A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 66: Overkill

The formerly blinded girl only looked moderately comforted. She also seemed afraid to look at the nymph again, even if she obviously wasn't blinding people anymore. "Did you find my sister?" she asked the party in a tremulous voice. "Please, I'm really worried about her. She was supposed to be here an hour ago with the repair work - she's never late."

Ashyr blinked. Then a grin spread across her face. "She's just taking a nap with some soldier. In the western corner by the extension to the castle. We'll get someone to retrieve her for you." If anything, this made the young servant girl even more worried and quite a bit baffled besides, much to Ashyr's amusement. "But first, we need that information on Faust's generals or whatever you call them."

But the servant could only focus on her sister from then on. The girl turned a pleading look towards the druid in charge of watching over the blinded. That druid gave Ashyr a slightly exasperated look before he mounted the stairs and presumably hurried toward the distressed servant's sister.

As this unfolded, an older man approached Althaia - or, more accurately, bumped into her in his attempt to approach her. His hands may have accidentally gone to inappropriate places. Which totally would have been an accident. Totally.

"I know something," he told her. "At least, I know someone who does. I think I heard her complaining in one of the cells back there." He gestured vaguely to the back of the room. "Faust has an assistant, a halfling named Hadia. She knows their schedules and emergency plans."

The nymph ignored his groping. Were he unusually attractive, she would have happily indulged him, but as he was fairly nondescript she did not care all that much. She certainly did not take offense. "Thank you for your help." She said gravely. "I will return to you your eyesight." With that, she put her hand over his eyes in the same way as she had done with the maid, with much the same result.

Indeed, there was a halfling there at the back cell where Artur had once been held. She sat cross-legged on the bed in sullen silence. Her bright purple hair - once tightly braided along the sides of her head and left loose in a ridge along the top - was extremely frayed and messy. The simple cream-colored loose tunic and black leggings she wore were likewise torn and mussed. Apparently the diminutive female had put up an impressive fight before someone was forced to throw her in the cell. She frowned up at the closed cell door when she heard people approach.

Caleldir was quick to note the halfling indicated. Huh. Purple hair. That was quite a sight. It suited her, though. "I am guessing that a mere offer of returning her sight to her will not sway someone that loyal to old regime?" he asked Althaia in Sylvan.

"Likely." Gurzan said laconically in the same language, who had been watching in wary silence until then.

"Worth a try." Althaia shrugged. She had them unlock the cell and stepped in, sitting on the floor next to the halfling in a similar cross-legged pose. "Hadia was your name, was it not?" She sighed.

The halfling looked on the verge of trying to bolt out of the door when she heard the thing open. She didn't take kindly to being locked up, whether she deserved it or not. She wisely decided against this course of action before she even rose fully from the bed. Two, even three people she could take if she had help. But she counted at least four voices out of that cell, and none of the people beyond were likely to help her. So she settled back down in her previous position and glared in Althaia's general direction. "Yeah, I'm Hadia. What of it?"

"Do not worry yet for Faust. We have taken him prisoner in our artifact, but as of yet he is unharmed. As much as possible, we would like to minimize casualties in our conquest. A completely bloodless, or nearly so, takeover would be ideal. So, anything that you can offer to help us do so would be welcome. As a token of my goodwill, let me return your sight to you." And so, she did. Once the halfling could see her, the nymph gave her a sad, but dazzling smile. No magic, just her impressive charisma.

"Please, we are going to liberate this city one way or another, but with your help we can minimize the suffering of its inhabitants," Althaia said.

"All you lot have been doing is blinding innocent folk and punishing little people when they try to defend themselves." The halfling had a thick accent that seemed to drop consonants in favor of speaking more quickly than normal. The drow had a hard time understanding her. Tsabdrin, who had just made it down the stairs after gawking a bit at the castle, was completely lost.

Althaia was as patient as her calling dictated. "My intention was to blind the guards, so that they could be taken non-lethally. Some minor bruises and brief darkness is a low price to pay for a life, is it not? As for blinding the housestaff and roughing you up, well, it was sad collateral damage. As I said, it is not permanent. If you behave, there is not even a reason to keep you in here."

"Yeah, yeah, you're all fucking saints," Hadia said with an expressive eye-roll.

Ashyr approached the cell and leaned against the wall where Hadia could see her. All the drow did was cross her arms and scowl a bit, but it seemed to have some effect on the purple-haired woman.

Hadia took a deep breath, then looked down at the floor in front of Althaia. Finally, she gave them a little more useful information. "I ain't telling you were the engineer is. He knows what it's like to be little. He respects me, like Faust used to."

"If this engineer is as reasonable as you say, we may not need to fight him at all. In fact, perhaps you should go to him. Tell him that Faust is toppled, and there is nothing to be gained by continuing to fight. If he stands down, we have no reason to fight him. If he is blameless of the current madness, or at least not one of the prime culprits, he may even keep his position in the new government."

"Agreed," Caleldir added. "No reason to fight those not trying to pick a quarrel with us. ...and the mage?"

"That bastard? He can rot in hell. He's probably at his shop - the biggest building in the rich district; can't miss it - preparing some way to blow up the castle if he knows it's taken. Dude's a 'baby with the bathwater' sort of guy."

Althaia suddenly looked determined. "Then to the mage's shop we go, post-haste. We need to keep him from blowing up this castle. But first, I need to heal the noncombatants."

The various innocents were, on the whole, extremely grateful to have their sight returned. Once each one could see, they began to file out of the dungeon and back to whatever it was that they were doing before the castle was taken over. For no matter who was in charge of the castle, food needed to be made, cleaning needed to be done, and various other duties still needed to be performed. As long as they weren't being beaten and were paid fairly, the workers were more than happy to continue their jobs.

Ashyr called up to the guy on guard duty that it was okay to let them pass.

Gurzan looked over at the halfing. "Well, purple-headed one, I suggest that you go find this engineer of yours and tell him to stand down. I am calling in my flock, and if he hurts any of my family, I will be honor-bound to do the same to him when I find him. Which I will. We will have to avert that tragedy."

"Yeah, okay. I'll go find him. But don't think you can follow me, any of you." Hadia proclaimed as she hopped off of her bed. The prospect of being free seemed to lighten her spirits considerably. "You guys are too big and clumsy to keep up. You'll hurt yourselves." Then she cautiously padded around the crowd of people, her arms up and her posture non-threatening. As soon as she got to the stairs, though, she bolted up and away. Indeed, she was much too fast for anyone to easily follow her.

Gurzan took a deep breath. No way was he going to be able to follow her. At least, not by tailing her. "I will track the halfling." He said. "Take me awhile, but I can verify that this engineer is standing down. The rest of you see if you can capture these engines." And so, rather slowly, he began tracing her steps as best he could.

"It's a wonder she was caught in the first place." Ashyr marveled as she jogged up to join the nymph-kin, who were now making their way to the mage's tower. Selene, Tsabdrin, and the animal companions quickly caught up with the rest.

Through the castle the party went, and towards a side exit out of the castle grounds. There were a few mercenary guards there, but it looked like that way through wasn't being attacked by anyone. Most of their efforts were focused on the main gate, where they could take advantage of their greater numbers. The mercenaries let them through, and a couple followed them out to make sure there was no ambush waiting. It was a good thing, as well, since there absolutely was an ambush waiting.

Ten armored men in the colors of the city popped out from around several buildings. "You aren't getting into the city that easily!" One of them challenged as he brandished his sword. The rest growled or shouted in general agreement with the first, then they launched their attack.

Althaia and Caleldir were taken slightly by surprise by the soldiers. Althaia drew her own blade. "If it is a fight that you want, then a fight we will give you!" she laughed, launching herself into the conflict.

Caleldir sighed. "Try not kill any of them," he told his companions. "Once we take the city, they will be ours, so it is best not to reduce our own strength."

Summoning forth his sword and staff, he began fighting defensively.

Selene let out an annoyed huff when she was told not to kill any of the people who ambushed them. That pretty much took down ninety percent of her spells. And one hundred percent of the fun. In fact, Selene went so far as to stand away from the fray, refusing to participate at all. Not that they really needed her help; ten lowly guards were no match for one Althaia. So the mage ducked around a corner and stayed there with a bored expression on her face.

Ashyr rolled her eyes at her cousin's behavior. It forced the ranger to step towards the alley Selene went down to discourage the fight from spilling out towards her. But there was an unexpected consequence to that string of actions. One of the mercenaries was left open for a few seconds, and that was all it took for a couple of the guards to overwhelm him. He fell to the cobbled pavement, blood spilling out of the clean cut across his neck.

"Damn it, Selene!" The older drow swore, but the mage seemed unapologetic.

The next moment, the offending guards found themselves with a great deal more dinosaur on their backs than expected. The two beasts stood on their newly toppled prey, their claws digging into their backs. It wasn't lethal damage, but it looked incredibly uncomfortable. Any other guard was too intimidated to get close enough to rescue their companions. Especially after one warning snap from the female literally disarmed one of them. And then she ate that arm. With an agonized scream, that guard joined the rapidly bleeding out mercenary on the ground.

Althaia and Caleldir (but mostly Althaia) managed to knock out the other half of the guards between them. The paladin nymph reveled in the fight. Perhaps a little too much, as she was not concentrating all that much on protecting her allies, more on gauging the skills of the guards and sacrificing efficiency for having fun. Which meant that she really was not fighting at full capacity.

Then it was down to the last two ambushers. Both were pressing their number advantage on Tsabdrin, who had accidentally split away from the rest of the group. Normally, the male ranger would have been able to take them down easily enough, but he was already having a hard enough time in a mental fight with his animal companions. It was incredibly difficult to keep them from eating their captured prey.

"Idiots!" Caleldir hissed at the guards. "You are utterly overmatched! Surrender before you are all killed. Or I unleash the mage on you!" He batted aside one of their weapons before stepping over to put some quick healing on the fallen guard and mercenary, which would stabilize them and keep them from bleeding out. Only a little healing though, as he felt they would probably be more likely to survive unconscious than doing something stupid. Like trying to keep fighting.

Althaia decided to stop screwing around. She then dropped her sword into her dimensional ring and, with her bare hands, grabbed the blades of the two going after Tsabdrin. "I think that going after one controlling the mad dinosaurs is an idiotic move, no?" she said sweetly to the two of them.

"They're not m- Oh. Yeah. They're so mad right now." Tsabdrin began to protest before realizing that 'mad' dinosaurs were much more intimidating than the more tame variety. Unfortunately, the second part wasn't at all convincing. Not that it needed to be. Everyone was now either disarmed or unconscious. With a mighty force of will, Tsabdrin forced his companions to back off and let the guards go. The beasts protested, but did as they were commanded.

Once freed, the guards finally realized that they had made a terrible mistake. "Okay, okay, we surrender!" one of the newly released guards called out. The four of them got to their knees and held their hands in the air.

"Go with them to the dungeons, and we'll let you live," Ashyr ordered. She nodded to the mercenaries - a couple more had gathered too late to try to assist with the skirmish. "Tsabdrin, I think we're going to need to you stay behind with the rest. Help our people with the engineer if they need it. Anyway, if we're going to a shop, your companions won't really fit."

"Fine." He said, but he didn't look too happy about it. He supposed it was better than being trapped inside R.I.S.A, as he would have been had Faust proven easier to contain. So the male ranger and his companions went back through the gate and disappeared from view. Between all of the conscious fighters, they dragged the fallen people into the walls and presumably into the castle dungeons. Then the party was alone once again in the streets of Port Afron.

Sighing, Caleldir wiped the sweat from his brow. "Well, that was stressful," he commented. "It is much easier to simply kill than to try to nonlethally take someone out. I can sympathize with Selene on that, at least. I look forward to a good fight with something irredeemably evil that we cans destroy conscience-free."

"I will let you know if I see anything like that," Althaia said idly. "For now, most guards appear to be non-evil, or if evil, of the petty, relatively non-threatening sort."

"Well, yeah, they are just doing their jobs. It speaks well for them, but I am afraid that they are overmatched. Not so much by me, but I suppose that it is a good thing for competitive balance that there are not very many nymph paladins in the world," Caleldir mused.

"Yep." Althaia said cheerfully. "I am pretty great."

"It is also a good thing that paladins are not required to be humble," Caleldir observed. "Ashyr could probably take on guards pretty easily too if she was not busy guarding Selene. No offence, Selene. We will need you a lot more once we find this mage. I hope that you are good at counterspelling. I fear that we will need a lot of that from you."

"I am excellent at counter-spelling," Selene boasted. "We'll see just how powerful he is."

"Anyone know where the rich district is? Its been a while since I've been here." Asked Carlotta, who, like Selene, didn't participate in the last battle.

Ashyr nodded. "I think so. This way."

The rich district of the city wasn't too far from the castle. But the route the party was forced to take to avoid guards made the journey quite a bit longer than it would have taken normally. Finally, they arrived. Half of the buildings were made in a very old, impressive fashion that looked carefully planned. The rest were in a handful of different architectural styles squeezed in between the older structures. The diverse nature of the city attracted many people of many cultures - well, right up until Faust began to demand passports from everyone who wanted to go to and from the city.

The streets were empty of people who would normally be going about their day-to-day business. However, the district was full of hired guards that belonged to the rich instead of the city itself. It was quiet, aside from the clank of their marching boots. Ashyr endeavored even harder to keep the party away from them. Their weaponry looked expensive, and they appeared much more competent with their weapons than run-of-the-mill city guards. It wasn't hard to believe that they had cold iron weapons in their arsenal - especially if word had gotten out of how the castle was taken over by a blindingly beautiful nymph.

Despite Ashyr's efforts, the party was unlucky again. A group of five guards turned a corner and came face-to-face with the interlopers. It could have been worse; the party had previously caught glimpses of the top of the building that must have been the magic shop the halfling spoke about. But now they were blocked by a different building, and far enough away from their destination that anyone within would be oblivious to the altercation that was about to ensue.

"You." One of the more burly men growled. "You must be part of the people who took over the castle. Heard some fey shit went down. Well. I have a present for you." With that, him and his men drew their cold iron blades and attacked.

"Oh! Cold Iron. Nice." Althaia said in an impressed tone. "I will actually have to try with this one." She struck a stance she had seen in a book. "I look forward to learning your techniques!" With that, she eagerly launched herself into the fray. Cold Iron would not be useful if she blocked it with her steel, whether that was the steel of her blade, shield, or armor.

Caleldir hung back, giving small buffs in strength, speed, and dexterity to Ashyr and Althaia. The transmutations would last for at least long enough to be useful against the mage as well, so now was as good a time as any to use them. "I would prefer if you not spend your spells on these mooks." Caleldir told Selene. In Undercommon, so the soldiers would not know their strategy. "See if that staff artifact of yours has anything that you can use indefinitely, or perhaps a few cantrips could be useful."

With an excited grin, Ashyr fell in beside Althaia - but not too close - and began to combat the men who attacked them. Despite their better weaponry, this combat began a good deal better than the last. This part of the alleyway could only comfortably hold three fighters side-by-side. Between ranger and paladin, they were able to keep the hired guards at bay. And looked like they were having a great deal of fun doing it; the guards were fairly competent fighters.

Carlotta quickly assessed the situation, mixed a potion where she stood, and threw the concoction in one smooth motion. "Someone hit this when it's over the guards, if you can." She quickly whispered to Caleldir and Selene as she did this.

Selene caught on quickly to what the little human alchemist wanted. With one eye shut and a look of concentration on her face, she pointed at the small bottle of liquid and followed it through the air. Then, when it was over the guard's heads, she fired a weak bolt of acid at the mixture. With pop, it caused the guards to stagger where they stood. It did some concussive damage, but nowhere near enough to kill any of them. The real harm it did was the liquid that splattered all over them and at their feet.

"Ha!" Selene exclaimed with delight, a sound that was echoed by the human. After that, the guards had an unfortunately difficult time keeping in their feet - let alone adequately fighting the disturbingly dangerous women.