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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 3671731" data-attributes="member: 11760">Climbing into the attic, Hazel hauls herself over the edge with a grunt and holds the lantern aloft in her left hand. With the right she eases her axe from her belt.Moving as silently as she can, alert for the faintest hint of a threat, she slips across the attic floor toward the open window. She sets the lantern down before its circle of light can spill outside and walks the last 20 feet without it, pausing beside the window. As quietly as she can, she peeks her head around the window frame and peers into the courtyard.She finds her view of the door -- and presumably the thing that was once Artos Nachtmann -- obstructed by the overhanging roof. Hazel frowns and eyes the area around the window, studying the thick ivy and nodding to herself.As she turns to remove her pack, the surrounding darkness gives her reason to reconsider. Stepping lightly, she returns to her lantern and carries it back to the trap door. Emus lifts his head at her approach, and she grins down at him."You weren't worried about me, now were you?" Hazel gestures for him to come upstairs. "Come here, I could use a hand with something."As Emus climbs up, Hazel pulls a section of rope from her pack and loops it around her legs and waist, knotting it to create a secure seat and leaving several feet of rope free."Take a quick look around, would you?" she asks as she makes a pile of her pack, quarterstaff and cloak by the trap door. "And then come on over to the window, quiet as you can."She heads over to the window with her lantern as before, trusting Emus's dwarf eyes to help him follow. She carefully tests the windowsill and motions the dwarf to stay silent. She hands him the free end of the rope and mimes him holding it tight as she descends.As Hazel pulls out a flask of holy water, Emus grimaces and mimics placing a bar across the window and then points down through the floor to the area where he thinks Bufer and Emmerson are talking to Artos through the door.And then the trap door slams shut."Oh, my," Flower gasps downstairs. "I should've seen that coming."Emmerson leaves the door and Artos' almost inaudible whispers and climbs the ladder, slamming his shoulder against the trapdoor from beneath. It doesn't budge, and it feels as though something heavy is resting on top of it.Even as Emmerson slams against the trapdoor again, there's a matching boom as Artos thunders against the front door."Give me your answer, Bufer; I'm coming in!""You gonna flirt with every evil son of a bitch we run into, Bufer?" Tucker snarls. "What's he saying out there?""Something is blocking the trap door," Emmerson calls from the ladder. "I need your help."Bufer turns toward Tucker, his face ashen. Then he breaks into a humorless smile, turning toward Oktav."Hey Redshirt," he says conversationally, loud enough for Artos to hear through the door. "Artos here has oh-so-charitably offered to let one of you go free while he slaughters the rest of us. You want I should give him your name, or do we tell him we true vessels of Lothian don't make deals with rutting no-skin has-beens?""HE DID WHAT?" Emmerson roars from the ladder, half-climbing, half-tumbling to the floor. "OPEN THE DOOR, SO I CAN SHOW THAT TRUMPED-UP SKELETON WHAT BEING A PALADIN OF LOTHIAN REALLY MEANS!"No one would have thought it possible, but Oktav goes even paler than before. He looks from Bufer to Vonmora to Skeeter and back."Well, I ..." he starts. Then he turns and vomits his breakfast up onto the floor by the nearest bed.Bufer slowly closes his eyes, and waits for the retching to stop."Should I take that as a 'no?'" he asks patiently.Before Oktav can answer, the double doors thunder against the bar, the swords wedged in to further block entry vibrating a moment afterward."Make your choice, gnome!" Artos calls. "I'm going to keep my end of the bargain in a moment!""You'll have my choice when I'm using your moldy skull for a chamber pot, you festering bastard," Bufer growls back. He grabs hold of one of the swords barricading the door, and nods for Tucker to do the same."Beanpole, priestess, get up here! Dragonkin, take the professor and the animals and find a shady spot you can ping him from!" He glances up at Tucker. "Pull 'em and back off on the ready, lad. On three, now. One ... two ..."He locks eyes with Emmerson, now standing behind him, warhammer and shield at the ready, staring at the door with one eye angrily twitching.From the other side of the door, the group hears Hazel and Emus yelling, their voices descending suddenly to ground level. There's a sound of glass or pottery shattering against the door."DIE!" Artos yells.Tucker and Bufer finally open the door and Emmerson races out.Hazel lays on the ground beneath a swaying end of rope, half on the walkway, half in the yellowing grass, unconscious, blood pooling in the mud. She has been cut almost in half.Artos whirls and his bloody greatsword meets Emmerson's warhammer just in time, and Emmerson's blow slides away harmlessly, although Artos is now flanked between the paladin and an enraged Emus."I hope you weren't going to choose her, gnome!" Artos yells at Bufer, seeing the gnome's face fall. "Choose quickly now!"</blockquote>

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