Michael Stringfellow 1

[Marmalading: Argile(Richard), Ronny(Deacon), Dee Dee(Steven) & Burrito(Darryl). ]

Knives Lieutenant Anton Chung

Daisy Crown was spending all her time at the Wizards' Guild, so the group decided that her score was too difficult. They finally relented and gave up on her, and chose to go for another one of their potential jobs; the Michael Stringfellow score.

The entire party went to the Scabport Town Council headquarters to contact Knives Lieutenant Chung and tell him the news. They confirmed that they would drop the Daisy Crown job, and take on the Stringfellow score. Chung was disappointed, but he understood.

The job was to remove prisoner Michael Stringfellow from Scabport prison leaving no trace, and to execute him; "vanish" him. Chung said he could arrange to get some of them into the prison as trainee guards to scout things out.

The Scabport Prison is a small prison on Prison island, in the middle of Scabport harbour. It was mainly for political prisoners, hostages and important people whom the Knives wanted out of the way.

Most "normal" criminals in Scabport were dealt with summarily by the roving patrols of Knives (and, to a lesser extent, by the TGP - Thieves' Guild Police). Either they would be severely beaten up in the streets, or just killed in situ.

This job was from higher up in the Knives' management, and they wanted secrecy, so even though the Knives ran the prison, the normal rank and file of the Knives would be kept in the dark. So the party would get no help from the lesser ranks, or the prison staff.

It would pay 11 COIN.

The next morning, at first light, Sorrow [Jeff] and El Cid [Shane] reported down at the docks. They were greeted by a Sergeant Skipper from the prison. He surveyed them with disdain. He approved of the build of El Cid, but scrawny half-elf Sorrow was not so good; and those creepy black eyes - eww!. So, he gave Sorrow a spar to test him. Sorrow managed to stand up for himself remarkably well [lucky 6 rolled]. Satisfied, Skipper invited them to board the prison shallop boat. The shallop sailed out into the Scab river and, after a 30 minute trip, arrived at to Prison Island.

Scabport Prison

The prison was a stone structure half-carved into and half-built onto Prison Island. It was about 80 paces by 50 in size, four storeys tall, with two towers. So was quite small.

The shallop docked at a wooden jetty,  and they entered the prison through a large sturdy door - the only door. There were a few windows high up.

The boat unloaded some supplies and the passengers (Sorrow, El Cid, Sergeant Skipper and another guard), and then left again. Sergeant Skipper said it would return tomorrow.

There were 21 guards here, of which 2 were women and 3 were half elves (and one of the women was a half-elf). The commander of the prison was Second Lieutenant Sharples (another woman).
So, with El Cid and Sorrow, this brought the number to 24 in total.

There were 20 cells and 11 prisoners - all male (2 half-elves, 1 elf, 1 dwarf).

There was a kitchen, store room, armoury, a "lounge" and barracks, a central court-yard, and Sharples' office. The actual cells were around the outside wall of the prison, with no windows except for a small pipe to the outside for waste. At one end, of the guard lounge ("mess"), there was "the Plank", which was a thick board, two storeys up, above the Scab harbour. Skipper said this was used for executions - the wretch would fall into the river and be eaten by Scabport eels or sharks. More often than not, it was guards who were the ones executed.

The two towers had two ballistas each. They were continuously manned by three guards each. They would shoot any boat that approached closer than a set of buoys moored in the harbour about 200 paces in all directions. All Scabport shipping was directed to avoid this Prison Island area, of course.

Prison Island was close (500 paces) to the Scabport lighthouse, so during the night, the beam would shine over the prison and its surrounds every minute. So the prison had no need to have their own search lights.

Michael Stringfellow was identified by Sorrow & El Cid. He was in cell 11. Most of the prisoners were harmless, except for the ones in rooms 2, 3 and 4. They were marked as "insanely dangerous". One was the dwarf Churl Harken Rockbrother.

There were three watches per day and each guard needed to serve in two of them (so, 14 per watch).

Ballista practice was held daily, where they would try to shoot the buoys. (Replacement bolts were brought in with the supplies each morning.)

2nd Lieutenant Sharples

With the best wind, it was a five minute trip, by boat, from the buoy line to the prison jetty, but in that time, your boat would be raked with ballista bolts. They could fire 3 bolts a minute. Even at the best approach, you would still have two ballistas able to target you (better than all four). In theory, a bolt had enough power to easily penetrate a shallop's hull.

Second Lieutenant Sharples was a bitch and a bully, because she was bitter that she was only a 2nd Lieutenant.  She would beat or punch any guard who looked at her funny. All the guards were terrified of her. El Cid and Sorrow ended up with black-eyes and fat lips within the hour. Now they understood why the Plank was used on staff.

There was a large ring of keys for all the cells, and this was kept in Sharples' office, but Sorrow tried and easily picked door 11's lock.

While Sorrow and El Cid were at the prison, that night, Tylin, Huilam and Lammy visited the Tower View inn (the inn across the road from the Wizards' Guild tower) to see if Daisy Crown would visit. Sure enough, around midnight, she arrived with four escort wizards. They drank and chatted. The three inveigled themselves into her group. Daisy took a charm to Tylin sharing his anti-half-elf racism (much to (half-elf) Huilam's annoyance).
___________________________________________________________

After the day and night, which was their trial, Sorrow and El Cid returned to Scabport on the morning boat.

Tylin [Ian] & Huilam [Jamie] went and saw freelance wizard Lance the Septum, and asked him about the Get Me Home teleport spell. He knew a bit about the mechanics of teleport, but this spell was outside his skills. He said only a handful of Scabport wizards could cast that spell.  The two asked him if it was possible to tie that spell to an object, and he said maybe.

But he could make an Invisibility potion. It would last 30 mins, and would cost 8 COIN.

Daisy Crown

That evening, Tylin, Huilam and Lammy [Kevin] visited the Tower View again, and Daisy was there again. They asked her if the Get Me Home spell could be put into a one-shot item, and did she have the skill (and time) to do that. Yes, she could technically. It would cost 12 COIN, but WG jobs were contracted through the Wizards' Guild Liaison Sly Dunbar. Also, she would need the WGPS coordinates of the target location.  But any wizard could get those if he visited the site of the target. Every wizard was taught how to calculate the 30-digit coordinates during Basic Training. She also pointed out them that if the destination or the source was in a Faraday cage, then the spell would fail.

The party had a plan.

The would get a Get Me Home item manufactured, and get Stringfellow to trigger it, and thus he'd teleport out. Even though they would lose money on this score (they'd be paid 11 COIN to get him out but would cost them 12 COIN for the Get Me Home), it was a matter of honour now to break him out. Besides, they might be able to leverage him in some way with the Scab sellers, if he was in fact Jack Sparrow the scabotanist.

There was a problem that if the prison cells had Faraday cages around them, they would need to get Stringfellow into a clear area, like the Plank or the open courtyard.
___________________________________________________________

WG Liaison Sly Dunbar

The next morning, Sorrow and El Cid met the prison shallop at the docks and signed a contract to be a "trial guard" for a week, then sailed out to the prison.

Later that morning, Huilam, Moonlight [Chris], Tylin & Lammy went to see Chung, and asked him if the prison cells had Faraday cages around them.

"Goodness me, no," said Chung. "Those are far too expensive. And we don't keep wizards in there anyway."

That settled it. So Tylin & Lammy went to the Wizards' Guild, with the party wagon loaded with silver, and met with Sly Dunbar. They signed a contract with the Guild to make a Get Me Home stick for 12 COIN. They paid 6 COIN in advance and would pay another 6 on delivery.

Yet More Daisy Prep

[Argile (Richard) marmalading.]

Lance the Septum

Lieutenant Chung told the group that Lance the Septum would be at the inn Oyster and Evergreen Limpet, so Sorrow [Jeff] and El Cid [Shane] turned up, well-disguised. The disguise turned out to be futile anyway, because Chung had told Lance to expect a visit from representatives of the Budgie Smugglers. As the elves would say: c'est la vie.

They got down to brass tacks and asked Lance about the Clairvoyance spell. Yes, he could certainly cast that spell. Yes, it would show the inside of the house; one could "move the scrying camera" in a limited way. The range was unlimited, but line-of-sight. So, Lance would need to see the house wall or a window. But he warned that, if there was magical detection, then it would spot the "scrying camera" and, while it wouldn't reveal who cast it, it would certainly reveal that the place was being scried.

They didn't want to take any risks, so they bid Lance good bye and skulked off into the night.

So much for that idea, then

_____________________________________

Later that night, about 5 be'light [2 am], Tylin [Ian], Sorrow and Lammy [Kevin] went to visit Daisy's house again. Sorrow silently shepherded Lammy to the back of Daisy's grounds, and got him to cast Detect Magic from the safety of the hide. Bits of the house's back wall had traces of magic, some magic inside, and the back door was also magic.

"Best not enter that way," whispered Lammy.

This was different to the front door, where Moonlight [Chris] had cast Detect Magic upon on a previous evening. So, Sorrow snuck Lammy back out to the road, and he then cast another Detect Magic from there. The front door was still not ensorcelled.

So, Lammy and Sorrow approached the front door. All was quiet and still. somewhere, off in the distance, a dog barked. Sorrow checked for traps on the door. There were none. But Sorrow couldn't get the lock picked. So, ham-fisted Lammy tried it with his own tools - a piece of wire and a bent teaspoon. Click! "Ha!"

Sorrow pulled Lammy back to the road. If something went wrong, they didn't want a clumsy mage tripping over his own velour robes.

Sorrow snuck back to the door alone, and opened the now-unlocked door, on silent freshly-oiled hinges. Crash! Broken bottles and falling tin cans and cutlery inside. It was trapped after all!

Lights came on inside.

Sorrow scarpered. And he, Tylin and Lammy fled down the road.

So much for that idea, then.

______________________________________________

From a previous foray, they knew where one of Daisy's gardeners lived. So, they took Lammy there, and he cast a Charm on him. The gardener was more than happy to spill his guts:

• Daisy does not come to her house much these days. He had heard through the grapevine that she had a bounty on her head.
• She was there about a week ago, but she didn't over-night.
• The gardener never went inside the house, but he did gossip with the maids and scullery girls.
• There wasn't much to do in the garden, so they gave him a lot of busy-work.

____________________________________________________

1G Conch

That night, Lammy went to the Wizards' Guild to stay-over.

Liaison Sly Dunbar summoned him, and demanded that the group take back the 1G conch.

"I need it to be contacting your Budgie Smugglers when I want," he said.

Since the party had now re-hidden their lair, Lammy did not want to risk the WG locating the lair via the conch (the spell Local Object could easily do this), so Lammy took it to the Budgie Smugglers' notice board in the Luscious Pixie tavern, and hung it next to the party's notice board.

_____________________________________________________

It was well-known that Daisy Crown liked expensive jewellery; her vice was Luxury. So, the next plan was to create a rumour that Theresa Jeven (she was the one the group had faux-kidnapped a few scores' ago) had lost a necklace with diamonds the size of plover eggs, and the group knew who had found it.

The seed of this rumour grew surprisingly well [a critical was rolled] and, the next day, Sonny Bowens of the Bronze Studs contacted the group with a job.

Sonny had been contacted by Booker Dobbs, of the Insular Rogues. Dobbs allegedly had a buyer for the necklace. He was to meet the sellers at the Scarlet Monkey.

So, Huilam [Jamie], Sorrow, Ronny [Deacon] and El Cid disguised-up, and went to meet Booker.

Booker confirmed that they had a buyer for the necklace but, of course, wouldn't say who it was.
But then the party wouldn't show him anything.

The party left the tavern to head back to their lair, but Sorrow noticed that they had a tail. It was a half-elf girl.

So, Ronny intercepted her, and "guided" her into another inn the Salacious Succubus.

Huilam, Sorrow and El Cid joined them at the table, and questioned her. She succumbed pretty quickly, with minimal resistance (thanks to Ronny's charms), and confirmed she was an Insular Rogue.

Ronny plied his charms, and kept her occupied for the night while the rest of us slipped away and returned to base.
___________________________________________

Daisy Crown

That evening, Tylin, Huilam  and Lammy went to the Tower View on the off chance that Daisy would turn up. Sure enough, around midnight, she turned up with four wizard escorts.

Daisy welcomed the three to join them at her table, and they chatted away.

She said that she avoided staying at her house, these days, for obvious reasons, and thus spent most of her time safe in the Guild.

Talk moved on to the up-and-coming Scabport City Council meeting
where the triumvirate (Daisy, Simone and Dalila) was supposed to be present. This was seven days away now. And there was still no agenda.

Daisy's racism also came to the fore.

"How do you manage to live with yourself?" said Daisy, commenting on Sorrow and Huilam's half-elf-ness. "Must be hard not being pure. Half-cast."

That said, Tylin, a pure elf himself, agreed with her wholeheartedly.

_______________________________________________

The next day, Tylin went again to meet Booker Dobbs offering to fence the virtual jewellery.

Booker offered 15 COIN. But he wanted to actually see the necklace.

Of course, Tylin couldn't produce anything.

"No reveal," Booker said. "No deal. Now, piss off, elf."

Scoping Daisy

[Marmaladers: Ronnie(Deacon) & Argile(Richard)

First hour was spent doing Downtime Activities.
8 COIN, +2 REP, +4 HEAT. Notable events: 

• The party created a new Hidden Lair. They know that the Insular Rogues had not yet re-hidden their lair. They also knew that the fact they had made their lair hidden again, the IRs would know this..
• El Cid[Shane] over-indulged his vice (Pleasure) and pissed off Madam Lash, his vice peddler, so has to get a new peddler (from the limited supply).
• Dee Dee[Steven] over-indulged her vice (Pleasure) and shopped Moonlight[Chris] to the Knives (to a faction independent of Chung), and Moonlight got the snot beaten out of him. +2 HEAT.

]

William "Lammy" Lamb

William "Lammy" Lamb [Kevin], wizard, was officially inducted into the Budgie Smugglers, and took the guarantee-to-be-loyal blood-oath. Burrito[Darryl] was happy to extract the blood.

Then the group reviewed all the current jobs on offer:

1. Wizards' Guild - recover the two missing Triumvirate witches Dalila Hornsby and Simone Ender. 20 COIN (10 each).
2. Knives - Kidnap the third Triumvirate Witch Daisy Crown. 14 COIN.
3. Knives - Vanish Michael Stringfellow (they suspected this was Jack Sparrow) from the Scabport Prison. 11 COIN.
4. IMAG - Spread IMAG skulls about the city. 12 COIN.
5. REAL - Locate the Wraith King's spawn in the Graveyard district, and call in the Paladin Strike Force.  9 COIN.

They decided that job 1 would be too difficult (even though it did pay 20), so they officially pulled-out. Correspondingly, they sent William Lamb to the Wizards' Guild to tell this to the Liaison Sly Dunbar. Lammy returned all the magic items that Dunbar had given the party: The 1G Conch, the 2G Brooch and the TP Beacon. Lammy also had his own brooch which he dutifully returned as well.

Daisy Crown;
WG Triumvirate Witch

The group decided to return to the Daisy Crown job. They knew that Lieutenant Chung was currently looking for another freelance wizard to fashion another anti-teleport device, but he had already admitted that it would be hard; the news of the death of Wilson had gone around town, and other freelance wizards were lying low.

But they thought that they might be able to grab Daisy without it. Capturing a teleporting mage is always difficult, but they did know that she used the Get Me Home spell, and thus, if they could guess where "home" was, then they could be waiting there when she next used it.  They figured that there would only be two likely locations for this spell: One in the Wizards' Guild TP room, and the other at her home in Duke Street. Note that the Teleport spell requires a safe empty location for the teleporter to appear in; if the wizard appears inside an object, she dies. So wizards are very careful about making sure that this room is empty!

So, the plan was to stake out her home 24/7. Sorrow and Tylin were sent first. Sorrow hid in his new hidey hole in the adjacent property, and Tylin out the front on the street.

Vingt-et-un Priestess Camilla Longreach

It was known that the WG used Vingt-et-un priests as contractors, so Huilam & Tylin went to the Ving-et-un temple (21, Goddess of Luck). Huilam made some subtle enquiries with Priestess Camilla [with Consort, assisted] as to significant heals on the day that Simone Ender was captured. Burrito had stabbed Daisy that day, so she would have needed healing. But Camilla could find no records of people of import injured that day.

However, it is known that 21s do make house calls, so maybe she got healed in the Guild (this wouldn't necessarily be recorded). Or, maybe Daisy got another flavour of priest, or she had potions, or other healing magic.

Back at the lair, Lammy had the idea of using a Clairvoyance spell to look inside Daisy's house from a distance. That way they could see if she had a Teleport-to room. And Clairvoyance was a wizard spell, but was far too difficult for Lammy to cast [3rd level spell]. So, they visited Lieutenant Chung to get the name of a freelance wizard who could cast this. Chung decided that it was an innocent enough request, so he gave them a name: Lance the Septum. "You lot can contract him yourselves." [Acquire an Asset downtime activity - debt.]

Lake Placid 2

[Ronny[Deacon] was marmalading]

Giselle Pentecost

Lido, Attlee's IMAG skull, was in the Panadine shower tray. A squad of six Knives had formed a shield-wall nearby, and everyone was crouched down behind it: the Panadine High Priestess Giselle Pentecost and two other Panadine priestesses, Tylin [Ian], Burrito [Darryl] and El Cid [Shane], William "Lammy" Lamb, and the hogtied Attlee [Kevin].

Lido was screaming and sobbing and pleading in Attlee's head. Attlee was struggling and thrashing about in his ropes, and twitching with palsy as he communicated back.

Giselle reached for the remote tap and turned it. Holy water poured from the shower head onto Lido.

Lido

There was a violent concussion that rented the air as Lido ... just ... exploded. The shield wall and all behind it, were blown over by the blast. Bits of Lido (chips of obsidian) were embedded in the wooden shields of the soldiers. Lido was no more.

Instantly, Attlee was engulfed in a sphere of darkness. The sphere of darkness engulfed most of the soldiers and everyone else too. They all scampered out of the damp embrace. Interestingly, Attlee could see out perfectly; as far as he was concerned, there was no sphere.

Giselle pointed a shaking finger at the sphere.

"He's an IMAG priest," she said. "He's become an IMAG priest!"

The sergeant of the soldiers drew his sword.

"I'll fix him!" he growled.

"No," said Giselle. "This is a Panadine event, so you can't break the Heresy, sergeant."

The Heresy was a world-wide agreement to stop religions fighting or harming each other during "religious events", because there were so many gods on the continuum from absolute good to absolute evil. Unfortunately, the definition of "religious event" was rather fluid. The evil religions would kill if they could get away with it, but the goody two-shoes (like Panadine) followed the Heresy rules as best they could.

They let IMAG priest Attlee free.

Party shallop Smoking Loon

[It was at this time that Kevin switched characters. I had spoken to Kevin earlier, expecting something like this. Attlee became an NPC, and Kevin now took control of wizard William "Lammy" Lamb. The players had decided that they didn't want an IMAG priest in their group, for similar reasons not wanting to have REAL priestess Rita. Plus, it gave me a chance to play-test wizards using the FitD game system with AD&D spells. ]

That afternoon, they all clambered aboard the party boat, Smoking Loon, and as they were about to sail off, a guard happened to wander down the jetty.

"Going fishing?" he asked.

They nodded.

"Well, there're good spots up both rivers," he said. "The Kringle and the Scab. But, make sure you
don't dock or go into the Lake Placid: the marsh, the bog. The Panadines claim it."

"Oh, we just fish," said Burrito.

"Yes good," said the soldier. "There are rangers in the bog. Rangers of the Knives. If you trespass there, they will kill you. Dead."

More innocent nods.

"If you want dry land, you are allowed to dock on the left bank of the Kringle or the right bank of the Scab. There aren't any gnolls or bugs about at the moment, so is not too dangerous."

More nods.

"Well," he said. "Good luck. Oh, yeah, make sure you are back here before dark. You don't want to camp out there. Dark-kin."

Sorrow [Jeff] sailed the shallop up the Kringle river for two hours, well out of sight of the temple stockade. There were no other boats around and the river was sluggish and wide. It was nice and warm in the sun and there was a gentle breeze. They anchored midstream and started to fish.

Lake Placid Marsh

There was no clear demarcation line between the river and the the marsh. Small islands of vegetation started almost midstream, and these got more numerous and thicker as you headed into the bog. On the larger of the islands, there were trees. Eventually sight was blocked entirely.

Moonlight was nominated as the bog explorer, since, as a druid, he had lots of nature knowledge. Plus he knew what the elderflower looked like. He slipped into the muddy water, up to his chest, and made his way into the swamp, and was soon lost from sight among the trees and marsh bushes.

Everyone else started to fish. Burrito shot at some water fowl and brought down plenty.

A few hours passed and Moonlight returned. He had one clump of elderflower. Lammy had ten

Elderflower

special magic bags for holding the elderflower to keep it pure and preserved, so the elderflower was placed in one. Lammy said the Wizards' Guild wanted four bunches. But it was two bells (two hours before dark), so they headed back to the temple stockade.

[DM's note: this was a very dangerous path that the group had chosen. Had any ranger come across Moonlight (1 in 6 per hour), he would have been killed automatically. He'd get a Resistance roll to not actually die, of course, but with his stress already on 5, chances are he'd use it all up, and would thus get a trauma; traumatized adventurers can do nothing except gibber traumatically. When time started to run out, the party would have to find him, which would be an ordeal in of itself. We were rolling openly, and luckily, this never happened!]

That night there was a disturbance out on the fields surrounding the stockade. It was some goblins, but it wasn't significant.

Sorrow went for a bit of a surreptitious explore into the Panadine temple itself, hoping that maybe they had a stock of elderflower. This was because all Panadine pilgrims were given a sprig as they entered the temple. But there were several sections of the structure that he couldn't get at (due to priestess activities), so he didn't find anything but sprigs.

Lammy said that a collection of elderflower sprigs would be useless for the spell - they had to be intact bunches.
__________________________________________________________________

The next morning, during breakfast, Tylin secretly wrote a letter to Lieutenant Chung. He suggested that Chung send a group of soldiers to intercept their boat before they got to Scabport, and to confiscate the elderflowers. Then the wizards could not cast the spell. Tylin took this sealed letter to Lieutenant Maudlin of the stockade, and, since he knew Chung well, he was happy to put it in with the daily dispatches.

After breakfast, they went out on the shallop for another trip. This time taking the Scab river.
Again, they docked and fished and shot water fowl.

Again, Moonlight spent a very wet day deep in the marsh. He came back, unharmed, with three bunches.

So they returned to the stockade. Mission successful.

_______________________________________________________________

Next morning they left the stockade and headed down-stream, back toward Scabport.

There was a futile goblin incident at the first night's dock,

The next day and night passed peacefully.

However, the evening before the last day of travel, there was a coach waiting for them at the public jetty as they docked.

Tarquin Formalin

There were two wizards there, who introduced themselves as Tarquin and Bernice. Tarquin Formalin demanded the bags of elderflowers. Lammy was about to hand them over, when Burrito demanded that they be paid. Tarquin said Sly Dunbar would pay the group when they arrived at the Wizards' Guild tomorrow.

Burrito refused. There was a bit of an altercation, and it ended up with Tarquin casting a Sleep spell on Burrito, dropping him. Bernice stepped back ready to cast more. No-one else in the party moved a muscle.

So the bags were taken and the coach left. Lammy decided to travel with the wizards too.

_______________________________________________________________

Sergeant Schultz (Knives)

Not having Lammy on board turned out to be insightful, because as they approached Scabport the next afternoon, a large barge approached the Smoking Loon. There were Knives on it, all with bows drawn, and they ordered the shallop to dock.


Some troops came aboard, lead by a Sergeant Schultz. He and his men searched the boat thoroughly on some pretense of "searchin' fer contraband". Sergeant Schultz was doing stage-winks the whole time at Tylin, Sorrow, Moonlight and Huilam (he was told that some elves had arranged this and they were the only pointy-earred ones). Of course, the soldiers didn't find the elderflowers.

Eventually, they let the boat continue.

Just before dark, the group docked at the Wizard's Guild pier. The WG Liaison Sly Dunbar was there, with Lammy too. He had a chest of silver, which was the party's pay.

8 COIN.

Dunbar told them that, earlier that day, the hired priest had already used the elderflowers and had cast the Regenerate spell and had regrown Wilson's vocal tract. The Speak with Dead was scheduled any minute now.

Tylin and Sorrow went straight to the Council Barracks and spoke with Chung. He tried to work out what Wilson will know.

"Well," said Chung. "You lot will be safe. Wilson doesn't know you lot from a bar of soap. But he does know me. And the Wizards will put two and two together and work out we were targeting Daisy for the lasso".

So they left him and everyone went back to their not-so-secret base.

Lake Placid

[Ronny [Deacon], Huilam [Jamie], Moonlight [Chris] and Agile [Richard] were marmalading.]

Down in the vault of the group's (not so) secret lair, the conch went off with its familiar klaxon horn. It was Wizards' Guild Liaison Sly Dunbar, and he wanted to speak to the group.

So Tylin [Ian] and Sorrow [Jeff] went to the Wizards' Guild. Sly Dunbar greeted them, and gave them a new job.

WG Liaison Sly Dunbar

Lord Aldehyde, head of the Wizards' Guild, had been silently following the progress of the score to find the missing mages (Simone and Dalila). After the Guild's Hit Team raid on the freelance wizard Wilson's house, he wanted more progress.

The Hit Team had made an effort to recover Wilson's body from the inferno. The intent was to cast Speak with Dead on it so that they could question him. They had hired a Vingt-et-Un (Luck) priest to do this. But Wilson's vocal tract had been all but destroyed by the fire, and that spell requires intact vocal chords. So, to restore the vocal tract, the wizards needed powerful priestly healing magic. The Guild happened to have an expensive Regeneration scroll in their vaults, and the hired priest could cast this, so they were set, but, one of the material components of Regeneration is a rare flower called the Elderflower. This flower only grew in a few spots around the Known World. One such spot was three days out of Scabport, up the Scab river, where the Kringle river joined it, at a place called Lake Placid.

Elderflower - material
component for Regeneration

But, Lake Placid is under the control of the priests of Panadine (goddess of Healing). They have a temple near Lake Placid, and they jealously guard the Elderflower bog (Lake Placid is only a proper lake when the river floods). The Wizards' Guild is currently at odds with the Panadines (long story), so it would be difficult to sent an official envoy to get the Elderflowers direct. This was why they couldn't just Fly there or Teleport to the bog. [Actually, not even Lord Aldehyde is high enough level to do the Safe Teleport spell anyway.]

Panadines have no temple fighters nor paladins - in fact they may not harm sentient beings - so they need hired swords to guard their temples. At this site, they have help from the Knives who have surrounded the temple with a stockade and have stationed a guard platoon of soldiers there (about 40).

The troops are especially needed here because the area around Lake Placid is not safe by any means. It is only two day's travel to the Kringle Hills (and thence the mountains) and these are infested by dark-kin (orcs, goblins, kobolds, etc). That all said, dark-kin can not survive in direct sunlight, so if these creatures go out on long forays, they need some shelter during the day (sealed bivouacs, tarpaulins and SPF 204, or IMAG stones).

In summary:

1. The Wizards' Guild would contract the Budgie Smugglers.
2. Budgie Smugglers then retrieve Elderflowers from Lake Placid.
3. Elderflowers then used to fuel a Regeneration spell to restore dead wizard Wilson's vocal tract.
4. Speak with Dead then cast upon Wilson's head to question him to find out who contracted him to make the magical lasso with which to help capture Guild witch Daisy Crown, presumably so that she could be kidnapped for political reasons unknown.

This score would pay 8 COIN.

Sorrow and Tylin told the rest of the awake Budge Smugglers (El Cid [Shane], Burrito [Darryl], Attlee [Kevin], Dee Dee [Steven]), and while they were talking-over this new job, Tylin headed off to see Lieutenant Chung.  He asked Chung specifically why the Knives actually wanted to kidnap the triumvirate of witches (Dalila, Simone and Daisy).

"It is on a 'need to know basis'," said Lieutenant Chung. "And you don't need to know."

Tylin mentioned that they were headed to the Lake Placid with the lie "to maintain their relations with the Guild with the view to getting Daisy". Chung personally knew Lieutenant Maudlin; the commander of the Lake Placid garrison. So, he wrote a letter of reference for the party.

"Watch out for the orcs," said Chung as Tylin left.

_______________________________________________________

The normal way to travel to Lake Placid was by river. So the next morning, the entire party (including the four marmaladers, who were safely stacked like chord-wood in the hold) turned up on the party shallop Smoking Loon, piloted by Sorrow, and docked at the Wizard's Tower pier, to get last instructions from Dunbar.

William "Lammy" Lamb

Dunbar was there with another fellow; a rather thin chap.

"Dis be William Lamb," said Sly Dunbar. "He knows what dem Elderflowers be lookin' like, so you'll be takin' him on the trip. He can be helpin' you wid his spells too."

William nodded to the party. He had a posh weedy voice, like a toff.

"My magic will come in handy, if required."

Straight away El Cid started to name him "Lammy".

"Da first two nights on de river will be see-af," continued Dunbar. "But the tird night could be dangerous. Dem creatures of darkness from the Kringle Hills might be comin' down to harass ye. But the next day you be gettin' to Lake Placid."

"Lammy will take care of us," said El Cid.

"And don't you be stayin' out after dark beyond that," said Dunbar. "You be stayin' safe in the Panadine stockade."

William Lamb had a 2G brooch on his robes. So he could be contacted using the party's 2G brooch. El Cid was quick to try this and did some crank calls. The group also discovered that they could connect to the conch via the 2G brooch exchange. But it was one-way: brooch to conch and not vice-versa.

The first day was uneventful, and quite relaxing; watching farmland drift past as they headed up the river. There were a few scab plantations, and some bulgur wheat farms. Not much livestock.

That night they arrived at a public jetty which they moored against, and they had a quiet night. Apart from the crank call El Cid did, through the exchange, to sound the conch, rousing everyone from their berths with the klaxon horn. How El Cid laughed.

The party shallop Smoking Loon

__________________________________________________

The next day the farms were rougher and poorer. But it was a quiet day's travel up the river.
The shallop was a yacht, so was at the mercy of the wind. If the wind was wrong, the narrow river was too small to tack on. At those times, they had to row.

That night, there was another public jetty to moor against.

____________________________________________________

The third day, the terrain was much wilder. There was only the occasional structure in view-range of the river; often they were stockades.

The jetty that night was linked to a log cabin with a stout door.

But the group decided to stay the night in the shallop, moored midstream. The river was about 20 paces wide here, and waist deep, so it wasn't a guaranteed safe spot. But they were now in range of dark-kin, so they set up a watch.

Halfway through the night, a group of wolves were hunting about.
Lamb cast a light spell on an arrow which Burrito fired into a nearby tree.
With the light, they shot up some wolves.

Burrito skinned one.

___________________________________________________

The next morning, they passed a group of Panadine pilgrims squashed onto a boat, heading downstream.

About noon, they arrived at Lake Placid. It was a wide stretch of water where the Kringle river flowed in from the left and joined the Scab River. In the V of the junction was the actual "lake". It was a marshy bog area, with large trees and many bushes and shrubs. Off on the far right bank of the Scab was the Panadine temple. It was an impressive stone building, three storeys tall, surrounded by a wooden stockade. It had several jetties protruding into the river; Sorrow docked their shallop there.

Giselle Pentecost

Attlee, El Cid and William went to the Panadine temple to get blessed. But the priestesses (all Panadine followers are female) sensed something wrong with Attlee. He was carrying Lido (the IMAG black skull) on his backpack, so they were probably sensing that.

The High Priestess Giselle Pentecost was summoned and she detected (Detect Evil) the palpable evil from Attlee's backpack, and demanded he be cleansed. There was an outside shower, curtain and all, by the entrance to the temple. Pilgrims and worshipers would normally cleanse themselves here before entering.

Attlee dutifully undressed and went into the shower. From an overhead nozzle, water started to pour. It was scalding; blistering hot, but there was no steam. Attlee screamed hoarsely and leapt out of the shower, his skin literally smoking. Large sections of blistered skin peeled and sloughed off.

William Lamb tested the water with his hand; it felt tepid to him.

El Cid tried it, on his upper arm. It felt warm to him. (But burned his evil IMAG fists)

The Panadine priestesses told the three that this was, of course, holy water. And this meant that Attlee was evil !

That was enough. Attlee snatched up his backpack (skull and all) and rushed off, quick as a fox, but naked as a jaybird.

The High priestess summoned some Knives guards and told them to catch the "evil abomination" so that she could cleanse him.

Attlee rushed back to the jetty, bounded onto the Smoking Loon, and hid in the smugglers' storage area. The rest of the party was still here and they watched, bemused, as a group of guards arrived and poked about on the jetty, then left unable to locate their prey.

Tylin collected Attlee clothes. The others had seen him hide in the boat, but as soon as Tylin opened the door, Attlee leapt out in a blind panic, and rushed back into the camp. He found a woodpile and hid there.

El Cid and Burrito tracked him, and confronted him. A group of guards arrived too.

Lido suddenly made a black sphere, 10 paces across, pitch black inside. El Cid entered the sphere to grab Attlee by touch. He felt a squirming form in the centre, but suddenly there was a large bang, and El Cid was thrown out by the zap. Badly bruised (despite his armour and his feat).

By now, the rest of the party, a large group of guards and some Panadine priestesses had arrived too.  The guards had bows and they offered to full the dark sphere with arrows, but Tylin and the Sorrow stopped them.

El Cid bravely entered sphere again. There was another visceral bang, and he was thrown out again, now severely damaged.

"I'm not doing that again," he moaned.

"Allow me," said William Lamb.

Lido

He cast a Sleep spell. That seemed to work. All was silent. El Cid braved the sphere again and felt around in the dark for the sleeping Attlee. He managed to get the backpack off Attlee, and hogtied him. Dee Dee helped with a rope on the backpack.

They then took Attlee and the backpack to the temple separately. The guards and priestesses accompanied them.

The hogtied Attlee was placed in the shower tray, and High Priestess Giselle was about to douse him, but concern stayed her hand. The water might kill him.

"Maybe we should deal with the evil in his pack first," she said.

The dark sphere had gone now, so, Attlee was removed from the shower tray, and the skull was tipped out of the backpack. The soldiers formed a shield wall, and everyone crouched down behind it, as Giselle reached for the tap.

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..."