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| Witch Daisy Crown |
"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.
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| 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.
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| Sirensville by Joff |
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.
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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.
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| Carmilla |
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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.
- 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.
- Mark Two Screamer. This is triggered by a living invisible creature. That resulted in small animals used to trigger it: like rats and cats.
- Mark Three Screamer. Triggered by a sapient ("self-aware") creature.
Also, Invisibility Mastiffs.
ReplyDeleteIf a thief is holding a trap when he is made invisible, he can set an invisible trap. Of course, the thief would become visible when the trap was sprung.
A very impressive day's work.
ReplyDelete