Lake Placid 2

[Ronny[Deacon] was marmalading]

Giselle Pentecost

Lido, Attlee's IMAG skull, was in the Panadine shower tray. A squad of six Knives had formed a shield-wall nearby, and everyone was crouched down behind it: the Panadine High Priestess Giselle Pentecost and two other Panadine priestesses, Tylin [Ian], Burrito [Darryl] and El Cid [Shane], William "Lammy" Lamb, and the hogtied Attlee [Kevin].

Lido was screaming and sobbing and pleading in Attlee's head. Attlee was struggling and thrashing about in his ropes, and twitching with palsy as he communicated back.

Giselle reached for the remote tap and turned it. Holy water poured from the shower head onto Lido.

Lido

There was a violent concussion that rented the air as Lido ... just ... exploded. The shield wall and all behind it, were blown over by the blast. Bits of Lido (chips of obsidian) were embedded in the wooden shields of the soldiers. Lido was no more.

Instantly, Attlee was engulfed in a sphere of darkness. The sphere of darkness engulfed most of the soldiers and everyone else too. They all scampered out of the damp embrace. Interestingly, Attlee could see out perfectly; as far as he was concerned, there was no sphere.

Giselle pointed a shaking finger at the sphere.

"He's an IMAG priest," she said. "He's become an IMAG priest!"

The sergeant of the soldiers drew his sword.

"I'll fix him!" he growled.

"No," said Giselle. "This is a Panadine event, so you can't break the Heresy, sergeant."

The Heresy was a world-wide agreement to stop religions fighting or harming each other during "religious events", because there were so many gods on the continuum from absolute good to absolute evil. Unfortunately, the definition of "religious event" was rather fluid. The evil religions would kill if they could get away with it, but the goody two-shoes (like Panadine) followed the Heresy rules as best they could.

They let IMAG priest Attlee free.

Party shallop Smoking Loon

[It was at this time that Kevin switched characters. I had spoken to Kevin earlier, expecting something like this. Attlee became an NPC, and Kevin now took control of wizard William "Lammy" Lamb. The players had decided that they didn't want an IMAG priest in their group, for similar reasons not wanting to have REAL priestess Rita. Plus, it gave me a chance to play-test wizards using the FitD game system with AD&D spells. ]

That afternoon, they all clambered aboard the party boat, Smoking Loon, and as they were about to sail off, a guard happened to wander down the jetty.

"Going fishing?" he asked.

They nodded.

"Well, there're good spots up both rivers," he said. "The Kringle and the Scab. But, make sure you
don't dock or go into the Lake Placid: the marsh, the bog. The Panadines claim it."

"Oh, we just fish," said Burrito.

"Yes good," said the soldier. "There are rangers in the bog. Rangers of the Knives. If you trespass there, they will kill you. Dead."

More innocent nods.

"If you want dry land, you are allowed to dock on the left bank of the Kringle or the right bank of the Scab. There aren't any gnolls or bugs about at the moment, so is not too dangerous."

More nods.

"Well," he said. "Good luck. Oh, yeah, make sure you are back here before dark. You don't want to camp out there. Dark-kin."

Sorrow [Jeff] sailed the shallop up the Kringle river for two hours, well out of sight of the temple stockade. There were no other boats around and the river was sluggish and wide. It was nice and warm in the sun and there was a gentle breeze. They anchored midstream and started to fish.

Lake Placid Marsh

There was no clear demarcation line between the river and the the marsh. Small islands of vegetation started almost midstream, and these got more numerous and thicker as you headed into the bog. On the larger of the islands, there were trees. Eventually sight was blocked entirely.

Moonlight was nominated as the bog explorer, since, as a druid, he had lots of nature knowledge. Plus he knew what the elderflower looked like. He slipped into the muddy water, up to his chest, and made his way into the swamp, and was soon lost from sight among the trees and marsh bushes.

Everyone else started to fish. Burrito shot at some water fowl and brought down plenty.

A few hours passed and Moonlight returned. He had one clump of elderflower. Lammy had ten

Elderflower

special magic bags for holding the elderflower to keep it pure and preserved, so the elderflower was placed in one. Lammy said the Wizards' Guild wanted four bunches. But it was two bells (two hours before dark), so they headed back to the temple stockade.

[DM's note: this was a very dangerous path that the group had chosen. Had any ranger come across Moonlight (1 in 6 per hour), he would have been killed automatically. He'd get a Resistance roll to not actually die, of course, but with his stress already on 5, chances are he'd use it all up, and would thus get a trauma; traumatized adventurers can do nothing except gibber traumatically. When time started to run out, the party would have to find him, which would be an ordeal in of itself. We were rolling openly, and luckily, this never happened!]

That night there was a disturbance out on the fields surrounding the stockade. It was some goblins, but it wasn't significant.

Sorrow went for a bit of a surreptitious explore into the Panadine temple itself, hoping that maybe they had a stock of elderflower. This was because all Panadine pilgrims were given a sprig as they entered the temple. But there were several sections of the structure that he couldn't get at (due to priestess activities), so he didn't find anything but sprigs.

Lammy said that a collection of elderflower sprigs would be useless for the spell - they had to be intact bunches.
__________________________________________________________________

The next morning, during breakfast, Tylin secretly wrote a letter to Lieutenant Chung. He suggested that Chung send a group of soldiers to intercept their boat before they got to Scabport, and to confiscate the elderflowers. Then the wizards could not cast the spell. Tylin took this sealed letter to Lieutenant Maudlin of the stockade, and, since he knew Chung well, he was happy to put it in with the daily dispatches.

After breakfast, they went out on the shallop for another trip. This time taking the Scab river.
Again, they docked and fished and shot water fowl.

Again, Moonlight spent a very wet day deep in the marsh. He came back, unharmed, with three bunches.

So they returned to the stockade. Mission successful.

_______________________________________________________________

Next morning they left the stockade and headed down-stream, back toward Scabport.

There was a futile goblin incident at the first night's dock,

The next day and night passed peacefully.

However, the evening before the last day of travel, there was a coach waiting for them at the public jetty as they docked.

Tarquin Formalin

There were two wizards there, who introduced themselves as Tarquin and Bernice. Tarquin Formalin demanded the bags of elderflowers. Lammy was about to hand them over, when Burrito demanded that they be paid. Tarquin said Sly Dunbar would pay the group when they arrived at the Wizards' Guild tomorrow.

Burrito refused. There was a bit of an altercation, and it ended up with Tarquin casting a Sleep spell on Burrito, dropping him. Bernice stepped back ready to cast more. No-one else in the party moved a muscle.

So the bags were taken and the coach left. Lammy decided to travel with the wizards too.

_______________________________________________________________

Sergeant Schultz (Knives)

Not having Lammy on board turned out to be insightful, because as they approached Scabport the next afternoon, a large barge approached the Smoking Loon. There were Knives on it, all with bows drawn, and they ordered the shallop to dock.


Some troops came aboard, lead by a Sergeant Schultz. He and his men searched the boat thoroughly on some pretense of "searchin' fer contraband". Sergeant Schultz was doing stage-winks the whole time at Tylin, Sorrow, Moonlight and Huilam (he was told that some elves had arranged this and they were the only pointy-earred ones). Of course, the soldiers didn't find the elderflowers.

Eventually, they let the boat continue.

Just before dark, the group docked at the Wizard's Guild pier. The WG Liaison Sly Dunbar was there, with Lammy too. He had a chest of silver, which was the party's pay.

8 COIN.

Dunbar told them that, earlier that day, the hired priest had already used the elderflowers and had cast the Regenerate spell and had regrown Wilson's vocal tract. The Speak with Dead was scheduled any minute now.

Tylin and Sorrow went straight to the Council Barracks and spoke with Chung. He tried to work out what Wilson will know.

"Well," said Chung. "You lot will be safe. Wilson doesn't know you lot from a bar of soap. But he does know me. And the Wizards will put two and two together and work out we were targeting Daisy for the lasso".

So they left him and everyone went back to their not-so-secret base.

Lake Placid

[Ronny [Deacon], Huilam [Jamie], Moonlight [Chris] and Agile [Richard] were marmalading.]

Down in the vault of the group's (not so) secret lair, the conch went off with its familiar klaxon horn. It was Wizards' Guild Liaison Sly Dunbar, and he wanted to speak to the group.

So Tylin [Ian] and Sorrow [Jeff] went to the Wizards' Guild. Sly Dunbar greeted them, and gave them a new job.

WG Liaison Sly Dunbar

Lord Aldehyde, head of the Wizards' Guild, had been silently following the progress of the score to find the missing mages (Simone and Dalila). After the Guild's Hit Team raid on the freelance wizard Wilson's house, he wanted more progress.

The Hit Team had made an effort to recover Wilson's body from the inferno. The intent was to cast Speak with Dead on it so that they could question him. They had hired a Vingt-et-Un (Luck) priest to do this. But Wilson's vocal tract had been all but destroyed by the fire, and that spell requires intact vocal chords. So, to restore the vocal tract, the wizards needed powerful priestly healing magic. The Guild happened to have an expensive Regeneration scroll in their vaults, and the hired priest could cast this, so they were set, but, one of the material components of Regeneration is a rare flower called the Elderflower. This flower only grew in a few spots around the Known World. One such spot was three days out of Scabport, up the Scab river, where the Kringle river joined it, at a place called Lake Placid.

Elderflower - material
component for Regeneration

But, Lake Placid is under the control of the priests of Panadine (goddess of Healing). They have a temple near Lake Placid, and they jealously guard the Elderflower bog (Lake Placid is only a proper lake when the river floods). The Wizards' Guild is currently at odds with the Panadines (long story), so it would be difficult to sent an official envoy to get the Elderflowers direct. This was why they couldn't just Fly there or Teleport to the bog. [Actually, not even Lord Aldehyde is high enough level to do the Safe Teleport spell anyway.]

Panadines have no temple fighters nor paladins - in fact they may not harm sentient beings - so they need hired swords to guard their temples. At this site, they have help from the Knives who have surrounded the temple with a stockade and have stationed a guard platoon of soldiers there (about 40).

The troops are especially needed here because the area around Lake Placid is not safe by any means. It is only two day's travel to the Kringle Hills (and thence the mountains) and these are infested by dark-kin (orcs, goblins, kobolds, etc). That all said, dark-kin can not survive in direct sunlight, so if these creatures go out on long forays, they need some shelter during the day (sealed bivouacs, tarpaulins and SPF 204, or IMAG stones).

In summary:

1. The Wizards' Guild would contract the Budgie Smugglers.
2. Budgie Smugglers then retrieve Elderflowers from Lake Placid.
3. Elderflowers then used to fuel a Regeneration spell to restore dead wizard Wilson's vocal tract.
4. Speak with Dead then cast upon Wilson's head to question him to find out who contracted him to make the magical lasso with which to help capture Guild witch Daisy Crown, presumably so that she could be kidnapped for political reasons unknown.

This score would pay 8 COIN.

Sorrow and Tylin told the rest of the awake Budge Smugglers (El Cid [Shane], Burrito [Darryl], Attlee [Kevin], Dee Dee [Steven]), and while they were talking-over this new job, Tylin headed off to see Lieutenant Chung.  He asked Chung specifically why the Knives actually wanted to kidnap the triumvirate of witches (Dalila, Simone and Daisy).

"It is on a 'need to know basis'," said Lieutenant Chung. "And you don't need to know."

Tylin mentioned that they were headed to the Lake Placid with the lie "to maintain their relations with the Guild with the view to getting Daisy". Chung personally knew Lieutenant Maudlin; the commander of the Lake Placid garrison. So, he wrote a letter of reference for the party.

"Watch out for the orcs," said Chung as Tylin left.

_______________________________________________________

The normal way to travel to Lake Placid was by river. So the next morning, the entire party (including the four marmaladers, who were safely stacked like chord-wood in the hold) turned up on the party shallop Smoking Loon, piloted by Sorrow, and docked at the Wizard's Tower pier, to get last instructions from Dunbar.

William "Lammy" Lamb

Dunbar was there with another fellow; a rather thin chap.

"Dis be William Lamb," said Sly Dunbar. "He knows what dem Elderflowers be lookin' like, so you'll be takin' him on the trip. He can be helpin' you wid his spells too."

William nodded to the party. He had a posh weedy voice, like a toff.

"My magic will come in handy, if required."

Straight away El Cid started to name him "Lammy".

"Da first two nights on de river will be see-af," continued Dunbar. "But the tird night could be dangerous. Dem creatures of darkness from the Kringle Hills might be comin' down to harass ye. But the next day you be gettin' to Lake Placid."

"Lammy will take care of us," said El Cid.

"And don't you be stayin' out after dark beyond that," said Dunbar. "You be stayin' safe in the Panadine stockade."

William Lamb had a 2G brooch on his robes. So he could be contacted using the party's 2G brooch. El Cid was quick to try this and did some crank calls. The group also discovered that they could connect to the conch via the 2G brooch exchange. But it was one-way: brooch to conch and not vice-versa.

The first day was uneventful, and quite relaxing; watching farmland drift past as they headed up the river. There were a few scab plantations, and some bulgur wheat farms. Not much livestock.

That night they arrived at a public jetty which they moored against, and they had a quiet night. Apart from the crank call El Cid did, through the exchange, to sound the conch, rousing everyone from their berths with the klaxon horn. How El Cid laughed.

The party shallop Smoking Loon

__________________________________________________

The next day the farms were rougher and poorer. But it was a quiet day's travel up the river.
The shallop was a yacht, so was at the mercy of the wind. If the wind was wrong, the narrow river was too small to tack on. At those times, they had to row.

That night, there was another public jetty to moor against.

____________________________________________________

The third day, the terrain was much wilder. There was only the occasional structure in view-range of the river; often they were stockades.

The jetty that night was linked to a log cabin with a stout door.

But the group decided to stay the night in the shallop, moored midstream. The river was about 20 paces wide here, and waist deep, so it wasn't a guaranteed safe spot. But they were now in range of dark-kin, so they set up a watch.

Halfway through the night, a group of wolves were hunting about.
Lamb cast a light spell on an arrow which Burrito fired into a nearby tree.
With the light, they shot up some wolves.

Burrito skinned one.

___________________________________________________

The next morning, they passed a group of Panadine pilgrims squashed onto a boat, heading downstream.

About noon, they arrived at Lake Placid. It was a wide stretch of water where the Kringle river flowed in from the left and joined the Scab River. In the V of the junction was the actual "lake". It was a marshy bog area, with large trees and many bushes and shrubs. Off on the far right bank of the Scab was the Panadine temple. It was an impressive stone building, three storeys tall, surrounded by a wooden stockade. It had several jetties protruding into the river; Sorrow docked their shallop there.

Giselle Pentecost

Attlee, El Cid and William went to the Panadine temple to get blessed. But the priestesses (all Panadine followers are female) sensed something wrong with Attlee. He was carrying Lido (the IMAG black skull) on his backpack, so they were probably sensing that.

The High Priestess Giselle Pentecost was summoned and she detected (Detect Evil) the palpable evil from Attlee's backpack, and demanded he be cleansed. There was an outside shower, curtain and all, by the entrance to the temple. Pilgrims and worshipers would normally cleanse themselves here before entering.

Attlee dutifully undressed and went into the shower. From an overhead nozzle, water started to pour. It was scalding; blistering hot, but there was no steam. Attlee screamed hoarsely and leapt out of the shower, his skin literally smoking. Large sections of blistered skin peeled and sloughed off.

William Lamb tested the water with his hand; it felt tepid to him.

El Cid tried it, on his upper arm. It felt warm to him. (But burned his evil IMAG fists)

The Panadine priestesses told the three that this was, of course, holy water. And this meant that Attlee was evil !

That was enough. Attlee snatched up his backpack (skull and all) and rushed off, quick as a fox, but naked as a jaybird.

The High priestess summoned some Knives guards and told them to catch the "evil abomination" so that she could cleanse him.

Attlee rushed back to the jetty, bounded onto the Smoking Loon, and hid in the smugglers' storage area. The rest of the party was still here and they watched, bemused, as a group of guards arrived and poked about on the jetty, then left unable to locate their prey.

Tylin collected Attlee clothes. The others had seen him hide in the boat, but as soon as Tylin opened the door, Attlee leapt out in a blind panic, and rushed back into the camp. He found a woodpile and hid there.

El Cid and Burrito tracked him, and confronted him. A group of guards arrived too.

Lido suddenly made a black sphere, 10 paces across, pitch black inside. El Cid entered the sphere to grab Attlee by touch. He felt a squirming form in the centre, but suddenly there was a large bang, and El Cid was thrown out by the zap. Badly bruised (despite his armour and his feat).

By now, the rest of the party, a large group of guards and some Panadine priestesses had arrived too.  The guards had bows and they offered to full the dark sphere with arrows, but Tylin and the Sorrow stopped them.

El Cid bravely entered sphere again. There was another visceral bang, and he was thrown out again, now severely damaged.

"I'm not doing that again," he moaned.

"Allow me," said William Lamb.

Lido

He cast a Sleep spell. That seemed to work. All was silent. El Cid braved the sphere again and felt around in the dark for the sleeping Attlee. He managed to get the backpack off Attlee, and hogtied him. Dee Dee helped with a rope on the backpack.

They then took Attlee and the backpack to the temple separately. The guards and priestesses accompanied them.

The hogtied Attlee was placed in the shower tray, and High Priestess Giselle was about to douse him, but concern stayed her hand. The water might kill him.

"Maybe we should deal with the evil in his pack first," she said.

The dark sphere had gone now, so, Attlee was removed from the shower tray, and the skull was tipped out of the backpack. The soldiers formed a shield wall, and everyone crouched down behind it, as Giselle reached for the tap.

Betrayal?

[Part of knowing where another group's secret base is located, gives you the ability to know when/if they discover your secret base. The Budgie Smugglers had located the Insular Rogues base a few months ago. Today, the group found out that the Insular Rogues now knew the location of their base.]

1G Conch

Esme, the crew's secretary, did her normal mail-run to the Luscious Pixie and returned up with a shoe-box addressed to the Budgie Smugglers. No-one was brave enough to open it until Attlee [Kevin] stepped forward.

Inside the shoe-box was a conch shell; about the size of a lady's shoe. There was a note too. It was from Sly Dunbar: "Use this to contact me. Sly Dunbar, Liaison of the Wizards' Guild". Attlee held it to his ear.

"Hello?" he said.

After a short time came the reply.

"Dis is Sly Dunbar," said a voice in a strong Pensive accent. "Liaison to de Wizards' Guild. Whom be I addressin'?"

"Um, Attlee."

They talked a bit. This conch was a communication device. It was a "1G conch" which meant it was only good for communications to and from its twin back at the Guild. If Dunbar needed to contact the party, he could make it scream like a klaxon horn. Similarly, Attlee could return the screaming-favour by pressing on the shell end.

Worried about being eavesdropped upon, the group insisted that Attlee store the conch down in the vault.

Nevertheless, Huilam [Jamie] and Tylin [Ian] soon used the conch to speak to Dunbar to arrange a meeting at the Wizards' Guild; they had some more points to discuss about Daisy.

So, those two left for the Guild. Attlee, with his powerful magic (the IMAG skull), was not welcome!

The remaining party split up into two squads.

Burrito [Darryl], Sorrow [Jeff], Attlee, Argile [Richard] & Dee Dee [Steven] went to stake out Daisy's house in Duke Street; day and night.

El Cid [Shane], Moonlight [Chris] & Ronny [Deacon] went searching down the sewers looking for Simone's jewellery (which El Cid had wrapped up and dumped last score, after they captured her). He was hoping it would be stuck in the sewers or floating in the Scab River.

Down in the sewers, they found a hot trail [good rolls], and sure enough, Simone's robe had caught on a piece of reinforcing rod protruding from one of the exit pipes where the Duke Street sewer emptied into the Scab River. They unwrapped it, and inside was all Simone's jewellery and the brooch, safe and sound.

To find a safe place to hide it, in case it was tracked, the three headed to Moonlight's Caribou Gorn Grove in the Holbein woods, to Moonlight's charred log cabin (where Dee Dee had been burned by the wizards, last score).

El Cid and Ronny then left Moonlight, and journeyed back to town to tell the rest of the group the good news: that the jewellery had been recovered so quickly.

Exactly now, Huilam and Tylin were chatting away to Dunbar, when a generic wizard sidled into the

room and stage-whispered into Dunbar's ear.

Sly Dunbar, WG liaison

"Simone's gear...," he said hoarsely. "... moved ... Caribou Grove."

Huilam jumped up and interrupted before Dunbar could answer.

"Excusez-moi messieurs!" he said in panicked elvish. "We... um.. know of zis."

Dunbar and the other wizard spun and stared at him, slack-jawed.

"You do, mon?" said Dunbar. "We be locatin' de felons who stole Simone's stuff."

"Zat would be our group," said Huilam. "We were.. uh searching for it. Part of ze investigation of Simone."

"Then I won't be callin' in a fire strike. Who will the Hit Team meet when they arrive?"

"Zat would be Moonlight, El Cid and Ronny."

"Recover the items," Dunbar told the other wizard. "But leave the group unscathed."

The other wizard nodded and left.

________________________________________________

A short time later, the generic wizard arrived back, carrying all of Simone's jewellery.

Simone Ender's 2G Brooch

"Your elven druid friend is okay," said the wizard to Huilam. "We didn't kill him."

Dunbar picked out the brooch from the pile of Simone's costly jewellery, and gave it to Huilam.

"That's a 2G Brooch," he said. "Is better than the conch. 2G means it goes tru' an 'Exchange', so you be callin' the exchange lady and you be tellin' her who you want to talk to. An she put you tru'. The gems be the 'go' and 'stop' buttons."

_________________________________________

Later, Huilam used the brooch to contact Daisy.

Daisy Crown

Tylin joined him at the Guild and they went into an interview room with Daisy.

They asked all they could about her movements, her links to Simone and Dalila, and such stuff. She didn't have any suspicions about her position on the council being compromised either.

"They would just replace us," she said.

But all these political ramifications had been discussed last time, so they didn't go into that again.

Daisy was into luxuries like Simone, but not so much into Furs R Us. However, her vice was pleasure. But they could not wheedle from her the exact ... flavour.

They got onto talking about the Teleport spells. There were a many variants of the spell that Daisy was happy to wax on loquaciously all about. This was her specialty, after all.

• Dimension Door Teleport, which was a single-word, self, short range (200 paces), line-of-sight spell. 
• Get Me Home Teleport; a trigger word teleports (only) the wizard to a pre-defined location. From anywhere in the Known World.
• Risky Teleport, which used the WGPS (Wizards' Guild Positioning System). This coordinate system allows any location in the Known World to be targetted accurate to a finger-width*. But this spell had a tangible risk (about 2%) of missing the target and arriving in a random spot: normally distributed with a Standard Deviation of exp(pi)paces (about 23m). Can take a guest too. 
• Safe Teleport, which used the WGPS with no risk. Can take a guest.
• Succour. [Like a HP port-key], an object would be imbued with the magic and when touched or triggered, behaves like a Get Me Home. Can take guests if all hold the toucher.

With all these spells, the destination site needs to be clear. Gasses are pushed away with a loud pop. Teleporting into solids means instant death. Teleporting into liquids also does not work because liquids are not compressible and the expansion of the arriving body occurs faster than the speed of sound through the liquid, so from the teleporter's point of view, it might was well be a solid.

* = WGPS uses polar coordinates plus height. The world is an infinite plane but only illuminated where the fighting gods REAL and IMAG roll around the Great Circle. This circle is 5000 stades in radius. [Treat a "stade" here as a kilometre.] Scholars (FW priests) have determined that "significant life" only extends 20,000 stades from the centre of the circle. The fighting gods are up at 3500 stades high. Thus, this defines the parameters of the WGPS 30-digit coordinate system. One coordinate is distance from the centre of the Great Circle and can be expressed in 10 digits. The second coordinate is the angle, zero degrees being the Specularum meridian. It is expressed as 11 digits (degrees, arc-minutes, arc-seconds, milli-arc-seconds and tenths). At 20,000 stades, one tenth of a milli-arc-second is about 10mm. The third coordinate is the height - another 9 digits required.  The centre of the Great Circle moves slowly in a random walk (2.5m a day), so WGPS coordinates are based on a "WGPS Origin" rather than the actual origin.
_________________________________________

Lido

That evening, just after dark, Attlee started fitting, like he had a Tourette's tick, and muttered and grumbled to himself. He was, in fact, talking to Lido.

Lido was saying (in Attlee's head): "You have to go and see Clara. Otherwise she will cause trouble."

"No no!" grumbled Attlee. "We are not working for IMAG again. The group said a clear no. No."

"There will be trouble," said Lido. "She is threatening me. Are you threatening me? Are you?"

"You can talk to her?"

"No," said Lido. "But the Foundling can. I talk to the Foundling. Words. Feelings. I get them all. Clara talks to them and I hear."

"'Them'? Who is them?"

"The Foundling. They use the 'they' pronoun."

"How long have you been able to do this?" asked Attlee.

"For always."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You never asked!"

"Well, then tell them to tell her no."

There was a short delay.

"The Foundling ...they say, she ... is angry. Clara is angry."

______________________________________________

Burrito, Sorrow, Attlee, Argile & Dee Dee had been staking out Daisy's residence all day. There were always two or three gardeners. It didn't take long to work out that the garden was very well-kempt and that they were all just doing busy-work.

After dark, the gardeners left (two were followed - neither went to the Wizards' Tower). Lights came on in the house, the same as previous nights, and (legitimate) shadows moved around inside.

Moonlight joined this group after dark, and cast a Detect Magic from the road. The spell effect covered the whole front yard and the front of the house. There was no magic anywhere in the yard, and nothing on the house structures (windows, doors, walls, roof). Only some items inside the place.

Dee Dee also had a look around in the Duke Street sewers adjacent to the property, but there were no pipes that headed off under Daisy's house.

Later on in the night, Sorrow, Attlee and Burrito sneaked on to the property and around the back, quiet as the grave. There was an outhouse out the back. Presumably it wasn't plumbed into any sewer lines.

Sorrow found a good hiding place in some shrubbery over the back fence in the adjacent property (which had a house of similar generic style and wealth), and observed all night.

They returned home just before light.
____________________________________________________

The next morning, Esme came in with the mail from the Luscious Pixie notice board.

There was a terse message from Lieutenant Chung: "Get here now!"

So, the whole group turned up to the Knives. The news wasn't good.

"You know how we were making you a lasso to stop Daisy Crown from teleporting?" asked Chung.

Nods all around.

"Well," he said. "The wizard who we commissioned to build that ... is no more. His whole place has
been burned. No sign of him. No body even. Any ideas?"

Shaking heads all around.

"Do you trust your staff, Lieutenant?" said Huilam.

"Only three people in the Knives know of these plans," said Chung. "Me, my PA Sandra, and my assistant, Corporal Evans. And I would trust them both with my life. Are you sure of your crew?"

Nods all around. But not-so-certain nods.

"This puts a brake on the mission," said Chung. "Do you feel confident you can take Ms Crown without the lasso? It would be possible, but I suggest we... you ... find and seal the leak first before we go further."

Nods all around. They slunk off home.
________________________________________________________

During the ensuring “discussions” back at base, the conch blared its klaxon sound. Dunbar had some urgent news, but wouldn't say it over the conch. So Huilam and Tylin went to see him.

Sly Dunbar told them that the Guild had an anonymous tip-off, last night, that there was a "wizard of interest" hired by "certain parties" (it did not say), "doing things to compromise Daisy Crown's location" and then passed on some other critical information. Using this, and their own location magic, they homed in on an address in Downtown, and sent in a hit team.

A freelance wizard named Wilson lived there, but he had magical alarms and traps, so it ended in a fire-fight, literally. Wilson was killed and the whole building was consumed in a fiery conflagration. But the wizards did recover his charred body.
____________________________________________________________

Back at the base, talk was prolific. Did they have a leak? [They all knew about Attlee's skull out-of-character, of course, and suspected the leak was via Clara, but none of this was in-character.]

It was decided that maybe it was them, especially since there were only three knives who knew. After all, they did have some auxiliary staff, like Esme and the SAT secretary, and the Insight and Prowess experts often popped in and out.

So, it was decided that Dee Dee would use her Detect Lie feat on everyone. The question was, "did you betray the plan to make the lasso to the Wizards' Guild?"

Everyone said "NO" of course, including Attlee. And no-one was lying. [Attlee had no idea even if it was the IMAGs who betrayed anyway, even in-character].

That cleared everyone except Dee Dee herself... Or Dee Dee and an associate whom she covered.

Nab Daisy Prep

[ We started the evening with Downtime activities. Sorrow [Jeff] and Ronny [Deacon] were marmalading ]

Lieutenant Anton Chung of the Knives

There was a note at the Luscious Pixie from Lieutenant Anton Chung. So the group headed to the Council buildings (Knives' base) and met with Anton, and, as expected, he had the job to capture the last of the witches' triumvirate, Daisy Crown. But before Anton could go into detail, El Cid [Shane] interrupted.

"Could we have safely got Simone's jewellery?" he asked. "Without being tracked?"

"You would need a Faraday cage," said Chung. "It's a metal cage that is sealed, and has to be connected by a chain to a metal pole driven into the ground. Named after the wizard Faraday."

Then Chung outlined the job. Daisy's teleport would be a problem. But the resourceful Knives had a solution.

"A Faraday cage would work," said Chung. "But hard to get her in it! However, we can get an item fashioned to help you. A hair-net, a sack or a lasso. If you can get this attached to her, even just around a finger or foot, it will prevent her teleporting out. But ... but, first, we need a piece of her to get the item made: hair, skin, blood, fingernails, sweat, any bit. So your first job will be to get this piece."

The group nodded as their minds started running over-time.

"This entire job will not be easy," said Chung. "14 COIN for successful capture."

___________________________________________________________


When they got back to their lair, they swung past the Luscious Pixie again, and there was a new note there. From Sly Dunbar, Liaison of the Wizards Guild, addressed to Rita.

"I have power of attorney for Rita," volunteered Huilam [Jamie], justifying his opening the letter. He read it and then said: "Sly Dunbar has a job for us. Meet him at the Wizards' Guild."

So, Huilam, Tylin [Ian] and Attlee [Kevin] went to the Wizards' Tower. In the foyer of the tower, Sly Dunbar met them. But he baulked at Attlee.

Sly Dunbar, WG Liaison

"You can't be comin' in here, man," he said to Attlee. "You be holdin' dem powerful jar-wobble magic."

"Who me?" said Attlee, guessing it was Lido (his magic IMAG skull).

"You be waitin' outside. We can talk over de road."

Dunbar took them to the Tower Lookout.

"Now where's dis lady Rita?" said Dunbar.

"Sadly, we 'ave parted ze ways," said Huilam.

"Dat's a pity. I trusted her. But, still, you be doin' good work for us wid grapes crate."

They all nodded.

"Anyways," said Dunbar. "We be needin' some experts to help track us some mages. Two of our lady wizards be goin' missin'." He produce some superb laminated glossy pictures of Dalila Hornsby and Simone Ender, and jabbed at them with his chubby blinged fingers. "Dese two. We have some wizard trackers after them already, man, but we be wantin' some mundanes to track 'em as well: you!"

"We be payin' on results. 10 COIN per lady. Can you do this?"

Huilam nodded sagaciously. Then he and Tylin managed to weasel out of Sly that the two missing witches were linked to a third one, and that it would be most helpful to meet her too.

"Good then," nodded Dunbar. "You be comin' back here tomorrow mornin'. I be givin' you some aid in da way of magic. And I'll be bringin' de other one of the tree: Miss Crown."
___________________________________________________________

Anton Chung had given the group Daisy Crown's residential address, so they scoped out her house.

Like Simone Ender, Daisy Crown also lived on Duke street. (Duke St was one of the significant roads in Scabport where people of moderate wealth would live. The filthy rich took up residence in the Mansion District, but the rest of high society congregated around the the Royal end of Duke street.)

Unlike Simone's burned ruin, Daisy's bungalow was intact. The party set up round-the-clock surveillance. El Cid and Moonlight [Chris] by day, and Dee Dee [Steven] and Argile [Richard] at night.

They also set up watches on both sides of the Wizard's tower. Burrito [Darryl] at the back. Attlee at the front. And Tylin inside the Tower Lookout inn too.
___________________________________________________________

Next morning, the same three returned to the Tower Lookout. Sly was there, joined by the buxom Daisy Crown. Sly introduced her to the group, not knowing that they knew her, of course.

Daisy Crown

Daisy looked them all over coolly. Huilam hoped that she didn't recognize him from the other day. Tylin was pretty sure that she would not recognize him (his disguise was good). And Attlee was not worried at all; he was on the cart, so was never in Daisy's line of sight before she teleported away.

Nevertheless, she stared long and hard at Attlee.

"Powerful magic on that one, Dunbar." she said.

"Yes Ms," said Sly. "I be refusin' to let him in the tower because of it."

Daisy whispered something to Sly. He nodded.

She stood up and suddenly cast a spell at Attlee.

Attlee stumbled back in alarm, but didn't feel anything untoward. Though, the air around him shimmered in a light purple haze.

Daisy frowned.

"You are soaked in evil," she said. "It is palpable. Dripping. Coming from your pack."

Attlee sheepishly nodded, but before he could speak, Huilam did.

"He has a gift from IMAG," said Huilam.

Attlee's porter stout

"Dat would explain why you REAL priestess be leavin' you," said Sly Dunbar with an abrupt laugh to Huilam.

Attlee went to collect drinks for the table. Sly and Daisy already had elvin wine, but the rest were thirsty. He got some wine for Huilam and Tylin, and some porter stout for himself. As he was sitting down with the drinks, he clumsily up-ended his entire glass all over Daisy's decolletage.

She shrieked and stood up. Attlee mopped at her chest frantically with a filthy rag, and, in doing so, grabbed some of her stray hairs (she had very long hair, so this was not difficult). Daisy shooed away his groping hands and greasy rag.

Eventually, Daisy got cleaned-up by bar staff, regained her composure and everyone sat down again. Attlee surreptitiously pocketed the hairs.

They all got talking. The group wanted to know if there were any theories linking the three women together. Neither Sly or Daisy could think of anything. The three ladies were in a sub committee of the Wizards' council, to be sure. But it didn't really have any major powers, and missing all three would not diminish the power or functioning of the guild.

Sly added: "Oh, the three are the Wizards' Guild representatives bein' on the Scabport Town Council. But I don't tink dat is significant."

"And the next meeting isn't for another two weeks," Daisy interrupted. "And there are not really any contentious issues as far as I know. And if we went missing, say, they'd need to re-assign our positions before the meeting could continue, anyway."

Huilam quizzed them on the Scabport Council make-up. There are 16 on the Council: 5 Knives, 3 Wizards Guild, 3 from the TGP, 1 from the REAL (light) temple, 1 from IMAG (dark) temple, and 3 from the group of other ten major temples on a rotating basis: Nuke (war), Olive (peace), 69 (lust), 21 (luck), Hob (fire), Aquamarina (water), FunkenWagnall (knowledge), Kliban (fate), Methuselah (time), Caribou Gorn (earth). And draws are settled by the Mayor, himself, Scarface McGee of the Knives.

TP beacon

Sly took out an item and placed it on the table. It had a metallic head, the size of a cup, mounted on a wooden handle.

"This be a beacon," said Sly. "If you be findin' the ladies, one or boat, you be breakin' de head off dis. Them send us a magical signal and de Hunter Squad will be dere shorter 'n one minute."

"Hunter squad?" asked Huilam.

"A group of mages who can teleport," said Daisy. "I would suggest you take cover when you activate the beacon. When they arrive, they tend to kill anything that moves. Then ask questions later."

__________________________________________________________

Some of the party visited Furs R Us to keep up some pretense of investigating the missing Simone on behalf of the wizards. The predominant story from eye-witnesses to the capture the other day, was that two women were captured: a busty one and a slight one, and then they were bundled into a magical silent cart, which drove away and vanished.  Of course, the party did nothing to dispel this narrative.

Interestingly also, there had been two other groups of questioners before the party. Wizard investigators and Knives Investigators.

__________________________________________________________

The watchers of Daisy's house didn't see anything unusual.

The house seemed to be occupied by someone all the time. It had active gardeners and groundsmen in the yard during the day, and it was lit at night. They did not see Daisy come or go by road; but maybe she just teleported in and out. They might have expected the loud POP of a teleport; though, a silent or sealed room would prevent this.

________________________________________________

Huilam, Attlee and Tylin visited Chung with Daisy's hair.

"That was quick!" said Chung. "Sometimes you lot surprise me."

He took the hair carefully.

"You need to choose now, what item you want: hair-net, sack or lasso?"

Lasso

"Lasso, please," said Huilam dryly. Indeed, the group had spent many long hours debating the benefit of lasso over sack over hair-net. The hair-net was discounted pretty fast, but the arguments of lasso versus sack raged on and on. In the end, consensus wasn't quite achieved, but there were only a few sack dissenters.

"This will be ready in a few days," said Chung. "I will send for you."

__________________________________________________________

That evening, around midnight, Daisy visited the Tower Lookout with a couple of mages. Tylin maintained his spot in the shadows and just watched. Daisy & Co left at closing time.

At least this meant she was venturing out.

___________________________________________________________

Only four of the group could read: Huilam, Attlee, Ronny and Tylin [reading requires the STUDY action] so the next day, the three (sans marmalading Ronny) went to the Funken Wagnall temple to check the library there. They wanted to explore the subtleties of the Scabport Town Council constitution and meeting protocol. The party was convinced that this was the reason that the Knives wanted the triumvirate out of the way.

They checked the rules for accession to the Council.

• If a rep is not attending permanently (known dead, insane or resigned) from a council meeting, then the rep must be replaced before the start of the next meeting. The new rep is chosen by the relevant group. If this selection is not done by the meeting time, the meeting is postponed. 
• If a rep is not attending but is contactable (ill), then the rep can use a proxy vote. 
• If a rep is not attending and is not contactable (unconscious or missing), then the relevant group puts forward a "temporary rep". When the original returns, s/he replaces the temp rep. 

All very straight forward.

The next council meeting was in 15 days' time. The agenda was not out yet, but this was understandable since it need only be provided with three days' advance.

While they were at the library, Huilam decided to do some research on Michael Stringfellow.

He had published a book, in fact.

Scab allergy

In the restricted section of the library, Huilam found a very dry book called "Allergic Lift Showmen; a treatise on the Milling of Cartwheels" by Michael Stringfellow, et al. It was about recent Scabport scab (white asparagus) cultivar breakthroughs, and prevention of scab allergies through breeding. So, Michael Stringfellow was a scabotanist then?

A "Cartwheel" was a type of scab (the cross-section of the stalk looked like a cartwheel), and "milling" was colloquial term for harvesting scabs. Huilam had no idea what "lift showmen" were, and the book didn't talk about them.

The book had a dedication too: "To my Cellmate, Rolf Wishing."

Interestingly, in the "et al." section, the other authors, presumed scabotanists, were listed: Nigel Willem Ashcroft, Lief Hasting Cromwell, "Cowgirl" Mella Fishnet, Charlie Melting-flows, and Jack Sparrow.

"Jack freaking Sparrow!" exclaimed Huilam.

"Shhhh!" said the stern Restricted-Section librarian, a priestess of Funken Wagnall.

Tylin and Attlee wandered over and peered at the book too.

Unlike all of the scabotanists, the name "Jack Sparrow" was the only anti-anagram there of "Michael Stringfellow".

"So, Jack Sparrow is Michael Stringfellow..."

Nab Witch Job

First some loose-ends: today they released prisoners Michael Boatman and Glenda Stewart. After the party's first probe at Sam's plantation's palisade, several scores ago, these two wretches were the only survivors of a group that was tailing the party. They were captured,  questioned, and held in the party's base: Michael down in the store room and Glenda chained to Ronny's bed.

Michael was released to return to his family in Scabport.

Glenda was escorted to a coach headed for Spite, and given a one-way ticket.

____________________________________________________

Simone Ender

That evening, after dark, Tylin [Ian] set himself up in the Tower Lookout to watch the mage clientele that frequented that tavern. Sorrow [Jeff] hid somewhere near the entrance to the Wizards' Guild Tower and Burrito [Darryl] hid around the back.

Meanwhile, back at Simone Ender's charred house, Dee Dee [Steven], Huilam [Jamie], Attlee [Kevin] and Moonlight [Chris] attempted to open the safe there that was magically locked. Out on the quiet street, Ronny [Deacon] and El Cid [Shane] kept watch.

Gnome Dee Dee had a bit of magic knowledge, and, leading a group action with Moonlight and Attlee (his skull Lido could aid in magical exploits), she eventually worked out how the lock worked, and opened the safe. Inside was lots of ashes (burned papers?), and a gold filigree brooch studded with gems. The brooch glowed under Moonlight's Detect Magic.

Later on in the evening, at the Tower Lookout, there was some excitement for Tylin. Simone Ender, herself, made an appearance with a group of mages from the tower. Tylin just observed. The mages stayed until closing time, and then returned to the tower.

The party went home.

_________________________________________________________

Simone's Brooch

Next morning, during breakfast they were discussing what to do with the brooch. Ideas came thick and fast. They were settling on "Arrange to meet Simone somewhere to collect her brooch where we can ambush her.", when the brooch, still in Dee Dee's possession, started to vibrate. She got it out, and one of the gems on it was glowing.

"Get that out of here!" screamed Huilam.

The party bailed. Moonlight and Dee Dee and the brooch hung around the docks. The rest of the group went to the Singing Clam, well away from the brooch, and made plans.

The plan was to send Tylin and Burrito to watch the Wizard's tower, and to send Moonlight and Dee Dee and brooch to the druid's grove in the Holbein Woods. And everyone else would lay low, in case their secret lair had been compromised by the brooch's magic.

At the grove, Moonlight found a log cabin and they both rested in it. The brooch started to vibrate again. This time Dee Dee touched the glowing gem.

A woman's voice: "Hello? Hello?"

The brooch kept vibrating. Dee Dee pressed the gem on it.

"Who is this?" Dee Dee said.

"You have stolen my brooch," came the woman's voice.

"No, it is mine."

"It is stolen"

"Well, I found it!"

Moonlight decided to leave the grove and find the rest of the group, to update them.

Dee Dee put the brooch in her pack ignoring the "Hello hello?"

A few minutes later, Tylin, watching the Wizards' Tower, saw four figures fly out of an upper storey, on broom sticks. They were headed directly towards the Holbein Woods.

Dee Dee saw four flying figures approach. She scurried into the cabin.

A small pellet of sulphur and wax followed her inside, and suddenly there was a huge crump! and a mighty explosion. The inside of the cabin was a raging inferno.

Leaving Dee Dee for dead, the four took the brooch and flew off.

Dee Dee would have been killed but managed to hide under a pile of wet leaves. [ Fireball does a level 4 harm - "incineration" - which is death. But Dee Dee's resistance roll reduced this to level 3 harm, and her leather armour to level 2 harm "charred". The tangible effects of this is a burned body and all rolls at -1D until healed. ]

Tylin caught up with the party, and told them about the broom-fliers so they all made their leisurely way to the grove. And they met up with Moonlight.

Having lost the brooch, their one valuable piece of leverage against Simone, they had to think up another plan.

They sent El Cid, Burrito and Attlee to Anton Chung to get more info. They hoped that the Knives' prisoner Dalila, who was formerly part of Simone's triumvirate, would know something useful about Simone. Chung would not let them see Dalila face to face, but he was happy to take a set of questions to extract from her.

So the party, conversed and came up with a set of questions, which they passed to Chung.

In a short while, Chung returned from the Knives. Most of the answers were of no use, or Dalila did not know, but Simone seemed to have a weakness that they could exploit. Like Rita, she was very much into luxuries, and she regularly shopped a Furs R Us in the Royal District.

So they hatched a plan, so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it weasel. Well, Huilam thought so.

The plan:

• Tomorrow at 5 bells there was to be a 30% off sale at Furs R Us. Huilam would make the fake marketing documentation and deliver it to the Wizards' Tower, making sure it was well-addressed to Simone.
• Simone would head to Furs R Us to go to the sale.
• Burrito, Huilam, Sorrow would be blockers pushing other people out of the way, while Tylin, El Cid and Ronny would intercept Simone as she entered the shop. The trigger for the strike was when Simone entered the shop.
• Attlee, Moonlight and Dee Dee would arrive on the party wagon Carte Blanche, and the disabled Simone would be put into the wagon.
• They would then hold Simone and someone would go contact Chung.

Daisy Crown

Simone took the bait. She turned up at Furs R Us, right on 5 bells. But she was accompanied by another woman, a buxom witch [Dragon Crown Sorceress look-alike].

Burrito went for the witch; he stuck his knife into her from the back, going for the heart. But his knife grated on something non-flesh and failed go in deep. It was enough to collapse her, and he followed her falling body, falling himself, hoping for a coup de grace, but, at that very instant, there was a loud concussive bang, and she just vanished.

At the same moment, Tylin lurched at Simone to grab her by the mouth. The theory being that all wizard spells require a verbal utterance (and the last thing they needed was to be engulfed in a fiery conflagration). Simultaneously, El Cid, assisted by Ronny, struck Simone's head from behind. El Cid was going for a knock-out, so he used his IMAG dark-fists. But Tylin's mouth grab pushed Simone off balance and El Cid's punch only glanced her head.
.
While this was happening, Attlee and Moonlight started to bring Cart Blanche down the street to stop outside Furs R Us. The still-charred Dee Dee was inside, trying to keep out of the way.

Lido

The shop guards in Furs R Us by now had recovered from the shock of witnessing their guests being assaulted, so they pushed their way towards Simone and her assailants. This is where Huilam and Sorrow stepped in to block them.

Attlee was in thought-contact with Lido (his black skull) throughout.

"A silence would be helpful," Attlee screamed in his head.

Lido was never very reliable at performing tricks [ like 1 in 6 ], but this time he proved exemplary. The whole doorway, half the shop and half the road was engulfed in silence.

"How long can you keep this up, Lido?" asked Attlee in a quick thought.

"About ten minutes. Unless you say 'noise'." came the reply.

A single struggling woman was no match for the combined strengths of El Cid, Ronny and Tylin, so they soon had Simone bundled, bound and gagged in the cart. El Cid kept bashing her head into the floor of the cart, so she was concussed as well.

The cart took off at a speed, well ... walking pace. After all, the street was quite crowded.

"Noise!" said Attlee in his head. And noise flooded in.

The Furs R Us shop guards were struggling to pursue the cart, slowed by Huilam and Sorrow, and then Burrito joined in too. This gave Attlee enough time to round a corner, where El Cid, Tylin & Ronny quickly bundled Simone off the cart and into a manhole in the road. The cart continued, followed by the guards, who eventually managed to catch it up. They stopped Attlee, who was happy to oblige, and they searched the cart, finding only a burnt lady gnome.

Royal District sewers

The sewers of the Royal district clean enough to eat off. Rumour has it that you could drink the water too ("eau de toilette" as the Elves would say). El Cid & Co found a safe spot to wait. They searched the unconscious Simone. She had the brooch (rescued from Dee Dee) plus another heap of jewellery and sundry nick-nacks.

As the three were searching her, the brooch started buzzing. Not willing to risk magic detection, El Cid & Ronny grabbed the brooch and all of Simone's jewellery (probably 5 COIN's worth) and wrapped them up in Simone's cloak. Then sent the cloak and all sailing down the sewer. The buzzing brooch faded into the dark.

Then Tylin went off to tell Anton Chung of their success, Chung's words "contact me within half a day" ringing in his pointy elvin ears.

The bored receptionist in the Scabport Council foyer (i.e. the Knives HQ) fiddled though her records as Tylin stood there waiting.

"Lieutenant Chung is off on his rounds," she said. "He'll be back in a few hours. Make yourself at home."

Tylin frowned, then returned to El Cid & Ronny and the rest of the party. It would be a long wait.

_______________________________________________________

Lieutenant Anton Chung of The Knives

Two hours later, Tylin returned later to the Council. Chung had still not returned, so he waited and leafed impatiently through the reading material in the foyer. The latest musical pieces from Barque echoed about the room. Most people in Scabport could not read, so the waiting room stock was mainly adult comics ("Graphic Novels" was the current phrase du jour).

Anton eventually arrived and took Tylin aside. Anton was delighted with the news.

"You got her?" he said. "Well done! But no time to lose. Bring her here now. Side cart entrance. I'll be waiting."

Tylin rushed off.

Carte Blanche soon delivered the well-secured Simone to the Knives, and she was unloaded and carried off into the HQ depths. Chung said to return in the morning for their pay.

______________________________________________________

The next morning, they did.

"Now you can catch us the third of the triumvirate," said Chung. "Daisy Crown. The teleporting mage"