Pathfinder Story
I wrote up the major event of our third gaming session as a little story.
On Sunday morning, one week after the Swallowtail festival and the goblin incursion, Kavren walked to the Rusty Dragon to meet Kaldak and Thoromir for an early breakfast. His friends were waiting at their usual table, along with the other Shoanti, Erek, and the Varisian woman Aeraliss, to whom Ameiko had introduced him the previous morning. He noted that all four of them were already armed and armored, ready for their morning tour of the town's defenses. They also looked unusually alert for this time of the morning, and as Kavren crossed the common room to join them, he realized that the kitchen door was closed, and the usual spicy aromas from Ameiko's cooking were notably absent.
"Something wrong?" he asked, as he approached his friends.
"I was going to ask you that," said Thoromir. "You've known Ameiko longer than any of us, except Aeraliss here, and she hadn't seen her in a few years before she got to town yesterday. Is it normal for her to open this late?"
"No," said Kavren, in a voice tinged with worry. "Mind you, I didn't always come here for breakfast as regularly as I've been doing since I met up with you two, but I've never known Ameiko to be late opening the kitchen. Oh, she might have one of the cooks take care of it if she's sick, but if the Dragon's ever actually opened for breakfast later than sunrise, I haven't heard about it -- and I would have. I think something's wrong."
Before any of the others could reply, someone tugged at the wizard's sleeve. He turned, saw nobody at first, then lowered his gaze to meet that of the elderly halfling woman who stood beside him, nervously wringing her hands. "Good morning, Bethana," he said, recognizing her as one of the maids who kept the Dragon's rooms clean and tidy. "Can I do something for you?"
"Thank Desna you're here, Mr. Kavren," Bethana said tremulously. "It's Miss Ameiko. She's gone missing! I saw she hadn't started breakfast -- first time that's ever happened, like you was just sayin' -- so I went and knocked on her door to see if she wasn't feeling well. She didn't answer, and I... I know I shouldn't've, but I was worried about her, so I opened her door. Her bed was all made up, hadn't been slept in at all, and she was nowhere to be found! And what's worse, I found this crumpled up by her bed."
She held up a sheet of parchment covered in the graceful pictograms of Minkaii writing. "I can't read that, Bethana," Kavren said. Turning to his friends, he asked, "Can any of you read Minkaii?"
The others all shook their heads, but Bethana said, "Miss Ameiko's been teachin' me to read it the last few years. This is what it says." She flipped the note around, showing her own writing on the back. Kavren accepted the parchment and quickly scanned over it.
"Oh, nine bloody hells," he swore. "It's from her brother."
"Is that bad?" Kaldak asked.
"Yes. Or at least, it might be. I've never actually met Tsuto Kaijitsu, myself, but from what I've heard of him, this could be very bad. Come on, I'll explain on the way over to the Glassworks; if Ameiko was acting on this message, that's where she went.
"He caused quite a scandal when he was born, Tsuto did," said Bethana, as they exited the inn. "On account of him being half-elf."
"But Ameiko's... oh, I see," said Thoromir.
"Both her parents are human," said Bethana. "Old Lonjiku was furious, of course, and Atsuii -- that's their mother -- never would say who the elf was."
"Tsuto grew up in the orphans' quarters at Turandurok," Kavren continued. "Lonjiku wanted nothing to do with him -- can't really blame the old man for that, I guess -- but he wouldn't let Atsuii see him, either. They stayed married, but it was as miserable a marriage as Sandpoint's ever seen. She'd have been destitute if she left him, and he used that to keep her shut up in the manor; I think he also told her he wouldn't pay for Tsuto to stay at the academy any more if she defied him. Her family wouldn't have helped her -- Tian-Min tend to be even more fanatical about their honor than the rest of the Tian, and they'd arranged her marriage to Lonjiku in the first place.
"Ameiko had it easier, though. She took lessons at the academy, like all the other children in town, and she'd manage to see Tsuto a couple of times a week. They were very close as children -- she's only a couple of years older than he is, and I think she was pretty lonely at home. Understand, she's never actually come out and told me this, but my understanding is that she always hoped her father would somehow change his mind -- that Tsuto could come and live with them and they could be a proper family, like her friends had."
"That's right," said Bethana. "I worked up at Kaijitsu manor back then, and Miss Ameiko talked to me a lot more than the other servants, or even her parents. I think it's because I'm little, like she was, so she didn't quite see me as a grown-up. She kept telling Tsuto it would be all right, that it would all work out somehow and he'd come home to live with her at the manor -- you know how she always looks on the bright side, Mr. Kavren."
"Maybe that's why it happened," said Kavren. "Maybe the waiting, and the constant disappointment, just got to be too much for him. But whatever it was, it all blew up about six years ago, and they had one hell of a fight."
"He hit her," Bethana said, her eyes going wide. "Punched her in the face, blacked her eye and knocked her down. Her own baby brother. Broke her heart, it did, she'd loved him so. That's why she went off to be an adventurer. Then she came back a year later, eighteen years old and already rich as any merchant round here. That's when she bought out the Dragon. She must have got a letter or something, 'cause she made it back just in time for Atsuii's funeral. And what a mess that was! Tsuto came right out and accused old Lonjiku of murdering his wife -- which half the town had been whispering, but nobody had the nerve to actually say to his face -- and Lonjiku near to broke the boy's jaw with that cane he carries around everywhere."
"That cane is a katana," Kavren observed. "Tian-Min bastard sword, at least a hundred years old, and as fine a blade as you'll find anywhere in the world. And if he'd drawn it in anger, by his traditions he couldn't sheath it again 'til he'd washed it in someone's blood, so I think it actually shows some restraint that he just whacked Tsuto with the hilt, under the circumstances."
"Tsuto didn't think so," Bethana said. "He cursed the old man up, down, and sideways, stormed out of the funeral, and hasn't been seen in Sandpoint since. Miss Ameiko's tried to reach him, but she never could track him down."
"So now he's back, and he's accusing Lonjiku of being behind the goblin trouble," Kavren said, holding up the note. "He asked Ameiko to meet him at the Glassworks last night at midnight, supposedly so they could figure out what to do about it. She'd go, there's no doubt in my mind she'd go to talk to him, and he also asked her not to tell anyone.
"She loves Tsuto," said Bethana. "She'd trust him, even after their fight and everything that's happened since. If he asked her to meet him in the middle of the night, without telling anyone where she was going or why, she'd do it."
"And I don't trust him," Kavren concluded. "I've heard things about Tsuto from some of the others who grew up with him at Turandurok, and from what they say, he's a nasty piece of work -- greedy, vicious temper, thinks he's better than anyone else around. Hard to believe he's not Lonjiku's son, actually -- they've got the same personality, except Lonjiku has a lot more self-control. He always tried to hide that side of himself from Ameiko, so I'm told, but I think it might occur to him that if both Lonjiku and Ameiko were out of the way, he's stand a fair chance of inheriting the Kaijitsu holdings here in Sandpoint, bastard or no. Or he might try to kidnap her -- she and Lonjiku may be estranged, but she's still his heir, and holding her to ransom would give Tsuto a lot of leverage over the old man. Or at least, he might think so; I'm not actually sure Lonjiku would do anything to protect Ameiko, at this point... um. When we find her, please don't tell her I said that."
"If we find her," said Erek. "From the sound of things, there might not be much left to find."
Kavren winced. "This is... one of my closest friends we're talking about, Erek. I'm going on the assumption she's alive. I won't think about the alternative until I absolutely have to." The Shoanti warrior shrugged, but Aeraliss squeezed the wizard's shoulder in mute sympathy, her own expression tight with worry.
At that moment they rounded the corner from Water Street to Gull Street, wherefrom they could see the Sandpoint Glassworks. The building was one of Sandpoint's largest, its bulk exceeded only by the new cathedral, Turandurok Academy, and Cyrdak Drokkus' theater. A squat, round tower bulged out from its south end, ringed with large windows and roofed with a great domed skylight: the showroom where the Kaijitsus displayed their wares for customers and guests. Unusually, all the windows had their curtains drawn shut, and when Kavren tried the door, he found it locked. Working their way up the southeast side of the building, the companions found the windows there curtained as well, and the doors to the reception office and loading area at the north end likewise locked.
Around the back, they walked down the narrow strip of lawn between the manufactory's northwest wall and the low cliff overlooking the Varisian Gulf. The day seemed eerily quiet, except for the occasional cries of seabirds. The dozen or so windows to the main workshop were also curtained, and the wide gate at the southwest corner, where sand was brought up a rough stairway from the beach below, was shut and barred. "This isn't right," Kavren said softly. "The furnace is going -- you can see the smoke -- and the place should be open for business. Lonjiku might lock it down if he was working on a special project, but I should have heard about it if he was -- he buys some of his reagents from me. And the windows wouldn't be curtained up, at least not on this side -- they'd want as much light in the workshop as they could get. Something's very wrong in there."
"Let me see what I can hear," said Aeraliss, stepping lightly to the nearest window and putting her ear against it. She frowned in concentration, as the others waited. After a moment she stepped away. "I'm not sure," she said. "The furnace is pretty loud in there, but... I think I heard something break, and someone screaming. And maybe giggling -- high-pitched, like a child."
"Goblins," said Kavren grimly. "They'd want the curtains drawn even if they weren't worried about being seen from outside -- the little vermin hate sunlight."
"Good bet," Kaldak agreed. "So what do we do now?"
"Let's get back around to the front, just in case they can hear us over here by the doors," Erek suggested.
Back on Glass Street, Thoromir said, "If we're going in after them, we need support; there aren't enough of us to block all the entrances, and we don't want to get swarmed. I'll run up to the garrison and tell the sergeant of the watch we may have goblins in the Glassworks, and to get as many guards as he can down here."
"Good thinking," said Kavren. "Bethana, can you try to get some of the militia out here, too? Quietly as possible, but we need them armed and ready for trouble."
The halfling maid nodded, her eyes huge, and scampered off down Sand Alley, as the cleric jogged up Glass Street toward the garrison. "My kingdom for a crystal ball," muttered Kavren, misquoting one of his favorite plays. "We've got to know what's going on in there."
"You don't need a crystal ball," said Aeraliss. "You need someone like me." She opened her backpack and produced a four-pronged iron grappling hook, with a coil of silk climbing rope knotted securely to the ring at the end of its central shaft.
Despite his worry, Kavren quirked an eyebrow at the Varisian woman and lightly asked, "What was it you said you do for a living?"
"I didn't," Aeraliss replied, swinging the hook in a circle before tossing it to the roof of the display room. It hooked neatly over the tower's decorative parapet, and after giving it a couple of tugs to test its grip, Aeraliss swarmed up the rope, going hand over hand as quick as any acrobat Kavren had ever seen. When she reached the top, she hooked one leg over the parapet and dropped lightly to the roof behind it. She was out of sight for a moment, then she looked back over the edge and said, "Nothing going on in the display room; I'm going to check the other three skylights, over the workshop." She ran lightly up to the peak of the roof, her feet making no noise that Kavren could hear, and disappeared again down the other side.
This time she was out of sight for several minutes, and when she reappeared her face was pale and very grim. "There's blood everywhere," she said, as she rappelled back down her climbing rope. "I counted six dead men, and there may be more I couldn't see. And there are at least half a dozen goblins running around, smashing things, hacking at the bodies, and splashing molten glass everywhere. One of the bodies is propped up in a chair right under the middle skylight, completely covered in sheets of green glass -- they must have poured buckets of the stuff over him."
"What about Ameiko?" asked Kavren tautly.
"I couldn't see her in there, thank the gods," Aeraliss replied. "But it's pretty dark, and there could be more bodies than I saw."
"Damn it, we've got to get inside!" Kavren muttered, pacing back and forth in an agony of indecision. "Where are the bloody militia?"
"Here come a couple of them," said Erek, as two men with spears, shields and helmets walked briskly around the corner from Gull Street. Kavren recognized them as Delric and Dyson Torvis, brothers who worked down at the shipyard.
"Here, Stark, what's going on?" asked Delric. "We were having breakfast in the Hagfish when little Bethana comes running in with a story about goblins at the Glassworks and Miss Kaijitsu trapped inside, maybe hurt. Has she gone round the bend?"
"I'm afraid not," said Kavren. "There are goblins in there, at least half a dozen, and they've killed at least some of the workers who live on site. And we think Ameiko went in there around midnight and hasn't come out."
"You're joking?" Dyson asked hopefully. Kavren shook his head. "How the bloody hell could they have gotten in there with nobody spotting them?"
"I don't know, but I hope you're not the only ones Bethana found."
"We just live the closest, so it didn't take us long to grab our gear," said Delric. "There should be six or eight more on the way."
"Then let's wait until they get here before we go over everything that's going on," Kavren suggested.
The sight of armed militiamen gathering outside the Glassworks inevitably attracted attention, and a small crowd had formed by the bakery across the street by the time Thoromir returned, accompanied by the sergeant of the watch and three other guards. Aeraliss then explained to the guards and militiamen exactly what she had seen. The sergeant ordered the guards to move the crowd back, and detailed the Torvis brothers to alert more of the militia.
While they waited, Aeraliss had listened at each of the windows around the glassworks, and determined that all the goblin noises seemed to be coming from the main workshop. At Kavren's suggestion, she had also jammed the locks on the reception office and loading room doors, while Erek and Kaldak blocked the double doors to the beach path with one of the wagons used for moving sand. Kavren had sketched a rough map of the layout of the glassworks for the two Shoanti. Now, after a quick consultation with Thoromir and the sergeant, they put the finishing touches on their plan of attack.
As the guards and militiamen took up positions defending the other three doors, Aeraliss set to picking the lock on the display room door with the burglar's toolkit she had produced, to Kavren's complete lack of surprise, from her belt pouch. The lock, however, proved stubborn, and after a couple of minutes of trying the woman swore under her breath. "I think I'm losing my touch."
"Don't feel too bad," said the sergeant. "That's one of Volioker's masterpieces, he'd be terribly disappointed if you got it open. And we don't need to pick it; I had my boys bring the ram down from the garrison."
Aeraliss glared at him, as Kavren asked, "Why didn't you say so in the first place?"
"I wanted to see if the girl could pick it," the sergeant replied. "Lonjiku won't thank me for breaking down the door."
"I think Lonjiku may be dead," said Kavren. "Anyway, let's get this open."
Two of the guards brought the heavy, iron-headed battering ram up to the door. After sizing up Erek and Kaldak, they handed it over to the two Shoanti and stood back to watch. Thoromir chanted a prayer to Iomedae, calling down her blessing to strengthen their resolve and guide their weapons. When he finished, Aeraliss climbed back up her rope, followed somewhat more slowly by Kavren, who was assisted by a boost from Kaldak. The two of them pulled up the rope and crossed the roof to take up a position by the central skylight, overlooking the entire workshop.
Kavren shuddered at his first sight of the sanguinary nightmare Aeraliss had described. "That's Lonjiku, all right," he said, looking down at the glass-coated corpse in the chair. "Gods be good, what is Tsuto thinking? There's no way he's after the inheritance, his note to Ameiko will tell the whole town who did this... unless he thinks he can frame her for it... no, that doesn't make any sense, either."
"Let's just pray that whatever he's up to involves keeping her alive long enough for us to find her," Aeraliss replied. "Look sharp!" she added, as they heard the first thump of the ram.
Kavren spanned his crossbow and dropped a bolt into the groove; Aeraliss already had her shortbow off her back, an arrow nocked and ready. In her other hand she held an iron crowbar, ready to smash the glass skylight and give them an opening to shoot through. They heard the splintering crash as the door gave way, and looked to the interior door that connected the workshop to the long hallway outside the display room. A moment later, that door, too, shuddered under the impact of the ram.
The goblins in the room below them had continued their grisly sport, the roar of the furnace rendering them oblivious to the noise of the ram on the outside door or the observers on the roof, but now they turned as one toward the door; four of them rushed toward it, while two ran toward the far end of the room, and another two, carrying long glassmakers' tongs, made for the closest furnace hearth to pick up blobs of molten glass.
Kavren hefted his crossbow and chanted the True Strike spell as the door gave way and Aeraliss smashed the crowbar through four of the skylight's heavy glass panes. Moving with unnatural precision, he brought the weapon down into line with the nearest goblin... only to have it misfire, the bolt passing over the goblin's head before he could finish aiming. "Rovagug's fangs!" he swore, as Aeraliss took her own shot.
Her arrow flew straight and true; one of the goblins rushing the door sprouted feathers, and dropped to the floor with a choked scream. Kavren slung the ineffectual crossbow back over his shoulder and gripped his staff, calling upon the Evoker's Gift.
As he raised his hand, the door burst inward, and Erek leapt into the workshop, longsword and shield at high guard. Unfortunately, two goblins had flanked the door. The first one's dogslicer struck a glancing blow to the fighter's leg, while the second opened a shallow gash on his sword arm. His blade whistled over the goblin's head, but Thoromir, piling into the room behind him, struck it down in a spray of blood with his own longsword.
Kavren gestured at the other goblin attacking his friends, and a bolt of arcane force slashed through the air to strike it with unerring accuracy. The wound it made was small, though, and while the goblin screamed in pain, it did not fall. Kaldak entered the workshop behind Erek and Thoromir, whose advance had driven the wounded goblin back from the doorway. His Shoanti longbow thrummed, and another goblin that had been rushing the door tumbled head over heels and lay still.
As Aeraliss took careful aim and shot another arrow down into the workshop, Kavren scrambled around to the other side of the skylight, trying to spot the two goblins that had run away from the door. He punched out another pane of glass with the iron-shod foot of his staff and peered into the dimly-lit workshop.
The goblins he sought were struggling with a massive crossbow, one of them feverishly turning the windlass as the other held a harpoon-like bolt ready to load. "Oh no you don't," the wizard snarled, gripping his staff while his free hand reached into his pouch of spell components. His fingers brushed past the little bags of multi-colored sand and wood ash -- too far for Color Spray or Burning Hands -- and slipped into the pocket full of dried rose petals. All right, Ameiko, he thought, pulling out a pinch of the fragrant petals, let's see if I learned it right.
In his intense focus on the mastery of Evocation, Kavren had deliberately excluded two of the other seven schools of wizardry from his studies: Necromancy and Enchantment. He had no regrets at all about the former, with its deep connections to the dark gods and undeath, but he did on occasion wish that he had learned at least a few elementary enchantments. His recent foray into bardic magic, under Ameiko's cheerful tutelage, had given him access to two of those spells: Charm Person, and Sleep. He still felt some ethical reservations about using the former -- it was precisely the abusive potential of mind-affecting spells like Charm Person that had turned him away from Enchantment in the first place -- but he had no such qualms about Sleep. Focusing on the two goblins with the crossbow, he softly hummed two bars of "The Wild Rose," letting the petals fall from his fingers.
The rose petals crumbled to dust in the air. The goblin holding the barbed crossbow bolt yawned hugely, but then shook off the spell, keeping his feet. His companion, however, was not so strong-willed. He crumpled the ground, dropping the bow. The string snapped forward, spinning the windlass out of control. The conscious goblin whipped his flat head right and left, frantically seeking the source of the magical attack. The broken skylight caught his attention, and beady red eyes met hard black ones. Kavren grinned fiercely at his foe, as another force bolt took form around his pointing finger.
The goblin took to his heels, fleeing through the door at the north end of the workshop. Kavren swore, rushing back around to the larger opening Aeraliss had made in the glass. The Varisian woman had her crowbar in hand again, clearing enough glass to let her set the grappling hook and drop the rope through the broken skylight without risking cutting it. "Seriously," Kavren said, "which Thieves' Guild did you belong to?"
Aeraliss smiled sweetly. "Mine to know, yours to figure out... or not. After you." She handed him the rope, and Kavren looped it around his body in a crude rappelling harness. Aeraliss checked his handiwork and nodded, and he dropped through into the workshop.
All the goblins still inside were dead or unconscious; he could see Erek wiping blood from his blade. Kaldak appeared unhurt, but Thoromir's chainmail had been splashed with molten glass, and the cleric's grimace suggested the armor hadn't fully protected him from its heat. There were a total of eight murdered and partially dismembered workers scattered around the workshop -- all the men who lived inside the Glassworks -- as well as the body of Lonjiku, posed like a lord on his throne and completely encased in runny, irregular sheets of green glass.
Kavren landed lightly on his feet, disengaged from the rope, and ran for the northern door where the goblin that resisted his Sleep spell had disappeared. It opened into the loading and storage room where the salts and powdered metals used to color the glass were stored. The safe where Lonjiku stored the gold and silver dust for making red and yellow glass hung open and empty. The goblin was nowhere to be seen, but the door to the cellar stairs stood ajar. Kavren stopped, letting his friends catch up.
"Do you really want to be in the lead here?" Thoromir asked curiously, gesturing at the wizard's unarmored chest.
"I'm a lot more worried for Ameiko's safety than mine," Kavren replied, as Erek led the way down the stairs. "That goblin might have run off to murder her before we can get there. But you're right, I can't help her by walking into an ambush."
The stairs ran down to the southeast, under the main workshop. Thoromir cast Light on his shield, making it shine like a torch, while Aeraliss pulled an actual torch from a wall sconce and list it with a tindertwig from her belt pouch. At the bottom of the stairs, a five-foot wide corridor ran straight ahead for about twenty feet, then took a forty-five degree bend and widened out into a long storeroom, about ten feet wide by forty long and oriented north to south. Kavren had been in there a few times when delivering materials to the Glassworks. Another narrow corridor branched off at a sharp angle to the west, just past the foot of the stairs. Erek peeked around the corner, then took up a guard position in front of that corridor, while Kaldak moved up behind him with his longbow.
A high-pitched voice shouted an insult in Goblin, and Kavren heard the flapping of flat, leathery feet from around the corner as Erek shouted his own challenge in Shoanti and Kaldak loosed an arrow up the corridor. Kavren reached into his spell component pouch, pulling out a little drawstring bag and pouring an ounce or so of colored sand into his hand, then put that hand and one eye around the corner. Two goblins were advancing on the Shoanti warriors, waving their dogslicers menacingly. Kavren spoke the words to the Color Spray spell and hurled the fine sand at the goblins.
Scintillating rays of red, blue, and golden light blazed forth from his fingertips, lighting up the corridor for a moment; one goblin ducked back around the corner at the far end, but the other collapsed and lay twitching on the floor. Thoromir and Kaldak moved up that corridor to deal with the remaining goblin, while Erek advanced into the long storeroom, followed by Kavren and Aeraliss, who had unwrapped the colorful Varisian scarf from around her waist, revealing the bladed chain sewn into one edge of it and hitherto concealed in its folds.
They found themselves face to ugly face with two more goblins. Erek thrust his sword at one of them, but the goblin parried with its dogslicer. However, that put the creature off its guard, and Aeraliss' bladed scarf whipped past the warrior to cut into its exposed shoulder.
As the goblin cried out in pain and rage, Kavren took another pinch of rose petals and cast Sleep again. The wounded goblin -- he thought it might be the same one that had fled from the melee in the workshop -- shook it off once more, but its uninjured companion slumped to the flagstone floor. Erek's return stroke beheaded the one goblin left standing, while Aeraliss finished off its unconscious companion with her dagger.
From the sounds they could hear, it seemed Thoromir and Kaldak had dispatched the other goblin along the route they had taken. Yet another narrow corridor ran west from about halfway down the long storeroom. Erek led the way again. This corridor ran about twenty-five feet, and they could see the light from Thoromir's shield shining into it from the north at the far end. There were also two doors on their right.
Aeraliss listened at the first door, then tried it and found it unlocked; it opened into a storeroom about twelve feet square, most of the space taken up by shelves full of finished glassware, with narrow aisles between them. From the intact state of the glass, Kavren surmised that the goblins hadn't explored that room yet.
The second door was locked. Thoromir and Kaldak rejoined them as Aeraliss pressed her ear to the door. After a moment she whispered to the others that she could hear some kind of movement inside. She knelt by the lock and took out her picks again. Kavren and Thoromir watched her anxiously, while Erek and Kaldak kept watch down the corridors to the north and east. "This doesn't look too... ouch!"
There was a clicking sound, and as the lock turned Aeraliss jerked her hand back as if burned. A tiny needle protruded from the keyhole, glistening in the torchlight. "Damn it!" she swore, looking at the drop of blood welling up on her finger. "What a stupid, amateur mistake! Thoromir, could you please take a look at this? I think I might just have been poisoned." As the priest examined Aeraliss' hand in the light still emanating from his shield, Kavren carefully opened the door, using his staff to push it inwards.
"Oh, sweet Sarenrae!" the wizard exclaimed. The door opened into a small storeroom, about seven feet by ten. In the opposite corner was a rough straw pallet, and on it lay the small, slender form of Ameiko Kaijitsu, bound, gagged, and blindfolded. The young woman's hands and feet had been pulled cruelly together behind her back, with perhaps eight inches of cord linking the ropes knotted around her wrists and ankles. Her bare arms were mottled with bruises, the skin visible through various rips and rents in her clothes was likewise discolored, and she had several of the distinctive half-circle clusters of puncture wounds left by pointed goblin teeth, though none of them looked as severe as the savage, ripping bites that had killed little Aeren Barett and his father a few days earlier. Dried blood crusted the bites, and more of it from a cut on her scalp was matted in her long black hair. At the sound of the door opening, she gave a despairing moan and began struggling hopelessly against her bonds.
"It's all right, Ameiko, it's me, it's Kavren," the wizard said hurriedly, as he crossed the room to kneel at her side. "You're safe now. The goblins are dead, and I'll have you free in just a second." He drew the dagger from his belt and cut through the ropes around her wrists, then her ankles. Ameiko groaned as her stiff legs began to straighten, and reached clumsily for her blindfold with fingers numb from constricted circulation. "Here, let me," Kavren said, slicing through the knots that held the leather strips over her eyes and mouth. The blindfold came away soaked with tears. Her lovely face was bruised and battered, and the agony in her dark eyes tore at his heart.
"You found me." Ameiko's voice was raw with pain, barely above a whisper. "Oh, gods, you found me! I didn't think anyone was coming... Tsuto's note was in Minkaii, and he said he'd close up the Glassworks, like father does when he has a special project going. His goblins murdered all the workers, and he said we'd be gone before anyone could know where I was. But you found me!"
She wrapped her arms around Kavren, hugging him convulsively and sobbing into his chest. He circled one arm around her shoulders and drew her close, bowing his head to hide his own tears -- of relief at finding her alive, and grief for the monstrous betrayal she had suffered. "Shhh, shhh," he whispered, stroking her hair. "It's all right, you're safe, nobody's going to hurt you now. We're getting you out of here."
It only took her a moment to collect herself, and then she pulled away to look up at him. "You've got to stop Tsuto! He was behind the goblin raid, he's planning to burn the whole town to the ground! We have to warn father!"
"Ameiko..." Kavren paused, unable to think what to say, but his face and voice must have given it away.
"Oh, gods... father's dead, isn't he? Tsuto killed him. Of course he did, they hated each other ever since... oh, my gods...."
"I'm so sorry, Ameiko."
"I... this is... there's no time now to deal with this. Kavren, you need to find Tsuto. He said he was taking me with him when he left, so he might still be here somewhere."
"If he is, we'll find him," Kavren said. "But let's get you healed up first. Thoromir?"
"Right," the cleric replied from the doorway to Ameiko's cell. "Gather round, everyone." He entered the cell, and Erek and Aeraliss crowded in after him, while Kaldak stood just outside the doorway. Then he raised the silver sword-and-sunburst pendant from around his neck and spoke a brief prayer to his goddess. The holy symbol flared with a brilliant white light that lasted perhaps three seconds. Uninjured himself, Kavren felt all minor aches and muscle fatigue leach out of his body, leaving him feeling as though he'd just had a good night's sleep and a long, hot bath. Ameiko pulled herself up to a seated position, as her goblin bites scabbed over and the ugly red marks the ropes had left on her wrists began to fade. Aeraliss examined her finger where the needle had pricked her, and Erek flexed his arm, looking at the new scar where the gash made by the goblin's dogslicer had been. Thoromir himself rubbed his shoulder where the molten glass had splashed him.
"That's better," the young innkeeper said in a stronger voice. "I still feel like I could stay in bed for about a week, but I think I'll at least be able to walk, now."
"Why don't you rest here for a bit?" Kavren said. "We'll deal with Tsuto, if he's here, and get you back to the Dragon as soon as it's safe." Ameiko nodded, and Kavren added, "Oh, and you might want this." He offered her his dagger, hilt-first.
"Thank you, Kavren." Ameiko accepted the blade, then leaned back against the wall. "Go. I'll be fine; just find Tsuto."
Erek led the way back out into the narrow hallway. There were two closed doors in the west wall; Aeraliss picked her way through a patch of rubble on the floor, and put her ear to the first. After a moment, she turned to the others, touched her ear, and nodded. Then she knelt and minutely examined the lock before giving her companions a thumbs-up gesture: not locked, not trapped.
"Let me try a spell, first," Kavren whispered, moving to stand in front of the door. "I've got one more Color Spray prepared, and I think we need to take him alive if we can." Erek moved past him to stand ready just to the left, while Kaldak and Aeraliss took up positions on the right. Kavren poured another measure of colored sand into his hand. "Open it," he whispered.
Aeraliss carefully turned the door handle, and Kavren shoved the door inward with his staff, chanting his spell. He flung the sand through the doorway, and the coruscating beams of red, blue, and golden light shot forth from his fingertips once more, shining into another small storeroom.
The tall, dark-haired man inside the room cursed at him, cringing and squeezing his eyes shut as the light illuminated his sharp half-elven features and pointed ears, but managed to keep his feet and shake off the spell. Kavren cursed in turn, backing hastily away to take up a position behind Erek as the big warrior readied sword and shield. Instead of attacking, though, the half-elf seized an object from his belt and raised it to his lips, appeared to bite off the tip of it... and vanished like a blown candle flame. The now-empty potion vial clattered on the flagstone floor.
"Careful!" the fighter called. "He's gone invisible!"
Aeraliss had slipped her backpack off before opening the door. Now she reached into it and drew forth a flask of lamp oil, popping off the cork and splashing the contents into the storeroom in a single fluid motion. The oil sprayed over the invisible man, outlining him for a moment before fading out of sight as well, but it was long enough for Erek to see that he was moving into the hallway, judge his position, and swing. The longsword connected solidly with something none of them could see, and a loud groan was heard from the space in front of the door. The fighter jerked his blade back to guard position and interposed his shield between himself and his unseen foe.
Seeing where the sword had stopped, Kavren stepped up beside Erek, shouting, "You want to burn this town, Tsuto? You first!" He slammed a flask of alchemist's fire into the ground where he hoped the man's feet would be. Flames flared up, outlining and illuminating the man's legs and lower torso as the oil with which Aeraliss had doused him caught fire as well. Erek hastily raised his shield to protect his face from the blast of heat, as Kavren and Aeraliss recoiled. Tsuto collapsed, rolling and writhing in agony on the ground, the spell of invisibility broken.
Kavren pointed at him and spoke a single word in the language of magic. A thin stream of freezing air and chill, white vapor shot forth from his fingertip, and he played it over Tsuto and the ground around him, dousing the flames. The half-elf lay still, whimpering, his clothes charred and raw red skin showing through in several places. "Let's get this garbage trussed up and delivered to the barracks," Kavren growled.
"There was someone else in there!" Aeraliss said. "When I listened at the door, I heard two voices -- the other one sounded like a woman. Check the room!"
Erek and Thoromir entered the small storeroom, which contained a cot and a writing desk, moving carefully and pausing to listen for someone invisible trying to sneak past them as they probed the air with their swords. While they searched, Kaldak tied the badly burned half-elf's hands behind him.
After a couple of minutes, the warrior and the priest gave up the search. "If someone else was here, they must have escaped," said Thoromir.
Kavren shrugged. "It's possible, I guess," he said, joining htem in the store-room. "But I think it's more likely she wasn't here at all. Look at this." On the desk was a wide, shallow ceramic bowl, filled almost to the rim with water. "I think it's a scrying device. It has an aura of Divination magic, anyway; he could have been using it to talk to someone up at Thistletop, or somewhere else outside of town."
"We found something else, too," said Thoromir. "Looks like Tsuto kept a journal."
"That could be useful," Kavren observed. "May I see?"
"Sure." The tall Shoanti handed him the small, leather-bound book. Kavren quickly leafed through it. "Now that's interesting," he said. "I need some time to study this, but I think we may have worse troubles than goblins on our hands."
"We'd best check this other door before we go, then" suggested Kaldak, as he finished tying Tsuto up. He'd done a thorough job of restraining the man, Kavren noted, without indulging in the kind of pointless cruelty Tsuto had inflicted on his half-sister.
Aeraliss knelt again to examine the handle of the second door. "Looks safe," she said. "Of course, if anyone's waiting in there they'll be ready for us, after all the noise we just made."
"I'll take point," Erek volunteered. The others flanked him as he readied sword and shield again; Aeraliss turned the handle, then stepped back as he kicked the door open.
Behind it, a long, narrow tunnel led away to the northeast, farther than Thoromir's light spell could reach. "Interesting," said Kavren. "I've heard stories about this place having smugglers' tunnels in the cellar; it looks like we just found one."
"Great. So what do we do about it?" Thoromir asked. "We need to explore it, right?"
"Yes, but I think not right at this moment," said Kavren. "I want to get Ameiko home and make sure she's all right, and I need to sleep and recover my spells before we do any more fighting. And we should see if we can get any information out of Tsuto, here." He nudged their captive with the toe of his boot.
"Sounds like fun," said Erek, smiling unpleasantly. "I'll bet I can get him to sing."
Kavren stroked his beard. "If you're suggesting the kind of methods I think you are, the town watch might have a problem with it. Although considering how many people he's murdered, and what killing Lonjiku and wrecking the Glassworks is going to do to the local economy, they might not, too. After what he did to Ameiko, I'm not inclined to object, either. Still, I think we might try something a little more subtle. You ever hear the expression 'good guard/bad guard?'"
Erek's smile grew into a feral grin. "I'll be the bad guard."
"And I'll see if the Charm spell Ameiko taught me can convince him I'm the good one. Let's get the militia to post a guard around the building and start cleaning up upstairs, get Tsuto locked up and Ameiko back to the inn."
"I think I'd better go see father Zantus," said Aeraliss. "My hand's starting to tingle. No offense, Thoromir, but I don't think your channeling stopped whatever was on that needle."
"Oh!" Kavren exclaimed. "Damn it, I'm a fool. I'm sorry Aeraliss, I should have thought of this sooner; I was so worried about Ameiko, it slipped my mind."
"Thought of what?" the Varisian woman asked, exasperated.
"This." He produced a small vial from his backpack and offered it to her. "Antitoxin. Should stop or at least mitigate the effects of most of the common poisons you might find in a trap like that."
"Ah, thanks!" Aeraliss accepted the proffered bottle, popped the seal and swallowed the liquid inside, grimacing at the bitter flavor.
"It's not magic," Kavren cautioned. "Just alchemy; you should still see father Zantus. I don't know if he's up to casting Neutralize Poison, but I think the temple keeps a few potions on hand for that."
Erek handed his backpack and shield to Kaldak, then slung Tsuto over his shoulder, while Kavren went back to Ameiko and helped her to her feet, supporting her with one arm around her back while she draped one of hers over his shoulders. When they rejoined the others, Thoromir took a look at her and said, "I think I'd better do another channeling; you look like you could use it, Ameiko, and we don't want Tsuto dying before he answers some questions."
"Thank you, Thoromir," said Ameiko, as the priest again raised his holy symbol to call upon Iomedae's gift of healing. Ameiko stood straighter, taking more of her weight on her feet, though she didn't remove her arm from around Kavren's shoulders, and Tsuto groaned and stirred as his burns and the cut from Erek's sword began to mend.
At the top of the stairs, Ameiko started to turn toward the doorway to the main workshop, but Kavren stopped, holding her in place. "Do you trust me, Ameiko-san?" he asked.
"Of course! You just saved my life, of course I trust you."
"Then please listen to me now. Don't go in that room. I won't stop you if you insist, but what you would see in there would only bring you more pain. Please don't do that to yourself."
She appeared on the verge of insisting, but after studying his face for a moment, she said, "All right, Kavren. Let's go home."
Kavren knocked on the outside door and called out the men guarding it to let them know who was coming out. Aeraliss took a moment to get the lock open, and then they were out on the street, blinking in the bright morning sunlight. They briefly explained to the sergeant what had happened inside, with Kavren doing most of the talking while Ameiko and the others filled in the gaps. As the sergeant took custody of Tsuto and set about organizing the militia to guard the Glassworks and temporarily board up both the tunnel door in the cellar and all but one of the entrances, Kavren addressed his companions. "I'm going to take Ameiko home. Are the rest of you coming?"
"I think I'll go over to the barracks and help the jailer keep an eye on Tsuto," Erek said. "We don't want the slippery bastard causing any more trouble."
"Fine with me," said the sergeant. "Vachedi might appreciate the company; he's Shiikirri-Quah, too."
"I'll come find you at the barracks, then," said Kavren. "See if we can't get Tsuto talking."
"Good. Aeraliss, why don't you come back with us to the Rusty Dragon, and we'll send for Father Zantus to look at you and Ameiko there? It's a shorter walk from here than the cathedral."
"All right," Aeraliss agreed.
"I'll go get Father Zantus," said Thoromir.
"And I'll fetch Hannah Veleren," said Kaldak. "She's a better herbalist than Zantus, and she might be able to do something to help Aeraliss if he doesn't have a potion for her."
"Thank you," said Aeraliss. "I think I'm all right, actually, but it can't hurt to have her take a look at my hand. I broke the needle off the trap and kept it, too, so maybe she can figure out what was on it."
"I didn't realize you'd done that," Kavren said. "Good thinking. If Hannah can't identify it, I probably can with some of the stuff in my shop."
"I think I'd better have Hannah look at these bites, too," said Ameiko. "A goblin bite makes a filthy wound, and her poultices are pretty good for stopping infections."
Kavren and Aeraliss escorted Ameiko through the crowd around the Glassworks, fending off the questions of curious onlookers. As they got clear, Bethana joined them, having waited anxiously outside the building for news of her employer. "We wouldn't have known where to look for you if it hadn't been for Bethana, here," Kavren said. "She translated Tsuto's note."
Ameiko went to her knees and hugged the old halfling woman. "Thank you, Bethana," she said. "You've always looked out for me, ever since I was a child; thank you for showing my friends where to find me."
"Thank the gods you're alive, Miss Ameiko," said Bethana tearfully, returning Ameiko's embrace. "I was so worried about you."
"The gods, and five brave souls who fought for my life," the bard replied. "And you, good and faithful servant."
The four of them made their way through the streets to the Rusty Dragon. Inside, they went straight up to the sitting room of Ameiko's small apartment above the kitchen. Ameiko sank into a large, cushioned armchair, while Kavren and Aeraliss sat on the divan across from her. "Bethana," the innkeeper asked, "would you be so good as to have Myreen stoke up the oven, and make sure the hot water tank is full? What I would like most in the world right now is a long, hot bath."
"Of course, Miss Ameiko," said Bethana. "I'll let you know when the water's ready."
"How are you doing?" Kavren asked softly.
"Exhausted," Ameiko replied. "As for the rest... father's dead. I don't know how to feel about that. I tried so hard not to hate him... and now I don't have to anymore. It doesn't matter. But Tsuto... what he did, to father, and me, and our town... gods. I think I just need some time to sort things through."
"Can you tell us any more of what Tsuto's planning?" asked Aeraliss. "Did he tell you anything?"
"He's working with a woman, a priestess of Lamashtu, but I don't know who she is. He wanted me to join them, help them burn Sandpoint as a sacrifice to Lamashtu. Of course, I told him to go to hell. That's when he set his goblins on me."
"All that's in his journal," said Kavren. "I need to look over it more carefully; he goes on about 'his love' all over the place, when he isn't filling up the page with sketches of her naked; maybe I can piece together who -- or what -- she is. If not, maybe Erek and I between us can get him to talk. Oh, and I should also go talk to Mayor Deverin -- she's going to want answers from somebody, and I'd sooner she grilled me than you. But I don't need to leave right away... are you going to be all right here?"
Ameiko nodded. "Aeraliss is here, and Hannah and Father Zantus should be along in a little while to check on my bites and her needleprick. After I see them, I'm going to have a long soak in the tub and sleep for a few hours. Go do what you have to do. You will be back for dinner this evening, though, won't you?"
"Count on it."
Kavren rose to leave, but Ameiko held up her hand. "Help me up, please?" He clasped the hand and pulled her to her feet, and she flowed smoothly into an embrace. It crossed his mind that in the years he had known her, he had never truly appreciated how small she was. Her bold, self-assured demeanor and general competence at any task to which she set her hands and mind kept him from perceiving her slight build as frail or delicate. Kavren was not an especially tall man, even by Chelaxian standards, and his Shoanti friends towered over him -- but the top of Ameiko's head fit snugly under his chin, and her slender frame felt almost childlike as she nestled into his arms and laid her cheek against his chest.
She stayed there for the space of a dozen long breaths, then stepped back to gaze up into his eyes, and spoke in the formal tone of one swearing an oath. "Thank you, Kavren Stark, for saving my life. I owe you a debt I can never repay."
Kavren shook his head. "I couldn't have done it alone," he said. "And there is no debt. I didn't do it for that. I did it because I care for you, and because it was the right thing to do."
"I know all that," Ameiko replied. She looked at Aeraliss. "This goes for you, too, Aeraliss, and I'll tell Thoromir and Kaldak and Erek the same. If there is anything you ever need, and it is within my power, you have only to ask."
"Thank you, Ameiko," Aeraliss said.
"Thank you," Kavren echoed. "Now I really do have to go. Ameiko, Aeraliss... until tonight."
* * * * *
If anyone read that, I hope you enjoyed it. Incidentally, the full text of Tsuto's note can be read here, and the key pages from his journal are here. The sketches in the latter are slightly NSFW. There are also some very pretty maps of the Sandpoint Glassworks and its cellar.
On Sunday morning, one week after the Swallowtail festival and the goblin incursion, Kavren walked to the Rusty Dragon to meet Kaldak and Thoromir for an early breakfast. His friends were waiting at their usual table, along with the other Shoanti, Erek, and the Varisian woman Aeraliss, to whom Ameiko had introduced him the previous morning. He noted that all four of them were already armed and armored, ready for their morning tour of the town's defenses. They also looked unusually alert for this time of the morning, and as Kavren crossed the common room to join them, he realized that the kitchen door was closed, and the usual spicy aromas from Ameiko's cooking were notably absent.
"Something wrong?" he asked, as he approached his friends.
"I was going to ask you that," said Thoromir. "You've known Ameiko longer than any of us, except Aeraliss here, and she hadn't seen her in a few years before she got to town yesterday. Is it normal for her to open this late?"
"No," said Kavren, in a voice tinged with worry. "Mind you, I didn't always come here for breakfast as regularly as I've been doing since I met up with you two, but I've never known Ameiko to be late opening the kitchen. Oh, she might have one of the cooks take care of it if she's sick, but if the Dragon's ever actually opened for breakfast later than sunrise, I haven't heard about it -- and I would have. I think something's wrong."
Before any of the others could reply, someone tugged at the wizard's sleeve. He turned, saw nobody at first, then lowered his gaze to meet that of the elderly halfling woman who stood beside him, nervously wringing her hands. "Good morning, Bethana," he said, recognizing her as one of the maids who kept the Dragon's rooms clean and tidy. "Can I do something for you?"
"Thank Desna you're here, Mr. Kavren," Bethana said tremulously. "It's Miss Ameiko. She's gone missing! I saw she hadn't started breakfast -- first time that's ever happened, like you was just sayin' -- so I went and knocked on her door to see if she wasn't feeling well. She didn't answer, and I... I know I shouldn't've, but I was worried about her, so I opened her door. Her bed was all made up, hadn't been slept in at all, and she was nowhere to be found! And what's worse, I found this crumpled up by her bed."
She held up a sheet of parchment covered in the graceful pictograms of Minkaii writing. "I can't read that, Bethana," Kavren said. Turning to his friends, he asked, "Can any of you read Minkaii?"
The others all shook their heads, but Bethana said, "Miss Ameiko's been teachin' me to read it the last few years. This is what it says." She flipped the note around, showing her own writing on the back. Kavren accepted the parchment and quickly scanned over it.
"Oh, nine bloody hells," he swore. "It's from her brother."
"Is that bad?" Kaldak asked.
"Yes. Or at least, it might be. I've never actually met Tsuto Kaijitsu, myself, but from what I've heard of him, this could be very bad. Come on, I'll explain on the way over to the Glassworks; if Ameiko was acting on this message, that's where she went.
"He caused quite a scandal when he was born, Tsuto did," said Bethana, as they exited the inn. "On account of him being half-elf."
"But Ameiko's... oh, I see," said Thoromir.
"Both her parents are human," said Bethana. "Old Lonjiku was furious, of course, and Atsuii -- that's their mother -- never would say who the elf was."
"Tsuto grew up in the orphans' quarters at Turandurok," Kavren continued. "Lonjiku wanted nothing to do with him -- can't really blame the old man for that, I guess -- but he wouldn't let Atsuii see him, either. They stayed married, but it was as miserable a marriage as Sandpoint's ever seen. She'd have been destitute if she left him, and he used that to keep her shut up in the manor; I think he also told her he wouldn't pay for Tsuto to stay at the academy any more if she defied him. Her family wouldn't have helped her -- Tian-Min tend to be even more fanatical about their honor than the rest of the Tian, and they'd arranged her marriage to Lonjiku in the first place.
"Ameiko had it easier, though. She took lessons at the academy, like all the other children in town, and she'd manage to see Tsuto a couple of times a week. They were very close as children -- she's only a couple of years older than he is, and I think she was pretty lonely at home. Understand, she's never actually come out and told me this, but my understanding is that she always hoped her father would somehow change his mind -- that Tsuto could come and live with them and they could be a proper family, like her friends had."
"That's right," said Bethana. "I worked up at Kaijitsu manor back then, and Miss Ameiko talked to me a lot more than the other servants, or even her parents. I think it's because I'm little, like she was, so she didn't quite see me as a grown-up. She kept telling Tsuto it would be all right, that it would all work out somehow and he'd come home to live with her at the manor -- you know how she always looks on the bright side, Mr. Kavren."
"Maybe that's why it happened," said Kavren. "Maybe the waiting, and the constant disappointment, just got to be too much for him. But whatever it was, it all blew up about six years ago, and they had one hell of a fight."
"He hit her," Bethana said, her eyes going wide. "Punched her in the face, blacked her eye and knocked her down. Her own baby brother. Broke her heart, it did, she'd loved him so. That's why she went off to be an adventurer. Then she came back a year later, eighteen years old and already rich as any merchant round here. That's when she bought out the Dragon. She must have got a letter or something, 'cause she made it back just in time for Atsuii's funeral. And what a mess that was! Tsuto came right out and accused old Lonjiku of murdering his wife -- which half the town had been whispering, but nobody had the nerve to actually say to his face -- and Lonjiku near to broke the boy's jaw with that cane he carries around everywhere."
"That cane is a katana," Kavren observed. "Tian-Min bastard sword, at least a hundred years old, and as fine a blade as you'll find anywhere in the world. And if he'd drawn it in anger, by his traditions he couldn't sheath it again 'til he'd washed it in someone's blood, so I think it actually shows some restraint that he just whacked Tsuto with the hilt, under the circumstances."
"Tsuto didn't think so," Bethana said. "He cursed the old man up, down, and sideways, stormed out of the funeral, and hasn't been seen in Sandpoint since. Miss Ameiko's tried to reach him, but she never could track him down."
"So now he's back, and he's accusing Lonjiku of being behind the goblin trouble," Kavren said, holding up the note. "He asked Ameiko to meet him at the Glassworks last night at midnight, supposedly so they could figure out what to do about it. She'd go, there's no doubt in my mind she'd go to talk to him, and he also asked her not to tell anyone.
"She loves Tsuto," said Bethana. "She'd trust him, even after their fight and everything that's happened since. If he asked her to meet him in the middle of the night, without telling anyone where she was going or why, she'd do it."
"And I don't trust him," Kavren concluded. "I've heard things about Tsuto from some of the others who grew up with him at Turandurok, and from what they say, he's a nasty piece of work -- greedy, vicious temper, thinks he's better than anyone else around. Hard to believe he's not Lonjiku's son, actually -- they've got the same personality, except Lonjiku has a lot more self-control. He always tried to hide that side of himself from Ameiko, so I'm told, but I think it might occur to him that if both Lonjiku and Ameiko were out of the way, he's stand a fair chance of inheriting the Kaijitsu holdings here in Sandpoint, bastard or no. Or he might try to kidnap her -- she and Lonjiku may be estranged, but she's still his heir, and holding her to ransom would give Tsuto a lot of leverage over the old man. Or at least, he might think so; I'm not actually sure Lonjiku would do anything to protect Ameiko, at this point... um. When we find her, please don't tell her I said that."
"If we find her," said Erek. "From the sound of things, there might not be much left to find."
Kavren winced. "This is... one of my closest friends we're talking about, Erek. I'm going on the assumption she's alive. I won't think about the alternative until I absolutely have to." The Shoanti warrior shrugged, but Aeraliss squeezed the wizard's shoulder in mute sympathy, her own expression tight with worry.
At that moment they rounded the corner from Water Street to Gull Street, wherefrom they could see the Sandpoint Glassworks. The building was one of Sandpoint's largest, its bulk exceeded only by the new cathedral, Turandurok Academy, and Cyrdak Drokkus' theater. A squat, round tower bulged out from its south end, ringed with large windows and roofed with a great domed skylight: the showroom where the Kaijitsus displayed their wares for customers and guests. Unusually, all the windows had their curtains drawn shut, and when Kavren tried the door, he found it locked. Working their way up the southeast side of the building, the companions found the windows there curtained as well, and the doors to the reception office and loading area at the north end likewise locked.
Around the back, they walked down the narrow strip of lawn between the manufactory's northwest wall and the low cliff overlooking the Varisian Gulf. The day seemed eerily quiet, except for the occasional cries of seabirds. The dozen or so windows to the main workshop were also curtained, and the wide gate at the southwest corner, where sand was brought up a rough stairway from the beach below, was shut and barred. "This isn't right," Kavren said softly. "The furnace is going -- you can see the smoke -- and the place should be open for business. Lonjiku might lock it down if he was working on a special project, but I should have heard about it if he was -- he buys some of his reagents from me. And the windows wouldn't be curtained up, at least not on this side -- they'd want as much light in the workshop as they could get. Something's very wrong in there."
"Let me see what I can hear," said Aeraliss, stepping lightly to the nearest window and putting her ear against it. She frowned in concentration, as the others waited. After a moment she stepped away. "I'm not sure," she said. "The furnace is pretty loud in there, but... I think I heard something break, and someone screaming. And maybe giggling -- high-pitched, like a child."
"Goblins," said Kavren grimly. "They'd want the curtains drawn even if they weren't worried about being seen from outside -- the little vermin hate sunlight."
"Good bet," Kaldak agreed. "So what do we do now?"
"Let's get back around to the front, just in case they can hear us over here by the doors," Erek suggested.
Back on Glass Street, Thoromir said, "If we're going in after them, we need support; there aren't enough of us to block all the entrances, and we don't want to get swarmed. I'll run up to the garrison and tell the sergeant of the watch we may have goblins in the Glassworks, and to get as many guards as he can down here."
"Good thinking," said Kavren. "Bethana, can you try to get some of the militia out here, too? Quietly as possible, but we need them armed and ready for trouble."
The halfling maid nodded, her eyes huge, and scampered off down Sand Alley, as the cleric jogged up Glass Street toward the garrison. "My kingdom for a crystal ball," muttered Kavren, misquoting one of his favorite plays. "We've got to know what's going on in there."
"You don't need a crystal ball," said Aeraliss. "You need someone like me." She opened her backpack and produced a four-pronged iron grappling hook, with a coil of silk climbing rope knotted securely to the ring at the end of its central shaft.
Despite his worry, Kavren quirked an eyebrow at the Varisian woman and lightly asked, "What was it you said you do for a living?"
"I didn't," Aeraliss replied, swinging the hook in a circle before tossing it to the roof of the display room. It hooked neatly over the tower's decorative parapet, and after giving it a couple of tugs to test its grip, Aeraliss swarmed up the rope, going hand over hand as quick as any acrobat Kavren had ever seen. When she reached the top, she hooked one leg over the parapet and dropped lightly to the roof behind it. She was out of sight for a moment, then she looked back over the edge and said, "Nothing going on in the display room; I'm going to check the other three skylights, over the workshop." She ran lightly up to the peak of the roof, her feet making no noise that Kavren could hear, and disappeared again down the other side.
This time she was out of sight for several minutes, and when she reappeared her face was pale and very grim. "There's blood everywhere," she said, as she rappelled back down her climbing rope. "I counted six dead men, and there may be more I couldn't see. And there are at least half a dozen goblins running around, smashing things, hacking at the bodies, and splashing molten glass everywhere. One of the bodies is propped up in a chair right under the middle skylight, completely covered in sheets of green glass -- they must have poured buckets of the stuff over him."
"What about Ameiko?" asked Kavren tautly.
"I couldn't see her in there, thank the gods," Aeraliss replied. "But it's pretty dark, and there could be more bodies than I saw."
"Damn it, we've got to get inside!" Kavren muttered, pacing back and forth in an agony of indecision. "Where are the bloody militia?"
"Here come a couple of them," said Erek, as two men with spears, shields and helmets walked briskly around the corner from Gull Street. Kavren recognized them as Delric and Dyson Torvis, brothers who worked down at the shipyard.
"Here, Stark, what's going on?" asked Delric. "We were having breakfast in the Hagfish when little Bethana comes running in with a story about goblins at the Glassworks and Miss Kaijitsu trapped inside, maybe hurt. Has she gone round the bend?"
"I'm afraid not," said Kavren. "There are goblins in there, at least half a dozen, and they've killed at least some of the workers who live on site. And we think Ameiko went in there around midnight and hasn't come out."
"You're joking?" Dyson asked hopefully. Kavren shook his head. "How the bloody hell could they have gotten in there with nobody spotting them?"
"I don't know, but I hope you're not the only ones Bethana found."
"We just live the closest, so it didn't take us long to grab our gear," said Delric. "There should be six or eight more on the way."
"Then let's wait until they get here before we go over everything that's going on," Kavren suggested.
The sight of armed militiamen gathering outside the Glassworks inevitably attracted attention, and a small crowd had formed by the bakery across the street by the time Thoromir returned, accompanied by the sergeant of the watch and three other guards. Aeraliss then explained to the guards and militiamen exactly what she had seen. The sergeant ordered the guards to move the crowd back, and detailed the Torvis brothers to alert more of the militia.
While they waited, Aeraliss had listened at each of the windows around the glassworks, and determined that all the goblin noises seemed to be coming from the main workshop. At Kavren's suggestion, she had also jammed the locks on the reception office and loading room doors, while Erek and Kaldak blocked the double doors to the beach path with one of the wagons used for moving sand. Kavren had sketched a rough map of the layout of the glassworks for the two Shoanti. Now, after a quick consultation with Thoromir and the sergeant, they put the finishing touches on their plan of attack.
As the guards and militiamen took up positions defending the other three doors, Aeraliss set to picking the lock on the display room door with the burglar's toolkit she had produced, to Kavren's complete lack of surprise, from her belt pouch. The lock, however, proved stubborn, and after a couple of minutes of trying the woman swore under her breath. "I think I'm losing my touch."
"Don't feel too bad," said the sergeant. "That's one of Volioker's masterpieces, he'd be terribly disappointed if you got it open. And we don't need to pick it; I had my boys bring the ram down from the garrison."
Aeraliss glared at him, as Kavren asked, "Why didn't you say so in the first place?"
"I wanted to see if the girl could pick it," the sergeant replied. "Lonjiku won't thank me for breaking down the door."
"I think Lonjiku may be dead," said Kavren. "Anyway, let's get this open."
Two of the guards brought the heavy, iron-headed battering ram up to the door. After sizing up Erek and Kaldak, they handed it over to the two Shoanti and stood back to watch. Thoromir chanted a prayer to Iomedae, calling down her blessing to strengthen their resolve and guide their weapons. When he finished, Aeraliss climbed back up her rope, followed somewhat more slowly by Kavren, who was assisted by a boost from Kaldak. The two of them pulled up the rope and crossed the roof to take up a position by the central skylight, overlooking the entire workshop.
Kavren shuddered at his first sight of the sanguinary nightmare Aeraliss had described. "That's Lonjiku, all right," he said, looking down at the glass-coated corpse in the chair. "Gods be good, what is Tsuto thinking? There's no way he's after the inheritance, his note to Ameiko will tell the whole town who did this... unless he thinks he can frame her for it... no, that doesn't make any sense, either."
"Let's just pray that whatever he's up to involves keeping her alive long enough for us to find her," Aeraliss replied. "Look sharp!" she added, as they heard the first thump of the ram.
Kavren spanned his crossbow and dropped a bolt into the groove; Aeraliss already had her shortbow off her back, an arrow nocked and ready. In her other hand she held an iron crowbar, ready to smash the glass skylight and give them an opening to shoot through. They heard the splintering crash as the door gave way, and looked to the interior door that connected the workshop to the long hallway outside the display room. A moment later, that door, too, shuddered under the impact of the ram.
The goblins in the room below them had continued their grisly sport, the roar of the furnace rendering them oblivious to the noise of the ram on the outside door or the observers on the roof, but now they turned as one toward the door; four of them rushed toward it, while two ran toward the far end of the room, and another two, carrying long glassmakers' tongs, made for the closest furnace hearth to pick up blobs of molten glass.
Kavren hefted his crossbow and chanted the True Strike spell as the door gave way and Aeraliss smashed the crowbar through four of the skylight's heavy glass panes. Moving with unnatural precision, he brought the weapon down into line with the nearest goblin... only to have it misfire, the bolt passing over the goblin's head before he could finish aiming. "Rovagug's fangs!" he swore, as Aeraliss took her own shot.
Her arrow flew straight and true; one of the goblins rushing the door sprouted feathers, and dropped to the floor with a choked scream. Kavren slung the ineffectual crossbow back over his shoulder and gripped his staff, calling upon the Evoker's Gift.
As he raised his hand, the door burst inward, and Erek leapt into the workshop, longsword and shield at high guard. Unfortunately, two goblins had flanked the door. The first one's dogslicer struck a glancing blow to the fighter's leg, while the second opened a shallow gash on his sword arm. His blade whistled over the goblin's head, but Thoromir, piling into the room behind him, struck it down in a spray of blood with his own longsword.
Kavren gestured at the other goblin attacking his friends, and a bolt of arcane force slashed through the air to strike it with unerring accuracy. The wound it made was small, though, and while the goblin screamed in pain, it did not fall. Kaldak entered the workshop behind Erek and Thoromir, whose advance had driven the wounded goblin back from the doorway. His Shoanti longbow thrummed, and another goblin that had been rushing the door tumbled head over heels and lay still.
As Aeraliss took careful aim and shot another arrow down into the workshop, Kavren scrambled around to the other side of the skylight, trying to spot the two goblins that had run away from the door. He punched out another pane of glass with the iron-shod foot of his staff and peered into the dimly-lit workshop.
The goblins he sought were struggling with a massive crossbow, one of them feverishly turning the windlass as the other held a harpoon-like bolt ready to load. "Oh no you don't," the wizard snarled, gripping his staff while his free hand reached into his pouch of spell components. His fingers brushed past the little bags of multi-colored sand and wood ash -- too far for Color Spray or Burning Hands -- and slipped into the pocket full of dried rose petals. All right, Ameiko, he thought, pulling out a pinch of the fragrant petals, let's see if I learned it right.
In his intense focus on the mastery of Evocation, Kavren had deliberately excluded two of the other seven schools of wizardry from his studies: Necromancy and Enchantment. He had no regrets at all about the former, with its deep connections to the dark gods and undeath, but he did on occasion wish that he had learned at least a few elementary enchantments. His recent foray into bardic magic, under Ameiko's cheerful tutelage, had given him access to two of those spells: Charm Person, and Sleep. He still felt some ethical reservations about using the former -- it was precisely the abusive potential of mind-affecting spells like Charm Person that had turned him away from Enchantment in the first place -- but he had no such qualms about Sleep. Focusing on the two goblins with the crossbow, he softly hummed two bars of "The Wild Rose," letting the petals fall from his fingers.
The rose petals crumbled to dust in the air. The goblin holding the barbed crossbow bolt yawned hugely, but then shook off the spell, keeping his feet. His companion, however, was not so strong-willed. He crumpled the ground, dropping the bow. The string snapped forward, spinning the windlass out of control. The conscious goblin whipped his flat head right and left, frantically seeking the source of the magical attack. The broken skylight caught his attention, and beady red eyes met hard black ones. Kavren grinned fiercely at his foe, as another force bolt took form around his pointing finger.
The goblin took to his heels, fleeing through the door at the north end of the workshop. Kavren swore, rushing back around to the larger opening Aeraliss had made in the glass. The Varisian woman had her crowbar in hand again, clearing enough glass to let her set the grappling hook and drop the rope through the broken skylight without risking cutting it. "Seriously," Kavren said, "which Thieves' Guild did you belong to?"
Aeraliss smiled sweetly. "Mine to know, yours to figure out... or not. After you." She handed him the rope, and Kavren looped it around his body in a crude rappelling harness. Aeraliss checked his handiwork and nodded, and he dropped through into the workshop.
All the goblins still inside were dead or unconscious; he could see Erek wiping blood from his blade. Kaldak appeared unhurt, but Thoromir's chainmail had been splashed with molten glass, and the cleric's grimace suggested the armor hadn't fully protected him from its heat. There were a total of eight murdered and partially dismembered workers scattered around the workshop -- all the men who lived inside the Glassworks -- as well as the body of Lonjiku, posed like a lord on his throne and completely encased in runny, irregular sheets of green glass.
Kavren landed lightly on his feet, disengaged from the rope, and ran for the northern door where the goblin that resisted his Sleep spell had disappeared. It opened into the loading and storage room where the salts and powdered metals used to color the glass were stored. The safe where Lonjiku stored the gold and silver dust for making red and yellow glass hung open and empty. The goblin was nowhere to be seen, but the door to the cellar stairs stood ajar. Kavren stopped, letting his friends catch up.
"Do you really want to be in the lead here?" Thoromir asked curiously, gesturing at the wizard's unarmored chest.
"I'm a lot more worried for Ameiko's safety than mine," Kavren replied, as Erek led the way down the stairs. "That goblin might have run off to murder her before we can get there. But you're right, I can't help her by walking into an ambush."
The stairs ran down to the southeast, under the main workshop. Thoromir cast Light on his shield, making it shine like a torch, while Aeraliss pulled an actual torch from a wall sconce and list it with a tindertwig from her belt pouch. At the bottom of the stairs, a five-foot wide corridor ran straight ahead for about twenty feet, then took a forty-five degree bend and widened out into a long storeroom, about ten feet wide by forty long and oriented north to south. Kavren had been in there a few times when delivering materials to the Glassworks. Another narrow corridor branched off at a sharp angle to the west, just past the foot of the stairs. Erek peeked around the corner, then took up a guard position in front of that corridor, while Kaldak moved up behind him with his longbow.
A high-pitched voice shouted an insult in Goblin, and Kavren heard the flapping of flat, leathery feet from around the corner as Erek shouted his own challenge in Shoanti and Kaldak loosed an arrow up the corridor. Kavren reached into his spell component pouch, pulling out a little drawstring bag and pouring an ounce or so of colored sand into his hand, then put that hand and one eye around the corner. Two goblins were advancing on the Shoanti warriors, waving their dogslicers menacingly. Kavren spoke the words to the Color Spray spell and hurled the fine sand at the goblins.
Scintillating rays of red, blue, and golden light blazed forth from his fingertips, lighting up the corridor for a moment; one goblin ducked back around the corner at the far end, but the other collapsed and lay twitching on the floor. Thoromir and Kaldak moved up that corridor to deal with the remaining goblin, while Erek advanced into the long storeroom, followed by Kavren and Aeraliss, who had unwrapped the colorful Varisian scarf from around her waist, revealing the bladed chain sewn into one edge of it and hitherto concealed in its folds.
They found themselves face to ugly face with two more goblins. Erek thrust his sword at one of them, but the goblin parried with its dogslicer. However, that put the creature off its guard, and Aeraliss' bladed scarf whipped past the warrior to cut into its exposed shoulder.
As the goblin cried out in pain and rage, Kavren took another pinch of rose petals and cast Sleep again. The wounded goblin -- he thought it might be the same one that had fled from the melee in the workshop -- shook it off once more, but its uninjured companion slumped to the flagstone floor. Erek's return stroke beheaded the one goblin left standing, while Aeraliss finished off its unconscious companion with her dagger.
From the sounds they could hear, it seemed Thoromir and Kaldak had dispatched the other goblin along the route they had taken. Yet another narrow corridor ran west from about halfway down the long storeroom. Erek led the way again. This corridor ran about twenty-five feet, and they could see the light from Thoromir's shield shining into it from the north at the far end. There were also two doors on their right.
Aeraliss listened at the first door, then tried it and found it unlocked; it opened into a storeroom about twelve feet square, most of the space taken up by shelves full of finished glassware, with narrow aisles between them. From the intact state of the glass, Kavren surmised that the goblins hadn't explored that room yet.
The second door was locked. Thoromir and Kaldak rejoined them as Aeraliss pressed her ear to the door. After a moment she whispered to the others that she could hear some kind of movement inside. She knelt by the lock and took out her picks again. Kavren and Thoromir watched her anxiously, while Erek and Kaldak kept watch down the corridors to the north and east. "This doesn't look too... ouch!"
There was a clicking sound, and as the lock turned Aeraliss jerked her hand back as if burned. A tiny needle protruded from the keyhole, glistening in the torchlight. "Damn it!" she swore, looking at the drop of blood welling up on her finger. "What a stupid, amateur mistake! Thoromir, could you please take a look at this? I think I might just have been poisoned." As the priest examined Aeraliss' hand in the light still emanating from his shield, Kavren carefully opened the door, using his staff to push it inwards.
"Oh, sweet Sarenrae!" the wizard exclaimed. The door opened into a small storeroom, about seven feet by ten. In the opposite corner was a rough straw pallet, and on it lay the small, slender form of Ameiko Kaijitsu, bound, gagged, and blindfolded. The young woman's hands and feet had been pulled cruelly together behind her back, with perhaps eight inches of cord linking the ropes knotted around her wrists and ankles. Her bare arms were mottled with bruises, the skin visible through various rips and rents in her clothes was likewise discolored, and she had several of the distinctive half-circle clusters of puncture wounds left by pointed goblin teeth, though none of them looked as severe as the savage, ripping bites that had killed little Aeren Barett and his father a few days earlier. Dried blood crusted the bites, and more of it from a cut on her scalp was matted in her long black hair. At the sound of the door opening, she gave a despairing moan and began struggling hopelessly against her bonds.
"It's all right, Ameiko, it's me, it's Kavren," the wizard said hurriedly, as he crossed the room to kneel at her side. "You're safe now. The goblins are dead, and I'll have you free in just a second." He drew the dagger from his belt and cut through the ropes around her wrists, then her ankles. Ameiko groaned as her stiff legs began to straighten, and reached clumsily for her blindfold with fingers numb from constricted circulation. "Here, let me," Kavren said, slicing through the knots that held the leather strips over her eyes and mouth. The blindfold came away soaked with tears. Her lovely face was bruised and battered, and the agony in her dark eyes tore at his heart.
"You found me." Ameiko's voice was raw with pain, barely above a whisper. "Oh, gods, you found me! I didn't think anyone was coming... Tsuto's note was in Minkaii, and he said he'd close up the Glassworks, like father does when he has a special project going. His goblins murdered all the workers, and he said we'd be gone before anyone could know where I was. But you found me!"
She wrapped her arms around Kavren, hugging him convulsively and sobbing into his chest. He circled one arm around her shoulders and drew her close, bowing his head to hide his own tears -- of relief at finding her alive, and grief for the monstrous betrayal she had suffered. "Shhh, shhh," he whispered, stroking her hair. "It's all right, you're safe, nobody's going to hurt you now. We're getting you out of here."
It only took her a moment to collect herself, and then she pulled away to look up at him. "You've got to stop Tsuto! He was behind the goblin raid, he's planning to burn the whole town to the ground! We have to warn father!"
"Ameiko..." Kavren paused, unable to think what to say, but his face and voice must have given it away.
"Oh, gods... father's dead, isn't he? Tsuto killed him. Of course he did, they hated each other ever since... oh, my gods...."
"I'm so sorry, Ameiko."
"I... this is... there's no time now to deal with this. Kavren, you need to find Tsuto. He said he was taking me with him when he left, so he might still be here somewhere."
"If he is, we'll find him," Kavren said. "But let's get you healed up first. Thoromir?"
"Right," the cleric replied from the doorway to Ameiko's cell. "Gather round, everyone." He entered the cell, and Erek and Aeraliss crowded in after him, while Kaldak stood just outside the doorway. Then he raised the silver sword-and-sunburst pendant from around his neck and spoke a brief prayer to his goddess. The holy symbol flared with a brilliant white light that lasted perhaps three seconds. Uninjured himself, Kavren felt all minor aches and muscle fatigue leach out of his body, leaving him feeling as though he'd just had a good night's sleep and a long, hot bath. Ameiko pulled herself up to a seated position, as her goblin bites scabbed over and the ugly red marks the ropes had left on her wrists began to fade. Aeraliss examined her finger where the needle had pricked her, and Erek flexed his arm, looking at the new scar where the gash made by the goblin's dogslicer had been. Thoromir himself rubbed his shoulder where the molten glass had splashed him.
"That's better," the young innkeeper said in a stronger voice. "I still feel like I could stay in bed for about a week, but I think I'll at least be able to walk, now."
"Why don't you rest here for a bit?" Kavren said. "We'll deal with Tsuto, if he's here, and get you back to the Dragon as soon as it's safe." Ameiko nodded, and Kavren added, "Oh, and you might want this." He offered her his dagger, hilt-first.
"Thank you, Kavren." Ameiko accepted the blade, then leaned back against the wall. "Go. I'll be fine; just find Tsuto."
Erek led the way back out into the narrow hallway. There were two closed doors in the west wall; Aeraliss picked her way through a patch of rubble on the floor, and put her ear to the first. After a moment, she turned to the others, touched her ear, and nodded. Then she knelt and minutely examined the lock before giving her companions a thumbs-up gesture: not locked, not trapped.
"Let me try a spell, first," Kavren whispered, moving to stand in front of the door. "I've got one more Color Spray prepared, and I think we need to take him alive if we can." Erek moved past him to stand ready just to the left, while Kaldak and Aeraliss took up positions on the right. Kavren poured another measure of colored sand into his hand. "Open it," he whispered.
Aeraliss carefully turned the door handle, and Kavren shoved the door inward with his staff, chanting his spell. He flung the sand through the doorway, and the coruscating beams of red, blue, and golden light shot forth from his fingertips once more, shining into another small storeroom.
The tall, dark-haired man inside the room cursed at him, cringing and squeezing his eyes shut as the light illuminated his sharp half-elven features and pointed ears, but managed to keep his feet and shake off the spell. Kavren cursed in turn, backing hastily away to take up a position behind Erek as the big warrior readied sword and shield. Instead of attacking, though, the half-elf seized an object from his belt and raised it to his lips, appeared to bite off the tip of it... and vanished like a blown candle flame. The now-empty potion vial clattered on the flagstone floor.
"Careful!" the fighter called. "He's gone invisible!"
Aeraliss had slipped her backpack off before opening the door. Now she reached into it and drew forth a flask of lamp oil, popping off the cork and splashing the contents into the storeroom in a single fluid motion. The oil sprayed over the invisible man, outlining him for a moment before fading out of sight as well, but it was long enough for Erek to see that he was moving into the hallway, judge his position, and swing. The longsword connected solidly with something none of them could see, and a loud groan was heard from the space in front of the door. The fighter jerked his blade back to guard position and interposed his shield between himself and his unseen foe.
Seeing where the sword had stopped, Kavren stepped up beside Erek, shouting, "You want to burn this town, Tsuto? You first!" He slammed a flask of alchemist's fire into the ground where he hoped the man's feet would be. Flames flared up, outlining and illuminating the man's legs and lower torso as the oil with which Aeraliss had doused him caught fire as well. Erek hastily raised his shield to protect his face from the blast of heat, as Kavren and Aeraliss recoiled. Tsuto collapsed, rolling and writhing in agony on the ground, the spell of invisibility broken.
Kavren pointed at him and spoke a single word in the language of magic. A thin stream of freezing air and chill, white vapor shot forth from his fingertip, and he played it over Tsuto and the ground around him, dousing the flames. The half-elf lay still, whimpering, his clothes charred and raw red skin showing through in several places. "Let's get this garbage trussed up and delivered to the barracks," Kavren growled.
"There was someone else in there!" Aeraliss said. "When I listened at the door, I heard two voices -- the other one sounded like a woman. Check the room!"
Erek and Thoromir entered the small storeroom, which contained a cot and a writing desk, moving carefully and pausing to listen for someone invisible trying to sneak past them as they probed the air with their swords. While they searched, Kaldak tied the badly burned half-elf's hands behind him.
After a couple of minutes, the warrior and the priest gave up the search. "If someone else was here, they must have escaped," said Thoromir.
Kavren shrugged. "It's possible, I guess," he said, joining htem in the store-room. "But I think it's more likely she wasn't here at all. Look at this." On the desk was a wide, shallow ceramic bowl, filled almost to the rim with water. "I think it's a scrying device. It has an aura of Divination magic, anyway; he could have been using it to talk to someone up at Thistletop, or somewhere else outside of town."
"We found something else, too," said Thoromir. "Looks like Tsuto kept a journal."
"That could be useful," Kavren observed. "May I see?"
"Sure." The tall Shoanti handed him the small, leather-bound book. Kavren quickly leafed through it. "Now that's interesting," he said. "I need some time to study this, but I think we may have worse troubles than goblins on our hands."
"We'd best check this other door before we go, then" suggested Kaldak, as he finished tying Tsuto up. He'd done a thorough job of restraining the man, Kavren noted, without indulging in the kind of pointless cruelty Tsuto had inflicted on his half-sister.
Aeraliss knelt again to examine the handle of the second door. "Looks safe," she said. "Of course, if anyone's waiting in there they'll be ready for us, after all the noise we just made."
"I'll take point," Erek volunteered. The others flanked him as he readied sword and shield again; Aeraliss turned the handle, then stepped back as he kicked the door open.
Behind it, a long, narrow tunnel led away to the northeast, farther than Thoromir's light spell could reach. "Interesting," said Kavren. "I've heard stories about this place having smugglers' tunnels in the cellar; it looks like we just found one."
"Great. So what do we do about it?" Thoromir asked. "We need to explore it, right?"
"Yes, but I think not right at this moment," said Kavren. "I want to get Ameiko home and make sure she's all right, and I need to sleep and recover my spells before we do any more fighting. And we should see if we can get any information out of Tsuto, here." He nudged their captive with the toe of his boot.
"Sounds like fun," said Erek, smiling unpleasantly. "I'll bet I can get him to sing."
Kavren stroked his beard. "If you're suggesting the kind of methods I think you are, the town watch might have a problem with it. Although considering how many people he's murdered, and what killing Lonjiku and wrecking the Glassworks is going to do to the local economy, they might not, too. After what he did to Ameiko, I'm not inclined to object, either. Still, I think we might try something a little more subtle. You ever hear the expression 'good guard/bad guard?'"
Erek's smile grew into a feral grin. "I'll be the bad guard."
"And I'll see if the Charm spell Ameiko taught me can convince him I'm the good one. Let's get the militia to post a guard around the building and start cleaning up upstairs, get Tsuto locked up and Ameiko back to the inn."
"I think I'd better go see father Zantus," said Aeraliss. "My hand's starting to tingle. No offense, Thoromir, but I don't think your channeling stopped whatever was on that needle."
"Oh!" Kavren exclaimed. "Damn it, I'm a fool. I'm sorry Aeraliss, I should have thought of this sooner; I was so worried about Ameiko, it slipped my mind."
"Thought of what?" the Varisian woman asked, exasperated.
"This." He produced a small vial from his backpack and offered it to her. "Antitoxin. Should stop or at least mitigate the effects of most of the common poisons you might find in a trap like that."
"Ah, thanks!" Aeraliss accepted the proffered bottle, popped the seal and swallowed the liquid inside, grimacing at the bitter flavor.
"It's not magic," Kavren cautioned. "Just alchemy; you should still see father Zantus. I don't know if he's up to casting Neutralize Poison, but I think the temple keeps a few potions on hand for that."
Erek handed his backpack and shield to Kaldak, then slung Tsuto over his shoulder, while Kavren went back to Ameiko and helped her to her feet, supporting her with one arm around her back while she draped one of hers over his shoulders. When they rejoined the others, Thoromir took a look at her and said, "I think I'd better do another channeling; you look like you could use it, Ameiko, and we don't want Tsuto dying before he answers some questions."
"Thank you, Thoromir," said Ameiko, as the priest again raised his holy symbol to call upon Iomedae's gift of healing. Ameiko stood straighter, taking more of her weight on her feet, though she didn't remove her arm from around Kavren's shoulders, and Tsuto groaned and stirred as his burns and the cut from Erek's sword began to mend.
At the top of the stairs, Ameiko started to turn toward the doorway to the main workshop, but Kavren stopped, holding her in place. "Do you trust me, Ameiko-san?" he asked.
"Of course! You just saved my life, of course I trust you."
"Then please listen to me now. Don't go in that room. I won't stop you if you insist, but what you would see in there would only bring you more pain. Please don't do that to yourself."
She appeared on the verge of insisting, but after studying his face for a moment, she said, "All right, Kavren. Let's go home."
Kavren knocked on the outside door and called out the men guarding it to let them know who was coming out. Aeraliss took a moment to get the lock open, and then they were out on the street, blinking in the bright morning sunlight. They briefly explained to the sergeant what had happened inside, with Kavren doing most of the talking while Ameiko and the others filled in the gaps. As the sergeant took custody of Tsuto and set about organizing the militia to guard the Glassworks and temporarily board up both the tunnel door in the cellar and all but one of the entrances, Kavren addressed his companions. "I'm going to take Ameiko home. Are the rest of you coming?"
"I think I'll go over to the barracks and help the jailer keep an eye on Tsuto," Erek said. "We don't want the slippery bastard causing any more trouble."
"Fine with me," said the sergeant. "Vachedi might appreciate the company; he's Shiikirri-Quah, too."
"I'll come find you at the barracks, then," said Kavren. "See if we can't get Tsuto talking."
"Good. Aeraliss, why don't you come back with us to the Rusty Dragon, and we'll send for Father Zantus to look at you and Ameiko there? It's a shorter walk from here than the cathedral."
"All right," Aeraliss agreed.
"I'll go get Father Zantus," said Thoromir.
"And I'll fetch Hannah Veleren," said Kaldak. "She's a better herbalist than Zantus, and she might be able to do something to help Aeraliss if he doesn't have a potion for her."
"Thank you," said Aeraliss. "I think I'm all right, actually, but it can't hurt to have her take a look at my hand. I broke the needle off the trap and kept it, too, so maybe she can figure out what was on it."
"I didn't realize you'd done that," Kavren said. "Good thinking. If Hannah can't identify it, I probably can with some of the stuff in my shop."
"I think I'd better have Hannah look at these bites, too," said Ameiko. "A goblin bite makes a filthy wound, and her poultices are pretty good for stopping infections."
Kavren and Aeraliss escorted Ameiko through the crowd around the Glassworks, fending off the questions of curious onlookers. As they got clear, Bethana joined them, having waited anxiously outside the building for news of her employer. "We wouldn't have known where to look for you if it hadn't been for Bethana, here," Kavren said. "She translated Tsuto's note."
Ameiko went to her knees and hugged the old halfling woman. "Thank you, Bethana," she said. "You've always looked out for me, ever since I was a child; thank you for showing my friends where to find me."
"Thank the gods you're alive, Miss Ameiko," said Bethana tearfully, returning Ameiko's embrace. "I was so worried about you."
"The gods, and five brave souls who fought for my life," the bard replied. "And you, good and faithful servant."
The four of them made their way through the streets to the Rusty Dragon. Inside, they went straight up to the sitting room of Ameiko's small apartment above the kitchen. Ameiko sank into a large, cushioned armchair, while Kavren and Aeraliss sat on the divan across from her. "Bethana," the innkeeper asked, "would you be so good as to have Myreen stoke up the oven, and make sure the hot water tank is full? What I would like most in the world right now is a long, hot bath."
"Of course, Miss Ameiko," said Bethana. "I'll let you know when the water's ready."
"How are you doing?" Kavren asked softly.
"Exhausted," Ameiko replied. "As for the rest... father's dead. I don't know how to feel about that. I tried so hard not to hate him... and now I don't have to anymore. It doesn't matter. But Tsuto... what he did, to father, and me, and our town... gods. I think I just need some time to sort things through."
"Can you tell us any more of what Tsuto's planning?" asked Aeraliss. "Did he tell you anything?"
"He's working with a woman, a priestess of Lamashtu, but I don't know who she is. He wanted me to join them, help them burn Sandpoint as a sacrifice to Lamashtu. Of course, I told him to go to hell. That's when he set his goblins on me."
"All that's in his journal," said Kavren. "I need to look over it more carefully; he goes on about 'his love' all over the place, when he isn't filling up the page with sketches of her naked; maybe I can piece together who -- or what -- she is. If not, maybe Erek and I between us can get him to talk. Oh, and I should also go talk to Mayor Deverin -- she's going to want answers from somebody, and I'd sooner she grilled me than you. But I don't need to leave right away... are you going to be all right here?"
Ameiko nodded. "Aeraliss is here, and Hannah and Father Zantus should be along in a little while to check on my bites and her needleprick. After I see them, I'm going to have a long soak in the tub and sleep for a few hours. Go do what you have to do. You will be back for dinner this evening, though, won't you?"
"Count on it."
Kavren rose to leave, but Ameiko held up her hand. "Help me up, please?" He clasped the hand and pulled her to her feet, and she flowed smoothly into an embrace. It crossed his mind that in the years he had known her, he had never truly appreciated how small she was. Her bold, self-assured demeanor and general competence at any task to which she set her hands and mind kept him from perceiving her slight build as frail or delicate. Kavren was not an especially tall man, even by Chelaxian standards, and his Shoanti friends towered over him -- but the top of Ameiko's head fit snugly under his chin, and her slender frame felt almost childlike as she nestled into his arms and laid her cheek against his chest.
She stayed there for the space of a dozen long breaths, then stepped back to gaze up into his eyes, and spoke in the formal tone of one swearing an oath. "Thank you, Kavren Stark, for saving my life. I owe you a debt I can never repay."
Kavren shook his head. "I couldn't have done it alone," he said. "And there is no debt. I didn't do it for that. I did it because I care for you, and because it was the right thing to do."
"I know all that," Ameiko replied. She looked at Aeraliss. "This goes for you, too, Aeraliss, and I'll tell Thoromir and Kaldak and Erek the same. If there is anything you ever need, and it is within my power, you have only to ask."
"Thank you, Ameiko," Aeraliss said.
"Thank you," Kavren echoed. "Now I really do have to go. Ameiko, Aeraliss... until tonight."
* * * * *
If anyone read that, I hope you enjoyed it. Incidentally, the full text of Tsuto's note can be read here, and the key pages from his journal are here. The sketches in the latter are slightly NSFW. There are also some very pretty maps of the Sandpoint Glassworks and its cellar.
