Fishing for Sharks

GAME: Dolan rolls diplomacy: (18)+14+2: 34

GAME: Andelena rolls Diplomacy: (10)+3+2: 15
GAME: Telamon rolls talky: aliased to diplomacy+8: (17)+24+8: 49

Talking to more than your fair share of ruffians and otherwise unsavory sorts for the better part of a few days has at last yielded fruit. It seems that this Mortin fellow is very much feared, and few were willing to talk about him. Even where one was supposedly 'safe' from his mechanisms. Whispers that he turned his enemies into corpses and worse were many. It was outright known that he was lacking any kindness toward those who owed him money. Horror stories of broken bones and lost limbs were numerous.

Eventually however a drunken ourch suggested a location to look for him in person. A building attached to one of the seediest bars in Alexandria. The name of the location was ignominiously 'The Crimson Dagger'. Around back of the building was an attached room without any windows, quite large in size and suspicious in nature. Particularly given the twin sith who guard it. Both of them bearing the scars of those who have been slaves. Marks around necks and wrists long healed. One is black-scaled, the other dark red. Otherwise they are rather similar in appearance having two horns apiece in similar growth patterns, and wearing very little in spite of the chilly weather.

One might suspect that they are less than comfortable, but they show no sign of giving up their posts.

GAME: Telamon casts Mage Armor. Caster Level: 14 DC: 18

It's been a while since Dolan's path has taken him to a place quite this bad, but it is not his first time seeing something like this. The golden gem set into the right side of his face is very much in evidence, although he has artfully dirtied up his face just a touch to enhance the visibility of the scarring in dim light. Armor and longsword are very much in evidence, along with the rest, but he has tucked the leather thong holding his holy symbol inside his breastplate, instead of having it immediately obvious. Despite the lack of movement on the part of the sith, he doesn't flinch, instead studying the pair. "The bastard is probably a slaver, too," he opines in a low voice. "Talk our way through?"

The cool air doesn't bother Telamon -- the promise of spring is in the air. Of planted gardens and warm days ahead as he glides along. However, in a nod to formality, he's dressed in his long leather-and-fur frostrider coat, with a broad-brimmed snowy-white hat on his head with a brilliant, deep violet feather stuck in the band. "Agreed," he breathes. "I doubt the doorwardens are going to know much about his business dealings, so we should be able to talk our way past." He pauses, considering the thought of Mortin also being a slaver. "And if we can free them, even better."

"Loan shark, slaver--yeah, those two tend to go right in hand with each other," Andelena grumbles. She's chosen to switch out her usual white cloak for a darker one with a hood, her amulet of Daeus tucked somewhere underneath her armor. Deliverance, the most distinctive part of her kit, is tucked under the broad cloak, keeping quiet for the moment.

"You two can take the lead and I'll keep you both covered, yeah?" Andelena offers, steel-grey eyes squinting at the doormen, hand on her hilt in the event she needs to draw.

GAME: Telamon rolls detectBS: aliased to sense motive+3: (1)+20+3: 24 (EPIC FAIL)
GAME: Telamon rolls detectBS: aliased to sense motive+3: (3)+20+3: 26
GAME: Dolan rolls sense motive: (19)+18: 37
GAME: Andelena rolls Heal: (12)+12: 24

Dolan studies the pair, then steps forward, deciding to speak himself after a visual assessment of the pair. "Peace on your nests," he greets, the formal words only a little bit offhanded. "You look like they've got you nailed down out here or something." No smile, but just a touch of understanding.

Telamon walks forward, boldly. Fearless. As if he's not got a care in the world, with Dolan in step and Andelena behind. His expression shifts as well from its usual friendly, open look to a bored, languid one, eyes ever so slightly hooded and lips pursed. He doesn't stop till he's right there in front of the two makari.

"Indeed," he purrs. "They look like I feel. The evening is passing and there's a chambermaid and a bottle of sherry calling my name." His dark eyes glitter, studying the guards carefully though behind the rather indolent demeanor.

The hooded Andelena just stares at Telamon and his words, like she's trying to decipher something, but she just turns her attention back to the makari and her mouth presses together into a line.

She nudges Telamon in the side and motions, "Scars on fists. They're healthy. They're fighters with their fists. Careful." She keeps her eyes trained on the two guards. <handspeech>

The two look at one another then back at the group that has approached them "State your business." No hint of accent. No hint of emotion. The crimson one adds in a few hand-movements that repeat the statement, making it clear that the pair understood every word that Andelena had tried to pass on so subtly.

Oh, it's like that, is it? Dolan's remaining eyebrow climbs towards his hairline, and he crosses his arms loosely over his chest. "We're here about a debt owed to Mortin." They cut to the chase? So will he.

Indeed it is. But that's all right. "Do open the door, that's a good fellow. Business is business, and we do need to see your, ah, employer." Telamon gives the guards another hooded smile. "But you know, I'm always in the market for respectable -- and clever -- representatives. There's always work for someone with idle hands."

The apparent idle noble takes an almost mincing step that just coincidentally places him to the side. "Is he willing to loan you out perhaps? A trial basis?"

Andelena's unhappy expression at being found out clearly is a sign that she might regret her life choices, but being unable to mentally communicate is something that most people have to dea withl, herself included. So... She just folds her arms and looks like the tough muscle that she's supposed to be. Theoretically, of course.

The black-scale is the one that speaks up again. "Are you the one that owes money, or are you here on behalf of one that owes money?" It seems that these sith are fairly quick on the up-take, or maybe they've just handled these sorts of situations a lot. The red sith looks at Telamon. "You would have to ask Mortin." The first hint of emotion. A flash of teeth.

GAME: Dolan rolls intimidate: (19)+18: 37
GAME: Aftershock rolls 1d20+22: (1)+22: 23 (EPIC FAIL)
GAME: Aftershock rolls 1d20+22: (19)+22: 41

"I have questions about a particular debt owed. I was asked for assistance in paying it, but they couldn't tell me how much it was." Dolan doesn't move, doesn't flinch, merely _stares_ at the pair of sith. "Now, I know that you wouldn't have information like that. That's not your job. So how about if we have a word with the man who would, yeah?"

GAME: Telamon rolls spaceBS: aliased to Bluff+3: (13)+23+3: 39
GAME: Aftershock rolls 1d20+22: (12)+22: 34
GAME: Aftershock rolls 1d20+22: (2)+22: 24

"My dear lads, do we really need to stand out here and posture all night? We all know Mortin isn't going to discuss business with his door-guards, no matter how trustworthy." Telamon steps close again. "It speaks well of your diligence, but we both know he won't be happy if you turn people away with money. So let's not waste any more time."

GAME: Andelena rolls Perception: (9)+11: 20

Andelena's steel-grey eyes sweep the area, but she seems to find nothing of concern, training her eyes on the door beyond the sith. She flexes and tenses her hands as if in preparation for something to happen the moment it opens.

The black-scale takes an actual step back from Dolan, his tail knocking into the door, and the red-scale looks toward him shaking his head. It's him that speaks up. "If you've money then Mortin will want to see you." He motions for his companion to move out of the way and then opens the door. "He's expecting you."

With that mysterious statement you are allowed entry to the room beyond. It's an office of some kind with a mul'niessan man sitting expectantly at the desk. His boots are propped up on the desk, and he's slouching in the chair, his red eyes full of mirth as he looks at the group coming in. It's just him in here. The man has short, expertly coifed short black hair and crimson eyes, his tailored outfit perfectly fitted to his slender yet slightly muscular frame.

GAME: Telamon rolls bluff: (5)+23: 28
GAME: Aftershock rolls 1d20+22: (4)+22: 26
GAME: Dolan rolls sense motive: (17)+18: 35
GAME: Andelena rolls Sense Motive: (1)+12: 13 (EPIC FAIL)
GAME: Andelena rolls Sense Motive: (7)+12: 19

The only sign something might be wrong is the faintest widening of Telamon's eyes, as he desperately keeps from blowing his apparent 'indolent, lackadaisical nobleman' act. Instead, he lifts an eyebrow. "Well. Master Mortin, I presume. And how does the evening find you?" His thoughts race behind his sleepy expression, trying to figure out how to play this.

That widening of eyes is not lost on Dolan, who doesn't miss much when it comes to social interactions. He looks between the two of them, then fixes his gaze more harshly on the man behind the desk. In turn, his flesh-and-blood eye narrows, and he doesn't bother to hide it. "Huh," he starts. "Mortin. You're the one holding the loan on the Donnelly farm?" The words are laser-focused, although not quite angry. "Pointed" would be a better word.

Mortin. Not an alias that Andelena associated with a man who looks like... Mr Mortin here, but here he is anyway, and so is she, squinting at him with steel-grey eyes. "We're here for one thing and one thing only. Make it quick," she informs the man in front of him. She hasn't quite noticed Telamon's surprise yet.

Red eyes track over the group, and the insolent-looking mul'niessa man rises to his feet smoothly, gracefully. "You must be Brydion Donnelly. You're... well nearly exactly what I expected. Not many men with your... description." He motions gracefully to Dolan's false eye and flashes white teeth. "I take it you came here to cause me trouble rather than pay off your family's debt. Or is it _your_ debt that you've finally come to pay?"

Telamon glances at the door, now shut, before turning his eyes to 'Mortin' again. "Debts..." he says, and the indolent, bored noble dilettante sloughs off him like a thin blanket, a thousand tiny things discarded as the sorcerer comes to the fore. "Yes," he says, "there are many debts to be settled, aren't there?" His gaze is no longer hooded, the stars glowing in his eyes.

Still, Dolan's stare doesn't move, beyond looking back and forth between the two of them. Brief glances at Telamon seem to suffice, and most of his attention is on the mul'niessa "man", and a crawling suspicion climbs like an icy spider up the back of his spine at the final words. He doesn't move, though. "Don't bother. I know what you are." There's a lash beneath those words. "Seems you two know each other, so let's cut the bullshit. You tell me what you want and I'll decide what I'm here for."

GAME: Andelena rolls Sense Motive: (20)+12: 32

Both Telamon and Dolan becoming far more wary and abandoning the pretenses of why they're here causes Andelena stand up a little straighter, all of her muscles tensing up like she's winding herself up for the first punch. Her hand is close to Deliverance and remains there to draw it if needed. "And don't _think_ of trying some bullshit," she growls.

'Mortin' looks at Telamon with a flash of a smile. "Do I know you? Or maybe you know me from somewhere?" He lets out a little chuckle and turns his crimson eyes on Dolan. "Brydion, Brydion. Your family owes me money."

Here he spreads his hands. "All I want is for them to make their loan payments in a timely manner. If they don't... then I'll be forced to take their farm. As for you... well I bought _your_ debt from Draxath. Simple fool really." Andelena's rough threat draws his gaze last and he chuckles. "Oh you _must_ be Andelena. Your mother would be so disappointed to find you in a rat's nest like this. Though I think she'd approve of the half-elf's company. Hard to say. People can get so _messy_ about half-breeds."

He turns his attention back toward Dolan. "I don't think that your company would much appreciate hearing about what _you_ owe Dolan. Perhaps you'd like them to step outside a moment?"

"The only thing owed here, 'Mortin' is a body." Telamon's voice is like chipped flint. "Specifically: the one you're riding around in. Although if you were -smart- you'd have hightailed it to Charn at this point." His voice drops. "Dolan, I believe he's possessed. Try not to muck the body up too much, it belongs to a friend of a friend."

GAME: Dolan rolls melee: (6)+10: 16
GAME: Dolan rolls melee: (17)+10: 27

"No. He doesn't give a fuck about my family. It's me he wants." That icy spider has become a frozen facehugger gripping the back of Dolan's brain, sending alarm bells ringing and brainworms running around crazily. The stylized dragon comes out. "If you're going for a little ride - in the name of the Holy Sunlord, drop it, whoever you are!" He lunges forward, the name of the other demon not entirely lost but saved for later, leading with the dragon that is now glowing -

- and the glow immediately fades, as soon as he makes contact with the man's chest.

GAME: Aftershock rolls 1d20+21: (8)+21: 29
GAME: Dolan rolls fortitude: (16)+12: 28
GAME: Aftershock rolls 2d6+10: (6)+10: 16

"Oh! So you do know me. Or rather him." The mul 'man' lays a hand on his chest and strokes his fingers down his front rather suggestively. "I quite agree, a body _is_ owed, but I'm afraid that this one is quite taken." He laughs and puts the hand on his hip.

"Did you see the show the other night... Oh I'm afraid I don't know _your_ name. Shame." The mul'niessan fake grins. "If you wanted to touch me you could have just asked Dolan." A wink, and then punches him in the nose before taking a step back and raising his fists defensively.

"We can still end this amicably. Don't make me call my friends."

GAME: Telamon rolls knowledge/arcana: (16)+14: 30
GAME: Telamon rolls perception: (7)+23: 30
GAME: Telamon casts Greater Teleport. Caster Level: 14 DC: 24

Telamon's eyes widen as suddenly things start to happen. "I'm not going to wait for Aya and Aryia, I'm just going to fucking evict you myself, you son of a bitch!" His eyes blaze with fury, and he grabs a tiny fragment of Time to cast his quickening magic... only to feel it dissipate before it even starts.

"What the--" he says, sputtering, actually shocked. His fingers twitch reflexively, and he looks around in confusion, eyes narrowing as he sweeps them back and forth. "Keep him busy!"

GAME: Dolan rolls knowledge/arcana: (1)+9: 10 (EPIC FAIL)
GAME: Dolan rolls knowledge/arcana: (8)+9: 17
GAME: Dolan rolls melee+1+1: (3)+10+1+1: 15

Several things happen at once for Dolan. The minute the dragon pendant makes contact with the man's chest, it all goes to shit. "Augh!" he screams as the right side of his world goes dark without warning, plunging him into a particularly nasty position, and followed seconds later by the crunch of bone as the devil's fist connects with the bridge of his nose.

In that moment, the Redeemer silently blesses his training with a blindfold that he's done in the past weeks, because with one side completely dark, and the other side swimming, he's going to need it now. The longsword rasps from his sheath, and he breathes a prayer. "You little fucker. Fine, I'll beat your ass into a fine mist the old fashioned way. LOCK THE DOOR!" he shouts, then listens for the footsteps and rustling of paper that will tell him where that devil is before putting the blade where his ears tell him it ought to go.

Deliverance isn't here with Andelena. Even as she draws it, the Sunguard knows this, the absence of the being in the blade like the lack of a mother's hum in the house, the lack of a mother's hum over the crib or her small childhood bed.

Not that she knew that from experiance, but she was beginning to know what that felt like, somehow, with Deliverance, and then this devil put them in a fucked-up box--trapping them, trapping them like how her mother had tried to trap her into a life she didn't want. The blade comes out and she moves forward. "Bry, I'm coming to aid you!" the Sunguard yells, going to take a flanking point around the devil.

As she brings down the blade, she snarls, "Tel, figure out what the fuck's going on, please!"

The blade of Dolan's strikes true, pinning the devil in the shape of a man right through the chest. It's as if Daeus himself had guided the blade straight to where it should go. The mul tries to call for help, but blood gushes out of his mouth instead. The second blade comes down, Deliverance striving to aid Dolan now that the devil is pinned and Andelena's strike sinks home thanks to Dolan's pinning the man like a butterfly against the wall. He raises his left hand to stop the strike and her blade cuts through his hand until it grinds into his wrist.

Still, even now it lives. Draws breath. It's fist rears back and strikes at Dolan from his blind side. Trying to add insult to injury. Or is that injury to injury?

You can detect something by its absence. The sensation of mana, absent, centered... there! As Dolan and Andelena pin the ... whatever it is to the wall, Telamon dives for the rug. "Don't kill him! We need him!" His dagger comes out as he flips the rug over, revealing the arcane marking on it, and his sharp knife slashes into the rug, disrupting the spell. A flood of energy surging back into him -- he knows it'll empower the fiend, but it also empowers -him-. "Now," he growls, "Where were we?"

The other fist lashes out from the blind side, and there's another crack as it connects with Dolan's jaw. Searing agony shoots across his head from temple to temple, sending what is left of his vision swimming once again as his head turns with the force of the blow. The edge of a white glow coming from somewhere off to his right is just a herald of warning before the vision is suddenly restored, to reveal a sword that glows white-hot in his hand. "The Holy Sunlord is, and shall be, your bane if you make one wrong move," he snarls, yanking the bloodied blade out of Mortin's chest and putting the tip to his throat. "It's a devil, Tel. Probably polymorphed. It ain't your friend."

"I'm here," comes a maternal voice from the blade, and a grin rips across Andelena's face just at the sound of the voice.

"Yeah, you are," Andelena says, her grip tightening just a little on the blade--like embracing a relative she was worried that she'd never see again. "Sorry babe, lotta light coming in. Holy Knight, may I be the servant that delivers your judgment," she utters.

Deliverance becomes awash in silvered flame, and Andelena sticks it up to the devil's mouth. "Okay, you freaky little hell-spawned _motherfucker_," Andelena growls, steel-grey eyes trained hard on the devil wearing a man's skin. "You're not gonna call for help. Because if you do, this blade's going right through you the second you so much as get a fucking _vowel_ out. Don't. Fucking. Move."

The fiend has eyes only for Dolan, a smile on it's face in spite of the position it's in. "Can't.... kill.... me." It manages, wryly rolling its eyes at Andelena's threat. Clearly it's not afraid of you. "Can't... torture... me."

The creature in the shape of someone that only Telamon knows makes a choked noise and more blood comes out of its mouth and it sags against the wall. It grins at Dolan. "You.... wont... let... them. Redeemer."

GAME: Telamon casts Disintegrate. Caster Level: 14 DC: 23

Telamon touches the hem of his robe, murmuring as he then touches his haversack, and then his eyes. When he opens them again they are all black, filled with stars, and he regards 'Daechir' with revulsion. "Yes," he says to Dolan. "Though I can't help but wonder what the point of his masquerade was. Not that it matters." He raises a hand, pointing it at the devil. "Don't worry," he says in a hard voice. "I'm sure we'll be seeing each other again, soon enough."

"You're right. I ain't like you." the farmboy-turned-inquisitor snarls, not moving a muscle. "I ain't giving you that much pleasure." His head is throbbing, his vision swimming, and even speaking hurts, but it isn't as if pain is anything new for Dolan. "By the blessing of the Sunlord, go back where you belong - _without_ stopping on the way for tea." A hard thrust, and the blessed, white-hot blade shoves through the throat and up into the skull, pinning the body to the wall like a demented bug.

The body immediately begins to burn to ash. Falling apart in embers and smoke. It goes up so quickly. Leaving a little pile of black hair in its wake that starts to burn. It smells terrible. Like sulfur, burning flesh, and burnt hair.

Andelena pulls the fiery blade of Deliverance away, and the flames wick out. She immediately goes to embrace Dolan as the fiend burns apart in its defeat. "Fuck, baby," she breathes out, looking at the blood that's on Dolan's face. "Let me take care of you. I'll get you back home--"

She looks to Telamon, like she just remembered something. "Those--those guards. They aren't still out there, are they?"

Telamon watches coldly as the devil crumbles to ash. "I haven't forgotten you," he murmurs ever so softly to himself. When Andelena speaks to him, his head jerks up, those eyes meeting hers. Full of stars. "If they are, well... we'll see if they'll listen to reason. If not..." He opens his haversack, pulling out an ivory rod as he walks towards the door, his hair floating behind him oddly like it's being lifted.

Blood, there certainly is plenty of on Dolan's face. Through blurred vision, he watches the white light fade away as the devil burns to ash. Not for the first time, the nose is quite clearly broken, and it looks like there is something wrong with the right side of his jaw as well. He is quite clearly in need of a healer's attention, and he blinks owlishly with that lone brown eye, attempting to focus on Andelena. "You, me, and the Knight, baby." His grin is lopsided, and accompanied by a wince. "What the fuck happened, Tel? I went fucking _blind_. Like the eye ceased to function."

The two sith standing outside are hovering over the doorway as Telamon opens the door. They both scent the air as the man opens it and then they flee. He doesn't have to say a word. He'll note that neither are polymorphed demons or devils, but there's still something strange about the way that those sith were acting. Watching them go, there's a lingering feeling that he shouldn't have let them.

There's some explaining to do, and worse, there's nothing in this room at all save a drawer full of ash, and the handful of hair that Dolan managed to save. There's no doubt that the devil will be back. They've not heard the last of this fiend, but at least now they know what kind of sharks they were swimming with.

-End