Deryni

Week 8, Attacked

Meanwhile, the rest of us went thundering down the stairs in a body, with Aphron and Tom in the front, Vivienne and Penny in the back (Penny with a crossbow) and Llewella and Margaret in the middle. David and Bronwyn hung back, guarding the retreat. On the stairs, we met a couple of armed men, but then lots of people go armed around here. We smiled pleasantly, brandished our arms, and went out into the street without hindrance. (It turned out that these two, along with a quartet across the street, were part of the attacking group, but they had been set for a surprise attack, not for our party leaving in an armed body.)

Back upstairs, Bronwyn and David were attacked by six men, including the pair on the stairs. These arrived in closely spaced pairs and gave Bronwyn a fair bit of exercise. David acquitted himself well until a minor cut seemed to put him out entirely. Aphron returned after the ruckus died down and started probing.

Meanwhile, downstairs, the quartet waiting across the street stood around befuddled. Finally, they started to approach the inn. Tom considered going back and engaging them, but stopped when they all fell over. Bronwyn had leapt down from the window and creamed them in a surprise attack.

We gathered together again in our rooms, with the enemy slain and various prisoners. Aphron did deep probes while Tom did superficial ones and used his left-over rags of technical knowledge. We discovered:

• David was knocked out and badly messed up. We strongly suspected he was drugged with merasha, a substance that temporarily but severely disables Deryni.
• Most, if not all, of the attackers were Deryni, with merasha smeared on their swords and spare supplies in vials in their belts -- so they knew we included Deryni, too. (Aphron tried to seize control of one Deryni by psychic means, so as to interrogate him. This failed, so he just KO'd him. Sometimes simple methods are best.)
• Merasha is such bad stuff, your head swims even if you just probe without touching -- as for example when you examine swords and vials.
• The swords were of VERY good quality. Really rather too good for a medieval setting. David's armor -- which was macrometal! -- is partly shattered.

Rhodri and Cantrel soon spotted someone following Tom and Bronwyn, and someone following the follower. Bronwyn took the opportunity to vanish. The second follower was blond. As Tom watched through Rhodri's eyes, they saw the blond's hands glow faintly. A trashcan lid fell off near the first follower, who ducked into a door. Tom approached the blond, who introduced himself as Jeffrey Cochran. The party members reassembled (Bronwyn appearing to save Rhodri from a slip and a fall from the roof), and went back to the inn with Cochran, where we have four corpses and six prisoners waiting.

Cochran told us that the first follower was Rhydon, who sent the other Deryni warriors to attack us. Cochran felt he wasn't playing fair and decided to even up the odds by warning us. His only concern was altruistic. (Vivienne was truth-reading him just then, and he was telling the truth, if not the whole truth.) When we asked him how he got wind of this plot, Cochran merely said that Rhydon's arrogance made him over-confident. Some of us felt him delicately probing us at this point.

Bronwyn called the innkeeper and asked for a fresh room. The poor man was appalled -- all this went on pretty quietly and he had no notion of all the bloodshed going on under his roof. The party then retired to the fresh room, leaving the prisoners for questioning tomorrow. As we entered the fresh room, Cochran warded it with a wave of his hand -- very slick. Now we're going to have a chat.