Vengence!

“Who the fuck are you?” Giggles demanded of the group of strangers he found assembled outside the old fishery. The party had been trying to surreptitiously investigate Gaedren Lamm’s hideout, but they apparently hadn’t been quiet enough. Giggles had burst out of the front door, while simultaneously, Yargin had come out of a side door onto the narrow boardwalk over the Jeggare River. Then Giggles spotted Jax. “You!” he shrieked, and charged to attack, pushing heedlessly past Erin in his fury to get to the ex-Lamb who’d escaped him so many times before. His blow sent splinters flying from the wall of the fishery as it went just over Jax’s head as the rogue ducked. The battle was on!

Nat was terrified. Giggles’ sudden appearance had scared him so badly that the front of his pants were a little wet. And now he recognized the man on the boardwalk as Lamm’s assassin, who he’d inadvertently thwarted many months earlier. His hands shook as he tried to cast Daze at Yargin, but the spell had no effect. “We need to run!” he tried to cry, but all that came out was a frightened mewl.

If Yargin noticed Nat’s attempted spell, he didn’t show it. He, too, recognized Jax, and assumed he must be the ringleader of this assault. He had a wand in his hand, and he thrust it towards Jax with a vengeance. The wand made a sputtering sound, but that was it. “Goddamn this thing!” Yargin swore, shaking the wand violently.

The rest of the group was also startled by their enemies’ sudden appearance, but they didn’t let it slow them down. Tomas fired off a pair of rapid shots from his bow, but both arrows thudded into the fishery wall behind Giggles. Erin slipped into position behind the big half-orc, but he still managed to dodge her blow. But she distracted him just enough to give Jax a clear shot, and he drove his short sword into Giggles’ side. Before Giggles could react, he was smacked by a Magic Missile from Shadow. Wren cast Bless, then drew a wicked-looking mace from beneath her cloak.

Giggles laughed, a high-pitched giggle that sent a spray of blood into Jax’s face. “Is that all you’ve got, boy?” he taunted, then lashed out with his flail. The blow all but sent Jax to his knees, and seconds later he was hit with a blob of acid from Yargin, who seemed to have figured out how to work his wand. Nat tried casting Daze again, but with the same lack of effect. “We have to get out of here!” he managed to croak, and started dashing back across the street to the cover of the building they’d hid in earlier.

The rest of the group ignored him. Tomas hadn’t been aware there was another enemy in the battle until he saw the magical acid hit Jax. Now, with Giggles all but surrounded by his mates, he dashed to the right until he could see Yargin, then loosed an arrow that buried itself in his side. Erin called upon the power of Iomedae to Smite Evil, but Giggles still managed to evade her swing. Jax was reeling; he could not survive another blow. But his rage was stronger than the pain. He drove his short sword forward as Giggles tried to parry Erin’s blow, and the half-orc howled with pain. “This one’s for Jit!” he heard Shadow cry, and an instant later a Magic Missile blasted the half-orc.

Wren felt years of suppressed rage bubbling over. With an incoherent scream, she charged. Her mace crashed into Giggles’ ribs and sent him sprawling into the wall of the fishery. He slumped slowly down, leaving a smear of blood on the wall behind him. He would giggle no more.

Nat realized the others weren’t giving up. He had to decide whether to flee or to fight. He saw his mother’s face before him; she’d always told him to do what’s right. In that instant, he knew what was right. “Jax – duck!” he shouted. Without waiting for the rogue to comply, he whizzed a Force Missile past his ear and into Yargin’s neck. Yargin couldn’t see that Giggles had fallen, and he belatedly realized that the kid in the robes was actually a threat. He pointed his wand at Nat, but garbled the command word, and the spell fizzled again. He started to bang the wand against the wall when a pair of arrows suddenly sprouted from his chest. He looked down at them in confusion, then slowly sank to his knees. He looked back up at Tomas, who was lowering his bow, then fell backwards onto the walkway, his eyes staring sightlessly at the night sky.

Wren walked slowly down the boardwalk and stood over Yargin’s body for several long seconds, staring down at the source of so much pain. Then she kicked the body violently. She kicked it again, then again, then raised her mace above her head with both hands and slammed it down on Yargin’s face. Over and over she pounded the dead man, until there was no head left, just a messy pulp of brains and shattered skull. All the while, she filled the air with a wordless wail, part moan, part sob. Nat finally touched her gently on the shoulder, and she stopped her attack as if someone had flipped a switch. Nat turned her away from the body; her face was splattered with gore, her blond hair turned pink, and she stared at him with no expression. “Um … you wait here,” he said, in what he hoped was a soothing tone. “We need to get this body out of sight.” He could hear shouting in the distance, and he was worried that their fight had attracted attention. Stepping gingerly over the bloody wreck, he grabbed Yargin’s feet and began dragging him back into the fishery, trying not to gag.

Erin and Jax left Tomas and Shadow to do the same for Giggles; they were intent on finding and freeing the Lambs. The front room of the fishery was empty – there was a table and single moldy chair. Beneath the table was a pile of ratty furs and straw. “Shit!” Erin cursed descriptively, as she stepped in a pile of dog doo just inside the door. Then she shouted, at the top of her lungs: “Children! Save yourselves!” “So much for the element of surprise,” Jax thought ruefully.

To the right, an open door led to a bunk room, lit by a lantern. Ahead another open door revealed a small office. Jax peeked through to see Nat dragging what was left of Yargin into that room. Shadow squeezed through the partially open door (a desk in the office prevented it from opening all the way), and stepped over Yargin’s body to listen at another door that led farther into the fishery. Jax and Erin opened another closed door in the front room, to find a short passage that led to yet another closed door. Intent on saving the kids, he pulled the door open.

He stepped out onto a catwalk that overlooked a large room some 10 feet below. The floor below appeared to be slick with river water, bits of seaweed, and fish blood, and the air was thick with the accompanying scents. The catwalk continued along the east and south walls, leading to a stairway leading down to the floor. Just to his left was an immense eight-foot-tall wooden vat, filled with a foul-looking mixture of chum, river water, and who knows what else. Beyond it, was another catwalk leading to another stairway.

Hanging beneath the catwalks and scattered across the floor were small hammocks and ratty bedrolls. Their occupants, Lamm’s Lambs were rubbing sleep out of their eyes, awakened by Erin’s shout and trying to make sense of what was going on. Jax eased out onto the catwalk, Erin right on his heels. Just ahead, a door opened and Shadow emerged, then Wren pushed her way past him.

As they emerged, a furious barking and snarling erupted from the floor below. A large mangy dog began charging towards the stairway. “Bloo! Stop! Sit!” a voice commanded, and the dog reluctantly complied, still growling deep in its chest. “Hold it right there!” the voice continued. In the dim light, it had initially looked like the fishery floor was inhabited only by children, but now they could see that one of them was actually a gnome. He had one arm wrapped around one of the Lambs, a girl of about 7. The other held a wicked looking kukri to her throat. “Make one move, and I’ll slit her throat and feed her to the sharks!”. He nodded to an opening in the fishery floor before him that opened onto the muddy waters of the Jeggare River.

“Hookshanks!” Jax hissed. He wanted nothing more than to slice the little fiend into tiny pieces, but he knew that the gnome wouldn’t think twice about killing the girl, or as many other Lambs as it might take to effect his escape. “We’re listening,” he called down.

“Here’s how it’s going to work,” Hookshanks replied. “You’re going to throw your weapons into the vat, then I’m going to leave and you can do whatever you want to these brats."

Tomas eased out onto the catwalk behind Erin. He had his bow trained on Hookshanks, but he knew that as long as the gnome was using the girl as a shield, he was as likely to hit the girl as his target, so he held his fire. “Giggles and Yargin are dead,” Jax called down, as much to the Lambs as to Hookshanks. “We’re taking the kids – you let the girl go, and you can walk away.”

“I never agreed to that!” Wren hissed angrily. She glared at Jax, then began backing towards the door. Shadow called down to the Lambs, using his most reassuring tone. “Everything’s going to be OK – you’re all free to leave now.” The Lambs looked about in confusion, but seeing Hookshanks holding a blade to one of their throats, no one moved a muscle.

“No one’s going anywhere until I’m out of here,” Hookshanks responded. He began edging his way to an outside door in the north wall. “Don’t test me, Jax – you know I’ll kill her. Hey! Where are they going?” Wren and Shadow had slipped out the door leading back to the office. “Get them back here where I can see them!” Hookshanks demanded, pressing his knife harder into his hostage’s neck.

Nat stepped out onto the catwalk, and pushed up his sleeves in preparation for casting a spell. “Don’t fuck this up!” Jax hissed in desperation, but Nat ignored him. Acting quickly, he cast Daze at Hookshanks. He’d tried this twice on Yargin outside, and both times it had absolutely no effect. If it failed here, Hookshanks would undoubtedly execute the little girl.

Bloo

Hookshanks’ eyes glazed over. “Get him NOW!” Nat shouted, and everyone sprang into action. Tomas charged along the catwalk and down the stairs, but Bloo, his master no longer able to restrain him, charged to meet him. The dog snapped at Tomas, and he barely escaped his slavering jaws. Then Tomas brought his sword down and cleaved the cur’s skull with a single blow.

Erin didn’t bother with stairs. She vaulted over the catwalk railing and leapt to the floor below. She landed awkwardly, and got up limping, but ignored the pain and rushed to the girl’s side, hoping to pull her away from Hookshanks before the gnome could recover. Jax followed her lead, but landed lightly and charged at Hookshanks – would he reach him in time? Nat hammered the dazed gnome with a Magic Missile, then called to the girl – “You need to get away – now!”

The poor little Lamb wasn’t sure what to do. She’d lived most of her life in mortal fear of Lamm and his goons, had seen them kill countless friends, and now one held a knife to her throat. She didn’t know who these strangers were, or what they wanted; they said they were here to help, but could she believe them? In the end, her survival instinct overrode her fear; she wriggled free of Hookshank’s grasp and dashed away.

And not a moment too soon. Hookshanks recovered his wits, and slashed his kukri cruelly across the girl’s throat – except she was no longer there. With a hoarse cry of exasperation, he turned and slashed at Jax instead, but his swing went wide. Erin slipped behind him; again, she was unable to hit her target, but provided enough distraction for Jax to land a telling blow. Nat hit him with another Force Missile, and Tomas leapt over Bloo’s body and added a hit of his own, although it barely grazed him.

But Hookshanks, bloodied and surrounded, had had enough. “Please! Don’t kill me!” he begged, dropping to his knees and throwing his kukri aside. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know! Please!” Erin’s sword cut off his pleas, and his head. “That’s for my sister, for Brigitte!” she said grimly, as his blood pooled on the floor.

They became aware of a pounding on the outside door. Shadow and Wren had circled around the building, intending to cut off Hookshanks’ escape, but found the door locked. Tomas went to unlock it, using a key they’d pulled off Yargin’s body, while Wren tried to calm the panicked Lambs. “I’m Wren,” she told them in a loud voice, and a gasp went up from the children around her. “We’re here to avenge Jit!” The mood in the room shifted from terror to cautious hope, the first hope these children had allowed themselves to feel in years.

“We’re going to take you away from here,” Wren continued. Shadow looked around at the crowd of little people around them; there had to be at least 20 Lambs here. “Uh, just where are we supposed to take them?” he asked.

“We’re going to take you to Scrapper Hall,” Wren continued without missing a beat. “I know what you’ve probably been told about Scrapper Hall by Lamm, but I was there. I was stupid enough to run away from there, and that’s how Lamm’s men got me, but it was so much better than here. You’ll be fed every day – real food! You’ll have beds to sleep on, with blankets, and you’ll be cared for. I promise!”

“Aren’t we forgetting something?” Nat asked. He stood on a crate and addressed the assembled Lambs. “Where’s Gaedren Lamm?”

The Lambs simply looked at the floor, or shook their heads numbly. “Let me try,” Shadow said. He picked one of the older kids, and girl of about 12, and squatted on his haunches before her. He took both her hands in his and gave her his friendliest smile. “Can you help us? Help Wren? Do you know where Lamm is?” She answered softly, not making eye contact. “We don’t see Mr. Lamm much anymore. He don’t come in much, not like he used to.”

An older boy looked up at Jax: “Jax – ‘member me? I’m Bertie.” Jax remembered a little boy named Bertie, but would never recognize him as this gangly 12-year old. “I overheard Yargin talkin’ to Giggles about Mr. Lamm. He said ‘Lamm leaves us to do the shit work while he and his new friends make all the real money. I’m getting’ sick of it and one of these day’s Lamm’s gonna learn it’s not good to underestimate me!’ He’d grumble like that a lot, but he never had the balls to do anything.” These two having broken the ice, the Lambs confirmed that Lamm did still visit the Fishery at least once or twice a week, and whenever there was a need to dole out punishment. One of the little girls spoke up, her voice just a squeak. “I hears him talking at night sometimes.” The other Lambs rolled their eyes, and she bristled. “I do! Some nights when I can’t sleep, I hear his voice coming through the walls.”

“What about Gobblegut?” Jax asked, and most of the children went pale and began to tremble. “I don’t think Gobblegut’s real,” one boy stated boldly. A boy standing next to him, several years younger, turned and slugged him, hard. “He is too real!” the second boy stated angrily. “You’re just new – you’ve never seen him.” This boy turned to explain. “Since we moved here, we ain’t seen Gobblegut. When someone breaks the rules here, they feeds ‘em to the sharks.” He pointed to the opening in the floor of the Fishery, and the dark water below. “But sometimes, Giggles’ll come in and say ‘Gobblegut’s hungry’, and take some kid who ain’t done nothin’. He carries ‘em upstairs, and they ain’t never come back.” 

“I think Gobblegut lives on the boat,” another Lamb said, and several others nodded their heads in agreement. “When they takes kids to feed Gobblegut, sometimes I hear ‘em cryin’ and squealin’ on the walkway outside, what leads to the boat.”

While the others questioned the Lambs, and tried to get them ready to leave, Tomas went back through the rest of the fishery, searching each room carefully. In the large room beside the loading dock he found a locked cabinet. Yargin’s keys opened it right up, and inside he found several small sacks of silver and copper coins, apparently the proceeds from Lamm’s front business selling fish slurry. Other than a few personal possessions in the bunkroom, he found nothing of interest. When he returned to the fishery floor, he found a debate in progress.

“We need to get these kids out of here!” Wren was insisting, with Jax nodding vigorously at her side. “They have to be our first priority!”

“But what about Lamm?” Shadow countered. “He’s got to be here somewhere. If we leave, it gives him an opening to escape, and then we’ll never find him again.”

“I’m with Wren,” Erin weighed in. “I say we get the kids out of here and then burn the whole place to the ground.”

“Are you crazy?” Nat all but screamed. “Do you know what the penalty is for arson? They brand you, and throw you in prison for at least 10 years! And that’s assuming nobody gets killed! What if the fire spreads?” He was willing to risk a lot for the right reasons, but there was no way he was going back to prison just because they didn’t have a better idea.

Tomas sighed. “OK, let’s do this. Wren, Jax, Erin – you take the kids to Scrapper Hall. I’ll stay here with these two and keep looking for Lamm.” Everyone exchanged looks with the people on their side of the argument, then nodded in agreement.

They organized the Lambs into groups, each with one of the adults (well, the older people) leading them, and prepared to set out. But as they emerged from the fishery, they became aware of the frantic clanging of alarm bells from distant points all over the city. These harmonized with distant shouts, screams, the sound of breaking glass, and the ringing of steel on steel; from somewhere to the west came the thud of a distant explosion of arcane energy. A portly man in the livery of a royal herald turned onto their street. “The King is dead – long live the Queen!” he called out in a ringing voice. A pair of locals stumbled out of a tavern. “Fuck the queen!” they cried, and one smashed the herald over the head with a 2x4. The herald dashed off down the street, his attackers in pursuit, his proclamation forgotten.

A screech drew their attention upwards. A trio of Sable Company Marines flashed by low overhead at breakneck speed, angling towards Castle Korvosa. The last hippogriff in line was badly wounded, and blood rained down on the street around the party. Its rider struggled to keep his mount aloft, but it was losing altitude and crashed headlong into a statue a few blocks away, sending both mount and rider to a bone-crushing demise. The others in the flight did not pause to check on their fallen comrade.

Tomas wiped a splash of hippogriff blood off his sleeve and looked down at his bloody hand. “Has the whole city gone mad? That tears it!” he said, looking up. “It’s just too dangerous out here. If we’re going to get these kids to safety, we have to keep them alive. I’m going with you.”

And so the four of them – Wren, Jax, Erin, and Tomas – set off for Scrapper Hall. It wasn’t that long a journey; a quarter-mile, maybe a little more. On a normal day, it would have been a 15-minute stroll. But they had 20-plus children to ride herd on, and their route was anything  but direct. They turned down one street, and were confronted by a mob of torch-carrying looters hauling off all they could carry out of broken shop windows. Behind them, flames already licked out of the broken windows of buildings they’d finished with. They detoured, but soon found their way blocked by two competing factions battling it out in the street. At least 40 minutes had passed by the time they reached Scrapper Hall.

The doors to the orphanage were tightly barred, and it took a lot of pounding and cajoling to convince its caretakers that they were not there to loot the place. The presence of so many children finally convinced them that they were in earnest, and offering one of the sacks of silver coins to defray expenses sealed the deal; they ushered the Lambs into the building and it’s presumed safety. But they were not anxious for their unsavory-looking escorts to stay around any longer than necessary. Glad to know that the Lambs were going to be cared for, they began the perilous journey back to the fishery. “Do you think it was a good idea to leave Nat and Shadow there by themselves?” Erin wondered aloud as they turned from the door.

“Those two?” Jax snorted. “C’mon – how much trouble could they get into?”

“Do you think there are really sharks down there?” Shadow was asking Nat at that moment. They’d already searched the entire fishery, retracing their comrades’ steps but finding nothing that hadn’t already been found. They’d spent some time combing through the scrawled records in Yargin’s “office”, but decided that they were just a front to convince any municipal inspector that this was indeed a legitimate enterprise. (“I’m not sure the man even knew how to add,” Nat had lamented, trying to make sense out of the scribbled columns of numbers.)

“Well, there are jigsaw sharks that come out of Conqueror’s Bay, and swim quite a ways up the river,” Nat responded absently. They were back on the fishery floor and he was trying very hard not to look at Hookshanks’ severed head. He wasn’t succeeding.

“No, I mean down there,” Shadow said, gesturing at the hole in the fishery floor. “Do you think sharks can swim under there, like those kids said?” Nat shrugged; he couldn’t shake the feeling Hookshanks was staring at him.

“Let’s find out!” Shadow said with an evil grin. He had no trouble lifting Hookshanks’ headless body and tossing it with a splash into the river. Both men stood at the lip of the opening, waiting. Sure enough, within a minute there was a splashing and thrashing from below, and the brown river water took on a rusty hue. Through the blood-clouded water, they could make out the sleek, mottled body and triangular dorsal fin of a jigsaw shark. “Cool!” said Shadow with delight.

Nat thought he was going to be sick. He backed quickly away from the opening, but almost slipped in the congealing pool of Hookshanks’ blood. The gnome’s sightless eyes seemed to be following him around the room. Desperate to be rid of him, he gave the head a furious kick; it tumbled across the floor, then over the lip of the opening and into the water with a plop. Nat scrambled through the piles of refuse scattered on the fishery floor to find a rag to clean the blood off his shoe.

Shadow was losing interest in the feeding frenzy. “Where do you think Lamm is hiding?” he asked as he turned away. “He’s got to be here somewhere. We’ve searched the whole building – do you think he’s on the boat?”

“That’s where they said the alligator was,” Nat gulped.

“Exactly!” Shadow agreed. Nat had thought the alligator was an argument against going to the boat, but Shadow saw it differently. “Jax said that alligator’s Lamm’s pet, so if that’s where it is, Lamm has to be close by. C’mon!”

Nat reluctantly followed Shadow back upstairs and outside. He tried to ignore the growing sounds of rioting as they made their way to the narrow boardwalk that led out to the dock. Just past the side door, the walkway began to slope downwards; the dock was several feet lower than street level. Nat was happy to let Shadow go first, to see just how sturdy this boardwalk was.

It wasn’t, at least not very. The boards were slick with moisture and moss, and they creaked and groaned alarmingly under his weight. But they held, and Shadow reached the dock without incident, and waved for Nat to join him. Taking a deep breath, he inched his way down the boardwalk, expecting at any instant to be dropped into what he now knew were shark-infested waters below. But by some miracle he made it.

A peeling and faded nameplate on the back of the ship announced it to be the Kraken’s Folly. The rotten deck of the ancient derelict seemed to be barely intact; its hull was worn and thick with seaweed and barnacles, and it seemed to be held together primarily by the layers of old rope that lashed it to the pilings that supported the fishery and the nearby boardwalk. The rickety walkway led along the ship’s starboard, a foot below its railing. On deck, a single wooden door leading into the aft cabin bore a crude painting of a red fish on its surface.

Shadow took this all in. The forward deck was covered by a decades-old coating of mildew and grime, but the area right in front of the cabin door looked to have been swept clean(er) by use, and the railing beside it was worn smooth. “I’m going in,” he whispered, and Nat was happy to let him.

Shadow slipped over the rail and eased the cabin door open. The air was thick and musty. Thick sheets of cobwebs hung from the walls and mounds of blankets, cushions, and straw cluttered the floor. To the south, a narrow flight of stairs led down into the ship’s hold.

The cobwebs gave Shadow pause. He wasn’t keen to start sweeping them away by hand. He thought about burning them away with a torch, but he feared the rotted wood of the ship would go up like tinder at the first touch of flame. So instead he fired an Acid Splash into the room. It did little to clear the cobwebs – it merely bored a small hole through them. But it did disturb the resident of the room. A spider the size of a cat came scuttling through the webs, straight at Shadow. He hit it with another Acid Splash, and quickly backed up a step, but felt the planks of the deck begin to sag beneath his weight. Uh oh. The Drain Spider charged out at lightning speed, but the instant it emerged from the cabin it was met by an Acid Splash from Nat. It slid to a stop at Shadow’s feet, legs twitching spasmodically.

Shadow gave Nat a nod of gratitude, then gingerly stepped over the spider’s body. He fired a few more blobs of acid around the room, but nothing else moved. With a shudder of disgust, he prepared to begin clearing the webs by hand, but realized the path to the stairway was relatively clear. Nothing in the cabin appeared to be of interest or of use. But the stairs led down to the ship’s hold, beckoning him down into darkness.

The party received 710 XP, with 1300 required for Level 2. We won’t meet next week while Rich & Joette are basking on the beaches of Waikiki, but will meet at their house again in two weeks. Roger will likely be on call.