Nab Witch Job

First some loose-ends: today they released prisoners Michael Boatman and Glenda Stewart. After the party's first probe at Sam's plantation's palisade, several scores ago, these two wretches were the only survivors of a group that was tailing the party. They were captured,  questioned, and held in the party's base: Michael down in the store room and Glenda chained to Ronny's bed.

Michael was released to return to his family in Scabport.

Glenda was escorted to a coach headed for Spite, and given a one-way ticket.

____________________________________________________

Simone Ender

That evening, after dark, Tylin [Ian] set himself up in the Tower Lookout to watch the mage clientele that frequented that tavern. Sorrow [Jeff] hid somewhere near the entrance to the Wizards' Guild Tower and Burrito [Darryl] hid around the back.

Meanwhile, back at Simone Ender's charred house, Dee Dee [Steven], Huilam [Jamie], Attlee [Kevin] and Moonlight [Chris] attempted to open the safe there that was magically locked. Out on the quiet street, Ronny [Deacon] and El Cid [Shane] kept watch.

Gnome Dee Dee had a bit of magic knowledge, and, leading a group action with Moonlight and Attlee (his skull Lido could aid in magical exploits), she eventually worked out how the lock worked, and opened the safe. Inside was lots of ashes (burned papers?), and a gold filigree brooch studded with gems. The brooch glowed under Moonlight's Detect Magic.

Later on in the evening, at the Tower Lookout, there was some excitement for Tylin. Simone Ender, herself, made an appearance with a group of mages from the tower. Tylin just observed. The mages stayed until closing time, and then returned to the tower.

The party went home.

_________________________________________________________

Simone's Brooch

Next morning, during breakfast they were discussing what to do with the brooch. Ideas came thick and fast. They were settling on "Arrange to meet Simone somewhere to collect her brooch where we can ambush her.", when the brooch, still in Dee Dee's possession, started to vibrate. She got it out, and one of the gems on it was glowing.

"Get that out of here!" screamed Huilam.

The party bailed. Moonlight and Dee Dee and the brooch hung around the docks. The rest of the group went to the Singing Clam, well away from the brooch, and made plans.

The plan was to send Tylin and Burrito to watch the Wizard's tower, and to send Moonlight and Dee Dee and brooch to the druid's grove in the Holbein Woods. And everyone else would lay low, in case their secret lair had been compromised by the brooch's magic.

At the grove, Moonlight found a log cabin and they both rested in it. The brooch started to vibrate again. This time Dee Dee touched the glowing gem.

A woman's voice: "Hello? Hello?"

The brooch kept vibrating. Dee Dee pressed the gem on it.

"Who is this?" Dee Dee said.

"You have stolen my brooch," came the woman's voice.

"No, it is mine."

"It is stolen"

"Well, I found it!"

Moonlight decided to leave the grove and find the rest of the group, to update them.

Dee Dee put the brooch in her pack ignoring the "Hello hello?"

A few minutes later, Tylin, watching the Wizards' Tower, saw four figures fly out of an upper storey, on broom sticks. They were headed directly towards the Holbein Woods.

Dee Dee saw four flying figures approach. She scurried into the cabin.

A small pellet of sulphur and wax followed her inside, and suddenly there was a huge crump! and a mighty explosion. The inside of the cabin was a raging inferno.

Leaving Dee Dee for dead, the four took the brooch and flew off.

Dee Dee would have been killed but managed to hide under a pile of wet leaves. [ Fireball does a level 4 harm - "incineration" - which is death. But Dee Dee's resistance roll reduced this to level 3 harm, and her leather armour to level 2 harm "charred". The tangible effects of this is a burned body and all rolls at -1D until healed. ]

Tylin caught up with the party, and told them about the broom-fliers so they all made their leisurely way to the grove. And they met up with Moonlight.

Having lost the brooch, their one valuable piece of leverage against Simone, they had to think up another plan.

They sent El Cid, Burrito and Attlee to Anton Chung to get more info. They hoped that the Knives' prisoner Dalila, who was formerly part of Simone's triumvirate, would know something useful about Simone. Chung would not let them see Dalila face to face, but he was happy to take a set of questions to extract from her.

So the party, conversed and came up with a set of questions, which they passed to Chung.

In a short while, Chung returned from the Knives. Most of the answers were of no use, or Dalila did not know, but Simone seemed to have a weakness that they could exploit. Like Rita, she was very much into luxuries, and she regularly shopped a Furs R Us in the Royal District.

So they hatched a plan, so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it weasel. Well, Huilam thought so.

The plan:

• Tomorrow at 5 bells there was to be a 30% off sale at Furs R Us. Huilam would make the fake marketing documentation and deliver it to the Wizards' Tower, making sure it was well-addressed to Simone.
• Simone would head to Furs R Us to go to the sale.
• Burrito, Huilam, Sorrow would be blockers pushing other people out of the way, while Tylin, El Cid and Ronny would intercept Simone as she entered the shop. The trigger for the strike was when Simone entered the shop.
• Attlee, Moonlight and Dee Dee would arrive on the party wagon Carte Blanche, and the disabled Simone would be put into the wagon.
• They would then hold Simone and someone would go contact Chung.

Daisy Crown

Simone took the bait. She turned up at Furs R Us, right on 5 bells. But she was accompanied by another woman, a buxom witch [Dragon Crown Sorceress look-alike].

Burrito went for the witch; he stuck his knife into her from the back, going for the heart. But his knife grated on something non-flesh and failed go in deep. It was enough to collapse her, and he followed her falling body, falling himself, hoping for a coup de grace, but, at that very instant, there was a loud concussive bang, and she just vanished.

At the same moment, Tylin lurched at Simone to grab her by the mouth. The theory being that all wizard spells require a verbal utterance (and the last thing they needed was to be engulfed in a fiery conflagration). Simultaneously, El Cid, assisted by Ronny, struck Simone's head from behind. El Cid was going for a knock-out, so he used his IMAG dark-fists. But Tylin's mouth grab pushed Simone off balance and El Cid's punch only glanced her head.
.
While this was happening, Attlee and Moonlight started to bring Cart Blanche down the street to stop outside Furs R Us. The still-charred Dee Dee was inside, trying to keep out of the way.

Lido

The shop guards in Furs R Us by now had recovered from the shock of witnessing their guests being assaulted, so they pushed their way towards Simone and her assailants. This is where Huilam and Sorrow stepped in to block them.

Attlee was in thought-contact with Lido (his black skull) throughout.

"A silence would be helpful," Attlee screamed in his head.

Lido was never very reliable at performing tricks [ like 1 in 6 ], but this time he proved exemplary. The whole doorway, half the shop and half the road was engulfed in silence.

"How long can you keep this up, Lido?" asked Attlee in a quick thought.

"About ten minutes. Unless you say 'noise'." came the reply.

A single struggling woman was no match for the combined strengths of El Cid, Ronny and Tylin, so they soon had Simone bundled, bound and gagged in the cart. El Cid kept bashing her head into the floor of the cart, so she was concussed as well.

The cart took off at a speed, well ... walking pace. After all, the street was quite crowded.

"Noise!" said Attlee in his head. And noise flooded in.

The Furs R Us shop guards were struggling to pursue the cart, slowed by Huilam and Sorrow, and then Burrito joined in too. This gave Attlee enough time to round a corner, where El Cid, Tylin & Ronny quickly bundled Simone off the cart and into a manhole in the road. The cart continued, followed by the guards, who eventually managed to catch it up. They stopped Attlee, who was happy to oblige, and they searched the cart, finding only a burnt lady gnome.

Royal District sewers

The sewers of the Royal district clean enough to eat off. Rumour has it that you could drink the water too ("eau de toilette" as the Elves would say). El Cid & Co found a safe spot to wait. They searched the unconscious Simone. She had the brooch (rescued from Dee Dee) plus another heap of jewellery and sundry nick-nacks.

As the three were searching her, the brooch started buzzing. Not willing to risk magic detection, El Cid & Ronny grabbed the brooch and all of Simone's jewellery (probably 5 COIN's worth) and wrapped them up in Simone's cloak. Then sent the cloak and all sailing down the sewer. The buzzing brooch faded into the dark.

Then Tylin went off to tell Anton Chung of their success, Chung's words "contact me within half a day" ringing in his pointy elvin ears.

The bored receptionist in the Scabport Council foyer (i.e. the Knives HQ) fiddled though her records as Tylin stood there waiting.

"Lieutenant Chung is off on his rounds," she said. "He'll be back in a few hours. Make yourself at home."

Tylin frowned, then returned to El Cid & Ronny and the rest of the party. It would be a long wait.

_______________________________________________________

Lieutenant Anton Chung of The Knives

Two hours later, Tylin returned later to the Council. Chung had still not returned, so he waited and leafed impatiently through the reading material in the foyer. The latest musical pieces from Barque echoed about the room. Most people in Scabport could not read, so the waiting room stock was mainly adult comics ("Graphic Novels" was the current phrase du jour).

Anton eventually arrived and took Tylin aside. Anton was delighted with the news.

"You got her?" he said. "Well done! But no time to lose. Bring her here now. Side cart entrance. I'll be waiting."

Tylin rushed off.

Carte Blanche soon delivered the well-secured Simone to the Knives, and she was unloaded and carried off into the HQ depths. Chung said to return in the morning for their pay.

______________________________________________________

The next morning, they did.

"Now you can catch us the third of the triumvirate," said Chung. "Daisy Crown. The teleporting mage"

New Jobs

S.A.T., the Spite Agricultural Traders, i.e. Huilam [Jamie], Sorrow [Jeff], Moonlight [Chris] and Dee Dee [Steven] (and Huilam and Sorrow's lady-escorts), awoke in Sam's mansion. Ensconced in their lavish bedrooms, they delighted to music wafting down the hallways. The music was from a string quartet performing in the dining room. The piece was Barque's Shoulder Prelude in Eb Minor (from the Well-tempted Clavicle). "Barque" was John Sebastian Barque, of course, the famous Bar-oak gnome composer.

During the lavish breakfast, Huilam asked Sam if tours were possible of the plantation warehouse and the seedling rooms. Sam said not often, but he would make an exception for SAT, especially since they were interested in the yellow scabs. He told Huilam he would arrange a time with Miss Prisk.

__________________________________________________________

Later that morning, with everyone now back in the party's lair, Rita's [Ian] long-overdue casting of Detect Evil took place. As well-augured, Sorrow and El Cid [Shane] glowed dull purple (the frequency of pure evil is 780 THz). And Attlee [Kevin] glowed a spectacular throbbing bright purple.

"Will you repent and turn from this vile evil?" asked Rita. "We can have you purged in the REAL temple and cleansed of your foulness; cleansed of your dark miasma."

Tylin Brooks

The three didn't think they were evil at all, and of course refused.

So, Rita said she could not sanction or condone their darkness. So, she tended her resignation, there and then, and left the Budgie Smugglers for good.

"I will be at the REAL temple," she said.

After Rita had gone, Esme, the party secretary, piped up and said she had a new applicant in the latest cohort drive. An elf from Palantir called Tylin Brooks [Ian's new character]. He worked for the Elwins, who was a trading company in Palantir.

__________________________________________________________

El Cid and Attlee went to IMAG temple to see Priestess Clara.

While they were waiting for Clara to arrive, Attlee said: "If Rita has left us, why can't we do the IMAG jobs?"

El Cid shrugged.

Priestess Clara soon arrived and El Cid told her that, regretfully, the group would not be doing the IMAG "skull distribution" job.

Clara was most put out by this.

"The Foundling will not be very pleased," she said. "Nevertheless, El Cid, you may go. However, we require Attlee to stay. The Foundling wishes to converse with him after dark."

Attlee stayed.

________________________________________________________

That afternoon, SAT (Huilam, Sorrow, Moonlight, Dee Dee) arrived at Sam's Plantation. Miss Prisk greeted them, and took them through a tour of the experimental facility. Here they saw all the various scabotanists doing their trade, and saw the many trays of scab seedlings and cultivars. including the yellow scabs. Sorrow took note of the building itself - a large warehouse made of the fantasy-equivalent of corrugated iron and colour steel (read paper-mache, wicker daub and extruded gypsum-clay) with a slate roof. On top of this structure was the search-light (probably light stones and illegal optics) and the security observation centre.

Sorrow asked about the owl bears and Miss Prisk said "Oh yes, we have some beasts. Security is important."

Afterwards, they met with Sam Baxter again and talked shop. SAT offered him a deal that they would be sole buyer for the yellow scabs. Sam said, if experimentation proceeded to plan, that they would be mass-planted in half a year, and the first crop would be ready in one year. He stated 45 COIN per wagon would be a reasonable starting place, for yellow scab futures. And he'd want a pre-order of at least ten wagons. But he'd need to see some money up front, of course.

The group realized that this was venturing outside the Budgie Smugglers' raison d'etre and comfort zone. After all, they are supposed to be "daring smugglers" rather than "honest scab traders". So they agreed to his suggestions and claimed they'd be back.

"We give up that job?" mused Huilam on the way home.

"Let it stew."

___________________________________________________________

That evening, after dark, at the IMAG temple, the Founding arrived to see Attlee and his black skull (the one found in the Fort Eugor keep office). The skull could talk to Attlee in his head, and over the last few days, the two had bonded. The skull was called Lido, and it could give Attlee the occasional one-off gift. But not continuously; sort of like a battery. Nevertheless, Attlee was discovering the "warm joys of IMAG":

The warm joys of IMAG

The Foundling also suggested to Attlee that he should commit himself to IMAG and become a fully-fledged priest.

"Then 'the piss never turns cold'," said the Foundling. "But, it IS a big commitment. It is a one-way path. For to leave IMAG is the path to annihilation of the soul. So, it requires, as the Funk and Wagnalls say,  'informed consent'. I offer this choice to you. IMAG calls you. Lido calls you. You will receive great power. And Lido will be your 24/7 guide."

Attlee thought about this for a minute.

"Do I have to choose now?" he said.

"No. The offer stands always," said the Foundling. "Lido will help you."

________________________________________________________

Lieutenant Anton Chung

There was a pile of notices stuck to the party notice board in the Luscious Pixie tavern. Esme had been so busy with SAT and the new offices, that she had neglected to check them. And none of the group had remembered.

Lieutenant Anton Chung, of the Knives, wanted a word. Chung no longer worked as a gate guard and was now stationed at the Knives Headquarters in the Royal district. So the entire group headed there.

"First off," said Chung. "I am please to announce that the Budgie Smugglers are now 'preferred contractors' to the Knives."

Smiles all round.

"I have some of jobs for you," said Chung. "You know the Scabport Prison?

"On Prison island, at the mouth of the Scab River?" said Sorrow.

"Aye," said Chung. "It's run by us, and mainly for political prisoners and hostages. There's a prisoner in there called Michael Stringfellow. Want him to vanish. So you sneak in, and off him. Don't leave the body; no trace, no questions. 11 COIN."

Simone Ender

"The second job is linked to Dalila Hornsby. 'Member her? From Fort Eugor. We want you to capture another witch; this one's called Simone Ender. She's a minor notable of the Wizards' Guild. Hold her alive somewhere safe and then get me within half a day. Be careful of her; if she gets a spell off, you'll be toast. Literally."

He handed them a small picture in a silver frame.

"Here's a recent portrait," Chung continued. "And we have an address for her in Downtown district: 112 Duke street. This one pays 10 COIN. Oh. If you pull this one off, there'll be one more witch of the triumvirate to nab."

"As usual," said Chung tapping the side of his nose. "The Knives and me will disavow all knowledge of any of this work."

______________________________________________________

Scabport Wizards' Guild tower

When the group got to Simone's Downtown house, it was a burned-out abandoned ruin. This had happened a while ago: four weeks according to neighbours.

They did a thorough search. In one of wrecked rooms was a wall-safe. Moonlight cast Detect Magic on it and the safe glowed. Sorrow suspected a magical trap. No-one was brave enough to go further, so they left it.

In the tiny Wizards' District of Scabport there is only one inn called Tower Lookout. It did indeed look out over the Wizards' Guild tower. This inn was frequented by wizards, as expected (wizards are recognizable by their velour robes). A few of the group passed time in here to see if she was about, and asked some surreptitious questions.

Someone thought about a more direct approach. Since they had done work for the Wizards's Guild in the past, they remembered their contact there: Sly Dunbar, a WG HR jobsworth. And asked him some surreptitious questions. Yes, he knew Simone, and yes, she is living on the tower.

"Why do you need to talk to her?" asked Sly.

Scab Score 3

[This was the first Tuesday after the lock-down, so most of us were together again. Richard, Chris and Steven connected via Discord, and so we had the screen with all three on Darryl's TV.]

It was night. The group decided to some more reconnoitering of Sam's Estate's palisade. Rita [Ian] was assigned to one corner with her powerful REAL's light to bathe the wall and corner with the light, hoping some guards would check the illumination.  They did.

Burrito [Darryl] bought a cage full of live chickens, and stationed himself at another section of the wall. Here, he tossed chickens over the wall at random intervals, to keep another contingent of the guards busy. They were. Interestingly, the flapping chickens did not trigger the Security search-light.

And the rest of the group Attlee [Kevin], Moonlight [Chris], Huilam [Jamie], Argile [Richard], El Cid [Shane] and Sorrow [Jeff] positioned themselves near a third section of the wall.

(Ronny [Deacon] was marmalading.)

First, Moonlight cast a Detect Magic upon the palisade. The entire wall within spell-range glowed with the dull preternatural light indicating that magic was present. No surprises there.

Next, Sorrow used a large pole to vault over the wall. He landed with graceful ease on the far side and started to sprint towards the warehouse.

Sure enough, a good half-minute later, the Security search-light came on and illuminated the section of wall exactly where Sorrow had crested. Then the light began to scan back and forward from that spot. There was absolutely no cover on the large billiard-table flat asparagus beds, and so, eventually, the beam found Sorrow, mid-sprint. Nearby guards started to run towards him, but he wheeled about, and headed back towards the wall, with them in lazy pursuit. He scaled a guards' ladder on the wall to catch his breath on the platform.

There was an angry animal roar in the distance, and Sorrow managed to catch a glimpse of a large beast, on the ground near the search-light source, before he leapt back over the wall. Hook horror maybe? Or a bunch of gnomes forming a gnome-pyramid draped with a tarpaulin?

The group melted back into the city streets, and headed to their secret lair. Except Rita (who couldn't move sneakily to save herself); she headed to the REAL temple.

_______________________________________________

That night, Attlee heard whispering coming from his backpack. He opened it and surreptitiously took out the black skull. It was whispering, not orally, but in his head. When he held it, he could hear the words:

"Great dark, that wilt not let you go. 
Go rest your weary soul in me. 
Now give me back the life you owe. 
That in my raging depths its flow, may richer fairer be!"

_______________________________________________

Next morning, El Cid shot down to the IMAG temple to meet up with Priestess Clara. She had conversed with the High Priest and with the Foundling of Darkness, and she had some answers about the black skulls.

"The Foundling," she said. "Has offered us some incantations which we will cast upon certain dark
crystals to imbue them with power. We can then gift them to you, and you then simply place each crystal into a skull and it will lose its Curse of Return."

El Cid nodded.

"Furthermore," she continued. "The Foundling, has expressed the urgency of spreading the skulls about the city. Hence, we offer you 12 COIN for this task. It may not be easy."

"I'll tell the others," El Cid said.

"If the REALs find out," she added wryly. "It will be even less easy. The tongue of a fool breaks many secrets."
_____________________________________________________________________


Back in the lair, Esme, the group's secretary, introduced a new character.

"Meet Dee Dee," said Esme. "A gnome from Scabport. She was one of the short-listed applicants to help with the new company. But I thought she was more suited to help with our core business. We can always do with more diversity too."

Dee Dee [Steven] bowed: "Pleased to be meeting you."

Dee Dee, the gnome Slide

[Dee Dee was a slide; subtle manipulator and spy.]

Dee Dee had a unique skill, so she claimed, of being able to spot a lie when told to her [this is a Slide Feat]. Of course, it was not absolute truth, just truth as to what the speaker believed.

Thoughts had already been forming within the group's minds as to the veracity of Olivia Bryce's claims that the yellow scab cultivars were in fact stolen by Sam's agents. Maybe she did not actually develop the yellow scabs herself, and was just using the group to commit industrial espionage and steal them off Sam.

So, Huilam, Moonlight, Sorrow went off to the Vege Scavengers plantation to visit Olivia again with Dee Dee in tow. In order for Dee Dee's ability to work, the lie must be spoken to her, so there was a bit of oral manipulation required to achieve this. After substantial, but friendly, questioning, they determined:

• A scientist or scab-breeder who develops new cultivars is called a "scabotanist" (TRUE).
• Olivia Bryce employed a scabotanist called Jack Sparrow (TRUE).
• Scabotanist Jack Sparrow developed the yellow scab cultivar (TRUE).
• Jack was definitely working for Olivia when he developed the new cultivars (LIE).
• So the cultivars were hers (LIE).
• And stolen from her (LIE).
• Jack Sparrow was now dead (LIE).
• She suspected it was Sam's agents who killed him (TRUE).
• In a fit of jealous rage (TRUE). 

They then went and visited the Ochre Turnstiles again to ask about Jack Sparrow. Lou Serna knew of Jack Sparrow (TRUE) but he'd had no dealings with him (TRUE), but he had heard that Jack had been drowned in the Scab river (TRUE).

There was a new plantation in town that was just starting out. It was called the Scab Vultures [sic] and owner was John Moses. Formerly wheat growers, they had decided to get into the lucrative scab market, following the news that there was a new set of scab buyers in town just arrived from Spite: the Spite Agricultural Traders. They were rumoured to be backed by well-heeled financiers from Spite, and rich elvish merchants from Palantir called the Elwins.

So, the four went and visited the Vultures. John offered them wagon loads of scabs for only 20 COIN each (TRUE), but it had to be paid in advance to get this superb price (TRUE) and it'd be half a year before harvest (TRUE). All John could show now was some ploughed fields. "We are only just planting."  (TRUE).

The group asked about scabotanist Jack Sparrow. John had heard of the name, and heard he had been killed, but that was all (TRUE). The Vultures' scabotanist was called Doctor Strange-pork  (TRUE).

The group wrestled about whether they should (or could morally) still do Olivia's job considering the cultivars were not actually hers. They were ambivalent about this; after all, a job is a job. Already, Sorrow, El Cid and Attlee had the IMAG taint about them, so they weren't particularly adverse to continuing with the job.

_____________________________________________________________________

Huilam, Dee Dee, Moonlight and Sorrow had an invite to stay at Sam's mansion (rather than the apartment above their SAT offices in the Docks). They dressed in their finest and collected dates. Sorrow and Huilam found a half-elf date (read, "whore") each, and Moonlight took Dee Dee as his date.

Sam had a large cadre of staff: one servant per setting at the table for the banquet, and plenty of footmen and guards. The meal was a full ten-course degustation masterpiece with matching wines, and it was superb. Sam's PA Miss Prisk was at the table too, plus Sam's wife and three oldest sons and their wives.

Sam's Mansion, Scabport Mansion District

His mansion had 120 rooms, and the guests were each supplied with one each. During the night, Sorrow went poking around through the hallways and rooms. He was confronted by servants, house-maids and footmen at every turn, so his exploration was limited. After a fruitless hour or two, he returned to his bedroom.

Planning for Scab Score 2

Rita [Ian] was first to notice: Sorrow [Jeff], El Cid [Shane], and Attlee [Kevin] now had a "dark glow" about them. This was especially noticeable on Attlee. When looked at directly, the three of them looked fine, but out of the corner of your eye, it was like a dark cloud cloaked each one. Those three had the IMAG boon. But so too did Ronny [Deacon]. However, Ronny had not had any dealings with the black skulls in the well chamber (a counter this was Argile [Richard]; he had had dealings with the skulls but he didn't have an IMAG boon). So maybe it was both that gave the dark glow.

Attlee was struck down by the marmalading, so he was put onto the grill.

While they had been busy with Fort Eugor, a stack of notices mounted up on the party notice-board in The Luscious Pixie.

Olivia Bryce

One was from Olivia Bryce of the Vege Scavengers. So Sorrow and Argile headed out to The Sign of the Ambidextrous Nymph. Olivia was there with a guard. She had been badly beaten; sporting a black eye and torn lip. Her guard had his arm in a sling.

She said some street thugs had done this. She didn't recognize any of them, but at the end of the beating, one of them had hissed "Next time your butt-boys probe us, we will be back."

"I don't know if this was because of you lot," she said. "Maybe coincidence? I doubt it. Anyway, how are you progressing on MY job? Have you recovered my yellow scab cultivars from that thief Sam?"

Sorrow sheepishly admitted that they put her mission on ice after the reconnoitre (when they climbed over Sam's Plantation palisade), and did other work instead: the Fort Eugor job.

"But we will be right on your job now," Sorrow said. "It has our full attention."

_____________________________________________________________________

There was a note from REAL Priestess Colleen Sanford. So Rita went to the temple.

Rita asked about the dark glow around her party members.

"Oh dear," said Colleen, alarmed. "They have the mark of IMAG. You better turn them from this path else their souls will be lost forever."

Rita promised she would do something.

In the Skull district sat the Scabport graveyard. The graveyard had been here ever since the city was founded, and it filled most of the district leaving only a few dozen streets for housing, markets and the odd tavern. Skull district was not a very desirable place to live, so only the poor, the wretched and down-trodden lived here.

The Wraith King
(artist's drawing;
indicative)

With more than a thousand years of interments, the graveyard itself was now bulging at the seams. These days, only the poor took their dead here; rich folks normally opted for interment in the relevant temple's tomb, dissolution, cremation, or burial at sea. The graveyard was safe during the day, but one would not want to venture in there at night. It was a poorly-kept secret that a being called the "Wraith King" "ruled" over the graveyard and, it was claimed, the entire Skull district. It was said that the Scabport Council allowed this so long as he (or "it") "caused nay trouble". In return for causing nay trouble, the goodly temples (especially REAL) were forbidden to "clean out the undead scum".

With this in mind, the REAL temple had their own policy: they allowed their priests into the Skull district provided that they only provided succour for the poor, and that they kept numbers low. Crusades and undead pogroms were not allowed.

"As an acolyte, dear Rita," Colleen said. "We want you and your group to do some investigations in Skull. We've recently had some reports of foul things from the graveyard wandering the streets to steal away babes and innocents."

Then she added with righteous ire:

"If this's true, then we ARE authorized to call in the Paladin Force ... to cleanse the streets with REAL's HOLY LIGHT and REAL's HOLY FIRE. And that won't break our 'greement with the Council. So, get us some evidence! Your contact is a man called Chang Billet, at The Chilling Thought tavern in Skull."

9 COIN.

_____________________________________________________________________

There was a note from IMAG Priestess Clara. So El Cid and Ronny ventured forth to the IMAG temple.

Here, they met up with Clara in the clammy IMAG meeting room, where she whispered from within her sphere of darkness. El Cid asked about the dark glow around him, El Cid, and Attlee. Clara paused, and when she spoke, her papery voice was smiling.

"I noticed this on you straight away," she said. "This is SUCH good news! You and your lucky friends have the beginnings of the Pall. This is what we priests are cloaked in all times. May IMAG's darkness prevail!"

She added joyfully: "With training now, you could become priests yourselves!"

Foundling of Darkness

"No thanks," muttered El Cid.

Clara had another job for them. The current representative of IMAG, the Foundling of Darkness [see Fake Kidnap Score entry] had sensed "a disturbance in the dark" which came from the vicinity of Fort Eugor. El Cid told Clara about the skulls from the well chamber. She noted that the Foundling had mentioned "objects of desire"; presumably it* meant the skulls. The job was to collect and distribute all these objects of desire about the city. When El Cid pointed out that the skulls magically returned to the pile whenever one was taken, she frowned.

"I will talk this night with the High Priest [Dark-eye Shadow]," Priestess Clara said. "And the Foundling of Darkness too. Return tomorrow for an answer."

El Cid left to return to the party's lair. Ronny was blocked by the guards and asked to stay back by Clara; she had need of his services.

Ronny arrived back at the lair, half an hour later, a shaking wreck. He was clammy and drained. His skin was crawling with imaginary maggots, and he was stinking of jelly-fish venom and butterscotch.

* = The Foundling of Darkness phases between non-binary and gender-fluid, and its preferred pronouns were "it", "pincer" and "mangrove".
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The next note was from Anton Chung of the Knives. He had been promoted. Not just to sergeant, as everyone expected, but all the way to Lieutenant. The Budgie Smugglers had made the Knives Preferred Contractors list, so he had some more work for them.

_____________________________________________________________________

Esme Deciduous

Before the Fort Eugor scores, the Group had begun a long-term project to create a front company with Olivia's score in mind. The raison d'etre of this company would be to buy scabs to sell in Spite. This company had now come to fruition and they christened it "Spite Agricultural Traders". They further dedicated some effort to make a legal paper-trail that would survive first-blush investigations [the game mechanic for this is to create another long-term project "debt"].  They hired an office in the Docks area too, and assigned their half-elf secretary Esme [cohort expert] to man it.

Now that Spite Agricultural Traders was running, Huilam [Jamie], Sorrow, Ronny, El Cid, Argile, Moonshine [Chris], and Burrito [Darryl] (in fact, all of them except Attlee and Rita) went on a trip to another scab grower, the Ochre Turnstiles. They met and schmoozed with the boss of the Turnstiles, Lou Serna, and indicated that they were a new scab buyer from Spite and were interested in buying scabs. Olivia had briefed them on the necessary technical questions so that they wouldn't fail muster as bona fide scab buyers. From this meeting, they got a benchmark price metric for a wagon load of scabs: 30 COIN (NZ$30,000).

Miss Prisk

Next, was the trip to their target: Sam's Plantation. Olivia had given the group some normal scab seedlings which they secreted in a hidey-hole in their wagon Carte Blanche. If all went well, then maybe these could be used to swap for the yellow scabs.

But when they arrived at Sam's Estate, the gate guards ordered them to park Carte Blanche outside the gate in the wagon park. Then all seven were ushered through the gate-house where they had to surrender all weapons, then they were shown into the scab tasting room. This was a stone's throw from the big warehouse where they suspected their target yellow scabs were.

A well-dressed half-elf lady arrived to talk with them. She introduced herself as Miss Prisk and she was "Sam's chief seller". She took their details and was very interested to hear about the new scab buyers from Spite. She brought out some scabs and gave them a tasting "can you taste the artichoke?"  There was always a handful of guards present.  After a bit of small-talk, the best price that Miss Prisk could give was 35 COIN for a single wagon load. But that would drop with more bulk, of course.

Samuel Baxter

Eventually, Samuel Baxter, the owner himself, turned up with two body-guards; muscle-bound half-elves with no necks. Sam was interested in seeing the new buyers from Spite, and he asked some inane questions. Sorrow came from Spite, and Huilam and Moonshine knew the city, so the three could answer the tricksie Spite questions. They did get Sam to mention about the yellow scabs, but he would only say that they were under development and that it would be a long time before Sam's Scabs could achieve commercial production.

Yellow scabs

Sam asked where they were staying in town, and when they said the apartment above their offices in the Docks region, he said they ought to come and stay in his mansion in the Mansion district.

Fort Eugor Score 4

Huilam [Jamie] and Burrito [Darryl] and the rent-a-crowd hung back down by the Falshot residence waiting for the signal. This would be a light from the roof of the Fort Eugor keep.

Rita and Ronny were back at the party's secret lair, lying on the marmalade grille [Ian and Deacon not here this week.]

Moonlight [Chris], Argile [Richard],  El Cid [Shane], Attlee [Kevin], and Sorrow [Jeff] snuck up the hill, and down the tunnel into the well room. Sorrow climbed the well and set up a rope ladder, then he, Attlee and El Cid, crept across the courtyard and made their way to the end of the keep. Then Sorrow went up the three stories and onto the roof. Attlee and El Cid joined him, and then they signalled to Huilam and the distraction group.

WG witch Dalila Hornsby

Huilam led the rent-a-crowd up the hill to make a hell of a racket and shone lights. Burrito took pot-shots at the guards. This ensured all the courtyard guards were engaged, and gave Moonlight and Argile enough time to scurry over to the keep's main door.

Lucky for them, it opened just as two more guards came out (presumably, to aid the other guards). Argile had his sword out and he engaged them both, pushing them back. Moonlight hurriedly shut the door behind them, and moved to help Argile fight.

Meanwhile, on the roof, El Cid had abseiled down the side of the keep and into the bunk room. In here, was their prey Dalila Hornsby (the Wizards' Guild witch) and a guard. His daring attack totally surprised them, knocking Dalila back to the wall, and dropping the guard. Sorrow and Attlee joined him soon after. Dalila was concussed, and the stunned guard was hacked down and killed.

Toby Archer (deceased)

Out in the corridor, El Cid engaged the commander Toby Archer. Toby was supposed to be a top-sword, but with an expert chop of his double-sword, El Cid beheaded the poor guy. The guard behind him saw this and surrendered straight away. El Cid stuck his sword through his throat.

Then, while Sorrow was binding Dalila for transport, El Cid and Attlee did a quick search of that floor. There were no other souls up there, but they found another supplies ledger, a spell book (guessed it was Dalila's), another TGP seal-stamp, some petty cash, and a black skull (like the ones in the pile in the well room, but, strangely, this one hadn't teleported back to the pile). Attlee claimed this for his very own and promptly put it in his pack.

Toby's decapitated head's ears had two thick gold earrings, and he had a large TGP signet ring; El Cid took these.

Back on the ground floor, Argile had by now fought and killed the two guards, and Moonlight had been severely injured.

There were also two men on that level, injured and lying on camp stretchers. Argile questioned them, but they didn't know much. He butchered them in cold blood.

The three upstairs lowered the bound Dalila down the ladder shaft, and joined her. Then the whole group, plus the captive, crept out the door and across the courtyard, back to the well. They lowered Dalila down the well, and everyone followed. Then, out through the tunnel, past the rock-fall, outside, down the hill, and back to the Falshot residence. The whole score had taken less than half an hour.

Since it was only a few hours into the night, and not too late, Corporal Chung's shift would still be in progress. So, "no time like the present", and the whole group went to him. They handed over Dalila, Toby's head, the spell book, the ledger, and the TGP seal-stamp. Chung was very pleased.

The next morning when he handed over the chest of silver and gold, he extolled their virtues.

"The powers-that-be are very pleased with your work," he said. "The Budgie Smugglers will be employed for many future Knives missions. I am due promotion too."

[ Downtime activities took the rest if the night. ]

Fort Eugor Score 3

The party was making their way back to their base. Attlee [Kevin] hissed under his voice.

"We got ourselves a tail."

Attlee pulled Argile [Richard] into the shadows, hoping that the tail wouldn't notice. Sure enough, they didn't. They were four figures, and were following the noisy party: Two human males, two half-elves one of whom was a woman.

Attlee needed to tell the group, so he left Argile near two of the followers, and skulked back to the group to tell them. They waited a bit, and then gave the signal to Argile to engage.

Agile stepped forward and clamped his hand over the woman's mouth. She managed to scream, so he punched her and dropped her. Another of the followers near her, drew his short sword and bounded over to engage Argile. Argile disemboweled him with a mighty stroke of his two-handed sword.

Michael Boatman

The rest of the party rushed headlong into the fray. The other two of the followers fled. One climbed a wall, and the other ran. Burrito [Darryl] and Ronny [Deacon] aimed with their cross-bows and shot him, and he fell; skewered and dead before he hit the cobbles. The last one was cornered in an alley and he surrendered.

Back at base, after an hour of creative torture, El Cid [Shane] managed to get the whole sorry story from the this wretch. He was called Michael Boatman, and he and the other three worked for Sam's plantation security to protect the plantation from thieves and burglars. They had been sent to follow the party after the party's wall escapades had been noticed. Michael was quick to add that he had a wife and children who lived in Downtown.

Glenda Stewart

Ronny "worked" on his captive too using his IMAG seduction gift. She was a half-elf named Glenda Stewart, but he ended up not spending much time interrogating after all.

The two were promised that they would be freed after this mission. In the mean time, they would
remain as "guests". Michael in shackles in the cell in the cellar, and Glenda chained to Ronny's bed.

The next day, the group came up with an alternative plan to get into Sam's Estate. That was to set themselves up as scab (asparagus) buyers from Spite city. In Scabport, there were currently two big importers of scabs to Spite: The Spite Scab Trading Company and Spite Scabs. So, the party hired an office and started to work on their front.

This would take several days. [ In this system, the mechanics to achieve this is called a long term plan. ]

_____________________________________________________________________

So, with this plan underway, the party now cast their attention back to Corporal Anton Chung's job. This was a continuance of the previous job for the Knives. Chung said the Knives wanted the Wizards' Guild witch Dalila Hornsby from Fort Eugor to be kidnapped. Chung said they had only four nights to do this. And tonight would be the second night.

WG Dalila Hornsby

So, they did another foray up the hill: Burrito, Sorrow [Jeff], El Cid, Argile and Attlee. Attlee led the mission with his superb skulking skills. It was a success, and they got to the court-yard undetected,  and hid in the old stables in the fort. As this was only ten paces from the old well, they decided to investigate that.

Down went a rope. Burrito opted to stay upstairs to guard, while the other four went down. About a storey or two down, the shaft opened into a chamber; a rough natural cave, and the shaft continued down to water an arm-length's deeper. There was a passage going off to one side which was partially blocked by a pile of smooth rocks. Down here, Sorrow, El Cid and Attlee's "IMAG gifts" tingled and throbbed in time with their heart-beats.

Getting closer this pile of rocks, one could see that they were skulls. A pile of skulls as tall as a man; maybe thirty, neatly stacked. Black skulls. So black that they absorbed light. Worse, Sorrow, El Cid and Attlee were attracted to these skulls.

Attlee was first to fail the temptation, and he touched one. He then immediately grabbed it tight and held onto it, as a blissful look melted his face. In his mind, he could see sobbing screaming people in this very cave being tortured to death by cowled figures; sacrifices of agony. But it brought pleasure and bliss to Attlee's heart, and he relished and bathed in the wonderful feelings of all this suffering and despair. The skulls were of these victims, now black with age, and cursed.

Argile (the only one without an IMAG gift) pulled the blissful Attlee away and knocked the skull from his hand (when Argile touched a skull, he only got visions of horror and revulsion). El Cid and Sorrow also had the blissful visions.

With Argile's help, the group of four got past the skull pile and into the passage beyond. It was a natural passage, probably made by water. But they came to a recent cave-in. When they cleared enough of the rocks away, this made a narrow crawl-way which emerged on the hillside, in a depression behind some bushes, next to the road up the hill. So, this turned out to be another way into the fort.

Attlee tried to sneak a black skull away from the pile in his backpack, but it vanished when he wasn't looking. Presumably back to the pile.

Sorrow went back inside to retrieve Burrito. And brought him out the same route.

The next day passed, and they made plans for the raid tonight.

The plan was to attack in through this new well passage. Everyone would be involved this time, plus they would rent a cohort of mooks to help:  Rita [Ian] with her Light of REAL, Burrito with his crossbow, and the rent-a-crowd would provide a distraction. The rest of the party would enter through the tunnel, and up the well. El Cid, Sorrow and Attlee would climb onto the roof of the keep and abseil into the window like last time, while Moonlight [Chris], Ronny, Huilam [Jamie] and Argile would storm the main door.

Qui audet adipiscitur.

Planning for Scab Score

[ The first hour of the evening was spent doing Downtime Activities for last time. ]

Via the established chain of communication (Sonny from the Bronze Studs, based at the Grapefruit and Corselette, contacted the party via their private notice board in the Luscious Pixie tavern), the party met up with Olivia Bryce for a job.

Olivia was the head of the Vege Scavengers, a Tier 1* group based in the Plantation district. Her group's experts had recently invented some unique anemic asparagus cultivars which they had named "yellow scabs". But the main producer of scabs in Scabport, Sam's Estate, a Tier 4 group, had got wind of this, and they had sent agents to break in to her lair and had stolen these cultivars. Her group did not have much prowling, martial or political prowess, so she wanted someone to recover her yellow scabs.

[ * = The Tier system handles group sizes. Tier 0 is the smallest and Tier 5 the biggest. It is an exponential scale which covers numbers, wealth and political influence. The Knives, the TGP and the Wizards' Guild are the only Tier 5s. ]

The city of Scabport gets it name from "scab" which is a name for the delicious anemic asparagus that is endemic to the Scabport region (and the reason why the city was sited there a thousand years ago). The name "scab" is so-called because, when the asparagus is due to be harvested, the tip secretes a delectable red ooze which, when dried, looks like a crusty scab. Olivia's scab cultivars were yellow in colour and thus were very valuable. They dried to a pus colour.

Olivia suspected that her yellow scabs would be located in the main warehouse on the large grounds of Sam's Estate. This is where Sam's scientific and botanic research was done, so it made sense. The job would pay 9 COIN.

Sam's estate was huge. It was situated just outside of Scabport, between the Spite Gate and the sea [blue markings], and was in a large fenced-off area, two or three bow-shots a side. It was common knowledge that the estate had a large guard contingent, and that they also used hook horrors to supplement the guards.

Hook Horror

The group made some enquiries in the local Funk and Wagnall temple (God of Knowledge). Hook horrors were nasty vicious carnivores, tall and strong as an ogre, and fast as a man. They make excellent guards because, although their normal vision is poor, they can see heat sources (infravison), have darkvision (UV), and can hear superbly too.

Corporal Anton Chung, of the Knives, also had a job for the party. This was continuing from the previous score. The Knives had identified the lady wizard that Sorrow, El Cid, Attlee and Argile had encountered in Fort Eugor. She was named Dalila Hornsby, and was a known operative from the Wizards' Guild.

Dalila Hornsby

"This is serious," said Chung. "If the Wizards' Guild is in cahoots with the TGP [Thieves' Guild Police], then that doesn't bear thinking. But, you have already defeated that mage whore once, so do it again. Bring her in. Bring her alive. You have four nights."

He paused, and added wryly.

"Once again, if you fail, then the Knives will disavow all contact with you. But if you succeed, we will have embarrassing info on the Wizards' Guild. And we can put a stop to this mess. 9 COIN."

Anton Chung then turned his attention to Rita, and arranged another date.

They had a third job offer: They met up with Festoon Thwaite, operative of Simon's Slaves, at the Oyster and Evergreen Limpet tavern. This was a Recovery job to find and bring in some runaway slaves who were last seen in the unoccupied Hodacky residence in the Mansion district. They didn't take this job for two reasons: It didn't pay enough (7 COIN), and why does a big group like Simon's Slaves not have its slave-recovery squads? "It does. You."

That night, the group, sans Rita, went a-scouting.

Sam's plantation was surrounded cleared ground (which was used as a road) and by a wooden palisade. Although guards were not visible all the time, they would pop up occasionally. Huilam [Jamie] guessed that there wasn't a walkway all the way around, but instead various risers at different spots.

Sorrow [Jeff], Attlee [Kevin] and Burrito [Darryl] scaled the wall and surveyed. Yes, no continuous walkway. Yes, platforms and ladders every 25 paces. There were large squares (100 paces a side) of sandy soil dotted with asparagus shoots emerging. Way in the distance, hundreds of paces away, were some low buildings. Beyond that another smaller stockade. And some water towers.

Sorrow crouched down on his wall perch, as a guard walked past on the inside. He did note that she was a half-elf. They waited and surveyed a bit longer. All the guards were half-elves (and two thirteenths of them were women). That made sense, half-elves have infra-vision.

Sorrow decided to creep over (Attlee and Burrito clung on stationary at their perches). He searched for traps ("no traps here") and let himself down. Then he got cold feet, and clambered back over.

A minute later, the spot of the wall where Sorrow had traversed, was lit of by a bright light, as if by a searchlight, from the other side. The gaps between the palisade logs shone like glowing ribbons.

Attlee and Burrito jumped down, and the whole group made a hasty retreat, and melted into the buildings of the far side of the road.

An hour or so later, they decided another probe was in order, but at a different part of the wall. This time, only Attlee and Sorrow attempted it. They climbed the palisade, perched, waited for a lull in the guards, and then Sorrow climbed over. And then back. This time Attlee would stay perched, tens of paces away from Sorrow's traverse, so that he could watch what happened.

Sure enough, the searchlight came on, but less time this time. It was from the roof-top of one of the low buildings in the distance. But the light shone directly at Attlee. He shrieked like a girl and dropped down.

They bid a hasty retreat.