The elf will move forward and pull the boy away.
Telerin pulls Miles to safety as Aberus creates a glowing scimitar of force, which immediately slashes at the fiend.
"Owww!" howls the fiend, then it takes a moment to concentrate.
Arloric stomps forward drawing his sword.
"GO BACK TO THE INFERNO!" he shouts as he attempts to chop the little bastard in two.
;
I believe that's 12 damage before including the imp's DR, since my sword's not silver.
No, just the two rolls together. The +2 is added once to the 2 rolls.
Arloric smashes his sword into the credinous fiend and though he doesn't kill it, he does give it a serious blow. The force of the strike is enough to interrupt the imp's attempt to vanish!
Alexa, her hair still burning and standing on end, yanks out her sword, circles around the hell-beast, and stabs at its back!
Alexa's surprise attack misses, but the other party members still have their chance...
The shimmering force shaped like a scimitar slices through the air towards the frustrated imp.
She will do her best to put herself between the imp and the boy.
Arloric takes another swing at the imp, trying to finish it off once and for all.
"NO! MORE!!!
;
Uriel heaves his sword into attack posture and likewise chops at the imp.
He, too, misses.
Telerin moves to shield the lad; the imp decides to take the opportunity to dive in and try to sting her!
Uriel steps in close and swings his bastard sword, trying to be careful to avoid hitting Telerin.
His sword chops into the imp and gives it a cutting wound, but it starts healing quite quickly!
Alexa growls in frustration and stabs at the imp again!
The force weapon takes its final swing at the imp before winking out.
Aberus steps to where he tossed his mace and picks it up, readying it to engage the imp.
She would have had her quarterstaff out
Fort save
The imp disappears. You hear a snickering that quickly fades into the distance.
Miles weakly looks up at Alexa, smiles, then closes his eyes. He is badly dehydrated and his clothing is soiled. His fingernails are broken and bloody.
Uriel looks in the direction of the snickering and concentrates, his eyes taking on an unearthly glow.
Uriel senses the faint source of evil flutter its way up the stairs and out of his range.
Alexa's hair ceases to stand on end, and returns to its normal black lustre. She races over to Miles' side, tears streaming down her face and her chest heaving with emotion.
"Miles..." She gathers the boy into her arms and just hugs him for a while. She gently rocks him back and forth, as much for her piece of mind as his own.
Miles rests quietly in Alexa's arms. He seems fragile, almost hollow. Clearly he has not done well in the aftermath, though arguably surviving in a demon-infested town is itself a kind of triumph.
Aberus rushes forward to Telerin. He pulls out the vial of antitoxin and hands it over to her. "Take this. It should help fight the poison from that sting." He then turns his attention to Alexa and Miles. Looking the boy over, he takes note of his injuries and says, "Let me channel Sarenrae's grace to help him."
Uriel shakes his head. "It went up the stairs, headed off that way." he tells the others.
Arloric shakes his fist in the direction Uriel indicates.
"THIS ISN'T OVER, YOU WRETCHED LITTLE SCORPION!"
He sheathes his sword and looks back at Alexa hugging her brother and his expression immediately softens.
"The cub's been found and returned to the pack," he says with a weak smile, unsure of what else to say.
As you exit the orphanage, Horgus and Anevia rejoin you.
Horgus says, "Listen! We should visit my house next. I have plenty of food stores and... useful supplies! We could probably all get some much-needed good rest. It's not far!"
Anevia rolls her eyes at Horgus' constant demands and says, "I was expecting more fighting. It looks like the demons have cleared out, and we're just seeing occasional survivors and monsters. There must be folks holed up somewhere, maybe one of the big temples, the travelers' inns, or the guard barracks."
Aberus says, "Horgus may have the right idea here. Miles is in desperate need of some food, and frankly, we could use some ourselves. If we're going to join whatever resistance is left, we need to be in a condition to help."
As you follow Horgus' lead to the east, he and Anevia engage in their usual bickering...
Horgus: "We'd already be there if we didn't have to drag along dead weight."
Anevia: "You'd never get there if we didn't all help you get there."
Horgus: "Oh, nice of you to go to we and not acknolwedge that it's these people doing all the work."
Anevia: "That's not true, I've used my bow to good effect."
Horgus: "As I recall you've used your bow mostly to miss. If you were actually skilled at something you might be useful."
Anevia: "I have plenty of skills, thank you, unlike a spoiled minor noble."
Horgus: "Oh, you mean your thieving skills?"
Anevia: "Those skills are used in pursuit of good causes!"
Horgus: "Such as robbing my warehouses!"
Anevia: "That 'robbery' proved your innocence!"
Horgus blusters at that and, in typical movie fashion, is saved by your imminent arrival at his manor house in the central-east side. In the middle of all the chaos and destruction, Horgus Gwerm’s manor is something of a miracle, for it seems to have escaped without any damage at all.
Horgus looks over the completely intact and undamaged manor house with a look of disgust.
"Abandoned! My highly-paid guards have completely abandoned the place! Why did I bother paying them..." He fumbles through his pouches, produces a heavy key, and puts it to the lock in the front door, which opens with a loud click. He opens the door and gestures magnanimously. "And now, at last, I am home! Thanks to all of you. Please make yourselves at home and be my guests."
His home is miraculously untouched. Careful scrutiny of the place shows no signs of forced entry or damage.
"Perhaps when the guards fled, the place was abandoned, and the demons left it alone because there was nobody to kill," suggests Anevia.
Horgus bustles about checking his possessions and his home and seems quite satisfied. "Well! This is a relief!" he says. "Come with me." He heads down a narrow staircase near the kitchen, unlocks a door at the base, and passes through an archway that enters a vaulted cellar. All about are stores of food - baskets of (now two-day-old) bread, strings of sausage, wheels of cheese, jars of preserves, barrels of flour, boxes of crackers, smoked slices of fish on shelves, all kinds of pickled vegetables. He moves quickly to the rear of the cellar, moves several boxes, and opens a barrel, rummages through it, and then produces several jingling bags of coins.
"Of course you recognized my importance immediately, but still, you did a most adequate job of getting us safely to the surface. Above average, even," he says awkwardly as he hands the bags to Telerin.
"You are welcome to rest and feast here. There are many guest rooms and I have plenty of supplies in my cellars."
Anevia says, "I dunno about you folks, but I could do with a good cleaning, a sausage, and a nap."
Sting—injury; save Fort DC 13; frequency 1/round for 6 rounds; effect 1d2 Dex; cure 1 save. The save DC is Constitution-based, and includes a +2 racial bonus.
Arloric gets more and more frustrated with the bickering between Anevia and Horgus until they finally arrive and it stops. As they settle in, he waves Anevia over so they can talk more discreetly.
"What was that you and Horgus were arguing about with a break-in and innocence?"
Aberus ignores the bickering between Horgus and Anevia as they approach the former's home, though he does turn his head to look at them when Anevia mentions something about a robbery and proving his innocence. I have no idea what that's about, but it must be important if they are arguing about it in the middle of all this. He looks like he's about to say something, but changes his mind and stays silent.
He takes stock of Horgus's home as they enter and walk through. "I think Anevia might be right, Mr. Gwerm. What we've seen so far suggests the demons are interested in people, not their things. I guess that's not really a surprise."
Aberus follows Horgus down to the cellar, and is absolutely stunned when he produces bags of coins and hands them to Telerin. For all his faults, he is a man of his word.
"Mr. Gwerm, I am ..." he says, uncharacteristically fumbling with his words, "Your generosity ... It is greatly appreciated. Thank you. For the opportunity to ... For all this."
Staying in a safe place to rest, especially with the boy, might be of benefit. she suggests
Uriel glances askance at Anevia when burglary and thieving are mentioned, but quickly moves on Bigger fish to fry. Let it go. When they enter the house, he glances about suspiciously. This is almost too perfect. When he gets a chance, he pulls Aberus aside. "Do you have the ability to detect poison or purify food? This place is...almost too untouched. Call me paranoid, but I wonder if there isn't subtler evil at play here. It doesn't hurt to be cautious."
Aberus scratches his chin as he thinks over Uriel's concerns. "Hmmm. That is a good point. I can cleanse the food, but I don't have a spell prepared to detect poisons or contaminants."
He looks around a the stores and continues, "I can take care of this discreetly. That should be enough for now. After morning prayers I'll ask Sarenrae for the other one, just to make sure we aren't leaving something behind."
Alexa doesn't say much, as preoccupied as she is with ensuring Miles will recover.
Arloric waits for Anevia to answer, hoping he hadn't crossed a line.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Anevia sits in a comfy chair with her leg propped up on a stool as she talks to Arloric, while Horgus is off puttering in his larder.
"It's... kind of complicated," she says. "Without going into detail about my past, I have a bit of a... mischievous streak. I got into some petty larceny while younger, and some adventuring. Settled down after falling in love and all that." She blushes slightly and smiles and looks down, then composes herself and looks back up to Arloric. "Horgus knows about this because we had kind of a run-in before... my, uh, spouse is part of the Eagle Watch, and they've been tracking cultic activity in this city. They suspected Gwerm of illicitly funding some kind of demonic cults, and they engaged me to sneak into one of his warehouses to find proof. I, uh, found a bunch of financial records... but they were all of donations to the crusade, as well as a personal shrine to Abadar."
Anevia clears her throat and takes a sip of water from a mug. "I don't like his attitude; he's brusque and arrogant and entitled... but he is, ultimately, on the right side of things. I don't know why he hides it - why he keeps his religion and his donations and everything secret - but I know about having secrets that you don't want people to know, given my own past. So I stayed quiet."
"But he probably thinks I was trying to rob him."
~~~~~~~~~~
Even staying a night at the house, none of the food or drink seems to taint you in any way. For once you sleep reasonably well, only awakened a few times by unnatural shrieks from outside in the dark. Horgus' estate has many rooms, with comfortable full beds, blankets, sheets, and locked, shuttered windows. He even has a small private well in the cellar from which he can draw fresh, clean, cool water, giving you not only a chance to fill your waterskins, but enough to clean up, shave, bathe, and wash stains out of clothes and weapons. (Or use presidigitation, whichever you like.)
Miles seems better in the morning. His face is flushed and bruised, but with the dirt cleaned up he looks like a good young lad - a bit hollowed-out and a bit in shock, but at least his body will heal. He sits up in bed late in the morning after waking up from a long, nightmare-wracked sleep, and rubs his eyes and before asking for water or breakfast he simply turns like a whipcrack and wraps his arms around Alexa and starts heaving large, wracking sobs from the release of pent-up fear and horror.
Eventually Miles calms and is able to eat. He, too, has an interesting tale to tell.
"When we got separated in all the confusion I tried to hide but there were demons everywhere killing people tearing them apart eating their guts and and and I didn't know what to do and then I saw this lady and man getting a bunch of kids into this long building that's the building we were in..." He takes a deep breath. "It was an orphanage and all the kids were orphans but it turns out the man and lady were cult-ics of Ba-fo-met and they were going to sacrifice us and they made deals with the demons and the demons started torturing us and jabbing us and they locked us in a basement and didn't feed anyone." He takes another deep breath. "But we found a little grate covering a hole, a tunnel, I think it was for an old stove chimney but the stove was gone, and I squeezed in to see if there was a way out, but there wasn't, and I tried to get out but one of the demon-things, the flying one with the stingy tail, came in and said mean things and occasionally stabbed me and laughed. Then I don't know how long I was in there but I heard shouts and fighting and people saying 'We killed the demons' and 'They must have been cultists, how could they do this to children' and they looked all over and they found the grate but they closed it up and said 'Well the demon that went in there won't get out' and then they went away. And I wanted to call for help but the demon had its stingy at my throat and it said if I made any noise it would jab me and kill me. And the people said 'Let's go back to Defender's Heart' and then I heard them walk away and then I was down there I don't know how long until you found me and I LOVE YOU ALEXA!" He throws his arms around Alexa again and burrows his head into her shoulder.
Arloric listens and nods.
"Horgus seems the kind of person who actively tries to push people away. I'm sorry you had to put up with him like that. At least he seems to have calmed down now that we got him home. I'll ask him about it later, if you like. Maybe he'll open up to me when he wouldn't to you. Uncle Crocris told me one of the duties of the old druids was to mediate between the clans and help keep the peace..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Arloric watches and gives a weak smile as Miles vents his fear and sadness and joy at reuniting with his sister.
"We were at the Heart the night before this madness started...Think we might know any of these people Miles described? If anything, we should check it out after checking the Tirabade home as well."
Uriel nods at the idea of checking Defender's Heart. "Yes, I was thinking the same thing."
That makes the best sense. We should check the Heart of the Defender