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Tris glances to see if anyone else is here then slips inside. "We had a bit of trouble when we got there-- not the job itself, just ran into some buggers who wanted to shake us down. We ditched 'em. Slipped in, cracked the lockbox, left some creative sewing alterations on some merchandise," she says with a little grin.
"'m goin' back to the boss's. Might as well get things done quick." With anyone who wants to accompany her, Tris returns to the Frock and Frolic albeit with a few paranoid detours-- life as an escaped slave means you make double-sure you're not followed anywhere.
When she reaches the F&F, she knocks quietly on the door, assuming that, like most shopkeeps, Davik lives at his place of business.
Tris listens for a few moments, then shrugs to herself and slips back downstairs. Really, they've done what they came for.
"So out and done?" she whispers to the others.
Tris looks blankly at the others. "....yeah, like I was doing already?" she whispers, holding up her shortsword and a shredded bit of fabric. "And let's not go smashin' glass, please-- we've been quiet so far." She chews on her lower lip a moment, then says, "But mayhap there's somethin' incriminating upstairs-- whoever he's laughing with. Might be worth spying out." Tris starts tiptoeing up the stairs, keeping a sharp eye out for any creaky floorboards.
Seeing that the others have gotten the chest open and revealed the night's profits and goal, Tris gives a satisfied nod. She squints at the pretty display cases holding all the glass trinkets, wondering at their worth on the open market.
...well what does she know about glasswork anywhow.
Tris's head snaps up at the noise and she freezes, but as seconds tick by and it seems to be something that was confined to the upstairs, she lets out an exhale. "Hope they're busy with whatever that is..." she mumbles.
Having mutilated petticoats to her satisfaction, Tris glances around to the window they came in by. She creeps to it and eases it shut.
She tiptoes over to the front door to see how it's secured, if they need to make a quick exit that way.
"Right, so... we're lookin' for gold, and anything we can to do sabotage stuff," Tris whispers to Tieg, softly. She points at the desk, and the locked display cases, and also glances consideringly at the dresses. Not having any skill with locks herself, Tris sets to the dresses. She takes out her gladius blade, and starts cutting the dresses up-- not on the outside, where it will be instantly seen-- but down in the under-layers of petticoats and ruffles, using the blade's sharp edge to slice the inner fabrics into tattered ribbons.
Tris shrugs to herself, then climbs after Tieg nimbly and quietly, her small frame easily slipping through the window.
"I hear folk moving upstairs, but... doesn't seem like anyone's watching anymore," Tris informs the others.
Tris slinks back to the others with a frown. " 'm pretty sure we were seen from the windows," she says. "Sneakin' in now could get us good and cooked. I guess we keep a sharp ear out for town guard, or anyone else likely."
Tris hisses. "Bugger this, I think we've been made," she complains to the others. "Two folk just looked down from the tailor's window-- gave me a nod, nice as you please. An' it sounds like we've got incoming." Tris darts towards the nearest shopfront other than the tailor's, seeking a barrel or crate to hide behind.
"Oh please sir, no, it's all the money I have in the world," Tris begs in a soft, hoarse voice, hands upraised before the scoundrel. "I have children!"
Tris just keeps an eye out in a more conventional fashion, this time.
Tris sidles along the street, pretending to be just another halfling out on the streets, and stealing glances at the rough sorts, judging if any of them are coming closer or taking an interest, so that she can warn her friends if needed.
Tris thinks a bit. "Well, you can all see better in the dark than me, I think. Maybe Dura as the lead scout, and the rest of us close by to rush in if he gets in trouble? "
Tris nods. "Suits me. So who's eyes and ears, then? I can be pretty quiet, and my eyes are alright, but not great at night."
"Hm," says Tris, rubbing a thumb against her small chin. "Alrighty, then." She looks to the others. "What say we do a scout of the other joint, 'fore we crack it?"
Tris arches her brows at the rejection of the plan to harass this merchant, but shrugs. "Alright. Job'll get done. Do you have any information on his shop, whether he has a hired guardsman or anything like that?" Tris tries to think if she knows anything about this Marouk fellow in her own right.
Tris settles down on a bolt of fabric and listens. "What'd he steal from you?" she asks curiously. "How about we dump those goods in the harbor? Ruins his plan to use 'em."
Tris grins a bit at Corland's response and nods to the others. " 'Lo there. Tris is the name. Some of your faces look familiar to me! I'll patch your skins up if you don't get 'em hurt doing something too dumb. Calistria's my sacred lady, so don't badmouth her, or make short jokes, and we'll get on alright."
GM:
Perception DC 15, anyone:
A halfling is trying to climb unnoticed through the same window that Tiegantm signaled through a few minutes ago. Tris emerges into the room, brushing herself off. She is a halfling dressed in a battered chain shirt, with a small buckler and a gladius, such as arena fighters use, worn over her back. A whip is coiled at her belt. Her nose is a little crooked, like it was broken at some point, and a brass brooch in the shape of a wasp fastens her ragged cloak at her throat. "Well!" she huffs. "If we're going to wait, then I guess I'm here."
Tris lurks... for GM: Tris is basically going to find a spot out of sight, preferably on a rooftop, and squintily watch people coming and going until nearer the meeting time. She wants to see if anyone else comes in or leaves the building. If needed:
Elsewhere in town, a halfling slits open a similar envelope with one fingertip and peruses its contents. She reads the note once, swiftly, then again, more slowly, eyes narrowed. Well. That's interesting. The halfling gathers her few possessions quickly out of the tiny, dingy room-- more like an attic crawl space-- she's rented. There's not a lot to grab, and with things bundled on, Tris makes her way to the street and building in question. The little halfling tries to slip between the shadows as she goes, using her small size to her advantage-- staying in the wake of a merchant's wagon, then hurriedly ducking into an alley when the wagon passes on. It's not the fastest way to travel, but it's the way she prefers.
As she goes, Tris looks sharply to left and to right, trying to notice anyone who might be observing her in turn.
Tris gives a crooked grin to Devan as he comes back conscious again, and then flops exhaustedly onto her back in the waist deep water, staring around at the destruction. "Grampa Thondrir, I take back every joke I ever made about your old back or bad knees. You proved your worth, old-timer," she says with respect. "As for winnin' or losin'... I dunno, but we all lived. Got to see how bad the damage is to the town, I s'pose, but... livin' is a big part of a win in my book." Tris stands back upright again, and starts snagging loose planks of timber and debris to lashing together a crude raft. "Time to look for any who found high ground. Or any dogs left of that bastard's army."
Tris manages to twist gracefully despite her sodden clothes as they go over the edge, turning it into a dive rather than a bone-bruising bellyflop. Blinking in the water, she seeks out solid ground.
Fortunately, Tris's years on the river serve her well. She finds her footing and stares around desperately for the others. She digs in her pack until her hand closes around the bottle of a potion.
Tris nearly cries out with frustration when she loses her footing and trips to the 'deck'. It's embarrassing, but under the circumstances, it's also more than likely a lethal mistake. That bastard already hit her like a raging bull, and with her down on the ground...? She tries to use it to her advantage, faking that she's about to roll off the roof into the water but turning it into a stab at the last moment.
Under normal circumstances, it's a beautiful attack. But Ymial is no ordinary foe, and again Tris misses.
"Thanks," Tris wheezes to Esaul as some of her injuries close. Perhaps a doomed gesture in the long run, but it is a wonderful thing, to have friends in your last hour.
Tris screams as the blade finds her ribs, piercing right through her light armor. She staggers back, weaving with the raft's motion, then finds her footing once more. "That the best you got?" she spits at Ymial. She makes as if to pull back, then stabs again with her blade.
The injury bit deeper than Tris wanted to let on. Her attempted attack is only an object of scorn for Ymial, so badly does it miss. She can only pray her companions do better.
Honestly? IDK. I'm out of big bright ideas. I mean, we can jump into the water and swim and hope Ymial goes over and dies, but at this point both my inspiration capabilities and, honestly, my enthusiasm a bit are sort of petered out. If we go out in a big dramatic blaze of waterfall death and glory, I'm okay with that.
Super fun! Tris's tagline is current.
"Cayden preserve us," Tris shouts as she sees the upcoming ledge of the waterfall. They have but a handful of seconds before they go over that roaring watefall. Even if they can kill Ymial, Tris doesn't give anyone good odds of survival if they all go over that plunge. She looks around desperately, scanning for any possible building, or better yet, a rock formation, that might still provide a stable anchoring point in the midst of the chaos of roaring water.
"Ah, bugger this," Tris says with reckless cheer, dropping her rope. She runs along the slipper, sloped roof, past Devan, forward, and hurtles into space to leap to Ymial's boat. Nobody ever got famous by hidin' in the back. As she leaps from the roof of their building to the roof of Ymial's 'boat', she whips her sword up from its scabbard.
Points for style, anyway. Tris lands, booted feet skidding on wet wood-- next to Ymial-- and drives her rapier at the bastard's side.
Sadly, despite Tris's excellent skills at leaping, she is less good at stabbing.
Tris yelps as her rope suddenly starts moving upward-- she hangs on for dear life as Devan and Arend haul her up to join them on the rooftop. Sprawling there, she has but a second to catch her breath before the water hits and splashes over her. Tris struggles upright, fully drenched. Despite it, she's grinning like a madwoman (or maybe because of it). "If we live, Devan, I'll buy you a drink-- and your bird an earthworm or something," she shouts over the sounds of raging water. Unshaking her grappling hook loose of the roof, she eyes Ymial's rooftop and sends the hook sailing again, to try and lodge it in the chimney of the other building. "This is just like a boarding action back on the river!" Tris yells.
"Aside from being an evil murderous bastard, you're also an ass," Tris calls to Ymial over the roar of the impending watery doom.
Tris stares at the wall of water a moment, and at the wall of the building. She could try to scamper up herself... probably she'd do alright... but Rahaal, Thondrir, the others... they'll have a hard time of it in the water. Tris feels her old instincts of self-preservation at brief war with her newer impulses. Hell with it... you only live once. She throws her grappling hook up to the building's rooftop. "Climb, all of you! Get up there! Don't wait for me!"
"Never lived much on a boat, have you?" Tris grins down at the other woman, while slinging her knotted rope down to provide an easier climbing surface.
"Bugger this," Tris groans as she sees the waterfall coming down. "When I said I missed being by water, this isn't what I meant, oh gods of the world!" Making a mental note to put a really sharp knife into Ymial's ugly mug at some convenient note, Tris, for now, takes the prudent path of racing after Devan, Arend, and Rahaal. Getting swept away by a torrent of ice-cold mountain water is not in her daily plan. She only hopes that the sturdiest building they can find is, well, sturdy enough.
" 's my thoughts as well, Devan, he's sure managed to get a wide motley crew workin' for him," Tris says as she picks under her fingernails with the point of a dagger. "I dunno if we're ready to move on Gromial, but I don't reckon we'll have much choice. But at this point, we could use the mines to shelter the non-combatants, at any rate, and that's better'n nothin'." To Esaul's cheerful optimism, Tris merely shrugs. "Dunno. Sow terror, use them as bargaining chips, who knows? Now how'd they get in the mines is an issue too: I 'magine the quake opened up a rift that some of the drow could climb on through, but that seems... awful convenient, you know?" She will ask the formerly-captive miners if the drow gave any hint as to their intentions. Also, she will turn to the wizard again, and say, "Hey, got kind of an odd question for you-- do you speak lizard-speak? I reckon you're a smart fellow, so... you might." If he says that he does, Tris will ask him to teach her how to say a few words in Draconic: 'friends' and 'thank you'.
Tris is startled but relieved when the next door reveals... the miners! She feels a reluctant grin tugging over her face at how relieved the townspeople are. Okay.... sometimes this 'doing good' thing has its rewards. She gets to exercise her lockpicking skills, anyway. Tris gives Rahaal a clap on the shoulder for her inspiring little pep talk. "That's right, get 'em healed up and in a state to travel. Me, I'm gonna poke around and see what I can see. [b]"Master Thunderstone, I'm guessing your spellbook's back in town, eh? Well, we'll get you back to it, but... not wishing you any harm in the world, but, you know, being the only chap to know a secret like this one... if anything horrible happens on the way back up... maybe you ought to tell us the location now, if you catch my drift?" Tris says, with an apologetic smile for the slightly awkward request she's making. Either way, the river rat looks around the chambers, idly seeing what the drow and their footsoldiers have left in whatever area they used as a sleeping chamber.
Tris fails to find her own nose.
Tris snarls curses from her river-rat past as the negative energy washes through her, making her feel weak and woozy. Still, not too weak or woozy to attack the prone drow. Too stupid-- or fanatical-- to surrender...
Tris steps over a downed goblin, past a dazed one, and winds up facing the drow cleric with Rahaal on the other side of her. "--oh, I can hear again. Obligatory would-you-like-to-surrender, then?" she says to the drow, drawing back her rapier to stab.
The silence doesn't bother Tris in particular. Still grinning, she feints low with her blade, then turns it into a high stab instead at the goblin.
Finally! A fight against the sort of foes you can easily stab! Tris grins as she races forward, sidling past Thondrir and up into the ranks of the goblin archers. Her rapier drops into her hand as she goes.
"Drow can do magic too, can't they? Maybe she was, I dunno, invisible or somethin'," Tris says with a shrug. "I'm with Devan though. Forward-- unless Esaul can find some sign of their passage." Tris gets out a day's worth of dried meat and berries from her pack and leaves it in an obvious place in the tunnel, a few feet from the dead drow. A gift to their mysterious yipping 'friend', hopefully.
Tris only nods. She takes no joy in killing a captured enemy, but there's no information to be had here, only a fate that's more merciful than the drow likely give to those they beat in battle. "What worries me," she says as she looks away from what Arend is probably doing, "is that there's a drow up here at all. This is much closer to the surface than they usually come, isn't it? Unless we went down a bit more than I've realized. And if there are drow here, I doubt it's just the one. We'd better be careful-- she had her arrows poisoned, and I bet any friends she has do so too."
Tris only rolls her eyes and makes sure the drow is securely tied at the wrists before she becomes conscious. "Dunno when it became the plan that dark-elves sneakin' around behind us were to be treated with real politely and apologized to, but whatever, I'm not ship's captain." The hand crossbow is nice, though. Tris stows the things in her haversack, taking especial care when handling the bolts.
She does sidle closer to Thondrir. "Where there's one of 'em, there may be more. Eyes peeled, eh?"
"What are you guys doing?" Tris says in bemused exasperation as everyone tries to talk the drow to death. "The drow isn't what the girl described! Something else made that yipping noise-- and good thing, or this sneaking drow would have shot us in the back!" Putting her bow away, Tris raises her hands and turns to the darkness beyond. "Hello? If you're out there, please come forward! We won't hurt you!" She repeats this in Goblin and Orc, and asks the others, "Anyone speak lizard... talk?"
"He resembles nothing like what the girl described," Tris replies to Rahaal's words, drawing her bow and loosing an arrow-- Arend will do better than her in that tight spot. Tris is heartily tired of fighting in tunnels-- oh, for open air, for the sea breeze on her face again... "But what was that yelping noise? Surely the drow didn't make that sound!"
Her arrow tinks harmlessly off the cavern ceiling. |
