Strike Three and Out

The Budgie Smugglers (Sorrow [Jeff], Argile [Richard], Moonlight [Chris], Lammy [Kevin], Tylin [Ian], and El Cid [Shane]) hurried back to the Sirensville ferry. Huilam had just collapsed into fits of marmalading, so they had to carry him as he coughed an retched. 

Some Budgie Smugglers (a la Heroforge)

Burrito [Darryl] was badly wounded, so he hobbled to the Panadine shrine next to the Governor's mansion. There happened to be a Panadine priestess there, but she wanted nothing to do with this unkempt blood-covered assassin, heavy crossbow and all, who gibbered that he worshiped Panadine and claimed he worked for Panadine back in Scabport. She shooed him away, so he headed to the ferry too.

They all eventually got back to Carl's Inn. Moonlight had cure spells, so he healed Burrito.

It was now 90 minutes left until dark.

They tucked up the marmalading Huilam in the stables and quickly decided that they would visit the other funeral parlour "Heavenly Rest", hoping that the vampires would be secreted there. So, it was another trip back over on the ferry - everyone except Tylin and Sorrow who headed to their temporary base (the one they had abandoned two days ago when Burrito sniped the detection-stick carrier). 

 

Argile and El Cd played the grieving couple this time. Like last time, they distracted the staff enough to allow the others (Burrito, Lammy, and Moonlight) to break in to the back. And like last time, they all ended up relying on Lammy's surefire Sleep spells to drop all undertakers and admin staff.

Downstairs in the morgue there were eight body drawers here, three of which were occupied by corpses. But none had vampire fangs. Damn!

So, they hurried back on the last ferry, and got back to their temporary base before dark.

While the five were gone, Tylin and Sorrow had been busy and had fashioned some traps at the temporary base:  

• A spear trap on the roof trapdoor.
• Twin crossbows on the large front roller doors.
• A spiked barrel to swing down to the single back door.

Night fell.

_________________

The group hunkered down in the main room of the temporary base. The wizard's trunk had been shifted here. Huilam's body was left in the stables in Carl's with the pack horses.

Speaking of which, with Huilam down, they wondered if someone else would get Camilla's husky voice in his head.

An hour passed. And then Lammy heard an echoey female voice in his head. Distant at first, but it soon became clearer. 

"Hello Lammy," said Carmilla. "If you put trunk out in street, and tell me where, my comrades will leave you be."

With the rest of the group egging him on, Lammy point-blankly refused, of course.

"You haf been warned..."

El Cid had a collection of 16 vampire teeth. They wondered if this would help them fight vampires. Nothing to lose, they figured. So Burrito, El Cid and Argile affixed the fangs to a few select arrows. Argile got out his gnoll bow and would use that.

An hour later Carmilla tried again in Lammy's head. But she had nothing new to say, and Lammy played dumb.

But the instant she stopped, Tylin heard an ominous leathery flapping outside. Then silence.

Moonlight was sitting on a box by the back door and his breath started to steam, and frost appeared on the door knob and on the metal hinges of the door.

Then, there was an almighty crash, and the back door flew across the single large room and smashed to splinters on the far wall. Sorrow's trap triggered and the heavy spiked barrel swung down, like a pendulum as designed, right through the open doorway ... and didn't swing back.

A exquisitely-dressed woman stood there, beautiful and cold. 

Burrito and Argile, bows ready, fired. Burrito's teeth-studded arrow landed in her chest a fraction before Argile's heavy barbed gnoll arrow landed. It was fired from his gnoll bow, and hit her right in the chest, right where he guessed her black heart ought to be. It had so much power behind it, that it passed clear through her body, leaving a nice clean hole which was big enough to see through. The arrow then sailed right across the street, and sank deep into the solid wooden warehouse door there.

She hardly flinched and looked down at the hole "good shot"

Then her eyes alighted on the wizards' trunk that Argile was sitting upon. "I zee you haf been caring for our trunk. May I come in?"

Burrito hit her again with another arrow (teeth-studded), next to the gaping hole in her chest (which was rapidly reforming).

"Sure thing," said Tylin, half joking. "Do come in."

They had heard that the "vampires need an invitation" story was a myth. A myth just like garlic. Nevertheless, there was always that shadow of doubt. Moonlight was totally bedecked in garlic at this moment and she wasn't menacing him! QED.

"And who is one called Lammy?" she asked.

Argile pointed at Lammy. She looked at Lammy coldly.

"You haf been naughty boy. Scorning Emissary Carmilla. Naughty boys die."

Then Agile fired at her again with another gnoll arrow; just a solid hit this time. 

The next few seconds were a blur... 

[Bitd's Resistance roll is more than a D&D Death Saving throw. It is a narrative tool that sort of rewrites the story after the fact. A churlish DM could use it just like a saving throw, or a finite resource, by simply revisiting the same identical attack upon the characters until their Stress is all used up. 

DM: The ogre crushes your head with his club.

Repeat {

    Player: I roll Resistance. Success.

    DM: You turn to the side and the club misses! 

        He swings again and crushes your skull.

} until

Player: I'm out of Stress. 

DM: You get a Trauma. And then he kills you.

But that hardly seems fair. 

So, I shall give two versions, before and after Resistance.]

The vampire lady moved with unnatural speed. Ignoring the arrow fire, she darted to Agile on the trunk, sank her hand in his chest, and ripped out his still-beating heart, to feast on it in two giant bites. Gone was any grace and poise, she was now just teeth and blood and rage. 

El Cid bounded across the floor, slow motion compared to her, but managed to land a solid punch into her body with his black IMAG fists. 

She certainly did feel that and staggered a bit, dropping Argile's lifeless body from her grasp. But she recovered in a flash, spun around and grabbed El Cid's arm at the wrist. Then she just twisted and twisted it, up behind his back in an unnatural angle. There was a sickening crunch of cartilage and bone as the shoulder joint dislocated, and she just kept twisting and twisting. She had to kneel on his body to stop it moving too much with the powerful twist. The skin and tendons and arteries formed a fleshy braided twisted rope, like a piece of tenacious gristle on a chop bone. Eventually, it broke, and the whole arm came off.  

El Cid, lying in his own blood, had stopped screaming by now and was barely aware when she smashed his skull to pieces - with the severed arm and black fist.  The last thing he heard was "Why you hitting yourself? Why you hitting yourself?"

Lammy was looking rather green around the gills as he watched this. Then she sprang over to him, a full ten paces away, without touching the floor, and speared his throat with her hand, splintering the cervical vertebrae and decapitating his head, which sailed into the air in a graceful arc. Before it had landed, she shot over to Burrito, who was fumbling with another arrow, grabbed the bow from his hands, and savagely impaled it into his butt, so hard that it came out of his mouth, with a fountain of blood and mucous, and two arrows, which had inadvertently been clasped against the bow.

Lammy's head landed and rolled across the floor

The other three, Moonlight, Tylin and Sorrow had fled out the open door. Which was probably just as well, because there was now a second vampire, a man this time, standing there.

[Argile was the only one with significant Stress points left at this stage. One of the combat manoeuvres you can do is Protect, which allows you to protect another character - which means you take their damage. Argile has the Bodyguard feat which gives a bonus when he Protects. So, he effectively saved the lives of El Cid, Lammy, Burrito and himself with four separate Resistance rolls (using Protect).

So, here is the same scene with Resistance: ]

The vampire lady moved with unnatural speed. Ignoring the arrow fire, she darted to Agile on the trunk, and raised her hand to sink it into his chest. He twisted around at the right time, and her hand glanced off his armour.

Then El Cid was there, and with a dark flash, he punched her with his black IMAG fist, the blow enough to knock her off Agile to the side wall. 

She turned on El Cid, but was hit by another arrow from Burrito and a shove from Argile, and that focussed her gaze on Lammy. So, she rushed over to him to spear his throat. But lumbering Argile manages to deftly catch her ankle so that she stumbled and missed Lammy.

The other three, Moonlight, Tylin and Sorrow, had fled out the open door. Which was probably just as well, because there was now a second vampire, a man this time, standing there. He strode over to the heavy wizards' trunk, picked it up, and put it over his shoulder. 

Argile yelled "We have to go, now!" 

Burrito kept firing "No, I shoot them."

Argile hooked his fingers in Burrito's nostrils and hauled him bodily out the door, following El Cid and Lammy into the night.

_________________

Sorrow bravely and sneakily followed the two vampires through the streets, while rest of the group cowered at Carl's. 

Unable to turn into bat form while carrying the heavy wizards' trunk, the two vampires were forced to walk. 

Wizards' Trunk

They arrived at the anti gate. A few soldiers tried to stop these two suspicious figures, but they were just swatted away like flies. The lady vampire opened the heavy bar of the gate and they both went outside, and down the road.

Sorrow climbed the wall and perched on top. He watched the two figures (and trunk) until they disappeared into the distance. He guessed they would meet up with those wagons where the ballista was.

Rest of night was quiet.

______________

The next morning they all sheepishly went to the Wizards' Guild to face up to Daisy Crown.

"We have good news and bad news."

"Hmm?" said Daisy

"The good news is that we are all still alive."

She didn't look very pleased "And the bad news?" 

"Uh, we lost the trunk."

"But we still get paid, no?" said Burrito.

Smoking Loon

She just gave him a withering stare.

_________________

The Smoking Loon, their shallop, arrived later that day, as predicted.

As the Budgie Smugglers had a bunch of credits with the Wizards' Guild (for past successful jobs), Daisy agreed to let them spend four of those to buy their boat back.

The fast schooner arrived and docked too. It was the Debonair. 

THE END (for a while)

[I was planning on stopping here regardless of success or failure of this mission. 

In case you wondered, the two vampires were "sleeping" in the Storm tomb.

We will be giving Fantasy (in the Known World) a rest for a while.

I plan to start up a horror (Cthulhu) story (last time I DMed horror was 1985!). As I don't like the CoC system, even version 7 (or Pulp CoC), I will be trying out the PbtA system ("Powered By The Apocalypse" - where do they come up with these names?). PbtA is 2010 vintage. Like BitD (Blades in the Dark, this current system), PbtA is another reflexive, broad-skilled, class-feats system, but is more widespread than BitD. It's used by Dungeon World, Apocalypse World, KULT, Legacy, et al. 

]

.

Strike two point five

The Budgie Smugglers (Sorrow [Jeff], Huilam [Jami], Burrito [Darryl], Tylin [Ian], El Cid [Shane], Moonlight [Chris], Lammy [Kevin], and Argile [Richard]) were at full strength. The marmaladers (Moonlight, Lammy and Argile) dragged themselves off the straw of Carl's stable, shook off the horse manure, wrung out their clothes, and rejoined the group. Argile was still bleary eyed, incoherent and staggering. 

Sorrow then used "disguise" as a transitive verb, and disguised everyone up. Then they all went over to the other side of town on the ferry, in disguise. 

It was four hours to dark.

There was a full squad of twelve Sirensville militia at both ferry terminals, and a squad on the ferry itself. 

They first went to Henlé's funeral home; this was where Huilam had observed the gilded hearse earlier today. The hearse was still here - empty, of course.

Huilam and El Cid (disguised as a butch lady) posed as a couple looking for a coffin and a burial for their recently deceased uncle. They went to the front of the shop and engaged the staff. Moonlight and Tylin stayed out front in the street, and the Sorrow, Burrito, Lammy went sneaking around the side. Argile kept watch on this second group from the street on this group; he was too noisy in his armour to attempt any sneaking.

Sorrow got them in the back door. There was a worker here, but he was soon dropped by Lammy's Sleep. Further inside the building, they came across two more undertakers. Lammy's Sleep dropped them too. In a back office, they found a walk-in vault with a heavy iron door, which Sorrow could not open, and then they found some stairs descending to a cellar. 

Henlé's vault door

In the cellar was a mortuary with nine body drawers, and some draining and embalming tables. They checked the drawers and there were four fresh corpses them. None were beautiful, and none had fangs (vampires usually make beautiful corpses, but always have fangs during their daylight "sleep").

Huilam and El Cid were "ready" to make a funeral contract, so Henlé, the owner, invited them to the back office. Lammy was there and ready, and his Sleep fixed the owner. The owner had the key to the vault on him. So, they opened the vault. As expected there was only money inside (and no fancy coffins).

So they split up: Tylin and Huilam went to see Daisy Crown at the Wizards' Guild. The rest would explore Sirensville's other cemetery outside the town walls.

The servant girl that Daisy had made invisible was still missing. Daisy had tasked her to follow the gilded hearse this morning. Since she hadn't returned, Daisy had done a Locate Object on a brooch worn by the girl. It was found in the Sirensville market, next to the arena. It was visible, so that meant that the servant (or her body) was now visible too.

They questioned Daisy some more about specifics of the spotting of the gilded hearse. It had been spotted entering the town, and it had been seen driving towards cemetery.

Huilam, El Cid, Sorrow, Argile, Burrito, and Moonlight went outside Sirensville to the Outer Cemetery; this was where poor folk buried their dead.

There were two very bored guards here, and a few people scattered around visiting graves. There were only two significant stone structures in this graveyard. They both had rickety wooden doors and simple caskets inside. None of the rotting corpses found had fangs.

Tylin, Argile, Lammy, and Burrito went to the Olive shrine near the cemetery, and then to the Forceps Temple right next to the cemetery gate. The Forceps priests within certainly saw the distinctive hearse enter the cemetery this morning. But they didn't see where it went after that.

Tylin then decided to leave the group. He was worried about the trunk hidden back in their stable. He returned to the Carl's tavern, and everything appeared sound. The stable staff was still the same, and there was no suspicious activity in the vicinity, as far as he could see. He then did a foray out to the group's previous temporary base (the one where Burrito sniped the soldiers yesterday), and it didn't appear to have been disturbed.

Back at the cemetery, the others scouted it out. It had five tombs of significance: Storm, Rosemary, London, Lamb, Silverstone. Five places where two coffins could easily be hidden.

The Storm tomb iron door had an iron bar across it, which was new from when they raided here three days ago. It had some rust on it it, so they guessed it was installed just after their raid three days back.

Sorrow (still in his blind-man costume) had a careful search around the cemetery, and at the mourners. He spotted two suspicious individuals in non-descript clothes and he christened them "Fatboy Thin" and "Tallboy Short". The act of doing this alerted Fatboy that he had been made (a side-effect of a "yes, but..." of the game system). 

Fatboy scurried over to the squad of guards by the gate, and pointed at Sorrow and some others of the party. The guards started to move toward some of the group. Sorrow gave the "panic" signal, and everyone scattered and dissipated into Sirensville streets, like dust in the wind.

Fatboy Thin

Fatboy, his cover gone, then left the cemetery and headed to the Halcyon Girlie inn. Sorrow followed him, trying (and failing) to be inconspicuous.  Fatboy mocked Sorrow across the bar, making fun of his fake blind-beggar disguise. 

So, Sorrow got his revenge by playing on his poor bullied blind-man status and convinced a group of randos to attack Fatboy. Fatboy ended up getting punched, and he left the inn hurriedly. Then he scurried up a drain-pipe, onto the roofs, and vanished. Sorrow could not keep up, and lost the chase.

 

Sorrow returned to group, all now hiding in the streets near the cemetery, and re-disguised Lammy as a jackbooted harlequin. 

Lammy wandered through the cemetery with Detect Magic running. He spotted three invisibility screamers. There was one on the main gate (which they knew about), one on the Storm family tomb (also knew), and one between the Rosemary and London tombs. The Lamb and Silverstone tombs were not covered by a screamer. There was some magic in the old tree next to the Storm tomb; but Lammy figured that this was where Sorrow et al had stashed the funerary items three days ago (to avoid having anything unique on them that might be tracked). There was no other significant magic in the cemetery or tombs (with the caveat that Detect Magic can't penetrate iron or thick stone).

Burrito snuck onto his assassin's perch (same as three days ago), which was on a roof of a dwelling that overlooked the cemetery.

Then Burrito began his diversion to plan. He shot at an oxen's hind leg as it passed by the gate squad; it was a good shot and broke the leg. The poor animal panicked and bellowed crashing the heavy cart. Some gate soldiers went to help. Next Burrito shot Tallboy Short (the second watcher Sorrow spotted earlier), and dropped him. Then, Burrito began shooting at the soldiers themselves. Two were dropped and killed before they had all scattered and hid themselves under cover (behind graves, tombs and the short cemetery walls). 

Stone casket

This diversion gave the rest of the group enough time to sneak back into the cemetery (through the other entrance), and gave Sorrow enough time to pick the lock on the Rosemary tomb, and attempt the same on the London tomb. He failed that one, but Argile shoulder-charged it, and smashed the rusty lock.

Both tombs had a stone casket. Both were looted simultaneously. Both had an aged coffin inside the casket. One coffin had a skeleton - no fangs. The other had a desiccated corpse - no fangs. Damn, no vampires.

By now, the soldiers had spotted the marksman, and they began to return fire. Burrito got off a few more desultory shots, but then they hit him badly, giving him a severe wound (Burrito had maxed out on stress, so could not afford a Resistance roll to stop this).

Burrito slithered off his hide and hobbled away.

The soldiers, now alert and wary, spotted suspicious activity over at the Rosemary and London tombs, so manoeuvred towards them. The party retreated. Moonlight attempted to cover their retreat with an  Obscurement spell, but he failed.

Sorrow stepped in a managed to do something similar with a (critical) transitive SNEAK, so they got away.

It was now two hours until dark.

Strike Two

The Budgie Smugglers (Huilam [Jamie], El Cid [Shane], Sorrow [Jeff], Burrito [Darryl], Moonlight [Chris]) were camped out in their new temporary base on the anti side of the the Siren river. Moonlight had risen, but Tylin, Lammy and Argile had slumped into marmalade. They were carefully laid out, like three freshly dead corpses, on the deck of the expensive hired cart. 

The group had spent a careful night watching for any sign of pursuit from the Sirensville militia. There was none, and it was a peaceful night apart from Huilam's fraught chat with Carmilla inside his head (see last session).

Morning dawned; it was another cloudless day, typical of the Wild Coast.

Huilam and Sorrow got disguised up, and went over on the ferry to search around the docks with the intent to find the "stick guy". He was the one with the detector stick that could track the wizards' guild's trunk.

They visited their former base. It appeared empty, and there was no sign of guard activity. The sliding warehouse door was still broken off its rollers, and inside, the iron door of their vault hung at a jaunty angle. Plus there was a sign pinned to the outer door: "Keep out, by order the Militia". They deliberately kept things casual and just walked past. They didn't dare go inside for fear of the place being watched, so there was no thorough search.

As noon approached, they headed back to the ferry, to meet El Cid who was crossing. The stick guy happened to turn up at that very moment, with his four guards. They all crossed on the ferry back to the other side, together.

Earlier that day, in preparation for the arrival of the stick guy, they had made a cunning plan to evade the detector by keeping the trunk, in the expensive hired cart driven by Moonlight, moving continuously around the streets of anti Sirensville. Various party members would be in positions to try to signal to Moonlight which way to go at intersections. Daisy had told them that the stick had a 40 paces detection range. This plan would not be easy, as vision in the busy streets was not a given, and they only had line-of-sight signalling and no instant communications. But the stick guy did walk slowly, so they thought they might pull it off.

So the trunk was kept loaded on the cart (with the marmalading Tylin, Lammy and Argile), ready to go at a moment's notice. 

Burrito was on lookout up the top of their temporary base with a good view of the docks (and his crossbow). He saw the group arrive in the ferry, and saw the stick guy. He sounded the alarm. 

Moonlight's toad Toadster

Moonlight stopped licking his toad, jumped to action, and clambered onto the expensive hired cart. He remembered to open the sliding doors, edged the cart out into the road, and then moved slowly away from the docks area. 

Huilam made sure he got off the ferry quickly in order to get into his central position for the plan. It turned out that he hadn't needed to be so hasty, as the four soldiers and stick guy hung back until most of the passengers had disembarked. Huilam scuttled down to the prearranged vantage spot.

 

But the pre-planning turned out to be all moot, because as soon as the stick guy left the end of the wharf into the dock area, Burrito shot him, through the head.

The four guards reacted quickly and grabbed the detection stick, and hid behind their shields as Burrito slammed some more arrows into them, and they scurried sideways to get out of his line of sight.

One of the four soldiers broke off and sprinted down a side road, but Sorrow's keen eyes determined that he did not have the stick. El Cid and Sorrow moved in and engaged the other three. Burrito started to climb down from his perch, and run around to get into position to help.

Sorrow and El Cid fought a bit, used some oil and fire, dropped one soldier, and gave enough time for Burrito to arrive. He started to shoot, and it did not take long until all three were killed.  El Cid grabbed the detection stick.

He punched it into the ground with his IMAG fist, and this smashed it to match-wood. There was a little waft of smoke, and nothing else happened. This was more good luck than good management, as they later found out from Daisy that there could have been a colossal explosion. (And El Cid had used up his special armour.)

Generic guard

The guard that had sprinted away raced past Moonlight on the expensive hired cart, entered the barracks next to the anti gate, and sounded the alarm.

Other soldiers came running out and started to take positions down by the ferry, and in the streets.

Moonlight suddenly slumped over; the Marmalade had overtaken him [ as happens when you leave a game session ].

This gave the group an excuse to relocate everything to the tavern called Carl's. They had already stabled their pack horses at Carl's, so they hid the wizards' trunk under some hay in the same stall that their pack horses were in. The comatose bodies of Moonlight, Tylin, Argile and Lammy were gently laid down in the hay too. This didn't give them any protection from the pack-horses' hooves, bowels and bladders, but then who cares?

Then they made a new cunning plan. What if the guards saw the Budgie Smugglers (sans disguise) rush out of town?

Now that this side of Sirensville was under lock-down due to the murders of the stick guy and the three soldiers on the docks, the ferry had been stopped and the guards were carefully stopping wagons and people leaving the town.

So the group boarded their expensive hired cart and moved towards the open gate. When there was a suitable opportunity, Sorrow spurred the horses on and the cart charged through the gap, past the surprised guards who were two slow to shut the gate or block the cart. A few desultory arrows struck the cart in the rear.

Outside the gate, the Wild Coast rolling plans continued as far as the eye could see. The road was level and smooth out here. A way in the distance, half a league away from the gate, they could see that the road was semi-blocked by a group of carts. There were no Sirensville pennants or other identification that could be seen at this distance, and it looked ominous.

Sorrow spurred the horses on even faster, and they rushed towards this blockade, hell for leather. 

Ballista

Suddenly there was a glint in the sky and something fast moving from the direction of the carts ahead, and then a ballista bolt, big as a spear, came whistling through the air, and smashed into the seat next to Sorrow, embedding half its length in the wood of the seat.

Rather than stop, Sorrow veered hard left off the road, perpendicular to it, without breaking stride, and the cart careened over the rough plains, bouncing off rocks and holes. Even though it was an expensive hired cart, it could not take this kind of punishment. Plus a second ballista bolt crashed into the side of it, the iron arrow-head protruding through as far as the length of Burrito's forearm. Then the cart's suspension broke, and it slid to a shuddering stop.

The group picked themselves up, and pretended to grab the trunk (a box covered in sacks), which they carried among themselves, and headed in the same direction, using the two expensive cart horses as shields. 

Another long-range ballista bolt curved in a graceful arc and hit a horse, killing it instantly. So the group sheltered behind the remaining horse with their fake trunk, and kept moving. The range was now proving to be too far, and the bolts fell short. 

In the distance, four black spheres started to move out from the road block, and headed towards them. The group initially thought that these were IMAG priests' spheres but Sorrows' eyes could tell that they weren't; just magical spheres of darkness (like what he had observed in the Storm tomb two days ago).

The group headed inland followed by the spheres. By dropping all pretence of carrying anything heavy, they managed to move fast enough to stay ahead of the spheres for the rest of the day.

_______________________

As soon as it was dark, they headed back to the Siren river. Burrito's hunting skills allowed him to cover and disguise the party's tracks. At the river, they headed down stream.

After a couple of hours, they got to the Sirensville walls. The tops of the walls were patrolled, but Sorrow's superior climbing and sneaking skills managed to lay down ropes and get Huilam, El Cid, Burrito and himself back in to Sirensville and back to Carl's tavern.

They slept the rest of the night on comfy mattresses.

Well, Huilam didn't get much sleep. He was disturbed by Carmilla again about midnight. She spoke to him inside his head like last night. But he managed to hold his tongue and say nary a word. She offered 20 COIN for the trunk, but even that wasn't enough to get a bite: 20, 30, 40, 80. Just numbers.

_______________

In the morning, there were more soldiers in the streets, but the ferry was running again.

The group was indolently having breakfast at Carl's, in disguise, when a patrol came through the place, and questioned everyone there. Standard vague questions.

About lunch time Daisy sent a message with Whispering Wind. "We need to talk. Come to the guild. Don't get followed."

Huilam got himself tarted up in a disguise and went over to the other side on the ferry. It was an uneventful trip to the Wizards' Guild.

Witch Daisy Crown

Daisy met him inside, and relayed the latest news:

• "Corporal Hearse, of the Sirensville militia, was arrested. Apparently, his loyalty was questionable."
• "The Militia want you lot for all the murders of their troops. They are calling it a massacre now. The militia has never lost so many troops at one time." 
• "While I understand you killing a soldier or two in self-defence, I'm not sure why you lot had to kill the downed ones in cold blood. Are you sure your psyches are not being influenced by the evilness of those IMAG lackeys?"
• "My contacts at the gates spotted another fancy hearse, just the one, entering the town this morning. It was carrying two coffins. I made a servant invisible, and sent her to follow. But she never came back."
• "We recovered the Smoking Loon in Two Frime. It will be arriving here late tomorrow. In fact, it will be travelling with the schooner." 
• "After your killing spree, I am worried that the town will close the docks. We will cross that bridge if we come to it."

Huilam asked if they ..um.. could have some more COIN for this mission. Daisy pointed out that the agreed price was the recovery of their precious shallop. 

"...And I did point out at the time," mused Daisy. "That you could buy two or even three brand new shallops with what I was originally offering. But you were rather insistent. However, we can negotiate some more work later." 

She cast Invisibility on Huilam. He first went straight to their old base at the docks. It was clear: no guards and no screamers. So he did a thorough search within. 

There were two mortuaries in Sirensville. Huilam spotted a fancy hearse at one. The hearse was empty. Maybe the coffins were stored inside the mortuary, or maybe they had been delivered to some tomb in the cemetery. He wasn't brave enough to sneak inside invisibly to check.

Huilam headed back to the ferry, made himself visible before he got to the docks, took the ferry back over the river, and returned to the group at Carl's. 

They all discussed plans. There were four hours left of the day. They didn't want to give those two vampires a chance to rise tonight.

Strike One

Witch Daisy Crown

The Budgie Smugglers (Huilam [Jamie], Burrito [Darryl], Argile [Richard], Tylin [Ian], Sorrow [Jeff], El Cid [Shane], and Lammy [Kevin]) were in the Wizards' Guild in Sirensville. Argile and Lammy had just staggered in from the party's expensive rented cart, wiping marmalade from their mouths. Moonlight was still lying unconscious on the cart's deck, in a huge sticky pool of marmalade.

"Get this damn trunk out of here," growled Daisy Crown. "I am not going to cast Invisibility* on you unless you do."

Burrito wanted to walk out on the contract, there and then. But the rest of the group talked him out of it. So, they collected their expensive rented cart, and shifted the trunk from the Wizards' Guild's root cellar to the party's brand new lair (they had recently acquired). The lair was in a warehouse at the docks. It fronted on the wharf area and had a back passage to Quiche street (which itself headed to the Bestial Quiche tavern). But they had blocked this passage off.

The new base had an iron vault, so they locked the wizard's trunk inside it.

Tylin stayed back on the wharves to keep an eye on the base from afar, and the rest of the group returned to the Wizards' Guild. 

Ten minutes after everyone had left, a suspicious individual, in non-descript clothing, arrived holding a short stick, which he held like a divining rod out in front of him. He went straight to the lair door, and then spent a minute or two circling the front of the warehouse best he could. 

He then scurried off. Tylin followed him, through the streets, all he ended up all the way back to the Sirensville garrison. 

Straight away, four soldiers emerged, and hurried down to the docks. Tylin followed them. 

They broke in to the warehouse door, smashing the lock. Luckily, the party had locked trunk inside the vault. So, the four soldiers started to work on breaking open the iron door of the vault. 

Tylin acted like a concerned passer-by, stuck is his head in past the broken outside sliding-door, and asked "Something the matter, officers?"

"Piss off," one of them spat back.

_________________

Huilam with Invisibility
cast on him. 

Meanwhile, back at the Wizards' Guild, Daisy cast Invisibility* on Huilam, El Cid, Argile and Sorrow. She warned them about mark three screamers* and that important locations around the town would likely have them. 

Burrito and Lammy left for the cemetery immediately. The invisible Huilam, El Cid, Argile and Sorrow then left but were slower moving. When you are invisible, you have to move slowly and carefully through busy streets, lest you bang into people or get run over.

Burrito and Lammy arrived first. Lammy went inside, posing as a public mourner with the other few mourners wandering about. Burrito stationed himself by the outside corner of the cemetery. It had low decorative walls, so he had a clear view of the four tomb guards outside the Storm family tomb.

When the four invisible ones approached the main cemetery gate, sure enough, a screaming suddenly filled the air. Passers-by in the street looked about in a panic, and backed away. Screaming screamers only meant on thing: trouble! 

The four tomb guards, a stone's throw away from the gates, heard the screamer too and they drew their bows and looked about warily. 

The invisible four backed away, and the screaming stopped. So they then clambered over the short cemetery wall, and snuck up on the Storm tomb from behind. But the tomb door had a screamer too, and it began to squeal. One of the tomb guards suddenly bolted for the cemetery gates. The other three spun about. Invisible Huilam moved in behind a guard and shoved him hard. This act made Huilam suddenly became visible, so he bolted for the wall. That was the signal for Burrito to open fire. So he did. First shot dropped Huilam's shoved guard. 

Lammy, was ten paces away. He let off a Sleep and dropped one. Burrito fired at the running guy, who had by now reached the cemetery gate, and he fell. Then Lammy slept the final one. Burrito stuck some gratuitous arrows into the downed guys just to make sure.

El Cid, Argile and Sorrow made themselves visible, and the screaming stopped.

Huilam by now had joined the rest of the panicking crowd and melted away into them. Lammy moved with the fleeing mourners to the street crowd, and he melted away too.

It did not take long for Sorrow to open the locked door of the tomb. And soon all three were inside.

Inside the tomb there was baccy smoke. One of the undertakers was hiding here. He had a magical darkness rock, and used it to hide. Unfortunately for him, Sorrow discovered a new ability of his IMAG eyes; he could see inside spheres of magical darkness. So, the undertaker was revealed and that allowed El Cid and Argile to bring him down with arrows and El Cid's IMAG fists.

The undertaker did get in one good shot, which would have killed El Cid, but his Tough as Nails and Battleborne feats saved him.

The coffins were easy to open. Inside, as expected, there were four vampires: two men and two women. Two were half-elves. All were staked. They had some jewellery and bejewelled weapons of the highest quality damascene steel. And one had a blue tooth skull. All four staked bodies were hauled outside. They burned up in the sun. El Cid harvested the eight fangs.

They did not want to risk keeping any of the jewellery, nor weapons, nor blue tooth skull, for fear of being tracked, so these were hastily stashed in the hollow trunk of a nearby tree. 

By now, a larger group of 12 guards had amassed in the street, outside the graveyard, ready to move in. Burrito's position had reasonable cover, so he shot at the soldiers rapidly to keep them scattered and ducking for cover. Thus allowing Sorrow, El Cid and Argile to rush off.

Sirensville by Joff

Everyone rendezvoused back at the WG, then headed to their base to join with Tylin.

By now, the four soldiers were inside the building and working on the iron door of the vault. 

There was a short fight: Burrito's arrows, Lammy's magic, and El Cid and Argile proved more than a match for the four soldiers. One was killed, one was wounded and the final two, both half-elves, surrendered.

They were questioned. A Corporal Hearse was their immediate commander. They were under orders to get some "magical trunk" which was stolen and apparently hidden in this warehouse.

The party cleared all their stuff out of that base, and loaded up their expensive rented cart with it: the trunk, the three remaining chests (3 COIN) and the marmalading body of Moonlight. 

Then they locked the four soldiers in the vault.

The historic reason for the existence of the town of Sirensville was to provide a crossing for the large Siren river. To do this, it has a famous "chain ferry". The ferry is connected to a convenient rock island midstream by a long chain (see picture above). Just by steering the rudder, the ferry uses the flow of the river to get to either side with little effort. The ferry runs all day, and is big enough to carry five loaded carts at a time. 

The party got on the ferry with their expensive rented cart, and travelled over to the other side. 

Here, they rented a stone warehouse to use as a temporary (vault-less) base.

They kept a weather-eye on the ferry wharf for the rest of the day. 

____________________________________

It was night. The ferry trips stopped.

Daisy contacted the group using Whispering Wind. It makes the air "ring" and allows communication in her voice, but it is only one-way. She had used Lammy's spell book's 128-bit UUID to get a WGPS coordinate, so knew where to cast it. And thus she updated the group with the latest news.  

• "Your lair was attacked by the soldiers. I assume the trunk is safe!"
• "I caught a spy in the Wizards' Guild; it was one of our batmen recently hired. He will trouble us no more." 
• "The Sirensville Militia are annoyed over the murder of their troops. A Corporal Hearse was planning a lock-down. I am suspicious about that one."
• "No news yet on locating the Smoking Loon. These things take time." 

Sorrow asked what a batman was. Lammy said it was like a man-servant or a valet.  

"Is butt-boy, no?" asked Burrito.

"Not necessarily," said Lammy. "There are plenty of non-sexual batmen."

The group's new temporary base could observe the ferry wharf from the upper storey, but the ferry did not travel after dark, and the Siren river flow was too treacherous for other boats to attempt night crossings. 

They set watches for the whole night.

About midnight, Huilam was woken up by noises in his head. First it was whispering and then a woman's voice came through. But it was unintelligible, with lots of static and white noise. No-one else in the party could hear anything. It lasted about five minutes.

The rest of the night passed peacefully.

__________________________

As soon as it was light, Tylin and Agile took the ferry over to the other side. They first checked on their lair, and it was now occupied by a bunch of guards who were poking about, and more walking around outside. The two stayed well-clear and returned across the river to report to the others.

So, Sorrow applied a superb disguise to himself and Tylin. His IMAG eyes were rather distinctive, so he posed as a blind beggar with a see-through eye bandage. And Tylin posed as his helper.

Disguised Sorrow and Tylin went over on the next ferry and wandered around the docks. They spotted the searching-stick guy who was wandering slowly around the docks scanning. But he now had four guards with him. 

Sorrow and Tylin followed the scanner for most of the day. The guy went off searching up the streets.

Everyone else stayed in their new temporary base, and kept a weather-eye on the ferry wharf all day. There were no suspicious activity. Guards came and went on the ferry, but the party suspected it wasn't out of the ordinary.

Sorrow and Tylin returned back over the river before night.

Carmilla

_______________

That night, a few minutes after dark, the woman's voice started again in Huilam's head. The voice was clear now. It turned out to be Carmilla, the Wraith King's High Emissary (she was the vampire that he and the group had dealt with in Scabport many weeks ago). As before, only Huilam could hear her. He could speak back, but had to speak it out loud. So, from the party's point of view, he was loudly talking to himself. Like a schizophrenic, or a madman with an invisible friend.

Carmilla's tone was a mix between hurt and angry. She claimed the WG trunk contained something wrongly stolen from them; as in the Wraith King's undead. It was stolen by the wizards and they wanted it back. She wasn't exactly specific as to what it was, but it was powerful. And they wanted it badly. Of course, Huilam was not at all helpful and refused her demands.

* = Invisibility in the Known World

The Invisibility spell. When cast on a creature, the creature and everything touching that creature with a combined weight up to the naked weight of the creature goes invisible. Objects picked up later by the invisible creature do not turn invisible, similarly, invisible objects dropped (that were worn when the spell was cast) stay invisible. 

Food and drink consumed by the creature forms a stomach-shaped blob inside the creature.

The creature (and all objects with) go visible when that creature makes a conscious attack, or after the spell expiry.

When the Invisibility spell was first developed, the world reacted. The first Screamer was invented. This was a magical item that, when something invisible came within ten paces, it would start to scream - a high pitched wail. The pitch was dependent on the distance from the screamer and the loudness was dependent on the size of the invisible thing. 

1. Mark One Screamer. This was triggered by anything invisible. Wizard thieves soon learned they could make a rock invisible and throw it into the area, and that would trigger it, which caused annoying false alarms.
2. Mark Two Screamer. This is triggered by a living invisible creature. That resulted in small animals used to trigger it: like rats and cats.
3. Mark Three Screamer. Triggered by a sapient ("self-aware") creature.

Oh, that Wizards' Trunk

The Budgie Smugglers (Huilam [Jamie], Tylin [Ian], El Cid [Shane], Burrito [Darryl], Sorrow [Jeff]) settled into their new lair in Sirensville. Lammy, Moonlight and Argile were in the new marmalade room, and they christened it with their drool.

The group had transported six COIN, in a hired wagon, from Winjammer; four of which were spent to buy the new lair. It was a smart stone cottage by the river front.  

[This was a "Downtime": several of the group indulged their vices to clear stress, all of them trained, and some reduced HEAT. The HEAT for the gnoll mission was minor (no HEAT from killing gnolls). It all took a couple of days all, during which time the rest of the chests stored in Winjammer were transported to the new base too. Six of this COIN, plus the two COIN left over from the first trip, was used to go towards the "vice debt" of Sorrow (3), El Cid (2 of 4), Tylin (1) and Lammy (2). There was still three COIN which was private money of Argile (2) and Sorrow (1); now stored in the vault in the new lair.]

__________________________________

Wanting to recover the Smoking Loon from the dastardly pirates, Huilam did some research in Sirensville's small Funken Wagnall temple library. He was seeking info on the schooner Debonair and the pirate Admiral Jack.  Not much was gleaned, except that the Debonair preyed all along the Wild Coast from Porn City all the way to Two Frime. It did not attack ports, but stayed at sea to predate on foreign merchantmen and harass smugglers. Its crew used the euphemism "privateer".

Daisy Crown

Burrito discovered that the witch Daisy Crown was in town, here at the Wizards' Guild, and serendipitously, she wanted to get a hold of the Budgie Smugglers. So, Burrito summoned the others, and Huilam, Tylin and Sorrow trundled along to meet her. El Cid sulked back at base. At the Guild, Daisy took them all into a meeting room along with the Sirensville head wizard Archimedes Strange.

Daisy had been sent to Sirensville because there was trouble afoot.

The wizards' guild trunk, the very one that the group had transported as far as Winjammer, was now here in the Sirensville Wizards' Guild (it had been brought here yesterday by Jacinta's group). But here it was stuck.

Daisy briefed them: The trunk contained a "living relic" (that explained the scratching that the group had heard within), and it needed to be delivered to the Wizards' Guild in Spite. But "dark forces" had discovered it was here, and were now amassing to take it. No longer was transport by road considered safe. So, the Guild had commissioned a ship from Two Frime to sail here to pick it up. 

Trunk

"It'll be a large fast ship," said Daisy. "I think a schooner or a brigantine. But it won't be here for five days. And so I need you lot to help to guard the trunk until it arrives. This guild only has five wizards, three of them juniors; not very fighty."

She offered to pay 2 COIN per day, i.e. 10 COIN, but the group negotiated a different price. They wanted the WG to locate and recover the party's stolen shallop Smoking Loon as payment. Daisy was surprised, but happy to do that. 

To help the Guild magically locate the Loon, Daisy got them to describe something unique onboard. The rotating name-tube on the bow that gave the shallop its different names ("Smoking Loon" "Pepper Jack" and "Hogshead") was a good example of a unique item. 

Wizards' Guilds have magical communication between the branches. Daisy went away to send some messages back to Scabport, so they could begin the shallop search.

Archimedes Strange
Head Wizard,
Sirensville

Daisy suspected dark agents in Sirensville and even within the militia, so, while the militia would not dare attack the Wizards' Guild to steal the trunk, they could not be trusted to defend it. And the Sirensville Wizards' Guild was not a very defendable building; only weather-boards and a slate shingle roof. She wanted the trunk gone "It must be out of here, before it gets dark, today".

Also, Daisy said, out of earshot of Archimedes, that she didn't trust the support staff here in the guild (1 cook, 3 servants, 2 guards and 2 batmen). 

The group asked if the trunk could be magically tracked, and the answer was assuredly yes. The relic within was magically screened and not traceable, but the trunk itself was pretty unique. So, hiding it would not be possible. There was no Faraday cage here in Sirensville, and no time to build one.

Besides, as Daisy pointed out, Faraday cages have the "null-field problem". While you can't locate things inside one, if there is one nearby, your scanners will detect a null spot, "a dip in the static", which tells the scanner that there is something hidden here.

Daisy hoped that the group still had the 1G conch on them, she didn't have a spare one, but no. They had left the conch in the Smoking Loon in Winjammer. (The other comms device they had, the Blue-tooth skull, was left in their base in Scabport.)

Hearse

While they were having the meeting, someone happened to glance out the window and saw two hearses pass in the street, each pulled by two horses. They were elaborate, ornamental and new.

"Hrmm," said Daisy. "I hope that's not a portent."

Burrito rushed outside to the street, and paid an urchin to find out about the hearses.

Tylin was less subtle; he just followed the hearses himself. They couldn't move very fast through the streets, so he could keep up easily.

The hearses paused at the rusty Sirensville cemetery gates, and then went inside and stopped outside a large aged tomb to the "Storm Family". There were three undertakers and two guards per hearse. The undertakers set about unloading the hearses; two coffins per hearse.

The tomb's unoiled iron doors creaked open, and then all four coffins were carried inside.

A crowd of onlookers gathered to watch the spectacle. Including Burrito's urchin. But he ventured too close to the hearses, and one of the thug guards punched him down.

 

Five undertakers then packed up the hearses and left the cemetery. Four guards were left outside the tomb (two men and two half-elves). Disturbingly, they had Sirensville Militia livery. 

Tylin rescued the unconscious boy, and took him to the REAL temple, then returned back to the Wizards' Guild to brief everyone.

"Get that damn trunk out of here," hissed Daisy.

It was five hours before dark.

.