Present:
- Abellinut "Able" Ugwistan, 31, Moor Arian Fighter from Septum - Jeff
- Aulius "Owl" Lucius Decanter, 25, Polytheistic Fighter from Gades - Jamie
- Luigi Abundus Bertolini, 23, Roman Nicene Priest from Ravenna - Chris
- MARMALADE: Merkel, 24, Vandal Arian Temple-fighter from Gades - Kevin
- Vanker Polyester, 22, Vandal Pagan Rogue from Gades - Shane
- Velito Rosso, 24, Roman Nicene Barbarian from Venice - Darryl
- MARMALADE Victor Koshenko, 24, Alan Arian Thief from Gades - Ian
- Fabius Cato, 26 Roman Nicene Temple Fighter from Rome – Richard
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| The Lady Florinda |
by Richard
"What's happened to them?" commented Fabius, looking down at the collapsed Victor, Able and Vanker, who now had marmalade coming from their mouths. [ Jeff and Shane's late arrival and Ian's absence for he night meant that Fabius and Velito were left alone in the Undercity trying to find the Beggar King – not an ideal circumstance ].
"Dis way – dis way" urged Velito "the lady points at that pink door"
Fabius and Velito rush to the door and uncertain what to do with the woman they had captured Fabius knocks her out.
"Why you do tat?" whines Velito
"Other ideas," stated Fabius
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| Beggar King's door |
"Si si," many ideas"
"Not now" and with that Fabius puts his shoulder to the pink door, splintering it open
There is a small room with a staircase winding up which Fabius quickly ascends with Velito cautiously following.
They see the stairwell open into another small room and there is a man with a spear pointing it downward toward Fabius.
"Surrender" Fabius demands with no success as the man pokes him with the spear for 2 points of damage.
A small dagger whirls over Fabius' shoulder and lodges itself in the man's leather armor.
""I got him – I got him!" Velito delightfully announces [ in fact he did 0 damage with the armor absorbing the 1 point ]
Fabius steps forward and hits doing 6 damage sending the man reeling across the room albeit still standing.
"Surrender" Fabius repeats his call and this time the man lays down his weapon. Fabius steps forward and knocks him across the head with the hilt of his sword endeavoring to knock him out. A roll of a 20 ensured that the hit was too hard and caved the man's skull in killing him instantly.
"Why you do that?" questioned Velito
"Oops – the Lord's will" said Fabius moving up the next stair.
The stair ended in a door but this time unlocked. After listening and hearing nothing the door is opened and it enters into the back of what appears to be a cloakroom which in turn leads back into the Arian Church of the Sacred Flame. Strange indeed!!
'We go, we go" implored Velito. "But first we get the woman we left"
"You go. I will watch here."
"No no – I need you to carry. He marmalades."
"Oh yes – of course" agrees Fabius
With that they both descend the stairs, collect the various unconscious people and head to the Nicene church Our Lady of Radiant Hope, where Brother Luigi and Owl wait.
Velito and Fabius explain what has happened.
"De woman said the Beggar King was through the pink door and de pink door leads to the church. So, de Beggar King must come from the church" concluded Velito in a huge jump of logic {which proved to be correct}
We cure the woman and she comes around. Her name is Elena and she is 22 years of age and handmaid to the Beggar King's guards. She is Arian. After lengthy discussion we convince her to join us and that we will protect her, and she can be the maid for Brother Luigi. Of course, our main motivation was to better understand what she knows.
She describes the Beggar King – "he is around this high – pointing at Owl {5'9"} with brown hair and a cropped greying beard. His are blue and he has a slightly sunken face.
"That sounds like Father Manuel, Priest from the Church of the Sacred Flame" says Owl, who off course got up close and personal with him during his confessional.
"That would make sense" responds Luigi – "the path did lead back to that church."
"We will investigate" volunteers Velito for us all.
We head off to the Church of the Sacred Flame. We have free run of it as Lady Florinda is staying there and we are, of course, her guards. We search the cloakroom, altar and every nook and cranny we can and without finding anything of interest except a bunch of old bones beneath the altar.
There is a late afternoon service and Velito volunteers to stay and watch. The rest of us loiter outside as guards do.
The service is uneventful and the acolytes return with the crosses to the barracks while the priest exits the side door. Velito follows him and sees him cross the court yard and enter a separate small building – we assume the vestry.
We continue to observe the church and of course guard Lady Florinda. At around 8pm Vanker and Velito observe Priest Manuel leave the vestry and enter the church. He goes to the cloak room and enters. We assume he is going to the undercity.
"Dis is our chance" says Velito "we will sneak in" and that’s exactly what they do.
They both make successful sneak roles and get across to the vestry (actually a cottage). The front door is locked but Vanker with the help of 3 luck manages to pick it. There are only two rooms – the main room that Vanker and Velito have just entered and a further room behind another door. The windows are barred and there is a back door from the main room, they assume to the outhouse.
They listen at what they assume to be the bedroom door and hear continuously flowing water.
"It's there – it's there – si" says Velito excitedly.
Vanker nods and proceeds to try and open he door which is locked. This time 4 luck is needed to make the pick-locks successful.
This is a bedroom with a large unmade bed and draws. In one corner is a small altar and resting on it is a ceramic flask with water flowing, continuously, from it onto the floor and out a small drain hole in the corner of the walls.
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| Flask of Water |
"That’s it" says Vanker as he moves over to it and picks it up. He immediately drops it back shaking his hissing hand and in tears of pain.
"What what?" calls Velito.
"You carry it" murmurs Vanker still in pain with his hand now blistering where the (obviously holy) water touched him.
"Si" responds Velito picking it up.
They head off splurging water behind them and as quietly as the can. Vanker at least is successful and they make their way to the rest of the group.
"Now we go and find the Prophet" says Owl "and we need to get Justina on the way"
"It's night – we sleep" says Velito "we go in the morning"
"We go now" commands Owl who remains our self-elected leader - albeit now on slightly shaky ground.
We head off to the docks and Owl goes down the ladder to the Undercity, followed by everyone else, and to the Prophet's lean-to. As luck would have it (successful luck roll) the Prophet is there and awake.
We all enter the lean-to and the Prophet seems delighted that we have the Flask of Water.
"Now you must cure Justina as you promised" says Luigi.
"Bring her here" the Prophet demands.
Justina steps forward and upon instruction kneels before the Prophet who pours the water from the flask over her making strange utterances. Justina screams and writhes on the ground before falling unconscious, hissing and boiling and scalding.
Fabius is about to draw his sword when Luigi bends down to Justina and says softy "she lives – we must take her back to the church and cure her"
"I will be back for you if she dies" Fabius glares at the Prophet fondling the hilt of his two-handed sword.
We get back to Our Lady of Radiant Hope and Luigi proceeds to cast a Cure. Success, and Justina comes around. He then casts Detect Evil and announces she no longer has an evil aura – success. Then he collapses with marmalade pouring from his mouth
We retire for the evening feeling rather satisfied with ourselves.
The next day we pack up our gear ready to head off with the Lady Florinda. When we arrive at the Church of the Sacred Flame, she is in quite a state. She tells us the Father Manuel is missing and we must find him.
Velito and Vanker look at each other knowing full well where he went – to the Undercity via the cloakroom. We go back and get Elena, who knows the Undercity better than us, and we head down. We wander the streets for quite some time until Elena points out a few vagabonds who she recognizes.
"But don’t trust that one" she points to a large ugly pox-ridden beggar.
Velito choses the small wiry one to question while Able and Fabius nonchalantly amble up to the supposed trouble-maker.
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| Supposed trouble-maker |
We took that from him with little resistance and returned to the church. Velito also managed to recover a pinky finger of unknown origin.
At the church there is clearly an uproar although the senior acolyte who is now likely to be the priest seems a little less distraught although is very concerned that the Flask of Water is missing.
We kindly volunteer to search the vestry and all head that way. We thoroughly search both rooms and finally behind a picture of the Madonna, we find a small safe.
"Open it Vanker" says Velito
"I will check for traps first" says Vanker as he spends the next 5-10 minutes thoroughly looking at the safe and its lock.
"Nope – all safe" he declares as he starts to pick the lock.
Suddenly Vanker reels back in agony with a tiny needle in his finger.
"It small - it small – it not tat bad" declares Velito almost at the same time as Vanker goes deadly pale and collapses to the floor frothing at the mouth.
"Or maybe it is" Velito is heard to say
Vanker is unconscious [ having taken 15 points of damage and failing his Poison Defense skill roll; a 19 and so not even Luck could help – you can only ever use 6 luck in a roll ]. Owl rushes to his side and successfully applies First Aid – sucking the poison from Vanker's wound and saving him from sure death.
"That’s a shame" says Able "the safe isn’t open"
We search again for a key but with no success.
"If we wait here in ambush- I'm sure the beggars will turn up with the key to get what ever is inside" volunteers Fabius.
"No no Rip it from the wall" says Velito
"Shut up Velito" commands Owl – "we will wait in ambush'
Vanker is placed in the bed under the covers, and the rest of us hide as well as possible in a small room. And sure enough, a few hours later, we hear noise at the front door followed by footsteps. Slowly the bedroom door is opened and two men step in.
They start searching the room and it doesn’t take long for them to realise we are there. We slam the door behind them and seeing they are out numbered and muscled, they surrender.
"Open the safe" demands Owl
"We have no key!" they chime in together
Sure enough they could, and they did so just before Fabius and Able knock them out.
In the safe is 150 silver coins [ equivalent value of 15,000 NZ dollars ] plus a strange transparent vial with a red liquid (crystal - usual technology for the 8th century).
We close the chest, return the picture of the Madonna concealing it, remove the two beggars, lock the doors and leave. It's night and no one sees us. We leave the beggars on a street and return to our lodgings (Bronze Bull).
The next morning, we again return to the Church of the Sacred Flame and meet with Florinda and the senior acolyte.
"There was coin in the safe" we say handing over 50 coins.
"We must leave now Lady Florinda" says Owl "we have discussed it and consider going by boat to Corduba may be a safer option"
"If you think so" she responds "I will arrange it"
In the early afternoon we meet at the docks. A (horse-pulled) barge has been hired and our provisions loaded on. The wagons will meet us in Corduba and we will travel incognito and safely by barge. What could go wrong? We haven’t returned the spear to the Prophet as he prophesised, we have taken coin from the church and of course let's not forget about that blood(?)-filled crystal vial. What could go wrong? …….
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