09/15/06 (Real world)

2nd day of Bloom (Ptolus)

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)
Yerrick – 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)

As we reached our destination, we found it was a block of run-down multi-story residential houses.  Wanting to avoid the direct approach for now, I started to scan the area for an easier entrance point.  It was time for stealth.

First step was to get a lay of the land.  The building looked like a pretty run-down two-story house.  It ran around 80’ wide by 50’ deep, and had some nice exterior decorations that made it seem like it might have been quite the sharp looking mansion in days long gone by.  Now, however, the sagging roof and boarded up windows said otherwise.  The front door, unfortunately, did not look nearly as busted as the rest of the place, with the sheen of new hinges and treated wood sending the unmistakable message that the old abode was once again an occupied domicile.

There was no alternative easy-access from the front, with a ramshackle overhang and porch being the only possibility that sprung to mind.  Being without wings, and not looking forward to a climb up that rickety exterior, we opted for some further scouting.

This time Rainbow volunteered her speedy stealthy services.  Quick as a bee she flew up and over the house, flitting back a minute later.

“Stables for horses.  No horses for stables” She sang.  Right.  Her way of telling us there was an abandoned stable out back.  And apparently, no other way in.

I took a gander and the houses nearby, and both were pretty run down but still looked occupied.  No need to be barging in on some strangers to accomplish our goals, at least at this point.  Besides, I didn’t see any easy way to cross from one house to the other, and didn’t trust the roof of our target destination to hold our weight anyway.  I can just imagine Glüg stuck half-in, half-out of the roof, bellowing and kicking to make damn sure the whole world knew it.  Yeah, that’s probably how our luck would go if we went that route.

I hadn’t been a private informer for long, but I’d run into my own share of trouble enough to know that the key to successful stealth is information.  So the first step was to hit the streets and see what rumors we could rummage out of the locals, before trying to bust in on our key thieves.

The closest gathering of local color was at the Nall Hall, a hangout for ex-pats of the land of Nall.  Nall-folk are a rough sort, hardy people of an icy land far to the north.  Not an unfriendly sort, but not big on talking to outsiders like ourselves.

We all went in different directions, chatting up the Nallanders with an added dash of liquid generosity, and it didn’t take long before we had all the information we were going to get: the Green Dagger were known to be holed up locally, and that was about it. 

All well, at least their food was fairly appetizing, and I made a mental not to try their Antelope Stew then next time I found myself in the area.  We’d just have to go on faith that our map and description was accurate.

We decided to split up at that point and head back to our respective homes, and reconvene back at Nall Hall in the morning for a spot of breakfast (stew mixed with scrambled quails eggs, with a milky beer to wash it down), and discussed our strategy for the day.

The plan was fairly simple.  Everyone would hide next to the building, I would sneak up and pick the lock, signal for everyone else to follow, and we would quickly move in, and stay together as a group trying to locate whoever had the key.

Well, the old saying I learned from my time with the military held up as usual: plans rarely survive first encounter with the enemy.  Or, in this case, the enemies front door.

We made our way to the old house marked on the Tusk’s map, and everyone assumed their hiding position on the northern side of the house.  I snuck my way to the front door, keeping below the view of the boarded-up windows and sticking to the shadows, and made it to the door without a sound.

Fat lot of good it did me.  Not only was the door new, but so was the lock.  A Moofman’s Bolt, with three real tumblers and a fourth false one.  I sent a small prayer to The Lady, and to the Fifty-Three Gods of Chance that I’d hit the right tumblers quickly, on the theory that it’s better to cover your bases with the Gods.  Apparently, the Gods thought it would be funnier if I found the false tumbler last, and it took me almost a full minute before I had the lock open and signaled for the others to join me at the door.

That’s were stealth ended, as Glüg threw open the doors with a bang.  Inside was a dimly lit room that looked like a real wreck.  Grime and dust covered everything.  Old fresco’s could barely be made out through the cobwebs, filth, and flicker of the two torches mounted on the walls.  I thought it might have once been a fairly majestic entry chamber, but now it was a pretty sad excuse for hospitality.

And so far, nobody was home.  We faces three doors: one each to our right and left, and a pretty rotten set of double doors directly across from us.  The door to our left was partly open, and I motioned for Rainbow to fly her way there to make sure nobody had just left by that route.  As I entered, I noticed a Green Dagger symbol above the set of rotten double-doors.  Well, at least we were in the right house!

As I listened to the silence at the other two doors, Rainbow whispered in a sing-song tone that she saw no horse nor hare through the stall with the hall; not even a twinkle or a winkle.  In Rainbow language I interpreted that to mean she saw no living thing down a dark hallway devoid of magical auras. 

We started t silently debate our options.  I pointed towards the open door.  Luford pointed towards the closed door.  Yerrick was emphatically pointed at the Green Dagger symbol above the double doors, and then at those doors themselves.
Glüg was having none of it.  It didn’t bother pointed, and just marched right past the little fairy by the open door to our left, tugged it fully open, and marched on into the hallway.  There went some more remnants of our stealthy stay-together plan!

I looked at Yarl, and he just shrugged.  Okay, abandon stealth and rush them appeared to be the new plan!

I could hear Glüg banging doors down the hall.  I glanced down the hallway to see four doors, two on each side.  Glüg was already leaving behind the first door to left, which turned out to be a 10 x 10 room with dead human corpse.  I quickly patted down the corpse, and found that it had a crossbow, 18 gp, and some leather armor.  By my less than expert opinion (which at least is backed by seeing more than my fair share of corpses), I judged the corpse has been dead about two days. 

I stashed the gold, and quickly tried to catch up with our half-orc raider.

Glüg had gone into the first door to right, and was ripping the place apart.  I poked my head in, and saw that it had a table with a green-dagger adorned tablecloth, and some chairs.  Otherwise, it appeared empty.

However, it wasn’t empty enough for Glüg, who decided that punching walls was a good way to find an exit.  Amazingly, Glüg was right, as it punched it’s way right into finding a semi-hidden door in the back. Glüg pushed apart the hidden entryway with the snap of broken wood, and headed on through.

“Ummm, shouldn’t we take some care to, you know, search stuff and plan for a surprise attack?” muttered Yerrick to his brother.  I shrugged, and decided that it was best to just try and keep up with the rampaging Glüg.

The secret door led to a room with three double bunks, and some practice dummies.  At the foot of each of the three bunks is a chest.  Five humans were also in the room, in various stages of illness, lying on the bunks.  One appeared to be unmoving, perhaps in a coma.  Their eyes were all swollen, and they moaned for water.  The room smelled sickly, and I could see immediately that some sort of disease was rampant in our enemy’s organization.

Glüg was already in the process of interrogation.  Apparently, Glüg had decided to play bad cop bad cop, with Glüg starring in the dual roles.  The questions were simple and to the point: “Where boss? What wrong wit you? Where gold?   Where food!”.  The last seemed less a question than an exclamation.

The poor sod tried to respond, moaning that he was very thirsty, that he ached, that he was very tired.  He also said that someone named Sirathus the elf was the boss and that Sirathus might be upstairs.  Also, he mumbled something about “just a dog” being around somewhere.

And, that there was a kitchen.  Which was, unfortunately, the wrong thing to say.  Glüg was off, seeking food without any further hesitation.

I decided to stay behind long enough to conduct a quick search.  Two of the chests just contained clothing.  The third was locked.  I pick the lock pretty quickly, and found more clothing, a pouch with two small vials (A) and one iron flask (B).  I stashed those along with the previous gold I had found, and moved on to seek out Glüg.

Glüg had gone back to the hallway to check the final two rooms.  As I jogged down the hallway following the sounds of smashing wood and furniture, I saw that one room Glüg  has abandoned was just filled with garbage, and the other was a kitchen.  I can’t say for sure that it wasn’t Glüg who did it, but to me it looked like the kitchen had already been trashed before we arrived.  Glüg found no food apparently, and was already moving on, shoving past me in a foul mood.
Yerrick, in a bout of level headedness, decided at least a quick search was called for.  It paid off, as he found a box of tindertwigs in a kitchen cabinet.

While searching, we all heard the tweet of a whistle.  I knew that sound.  It meant Glüg wanted to get our attention.

Off we raced.  Glüg had gone back to entry room, and opened the closed door to the right.  By the time I caught up, Glüg  had already busted through the door, and into another door within a 25’ hallway with four doors (two on the right, one at the end, one on the left), and managed to start and end a fight.

I raced to the now-open door in the hallway to find Glüg standing over the prone body of an elf with a nasty bruise on its face.  The elf was tied to a small chair with the twine of the whistle we had just heard.

“He try to hurt Glüg, so I hurt him.  Now he sleep.”

Articulate as usual.

The room had a tiny peak-hole looking out to the entry room that we had missed on our way in.

Yarl quickly knelt at the side of the elf and laid his hands to the bloody gash on it’s face.  Slowly, the gash started to close, and the elf’s breathing seemed to calm.

Yerrick meanwhile went back to the hallway and in the second door on right.  We heard a loud crash, and went to find what new mischief was awaiting us.

Yerrick was in the process of lifting a spiked ball off of his shoulder, that had apparently fallen from a hole in the ceiling.  He looked pretty injured, but still was pressing on.  The room contained numerous objects, including a weapon rack with three rapiers, two light crossbows, eight daggers, another nice rapier, a nice long sword, and three sets of leather armor on an armor rack.  On the table was two sets of thieves tools, two vials of acid, two smokesticks, two vials of alchemist fire, two bags of caltrops, 50’ of silk rope, and a grappling hook.

Someone grabbed the smokesticks, acid, alchemist fire, and caltrops, and we moved on.  I made a mental note to come back here later to check out some of the bulkier equipment, particularly the nice rapier.

Someone had opened the door at the end of the hallway, and discovered a privy.  Well, at least the place was civilized.

Someone else had already opened the door on left of the hallway.  It contained a very large chandelier that dominated the room at 20’ diameter, and was covered with many cobwebs and some dust.  A staircase winding up was across the room, towards the back of the house.  Yarl started to search the room, sticking to walls to avoid being under chandelier. 

Stupidly, I failed to notice his caution, having already abandoned such wise tactics with the rush to follow Glüg  from room to room.  So, walking down the center of the room, I got what I deserved.

The chandelier came crashing down on top of me in an enormous roar of breaking glass and grinding metal.  Comically, there I stood, almost untouched by the shards that rattled across the ground.  The goddess of luck was with me, as the bars of the chandelier had for the most part missed me, and my head passed through one of the few gaps in the structure. 

As I stood there, stunned, Yarl charged to the staircase, as he seems top have spotted someone there who likely had caused the near-disaster to begin with.  Dodging around the debris, Yarl fired his gun at someone on the stairs.  Judging by the dwarvish curse he uttered, he must have missed.

Our hidden attacker was so far equally unlucky, shooting a crossbow bolt at Yerrick that barely missed him as the bolt stuck with a thud behind him.  Yerrick responded by charging up the stairs at the hidden attacker, firing his gun and apparently also missing as the enemy had ducked behind the stair rail. 

Luford finally managed to get a shot to hit our elusive enemy, as a magical missile shot with unerring accuracy to strike our mysterious enemy.

Yarl fired again, as I charged up the stairs and spotted our target: a female elf.  I tumble past her, surprised as she dodged out of my way to let me by.  Not as surprising was the result, as the stairway I landed on collapsed beneath my feet and crumbled, toppling me painfully down below the stairs in a mess of sharp splinters.

I am not sure what happened at this point, as the pain made me loose consciousness.  Later, Yarl told me that I was laying in a pool of my own blood, slowly dying.

As he told he, Yarl the ran up the stairs and finally hit our enemy with a well-placed shot from his gun, felling her soundly.  He then found my crumpled form, and poured a healing potion down my throat, bringing me back to consciousness barely, but unable to move much without passing out.

I could taste bile and blood in my mouth, and knew I was in bad shape.

Yerrick meanwhile was searching the body of the female elf.  He declared that the elf had a masterwork rapier, leather armor, and a very nice shield.  She also had 10 gp, a light crossbow, and 10 very nice bolts.

It was then that I noticed that none of us had seen Glüg for a while.

Almost on cue, we heard the screaming howl of our lost companion, who was fleeing down the hallway back towards the privy.  I had never seen Glüg flee like that, and immediately I felt even worse.  Something horrible was coming.

As I discovered later, Glüg had gone back to entry room and smashed open the rotten double doors.  There, Glüg found the overwhelming smell of wet fur in what appeared to have been once an elaborate sitting room.  Two statues of the same portly merchant could be seen there, and some broken furniture that looks like it used to be valuable. 

Glüg had also discovered a giant, ugly, cat-like creature.  Not likely the look of the thing, Glüg had charged it and gotten an otherworldly scream for Glüg’s trouble.  I witnessed the thing scream later, and knew how terrifying it was.  The skin on the thing’s face pulled back in a gruesome display. 

That is why Glüg was now seen fleeing in terror.

As the cat-like creature pursued Glüg down the hallway, Luford managed to get a shot off at it with another of his amazing magical missiles as it passed the doorway to our room. 

The creature slowly turned, grimaced, and leaped into our room.

Yarl shots at the creature and hits it right in the face.  Though it was a great shot, it seemed the thing was rather unfazed.  Turning slowly in our directions, it let loose a terrorizing wail.

It was more than I could take.  I had been smashed on the head, crushed by a stairwell, and now the otherworldly skull of a bizarre cat-like monstrosity was shrieking at me. 

I fled up the stairs, Yerrick hot on my tail in terror along with me.

To their credit, Yarl and Luford held their ground despite being shaken.  As I fled up stairs (the right way this time) and around an interior balcony, Glüg finally joined Yarl and Luford, and charged the Terror in a rage slaying the beast with a single blow from its massive axe.

The battle seemed finally over, and I sank to my knees in relief, overlooking the wreckage of the room below us.

[Glüg gets MPV vote.]

<200 experience points each party member>
<50 xp to Jack Falcofor the log>
<50 xp to Glug for MVP>