"Yeah, that is kind of weird." Maybe this particular imp just isn't that smart. Smart enough to keep going invisible, though. Celi reloads her crossbow and aims in the direction she last saw the tiny devil, holding her fire until it reappears.
Testing the weight of Adolina's blade, Ginetta turns her head this way and that, watching for the imp to reappear.
The Ravens prepare for the imp to return to visibility, scanning for any signs of her return. Adolina moves to the stairs, hoping to snatch at the imp if possible, while Celi prepares to fire her crossbow again.
"We can't keep doing this..." Laria mutters. "But damned if I have any better ideas." Rexus glances around wildly, his sword cane in one hand.
The imp makes her reappearance - right next to Adolina's shoulder, and she drives her stinger tail towards the noblewoman. It lands in her throat - although she's able to throw herself just out of the way enough that it misses her artery, it still sends her staggering slightly - far more painful than something that size has any right to be. Poison pulses in her veins, tightening muscles and leaving her numb.
Celi holds her crossbow fire for a moment, before letting fly at the imp - but her proximity to Adolina means that the gnome has to pull her aim, throwing it off and sending the bolt flying past.
Laria utters a sharp cry, lunging at the imp as she leaps from the table. A hand blurs past Adolina's face as she grabs at the flying devil, but once more, the imp dodges out of the way, tongue flicking out of her mouth mockingly as she says something that the women don't understand. The halfling woman hisses something in reply, readying herself to attack again.
Grunting in annoyance, Ghorza all but threw herself at the imp. Her silver pick was raised with lethal intent. The idea of it escaping filled her with rage.
Ginetta's eyes narrow and she grits her teeth in rage as she races forward to attack the imp, flanking with Ghorza.
"Foul evil-doer!" she cries out in a voice unlike her own. "Face the wrath of those that carry the vengeance of righteousness!" She stabs with her borrowed weapon.
"Adolina!" Curse it all! Celi doesn't have any antivenom on her. All she can do is reload and try to shoot the imp. Again.
Ghorza rushes up the stairs to attack the imp that hovers near Adolina, but her close proximity to the noblewoman allows the red-skinned devil to duck around her and avoid the attack.
Ginetta lunges around the stairs, thrusting upwards at the imp, who is unable to evade this time, getting pierced in the wing by the rapier instead. She yelps, pain spasming across her face, but doesn't fall.
Adolina feels her muscles lock up even tighter as she struggles with the poison that surges in her veins.
Celi fires her crossbow once more, but it sails haplessly past the group surrounding the imp.
Rexus grunts, looking around for some way to help with the combat, but finds nothing.
The imp's wounds knit shut as she focuses on dodging and avoiding the attacks that the heroes might possibly throw at her - but as magic whirls briefly around her, she fails to disappear. Scowling, she instead beats her wings upward, attempting to get out of the Ravens' reach. Easily evading any attempts to strike her, the imp sails back across the room, flying over the boxes once more.
Laria rushes across the room, leaping up atop one of the boxes to get in close with the imp once more, shouting something in the same language as before.
Ginetta moves across the room to where Laria leaps and shouts. She gauges the boxes and distance, calculating the odds of her making a similar leap.
Celi can't think of anything to do other than keep shooting and hope she gets lucky. She reloads her crossbow and tries again.
Ghorza rushes across the storeroom, leaping and swinging with her pick, tearing into the imp, who just manages to avoid being hit with the worst of the attack.
Adolina continues to fight the poison in her veins, but her body just isn't quite up to it, as her muscles continue to wrench and pull, keeping her from exerting her full range of motion.
Ginetta advances, measuring out the path to the imp, while Celi fires her bolt at the imp once more.
Rexus rushes to Adolina's side, gently helping her back to her feet. She feels his welling sense of destiny embrace her and empower her. "Adolina, stay with me. You can beat this."
The imp attempts to turn invisible again, but isn't quite able to do so, magic fluttering uselessly around her. She scowls, then throws up her hands. "Alright! I surrender! I'm done!"
Laria snatches at the imp, catching her in one hand, then grabbing her tail in the other - the devil doesn't even bother evading. "Why should we believe you?" She asks.
"Because, contrary to what you may think, I'm not stupid. I don't want to die."
”And I don’t want ANY MORE BLOODY FOOKING DARTS IN ME NECK!” Ghorza yelled, shaking her pick at the imp. Her face radiating barely contained rage. Shaking as she fought the urge to launch herself into an attack, she took a deep breath. Her face as hard as stone, she forced herself to be civil. Or at least rational. She had been a merchant, afterall. And there had been customers nearly as aggravating.
”Thus far Ye’ve tried to murder us. And have only stopped when that attempt failed. This is not a good start for building trust. So let’s try this. Make us the first offer. What is it that ye want, and what do we get? All deals come from mutually benefiting, aye?”
She let the implicit threat hang that if negotiations failed then the fighting would begin anew. But it was also true that she really didn’t want to get shot again, so she was open to hearing the imp out.
Ginetta oh-so-desires to question the imp ... and then squeeze her until her tiny little eyes pop, but she leaves the subtleties of interrogation to Ghorza. Instead, she slips Adolina's rapier into the wide sash around her waist and joins Rexus at the noblewoman's side.
"It's going to be okay," she says, taking Adolina's hand in her own and wrapping her other arm around the woman's waist. "We'll get you taken care of right away."
Ginetta looks over at Ghorza and Celi. "We're going to get help for her. We'll be back." She then attempts to lead the young woman to the ladder up to to the tavern above.
Celi gives Adolina and Ginetta a worried look, but nods anyway. "The Newt Market isn't far from here, it's right outside Nightways Gate. Someone there will have antitoxin for sale." She loads another bolt into her crossbow (for all the good it will do) and watches Ghorza interrogate the imp.
Ginetta nods at Celi's suggestion. "Thank you," she replies, her attention on the woman at her side.
As the noblewoman and actress leave the room, the imp's eyes narrow slightly, but she's distracted by Ghorza and Laria. "Look, I get it - you all don't have any reason to trust me, and I have tried getting rid of you, yes. But let me be clear - I don't really want to be here any more than you want me here."
"What do you mean?" Laria asks, glowering down at the devil.
"My name is Blosodriette. I've been in the Material for... I don't even know how long, now, locked away in that basement. I'd really like to go home." The imp replies. "So I want to make you a deal - I don't want to die, obviously, and you don't want a devil who knows you've got plans to revolt against a diabolic regime running around. If you destroy my contract," she gestures at the paper that is concealed by the spell, "I'll be sent back to Hell, and you'll be free of me."
Ghorza looked at the imp critically, weighing whether or not to just go back to swinging her pick. At length she said ”Anyone here able to read this contract?” She assumed it would be in infernal.
"Back again, ma fée?" her mother comments, finally turning from that blank canvas she'd been gazing at for over an hour. Well, blank except for the bold splash of crimson in one corner that she'd only placed there a moment ago. Ginetta looks up from the thin book she'd been perusing with crimson cheeks and hastily shoves it into the stack next to the cot where she'd been sitting for all that time. Her mother was never want to carry on conversation if she'd been disturbed, so Ginetta had long ago learned the art of waiting.
"Encore des problèmes de filles?" the pale woman asks, a knowing smile curling her lush lips.
"What?" Ginetta questions, confused, before a few words filter through her primitive knowledge of her mother's native language. "No! No ... not really."
"As well as you do on la scène, I would expect you to sound more convaincante." The woman sets aside the brush she'd been holding and comes to sit next to her daughter, her luminous eyes returning to the unfinished work.
"Well, it's mostly about ... I'm planning on moving out of papa's flat and into one of my own."
"C'est bon," her mother replies with a nod and a smile, her eyes still fixed on the canvas. "A young woman should have her own space for when she intends to invite over her amant" She turns to smile with affection at her hugely blushing daughter. Giving a quick kiss to the girl's forehead, she rises to her feet and returns to the work in progress.
"She's not my lover," Ginetta protests. "We haven't even really ... I am going to ask her to dinner, though, at Tuvine's."
"Dinner at Tuvine's would be lovely, ma fée. It has been too long since I've tasted his Sole Meunière."
"I just hope I don't scare her away again. She seems so nervous at times." Ginetta frowns in thought.
"Quand, ma fée?" questions distractedly as she picks up a brush and a palette covered with a myriad of colors.
"Oh, probably tomorrow night," the half-elf replies. With just the faintest of murmurs in response, Ginetta knows her mother has settled into her creative fugue again and will stay that way for a while. With nervous hands, she retrieves the hastily-hidden tome from the stack nearby and opens it again to the page filled with prose that caused such flutters in her stomach.
~~~~~
"Miss Cicerdos! It's such a pleasure to have you with us tonight," the perfectly dressed man gushes as he leads Ginetta and Adolina past the archway and into the restaurant proper. "And how is your beautiful mother doing? She has not graced us with her presence in many months."
"She is doing well, Matei, thank you for asking," Ginetta replies as she nervously reaches down to take Adolina's hand, perhaps sensing the young woman's desire to flee already. Giving it a reassuring squeeze, she follows the gentleman as he leads them to a small table among others on a slightly raised floor along one side of the central room. The lighting is subdued and candles provide the majority of the warm illumination with the exception of a few hooded lanterns near the entrance.
Removing her fur-lined cloak, Ginetta is wearing a low-cut shimmering green dress this evening. The sleeves are full, but the shoulders are open to expose her faintly freckled skin. Her auburn hair is styled up this evening and her makeup is designed to enhance and emphasize her green eyes.
Pulling back the chairs for the ladies, the man quickly vanishes into the shadows with a promise to return with an excellent wine.
"I was worried that you might back out tonight," Ginetta says with a shy smile. "I have a feeling that I scared you away last time." She gestures at the room with its low-keyed lighting. "This way we can have a little more privacy." She places one hand on the table, hoping her companion will reciprocate. "I'd really like to get to know you better outside of ... you know." She shrugs. "And you're free to ask me anything. To you, I'm an open book." She winks.