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.