TheKurdrunMission part 12

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We head out on the evening of the 14th of Fall towards the Isle of the Dead.

As we cross the bridge of the Isle of the dead, we hear some scuttling. The night is haunting and mist-filled.

We are headed to the Broken Horse tavern, run by Ciral. We seek TateerTheGaunt?.

The wind picks up ever so slightly, there are forlorn people waklking on the streets, the poor devils that have no homes. The occasional glint of light and laughfter that come from tbetween the buldings seem out of place.

The rats seem more active tonight.

The brothel is still in business.

We stand at the dual entrance to the BrokenHorseTavern?. We enter past a drunkard, urinating on the wall, past the broken horse itself, and down the stairs to the bar.

It is full and smoky in here. There are no tables around the walls available. There are a few tables in the centre

We take a table near the edge where some people are intently gambling.

Ciral recognized Zali'haro and offers us three tankards and three drinks of brandy.

The bartender recognized Zali, and through him, the rest of us.

The table of gamblers behind us soon grows too rowdy, and the bouncer makes his way over, grabbing a tankard of ale out of the air as it sails toward another man's head.

He asks them to leave and one of them throws a beer in his direction, spilling beer on his shirt. The bouncer then walks around and spits in the man's face. He gets a mug broken over his head for his troubles, but then with three fast jabs knocks the drunk out cold.

Sru Ravam asks the man over for a drink. The man's name turns out bo Ali Vanoha, it comes out that he knows Tateer and is willing to take us to him.

He leaves and then returns and we are escorted to Tateer.

We go down the stairs and enter his room.

The bouncer guards the door from the inside.

Tateer offers us a smoke and Sjer and Zali partakes.

Before Afalar smokes he begins with the story. He starts talking about the trouble we are in, but Tateer says that Afalar appears nervous. Afalar takes that to mean he should smoke, and so he does.

He then continues on with the story of the thief from Alm Jamiral.

As the pipe passes around, Sjer begins feeling out-of-sorts.

The bargain is struck for us to owe another favour to Tateer. Sjer then proceeds to pass out from the two puffs of hashish.

Tateer asks for a physical description.

Afalar describes the thief and shows a scar.

Tateer says he will leave a message for us.

He whispers in his shattered voice, "Is our arrangment agreeable and convenient?"

Afalar says," It is. And we may use the services of Ali."

Zali lifts Sjer up and lugs him out of the room.

As we leave Tateer says, "It may take longer than you think."

A few minutes of fresh air revives Sjer.

Volorn meets us outside and we return home.

The next day Afalar goes out collecting information.

The woman who was assasinated had fled to the house Tahar and was assasinated and killed from within the Tahar ranks.

Jamiral is an appologist for the actions that are influenced by Saip. The struggle is for the good of the empire and the empire has become too fractured and that Saip is sorking to cull fracturists form the Empire so that the empire can be handed back to the Empire.

The Jamiral house lies somewhere between 4 and 6 kilometers to the Southeast of the city walls. He also maintains a small apartment on the south point of the Emperor's Island.

Afalar has three more questions to ask.

18th

A hardened Sru'haro guard finds Zali'haro in his room. He tells us that a young woman is standing outside asking for one of the three of us.

Zali follows him out and finds the Broken Horse innkeeper's daughter. Zali welcomes her warmly. "Zali," the girl says, “Zali, I come with a message.”

Zali steers her towards the herb garden.

She says, “I come with some information from Tateer.”

Zali cautions her, “Let's leave that for a more private location.”

Volorn alerts Sjer to the conversation.

Sjer makes his way to Zali's room with Afalar.

As we all gather into Zali's room, she informs us of the contents of her message.

“Tateer said he followed the man, the tattooed one, and said that on the evening after taking the assignment, the tattooed man met with Cira Talivar, what they talked about is not known. He followed him again this morning and he had a meeting with several different people. There was an exchange of money or goods or services on the Northern Island, not far from the Ta'im'eilm guild house. He only heard snippets of the conversation, it was guarded by rogues, footpads and further midnight thief types. He did see a symbol that was passed around in some sort of meeting, it was a dark circle surrounded by many other little dots. There were two groups meeting there, one of which was the rats of the dead. So there seemed to be a price on your heads. It wasn't something that was advertised, only discussed at that meeting. At the meeting there were six. A man and a woman, they looked like brother and sister, another that could be an uncle of theirs. And three shorter and thinner with a feral look. There was mention of black stones that needed to be retrieved. There was a description of black stones. He says to be wary, that they may find you before you find them.

He has only been travelling to and from the Alm's estates. He stays in the estates of Jamiral.

We thank the girl and send her on her way.

We decide that we ought to interfere in the machinations of the brother, sister, and uncle who undoubtedly are the same three who orchestrated the TroubleAtTheTrack.

The man E'ja nar Izifalo is dead. He was a high ranking member of the Waterblades. He appears to have been assassinated in an attempt to start a war between the Waterblades and the Servants of Razil.

The Servants of Razil are a group that are at war with the Waterblades. Both groups have suffered many losses recently. We concoct a plan to give information to both groups about the plan to replace them and set them at war.

Sjer tells L'talus of the impending attention by the brother and sister team, and the rogue. He also mentions the rats.

The 19th and 20th go by. The night of the 20th is just as hot as the day. The messenger's guild returns and gives Afalar his change. The messages have been delivered. One this morning, the one to Hara'eem was the most difficult and was delivered one candle ago.

And so the night of the 20th we begin to plot our move against the rogue.

Zali asks a guardsman for information concerning recent trouble in the city. He tells us of unrest and a large number of fresh troops swelling into the city.

We decide to go out and investigate the Jamiral estate after a good night's sleep.

We all bunk in Afalar's room tonight. Zali mans his post against the door and promptly falls fast asleep, like the old soldier he is.

Afalar is on his bed, and Sjer and Volorn are on Sjer's mattress on the floor.

We are surprised and attacked by three wererats. They sneak past the sleeping Zali'haro and begin their attacks.

Their claws and bites awake us from sleep. Afalar and Volorn are the first on their feet with Zali following next. It is a few precious seconds before a groggy Sjer can begin to help.

The feral looking men are weaponless, yet extremely hard to damage. None of can seem to hurt them, yet, without weapons, we too receive little damage.

Their perseverance will indeed be the end of us, Sjer realizes, unless I can help my comrades.

The rats had us backed into three corners of the room. Sjer was busy making the air crackle defensively when Zali made his move.

Letting out a yell, Zali buffeted past the grunting creature and made it out the door. Unwilling to cooperate with his plan, only one of the creatures followed, leaving two still attacking Sjer and Afalar.

Outside the door, Zali'haro turned right and immediately through down behind him a handful of the poisonous caltrops from the encounter with the elusive rogue. This effectively stopped us from following him, but, unfortunately, did not slow the wererat down in the slightest.

The two combatants continued their struggle in the hallway. The rat walked over the poisoned caltrops without even flinching.

Back in the room, Sjer had just finished protecting himself and was just turning to move closer to Afalar when he made his play.

Afalar pushed past his opponent and made for the hallway. Volorn and Sjer both attacked the rat closest to Afalar to help distract. Afalar hit the hallway and turned left, making for the outside to rouse some assistance.

Sjer and Volorn moved closer to the door to hem the other two rats in. Afalar hit the end of the hall, rounded he corner and was hustling down the stair when he met a stranger. The stranger was a man with his sword drawn and harmful intent written on his face.

He crowded past the surprised man only to come face to face with a woman.

Taking a slash to the back from the man, and roughly shoving the woman aside, Afalar made the door and threw it open. But before he could shout the woman's voice poured over him, making him lie down. It was compelling and impossible to resist. The man then caught up and stabbed Afalar nearly killing him and sending him into unconsciousness.

Back in the hallway, Zali'haro had been taking numerous small nail and teeth wounds, which individually were nothing dangerous, but the sheer volume of them was foretelling of certain defeat as there was no exit at that end of the hall.

Sjer to this point had managed to enspell himself and Volorn to the point that the rats could no longer damage them.

Just as Sjer was determining the best way to aid Zali, a woman's voice called out, "Stop, or your companion will die."

Zali looked and saw the man and woman. The man had Afalar slung over his shoulder and was holding a knife to his throat.

Through the doorway Sjer could see the fight go out of Zali's eyes. He could tell how injured he was. Volorn's keen sense of smell allowed him to let Sjer know that Afalar, indeed, still lived.

Desperately weighing alternatives, Sjer began preparations by magically toughening Volorn's skin, then enabling him to heal Afalar with a touch.

Zali'haro looking back at all the other times be and his companions had faced defeat held up his hands and called, "All right."

All attacks ceased. This time the woman commanded, "Toss us the stones and we will spare your lives."

Sjer and Volorn, poised and waiting, listened.

"Don't waste my time!" The man tossed Afalar to the ground. The woman knelt beside him, knife at throat. Then she looked at Zali and issued another soft imperative, "Fall down."

Zali'haro sat down. Then Sjer watched in surprise as Zali took off his boots and offered one of the stones to the rat.

Thinking his companion now under the sway of the witch woman Sjer gave the cue to Volorn who sprang out to trip the man on the way to revive Afalar.

The two rats in the room quickly moved in on Sjer effectively preventing him from following, had that been his plan.

The rat in front of Zali attacked the now weaponless warrior in a fury, ending his stay with Sru'haro, his dreams of prosperity, and his life.

Unaware of the passing of his friend, Volorn surged forth, knocking the warrior off of his feet. He made it within paw's distance of Afalar, but the woman slit his throat just the same.

With a howl of anger, Volorn attacked the woman wounding her deeply. The two were-rats in the room with Sjer reverted to their rodent form and slipped away. Sjer came out swinging and stuck the man in the back. The warrior ignored Sjer, made it past Volorn and the pair ran down the hall heading out. Volorn attacked and damaged the man twice more but they made it out of the building and floated up into the sky thanks to the woman's arcane abilities.

Volorn made one last desperate leap as the man's feet floated away, but to no avail.

Despite all the commotion and the time involved, when Sjer arrived back at Afalar and Zali's bodies, he was still the first one at the scene. Both stones were missing from the boots that had once adorned Zali's feet. L'talus had five of the stones, Sjer has one, and Afalar had the other two. A quick search by Sjer failed to locate anything unexpected.

Then, L'talus arrived.