Emma tries again to pin down the elf by her shadow (DC 13)
With her agility reduced by Tronar's magic, Emma's magic finds an easier target. Jolistina tugs at her shadow to free it, but doing so leaves her open to further attack.
Shaeda moves and will attempt to trip the adversary...
Jolistina falls to the ground.
Searok will attack the prone Jolistinia.
Searok's first blow lands. Jolistina is beginning to buckle under the punishment.
Seeing his target stationary but not giving anything to chance, Tronar tenses his muscles for the final throws.
to str, dex, and con
"Ok lass. It is better to talk than to be some kind of hero given that you can not move any more! What is your game here?"
Jolistina sinks to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut.
She giggles at Tronar. "So forceful! Reminds me of my darling Rolthie's silken tongue! Did you not enjoy my party? Some would call it pretty dead, but believe me, these people were even bigger stiffs before I got to them! Half-pickled too, that's what happens with an open bar! And I hope you brought crisps, the guests now double as the dip! HAHAHAHA!"
”First thing’s first,” says Shaeda as she moves to the prone figure and commences taking all of her useful things, and ties her up. ”How long can you hold her like that Tronar?”
"This will stay in place as long as I wish it to." Tronar makes a point of keeping his eye contact on his target as if he is speaking to her.
Having removed all gear from the prone opponent, and not having been bashful about frisking her either, just to be sure, and having cast a preparatory spell , Shaeda asks, ”all right now missy, what can you tell as about what happened here. I want the five W’s.”
==============
And then if diplomacy doesn’t work, she’ll recast her spell and...
Shaeda cracks her whip a couple times, in a practiced and menacing way towards the prone figure, ”alrighty then, so, the hard way it is, now start talking, or I WILL start whipping...
(To Shaeda) "Ooh, you're fun! And the Ws are Wealthy, Worthless, Wreck, Wand, and, um...Warisian?"
Among the gear confiscated from Jolistina are three potions, three wands, four alchemist fires, four smoke bombs, some magical leather armor, a masterwork dagger, masterwork crossbow, 17 bolts, thieves tools, and a silver snuffbox that contains a reddish brown powder.
One of the wands is of somewhat interesting design. Usually they are made from a fairly solid stick of wood, to better endure travel and combat. This one looks to have been whittled down to almost nothing, about as sturdy as a matchstick. A message has been carved on the aide of it - "Destroy when done. Red blotches, pale skin, sunken eyes. -R"
Shaeda smiles, ”you will forgive me, but this next part I have only learned about as theory.”. She pulls out her copy of The Unquenchable Fire, and thumbs through its well worn pages, mumbling ”hmmm, convincing the recalcitrant. Book of the Lash, chapter 5, versus 1 through 22.” She studies the words for just over a minute before looking up. ”Right! Shall we see how effective this is in practice?” And with a couple hand gestures and a prayer to Calistria, Shaeda commences using her whip to lash the truth out of the girl.
"I'm pretty sure she won't be able to stay conscious for this type of interrogation as long as I have her life essence in my whip. I can let her regain her strength back by dropping the whip if that is your preferred method."
There's really nothing for Tronar to do at this point, but watch and hold the lash. He is used to someone else interrogating his target once the lash has done its job. So he is used to both the diplomatic method and the intimidation method.
It takes a few rounds of getting knocked out and regaining consciousness before the elf becomes in any way cooperative. She seems rather masochistic, and honestly doesn't seem to mind the pain so much as she eventually gets bored.
Although it's punctuated with some rather bad jokes, here's what you eventually manage to piece together, assuming she's being honest.
Jolistina is the..."girlfriend" of Rolth Lamm, though you get the impression that the infatuation is mostly on her side. For reasons she is not privy to, Lamm wanted her to find some "parasitic" wealthy people, kill them, and make it look like they died of Blood Veil.
She got herself hired for this party, performed for a while, and then started luring off guests to kill and reanimate with a wand of Animate Dead, counting on the masks worn by the party guests to hide their now undead nature as she had them rejoin the party and silently cover the doors and windows. Eventually she had enough zombies to openly attack and kill the rest of the party, and used another wand of Sculpt Corpse to disguise the nature of their deaths as Blood Veil.
A secondary requirement of her assignment was to capture any full blooded Varisians at the party alive. There was only one (Korvosa was founded Chellish colonists, and they make up much of the population, particularly among the upper crust), a musician, and she describes how two of those "Bird doctors" came to collect him. It seems a small percentage of Varisians are resistant or immune to Blood Veil, and someone wants to know why.
Jolistina was disappointed that Rolth hasn't come himself to witness and congratulate her on her good work, so she decided to stay here and sulk for a while, amusing herself with her zombies, the food and drink at the party, and any expensive goodies she was able to swipe. Rolth didn't tell her where he'd be, just that he was "working".
With Jolistina unconscious..l
”Alright folks, that’s what we know. We still have a couple things to take care of here. Do we sleep upstairs tonight, and handle the critters in the morning, or shall we just get on with it? Shame we don’t have an Abadarian Justiciar with us, they’re usually willing to be judge, jury and executioner in cases like this. Anybody uncomfortable with the idea of me handling that with this winner of a human?” She gestures towards Jolistina.
"Well in my humble opinion, we should turn her over to the authorities. After all, showing who is really behind this massacre and why will help to calm fears that there really is something to this Blood Veil.
As far as down stairs, I've got 3 fireballs and 4 burning arcs and 5 burning hands that I haven't used yet...and I'm very interested in putting them to their final rest, lest some other unscrupulous people commandeer the zombies for another task."
I don't wanna sleep anywhere them creepy zombies are lurkin' 'round. I'm for them restin' in peace or pieces! Searok announces.
"Ok, so the plan then would be to fight them on the stairwell, I assume? Perhaps we push down the steps, towards the bottom, Searok can try and attract the attention of as many of the creatures as possible, and back onto the steps again, where I can protect him, and perhaps he can just fend off their blows. Once it appears we have gathered the lion's share of the creatures, Tronar will unload on them. Then we can see about clearing out the remainder?"
Emma's Spellcraft rolls on those magic items:
potion
potion
potion
wand
wand
wand
leather armor
Emma successfully identifies all the magic items: 2 potions of invisibility, 1 of Remove Disease, wand of Animate Dead (4 charges left), wand of Ray of Enfeeblement (heightened to level 2, 11 charges), wand of Sculpt Corpse (5 charges), +1 glamered studded leather armor.
The powder would require a Craft (Alchemy) check, though I would also allow Knowledge (Local) to have encountered it before.
"Sounds like a fantastic plan." Tronar straps the long spear to his back to have both hands free. 1 hand holding the lash and 1 hand to throw the fireball.
The other wands seem like things we don’t want around, but Shaeda suggests Tronar take the Enfeeblement one.
Seeing apparent hesitation in the zombie meat-bag, Tronar offers another suggestion.
"If Searok doesn't want to attempt this, we could always wake the quarry and have her make the zombies stand still in fireball formation since she does control them...but that would involve trust, or at least a little more whip persuasion"
Searok agrees to any plan that allows them to kill these sad zombies.
No need to wake that one up! Let me know when I should start attractin' these zombies! The sooner the better!
"Right, if we were to rouse her, and let her speak to them, the best we could hope for is she orders them to attack us, which is what we want anyways. The worst case is she orders them to spill out of the house and ravage the locals!"
As a 10' wide steps, I readjusted us slightly. I am body guarding Searok, but also between bad guys and our squishies.
Our plan really is for Searok to hold the line. If he takes hits, Emma and I can heal him. With the zombies gathered, Tronar drops a fireball 20' in front of Searok. We let them close down again on Searok, and do it again. Whether Searok spends time raging, and attacking (vice not raged and doing total defense) is entirely up to him. If he IS attacking on his actions, I will "aid another" to give him a +4 to hit, and any time he gets swung at, I will "aid another" to provide him a +5 bonus to his AC.
If Tronar runs out of fireballs, it seems he has other AOE fire spells. We'll be sure and round up the civilian from the basement before we leave.
Searok gets the zombies attention, becoming visible to them. Soon they start lurching toward him, even the ones in other rooms who were apparently ordered to come if they heard any signs of combat. Soon they are all bottlenecked at the stairwell, trying to push past one another to get at the dwarf, while his still hidden cohorts prepare to strike.
DC 20 reflex save
Boom! goes the first fire ball.
Grimacing at the brutality and the insane woman's bizarre lust for it. But it was at least worth it. But a she can't close her eyes to it, similar to seeing a stampede of wild horse rushing towards you. The horror of it freezes you. But that sight, the whoosh of the whip and the sound of impact. That is going to linger.
And it steals her voice for the following conversation. Trapped somewhere in compliant shock from the brutality of a whipping and the macabre poses of the unfortunate undead. Emma numbly follows the others lead on what seems a mad idea, but the undead cannot be left to linger.
Feeling the superheated air wash over her as Tronar set about to incinerate the zombies, Shaeda could not help but admit the power the orc had displayed.
Searok is ready to attack any singed zombies that approach him!
Nearly all of the creatures are caught in the blast, and immediately incinerated. Two were toward the edges of the fireball and merely singed, and charge forward at the group.
Come on foul creatures! Searok roars!
vs DC 10 to give +4 to hit
Tronar smiles at his work. The pool did its job today very well. "I will leave the remaining 2 to you." as Tronar points to Searok. "I will maintain the hold on our prisoner here."
One of the zombies gets smashed by Searok. The other attempts to attack him.
It gets in a lucky hit.
"We've got to do something about your armor Searok!"
Oh Yeah! Well take this!
Searok's blow finishes the final zombie, ending this rotten celebration for good.
We gather the loot and save the guy from the wine cellar.
And Tronar will make sure the prisoner is taken to the appropriate authorities in her current paralyzed condition. Once she is in a secure location and confirmed bound, he will release the lash allowing her life force to return to her unharmed.