As the party stands up Tsuto and prepare to march him back down the tunnel to Ameiko and the others they hear a soft hissing in the shadows in the "new" tunnel. Tsuto begins laughing hysterically again.

"You hear that? I don't think I'm the one that needs to worry about damage." He looks over Talitha's shoulders towards the shadows and grins.

Talitha turns at the noise. "What's that?"
She then looks at the man and push him in the direction of the rest of the group.
"Make sure he does get immobilised and can't scape. I think we're not alone. I'll cover you."
The fighter takes out his sword and shield and starts walking towards the room where the tunnel is with the shield up.

"Hurry up. Get moving!" Tristen urged everyone to move through the tunnel. "Can we lock the door or barricade the entrance?"

Faeli looked back to where she heard the sound and began to run full speed back to the group.

This message was deleted by the player at 04:08, Wed 21 Apr 2021.

The party retreats and although Tsuto does his best to stall between Talitha and Borric and Kaddock (and Faeli!) they are able to just pick him up and haul him with speed back down the tunnel. Whatever is making the noise doesn't seem inclined to follow them too far and the sound of sharp nails scratching the stone quickly fades away.

Tsuto just laughs as he wiggles helplessly against the combined strength of the rest of the heroes.

"Oh bravely running away, huh? I'm sure whatever that was won't possibly be a problem for Sandpoint. I'm sure that the it will be happy not rending the flesh of the rubes above. Not grinding the bones to suck out the marrow. Don't you see! Sandpoint is already dead. They just don't know it yet. You're already dead! You just don't know it yet!"

He giggles again but seems to be regaining control after the shock of being captured so close to escape. He falls silent and it is clear from anyone looking at him that he is deep in thought formulating some kind of plan.

Razyll will begin to tend to Ameiko's wounds.

---

OOC: Razyll rolled 19 using 1d20+8 with rolls of 11.  Battle Medicine: Ameiko.
The target regains 2d8 Hit Points, and its wounded condition is removed.
Razyll rolled 14 using 2d8 with rolls of 8,6.  Battle Medicine: Ameiko.

She will help Razyll where she can, but it was obvious she was not to well versed in the art of medicine.

Talitha kicks Tsuto and pushes him forward. She doesn't like running away like a coward (although the sound of whatever was there was really scary), but she hates even more the face of Tsuto thinking he's the smartest man in the room.
"Let's go back with the others, this is becoming something more than just a rescue mission. Let's talk to them and find out what's going on here."
And as she pushes Tsuto again she says. "And you, keep moving!"

Faeli does her best to keep up with the long legs, dodging between Talitha and the tien to prevent herself from being tampled.

Tristen lifted his shield with the light spell. He wanted to maximize the light for his companions. "Good plan. I'll bring up the rear." He slowed down slightly to allow Faeli to stay in front of him.

"Thanks Tristen." Faeli says as she bolts ahead.

Agreeing that discretion or at least reinforcements might be best Kaddock helped drag Tsuto back.  "Let's get this one trussed up and see if Razyll and Arialis found Ameiko.  Then we can go confront what is down that tunnel together."

The party regroups and that makes for a very awkward interaction between brother and sister. Ameiko screams at Tsuto in anger and shock while Tsuto just waits for her to finish without replying. This rubs Ameiko the wrong way and she ends up striking Tsuto with the back of her hand causing him to spit blood from a split lip. He just grins, his teeth smeared with blood as he reveals that he had their father covered in glass.

Suddenly for the rest of the party the grisly scene in the glassworks comes together. While most of the workers were horribly dismembered into playthings for the goblins, one person had been entombed in molten glass, forever enshrined in the throes of agony. Why one person would get this treatment and not the other was a minor mystery until it was revealed underneath it all was the patriarch of the Kaijitsu family and the siblings' father.

This breaks Ameiko and she runs up stairs to see for herself, hounded by the cruel laughter of Tsuto the entire time.

Once Ameiko's retreating footsteps could no longer be heard, Tsuto turns his cruel gaze to the rest of the party and grins again.

"Now then, where were we?"

"What manner of creature was that back in those tunnels?"

Tristen turned and focused his attention to Tsuto, "You have a lot of nerve. Why would you do that to your own father?"
This message was last edited by the player at 13:59, Wed 28 Apr 2021.

"It's a succubus, that he fell in love with. To bad for him, she will likely use him for her own gains then destroy him like he did his own father." She said flatly, passing the notebook she found to Tristen. "Also sadly for him, we'll kill her just like those Goblin's."

Talitha looks with disgust at Tsuko. "I say we tie him up and lock him here. I like what you said Arialis. Let's kill that demon and bring him her head. Let's see if he feels so confident afterwards."
She tempted of punching him again, but she's not sure after what he has said she'll be able to stop.

Faeli's eyes welled with tears as Ameiko took off running. The gnome wanted to follow her but she knew that Ameiko would need time to herself if what her brother said was true. She stood there frozen by her indecision and the horribleness of the moment until she was able to gather her strength and wipe the tears from her eyes and turn to Tsuto.

"You monster!" Faeli spat.

Tsuto just laughs at Tristen's question.

"Why? In my defense he tried to kill me first. He always hated me. Do you know that I'm not his real son? The ears should have given it away. Sure he adopted me to preserve my mother's 'honor' but he was never a father to me nor I his son. I was just an embarrassment, one he eventually grew tired of dealing with. Too bad for him I brought a few friends when he tried to run me through."

He giggles to himself again reminiscing of the events of the night before. With a tilt of his head he nods towards the tunnel.

"Go! You've got a town to save, a demon to kill. Go be heroes. I'm sure you can handle it."

He grins madly at the party before nodding his head again.

She walked over to Tsuto and looked him square in the eyes. "If you were not Ameiko's brother, I would remove your head right here myself. I am sure though, the town would rather bring you to justice themselves, as would Ameiko, and right now the only thing keeping you alive is that, and my honor as a Knight of Kyonin. Understand this though, step out of line once, and I may just choose to forget where I am." Her voice was cold, and calculating as she addressed the man as she clearly now identified as a lesser.

"Tie him up in such a manner there is no chance of him escaping, then lets go kill his lover." She said coldly.

Razyll begins to tie up Tsuto.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:53, Wed 28 Apr 2021.

Tsuto just laughs at Arialis.

"You know honor won't get you a pot to piss in. You know why you won't take my head? It's because you're weak. The people up there, they're sheep and you're the dog keeping them safe and rounded up but people like me? We're the wolves. We used to be the same but somewhere in our past we split. You abandoned your nature for the trappings of safety and security. You pretend like you don't have a wild animal inside of you but me? I embrace my nature. I don't make excuses for the people I kill, or will kill. The weak exist to feed the strong. Do we cry over the lamb that is slaughtered for our meal? The rabbit that is hunted down by the wolf?"

He laughs, sneering at the elf.

"If you were going to kill me you would have done it already. You only look the fool continuing to threaten me with death."

He grins again, this time purposefully stretching it as wide as it can go, even squinting his eyes to part his lips as wide as possible. He is deliberately provoking Arialis but otherwise makes no resistance to being dragged along towards the cave tunnel.

"Do you know this symbol?"

Razyll said as he held up his silver holy symbol.

"If you do, you would know that redemption is the only thing that says my hand. I would hold your tongue if I were you before its wagging blows out the faint prospect of redemptions light."

Talitha raises her shield and shows it to Tsuko as well. "That's Razyll symbol, this is mine. Do you know what mine means?
As she says so she hits Tsuko in the face as hard as she can with the shield bass, hopefully breaking his nose and some teeth.
"This means to shut up."

23:46, Today: Talitha rolled 17,10 using 1d20+9,2d6+4 with rolls of 8,4,2.  Shield boss atk & DMG, power attack.