Lammy [Kevin] and Argyle [Richard] ceased their marmalading. Tylin [Ian] and Burrito [Darryl] began to marmalade themselves.
It had just gone dark, and the Budgie Smugglers were in the Fort Augmentin Travellers' Inn. They were making a special effort not mention their party name, since the current belief of those in the fort was that the Budgie Smugglers had brought the plague to the fort.
They were organizing rooms for the night from the Lucy the barmaid: Huilam [Jamie], Moonlight [Chris] and Sorrow [Jeff] in one room. Argyle and Lammy with the marmalading Tylin and Burrito in the other. El Cid [Shane] wanted his own room.
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| Booker Dobbs (Insular Rogues) |
The outside door opened, and a man entered. He saw the party next to the bar, and double-taked. Then squealed and rushed out, slamming the door. It was Booker Dobbs, a known foe, of the Insular Rogues.
The party leapt to action and rushed at the door. Lammy got there first, and rushed outside into the night. He saw some movement on the stockade wall (which surrounded the fort). He shot a Light spell at it, illuminating a portion of wall, and they all caught a glimpse of Booker cresting the wall. He was well-gone when they looked over themselves.
They set watches during the night. El Cid was first in the corridor outside the three rooms.
A few hours into the night, El Cid heard some suspicious noises, so hid behind a pot-plant in the corridor. Lucy the barmaid was up listening on Huilam's door. He confronted her, but she pleaded innocence "Just checking you're all tucked in for the night." The group was roused, but they didn't press it.
____________________
In morning, they spotted Daisy Crown in the fort compound. Apparently, the Wizards' Guild here could not get the trunk (that the party had gone to all that trouble to deliver a few days ago) out of the fort due to the plague lock-down. She added that, due to its nature, it could not be teleported (which would have been the obvious choice).
The wizards needed to get it to Two Frime via Winjammer which was many days antiwards [west].
"Why didn't Sly tells us to take it that far in our boat?" someone asked.
"Because we needed it sent to Captain Moses, when we gave it to you," said Daisy. "Plans change."
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| 2nd Lieutenant Pigeon |
About then, Second Lieutenant Pigeon and some soldiers arrived, so they left the trunk-question hanging and dealt with her. Suspicious, she asked about Daisy, and the party confirmed that Daisy was with them, so the lieutenant permitted Daisy to join the trip into the fort barracks. Apparently, Sergeant Evans and the REAL Priestess Deidre, whom they had met in the previous trip, had also succumbed to the plague. They were being held in the barracks cells with six other infected soldiers.
The group was taken down below to the cell area. The first thing they noticed descending the stairs was the stink of faeces and sweat, and then loud shrieks and unintelligible howls of rage. There were eight naked people, leaping and running around like insane baboons, behind bars in a large communal cell; six men and two women. These were "the infected" and their minds were gone. The floor was ankle-deep in urine, vomit, diarrhoea and an overturned trough. When the furious infected saw the party, they started to throw things at them. Mainly pieces of the more solid faeces, and undigested scraps of food from the vomit.
Lammy and Daisy fired a bunch of Sleep spells at the leaping angry victims and managed to drop the lot, but it took a lot. Then Huilam went in alone, squelching through the stinking muck, and thwacked two of the sleeping males with a club, then dragged them out, and chained them up. Huilam was immune from infection, of course, having the protective spell still on him from the Panadines
Lieutenant Pigeon donated a cart to the group, and so the two chained infected were wrapped up and put on the cart. And the group left for Scabport (sans Daisy).
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Suspecting that they would be followed, they all kept a careful look behind. Sure enough, several hours into the all-day trip, there was some movement behind. El Cid and Sorrow held back from the group and hid behind some bushes by the road. It was Booker Dobbs, on a horse. El Cid, not one for waiting, shot him through the throat.
They hid his body in a shallow grave.
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Towards evening, the group arrived back at Smugglers Meet, an hour out of Scabport. Rather than try to take the two infected soldiers past the Knives' patrols guarding the city gates, Huilam summarily killed the two chained wretches, and filled ten vials with their various body fluids: blood, mucous, cerebral fluid, urine and synovial fluid. Then the group burned the two bodies in a pyre.
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| Panadine Priestess Greta Carmichael |
Sorrow, El Cid and Argyle went to the IMAG temple. While Argyle minded the cart, Sorrow and El Cid went in. IMAG Priestess Clara met them and she took El Cid down to the Foundling - Sorrow was not game to go below, so stayed in a waiting room. The Foundling was very happy to have the vials, and instructed Clara to pay the agreed six COIN fee. They delivered the treasure to the party vaults, and then headed off to Lieutenant Chung at the Knives to collect the other six COIN for the Panadine delivery. And sadly, they had to hand in their Heroes of Scabport medals.
[ Downtime. ]
The next day, they headed funkenwards [north] to where Carte Blanche was lodged in the cleft of the rock. They first tried a block-and-tackle winch up to a heavy make-shift frame, but that failed.
So, they dismantled the cart, and loaded the pieces onto the borrowed cart. Then took the pieces to a wainwright in the Dock district who assembled it. They specifically didn't risk removing the suspect magical beam. Carte Blanche was back home.
The designated driver for the finicky Carte Blanche was still Attlee, so to fix this, Sorrow did the required attuning and he became the new driver. [This creates a 'Downtime debt'.]
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