Maccha rubs her eyes and acknowledges what she said to Tessa "Ah, no, not today. I'm fairly tired and we need to lick our wounds a little bit."
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Tessa looks up at Believer like a lost puppy for a moment before she looks back at her writing with a sigh.
"I wasn't even trying to make anything coded. I wanted to write something that inspired and gave others hope, but--" her voice trails off as she shrugs. "I'm just a sheltered noblewoman. I know of nothing, really, outside of the walls of my room. I'm not even sure I can be of any help." Her voice is soft as she expresses her doubts.
Believer frowns slightly at the defeated tone in Tessa's voice and sits down near her, reaching out to take her hand and give it a reassuring squeeze. "I'm not sure sheltered is the right word. From what you told us, imprisoned and neglected is much more accurate. And it sounds to me like they still have a hold on you, right here." She said tapping her temple in illustration.
"Think about it, Tessa. They kept you in a box and made you feel small. Then they made you into a trap. You felt helpless, worthless. But was that the truth? What happened next? Your will became manifest. You stopped them from hurting you. You bonded your soul to Aoede to save her. Blood and bloody thorns girl, you even kept them from enslaving the Fury!" Believer shook her head, ironically enough, in disbelief.
"Look at what Barzillai Thrune is trying to do. Doesn't it feel familiar? Curfews to lock us up in boxes, bans on gatherings and communication so we feel isolated and alone. Death warrants on creatures that serve us as symbols of hope. Denying us finery so we feel small and unimportant and taking away our mint so we all have sour stomachs and terrible breath!" She exclaims dramatically, laughing at her own joke to break some of the tension of the moment.
She composes herself and waits until Tessa meets her eyes before she continues. "My point is, you may be the most experienced rebel of us all. You've been through this before. And not only did you survive, you escaped your oppressors and saved lives that should have been forfeit. You did that, Tessa. Not Aoede, she was at death's door. It was all you."
Tessa shifts the chair she is sitting in to give Believer more room when she moves to sit on the corner of the desk. She tenses a little as Believer takes her hand, but she doesn't protest and relaxes as the oracle gives it a squeeze. She listens to what Believer has to say, but she doesn't see what Believer sees. She didn't really do anything. Whatever happened just did. It wasn't her will, she believes. If it hadn't been for Aoede, she would have died in an alleyway. Besides, save for that night of horrors, her life was easy.
Easy like a caged bird's, she realizes.
Tears well up in Tessa's eyes as she begins looking back on her life in her small suite in on the Sarini estate in a different light. She could see things she couldn't before. Her parents had always treated her like a doll, but she saw the contempt, the disdain, in their eyes now.
She lets out a watery chuckle at Believer's joke about why mint had been banned, but the moment of levity passes as the oracle continues. She shakes here head at the notion that she's the most experienced rebel. While she is willing to accept that, perhaps, she isn't as helpless or useless as she thinks she is, she isn't prepared to accept that she, of all people, is in anyway an experienced rebel.
"I don't think I am, Bee," she says. "I was just at the protest because of Llewela. I wanted to make sure she was safe. She is-- was my only friend besides Aoede. She's helped me so much over the past two years, this was the only thing I've been able to do for her to pay her back. I'm no rebel, not really. I just want to help my friend. I just want to do the right thing."
Tessa lets out a relieved sigh. She doesn't want to leave the people being held captive in the care of Thrune's lackeys any longer than could be helped, but she's also aware that she's tapped out. She gives Maccha a relieved smile as she replies.
"I think that's something we both have in common. It's been a long day, hasn't it. Investigating the Livery and dealing with what was below here before we even had lunch. I think that would take a lot out of anyone."
Llewela listens to the report about the Salt Works with interest.
"Yes, it seems like attacking at night will be the best. Tomorrow would be good, I can't think of any reason why we shouldn't."
"For the burned buildings, we could take a walk past them during the day. If there's no-one about then we could take a closer look, although if the guards are about, then we should do it another night."
Before you head out to take a look at the burned buildings, Rexus pulls you aside and gives one last piece of advice. "I've taken a peek around the Victocora house, my family's estate, but that was within the first few days of the Night of Ashes. The dottari and Hellknights were out in full force patrolling, and I was driven off several times. They've let up in the meantime, but just be wary okay?" he says, his face showing genuine concern.
Unfortunately, the Thrashing Badger doesn't have anything to point towards either your missing friends and church members. The destroyed ruins of the building burned through the boardwalk and collapsed into the water below, and a search of the submerged ruins turns up nothing of interest. Whatever happened here or whoever spent time here, the water and fire have left no sign of them.
Unfortunately, Rexus' family home produces similar results in so much as no results. The building has been thoroughly torched and anything of value remaining after the blaze has been removed by the Asmodean church or looters.
Only the Silver Star is in any state to even be worth spending any time searching, and only its ruins yield more than charred stone. The site is now a sinkhole filled with scorched rubble—the building collapsed into the chambers below when it burned.
Maccha wakes up the next day and does not share many words with anyone else. Her previous night's sleep was a misture of deep exhaustion and restlessness, as the anxiety of the next steps got to her. She thanked Rexus for the tips and went with the group to the burned down buildings.
She looks saddened to the Thrashing Badger and turns to the other Milani worshippers in the group: "They burn us and drown us... But our time will come."
When they arrive at the Silver Star, the situation is better, but the bar was very low. Maccha tries to guide the group to furtively move between the alleyways and even rooftops when necessary...
...With limited success. The patrols are circling around the area and even if they manage to stay undetected, she cannot concentrate to properly search through the ruins.
Llewela states morosely at the remains of the Thrashing Badger beneath the boardwalk. "Ash and water will just help grow the next rose." she remarks with a determined look.
At the other sites she doesn't have much luck poking through the ruins, but after one stint as lookout she comes back and reports "I was talking to the shopkeep over the street. Apparently the Asmodeans took all the bodies away for cremation. She reckons that Thrune only ordered it because otherwise people would start rioting, but her husband pointed out it was probably so none of the victims could be questioned or raised.
They might have kept records of who they found, but I doubt it if they're trying to cover it up. Not worth risking sneaking into the church to find out."
"Yes, I heard much the same. I wish we could know their names, if only to offer them up in prayer." Believer laments, shaking her head sadly.
By the time they are done searching and learning about the burnt out buildings, Tessa is not in a good mood. Clumsiness combined with a bit of ill luck have conspired to instigate a number of accidents along the way. Needless to say, neither she nor Aoede do much to help in the investigation.
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Luckily, Maccha's expertise with keeping hidden allows the group to maintain their secrecy and avoid any untoward patrols (and there are a handful of CCG bands roaming through the streets). Believer's foresight to use her magical ability reveals the hidden cache among the rubble.
A small coffer hidden away in a nook in the walls survived the fire, with each of the potions and scrolls contained within being properly labeled. The scrolls in the coffer are a scroll of cure moderate wounds, a scroll of daylight, a scroll of remove blindness/deafness, and a scroll of remove disease. The potions include three potions of lesser restoration and four potions of cure light wounds. Beyond the hidden away cache of supplies, there isn't much to be found here either.
As Llewela returns from her information gathering, she collects yet another rumor. The people are extremely talkative, it seems!
“Looks like Thrune’s bringing public excruciations to Kintargo. I can’t imagine that’ll increase his popularity around these parts, even if the criminals he punishes deserve it. This ‘doghousing’ thing sounds particularly frightening!”
Maccha sighs relieved that even acting somewhat sloppily, it was enough to elude the Chelish Citizens' Group's patrols. She whistles as Believer leads them to a lost cache in the ruins of the Silver Star. When they are far enough from it, she allows herself to speak.
"This was worth it, we have a good variety of scrolls... which I assume one of you can use? The potions themselves also probably might come in handy, I fear we might go through them traveling by sewers..."
Looking over the scrolls, Tessa shakes her head.
"I'm not sure I can use any of these," she says.
The surveying of the ruins done and the cache found, you make your way back into the safety of the coffeehouse before planning for your prison break on the Salt Works.
The sun has set over Kintargo once you set out on the first big raid of your revolutionary career, and whether you're nervous or not, it's show time. The guards have retreated to their respective posts, the four that patrol outside with Kossrani (the dwarven leader of this band of renegades retiring alongside their leader into the smaller detached building, presumably to rest and sleep.
Luckily for you, on the way over to the Salt Works a small rain picks up, the shadows of the rain clouds overhead providing a modicum of cover for your approach. They likely won't see you immediately, at least!
Maccha closes her eyes and breaths heavily, to calm her nerves. "Going over tha plan one last time: We'll try to enter through the barrack's door and deal with the sleeping guards and Kossrani first, correct? Want me to go first with Aoede or as a whole group?"
Llewela looks around cautiously.
"I think we should stick together, at least for now. If they do manage to sound an alarm, we'll be better able to fight if we're together."
Believer nods her agreement with Llewela. "We can hang back a little, if you want to try a stealthy approach. But let's not get separated. We're in this together." She says encouragingly as she prays for Milani's guidance for them all.
Having everyone's confirmation, Maccha nods to them and puts up her handkerchief. She scans the area, before skulking around the barracks and getting to the door.
Maccha gets to the door and analyzes it for traps or even a rudimentary alarm system and, after her conclusions, tries to unlock it.
Luckily the door isn't trapped and even with her distraction focusing her on the door, she manages to catch a small bit of a conversation happening inside the barracks. It's just two male voices, and they're attempting to be quiet but not succeeding at it.
"I can't believe that Thrune arse won't pay any attention to us!" a gruff voice says. clearly outraged. "He sent us here just to get rid of us, I swear!"
A much calmer but still deep voice responds steadily. "Barzillai knows the CCG is a valuable tool to help him keep order on the streets. Calm your tongue and demeanor, if he sent us here then there's a reason. Word on the street is our captives are connected to the smuggling Thrune and the church want to stamp out so much. If that's true, then we're performing important work here." the first voice doesn't reply, and after a few minutes it is clear that everything to be said has been said.
Maccha stops her tinkering with the door immediately when she hears the voices from inside. She puts her ear almost on the door, just making sure to not actually touch it, fearing the slightest noise might warn them, even though their heated discussion wouldn't be so easily interrupted.
She decides to sneak back to the group.
When/if she arrives, Maccha tells them exactly what she heard: "The prisoners seem to be mostly related to smuggling and there is a rift between the guards here that think this is important work or not. Regardless, at least two of them are not sleeping and, considering the shouting, most likely none of them are."
"Well, smugglers can help us get stuff in, right? Could also be misdirection," Aoede muses.
Tessa plucks her bottom lip in thought for a moment before asking, "Do you think it's enough to get them fighting each other?"
Bursting down the door reveals a small barracks like you thought, with three beds and a handful of bedrolls scattered around the floor. Sitting at the desk in the corner is the dwarf that Aoede and Maccha spotted earlier: Kossrani. Three of the CCG are clearly asleep in bed, but one (presumably the one Kossrani was speakign with) is sitting in a chair along the western wall.
Init
Round 1
22- Maccha
19- Llewela
18- Believer
9- CCG
6- Tessa
6- Kossrani
Maccha takes the opportunity to enter the room and stay in one corner, hoping to not hinder the group's movement. She nods to the group as she enters, grabbing only one of her daggers for now.
The sleeping guards won't be much of a problem, they do have weapons but no armor, so it's either Kossrani or the other one. Maccha decides to aim at Kossrani and do something... new.
Life on the streets was not easy. Maccha did not have a specific fighting style, just a mixture of whatever she learned, either by experience or from the Rose of Kintargo members. Milani's worshippers taught her the basics of magic, checking if she could have dormant powers or be pious enough to receive divine magic from the Everbloom herself.
It never materialized into anything palpable, but Maccha would keep training in secret and managed to master... one spell. She said the words she did not understand herself but memorized and did the movements as trained with her free hand, a small orb of acid appears and she throws it at Kossrani.
Before they burst in, Llewela murmurs a prayer and a glow of her protection blessing briefly shimmers over her.
When the door opens, she rushes in and positions herself in the middle of the room, then turns and slams her morningstar into the seated thug.
Believer mouths a silent prayer to Milani before moving into the room after Llewela, drawing her Longspear. Milani's chosen looks with changed eyes onto the evildoers and feels an urge to smite these wicked captors.
Both Maccha's surprise acid splash and Believers' spear attack hit the dwarf, but he doesn't look all too worried about it.
Standing from his chair, the CCG member lashes out with his mace at Llewela before yelling loudly to the group. "Wake up boys, we got intruders! Fight time!"
Init
Round 1
22- Maccha
19- Llewela
18- Believer
9- CCG
6- Tessa
6- Kossrani
Round 2
22- Maccha
19- Llewela
18- Believer
9- CCG
6- Tessa
6- Kossrani
The dwarf roars as he stands, picking up his mace and taking a step towards the group before swinging it wildly at Maccha.
Aoede gets on the other side of the most dangerous foe, the dwarf, from Maccha and does her best to put him down before he can rally the other thugs.
Meanwhile, Tessa steps up where Aoede had been and focuses inward on that part of herself attuned to magic before locking her eyes on Kossrani's mace and imagines it slipping from his hand as she chants and weaves her fingers in strange patterns, matching their paths to the runes blazing within her mind. As her brief chant comes to a crescendo, a thin film of slippery grease begins to coat the dwarf's weapon as he goes to strike Maccha with it.
Maccha hits her target with acid and sees Believer using some kind of holy power against him. Surprised he is not down, not even that much unfazed, leaves Maccha an easy target for a strike near her head from his mace.
She spits blood and sees from the corner of her eye Aoede getting into position, allowing Maccha to pick her other dagger and strike against the dwarf with both of them.
Llewela winces as the man's attack catches her slightly off guard, but she grasps at her holy symbol and Milani's healing dulls the pain.
"You'd be better of going back to bed" she mutters as she swings her morningstar at him again.
Aoede's attack is indeed a miss, and Kossrani shrugs off the grease spell with a deft sidestep. "You'll have to try harder than that!" he calls out, boasting.
Maccha's dual strike misses, her daggers clanging against his heavy armor, and Llewela's pain prevents her strike from landing cleanly, just by a smidge.
Believer steps to the south and calls upon her racial heritage to throw out a spell of binding. Sticky webbing erupts from the far corner, folding out to encompass the lackeys before they can rise from their slumber. She motions to Llewela that the spot in front of the door is open, hoping she will move there.
Orange and blue are tangled in the web as Believer weaves it over the southern half of the room, but green unfortunately evades being caught up.
Events become even more unfortunate, as both of the tied up ones break free of the webs before standing up, maces in hand.
Init
Round 2
22- Maccha
19- Llewela
18- Believer
9- CCG
6- Tessa
6- Kossrani
Round 3
22- Maccha
19- Llewela
18- Believer
9- CCG
6- Tessa
6- Kossrani
Kossrani laughs again at the foolish attempts to scratch his armor (unless you hit him during your turns of course) and swings his heavy mace at Aoede since she's trapped.
While she may be cornered, Aoede is far from helpless. She parries Kossrani's blow and ripostes with the spike atop her halberd.
Meanwhile, Tessa looks in on the worsening situation. Her heart thuds in her chest like the hooves of a galloping war horse foretelling the coming doom of unprepared infantry before the might of heavy calvary. Her mind freezes as she tries to think of something, anything she can do. She blinks as her blue eyes fall upon the lantern. When they open again, they are blood-red as Alekto whispers in Tessa's mind.
Flame and oil, so wasted just sitting there. I know how to put it better use.
Tessa chants, her voice sounding deeper and more confident as she holds out a hand towards the lantern sitting on the table. She remembers reading once that spider webs are quick to light. Alekto prods her to test that assertion as an invisible hand picks up the lantern and moves it over Llewela's head to a space between the three unarmored men. With a devilish smile, she tosses the lantern up in the air and lets it fall to the ground where it can spill out its contents and set the webs alight.
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Maccha sees the pandemonium breaking out on her peripheral vision, web spells, fire... But no matter, Kossrani is a tough warrior and needs full focus. Thankfully, he has focused on Aoede by now. Taking advantage of this, Maccha attacks twice on his back, aiming for the little spaces between his armor.
Llewela swings at the same man again, but her attack goes short as she makes sure to keep clear of the fire.
Believer's eyes grow large in surprise at the sight of her Web flaring up into flames. But she did not worry, her own flesh was resistant to fire and she suspected the lackeys were not so lucky. She continued to press the attack against the dwarf, who still seemed the most dangerous in the room.
Maccha, Believer, and Aoede manage to team up to bring the sturdy dwarf down, Believer's spear actually pushing his body beyond simply being wounded and into death. His body falls to the ground with a loud clank in his heavy armor, and his CCG compatriots roar in anger at seeing their leader fall.
The thug that Tessa drops the oil on manages to dodge out of the way of the burning liquid, but the flaming webs around him still cause him pain.
"You'll pay for that!" he screams, waving his mace around as he swings his mace at the closest target: Llewela.
The orange thug moves through the webs with ease, and takes a swing at Believer alongside his partner, the green one. Meanwhile, red decides to test his luck with Aoede.
Init
Round 3
22- Maccha
19- Llewela
18- Believer
9- CCG (damage: blue 4)
6- Tessa
Round 4
22- Maccha
19- Llewela
18- Believer
9- CCG (damage: blue 4)
6- Tessa
Taking a heavy hit from one of the thugs with a hiss, Believer flicks out a lavender tongue to lap the blood from her split lip and grins widely at the Citizens, displaying her sharp and dazzling white teeth. She drops the longspear and draws her trusty walking stick to beat back the Thrune lackeys, starting with the one who struck her.
Then she gives herself a tap and heals away the damage, now looking as if no such blow ever landed.
Maccha finally stops holding her breath as she sees the dwarf fall. Now it's just cleanup. she thinks as she advances against the Citizen attacking Aoede.
Llewela turns her attention to the thug who just attacked her, bringing her morningstar into his side with a solid hit.
Spotting another lantern, Tessa's red eyes sparkle with malice aforethought as she steps into the room. She mutters the same chant again, and an invisible hand picks up the lantern and moves it over the head of the thug facing Believer before dropping it. A wicked grin spreads across her face as the flames burst out. They had hurt her friends. They would hurt her. Why shouldn't she burn them?
Aoede totters a moment and shakes her head after dodging the blow from the one thug that wasn't in the area of the webs. She knows that something isn't right with Tessa, she can feel it, but she can't worry about it while there are still combatants to deal with. She chokes up on her halberd's haft and tries to put the man down.
The lantern lands in the webs and burns the man just slightly, eliciting a grunt of pain. Maccha's dagger lands a small scratch on her target but Llewela's morningstar clobbers her target into unconsciousness quite handily. Aoede's slash connects, as do both of Believer's strikes; her quarterstaff knocks the thug to the ground just as hard as Llewela's blow.
The two remaining thugs, seeing the fate of so many of their comrades, decide it's better to stand down and surrender than die.
"Alright, alright, you can have whatever you want." one of them says, her mace dropping to the ground.
"All of the profits are in the front office of the main building, but there's four more guards there too. Could probably pay them off or at least convince them to leave." the other one chimes in, attempting to help.
Maccha does not put away her daggers immediately, but does relax her stance.
"Apart from those four guards, is there anyone else inside?"
Tessa blinks as the fight ends with the survivors surrendering. Her blues eyes take in the scene and she pales as she realizes what she did. Aoede, sensing her distress, moves over to where she is and holds her as the others talk to their prisoners.
Believer utilizes her goddess-granted sight to look over the surrendered Citizens and with her quarterstaff still in hand, then leans down to check the state of the fallen.
Llewela keeps her guard up and murmurs a spell, causing a sprinkle of water to extinguish any remaining flames.
Once the guards are disarmed and disarmored, she sits them in the chairs and ties them up back to back. The unconscious ones she places on the beds.
She waits to see if the thugs volunteer the location of the prisoners before asking any questiosn of her own, but has a quick look over the room for anything of interest.
"There's a small office, probably a former manager's office if I had to guess. They keep the prisoners there at night, once they're done with their shift at the salt mine." the first one says, voice calming down now that it's clear you don't intend on killing them.
"They're some smugglers, operated a ring bringing in all sorts of dangerous contraband before we picked 'em up on the Night of Ashes." the other one joins in, almost bragging about their work. "Real fine upstanding members of society you're freeing here, I'll say that much. Definitely fit in with the criminals like you."
"Right, because anything that doesn't fit to her Imperial Magistrix's tastes or those of her lackwit cousin are dangerous and deserving of being banned. I saw how eagerly your ilk wanted to cause pain and suffering. I wouldn't be so quick to take a high and mighty tone, you self-righteous ass," Aoede tells the second thug acidly while holding and comforting a still clearly shaken Tessa. The azata's eyes flash with a hint of the otherworldly power and grace she once possessed as the bore into the thug's.
"Ah, of course you defend the skum of the underbelly of this city." she spits back. "You act as if they were bringing food to the needy, when we both know they only wanted to sell harmful drugs to those same poor and even children. They, and those who support them deserve what they'll get."
Aoede opens her mouth to fire back another hot retort, but she stops as she feels Tessa pulling on her cloak and sees her shaking her head.
"Are there only smugglers here," Tessa asks quietly.