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She nods, but she’s afraid somehow, and only whispers, ”watch.” She keeps her gaze on the sheet music in front of her.
The door to the outside opens and a some dust comes in with it. Some of the mercenaries from the town come in, wearing masks that cover the bottom part of their faces. One of the more well armed is a guard wearing two of the pistols that are similar to those found on the Brevoy spy that Tickroch and Donovan found. He looks emaciated, almost skeletal, but his expression is grim, with cold blue eyes. He doesn’t seem to be bothering with a mask.
He speaks slowly, but with authority, ”Iron Steeple,” he growls. The mercenaries with him seem intimidated by him as well. He points a bony finger at the adventurers in the inn, and stares at them in turn, adding, ”i have words with the innkeep, on account of his failure to pay taxes. Lord Drelev is patient, but his patience has been tested and then some. Leave town and forget tonight.”
The tavern keeper looks surprised, ”but Sir, I paid. I paid the last guards. I haven’t got much left.” He pleads with the adventurers who are seemingly all afraid of this intimidating person, and the majority slink out. One man, a dwarf, seemingly is wearing heavy armor and drinking, stands unsteadily and says in accented Taldan, ”now, see here, on what authority do you have to come here and disrupt this man’s business. As a knight of coin, you can’t take more than yer share.”
The bandit sneers, ”in the wild parts of the world, your god holds little purchase. Sit down or leave, or I’ll teach you a lesson you won’t soon forget, dwarf.” The Paladin sighs, ”nay, lad, bugger off and leave Sandyfoot alone.”
Almost lazily, the bandit raises his pistol and discharges with a fiery rapport one of his black powder infused bullets. Faster than anyone can react, the paladin’s head explodes into a gory mess. He raises his pistol at those in the party, but doesn’t say anything, though his expression is curious, and then swivels to a serving girl. Grabbing her by the collar, moving with almost supernatural quickness, he holds the smoldering pistol up to her head, burning her on the scalp, and the girl stifles a cry.
Tess has frozen and stopped playing, and ectoplasmic tears seem to be streaming down her face.
The bandit says, ”Drelev has sent you other missives, warnings.” He steps towards Sandyfoot, and says ”theres new blood in town, new masters, he answers to other folk. Don’t pretend this is your first warning. What’ll it be?”
Tess stares straight ahead, and just mouths the words, watch, clearly hoping Chrysa is watching her at least.
Sandyfoot is taken aback. He mumbles something and says, ”but I haven’t got anymore. Nothing! Just what’s in the till.” The bandit looks disgusted and shoves the girl back, where she’s grabbed by the mercenaries, who leer at her, and begin to drag her towards the back room, as she screams.
The Bandit steps forwards, the soles of his high boots echoing off the wood, determined and relentless, as he approaches the bar. With one hand, he reaches across and holds up the barkeep, ”till’s a good start. And I know when folk lie, so I believe you.” Lightning fast he raises his pistol and blows the man’s chest out, creating a large hole, and Sandyfoot looks down reflexively before shuddering, and dying.
The Bandit drops Sandyfoot and draws his pistol, pointing it at Tess, and shouts ”play, play, you b%!+$! It’s a good night. And your playing is sweet to my ears.” She starts playing again, shuddering, wracked with fear as the Bandit and the mercenaries begin to round up the other serving folk and either execute them, or take them screaming out of sight. The Bandit has his pistol trained on Tess but spryly hops over the bar and empties the till. He snaps at the mercenaries - growling, ”have your fun, boys, but make it fast. If Drelev finds out we killed him, I’ll have to answer too many questions. But I cannot suffer disrespect!” He kicks Sandyfoot, then leans down and begins dragging him towards the basement.
Tess is playing as everyone cleans up the place, some with magic to mask the murders, until it looks like the party saw when they first came in. The ghostly piano player shakes her head almost imperceptibly, as the Bandit approaches, drawing a hunting knife. He somehow grabs her by the hair, and says, ”I could end you, again, but you did as I asked, and earned whatever is left of this… unlife.” He shoves her forward, and she holds herself up, the mercenaries laugh as the Bandit sneers, and they head towards the door. Tess’ pain has now curdled into rage, and her face is almost horrific, as she turns back to them. They reach the door and find… it’s locked. She raises a finger, and she mutters something under her breath, and time seems to stop, then reverse, slowly at first, and then faster, as she collapses onto the stool, watching for a moment until she swivels back and holds her hands above the keys.
The reverse of the sequence plays out, faster than it happened, slowing down at the end until it stops, seemingly at the same moment it started. Time moves forward again.
Instead of a quiet place, the tavern floor is alive with activity. Servers move back and forth. The tavern keep is a jovial older man, and he’s chatting with some patrons seated at the bar. Tables that moments ago had nobody, have patrons seated in quiet conversation. The booths at the edges have patrons in quiet conversation. Some have faces shrouded in shadow by broad hats, others wear veils and masks. The windows appear to be open instead of shuttered now, but there is no light from outside, other than dim lamp light at most. There is a stout iron steeple above the bar. The smell of roasting potatoes and meat comes from the open kitchen, where a number of folks are working on preparing a meal.
The innkeep looks up, ”well - hello! Welcome to the Iron Steeple - the finest inn in the slough. What can we do for you? A room maybe? A drink? Or maybe you want to tuck in some meat and potatoes?” His plump, ruddy cheeks glow with cheer as he smiles, belying the wrinkles around his eyes. The question is directed at everyone in the party seemingly.
Vincent tracks them to the abandoned inn. He tests the front door, and finds it unlocked.
The dark inn becomes lit with the early afternoon light, and the humans take a moment to adjust. The non humans acclimate quickly and see a tavern of decent quality with the chairs on the tables and rows of empty bottles behind the bar. There doesn’t seem to be much dust, indicating that the owner left within the last few weeks at most. There are some doors which lead to what must be a kitchen, some privies, and possibly some to hallway spaces on the first floor. A staircase on the side likely leads to the lodging space of the inn.
There doesn’t seem to be any sign of the party.
Mum watches. She never takes her eyes off of the show. Her jovial do-gooder mask slips an expression more suited for the cold ruthlessness of the baroness of shadowvale. "Tess, is it?" the ripe young woman with boiling cold eyes says as she leans toward the ghost. "Believe it or not, I am not a good person, not at all. And yes, I understand that the world needs its heroes, those shining lights that make the horror shrink back, that stories can be written about, to inspire the young to their own future deeds."
The scream of a serving girl in the back room echoes into the night, making the air around Mum grow ever so colder with pure f!~+ing Hate. "Heroes are good, but at times, a villain deserves someone like me." the pretty lady leans back, hands tightening on her hilts "I promise you Tess... if you give them to me, I will hurt them. I will make them scream like they made you friends, but most importantly I will End Them."
Sootscale looks down for a moment, realizing that somehow, he is himself and not in disguise. He looks up and witnesses utter and complete horror.
Sootscale despairs as he feels powerless to stop this tragedy. But when Chrysa speaks, she opens his eyes to a possibility--that whatever they had just witnessed could be undone by their hand. He shudders as he hears Chrysa promise a painful, torturous vengeance. But he undoubtedly agrees with the overall end goal.
"WE will end them," says the kobold, moving up by Chrysa's side. He sorts through his vials and starts handing them out. "Give Sootcale time to prepare, and we will change history!"
"Curious..." Vincent murmurs. The group should be there. His tracking isn't the best, but he's confident enough of this. With a frown he settles in the corner nearest the door and pulls out his spellbook. Before he investigates properly he needs to be fully prepared.
If this were any other place at any other time, Tikroch might write this off as a person in power exerting their control. In other words, none of his concern. But they were brought to this place to view these events for a reason. And he didn't like being threatened for no reason, even if it is by this illusion or whatever it is.
Listening to Mum(?) and Sootscale, he isn't sure about changing history or anything that grandiose but destroying these figments seems a good idea as any. And if these people do exist outside this show, they could make life difficult. Uneccesary cruelty tends to be self destructive eventually but causes headaches in the mean time. "Agreed, eliminating these "people" seems the best plan. They sound like they're working for whatever shadow government runs this place anyway."
Though obviously not as passionate as Mum or Sootscale, Tikroch is no less enthusiastic.
Tess is playing, and though it’s obvious that the ghostly being is still a ghost, somehow she seems tired, she says quickly to Mum and anyone else that can hear, ”this… it is very hard for me … to keep this going… I don’t know how many times I can - the magic is wrong - something is wrong with … Fort Drelev - everything is broken” - she plays the piano gamely, but grits her teeth, and she seems to be trying hard to compose herself. Her accent is unplaceable, like she had to learn a new pronunciation for various words, and seems to take time to enunciate carefully.
Looking around the tavern, everything seems completely real, and solid.
Tess slows down and plays quietly, then focuses intently, ignoring questions.
Sandyfoot says, ”huh, Tess is acting odd, I’ll talk to her later. Take a seat, someone will be with you in two shakes of a wyvern’s tail!” He chuckles to himself.
As the scene progresses, Tik moves to take a look out the windows to gather any extra details about the place. "I'll follow your lead Mum, Sootscale. I have no desire to watch this scene play out again and the figures seemed to react to us. I recommend we ambush the jerks before they get a chance to kill any of these people. Then, assuming this goes back to an abandoned inn, find them in the real world and do the same there. I wouldn't use too much magic as our efforts might be wasted here."
The stars are the wrong stars for this part of the world. They’re also… wrong. They seem closer than regular stars. Much closer.
Vincent completes his work, prepping a variety of spells and then casts a simple cantrip to examine the building for magic. As he ponders what on earth is going on he wracks his prodigious mind for explanations...
"Hm, is there a way outside tavern? Fight outside seems better, but not sure if magics extend beyond this place."
Deferring to Tikroch to examine the way outside, Sootscale sits down at a table and starts looking around, wondering if the fact that he was not disguised here was troubling any of the patrons. Regardless, he starts taking out some elixirs.
"Sootscale knows much alchemy," he says, looking to Donovan (and Tikroch should he return to the table). He quickly gathers and hands out some vials with liquids, mostly dark hues with correspondingly earthy scents. "Drink these in a few minutes, before the coming battle."
Tikroch stops planning, just sort of trailing off mid thought. Not taking his eyes off the sky, he motions to the others to come see. "Ummm, I know I was thinking this was a sophisticated illusion or something but this sky isn't right. I don't think we're in the Fort Drelev we know." Not bothering to see if the group comes to see, he moves to the door to step outside to see better.
Tikroch opens the door and peers our. The air smells like the air of a night in this part of the river kingdoms would smell, more or less.
"As my friend says, we will stop these 'jerks'" she smiles oddly with a certain fondness at the Tikroch's insult. "Here, There, and Everywhere."
"Do you mean we're elsewhere, or in a different point in history?" Donovan asks Tikroch.
Her speech is an older version of Taldane, understandable but with some archaic terms. Taldane had become the most commonly used trade language in the inner sea almost uncountable years in the past, but Tess’ speech uses terms and pronunciations that would have been commonplace between 3400-3700 AR.
Sandyfoot frowns, and calls out to Tikroch, ”hey, your gonna let a load of gnats in - spoil everyone’s drinks. This is an inn, not a barnyard.” He chuckles to himself, ”go out or in, don’t mind much to me so long as you aren’t the slough in to eat my patrons alive just to stargaze.”
He turns back to the other patrons and pours one a mug of ale.
Responding to Donovan, "Unsure, I'm not sure how stars can be closer but these are. Luca, stay with these people, defend." Tikroch waves off Sandyfoot's good natured comments and steps out.
When Tikroch ventures outside the tempo of the piano playing slows a little and Tess grimaces.
Tikroch gets a better look at the sky, and it confirms the same idea, that the stars are closer than they should be, and the constellations are wrong. Tikroch also knows for a fact that Fort Drelev is not more than a few years old.
His stargazing interrupted by the sudden change in music, Tikroch comes back inside making sure to close the door behind him. "That will have to be a mystery for another time. For now, let's get ready to ambush."
"Not sure why, but you stepping out was a bit hard on Tess," reports the kobold. He hands Tikroch an elixir. "This one gives you an invisible shield of force," he notes.
"Cheers!". Expecting to encounter their foe shortly, he takes a sip of his ale and then starts downing various elixirs.
Tikroch is much more concerned after his "investigation" outside. After his statement about a myster for later, he comes to the others to gather them and whispers, "I don't want to say anything to loud but I think we are in a part of the fey lands. But it seems like a new part like it was just created or possibly stolen and changed for this vision we are a part of. This fight may be more than just an illusion."
Chrysa notices that the piano is being played now, by a translucent grey-tinted woman in a long dress. She also smiles at Chrysa, though there is obvious pain in her eyes. The tune she plays is merry and jaunty, and the spirits of everyone in the place seem as raised as they can.
The innkeep chuckles as he sees Chrysa look at the piano, ”oh, don’t mind Tess, she… well, she came with the piano, as far as I can tell. Doesn’t speak much but she’s a heck of a player, and she makes everyone feel right at home.” This much seems true enough, Everyone’s cheered a bit, He continues, ”name’s Benj, where are my manners… pull up a seat, rest your bones, and someone will help you shortly.” He goes back to chatting with the folks at the bar, seemingly telling an expressive story which makes them laugh.
As if like clockwork, after a short time the door to the outside opens and some dust comes in with it. Some of the mercenaries from the town come in, wearing masks that cover the bottom part of their faces. One of the more well-armed is a guard wearing two of the pistols that are similar to those found on the Brevoy spy that Tickroch and Donovan found. He looks emaciated, almost skeletal, but his expression is grim, with cold blue eyes. He doesn’t seem to be bothering with a mask.
He speaks slowly, but with authority, ”Iron Steeple,” he growls. He points a bony finger at the adventurers in the inn dismissively, and stares at them in turn, adding, ”I have words with the innkeep, on account of his failure to pay taxes. Lord Drelev is patient, but his patience has been tested, and then some. Leave town and forget tonight.”
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Heroes stand against evil. Physically and spiritually, they rise and announce to the horrors that they will not stand aside and let their heinous acts continue unabated.
Quite literally, most heroes give up all possibility of surprise, of tactics, and SENSE to prattle on about justice and honor, or even just a simple to tell the bad guys to 'bugger off'.
Mum might be acting like a hero, but truth she is Chrysa Surtova. Born of a bloodline known far and wide for ruthlessness, then tempered by torture, hate, and vengeance, into the woman she is now.
A woman who doesn't throw away the upper hand. So instead of speeches, she just attacks.
Tikrok let's the gunman make his speach to let him and his minions move out of the doorway. It wouldn't do to let any of them escape after all. As soon as the time is right, a vine lashes out from above, trying to wrap around the thugs.
Trained in kobold methods of ambush warfare, Sootscale too seems ready to attack--should he be able to employ some bombs without unduly harming other patrons or the inn.
If bombs don't seem feasible, Sootscale does have nets--nets he knows how to infuse with alchemist's fire.
Donovan is up and out of his chair with his shield up in expectation of the incoming bullets as soon as Mum leads to the attack.
The Bandit looks up, a little confused, at the mass of plant life hanging out in the rafters, but doesn't say anything, and turns to Benj Sandyfoot, seemingly not comprehending Tikroch.
The tavern keeper looks surprised, ”but Sir, I paid. I paid the last guards. I haven’t got much left.” He pleads with the adventurers who are seemingly all afraid of this intimidating person, and the majority slink out.
The Bandit narrows his eyes, and spies Donovan, who has risen in defense of of Benj. He steps over, and raises his pistol, "guess I need to make an example out of you, boy..."
The barrel of the gun explodes, and it seems that it's somehow infused with a life-draining power, and also cuts through the magical protection like paper . The wound is grievous, but contrary to The Bandit's expectations, Donovan isn't killed instantly. The Bandit seems surprised, but doesn't react further. He glares at the others in the room, though his eyes still seem to pass over the others in the party, as if they are still pieces of a set in a play.
There's a loud, screeching pwang as the bullet strikes Donovan's adamantine helm, the supernatural metal proving its worth against even firearms. The crusader rocks slightly but remains upright.
As soon as the thug raises his weapon, vines lash out at the man's support. Hoping to deprive the gunman of backup he attempts to squeeze the life out of the guards.
As the vines thrash, Luca sprints from his out of the way corner to try to tear apart the subjects of his master's ire.
The hovering woman near the piano streaks across the room, drawing the gunslinger's attention, but not fast enough to avoid her short sword from digging into his stomach. Darting back, she smiles "Examples are a delightful thing. Care to try and make one of me?"
He snaps up his pistol as the woman approaches, discharging a powerful shot into Mum’s shoulder. He growls, ”fine,” and his voice doesn’t sound angry - but very deliberate and practiced - as if Mum is just another obstacle in his way.
As Mum gets within stabbing range, she’s struck by the fact that the man’s eyes are glowing, with an unholy light. The knife cuts into his coat, but the man doesn’t bleed - in fact, it seems slip into The Bandit with much less resistance than expected. When mum is much closer than before; he smells of dust.
One of the guards is knocked out by Tikroch, and the other is hurt a bit by the velociraptor.
Sootscale steps forward popping out from under the table. "Bombs away!" he shouts, and begins lobbing at the foe with the gun.
;
;
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Prone
21 damage
28 damage
28 damage
The Bandit looks surprised as he's knocked to the ground. The guards, seemingly a little concerned, move to deal with the threats that they can, as one seemingly dies from the crushing damage of the sargassum. They do so trying to avoid attacks from the flailing plant arms.
One manages to connect against Mum, but only by sheer luck.
The enormously-empowered crusader lunges out from his seat, hunched over in the common room as he steps over the table and moves in on the gunslinger.
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The Bandit seems to be paying attention now, but though there are some tatters to his clothes, it looks like he’s relatively intact. Without emotion, and not bothering to defend himself, he raises his pistols and unloads a barrage into Chrysa and Sootscale.
He does not reload the weapons during this barrage.
Mum cries out briefly but the Bandit’s weapon blows a hole clear through Mum’s neck. The woman teeters for a moment before collapsing as the barmaids scream in horror.
In another few shots, the remains of the Governor are little more than a bloody mess. He directs his attention towards Donovan. He scoffs, growling, ”now would be a good time to run.” The barrels of his weapons are smoking and red hot, causing the weapons to burn his bony hands, but the Bandit doesn’t seem to care.
The dwarf at the table nearby stands up, heaving his weapon, and says ”you won’t get away with this, brigand!” The cold eyes of The Bandit flick over to the dwarf, as if he is below contempt.
Tess changes the song she’s playing, with the tempo increasing noticeably. She weeps ghostly tears as she struggles with something.
Tikroch sees mum's fresh wound and the mess that was once sootscale and decides change of tactics is in order. Certain that he wouldn't survive a barage like that, he tries to wrap the gunman up in his vines anyway.
Luca, having no other instructions, continues to attack the guards.
The guards manage to stay up. The two next to Luca keep wailing on the dinosaur.
The other guards move to engage Donovan, and perhaps make it more difficult to hit The Bandit.
When Tikroch moves to pull The Bandit closer to him, he is suddenly struck by a wave of fear, and it looks like he intends to drop the prone figure immediately.
Since Tikroch's vines are doing a lot of the work here, Donovan keeps his shield up and somehow manages to cast remove fear once he notes the druid's resolve wavering.
The Bandit seems torn, but realizes that Tikroch is a big threat, and unloads on the plant creature hanging from the rafters.
With the last shot, the druid is dead, and the corpse reverts to its humanoid form and lands with a wet thud next to The Bandit.
The dwarf at the table nearby stands up, moves up, trying to engage with the guards, he gestures for the barmaids to flee. The remaining adventurers in the tavern are frozen in fear and horror, ”get out, lasses! If there’s a backdoor, flee!” The barmaids blink, and move to escape towards the back. Benj has retrieved a club and seems to be approaching too, ”you’ll have to kill all of us, you bastard!”
The dwarf and Benj swing at the guards.
To no effect.
The Bandit growls ”and?” he sneers contemptuously. He turns his head towards Donovan, waiting for a chance to slaughter the cleric.
Luca screeches as his master falls to the floor. Not knowing what else to do he continues trying to shred the guards.
One of the guards takes a little more damage, but stays up.
The guards seem to be poorly equipped to fight adventurers, and all miss.
Donovan shows no inclination of running away, but he can't risk a holy smite in close quarters without knowing who might get hit by the collateral damage. Instead he simply hammers on the pistoleer, fully expecting to get shot and die in the next few seconds by the apparition that apparently never needs to reload and that uses spectral bullets, like something out of Deadlands.
The Bandit grunts as the longsword slices into him, though he doesn't seem to be much hurt by it.
With one true shot, he blasts another hole into Donovan, the bullet leaving a gaping wound and thudding into the ceiling. He turns his attention towards Luca, and with a few more shots, kills the raptor as well.
With a few more rapports, the dinosaur lies in a crumpled heap. Satisfied with his handiwork, The Bandit stands up nimbly and brushes himself off.
Almost lazily, The Bandit looks at the corpses of those who have fallen, as the guards angrily notice their dead companion, whom they gesture at, asking "look what they did, you said this would be easy but they fought back." The bandit looks at the one that's complaining and greets his diatribe with a cold stare, and the guard throws his hands up apologetically. The Bandit turns to the Dwarf, holding up a large maul, and Benj, who looks terrified but seems to be trying to not run away, and he raises his weapons and shoots both in the head, with little remaining above the neck.
He surveys the inn, draws his pistol, pointing it at Tess, and shouts ”play, play, you b%$*!! It’s a good night. And your playing is sweet to my ears.” She starts playing again, shuddering, wracked with fear as the Bandit and the mercenaries begin to round up the other serving folk and either execute them, or take them screaming out of sight. The Bandit has his pistol trained on Tess but spryly hops over the bar and empties the till. He snaps at the mercenaries - growling, ”have your fun, boys, but make it fast. If Drelev finds out we killed him, I’ll have to answer too many questions. But they have to learn not to fight back!” He kicks Sandyfoot's corpse, then leans down and begins dragging him towards the basement.
The remainder of the scene seems to play out much as it did before.
Donovan is slightly nonplused by his ghost form, but his lack of senses makes it difficult for him to do much. He passes through the door to the exterior of the inn, wondering idly why his feet don't pass through the ground beneath him but his body can pass through walls. Since he's not a tracker, he can't find any signs of where the bandits came from, though he does glance around to see if they came on horses. Then he tries to cast a simple cantrip to see if he still has his divine connection while he's dead.
Tikroch goes to Luca to make sure he is in a similar state to himself and apparently Donovan and not dead dead.
Leaving Luca to sleep, Tikroch starts walking towards to fort.
When Donovan pushes into the ground, he finds with minimal effort that he can put a foot into it. He looks around outside and doesn't see that The Bandit and the guards came in on horse. In fact, other than crickets to the northwest, nothing outside seems alive.
Tikroch begins walking towards the fort, passing through buildings which seem empty. Tess doesn't seem to change how she's playing when Tikroch's "spirit" leaves. The buildings along the way seem to have all the trappings of habitation, but nobody is alive, and the lights are out. He reaches the fort after about 15 minutes of walking and notices the "ghost" of Sootscale poking around in flight around the upper part of the inner fort, with wings extended, looking through the windows of the fort.
A horse is seemingly eating from a feedbag near an outbuilding in the courtyard of the inner fort.
Donovan stays and watches the scene, and he notes that some of the guards rush back to The Bandit. "The barmaids, some have escaped!" He grunts, "fine, let them." The guards left look angry, and seem to be especially vicious to the remaining people who could not escape. Sandyfoot is executed much as he was before, though not without an additional pain inflicted on him.
Towards the end, Sootscale gets back to the inn and spots Mum, though they're still unable to talk. They see Donovan's spirit, and the cleaned up inn, and Tess is still playing. There's no sign of Tikroch, though they spy Luca sleeping nearby. Donovan notes that Mum looks like a different person somehow.
The ghostly piano player shakes her head almost imperceptibly, as the Bandit approaches, drawing a hunting knife. He somehow grabs her by the hair, and says, ”I could end you, again, but you did as I asked, and earned whatever is left of this… unlife.” He shoves her forward, and she holds herself up, the mercenaries laugh as the Bandit sneers, and they head towards the door. Tess’ pain has now curdled into rage, and her face is almost horrific, as she turns back to them. They reach the door and find… it’s locked. She raises a finger, and she mutters something under her breath, and time seems to stop, then reverse, slowly at first, and then faster, as she collapses onto the stool, watching for a moment until she swivels back and holds her hands above the keys.
Mum, Sootscale, and Donovan find their spirits wrenched towards their bodies, and the reverse of the sequence plays out, faster than it happened, slowing down at the end until it stops, seemingly at the same moment it started. Time moves forward again. The three of them seem to be alive - but there's no sign of Tikroch or Luca.
Instead of a quiet place, the tavern floor is alive with activity. Servers move back and forth. The tavern keep is a jovial older man, and he’s chatting with some patrons seated at the bar. Tables that moments ago had nobody, have patrons seated in quiet conversation. The booths at the edges have patrons in quiet conversation. Some have faces shrouded in shadow by broad hats, others wear veils and masks. The windows appear to be open instead of shuttered now, but there is no light from outside, other than dim lamp light at most. There is a stout iron steeple above the bar. The smell of roasting potatoes and meat comes from the open kitchen, where a number of folks are working on preparing a meal.
The innkeep looks up, ”well - hello! Welcome to the Iron Steeple - the finest inn in the slough. What can we do for you? A room maybe? A drink? Or maybe you want to tuck in some meat and potatoes?” His plump, ruddy cheeks glow with cheer as he smiles, belying the wrinkles around his eyes. The question is directed at everyone in the party seemingly.