"I wonder what the price is on a silver short sword?" The paladin tries to move quickly to make their report.
"I wonder... would mirrors help? They would spread the sunlight, yes? Perhaps we could buy some and position them?" Staryth says, thinking of where to find a store that might have some, and yes, if a smith actually has silver weapons
"Agreed," Staryth pulls out a mirror, "Maybe we can capture the sunlight and project it further in like a weapon? Silvio, you have better aim than I, I think."
Silvio pulls out his silvered sword. "Stay close, but not too close - maybe we can get the drop on them." he says, as he leads the way into the building.
;
Leaving the mirror to expose light along the exit so the things will have trouble escaping, Staryth follows his friend, Glaive at the ready
After angling a mirror near the entrance to the alley to catch some sunlight and reflect it further into the gloom, the party moves back into the corpse-filled space between the two buildings, the reek of rot and decay assaulting their senses in doing so. Moving behind Silvio as he quietly creeps down the alley, the group readies to take on the undead menace they faced earlier, now better equipped to handle the situation.
As Silvio creeps up to the opening, he quickly peers inside to see the forms of the three undead they encountered previously. They all sulk inside the tight confines of the building's interior, waiting for the welcome embrace of night. One of the creatures appears wounded, burned and scarred by flame.
Lucius will voice his own battlecry to inspire his allies when everyone is ready.
Silvio either charges the injured vampire or, if that's not possible, takes a 5-foot step south to block the doorway and readies an attack on the first vampire to draw near.
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Krojun and Lucius quickly work to inspire the group for the fight ahead, knowing all to well the deadliness of these enemies. Steeling his jaw, Silvio charges into the room and impales one of the unsuspecting creatures at the end of his blade. By amazing luck alone the vampire isn't killed outright, but the look in its eyes tells Silvio that its only concern now is to get away from the killing sword as quickly as possible.
Lucius moves into line of sight but stays behind Staryth attempts to finish off the burned one.
Staryth hurls a vial of holy water at the one furthest across the room
Moving quickly while the vampires are still in shock, Silvio flanks with Krojun and attempts to strike the vampire engaged by Krojun.
;
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Lucius invokes another blazing column of fire between two of the undead creatures, reducing the first one to cinders with the blast. The second spawn, already mortally wounded by Silvio's strike, crumples to the ground under the heat of the blast, perishing alongside his companion. Krojun and Silvio move to the remaining vampire, both working their weapons with expert precision, dropping the creature under a flurry of blows and slashes.
"You gentlemen were a blur," Staryth is impressed. He puts away the vial for later.
"We got the drop on them this time - made all the difference." Silvio examines the bodies. "Now, how do we make sure these guys stay dead?" Silvio isn't really sure, but he takes his wooden stakes and shoves them into the vampire spawns hearts for good measure.
"If they're called Vampire 'spawn', one must wonder what Vampire spawned them, and where or she is," Staryth for his part, will sever the heads from the vampire spawn's bodies. Gruesome, but he's sure they won't come back from that easily
With the heat of the short but brutal battle over, you each are able to take in the details of the room you have entered. Dozens of crooked glass eyes, hollow and crazed, glare from the heads of malformed and half-carved dolls lining skewed workroom shelves. Rat-gnawed stuffed aurochs, disembodied doll limbs, miniature rolling elephants, unseaworthy wooden ships, and crooked blocks illustrated with deformed or poorly painted animals fill bins and racks about the room. A cracked wooden door leads to the north, while a rickety trap door breaks the sawdust-covered floor to the east. In one corner lies the drying corpse of an old bald man amid the wood chips, rusty tools, and oily rags of a scored workbench.
After staking and beheading the vampire spawn, you are able to give the corpse in the corner a cursory inspection, finding eight puncture wounds up and down his neck as well as a rough iron ring containing several keys. The trap door leads into a 3–1/2-foot-tall dirt-floored crawlspace with the same dimensions as the room above. Medium creatures treat the area as difficult terrain. Amid numerous blocks of various types of mundane wood lie four simple but solid coffins.
Inside the coffins is a dry, grey soil, which you recognize as having similarities to the soil found in Ustalav.
Searching the bodies you find three leather pouches, a brass ring shaped like a spider, with the legs wrapping around to form the circular shape of the ring itself, and a set of bone pipes. Inside the pouches you find 300 gold pieces and 15 platinum pieces, all of Ustalavic minting.
. "No chance the poor man is going to turn into a vampire, is he? Anyway, seems to me it's a pretty big problem that there are four coffins and only three dead vampire spawn. That means there's one more on the loose. If we destroy the coffins, what will happen to the last vampire?"
Staryth feels like he's missing something, but what he couldn't say. He'll say rites over the man, and then look at Silvio, "I'm honestly not sure. I never actually thought I'd meet anything like this, not in our city."
"Well I can tell you that these coffins probably came from Ustalav, because that's where the dirt is from. Don't ask me how I know."
Silvio smacks his forehead, realizing he missed something. "Oh right, we killed one of these guys in the alley earlier. So that makes four. Still, what in the Nine Hells are vampires from Ustalav doing here?"
Silvio puts his sword away and takes out his thieves' tools instead. He heads towards the locked door and begins to work on it.
Staryth finishes beheading, "Ustalav? I've heard of smugglers and the like, but never any who dealt in vampire spawn." He shakes his head, "I'm going to destroy the coffins just to discourage another creature taking up residence in it. And severing the heads should do it from any more we encounter"
Silvio fiddles with the lock on the door for a bit, finally managing to work the tumblers into place with a satisfying *click*. Nudging the door open he can see what would be the normal entry room into this home that doubled as a shop. Unbalanced stuffed animals, poorly equipped toy soldiers, and dolls exhibiting myriad accidental deformities stare blankly out of the filth-smeared front window of this toy store showroom. Several heavy-looking kites dangle purple and crimson tails from the ceiling above, and a dollhouse recreating Castle Korvosa’s intimidating towers dominates a table in the room’s center. Festooned with tiny bells, the shop’s entrance stands to the north, across from a counter cluttered with dusty candies.
Searching behind the counter, the party turns up a fairly small lockbox that jingles with the pathetic sound of a small amount of loose coins.
"So creepy this place is."
"Well the ring gives a person hops while the pipes are good for scaring people. Since we know where they're from, we can probably figure out the how and the why soon enough."
Silvio inspects the lockbox carefully and then opens it, just in case the coinage is more promising than it sounds. "Do you think this was the old man's store? The guy who got bit? It sure is weird."
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"That only seems right," He says agreeing with Krojun
Silvio works the lock for a few moments before opening it, the crude device posing no challenge to his skills. Peering inside he finds 2 gp, 8 sp, 22 cp, a silver tooth, and a brass key shaped like the symbol of Abadar and bearing the number 261.
Seeing the main room of the shop makes you realize where you are. The place is known as Giotorri's Toys. From here, for more than 20 years, the artless ex-con Rodolfo Giotorri created his horrible toys. The shop never was much of a hit and the old man barely got by on the few things he was able to sell. As far as you know he had no next of kin in the city.
"An Abadarian deposit box key, we have found a valuable clue in this, I think."
. "Well, we've done what we can here. Let's make sure the poor man isn't at risk of becoming like one of those vampires. Then we should report back what we found."
"This place belongs to that old hack Rodolfo Giotorri. His toys were always terrible, but he didn't deserve this. He's also got no family to speak of."
"Poor fellow."