Fort Eugor Score 3

The party was making their way back to their base. Attlee [Kevin] hissed under his voice.

"We got ourselves a tail."

Attlee pulled Argile [Richard] into the shadows, hoping that the tail wouldn't notice. Sure enough, they didn't. They were four figures, and were following the noisy party: Two human males, two half-elves one of whom was a woman.

Attlee needed to tell the group, so he left Argile near two of the followers, and skulked back to the group to tell them. They waited a bit, and then gave the signal to Argile to engage.

Agile stepped forward and clamped his hand over the woman's mouth. She managed to scream, so he punched her and dropped her. Another of the followers near her, drew his short sword and bounded over to engage Argile. Argile disemboweled him with a mighty stroke of his two-handed sword.

Michael Boatman

The rest of the party rushed headlong into the fray. The other two of the followers fled. One climbed a wall, and the other ran. Burrito [Darryl] and Ronny [Deacon] aimed with their cross-bows and shot him, and he fell; skewered and dead before he hit the cobbles. The last one was cornered in an alley and he surrendered.

Back at base, after an hour of creative torture, El Cid [Shane] managed to get the whole sorry story from the this wretch. He was called Michael Boatman, and he and the other three worked for Sam's plantation security to protect the plantation from thieves and burglars. They had been sent to follow the party after the party's wall escapades had been noticed. Michael was quick to add that he had a wife and children who lived in Downtown.

Glenda Stewart

Ronny "worked" on his captive too using his IMAG seduction gift. She was a half-elf named Glenda Stewart, but he ended up not spending much time interrogating after all.

The two were promised that they would be freed after this mission. In the mean time, they would
remain as "guests". Michael in shackles in the cell in the cellar, and Glenda chained to Ronny's bed.

The next day, the group came up with an alternative plan to get into Sam's Estate. That was to set themselves up as scab (asparagus) buyers from Spite city. In Scabport, there were currently two big importers of scabs to Spite: The Spite Scab Trading Company and Spite Scabs. So, the party hired an office and started to work on their front.

This would take several days. [ In this system, the mechanics to achieve this is called a long term plan. ]

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So, with this plan underway, the party now cast their attention back to Corporal Anton Chung's job. This was a continuance of the previous job for the Knives. Chung said the Knives wanted the Wizards' Guild witch Dalila Hornsby from Fort Eugor to be kidnapped. Chung said they had only four nights to do this. And tonight would be the second night.

WG Dalila Hornsby

So, they did another foray up the hill: Burrito, Sorrow [Jeff], El Cid, Argile and Attlee. Attlee led the mission with his superb skulking skills. It was a success, and they got to the court-yard undetected,  and hid in the old stables in the fort. As this was only ten paces from the old well, they decided to investigate that.

Down went a rope. Burrito opted to stay upstairs to guard, while the other four went down. About a storey or two down, the shaft opened into a chamber; a rough natural cave, and the shaft continued down to water an arm-length's deeper. There was a passage going off to one side which was partially blocked by a pile of smooth rocks. Down here, Sorrow, El Cid and Attlee's "IMAG gifts" tingled and throbbed in time with their heart-beats.

Getting closer this pile of rocks, one could see that they were skulls. A pile of skulls as tall as a man; maybe thirty, neatly stacked. Black skulls. So black that they absorbed light. Worse, Sorrow, El Cid and Attlee were attracted to these skulls.

Attlee was first to fail the temptation, and he touched one. He then immediately grabbed it tight and held onto it, as a blissful look melted his face. In his mind, he could see sobbing screaming people in this very cave being tortured to death by cowled figures; sacrifices of agony. But it brought pleasure and bliss to Attlee's heart, and he relished and bathed in the wonderful feelings of all this suffering and despair. The skulls were of these victims, now black with age, and cursed.

Argile (the only one without an IMAG gift) pulled the blissful Attlee away and knocked the skull from his hand (when Argile touched a skull, he only got visions of horror and revulsion). El Cid and Sorrow also had the blissful visions.

With Argile's help, the group of four got past the skull pile and into the passage beyond. It was a natural passage, probably made by water. But they came to a recent cave-in. When they cleared enough of the rocks away, this made a narrow crawl-way which emerged on the hillside, in a depression behind some bushes, next to the road up the hill. So, this turned out to be another way into the fort.

Attlee tried to sneak a black skull away from the pile in his backpack, but it vanished when he wasn't looking. Presumably back to the pile.

Sorrow went back inside to retrieve Burrito. And brought him out the same route.

The next day passed, and they made plans for the raid tonight.

The plan was to attack in through this new well passage. Everyone would be involved this time, plus they would rent a cohort of mooks to help:  Rita [Ian] with her Light of REAL, Burrito with his crossbow, and the rent-a-crowd would provide a distraction. The rest of the party would enter through the tunnel, and up the well. El Cid, Sorrow and Attlee would climb onto the roof of the keep and abseil into the window like last time, while Moonlight [Chris], Ronny, Huilam [Jamie] and Argile would storm the main door.

Qui audet adipiscitur.