Betrayal?

[Part of knowing where another group's secret base is located, gives you the ability to know when/if they discover your secret base. The Budgie Smugglers had located the Insular Rogues base a few months ago. Today, the group found out that the Insular Rogues now knew the location of their base.]

1G Conch

Esme, the crew's secretary, did her normal mail-run to the Luscious Pixie and returned up with a shoe-box addressed to the Budgie Smugglers. No-one was brave enough to open it until Attlee [Kevin] stepped forward.

Inside the shoe-box was a conch shell; about the size of a lady's shoe. There was a note too. It was from Sly Dunbar: "Use this to contact me. Sly Dunbar, Liaison of the Wizards' Guild". Attlee held it to his ear.

"Hello?" he said.

After a short time came the reply.

"Dis is Sly Dunbar," said a voice in a strong Pensive accent. "Liaison to de Wizards' Guild. Whom be I addressin'?"

"Um, Attlee."

They talked a bit. This conch was a communication device. It was a "1G conch" which meant it was only good for communications to and from its twin back at the Guild. If Dunbar needed to contact the party, he could make it scream like a klaxon horn. Similarly, Attlee could return the screaming-favour by pressing on the shell end.

Worried about being eavesdropped upon, the group insisted that Attlee store the conch down in the vault.

Nevertheless, Huilam [Jamie] and Tylin [Ian] soon used the conch to speak to Dunbar to arrange a meeting at the Wizards' Guild; they had some more points to discuss about Daisy.

So, those two left for the Guild. Attlee, with his powerful magic (the IMAG skull), was not welcome!

The remaining party split up into two squads.

Burrito [Darryl], Sorrow [Jeff], Attlee, Argile [Richard] & Dee Dee [Steven] went to stake out Daisy's house in Duke Street; day and night.

El Cid [Shane], Moonlight [Chris] & Ronny [Deacon] went searching down the sewers looking for Simone's jewellery (which El Cid had wrapped up and dumped last score, after they captured her). He was hoping it would be stuck in the sewers or floating in the Scab River.

Down in the sewers, they found a hot trail [good rolls], and sure enough, Simone's robe had caught on a piece of reinforcing rod protruding from one of the exit pipes where the Duke Street sewer emptied into the Scab River. They unwrapped it, and inside was all Simone's jewellery and the brooch, safe and sound.

To find a safe place to hide it, in case it was tracked, the three headed to Moonlight's Caribou Gorn Grove in the Holbein woods, to Moonlight's charred log cabin (where Dee Dee had been burned by the wizards, last score).

El Cid and Ronny then left Moonlight, and journeyed back to town to tell the rest of the group the good news: that the jewellery had been recovered so quickly.

Exactly now, Huilam and Tylin were chatting away to Dunbar, when a generic wizard sidled into the

room and stage-whispered into Dunbar's ear.

Sly Dunbar, WG liaison

"Simone's gear...," he said hoarsely. "... moved ... Caribou Grove."

Huilam jumped up and interrupted before Dunbar could answer.

"Excusez-moi messieurs!" he said in panicked elvish. "We... um.. know of zis."

Dunbar and the other wizard spun and stared at him, slack-jawed.

"You do, mon?" said Dunbar. "We be locatin' de felons who stole Simone's stuff."

"Zat would be our group," said Huilam. "We were.. uh searching for it. Part of ze investigation of Simone."

"Then I won't be callin' in a fire strike. Who will the Hit Team meet when they arrive?"

"Zat would be Moonlight, El Cid and Ronny."

"Recover the items," Dunbar told the other wizard. "But leave the group unscathed."

The other wizard nodded and left.

________________________________________________

A short time later, the generic wizard arrived back, carrying all of Simone's jewellery.

Simone Ender's 2G Brooch

"Your elven druid friend is okay," said the wizard to Huilam. "We didn't kill him."

Dunbar picked out the brooch from the pile of Simone's costly jewellery, and gave it to Huilam.

"That's a 2G Brooch," he said. "Is better than the conch. 2G means it goes tru' an 'Exchange', so you be callin' the exchange lady and you be tellin' her who you want to talk to. An she put you tru'. The gems be the 'go' and 'stop' buttons."

_________________________________________

Later, Huilam used the brooch to contact Daisy.

Daisy Crown

Tylin joined him at the Guild and they went into an interview room with Daisy.

They asked all they could about her movements, her links to Simone and Dalila, and such stuff. She didn't have any suspicions about her position on the council being compromised either.

"They would just replace us," she said.

But all these political ramifications had been discussed last time, so they didn't go into that again.

Daisy was into luxuries like Simone, but not so much into Furs R Us. However, her vice was pleasure. But they could not wheedle from her the exact ... flavour.

They got onto talking about the Teleport spells. There were a many variants of the spell that Daisy was happy to wax on loquaciously all about. This was her specialty, after all.

• Dimension Door Teleport, which was a single-word, self, short range (200 paces), line-of-sight spell. 
• Get Me Home Teleport; a trigger word teleports (only) the wizard to a pre-defined location. From anywhere in the Known World.
• Risky Teleport, which used the WGPS (Wizards' Guild Positioning System). This coordinate system allows any location in the Known World to be targetted accurate to a finger-width*. But this spell had a tangible risk (about 2%) of missing the target and arriving in a random spot: normally distributed with a Standard Deviation of exp(pi)paces (about 23m). Can take a guest too. 
• Safe Teleport, which used the WGPS with no risk. Can take a guest.
• Succour. [Like a HP port-key], an object would be imbued with the magic and when touched or triggered, behaves like a Get Me Home. Can take guests if all hold the toucher.

With all these spells, the destination site needs to be clear. Gasses are pushed away with a loud pop. Teleporting into solids means instant death. Teleporting into liquids also does not work because liquids are not compressible and the expansion of the arriving body occurs faster than the speed of sound through the liquid, so from the teleporter's point of view, it might was well be a solid.

* = WGPS uses polar coordinates plus height. The world is an infinite plane but only illuminated where the fighting gods REAL and IMAG roll around the Great Circle. This circle is 5000 stades in radius. [Treat a "stade" here as a kilometre.] Scholars (FW priests) have determined that "significant life" only extends 20,000 stades from the centre of the circle. The fighting gods are up at 3500 stades high. Thus, this defines the parameters of the WGPS 30-digit coordinate system. One coordinate is distance from the centre of the Great Circle and can be expressed in 10 digits. The second coordinate is the angle, zero degrees being the Specularum meridian. It is expressed as 11 digits (degrees, arc-minutes, arc-seconds, milli-arc-seconds and tenths). At 20,000 stades, one tenth of a milli-arc-second is about 10mm. The third coordinate is the height - another 9 digits required.  The centre of the Great Circle moves slowly in a random walk (2.5m a day), so WGPS coordinates are based on a "WGPS Origin" rather than the actual origin.
_________________________________________

Lido

That evening, just after dark, Attlee started fitting, like he had a Tourette's tick, and muttered and grumbled to himself. He was, in fact, talking to Lido.

Lido was saying (in Attlee's head): "You have to go and see Clara. Otherwise she will cause trouble."

"No no!" grumbled Attlee. "We are not working for IMAG again. The group said a clear no. No."

"There will be trouble," said Lido. "She is threatening me. Are you threatening me? Are you?"

"You can talk to her?"

"No," said Lido. "But the Foundling can. I talk to the Foundling. Words. Feelings. I get them all. Clara talks to them and I hear."

"'Them'? Who is them?"

"The Foundling. They use the 'they' pronoun."

"How long have you been able to do this?" asked Attlee.

"For always."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You never asked!"

"Well, then tell them to tell her no."

There was a short delay.

"The Foundling ...they say, she ... is angry. Clara is angry."

______________________________________________

Burrito, Sorrow, Attlee, Argile & Dee Dee had been staking out Daisy's residence all day. There were always two or three gardeners. It didn't take long to work out that the garden was very well-kempt and that they were all just doing busy-work.

After dark, the gardeners left (two were followed - neither went to the Wizards' Tower). Lights came on in the house, the same as previous nights, and (legitimate) shadows moved around inside.

Moonlight joined this group after dark, and cast a Detect Magic from the road. The spell effect covered the whole front yard and the front of the house. There was no magic anywhere in the yard, and nothing on the house structures (windows, doors, walls, roof). Only some items inside the place.

Dee Dee also had a look around in the Duke Street sewers adjacent to the property, but there were no pipes that headed off under Daisy's house.

Later on in the night, Sorrow, Attlee and Burrito sneaked on to the property and around the back, quiet as the grave. There was an outhouse out the back. Presumably it wasn't plumbed into any sewer lines.

Sorrow found a good hiding place in some shrubbery over the back fence in the adjacent property (which had a house of similar generic style and wealth), and observed all night.

They returned home just before light.
____________________________________________________

The next morning, Esme came in with the mail from the Luscious Pixie notice board.

There was a terse message from Lieutenant Chung: "Get here now!"

So, the whole group turned up to the Knives. The news wasn't good.

"You know how we were making you a lasso to stop Daisy Crown from teleporting?" asked Chung.

Nods all around.

"Well," he said. "The wizard who we commissioned to build that ... is no more. His whole place has
been burned. No sign of him. No body even. Any ideas?"

Shaking heads all around.

"Do you trust your staff, Lieutenant?" said Huilam.

"Only three people in the Knives know of these plans," said Chung. "Me, my PA Sandra, and my assistant, Corporal Evans. And I would trust them both with my life. Are you sure of your crew?"

Nods all around. But not-so-certain nods.

"This puts a brake on the mission," said Chung. "Do you feel confident you can take Ms Crown without the lasso? It would be possible, but I suggest we... you ... find and seal the leak first before we go further."

Nods all around. They slunk off home.
________________________________________________________

During the ensuring “discussions” back at base, the conch blared its klaxon sound. Dunbar had some urgent news, but wouldn't say it over the conch. So Huilam and Tylin went to see him.

Sly Dunbar told them that the Guild had an anonymous tip-off, last night, that there was a "wizard of interest" hired by "certain parties" (it did not say), "doing things to compromise Daisy Crown's location" and then passed on some other critical information. Using this, and their own location magic, they homed in on an address in Downtown, and sent in a hit team.

A freelance wizard named Wilson lived there, but he had magical alarms and traps, so it ended in a fire-fight, literally. Wilson was killed and the whole building was consumed in a fiery conflagration. But the wizards did recover his charred body.
____________________________________________________________

Back at the base, talk was prolific. Did they have a leak? [They all knew about Attlee's skull out-of-character, of course, and suspected the leak was via Clara, but none of this was in-character.]

It was decided that maybe it was them, especially since there were only three knives who knew. After all, they did have some auxiliary staff, like Esme and the SAT secretary, and the Insight and Prowess experts often popped in and out.

So, it was decided that Dee Dee would use her Detect Lie feat on everyone. The question was, "did you betray the plan to make the lasso to the Wizards' Guild?"

Everyone said "NO" of course, including Attlee. And no-one was lying. [Attlee had no idea even if it was the IMAGs who betrayed anyway, even in-character].

That cleared everyone except Dee Dee herself... Or Dee Dee and an associate whom she covered.

Nab Daisy Prep

[ We started the evening with Downtime activities. Sorrow [Jeff] and Ronny [Deacon] were marmalading ]

Lieutenant Anton Chung of the Knives

There was a note at the Luscious Pixie from Lieutenant Anton Chung. So the group headed to the Council buildings (Knives' base) and met with Anton, and, as expected, he had the job to capture the last of the witches' triumvirate, Daisy Crown. But before Anton could go into detail, El Cid [Shane] interrupted.

"Could we have safely got Simone's jewellery?" he asked. "Without being tracked?"

"You would need a Faraday cage," said Chung. "It's a metal cage that is sealed, and has to be connected by a chain to a metal pole driven into the ground. Named after the wizard Faraday."

Then Chung outlined the job. Daisy's teleport would be a problem. But the resourceful Knives had a solution.

"A Faraday cage would work," said Chung. "But hard to get her in it! However, we can get an item fashioned to help you. A hair-net, a sack or a lasso. If you can get this attached to her, even just around a finger or foot, it will prevent her teleporting out. But ... but, first, we need a piece of her to get the item made: hair, skin, blood, fingernails, sweat, any bit. So your first job will be to get this piece."

The group nodded as their minds started running over-time.

"This entire job will not be easy," said Chung. "14 COIN for successful capture."

___________________________________________________________


When they got back to their lair, they swung past the Luscious Pixie again, and there was a new note there. From Sly Dunbar, Liaison of the Wizards Guild, addressed to Rita.

"I have power of attorney for Rita," volunteered Huilam [Jamie], justifying his opening the letter. He read it and then said: "Sly Dunbar has a job for us. Meet him at the Wizards' Guild."

So, Huilam, Tylin [Ian] and Attlee [Kevin] went to the Wizards' Tower. In the foyer of the tower, Sly Dunbar met them. But he baulked at Attlee.

Sly Dunbar, WG Liaison

"You can't be comin' in here, man," he said to Attlee. "You be holdin' dem powerful jar-wobble magic."

"Who me?" said Attlee, guessing it was Lido (his magic IMAG skull).

"You be waitin' outside. We can talk over de road."

Dunbar took them to the Tower Lookout.

"Now where's dis lady Rita?" said Dunbar.

"Sadly, we 'ave parted ze ways," said Huilam.

"Dat's a pity. I trusted her. But, still, you be doin' good work for us wid grapes crate."

They all nodded.

"Anyways," said Dunbar. "We be needin' some experts to help track us some mages. Two of our lady wizards be goin' missin'." He produce some superb laminated glossy pictures of Dalila Hornsby and Simone Ender, and jabbed at them with his chubby blinged fingers. "Dese two. We have some wizard trackers after them already, man, but we be wantin' some mundanes to track 'em as well: you!"

"We be payin' on results. 10 COIN per lady. Can you do this?"

Huilam nodded sagaciously. Then he and Tylin managed to weasel out of Sly that the two missing witches were linked to a third one, and that it would be most helpful to meet her too.

"Good then," nodded Dunbar. "You be comin' back here tomorrow mornin'. I be givin' you some aid in da way of magic. And I'll be bringin' de other one of the tree: Miss Crown."
___________________________________________________________

Anton Chung had given the group Daisy Crown's residential address, so they scoped out her house.

Like Simone Ender, Daisy Crown also lived on Duke street. (Duke St was one of the significant roads in Scabport where people of moderate wealth would live. The filthy rich took up residence in the Mansion District, but the rest of high society congregated around the the Royal end of Duke street.)

Unlike Simone's burned ruin, Daisy's bungalow was intact. The party set up round-the-clock surveillance. El Cid and Moonlight [Chris] by day, and Dee Dee [Steven] and Argile [Richard] at night.

They also set up watches on both sides of the Wizard's tower. Burrito [Darryl] at the back. Attlee at the front. And Tylin inside the Tower Lookout inn too.
___________________________________________________________

Next morning, the same three returned to the Tower Lookout. Sly was there, joined by the buxom Daisy Crown. Sly introduced her to the group, not knowing that they knew her, of course.

Daisy Crown

Daisy looked them all over coolly. Huilam hoped that she didn't recognize him from the other day. Tylin was pretty sure that she would not recognize him (his disguise was good). And Attlee was not worried at all; he was on the cart, so was never in Daisy's line of sight before she teleported away.

Nevertheless, she stared long and hard at Attlee.

"Powerful magic on that one, Dunbar." she said.

"Yes Ms," said Sly. "I be refusin' to let him in the tower because of it."

Daisy whispered something to Sly. He nodded.

She stood up and suddenly cast a spell at Attlee.

Attlee stumbled back in alarm, but didn't feel anything untoward. Though, the air around him shimmered in a light purple haze.

Daisy frowned.

"You are soaked in evil," she said. "It is palpable. Dripping. Coming from your pack."

Attlee sheepishly nodded, but before he could speak, Huilam did.

"He has a gift from IMAG," said Huilam.

Attlee's porter stout

"Dat would explain why you REAL priestess be leavin' you," said Sly Dunbar with an abrupt laugh to Huilam.

Attlee went to collect drinks for the table. Sly and Daisy already had elvin wine, but the rest were thirsty. He got some wine for Huilam and Tylin, and some porter stout for himself. As he was sitting down with the drinks, he clumsily up-ended his entire glass all over Daisy's decolletage.

She shrieked and stood up. Attlee mopped at her chest frantically with a filthy rag, and, in doing so, grabbed some of her stray hairs (she had very long hair, so this was not difficult). Daisy shooed away his groping hands and greasy rag.

Eventually, Daisy got cleaned-up by bar staff, regained her composure and everyone sat down again. Attlee surreptitiously pocketed the hairs.

They all got talking. The group wanted to know if there were any theories linking the three women together. Neither Sly or Daisy could think of anything. The three ladies were in a sub committee of the Wizards' council, to be sure. But it didn't really have any major powers, and missing all three would not diminish the power or functioning of the guild.

Sly added: "Oh, the three are the Wizards' Guild representatives bein' on the Scabport Town Council. But I don't tink dat is significant."

"And the next meeting isn't for another two weeks," Daisy interrupted. "And there are not really any contentious issues as far as I know. And if we went missing, say, they'd need to re-assign our positions before the meeting could continue, anyway."

Huilam quizzed them on the Scabport Council make-up. There are 16 on the Council: 5 Knives, 3 Wizards Guild, 3 from the TGP, 1 from the REAL (light) temple, 1 from IMAG (dark) temple, and 3 from the group of other ten major temples on a rotating basis: Nuke (war), Olive (peace), 69 (lust), 21 (luck), Hob (fire), Aquamarina (water), FunkenWagnall (knowledge), Kliban (fate), Methuselah (time), Caribou Gorn (earth). And draws are settled by the Mayor, himself, Scarface McGee of the Knives.

TP beacon

Sly took out an item and placed it on the table. It had a metallic head, the size of a cup, mounted on a wooden handle.

"This be a beacon," said Sly. "If you be findin' the ladies, one or boat, you be breakin' de head off dis. Them send us a magical signal and de Hunter Squad will be dere shorter 'n one minute."

"Hunter squad?" asked Huilam.

"A group of mages who can teleport," said Daisy. "I would suggest you take cover when you activate the beacon. When they arrive, they tend to kill anything that moves. Then ask questions later."

__________________________________________________________

Some of the party visited Furs R Us to keep up some pretense of investigating the missing Simone on behalf of the wizards. The predominant story from eye-witnesses to the capture the other day, was that two women were captured: a busty one and a slight one, and then they were bundled into a magical silent cart, which drove away and vanished.  Of course, the party did nothing to dispel this narrative.

Interestingly also, there had been two other groups of questioners before the party. Wizard investigators and Knives Investigators.

__________________________________________________________

The watchers of Daisy's house didn't see anything unusual.

The house seemed to be occupied by someone all the time. It had active gardeners and groundsmen in the yard during the day, and it was lit at night. They did not see Daisy come or go by road; but maybe she just teleported in and out. They might have expected the loud POP of a teleport; though, a silent or sealed room would prevent this.

________________________________________________

Huilam, Attlee and Tylin visited Chung with Daisy's hair.

"That was quick!" said Chung. "Sometimes you lot surprise me."

He took the hair carefully.

"You need to choose now, what item you want: hair-net, sack or lasso?"

Lasso

"Lasso, please," said Huilam dryly. Indeed, the group had spent many long hours debating the benefit of lasso over sack over hair-net. The hair-net was discounted pretty fast, but the arguments of lasso versus sack raged on and on. In the end, consensus wasn't quite achieved, but there were only a few sack dissenters.

"This will be ready in a few days," said Chung. "I will send for you."

__________________________________________________________

That evening, around midnight, Daisy visited the Tower Lookout with a couple of mages. Tylin maintained his spot in the shadows and just watched. Daisy & Co left at closing time.

At least this meant she was venturing out.

___________________________________________________________

Only four of the group could read: Huilam, Attlee, Ronny and Tylin [reading requires the STUDY action] so the next day, the three (sans marmalading Ronny) went to the Funken Wagnall temple to check the library there. They wanted to explore the subtleties of the Scabport Town Council constitution and meeting protocol. The party was convinced that this was the reason that the Knives wanted the triumvirate out of the way.

They checked the rules for accession to the Council.

• If a rep is not attending permanently (known dead, insane or resigned) from a council meeting, then the rep must be replaced before the start of the next meeting. The new rep is chosen by the relevant group. If this selection is not done by the meeting time, the meeting is postponed. 
• If a rep is not attending but is contactable (ill), then the rep can use a proxy vote. 
• If a rep is not attending and is not contactable (unconscious or missing), then the relevant group puts forward a "temporary rep". When the original returns, s/he replaces the temp rep. 

All very straight forward.

The next council meeting was in 15 days' time. The agenda was not out yet, but this was understandable since it need only be provided with three days' advance.

While they were at the library, Huilam decided to do some research on Michael Stringfellow.

He had published a book, in fact.

Scab allergy

In the restricted section of the library, Huilam found a very dry book called "Allergic Lift Showmen; a treatise on the Milling of Cartwheels" by Michael Stringfellow, et al. It was about recent Scabport scab (white asparagus) cultivar breakthroughs, and prevention of scab allergies through breeding. So, Michael Stringfellow was a scabotanist then?

A "Cartwheel" was a type of scab (the cross-section of the stalk looked like a cartwheel), and "milling" was colloquial term for harvesting scabs. Huilam had no idea what "lift showmen" were, and the book didn't talk about them.

The book had a dedication too: "To my Cellmate, Rolf Wishing."

Interestingly, in the "et al." section, the other authors, presumed scabotanists, were listed: Nigel Willem Ashcroft, Lief Hasting Cromwell, "Cowgirl" Mella Fishnet, Charlie Melting-flows, and Jack Sparrow.

"Jack freaking Sparrow!" exclaimed Huilam.

"Shhhh!" said the stern Restricted-Section librarian, a priestess of Funken Wagnall.

Tylin and Attlee wandered over and peered at the book too.

Unlike all of the scabotanists, the name "Jack Sparrow" was the only anti-anagram there of "Michael Stringfellow".

"So, Jack Sparrow is Michael Stringfellow..."

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".
_____________________________________________________________________

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. ]