk to try and escape. They're almost certainly watching any and all exits from the city, yes?" she says, pacing back and forth in the room. Her dagger has slid back into its sheathe and it seems as if any potential for violence has dissipated.
"You say you're all 'becoming enemies of the state'. What does that mean, precisely?" she asks, a tentative splash of hope entering into her voice.
Llewela lowers her morningstar as it becomes apparent conflict won't be necessary.
"We're going to fight back against Thrune." she answers Korva matter of factly. "That's the plan, anyway. He's taken out many who would have opposed him, and now it's up to us to take up the cause. If you do end up staying in Kintargo, we could use all the help we can get."
"But can I ask what you did to get the Hellknight's attention? Not that I'm going to judge, but we'll need to know how badly they might be looking for you."
As it looks like combat isn't going to be joined and the discussion is turning to things Tessa doesn't know much about, the mage turns to Aoede and starts mending the rents in her clothing.
"And do you know how the crocodile got in here? It looks like the waterway is blocked off," Aoede says as Tessa weaves her spell.