Undead Visit

[ Argile did his Downtime. One of his tasks was to finish the long-term project to acquire a new hidden base. So they now have a second base, hidden. ]

Ever since their base was no longer secret, the Budgie Smugglers, always set a watch each night. Tonight was no exception, and it was fortunate that they did. 

 

A couple of hours before light, Huilam [Jamie] and Sorrow [Jeff] were the two on watch.  Everyone else was asleep in the bunk room (Lammy [Kevin], Burrito [ Darryl], Ampersand [Shane], Argile [Richard] and Moonlight [Chris]). In the marmalade room was Greywacke, Tylin, and El Cid.

ghoul

There was scrabbling on the wooden slates on the roof, then scratching in the ceiling cavity above Sorrow. The metal front door, next to Huilam, went frosty. The base is built on the large Scabport wharves, so they had a stairway down to a floating platform below where they moored their boat. There was a loud splashing noise down here amongst the piles. 

Sorrow was watching the ceiling above him. The plaster broke and an arm came through, followed by a ghoul. He shrieked an alarm. The group all hard this with a panicked start, and scrabbled out of bed, and started getting dressed and armoured.

Sorrow fought the ghoul before another joined it. Then Burrito was there to help him with bow in hand.

While the others were fighting above, Ampersand went through the cellar door to investigate the stairs down to the floating jetty. Moored to the jetty, was the party shallop, the Smoking Loon. In it were two skeletons pretending to row. But on the jetty platform were many many more skeletons, climbing up. They all looked at Ampersand with their dull eye sockets, and then all charged at him. He rushed upstairs and slammed and locked that door. The skeletons threw themselves at it.

The big fight continued: ghouls breaking in through the ceiling, skeletons smashing the cellar door, and the main iron door being assaulted by something heavy and solid.

Worried about the integrity of other parts of the ceiling, the group decided to leave, so decided to make for the stairs down to the boat. 

Burrito, Lammy and Ampersand worked on the ceiling hole ghouls. Lammy cast several Mending spells on the hole, which meant the ghouls in the roof cavity had to break through the lathe and plaster again. Burrito and Ampersand fought the ghouls that did make it through.

Huilam and one of the hired hands watched the front door, as the bangs continued.

Argile went to the stairs door, which was almost smashed now, and he threw it open and he and the hired hands fought some skeletons as they tried to break in. Two of the hands died before Argile decided a rush down the stairs, using his shield as a battering ram. It worked, and the skeletons were pushed down the stairs in a great heap. Another hired-hand died. The rest of the group followed him down.

Magda Romanov

Everyone boarded the Smoking Loon, the water churning around them with skeletons. Sorrow guided the shallop out from under the wharves and into the centre of the Scab river. 

Up on the wharf, silhouetted against the stars, stood Magda and some ghouls around her. Burrito took a shot at her, and hit her cleanly, but she just gave a cheery wave. 

They rowed up river, past the stone bridge, and stayed in the centre of the river until it was light.

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Burrito went to the Panadine temple and got some more holy water. This put the party supply up to 12 vials. Holy water doses have a half-life* of one day.

* = Holy water and unholy water, or "blessed water" is a mature technology. The blessing process only has a limited time before the magic is lost; a half-life of one day if sealed, or one hour if in an open container. After that, it has "gone bad" and is just normal water. Holy water is also easy to contaminate. Anything unblessed that touches it will do this, or if it is poured onto weapons likewise. To use it, it has to be dashed over the target, or the vessel broken on the target, and the liquid must hit bare skin. But glass technology is also mature, so the holy water is stored in easily-breakable glass vials.  During the blessing process, the priests put an additive in the water which turns milky when the holy water goes bad.

[ In game, the half-life is handled by a D6 roll, at midnight, for each vial of holy water. An even number means it has gone bad. ]

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They visited Lieutenant Chung sans Moonlight and Argile. Chung mentioned that the Council Meeting was later today, but there wasn't any other news.

While the party was with Chung, Argile took the two hired-hands aside and told them that he was not pleased the way they fought last night. They were cowards and that they better be more brave in future, even though three of their number died. "...Or else." he leered

"Yes, sir," they both snapped and saluted. "Permission to go for lunch, sir?"

He nodded and they headed off.  That was the last time they were ever seen.

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The fore-shadowed council Seasonal General meeting was this afternoon. There was a crowd of townsfolk outside the Knives HQ trying to get in to the council chambers to watch it, and the soldiers were drawing lots as to who could join. Lammy lucked-out and he got in and joined the crowd in the public viewing area. He only recognized two of the 16 council representatives: Daisy Crown and Grover Tacket, the mad head of the Caribou Gorn druids.

The meeting began with the Rotation, where the representatives from Vingt-et-un, Hob and Funken Wagnall stepped down and were changed to reps of Nuke, Caribou Gorn and Kliban. The Kliban rep was not there, of course (rep Brandon and vice-rep Slimy had been murdered). Several procedural motions to fill those positions were proposed, but, since the meeting was quorate (10), these were overturned by the Chair. 

The motion to vote to change the Scabport constitution was tabled. As gazetted two weeks in advance, it was to change the council size from 16 to 19; to add one representative for the Knives, one for the Thieves Guild Police, and one for the Wraith King.

The Wizards' Guild reps put up an amendment: rather than grant a full seat, instead give the Rotation another fourth seat and place the Wraith King's rep into the Rotation cycle with the other lesser temples. But the IMAGs argued that the Wraith King was really represented by Canker, and currently Canker (and ANY of the so-called "naughty temples" [sic]) had no representation, not even in the Rotation. So, this change was actually fixing an age-old discrimination. The amendment was voted on, and it failed.

Tarquin Creole

After a lot of bickering and squabbling, the main motion was finally put, and they all voted.

Constitutional changes needed a two-thirds majority. With the missing Klibans, the ayes had it, as predicted, 10 votes to 5 (WGx3, REAL and Caribou Gorn voted nay), and so the motion was passed.

The Wraith King's representative was introduced to the room: Tarquin Creole, a Canker priest.

Argile spent all afternoon looking for the two hired-hands that had run off, with no luck. So, he put out a one COIN contract, his own money, to get their locations.

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After meeting was finished, there was a slap-up feast at Chung's offices to celebrate the Knives' victory. The Budgie Smugglers were invited and all attended except Moonlight and Argile. There was plenty of delicious food, an open bar, and lots of loose women: exotic dancers, serving wenches and slave girls. But the whore-mongers of the party only had time for some quickie hand-jobs, because they had to leave early to get back to the Luscious Pixie before dark.

The party's blue-tooth skull was kept at this inn just in case it was magically tracked. So, using the skull, they contacted Magda. Again, she wanted to meet them face to face. But they fobbed her off with platitudes, diversions and veiled abuse, pissing her off royally.

Fearing retribution, they broke off the call and hurried to the new hidden base, which was a 15 min dash from the Luscious Pixie.

Lammy slept in the Wizards' Guild.

The night passed quietly. 

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In the morning, the holy waters were down to four.

They went back to the old base, and there were fresh signs of undead activity. And the vault in the old place had been opened during the night. Carte Blanche was left here; they didn't want to risk taking it to the new place.

At the WG, Lammy spoke to Daisy Crown in the morning. 

There was one Wizards' Guild job, but it didn't pay much. They wanted the trunk which was still at Fort Augmentin to be sent to Winjammer, the next town along the coast. But it only paid 4 COIN.

However, as far as they knew, Fort Augmentin was still locked down by the poison plague effects.

They also had the job to find the assassin who killed the Kliban priests.