Perspective: Jack Falco (Mark Cronan)

Dramatis Personae:

Jack Falco – A Private Informer with a knack for trouble, and your diligent author. (Mark Cronan)
Luford – A Sorcerer with a penchant for women, wine, and song, in that order. (Steve Smith)
Lucius the Luscious – A Swashbuckling charmer who loves anyone that loves him. (Rachel Smith)
Glüg – A half-orc barbarian with an appreciation for food, battle, and more food. (Julia Blakeslee)
Yarl – A dwarven cleric with an admiration for all things technological, including guns. (Matt Blakeslee)
Yarl’s Brother – A dwarven warrior with a fondness for his six-shooter, and shooting it (Jason Naylor)
Rainbow – A fairy who’s partial to disappearing at the most inopportune times (Kestral Bruce)

We found ourselves at the Dragon again this morning, sipping our Hair of the Dog to mollify the effects of last night’s festivities. 

Well, I sipped.  Glüg ate.  And ate.  And ate.  I don’t know how it can even think of eating a ham this early in the morning, but then I find myself mystified by much of what Glüg does.  At least it’s reliable in a fight…that is, unless there is a feast nearby.

The Blue Dragon Inn is pleasant enough.  Not upscale, but not like the hives you find in the Warrens.  Wooden tables up on blocks, sawdust on the floor that does a good enough job at covering up the grime of food and other unmentionables.  The occasional lowly bard practicing his tunes and trying to wring a few coppers out of the meager crowd.  Decent ale that is not watered down to the point where it’s worth an argument with the otherwise pleasant barkeep.  You know the sort of place.

Luford and Lucious were having one of their usual debates: this time over which would be more fun, dalliances with a mermaid or a naiad.  Luford was just getting into the rhythm of his oration on the difficulties of fish tails when I spotted our future companions for the evening. 

They were chumming up to the door across the street that belonged to the neighborhood locksmith.  I hadn’t made the locksmith’s acquaintance yet, since locksmiths sometimes found my interests a bit at odds with their own.  But I had been trolling that neighborhood for information for a few months, and knew that those unsavory gents didn’t likely have honest business around here.  Besides, I can spot someone trying to jimmy a lock from half-mile away; further when they stink at it, like these two did.

And wouldn’t the locksmith’s joint be the last place in Ptolus that a couple of two-bit thieves would to try to break in to? 

I smelled trouble, which meant opportunity.

“Ahem.  Slowly take a casual gander across the street…and I mean slowly!” I whispered to my crew.

I shouldn’t have expected a different reaction, but one can hope.  As if choreographed, the group quickly turned together to look, with several chairs scooting back loudly against the floor in a jostle for the best viewing position.

“Are you daft? They're not even women!” retorted Luford with a shrug, slumping back down into his chair.  Lucious similarly maintained an air of indifference, though he kept an obviously suspicious eye across the street.  Meanwhile Yarl and his brother gave thoughtful looks, curious but not inclined to act.  Glüg grunted, Rainbow flying close to its shoulder, oblivious as she tried to lift a honeycomb larger than her head in imitation of Glüg’s ham-eating motions.

Fortunately, the robbers did not hear our racket, and slipped inside the Locksmith’s shop surprisingly quickly.  Something odd was definitely up.

“Well, I was thinking that locksmiths make good money, and perhaps would pay well if we…” I started to say, before all hell broke loose.

“No wait, I’m sorry I doubted you, you were right! Those women are gorgeous!” Lucious quipped in interruption, making his way outside.  “Gorgeous? Out of my way,” as Luford followed in hot pursuit.

“Wait, what just happened?” said Yarl and his brother simultaneously, looking at each other with confused expressions while rising from their chairs and grabbing for weapons.

I lost track of the others as I sighed and readied my bow on the way out.  By the time I arrived at the Locksmith’s store, Luscious was in the process of demonstrating how not to kick a door open to two women he had spotted on the street.   That explained his enthusiasm at least. 

The correct procedure soon followed, and we found ourselves confronted by a pair of the scruffiest looking, weather beaten, scraggly-toothed villains outside the allies of the Warrens.

Things happened even faster at this point.  One of the ruffians found himself in a wrestling match before he could grab his knife, while my arrow sunk home in the other, and a magical missile went flying unerringly to it’s mark.  Within seconds the battle was over, and the thieves were surrendering and begging for our lenience.

Before a proper interrogation could begin, the proprietor arrived, aghast at the destruction.  Theldrat by name, he is a chubby fellow with a drooping mustache and a nervous demeanor.  It took quite some time to calm him down and set him right on who was thieving from whom, but once informed he seemed thankful enough. 

Despite my better judgment, he insisted on a calling of the City Watch.  Nobody volunteered to summon them, so I figured what little pull I had with their man Fin might be enough to persuade the Watch to not look too closely at the damage we had caused to the Locksmith’s door. So off I went, taking my time in hopes that the group could use their various methods of persuasion to shake down the crooks before the legitimate authorities arrived on the scene.

Fin wasn’t around, but the Watchmen knew his name and were friendly enough to not pat me down before listening to my tale.  I tried to delay them, explaining that the situation was under control and it was just paperwork at this point, but their devotion to duty outweighed their laziness, much to my disappointment.

I still managed to take the scenic route, and by the time we arrived it seemed my compatriots had garnered plenty of the particulars.  There were mutterings about ears being cut-off and some such bluster, but the thieves seemed little worse for ware and were talking over themselves to finger the ringleader of this ill-fated venture by the time we arrived.  One mention that the Watch would need a reason to protect their pathetic lives and we had a name: Iron Tusk.  Not too creative a name, but descriptive enough. 

Apparently this Iron Tusk was met by our two hooligans somewhere down by the docks.  He led them to believe that the Locksmith’s location would be open for business to their sort of shopping around this time, and they took the Tusk up on his offer, no questions asked.   On arrival, they had found the door already unlocked, and not ones to look a gift dragon in the mouth the sauntered on inside for a bit of profitable pilfering.  That explained how these two fools had opened the Locksmith’s door on their own, and so quickly.  I knew something was fishy with that!  Good to know my instincts were still sharp.

The Watchmen seemed intrigued by these events, and explained that another robbery had taken place just hours before in the Temple of Lothian.  Apparently a priest of the order had nicked one of their precious books and slipped off without a trace.  A priest?  Curious indeed.

Meanwhile, Theldrat was wringing his hands, frantically rummaging through his meager goods to see what was missing.  As it turned out only a single key was missing, a supposedly valuable family heirloom. The merchant demanded to know the whereabouts of his precious key from the two burglars, but they shrugged and proclaimed their innocence.  Funny enough, for once they were telling the truth, as a search of their unkempt personages turned up nothing resembling a key.

The Watchmen had heard enough, and off they went, our two sad new acquaintances in tow.  We told the Watchmen we would inform them if we discovered anything new, and knew where to find them.  Fat chance that’ll happen.  The City Watch is not known for their generosity in paying for tips of that sort. Speaking of a payday, my mind turned back to our kind merchant.

“What’s the key open, friend?” queried Yarl’s brother.

“Nothing.  Nothing at all.  I mean, I have no idea.  Just an heirloom.  Important to me.  Ever so grateful for it’s recovery,” babbled Theldrat nervously, sweat starting to bead on his bulbous forehead. 

Right.  Something definitely stank here, and it wasn’t just the odor of our departed bandits.

It took plenty of haranguing, but eventually our anxious vendor spilled the specifics.   The key was magical.  It could open any lock it touched, which explained the Locksmith’s success in town.  He claimed he had been less than competent at his profession until his father passed the key down to him when he retired. And now, his entire business depended on its recovery.

A key that could open any lock? I stood there, uncharacteristically silent.  It’s possible I gaped a wee bit, though I’m confident you, dear reader, will tell none of my insalubrious gawking.

“Yes, we’ll find your key.  Of course.  Must be on our way now, don’t want the thief to get too far ahead and all that you know,” I mumbled, while most of my brain remained on the ramifications of this most impossibly fantastic discovery.

A key that could open any lock.  Imagine that.  My luck just might be turning around after all!   I kissed the holy symbol that lay close to my heart, mark of The Lady, deity of luck.  Some things really are sacred.

Luford, however, wasn’t finished with his interrogatories.  “And what can you pay us for this service?  Gold?  Equipment?”

“Bu..but…I have nothing! Without that key, I have nothing to give you.  I have no real tools to speak of.  I wasn’t even taught properly the intricacies of locks!  But if you retrieve it, I will be ever so grateful!  It’s made of copper, with a double zig-zag symbol on the end.”

“You understand then that, should we find this magical key, we would want to borrow it’s use, from time to time,” I informed him, just in case we found ourselves in the improbable position of returning such a treasure.

“Yes, of course, anything you want, just please, find it!” he plead. 

“We shall,” I exclaimed, nodding for my companions to make their way out, post haste.  We finally had something worth investigating!

We hit the streets with enthusiasm, splitting up to cover more ground.  I spread some copper amongst some of the regulars, with little luck (though a patron of the local barber did tip me to the possible location of the widow Petunia, who owed me a silver for finding her cat).

When I returned to the Dragon it seemed that Luford had much better luck.  A messenger boy he stopped confirmed that he saw a half-orc who bore a tusk-like tooth with a metallic cap on it leave the shop early that morning.  That’d be our quarry. 

Rainbow seemed to have disappeared by this point.  What an odd fairy that one is. 

It took only a little greasing of the palm before the messenger-boy coughed up the last known location of the fiend…Barge End, at the docks.

We took a moment to don our armor, and made our way through the thronging crowds of Midtown and over to the Docks.

It didn’t take long to find him.  In a few minutes we spotted a likely looking orcish fellow on nearby barge.  Unfortunately, we were careless in our investigation.  Just as I was suggesting that we take up position in a adjacent warehouse so as not to call attention to ourselves, a snitch of a halfling blew a warning whistle and fled. 

“We’ve been made!” I called, as Iron Tusk took off as well, and the chase was on.

<50 experience points each party member>
<50 xp to Jack Falco for the log>