Hurray for a nice quick takedown! The map is still blacked out beyond the south door, so I'm not sure what we see in here besides the cultists, to know if we should be searching the room, moving on, or something else.
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Shrike takes in the room where the cultists were waiting while stripping the lighter and more portable items from them.
Shrike takes a moment to parse this statement — only those two are trapped and they might be trapped because they are decoys, go south first — then nods, makes the "voices low" gesture again with her palm flat to the floor, and pads silently toward the southern door. There are certainly enemies down here, and no point in alerting them if the group's activities above have not been heard yet, with sixty feet of dirt and rock between the two levels. Someone will likely have heard the alarming rattling of the lift, but they could be other members of the cult, coming down to report or for some other purpose. She puts up her weapons and examines the scythe-wielding skeleton on the southern door in the dim and sickly yellow light of the lanterns for several long heartbeats. If it is locked, she has the extra key from Davaulus to try first. And she will listen for anything beyond. Extra Perception:
Once she is confident the way is clear, she pulls out her spear, held far down the haft to deter anything rushing at her from the south room. Shrike counts down on her fingers from three for the others' benefit, then opens the door as silently as possible.
So is the south door skeleton not a magic trapped skeleton? Let's go through that one first then, yeah?
The scuffed stone walls of this chamber have been plastered over and then decorated with lurid murals of skeletons cavorting among the dead of a Korvosa that has completely succumbed to blood veil. Thick wooden doors lead to the north and south, each bearing a painting of a scythe-wielding skeleton - as does the door they just came through. A sizable double door stands on the east wall, appearing in the mural as a massive set of double doors opening into the pyramid foundation of Castle Korvosa. Two more scythe-wielding skeletons decorate these large doors. Dim lanterns hang above the doors, suffusing the space in a sickly yellow light. "Yeah, this definitely seems like a place dedicated to eradicating the plague..." Elric mutters wryly with a nod towards the murals as he nocks an arrow and scans the room for hidden threats. "Necromancers." Shrike's voice is grim as usual, but it also has something of the weary cadence of a seasoned theater director who has given up on trying to convince the new hires not to over-act. She had the magical rapier at the ready when the lift doors opened, but at Audria's words she sheaths it and pulls the silver-headed mace instead, settling into a waiting stillness in case the skeletons attack.
"Probably both. Abella said once that the Red Mantis don't kill rightful kings. Part of their religion somehow. Doesn't mean they didn't this time. But there's got to be something there we don't know. Kalepopolis's still missing too. Always thought he'd be the smart choice for scapegoat. But never a peep about him." The illusory Physician mask is tilted away, staring at the floor, as she names the Seneschal of Castle Korvosa, who has not been seen or heard from in all the weeks since Eodred's death. "She keeps choosing to make it all worse. That's why I say madness. Even if the cultists've already got the cure down here. And they might. Create a problem, then solve it. Go from hated usurper to people's hero overnight." Shrike's croak has lessened as she thinks out loud, possibly without her realizing, into something still low and raspy but more normal. "But what if they don't have a cure? And even if they do, this 'pruning' is nonsense. They can cut off Old Korvosa, but that doesn't mean they choose who dies. We saw it with that block in Pillar Hill. It won't have been the only one. Plenty of merchants and tradesmen and soldiers and their families in Midland and North Point and East Shore, mostly Chelish stock or mixed blood, are dead. Trade is disrupted for months or years. Like the Justicar says. She already had the throne. House Arkona is only rich while the city is rich. And while the poor cram into Old Korvosa where their tenements and taverns and smuggling spots and vice dens are. So who benefits?" "Carowyn Manor..." The murmur trails off. The next logical thought, for someone raised to noble politics, is still only terrible speculation. Maybe they still do. Maybe letting the plague burn through the city like wildfire and burn itself out is all an acceptable cost to them. All to choose some to die in the confusion. Carowyn Manor was full of Arkona's rivals for control of other, more legitimate trade sectors. And hers for control of the government. All murdered. Nothing left to unlucky chance. Their businesses, their holdings, their positions are going to be up for grabs now. Bigger houses like Arkona will ride it out and pick up the pieces. Pick the bones of lesser families like vultures. And she can fill the bureaucracy with her loyalists. Win-win. She shakes her head minutely. "Can't know yet. But we can kill some necromancers."
Shrike changes, level 8: +1 Ability Score Increase (choosing Dexterity, now 19) HP +7 (now 61: 5 from half 1d8 round up, 1 Con, 1 favored class bonus)
+1 Vigilante Talent (choosing Cunning Feint (Ex): The vigilante can feint as a move action or in place of his first attack during a full attack. At 8th level, when the vigilante successfully feints, the opponent is denied its Dexterity bonus to AC against all attacks until the vigilante’s next turn.) +1 Damage on Lethal Grace (now +4) Skill Upgrades: 8 (6 class, 0 Int, 2 background)
Shrike flinches slightly at Audria's invasion of personal space, but allows the hug, and bends her masked face down far enough to tap it against the side of the girl's helm, a movement reminiscent of Majenko's affectionate head-butt, before straightening again. Audria or Perception DC 15: Shrike huffs very quietly, a sound hard to interpret for amusement, offense, or something else. Her carefully affected croak gentles into something merely low and hoarse. "I'm Shrike all the time, little lark. Which mask doesn't matter. Except she can make progress. Find Ruan and kill his captors. Like she couldn't for Gaekhen. So let's get it done."
Though this is not exactly an answer to the question, it does have the ring of truth.
—two crossed sabres, dripping red— "No. They were the real thing." With an effort Shrike manages to keep her croak even. Her shoulders rise fractionally, the only sign of a repressed shudder at the memory of the female Mantis's sinuous movements and caressing whisper as she made the offer, seconds before she beheaded a man like it was an afterthought.
Yay, level 8! Shrike gets an iterative attack! I'll have her changes up by sometime tomorrow. Thanks GM.
The King died on Desnus 8 and it's Erastus 3 now, so about two months. I can't find the exact posts now, but I could swear Shane was told that the Arkonas had given the Queen this warehouse months ago - as in, before the plague, as in, they might have known this was about to happen. Similarly, I think Abella was told a little more about the Red Mantis as an organization, including that the only kind of assassinations their religion forbids are hits on currently serving legitimate rulers like kings. I'm not sure we ever did get that information in exactly those words though. Slang notes: Scratch Money. (Did I use this because of [spoiler] about the Arkonas? I'll never tell.)
"She's paying them." The flat croak makes it sound simple, but Shrike is also working things through in real time as they wait for the clanking progress of the lift. "Or the Crown treasury is. Not a king's ransom. His estate. Arkonas might be in on it too. They've plenty of scratch. Enough to not miss those silks when they gave her this place. But they might just be currying favor now. Davaulus was always her creature. From Cheliax like her. While the wannabes we saw were local boys. Two-pinch rushers. Only one who got away was one of the beefwits we caught milling the tailor's. So we knew the Red Mantis was recruiting here around two months ago. Right after the king died. Meaning they'd been in town a bit. "Now we know they stuck around and are still working for her. Or with her. Already suspected that too. Whoever hurt the Sister at the Sanctuary had serious magic and two kinds of blades. I think the Brother and Sister were in the way of the plague because they treated everyone for free. "The real question is if they killed the King for her too."
Shrike notes the crate of valuable silk clothing for later collection. Vudrani goods and exotic animals. This warehouse belonged to the Arkonas, Shane said. Makes sense. Maybe Majenko would like a silk scarf to wear. She returns to the others to go down the lift. "Some warehouse goods left. One key with no lock yet."
Shrike waits long enough to briefly look around the doctor's office, experimentation room, and downstairs area with the patients and one room near the lift they have not entered yet, in hopes of finding whatever the keys found on Davaulus's body might unlock. If there is nothing, she silently joins the group back at the lift, ready to proceed downward with the use of the button that had been in one of the madman's pockets. The too-long mask feels wrong and off-balance on her face even though it now looks outwardly right, but she trusts that the conspirators would not have left getting ill from their own disease to chance.
I am finally entering Hospice loot so far in the loot sheet and I see we got two keys off of Davaulus - I'd like to see if we can find what they go to before going down to the lower levels. The handwaved fight here was six additional Gray Maidens (two from the catwalks, two guarding the downstairs lift doors, two guarding the experimentation room doors) and four additional Queen's Physicians (all roaming the downstairs with the patients), so I am just recording the exact same types of stuff on them as the alleyway fight examples. That's masterwork leather armor, masterwork club, healer's kit for the QPs and regular full plate, regular heavy steel shield, composite longbow, arrows, regular longsword for the Maidens. Let me know if any of that is wrong. I believe both Pava and Shane expressed interest in the amulet of natural armor +1. You could roll for it or just decide amongst yourselves, but it isn't marked as on someone yet.
Shrike grits her teeth and resists the impulse to drag the intake nurse back down the lift and manacle her to one of the dying blood veil victims. Her hand goes to the flap of her haversack and actually starts to draw out the manacles before putting them back and instead pulling the handle of her sap. Although she says nothing, the implication is clear. Waste of the manacles. Knock her out and collect her later. Another who deserves to be outcast but probably won't be.
"How much does Beakbrain know about friends, not that it's of concern." "He is like Falling Star. A companion. Not a beast." Shrike had watched carefully as Galewing understood and responded with every sign of intelligence to multiple complicated and overlapping instructions about the treatment of Jolistina as a prisoner, and updated her understanding of him accordingly. Knowledge (Religion) DC 15:
Falling Star is the hawk companion of Ketephys, elven god of the hunt. She often appears alongside him with his dog companion, Meycho, and the god treats them as equals, not pets or servants. The body's beaky mask was hanging slightly askew but looked undamaged. She walks over, lifts the sheet to take it, and then re-covers the cultist's face. She turns it over in her hands, thinking. These extra masks may hold the key to healing the sick. If they make you immune as long as you wear one, could the most ill be cured, or at least the damage of the disease's progression temporarily paused for them? Or could these be given to those tending the sick, so that more magic each day could be used to cure citizens rather than on the healers caring for them who kept falling ill? But too many per day are getting sick. We need something that stops the spread. They Physicians seemed confused when Shane said there had been a breakthrough. Maybe they already have the cure down there, and the Queen and Davaulus were just waiting for enough of the people they wanted gone to be gone before revealing it and curing the rest of the populace. It made sense in a mad way: although Davaulus had not said directly what sorts of people he thought needed to be 'pruned,' and there was in fact no method to guarantee only a certain segment of society got sick, from the way the Gray Maidens had enforced the quarantine of all of Old Korvosa, they could have intended to let the poorest and the undesirable, like criminals and addicts, die in the greatest numbers. Then whenever they judged the job done and revealed the cure as the results of their "research," the rest of the public would hail the Queen and her agents as heroes. Maybe that had even been her plan all along — to engineer a crisis and then solve it, to go from a despised and brutal usurper to being acclaimed as the people's merciful savior. After a moment Shrike moves with silent efficiency to strip the other cultists' bodies as well: taking the masks, their well-made singlesticks and healers' kits, and covering them with sheets, leaving their armor for now. The Gray Maidens' weapons also go in her pack, but she leaves their heavy but highly valuable customized armor for later collection. Then, in response to Elric's suggestion, she chivvies the nurse upstairs with her usual grace and tact, guides her through the bloodstained experimentation room, and opens the door on the obviously uninfected fifteen Varisian experiment victims. "Way's clear."
Welcome back, GM! I hope you had a good trip. I'm back at home now too, as of late last night. And yes, that does seem like the plan. If all goes well, the 15 now-healthy, mysteriously immune Varisian citizens can go straight home, and we will work out what to do with the 60+ seriously ill people downstairs after the guards "tending" them are dealt with. From the description we got, most of those downstairs are too sick to stand up or walk. So far the suggestions for helping them are either a) send them to a temple, with the temple being responsible for their presumed evacuation; b) have doctors/healers come to them here; or c) ask Kroft to get involved and evacuate the sick to healers elsewhere while spreading an official cover story that she took this action because the people in charge were cultists who were only masquerading as Queen's Physicians, not real Queen's Physicians. (Correct me if I'm wrong on any of that.) I don't know how feasible (a) is with the temples already as full of the ill as we have been told they are. Maybe the request might go down better if Audria and/or Kandru asked their contacts? Option (b) seems even harder, since I can't think of any named individual healers unaffiliated with a temple that we currently know about. Alchemists yes; doctors no. We'd have to find them first before asking them. Although being able to give them (or the temple healers) some of these magical masks to prevent them from becoming infected themselves while treating the sick would surely be a powerful draw. Option (c) seems like the easiest for us, but exposes Kroft to some political risk. As of right now, we are not acting under her orders at all. She kind of sent us to Carowyn Manor, but based on what we found there, we then chose to ambush the Gray Maidens and QPs, and to infiltrate the Hospice and kill more of them including Doctor Davaulus, all with zero input from her. She has plausible deniability if we're just rogue agents. She loses it if she cooperates with us, unless we come up with a cover story, like Pava said; even if we do that, the Queen (or whoever is pulling the Queen's strings in the government, etc. etc.) will know it is a lie and Kroft will become their known enemy too.
"Right. Into the office. Not for long." Shrike looks around deliberately at the frightened Varisian immunity-victims and shoos them into Davaulus's office with a simple jerk of her head or two to indicate where they should shelter for now. Then she takes up a position to one side of the door to the landing and prepares for what she hopes will be a very brief interview with whomever comes through the door next.
"Thought that's what the fake boss plaguecrow's for. Call them up away from the sick. Deal with them here."
"Sick aren't going anywhere," Shrike points out. "Call on the temple to take them. Or Kroft. But later. Remove the threat first." She has clipped the 'tickler,' as she called it, into the charcoal sash at her waist, and already taken thirty seconds to swap her darkened chain shirt for Davaulus's mithral one in the corner made by the open door while back in the false doctor's office — mostly to keep her face concealed in the short time that the long-beaked mask has to be off to effect the switch. She seemed unconcerned with stripping to her black shirtsleeves around the others, and took only enough care to ensure no strands of the long moon-white waves of her hair would end up caught in either chain shirt. Fortunately, she is quite tall for a woman and Davaulus was thin and narrow-shouldered for a man, so she is not swimming in the delicate chain links. But the dark neck of her many-pocketed overshirt is not cut quite high enough to fully hide the telltale moonsilver gleam of mithral. The fine metal is so light and comfortable it feels indistinguishable from clothing to someone used to operating unimpeded by a well-made steel mail shirt. She could likely sleep in it and probably should from now on. Still, the light-catching reflectiveness of it will have to be corrected if she is to keep wearing it. Shrike slings the spear behind her back and draws the rapier. She takes a few experimental thrusts, the narrow point nearly invisible as it splits the air, and then shakes her head slightly. She takes off the heavy mailed hand protector from her dominant hand and switches it to her off hand, leaving her right hand free to maneuver the elegant weapon better.
Fingers crossed for you, Shane. Well, if no one else wants to use that armor and rapier, I'll claim them for Shrike to wear for now. I expect we'll sell them on eventually, though. The +1 chain shirt bumps her AC by one. An effective +3 weapon with +2d6 damage against humans will be +1 of attack and a few damage better than her +1 branch spear (though not a full +7 average damage because she's giving up the additional bonus damage for a two-handed weapon vs. one-handed.) Kandru's channel healed her cut hand for 1 damage, so thank you Kandru.
Oh boy. I hope the plumbing problems can be truly fixed soon, Shane.
Either is fine with me. I guess I like the idea of using a Davaulus illusion (or just his voice, calling out in alarm?) to first take out the two Gray Maidens outside the experimentation room door, and then call the other guards (4 Gray Maidens & 4 Queen's Physicians, right?) up to the second floor landing as well, to take them out up here away from the helpless sick people. Shrike will even knock them out instead of killing them if Audria wants. But her instinct is just to kill them, especially the Physicians, since we already have three Physicians and two Maidens as prisoners that could ... give evidence, I guess, about what's been happening with these organizations. After that we can discuss how to get all of the 60 sick people below out of here and to real treatment when they're probably mostly not able to walk and we only have like 3 potions of remove disease.
While the discussion happens, Shrike adjusts her armor and appearance. She fiddles with her sleeves, and the illusion of Queen's Physician robes vanishes, replaced with her common burglar's clothes, while the true appearance of the plaguebringer's mask changes to the illusion of her usual shrike mask. Now looking like herself again, Shrike pauses at the door to the cruel experimentation room, cleaning her spear of Davaulus's blood with a weapon rag and watching from the corner of her mask as Kandru holds up the Key of Abadar. She stiffens slightly when the wave of holy energy washes over all of them and the injured civilians. Concealed by the mask, her eyes widen as cuts close, bruises fade, and chemical burns heal, taking near a score of people at once from death's door to something close to healthy. The fingertips of her right hand twitch up to her temple, drawing a simple crescent. "Clear sight to you for your blessings, Justicar." I know you and the Judge of the Gods haven't much to say to each other, Hunter, but while we have a common enemy, we need all the blessings we can get. And he has seen fit to bestow powerful ones on her. "Only saw one exit. Loading doors're boarded up." She moves to the center of the room, looking like herself, with the strange distinctive spear in hand. "Listen up. The doctor's dead. But no way out but through the downstairs guards. Let us go first. Follow on our signal. Don't rush out unless you want to die."
Have a good time, GM! I am also traveling from the 19th-29th, but I haven't had trouble posting from my phone if needed in the past. Of course, don't hesitate to bot me or make decisions for the group if I haven't spoken up.
Davaulus does not seem to realize his danger, and that arrogance is his end. Shrike disrupts the false doctor's attempt at casting some kind of magic spell and keeps her weapon trained on him. Frogmakers. Never prepared for someone to close with them. She makes no objection either when Audria knocks him senseless or when Pava finishes off the unconscious torturer. "Skies and burning stone - a Mantis!? At least if he's a lower member he might've been having us on about everything waiting in the wings to take vengeance on us for roughing up his person. Can't say as I'm sorry he's through breathing though." The revelation that Davaulus was Red Mantis instead of Urgathoan gives Shrike pause, but her harsh voice holds neither regret nor trepidation. "More than due. Couldn't let him walk on her word." The nature of the 'her' is unspoken but obvious. She had lost no time in starting to go through his pockets with swift efficiency while Shane is making sense of the documents. The croak does not pause either as she continues. "So they're still here. City's getting crowded with death cults serving her. Papers are good proof. Let's take them for Kroft when you're done. Flash shirt and tickler." She hands the things that might be magic to Shane for his examination as well, and considers the rapier carefully when told what it is.
"I say heal the ones outside. Cut them a path. Then go below."
I hope you feel better soon, Shane. I know I already declared a readied action, but I'm not sure where in that round we are or whose turn it now is, so this is in case it comes to Shrike's turn again and he's still up. If, on the other hand, her readied action does trigger, that would be just the Acrobatics + first attack, and she wouldn't get the second standard-action one.
"You thought you could control it. Sapskull. Fire doesn't know the names of trees." Partway through the sentence, Shrike feints to his left and then spins to Davaulus's right with an effortless leap over his chair, sending Thorn's point and angled blades hissing toward the big vein in his neck along the way as she whips past him in the air.
As she lands behind the mad doctor, opposite Pava, the lethal, leaflike blade flicks out again.
"The forest remembers. What you do comes back to you. That's balance."
Oh, I'm so sorry Kandru. I hope his memory will bring you joy someday, rather than sadness.
"He's not a doctor. Just an empty mask," Shrike realizes. Even with all they have seen lately, it takes her a moment to be sure that Davaulus is lying and not sincerely deluded. But the little flashes of rainbow light she catches from the corner of her eye, and Audria's cold, steady voice, clinch it. That was exactly how she sounded when dealing with the Cow Hammer Boys. Her weight shifts subtly to her back foot in preparation for a lunge, but the point of Thorn, already stained with the false physician's blood, never wavers. She pushes a little. "A dabbler. That's why she needs Lamm and Andaisin. They're the real thing."
Hurray! So glad to have you back! She may not be very scary, but Audria is possibly the worst of this group to have mad at you, because if even she's not arguing for mercy, you can be damn sure none of the others are going to grant it. :)
That sucks. I hope the work relationships and your actual duties will get better and more interesting with time, then.
Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Out of the frying pan, into the fire, I guess.
Happy to hear from you and that you're hanging in there, Audria. I hope the new job is interesting in a good way. Or at least that it doesn't have downsides as untenable as the last situation's commute. I'm sorry about your dog's illness, Kandru. Real life comes first; we'll be here. I hope he gets back to his usual self soon.
Elric and Kandru are still up. Audria too, of course, but I'm beginning to worry since we've had no updates in five weeks. Shane, do you talk to her player elsewhere? Have you heard anything?
On the time scale of pop music. But hey, it's not as ancient as some of my favorites!
Obscure American reference: "Dr. Feelgood" is an ancient metal song about a small-time drug dealer.
Shrike fairly flies across the room spearpoint-first.
The great goggled eyes of one of the doctor's own subordinates stare impassively into his face. "Best start singing."
No real doctor would do surgeries on his desk. This is a torturer. He likes the reminder.
She lets the tip of her spear fall forward to point at the plaguebringer's heart, and charges.
Awww. A friend's cat had to wear the catsuit last summer to prevent excessive grooming leading to bald spots, and she was similarly dramatic about it. I give my elderly cat like 4-5 small meals a day topped with a tiny bit of treat-puree so he eats enough of the kibble. They all have good servants. :)
How is your cat doing, GM? I hope she's feeling better. If we're kicking down the door here, Shrike would just charge the "doctor," and only interrogate once we have the upper hand, if at all, but she'd have listened to the others if they said something about other tactics in advance. E.g. she'll hold back for Pava to try talking/bluffing first if that's preferred. And she definitely wouldn't open the door before all others are ready too, so please place yourselves where you'd want to be.
Shrike's head turns back slightly in response to this observation about the Queen's representatives. "Something's wrong there. Making copies of your favorite bodyguard's one thing. But plagues torch cities. Even a bad queen doesn't want to rule over ashes. Madness." It's not entirely clear if this is just an observation or a suggested explanation. When she is done removing restraints, Shrike takes the three masks from the three fallen cultists, along with any small things of value they have. She bends her head away from the others and swiftly pushes up her illusory doctor's mask as she replaces it with the real thing. The fake becomes the shrike mask again in her hands as soon as it leaves her face. She fastens the new one, then stashes her own mask carefully in her pack and passes off the other two physician masks to Shane and Audria. The long branched spear appears again in her hands from the depths of a pack much shorter than it is as Shrike steals up to the next door. She holds it halfway up the shaft, ready to strike with either end. "Ready."
Shrike gives the notes a glance only once Shane points out what they are. "'A' like Andaisin. Proof. Not enough maybe. But something." She stops undoing or slicing through restraints long enough to wrap the notes into a bundle in the coat of one of the fallen cult-doctors so the pages stay together, and from there puts them into the magical haversack. She returns to her self-appointed task. "Wouldn't heal them yet. The way's not clear if they panic. Got to cut a path first." She indicates the previous room where two Gray Maidens were standing watch with a jerk of her head. The way out once they were on the ground floor would also blocked by four more cockscombs and four of the false doctors. "Any buttons on these empties." She looks over to the three fallen cultists. "Don't look like the boss rat."
Oh no! I'm so glad you were able to get her emergency surgery. I hope you can bring her home tomorrow and she recovers well.
Shrike looks over the restrained 'patients,' and what is on the table, to see what their condition is and what deranged experiments have been done to them. If it does not seem it will hurt them, she starts undoing the restraints. How badly off are they? Could we get them out of here?
Travel safely and have a great time, Elric! You and Kandru are currently up in this fight, I believe.
Shrike lets the limp body of her first target fall toward the beds rather than the table covered in delicate beakers, tubes, burners and other alchemical and surgical tools, as she surges past to threaten the middle Queen's Physician with Pava. It would be better not to draw the attention of the two cockscombs on the door with a crash of breaking glass.
Shrike feels her mailed fist land with a satisfying crunch of windpipe and immediately starts moving for the next closest of the beak-masked cultists. That's one that won't scream and alert the place.
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