Undead Troubles

Burrito's [Darryl] special-needs brother Nut had taken a turn for the worst, so Martha Campana (Burrito's mother) asked Burrito to return home to tend the poor boy, while she did her day-job as a seamstress. Argile[Richard] was marmalading.

It was an hour before dark.

Madagascar Gauloise

Esme, the party's NPC secretary, came into the Budgie Smuggler's secret lair and told the group that they had another potential member.

A full elf wizard called Madagascar Gauloise was waiting in the party's wagon Carte Blanche out on the street. So, the group went out and interviewed him. After some rigorous questioning, they decided that he met their high-class criteria, despite being a heavy smoker (of those foul Elvish Gitane cigarettes), so he joined the team, and was sworn in with the "no betrayal" blood oath. [This was Darryl's second character.] 

About an hour after dark, Esme happened to glance out the window onto the gloomy street.

"What's that?" she squeaked.

The group looked out. There were two creatures there, moving with unnatural speed ... just like the ghouls of the other night.

So, as loyal Scabport citizens, they went out and fought them.

 

With the help of Lammy's [Kevin] Light spell, and Madagascar's Magic Missile, and Grey Wacke's [Jeff] combat Lead Group Action, they were dropped.

When the fight was over, a patrol of leather-armoured soldiers arrived. These identified themselves as TGP (Thieves' Guild Police) and their commander was Sergeant Staines, a half-elf. He questioned the group, and then told them that the TGP was helping protect the city. And that all the undead here was because of the "invasion" of the Graveyard by the forces of REAL. It was affecting all districts this side of the river. The Knives were barricading the five bridges across the Scab river, so no undead had got across to the other side - yet.

When Staines found out that this group was the Budgie Smugglers, yes, he had heard of that name, and of some of their exploits, and HEAT.

After the patrol had gone, the group put the two ghoul bodies onto Carte Blanche, took them down the street to the wharves and the river, and chucked them in.

There were other suspicious creatures swimming in the river too. The group didn't tarry too long.

When the group got back to the blind alley that lead to the secret entrance door of their lair, there were four skeletons down that alley, wandering around like lost souls. These were soon dispatched by the group; another Lead Group Action by Grey Wacke. Mention in dispatches to Ronnie [Deacon] and Ampersand [Shane].

Later on that night, firmly ensconced in their lair, Huilam [Jamie] glanced out the spy-hole on the secret door. It was completely black - unnaturally black. Since the iron door was well-barred, no-one was brave enough to open it.

They settled down to the rest of the night.

A couple of hours later, Tylin [Ian] glanced out the window and, down the street a stone's throw away, he could see a heat-source fighting something (with no body heat). He roused the group, and the fighty ones went out to help. But, when the iron door was opened, something came in.

Imagine a man standing in the doorway, with a street-light high above casting his shadow into the threshold. Now, imagine the street-light lowered quickly, so that his shadow would slide across the floor. Well, this shadow looked like that, but there was no street-light and no figure to cast it.

The hackles rose on everyone's necks and the room went cold.

Grey Wacke chopped at the shadow and ... as you would expect, smashed a chair with his sword, and cut the floor. Ronnie loosed an arrow into it, and ... put an arrow in the wall, then one into the china cabinet.

Madagascar tried a Magic Missile. That seemed to work, and there was a high-pitched scream, like fingernails on black-board. It didn't like Lammy's Light either.

Grey Wacke landed a tremendous blow with his sword, right through the shadow, and cut a magnificent gash through the lathe and plaster wall, through the dwangs and wall studs, right into the bunk room on the other side. But it didn't seem to affect the shadow. In fact, it jumped at him with another scream, but he managed to deflect it with his shield.

Madagascar hit it with another Magic Missile again, and it just vanished, as if it was not even there.

After that little fight, when the plaster dust had settled, Tylin looked at the window at the figure on the street. He was there, but lying still, and slowly cooling.

"We better stay eenside," he whispered.

All was quiet for an hour or two. Then there was a skittering on the outside wall, followed by a scratching on the roof (like an opossum on corrugated iron). They all tensed for a break-in, but nothing happened.

Later, eight skeletons marched past in the street in perfect two-by-four formation and in perfect time.

No-one was brave enough to go out.

In the morning, after light, they rested [ and did a Downtime to recover stress ].

Then they all headed to see Lieutenant Anton Chung at the Council/Knives offices. The Knives Receptionist seemed to be expecting them, and motioned them over to Chung's office immediately.

Chung was there in the conversation pit next to big map of the city festooned with pins and labelled blocks of wood. He was with four bully boys, an older man, and a young woman both in chain-mail. He looked up.

"And here're the bastards who started this," he growled.

He surveyed the group a moment with a calculating eye, gestured to the bully boys, and pointed at Ronnie.

"The pretty boy."

The bully boys yanked the hapless Ronnie from the group, threw him onto the sawdust-covered floor, and then laid into him with iron-shod clubs.

Grey Wacke watched with keen interest.

"Can I join in too?" he asked, eyes shining.

Chung didn't look up, but pointed to a rack of staves on the wall.

"Help yourself."

Grey Wacke gleefully grabbed an iron-bound staff, and then laid into Ronnie too. 

The regular and wet thwack thwack noise, like a tenderizing hammer into meat, the occasional crunch of a bone or rib, and Ronnie's pitiful whimpers drowned out any murmurings from Chung and the other two as they discussed the tactical map.

Dee Dee [Steven] was not very happy. She approached Chung.

"This isn't fair," she exclaimed. "The undead attacked first."

"Shut up, gnome!" snarled Chung. And he punched her in the face hard enough to send her flying across the room.

After Ronnie had stopped moving, Chung waved the bully boys to stop. Grey Wacke managed to sneak in another blow onto Ronnie's broken backwards-facing knee before Chung stopped him with a glare, and then a puzzled "why are you beating your own man?" look. The party picked up the bleeding, beaten and unconscious Ronnie.

"You lot go see the REALs," Chung snapped. "See if your whore friend can talk some sense into them. They won't talk to us at the moment."

"'Whore friend'?" said Huilam.

"That REAL bitch. Rita."

"I would not call 'er an 'ore..." He was silenced by a deathly glance from Chung.

"She scorned ME!" Chung thundered.

 Huilam stammered hurriedly: "... but we weel do our best, Lieutenant."

They headed to the REAL temple. It was a hive of activity. REAL guards had formed a cordon around the entrance and were stopping any townsfolk from entering, but Rita was in the courtyard, and when she saw the group, waved them through, and into a side room.

Rita tended to the broken Ronnie and cured some of his minor damage.

"I can't fix this all," she said. "Our main healers are resting after last night."

The party explained the Knives' point of view.

While Rita agreed with them, she didn't have any ideas. The top priest of REAL, Most-High Priest Igor Lightmouth, was dead keen on this purge, and he didn't want to stop until the Wraith King was destroyed. The upper-tier priests, including Rita's mentor Priestess Colleen, agreed with him. 

However, more concerning to Rita, was that the Most-High Priest said he had prayed with REAL and that REAL had commanded this undead scourge be purged. All REAL priests know the open secret that both the Primal gods REAL and IMAG can not communicate with their priests, and that doing any direct deity communications spell (like Commune, Augury, etc) results in insanity.

So, they left Rita, and went back to the Knives base again with some ideas. 

As they approached Chung's office, a black sphere emerged from the room, and walked past them in the hallway; an IMAG priest.

It was a few hours since they had last been there. Chung was still there, but with just with two bully boys this time. On his desk were four of the black arrows (like what Charles had offered the group last time).

Chung looked up, pondered, and pointed at Moonlight [Chris].

"That one."

Moonlight was hauled to the sawdust. One bully boy managed to get a solid hit into Moonlight's sagging gut, and one to his collar bone, before Huilam interrupted.

Wraith King

"We can stop ze war," said Huilam. 

Chung gestured to the bully boys to pause, as Moonlight knelt in the sawdust, coughing blood.

"Ha!" said Chung. "If you can do that, 25 COIN. But I don't believe you."

.

"We can negotiate with the Lich King," said Grey Wacke. "Very 'daring'."

"'Wraith King'," corrected Chung.

"...but it will be more than 25," muttered Madagascar.

"I am not authorized to pay more than 25," said Chung. He nodded to the bully boys and they landed two more blows into Moonlight. "But tell me your idea."

Perils of IMAG

Ampersand, the Lurk

A new member joined the Budgie Smugglers: Ampersand the Lurk. [This was Shane's second character; El Cid was still on Prison Island.] After some coaxing, the group managed to convince Ampersand to sign the Budgie Smugglers blood oath.

They also realized that Grey Wacke [Jeff] had yet to do the blood oath too, so he was duly processed.

[Argile/Richard, Lammy/Kevin and Ronnie/Deacon were marmalading.]

News was going around town that the battle between REAL and the Wraith King in the graveyard had spilled into surrounding districts around Skull: Slavers, Downtown and TGP.

During the day, squads of the Knives tried to keep groups of REAL priests, paladins and armed followers out of the Graveyard. During the night, there was active fighting between REAL and undead creatures both in the streets and in the graveyard itself.

The TGP had joined in, and were helping the Knives on both temporal fronts.

Consequently, because of the lack of police on the streets, travel around Scabport had become more dangerous than normal.

The other interesting news was that, because of the fighting, the much-augured Scabport Town Council meeting had been postponed.
__________________________________________

Esme had a new job for them at the Hoarse Whisper (Slavers District). So the whole party (Tylin [Ian], Huilam [Jaimie], Burrito [Darryl], Moonlight [Chris], Ampersand, Grey Wacke, and Dee Dee [Steven]) traipsed off to that tavern. In the corner was a sphere of darkness; an IMAG priest. Oh dear.

Charles Denton, IMAG priest

Tylin approached it. A raspy voice came from within; the priest identified himself as Charles Denton. He had a job from the IMAG Foundling. The Foundling was annoyed, and wanted the group to assassinate REAL priests or REAL paladins. He offered 4 COIN per paladin or priest. He would provide an Arrow of Darkness to help with the deed.

They hummed and hawed.

"Speak among yourselves, and come back at 2 bells," he rasped.

They headed out to be alone.

"Should we take it?"

"I'm not workin' for no IMAG."

"But we are 'consummate professionals'," came the mocking reply. "Morals shouldn't figure into this decision. We were quite happy to work for REAL."

"Yeah, but REAL doesn't betray us."

"But IMAG gives us gifts too. Where's your REAL gift, huh? I'll tell you. Zip!"

With that, they all voted, and decided to decline the job.

8X21

_____________________________________________

Later, in the day, all but Burrito (who had moral qualms about working for slavers too), visited Agnes Thames at the Drunken Imbecile to confirm they would take the runaway slave job.

She took them to Simon's Slaves headquarters. There, she gave the group a caricature sketch and data on each slave:

1. A724: Human male, ex-scribe, age 20-25.
2. 8X21: Human male, ex-warrior, age 20-25.
3. 08K4: Human female, ex-thief, age 22.
4. P778: Human female, child, age 13.

08K4

"Slaves get new names," said Agnes, parrying the first question. "So we don't record the original names."

But, strangely, attached to the records of 8X21 was a note "Charles Denton".

"We do this when there might be ramifications," said Agnes when she saw their interest. "Does this name mean something to you?"

"No ...uh.. no," they lied. "Not at all."

"Anyway," she said. "We will pay 2 COIN per runaway returned, alive. If the all the slaves are dead (and you didn't cause it), I'll give you half a COIN total"

__________________________________________________


Huilam went to the Funken Wagnall temple and did some research on Charles Denton, but, in the Scabport Who's Who Almanac, it just said "Notable IMAG priest. Living in Scabport."

Back at the Hoarse Whisper they met up with the IMAG Priest Denton again.

They asked him about his name on the slave's record.

Denton said there was a group of IMAG guards recently lost ("a few weeks ago") when a wagon went missing on the Spite road.

"Maybe this wretch was one of our guards, captured," he hissed. "And enslaved. If you find out any more viable information on this, or the whereabouts of the taken wagon, we will pay for it."

But he had no idea why his name would be there.



The party then told him that they did not want the job.

There was a long pause.

Then, an arrow was pushed out of the sphere of darkness and onto the table. It was very well made, and had a slight black aura around it, like El Cid's hands and Attlee's skull Lido.

"Here," he rasped. "My gift to you."

No-one in the group wanted it.

Denton left the inn, leaving the arrow on the table.

"We don't want it!" they cried.

He ignored them and went out into the street.

Not sure what to do, Tylin sent a runner to the IMAG temple with a message to "retrieve your magic arrow".

The arrow was retrieved soon after by a shadowy figure.

______________________________________________

Out in the middle of the Scab river on Prison Island, El Cid and Sorrow kept their noses clean, and behaved like good boys.

Up the top of a ballista tower, they watched the fireworks in the distant graveyard with mild amusement, and felt safe from undead here on the study island.

"Au contraire," said Sergeant Skipper in pidgin Elvish. "We get lacedons - marine ghouls - out here when there's undead trouble in the city. They come out the sewers. Expect an influx."

Back to Eugor

The morning after the ghoul score, Esme woke them all up with a note. It was from Lieutenant Chung: "GET HERE NOW!"

Lieutenant Anton Chung

So, most of the Budgie Smugglers headed to the Knives base: Tylin [Ian], Huilam [Jamie], Lammy [Kevin], Moonlight [Chris], Dee Dee [Steven]; but not Burrito [Darryl] and not the marmaladers: Argile [Richard], Ronnie [Deacon]; nor the two out in Scabport Prison: Sorrow [Jeff] and El Cid [Shane].

They had a new chap join the group, a cutter called Grey Wacke [Jeff's character while Sorrow languished on Prison Island].

They were shown into Lieutenant Chung's office. He was there in the conversation pit with two no-neck bully-boys. He did not look very pleased.

"Why did you lot start a damn war!" he shouted.

"but.. uh...war?" someone stammered.

"Between the REAL and the Graveyard! The bosses upstairs are furious. You specifically told me you weren't going to work for the temples. So, it wasn't even on my radar..."

"But we don't need to get your permission..." said Huilam indignantly.

Chung clicked his fingers, and pointed randomly at one of the group.

"That one."

The two bully-boys lurched forward and grabbed Moonlight. They pulled the druid to his knees, and started to lay into him with a brutal stream of savage full-force punches. They wore brass knuckle-dusters, so did their grim work with ruthless efficiency.

The rest of the group looked on in horror.

Chung watched coldly as Moonlight took his beating. After what seemed like ages, he gestured to the two and they stepped back, leaving the unconscious and battered Moonlight lying in a pool of blood.

Chung then calmed himself, his anger leaving him, and he continued as if he was observing the time of day.

"Because of this fiasco," he said. "All guard leave has been cancelled, and we have doubled all patrols in Skull. I am shielding you lot from the wrath of the big cheeses. Because you're useful to me, and you might make progress with the Stringfellow job. That's still in progress?"

"Oui, Monsieur" said Huilam.

Moonlight groaned and coughed up some blood.

"Now go," said Chung.

______________________________________________________

Back at base, Moonlight came around enough that he could cast a Cure on himself. It didn't fix all the damage, but it was enough.

Esme returned with some jobs (the Luscious Pixie notice board): Meetings in the Drunken Imbecile in the Slavers District. And, in meetings in the Dock District, in The Four Ships Inn and The Gibbet and Grape.

At The Drunken Imbecile, they met half-elf Agnes Thames and two thugs. She represented Simon's Slaves (one of the major slave houses in Scabport). She wanted the party to track down and capture some runaways: two male slaves, one woman and a girl, all human. She would pay 2 COIN each (alive).

"Why don't you have your own slave hunters?" came the obvious question.

"We do,"she replied, "but we often sub-contract run-away retrieval to Scabport hunters, such as you lot."

Then came the scathing, and the mocking:

"You're not morally opposed to this?" she sneered. "Goody-two-shoes? Wusses? Big-girls' blouses?"

This brought up a lot of self-reflection and soul-searching in the group about the institution of slavery. Slavery was legal all over the Wild Coast. Scabport followed the medieval model of slavery where anyone could be captured and enslaved. Such a person was legally enslaved, and, from then on, had no rights and was treated as a possession. Manumission was also possible, and that would restored the slave to citizen status.

Unlike a lot of places, Scabport had a centralized slave register maintained by the Scabport council. Scabport slaves were identifiable by a brand on the left buttock, which was a unique serial number of "S-" plus four characters*.

The group said they would ponder this job, and they left the tavern with the mocking sounds of the voices of Agnes's guards ringing in their ears [Homer Simpson's mocking lady voice].

* = Four alpha-numeric letters; 10 digits plus 26 letters minus B I O S Z, so 31^4 is just under a million, and they recycle dead ones when they can.
_________________

At the Four Ships Inn, they met Simon Palma of the Lampblacks (a thiefy organization). He wanted the party to reconnoitre Fort Eugor. He had heard things about the place, and he heard rumours that the TGP (Thieves Guild Police) and the Knives had fought there.

He wanted to find out three things: A map, guard positions and who last owned it. And would pay 4 COIN.

The group had almost all this info already from their previous exploits there, so it would be an easy job. They agreed to take it on. Tonight.

___________________________________________

At The Gibbet and Grape they met Marita Crain (& body guard) of the TGP wanted to find out about Michael Stringfellow and wanted him alive. 8 COIN.

The group withdrew a bit to talk this issue over among themselves. They had decided to "be professional" and to "stay out of politics".

Anton Chung wanted Michael Stringfellow dead, so they could not then keep him alive and deliver him to Marita, even though some heads were sorely tempted. Cooler heads prevailed. So, they had no option but to turn her job down.

On the way back from this meeting, Tylin and  Grey Wacke hung back. Sure enough, they were being followed. They intercepted a thiefy-looking woman. They sent her packing.


_________________________________________________

Lady Falshot

That night, they all headed to the Falshot's place (Lady Falshot was the woman that Huilam befriended last time they did Eugor jobs.) She lived in  a mansion at the base of Eugor hill, and it was an excellent place from where to launch forays up to the fort.

Tylin and Huilam, both having infravision, went up to Eugor hill that night. As they walked up the road, they could see over in the direction of Scabport Graveyard, a few stades away, there was all manner of flashes and flares going off. They assumed that the REAL forces must be fighting in the graveyard. Taking on the Wraith King, perhaps?

Up at the fort, Tylin thought he saw a figure in the main gate's archway. But there was no heat. Could it be undead up here?

They carefully circled the old fort, and caught a glimpse of something else moving; another figure. Again, no heat.

So, they returned to the Falshot's and drew up a map of the outside of the ruins. They already had a detailed inside map of this place, when they had done previous jobs here.

_____________________________________

The next morning, they reported to Simon Palma. He was happy with the Fort Eugor information,  and paid the agreed 4 COIN.

_________________________________________

TP glass

Later that day, Lammy got a message from the Wizards' Guild (via Esme, through the 1G conch hanging in the Luscious Pixie) stating that the Teleport glass was now ready. So Lammy, Grey Wacke and Tylin took the party's wagon a la Carte, loaded with the six crates of silver (6 COIN), to the WG loading bay, and paid the remaining money owed to the Guild. Sly Dunbar presented Lammy with the newly-made magic TP glass, in a velour-lined box, and some instructions:

• Hold each end of the TP glass, in each hand, and break the central join. It will then teleport the breaker to the target location: room 5 of the Adventuress and Bugbear inn. 
• It will TP reasonable amount of his gear too. There will be no remnants of glass left at the scene.
• It requires skin to glass contact on both ends by the same person. If one end is not in skin contact with the same person, then malfunction. 
• If another person is in (skin) contact with the breaker or the glass, then malfunction. 
• If the glass of the two ends is broken before the central join, then malfunction. So dropping it, or squeezing too hard, or smashing it against something or the skin of the target, or biting it will fail, unless you can ensure that the central join breaks first, and there is skin contact on both ends.
• Malfunctions are fickle and dangerous, and result in wild magic effects ranging from explosions, to sandstorms, to pieces of the breaker's body being teleported to random locations in the Known World. 
• If you want the target location to be changed, you can take the TP glass to the Wizards' Guild and they can re-target it. The cost to do this is 1 COIN the first time, and it doubles each change after that.

Theoretically, you could hold each end of the TP glass with tongs and press the two halves, sideways, on to the target's skin, then then break the middle join. This would certainly TP the target, but this would require much care, because those tongs would be considered to be "part of the target's equipment" and so would be teleported with him. When the tongs vanish, the air rushes in to the spot with a lot of force (the familiar TP "bang!"*), so you'd need to be careful not to lose fingers or a hand.

* = The Sigmoid Brothers (named after their controversial diverticulitis experiments with the sigmoid colon) studied this effect with their slow-motion drawing technique, where they could render twenty thousand frames-per-second drawn onto multiple chalk boards. They captured good views of in-rushing air into the vanish-void (where the teleported object was) where the wave front collides with itself and bounces back. It is this so-called "sigmoid effect" that actually causes the detonation.

The Sigmoid Brothers were also the ones who confirmed that a teleport is not actually instantaneous, but travels at the speed-of-magic, which is a finite speed, exactly twenty great-circles per second. There is a small period of time where the teleported object does not actually exist in the world.

__________________________________________

At the prison, El Cid and Sorrow kept their noses clean. El Cid was largely ignored by Second Lieutenant Sharples. Sorrow actively tried to avoid her, and he practiced climbing around the walls.

Ghoul Score

Sorrow

Out on Prison Island, in the Scabport Prison, Sorrow [Jeff] was summoned to 2nd Lieutenant Sharples' office.

"What's wrong with your eyes?" she snapped, and gestured to Sorrow's night-black eyes.

"I worked for IMAG a leettle and zis was a gift," said Sorrow.

"So, you're an IMAG fan-boy?"

"I would not say zat. But zey do help me see par excellence at nigh..." Sorrow didn't manage to finish. She punched him in the eye, with a right hook. It dropped him like a sack of potatoes, and left a bleeding brow. She threw him out of her office.

"Keep them outa my sight!"

______________________________________________

Later on in the evening, El Cid [Shane] was summoned to her office.

2nd Lt Sharples

2nd Lieutenant Sharples had a bath tub filled with steaming water and soapy bubbles, and she wanted him to wash her. He was warned by the other guards that this might happen, but rather than the disgusting job as he had been lead to believe, it wasn't bad at all. The lieutenant was not very pretty of the face: "homely" would be a good adjective, but she had a slender and fit body [ like Kate Beckinsale ].

So, El Cid actually enjoyed himself, and even had to force himself not to "stand at attention" as it were.

She was annoyed that he wasn't repulsed. She didn't go as far as trying to violate him, thinking he'd probably enjoy it, so just gave him a good beating; a few bruises only.

"That wasn't too bad," smiled El Cid as he returned to the barracks. And it was certainly better than spending two hours in the ballista tower in the wind, or marching up and down the courtyard, or cleaning the latrines with a toothbrush.
______________________________________________________

The rest of the group (Huilam [Jamie], Tylin [Ian], Lammy [Kevin], Burrito [Darryl], Argile [Richard], Moonlight [Chris]; Dee Dee [Steven] and Ronnie [Deacon] were marmalading) was at the gates of the Graveyard.

The Knives patrol was there just closing the Necropolis gates for the night. One of them beckoned to Lammy.

"Stick your head inside," he whispered gesturing to an inviting hole in the gate.

So, Lammy blithely complied. When his head passed the threshold of the gate, he could hear whispering all around. Withdrawing his head, the whispering stopped and it was just the usual Scabport night noises. The whispering was just on the edge of hearing and he couldn't make out any words.

The Knives patrol wandered off, and the group experimented. It wasn't just the gate that this effect happened. At the many wall breaches, you could do the same trick: whispering on the inside and none on the outside.

The group then began the long trek to walk around the entire perimeter of the huge graveyard. They were too scared to venture inside, so walked the ring road. It was a three to four hour walk to circumnavigate the entire thing.

A few hours into the walk, about half-way, they could suddenly feel a throbbing. It was so low that they couldn't hear it, but could  feel it. It had probably started a while back, but only now was detectable. The throbbing sensation got strongest against one wall, so they ventured into the graveyard at that spot. There was a lot of suspicious unnatural (undead?) movement at this spot and they began to feel unease and dread.

Paladin of REAL

A REAL paladin patrol happened to wander past on the road at this time. They were happy to point out to the group that the throbbing was assumed to be some effect of the rumoured Wraith King, deep in the centre of the necropolis.

"Probably not a good idea for you to go there," one paladin said. "We would, of course! But we have been forbidden to. Politics."

They continued their patrol. The party quietly withdrew back on to the road.

Further on, they rounded a corner and stopped. There was a group of suspicious creatures congregating 50 paces ahead on the road, and they then darted into the nearby houses and alleys. They gave off no heat to the party members with infravision, so that was good enough evidence for Huilam. He pointed the REAL flare skyward and yanked the draw string. A silent flame erupted upwards, followed by a bright explosion a way overhead, bursting like a firework, but with no sound.

ghoul

Burrito and Lammy strode up to the alley where the creatures had vanished. One leapt from above. Lammy had his magical shield up to block it, and Burrito threw a vial of holy water at it. It screamed and scurried off. A second creature approached. Burrito hit it with a vial too, and Lammy cast a Light spell upon it. That give Burrito a clear target to shoot at. And he managed to drop it.

Argile and the rest of the group were right behind and they joined the two. And Argile and Lammy stood fast to block the alley, as two more creatures struck. Both Lammy and Argile were brutally raked by the long claws. Argile managed to twist his damage onto his armour. But not Lammy, who took the severe damage and was paralyzed. Burrito's vials of holy water managed to burn these two, and they scurried off hissing voicelessly. Huilam and Tylin had vials too, but Huilam threw his one onto the ground. Tylin drank his.

Huilam fired off another flare, and then the frightened group stayed huddled together and waited.

Eventually, the REAL paladins arrived. They were very pleased. The creatures were identified as ghouls, and the paladins now had the evidence that they sought. They swept up the ghoul body, and the party picked up the paralyzed wounded Lammy, and all withdrew to the REAL temple.

In the temple, Colleen Sanford was awoken and she cured Lammy.

The next morning, the party was paid the promised 9 COIN, and they withdrew to their secret base to do Downtime Activities.

Foray into Skull District

[Ronnie (Deacon) marmalading.]

That night, continuing their surveillance of Daisy Crown, Huilam [Jamie], Tylin [Ian], and Lammy [Kevin] went to the Tower Lookout on the off-chance that Daisy would turn up. Sure enough, around midnight, Daisy and her four wizard chaperones arrived. She knew the three Budgie Smugglers now, so invited them over to her table, and ordered some elvin wine. They settled down to drinking and chatting.

About an hour passed. A group of five figures entered the tavern. They were dressed in flowing beige robes with dark green trim, and each with a large dove with an olive branch; priests of Olive (Goddess of Peace). Four had tambourines and one had a descant recorder, and they proceeded to sing and dance:

Olive Olive, we love Olive,
Olive Olive, we love Olive,
Olive Olive, we love Olive,
Olive Olive, we love Olive,
Olive Olive, we love Olive.

Booker Dobbs

Tylin glanced at the leader of the group, and their eyes met. Instant mutual recognition. He was Booker Dobbs, of the Insular Rogues. Booker briefly paused, then carried on dancing and playing.

Tylin hissed to Daisy "I know zat lot. Zey are after you!"

Daisy raised her hand as if to cast a spell. Her four wizard chaperones moved in front of her to form some protection. But, instead of casting, she gestured to the barkeep and mouthed something authoritative to him. He strode out of the bar area, fetched two no-necks, and confronted the dancers.

"You lot. Out! Now!" he bellowed.

Booker cast a stony glance at Tylin, and then the five sheepishly withdrew.

Burrito [Darryl] arrived a bit later and searched the surrounding streets for other suspicious malcontents, but there were none. Daisy and co headed back to the safety of the Wizards' Tower.

_______________________________________________

At the prison, trainee guards Sorrow [Jeff] and El Cid [Shane] were being on their best behaviour.  They tried to avoid 2nd Lieutenant Sharples best they could. They were only cornered a few times by the belligerent Lieutenant, and so managed to avoid too much of a severe beating.

"The beatings will only stop when morale increases," was her catch-phrase.

______________________________________________

The next morning, Tylin and Lammy went to the Adventuress and Bugbear (in the Dock district) and hired a long-term room (room 5).

Teleport Glass

In the room, Lammy used his Wizards' equipment (chronometer, slide-rule, protractor and octant) to calculate the WGPS (Wizards' Guild Positioning System) coordinates of the exact centre of the room. This yielded a 30-digit number which he wrote onto a piece of parchment.

"This will be where Jack Sparrow will arrive when he teleports," he boldly proclaimed.

Lammy then took the parchment to the Wizards' Guild and delivered it to Sly Dunbar. This paper would be burned and the ashes placed inside the Teleport Glass during its ensorcelling. When the glass was broken, it would trigger the Teleport spell, and would thus teleport the breaker to that location.

____________________________________

Sonny Bowens (Bronze Studs) contacted the group again. REAL had the Skull district job still active, and were still nagging for takers. The group Huilam, Tylin, Burrito, Lammy, Moonlight [Chris], Dee Dee [Steven], Argile [Richard] (Sorrow and El Cid were at the prison) decided to do the score. It would at least earn them 9 COIN.

"Why don't we pay them for us to do the job," muttered Burrito sarcastically. He was still bitter about
losing money on the TP glass.

Priestess Rita

At the REAL temple, Priestess Coleen Sanford was their contact. She explained the score. And then brought forth former party-member Priestess Rita, and asked her take them to the Skull district.

The huge Scabport graveyard (or "necropolis") filled most of the Skull district. The graveyard had been there ever since the city was founded, more than a thousand years ago, and was now bulging at the seams. The graveyard was safe during the day, but one would not want to venture in there at night.  The REAL priests claimed that undead creatures were leaving the graveyard and terrorizing the surrounding streets. This was what the score was to do: locate some evidence of these creatures and call in martial and cleansing support.

Rita took them to one of the sites of where the creatures of dark had allegedly caused mischief, and

REAL Flare stick

here they met two REAL paladins. The paladins gave the group two flare sticks. These flares looked very much like WG Summoners, and the paladins explained how to activate them.

"Point the stick vertically," said the paladin. "Then unscrew the cap on the base, and yank it. A flare will shoot skyward. And we will see this, and we will run."

The paladins also told them that REAL followers may not enter the graveyard after dark (some edict from the Scabport Council). So, if the group activated the flare sticks within, no help would come.

"But don't let that stop you going into the graveyard," one paladin commented wryly.

Rita took them back to the REAL temple, and Colleen had prepared for them a bandolier of ten holy water glass vials.

"This will burn creatures of evil," she said. "Oh, and it doesn't keep. A few days tops."

They also bought ten ceramic vials of lamp oil on the way back.

It was a few hours before dark when they got back to the graveyard. The enormity of the necropolis's size finally sunk in to them as they wandered about the huge place, several kilometres a side.
There were three small pyramids, hundreds of mausoleums, catafalques, sepulchers and vaults, thousands of tombs, and tens of thousands statues and graves. There were lots of signs of recent activity, but then, it still was a functioning graveyard; the poor still interred their dead here. It was just the rich that avoided the place.

At the base of one weeping angel, there were signs of suspicious scratching. Moonlight cast a Detect Evil and sure enough, there was something evil below. They pushed and prodded the angel, and it could be tipped over. There was a dark crawl-tunnel going below. No-one was brave enough to venture down.

A cloud passed over the sun, and it got cold for a moment.

A squad of Knives was patrolling nearby, so the group quickly righted the angel before it arrived.

The Corporal confronted them.

"You lot," he said. "make sure you're out before dark."

"Yes, sir."

Scabport Necropolis gate

They headed back to the gate.

Right on dark, the gate was closed by the soldiers. It was a gate in name only. It was huge and metal and unwieldy, and so full of holes that you could drive a wagon through the gaps. Not that this would have helped keep things inside anyway. The graveyard originally had stone walls, taller than two men, surrounding the whole place. Over the centuries, these walls had not been maintained, and, in many places, large sections had been entirely demolished, and the stones pilfered to be used as building material.

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."