Foray into Skull District

[Ronnie (Deacon) marmalading.]

That night, continuing their surveillance of Daisy Crown, Huilam [Jamie], Tylin [Ian], and Lammy [Kevin] went to the Tower Lookout on the off-chance that Daisy would turn up. Sure enough, around midnight, Daisy and her four wizard chaperones arrived. She knew the three Budgie Smugglers now, so invited them over to her table, and ordered some elvin wine. They settled down to drinking and chatting.

About an hour passed. A group of five figures entered the tavern. They were dressed in flowing beige robes with dark green trim, and each with a large dove with an olive branch; priests of Olive (Goddess of Peace). Four had tambourines and one had a descant recorder, and they proceeded to sing and dance:

Olive Olive, we love Olive,
Olive Olive, we love Olive,
Olive Olive, we love Olive,
Olive Olive, we love Olive,
Olive Olive, we love Olive.

Booker Dobbs

Tylin glanced at the leader of the group, and their eyes met. Instant mutual recognition. He was Booker Dobbs, of the Insular Rogues. Booker briefly paused, then carried on dancing and playing.

Tylin hissed to Daisy "I know zat lot. Zey are after you!"

Daisy raised her hand as if to cast a spell. Her four wizard chaperones moved in front of her to form some protection. But, instead of casting, she gestured to the barkeep and mouthed something authoritative to him. He strode out of the bar area, fetched two no-necks, and confronted the dancers.

"You lot. Out! Now!" he bellowed.

Booker cast a stony glance at Tylin, and then the five sheepishly withdrew.

Burrito [Darryl] arrived a bit later and searched the surrounding streets for other suspicious malcontents, but there were none. Daisy and co headed back to the safety of the Wizards' Tower.

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At the prison, trainee guards Sorrow [Jeff] and El Cid [Shane] were being on their best behaviour.  They tried to avoid 2nd Lieutenant Sharples best they could. They were only cornered a few times by the belligerent Lieutenant, and so managed to avoid too much of a severe beating.

"The beatings will only stop when morale increases," was her catch-phrase.

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The next morning, Tylin and Lammy went to the Adventuress and Bugbear (in the Dock district) and hired a long-term room (room 5).

Teleport Glass

In the room, Lammy used his Wizards' equipment (chronometer, slide-rule, protractor and octant) to calculate the WGPS (Wizards' Guild Positioning System) coordinates of the exact centre of the room. This yielded a 30-digit number which he wrote onto a piece of parchment.

"This will be where Jack Sparrow will arrive when he teleports," he boldly proclaimed.

Lammy then took the parchment to the Wizards' Guild and delivered it to Sly Dunbar. This paper would be burned and the ashes placed inside the Teleport Glass during its ensorcelling. When the glass was broken, it would trigger the Teleport spell, and would thus teleport the breaker to that location.

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Sonny Bowens (Bronze Studs) contacted the group again. REAL had the Skull district job still active, and were still nagging for takers. The group Huilam, Tylin, Burrito, Lammy, Moonlight [Chris], Dee Dee [Steven], Argile [Richard] (Sorrow and El Cid were at the prison) decided to do the score. It would at least earn them 9 COIN.

"Why don't we pay them for us to do the job," muttered Burrito sarcastically. He was still bitter about
losing money on the TP glass.

Priestess Rita

At the REAL temple, Priestess Coleen Sanford was their contact. She explained the score. And then brought forth former party-member Priestess Rita, and asked her take them to the Skull district.

The huge Scabport graveyard (or "necropolis") filled most of the Skull district. The graveyard had been there ever since the city was founded, more than a thousand years ago, and was now bulging at the seams. The graveyard was safe during the day, but one would not want to venture in there at night.  The REAL priests claimed that undead creatures were leaving the graveyard and terrorizing the surrounding streets. This was what the score was to do: locate some evidence of these creatures and call in martial and cleansing support.

Rita took them to one of the sites of where the creatures of dark had allegedly caused mischief, and

REAL Flare stick

here they met two REAL paladins. The paladins gave the group two flare sticks. These flares looked very much like WG Summoners, and the paladins explained how to activate them.

"Point the stick vertically," said the paladin. "Then unscrew the cap on the base, and yank it. A flare will shoot skyward. And we will see this, and we will run."

The paladins also told them that REAL followers may not enter the graveyard after dark (some edict from the Scabport Council). So, if the group activated the flare sticks within, no help would come.

"But don't let that stop you going into the graveyard," one paladin commented wryly.

Rita took them back to the REAL temple, and Colleen had prepared for them a bandolier of ten holy water glass vials.

"This will burn creatures of evil," she said. "Oh, and it doesn't keep. A few days tops."

They also bought ten ceramic vials of lamp oil on the way back.

It was a few hours before dark when they got back to the graveyard. The enormity of the necropolis's size finally sunk in to them as they wandered about the huge place, several kilometres a side.
There were three small pyramids, hundreds of mausoleums, catafalques, sepulchers and vaults, thousands of tombs, and tens of thousands statues and graves. There were lots of signs of recent activity, but then, it still was a functioning graveyard; the poor still interred their dead here. It was just the rich that avoided the place.

At the base of one weeping angel, there were signs of suspicious scratching. Moonlight cast a Detect Evil and sure enough, there was something evil below. They pushed and prodded the angel, and it could be tipped over. There was a dark crawl-tunnel going below. No-one was brave enough to venture down.

A cloud passed over the sun, and it got cold for a moment.

A squad of Knives was patrolling nearby, so the group quickly righted the angel before it arrived.

The Corporal confronted them.

"You lot," he said. "make sure you're out before dark."

"Yes, sir."

Scabport Necropolis gate

They headed back to the gate.

Right on dark, the gate was closed by the soldiers. It was a gate in name only. It was huge and metal and unwieldy, and so full of holes that you could drive a wagon through the gaps. Not that this would have helped keep things inside anyway. The graveyard originally had stone walls, taller than two men, surrounding the whole place. Over the centuries, these walls had not been maintained, and, in many places, large sections had been entirely demolished, and the stones pilfered to be used as building material.