The party has a date in the evening with “Doffel,” where Phon’s attackers are supposed to get paid for killing the girl. Several hours before the meeting, they decide to scout the location (a functioning warehouse that will be shuttered in the evening). Sebastian, and his player J, manages to impress his party members with the ease with which he climbs up a neighboring building, jimmies open a locked window, and slips inside to scout around. (While J is as popular as anybody in our little gang, he has somehow become the punching bag for jokes over the years. Earning the group’s admiration is no small thing for him…) He reports back that the warehouse is one big open space, with a quasi-2nd story comprised of a ring of office space that still leaves the center of the building open from floor to ceiling. The facility houses mercantile goods that are neither sexy enough to steal nor flammable enough to be a problem. (That may or may not be deep foreshadowing.)
The evening comes. Our fair heroes re-approach the warehouse, devising their plan of attack along the way. This may seem last minute, but compared to the previous campaign this is Operation Overlord. Sebastian is sent back up to the rooftops in order to have a better vantage to watch things. The rest of the party decides to make like they were supposed to at this meeting the whole time. True, there’s no logic to it, but mostly they’re hoping to use the momentary confusion to take control of the potential battlefield.
Sebastian takes up his position as planned, and he thinks he hears someone moving around on the 2nd floor with him. Meanwhile, the party knocks in a side door and walks in like they own the place. Sure enough, they’re met with an incredulous look from “Doffel,” soon to be known to Our Heroes as Vagger. After an Abbot & Costello routine (”this is our illicit meeting place!”, “no, this is our illicit meeting place!”) Vagger shouts for “Laucio” to attack, and a scrum ensues.
Two on five sounds like an unfair fight, but one oft-forgotten rule (for us at least) is that a combatant is considered flat-footed until their first initiative pass comes around. Vagger, a rogue, calmly moves up to Sasara and hits her with his shortsword; with the sneak attack damage figured in, and this being first level, she drops immediately. Laucio pops up from his hiding place on the 2nd floor and sticks an arrow in Azhnok, and it’s on. The middle of the fight is pretty standard fare, with strikes traded back and forth until Vagger drops. Laucio leads several PCs on a chase around the 2nd floor ediface until he makes the mistake of leaping to the ground floor - which gives Azhnok the idea that he promptly improvises upon. He leaps to the ground floor at, “coincidentally”, the exact spot where Laucio is standing. So, that’s that then.
The party interrogates their two captured foes (still keeping count?) and, eventually, squeeze out of them that they are intermediaries for Toridan Cran; they were paying Ortry and Darrel half of what they themsleves were paid to kill Phon, and were in fact going to kill those two and keep it all for themselves. Our Heroes, seizing upon their strange sense of humor, they scavenge rope and red dye from the warehouse. Then they dye the rope and take their prisoners to the Warrens (a wretched hive of scum and villainy) and tie them up. Thus is the legend of the “Red Rope Gang” born, God help me.
Now they have competing concerns - sorting out just who and what “Toridan Cran” is, and investigating the chaos cult that Irontusk gave up to them as the culprits behind the theft of the key from Sebastian’s friend Theldrat.
{ 0 comments… add one now }