The Dark Horseman

Present:

• Balder Dash (gnome wizard) - Jamie
• Donk Platebreaker (human fighter) - Jeff
• Joe Manco (human fighter) - Shane
• Malcolm Gandhi (gnome thief) - Kevin
• Red Feuersturm (human temple fighter of Hob) - Chris
• Slim Jim (human rogue) - Darryl
• Sophia Beauchamp (half-elf priest 21) - Ian
• Walton Formalin (half-elf mystic of 21) - Andrew

The Dark Horseman

The Dark Horsemen checked in on the slavers towards the end of the day again. Staring out from the scrubby bush some distance behind their wagon train, he watched them set up their camp for the night. He had ranged ahead and eliminated potential troubles for the slavers throughout the day, as he had for the past few weeks. He wanted nothing to interrupt their journey to Draser. His blade had been busy and the blood of many creatures from the surrounding wilds had dripped like rain from its tip. Orcs, Goblins, Bears, and even some Human filth. 

The wagons looked to be fine, no damage, and the guards ranging about the camp looked to be in good spirits. Good. Little did they know of the difficulties they had avoided by virtue of his protection. 

The Girl was still securely confined within her barrier, although even from this distance he could feel the tingle of her power. No doubt some of the slavers would be suffering from the leakage of her power through the barrier cage. Maybe even that foolish priestess who had attempted to contact him yesterday. 

The Dark Horsemen chuckled to himself as he recalled that attempt. The foolish priestess had cast a divinely activated communication back at him from the outskirts of their camp. A communication powered by the spirit of that ridiculous Goddess VINGT-ET-UN. He could still taste the lingering sting in his mind as it had arrived at him. But he had had the last laugh. His retaliation back down the spiritual conduit opened by her spell must have been most unpleasant to the Human Priestess. 

As the Dark Horseman turned away and trotted off into the surrounding forest to patrol the slavers' perimeter again, he felt a rising of the Girl's power. They won't be having a restful night in the camp tonight he mused.

...

Donk, Malcolm, Slim, and Walton looked around at the walls of root-bound soil that confined them. They had climbed up the roots from the passage below and squeezed through the narrow hole expecting to find Sophia there. But although squeezing through the same narrow hole before them, she was nowhere to be found when they arrived in the small chamber on the other side.

And neither was Joe! He had also squeezed through the narrow hole with them and had been grumbling about having to squeeze back down again, just minutes ago. He hadn't gone back through the hole, but neither was he here in the chamber. Noone had seen his disappear, but he was gone!

Walton decided that some rest and Magic Point recovery was going to be required if the Spider Climb spells were to be used to get back down to the passage below, and he settle down on the floor of the chamber and dropped into his recovery sleep.

Donk swung his axe at the root-bound soil a few times in an attempt to cut a way out, but quickly gave up when he found the walls to be much more resilient than expected. There was definitely some magic effect holding them all in here.

"Where's Walton?" asked Malcolm a few minutes later. Just like Joe, Walton had disappeared from the chamber, and no one had noticed.

We decided that there was no way out from here, except back down through the tight little hole in the floor of the chamber, and back down the ropes to the passage below. Down we went, no problems, and then cautiously made our way back to the original shaft we had arrive down. So, just the three of us left now, Donk, Slim, and Malcolm. We had no idea where the others could be and weren't looking forward to more random wandering in circles once we were back in the forest.

Malcolm peers over the tops of the trees

Which thing we did. Malcolm climbed up a tree to see if he could see the slave wagons, which he couldn't, and then we tried to maintain a straight line through the forest using all the tricks we could think of. Checking our tracks, sighting on a particular tree and then another directly ahead. All to no avail, we still wandered in circles. We tried travelling in a circle to see if we then straightened up, but nope, that just got us back to the shaft where we had started even quicker. 

Feeling rather frustrated at all this getting nowhere, we slumped down near the top of the shaft, at the base of tree that Malcolm had climbed, and pondered on where the other might be, and how the heck we were going to get out of here. We must have dozed off, because ...

We all woke up, back in our beds under the slave wagons. Everyone was there, no damage, no missing slave girls, no magic points expended. Even Walton's collections of spiders used for his Spider Climb spells were all still tumbling about in his little jar. 

WTF?

"Bloody magic" suggested Slim, peering suspiciously at the slave girl in her silver cage.
"Get up and get out here" yelled Monty from up the front.

The wagon train was preparing to set off. We ate some cold breakfast, packed up our stuff, and set off with the rest. Only one and a half days to Draser now. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing!

The day passed uneventfully, and we again saw the Dark Horseman in the distance about a half hour before dark. Sophia kept a watchful eye on him until he disappeared back over a rise just before dark. We set watches ourselves that night, just in case anything else weird happened. 

But nothing did, unless you count the super disturbing dreams that Sophia and Red continued to have.

With only half a day left till we were expected to arrive in Draser, Monty called us together and outlined some particular "rules" that we should observe once we were in Draser. Like the Gnomes always wearing they ownership badges and knowing who their owners actually were and visa versa.

We decided that Malcolm would be Walton's "slave" and Balder would be Donk's.

Walton took his ownership to heart and once we arrived at the Draser gates, made sure to give Malcolm a series of punches and blows in front of the city guards, and then at random occasions for the rest of the day.

"In case we are being watched" he explained.

A dark robed pair collected the
slave girl in her silver cage,

Once we got past the gate inspection and into the city proper, the wagon train made its way into the "Pits", the slave area of the city, where Monty's transactions were finalised, and the slaves delivered to their new owners. 

A dark cloaked male/female pair appeared and took delivery of the slave girl in her silver cage, and Red kept an eye on them as their wagon rolled off towards the "Castle" area of the city.

"I wonder if she was a Hob follower?" mused Red wistfully. "Pity we couldn't have done more for her"

"Don't be daft Red", replied Walton, "VINGT-ET-UN is our prime employer on this trip. We can't compromise that at all"

We enquired after the location of the Casino (named The Globe), received our "pay", took our leave, and made our way to The Obscene Gnoll, a well-respected tavern some 200m from The Globe.

Joe also left Monty's employ and we reluctantly accepted him into our crew.

After booking ourselves a place some one of the Gnoll's shared bunkrooms, we decided to have a scout around The Globe and see if anything suspicious jumped out at us. The Gnomes were not allowed entry, unless they were to be registered for the Cage Fights or Dwarf Throwing games. "We" declined that, so they stayed back in our rooms at the Gnoll while the rest of the group explored The Globe.

Weapons were handed in at the doors, and the simple rules were explained.

"No weapons, so spells, and no trouble"

Sophia tests the Craps table

There were five levels.

The ground floor had the cage fighting and dwarf (non-human small races) throwing competitions. There was a lot of noise, and to be honest, it stank terribly.

The next level had tables for Craps and Roulette.

"This is more like it" exclaimed Sophia, "I could do this"

The level above contained a series of missile weapon ranges, with non-human targets lashed at the end of the ranges. Bets were being taken on survival time, as bows, crossbows, darts, throwing knives, and other missile weapons were employed by the punters.

"Ewww" squealed Sophia, averting her eyes.

The next level was decked out for card games of all types, with tables packed into every nook and cranny of the floor. 

"I'll check out some of these people here" stated Slim, slipping off to one of the tables and apparently flexing his fingers. Turned out that the guards scattered about, and a lot of the punters, were members of the local Thieves Guild (TG), one of the enforcement authorities in Draser.

The next level looked to be accessed via some guarded doors, and Walton's attempt to head on up was met with a large open palm and a request for a 1k gold entry deposit.

"Yeah right" muttered Walton, turning back to the card tables.

Slim was nowhere to be seen.

As we began to mingle and get the feel for the place, a female Casino employee and follower of VINGT-ET-UN named Miranda approached Sophia and Walton, and asked if they were also followers of VINGT-ET-UN. She led us off to a quiet and private space for a "discussion". We were able to pursue our enquiries about Simone Fussel, who had indeed been here asking questions some four weeks ago. Apparently, she had spoken to a number of the Casino "management team" about possible profit skinning and inappropriate reporting. She had been here with her "brother", but Miranda couldn't recall if she had ever caught his name. But she did fetch Shay for us, another employee who Simone had spoken to. He was able to tell us that the "brother's" name was Tommo, a local that he was familiar with from the area. He also suggested that we could try some of the local haunts that Tommo was known to frequent such as the Eternal Goose, the Ladies Leisure, and the Able Chinaman. Shay also confirmed that Simone and Tommo had not returned since they had organised with "management" to review "the books" the following day. That was four weeks ago. No one had been particularly worried apparently.

"Well, they were nice" noted Sophia after Miranda and Shay had left, back to work presumably.

Joe tries his hand at card games

Slim reappeared and reported that he had chatted to a number of "associates" who had suggested that he "report" to the Eternal Goose and pay his respects. So, he said he was off to pay his respects and would catch up up later at the Gnoll.

Joe had also wandered off, to try his hand at gambling, but when he returned, he was grumbling about losing 9gp to some shady dealer.

"Oh yes" noted Sophia winking, "the House almost always wins. You will be unlikely to walk away with more than you came in with here"

We then left also, to head back to the Gnoll for the night, where Slim eventually joined us around eleven pm. He had visited the Eternal Goose, paid his respects, asked some subtle questions, and met a woman named Ruth who knew Tommo. They had had a brief conversation and Slim was able to tell us that Tommo was a friend of hers who had dropped through the Goose briefly about two weeks ago. He had been anxious and furtive, had only spoken with Reggie at the bar, and then disappeared out again. Not to be seen since. We set watches for the night and settled down for a well-earned sleep.

The next morning, after a hearty breakfast, Slim went back to the Goose "to pay some more respects", while the rest of us took a visit to the local FUNKEN WAGNALL Temple (aka Repository of Knowledge, aka Library) to research any Fussel family in the city.

Reggie was a low-totem TG member

Around midday we meet back at the Gnoll. Slim reports that the barman at the Goose, Reggie, is a low-totem member of the TG, but is second in command at the Goose below Zac, the owner.

"But" he adds, "Arthur, one the main town council members, is also a member of the TG"

Walton reports that there is only one prominent Fussel family in Draser, and they own and run a Tannery down in "the Sprawl". 

"But" he concluded, "we went there, and they don't know any Tommo Fussel"

It looked like our leads were limited. Slim reasoned that the Reggie guy behind the bar at the Goose must know something, since this Ruth broad has mentioned a furtive conversation between Reggie and Tommo just before he had disappeared. So, we decided that a drink at the Goose would be sensible and went over there straight after lunch. Well, Donk, Slim, and Sophia went over to the Goose. The others just hung about in the Gnoll for the afternoon.

Sophia exercised her charm and whit, and engaged Reggie in conversation, with her top partially unbuttoned. [Ian made good use of Sophia's Persuasion skill] He let slip that Tommo was a local acquaintance "in his line of work", but that he actually lived in the nearby town of Disen and not in Draser at all.

Donk stood silently looking tough and aggressive, which also worked well. No one approached him or said anything in his presence.

Slim met with his new friend Ruth and encouraged her (with a small pile of cash) to ask Reggie about that last conversation between Tommo and Reggie some weeks ago. This only resulted in Reggie looking annoyed and leaving the bar to slip out the back briefly. 

We decided that it might be a good time to leave and get ourselves back to the Gnoll. After reporting to the rest of the party, Sophia and Walton wandered off to find the local VINGT-ET-UN shrine before dark, supposedly located in the "Guard" area of the city.

During their trip, they encountered a group of rough looking youth who surrounded them menacingly, but only whispered to them that they knew a Simone Fussel, who was a "nice lady" that had got into an altercation about four weeks ago outside the Barbaric Monkey tavern in the "Sprawl". 

So, we all head off the the Barbaric Monkey that evening.

"Being led by the nosebag to a bog" grumbled Slim.

"But forewarned is forearmed" replied Walton, "So, be alert Donk"

"I only got two arms" noted Donk.

At the Barbaric Monkey, a lively and crowded tavern run by a giant of a woman, with a skinny rake of a second, we learnt that Simone Fussel had indeed been involved in an altercation outside the tavern some weeks ago. Simone was a benevolent supporter of the local homeless community and was often seen handing out alms and providing help to the unfortunate locals. She had been set upon by a gang, led by Jasper the Mask, and assisted by three rough looking cronies. She had been knocked to the ground, kicked and beaten, and dragged off. Probably to Jasper's place in the "Pits" 

Which we knew was the slave quarter of the city.

"Benevolent supporter" snorted Slim, "She only arrived in town four weeks ago"

"And then disappeared almost straight after" he continued, "This has got to be some con"

The slave market in the "Pits" area