[Game Thread] Chapter 5: The Price of Keeping Secrets

[Aeternis]

"I agree with Grunk." Luthrin says. "No sense putting someone else in danger if we can't at least get them back out of it."

"That defeats the whole point though!" Moric balls his fists. "This is breathing room, and you want to just... charge out there into the open? You don't fight people like this head on. They won't stand still long enough."

Vorn at this point steps in between Luthrin and Moric. "Do you think that you could take him?" He asks Grunk, and then he turns to Brie and Luthrin to make sure that they know this is a question for everyone.

"Umm." Luthrin frowns. "Not sure. But that mer-woman saved us, and I'm willing to risk that if it means returning the favor."

"I'll take that as a yes." Vorn turns back to Grunk and Brie, expecting them to answer, and they get the sense that if they say "yes" he's probably going to allow the expedition and have it start immediately, despite it not having anything to do with what's been planned.

OODM As Patton might say, no battle plan survives contact with the rogue who doesn't like the plan very much. Not that the one that he seems to have caused sits with him any better. And of course now an officer of the local cops hates his guts.

[Admin Chuck]

Moric's outburst sends Grunk over the top for a moment. He turns on the little rogue and grabs him by the front of his shirt, lifting him up off the floor until he is eye level with the much taller orc. "The point is," Grunk growls, mouth and those delicately pointed canines only inches from Moric's soft flesh, "-that you don't hurt someone who has saved your life." The big orc tosses Moric aside like the trash he is, sending the thief stumbling away in order to not fall on his ass.

Grunk turns away from the off balance human and heads for the door. "Let's go."

[Humble Athena]

[FoggyKnight]

Brie winced as Moric went tumbling, but rose with a nod at the guard captain. She was in agreement with the rescuing of the mer-woman, but she was unsure if she agreed with the way that Grunk put Moric in his "place". The fact that he put her into harm's way made her angry, but if she had been where she had grown up, without meeting these men, would she have done the same?

OOC Good grief, if I don't respond and you're waiting on me, pm me! I thought we were waiting on the DM!

[Aeternis]

Vorn hurries to catch up to Grunk. "Hey, hold up. Just a moment." He gets in front of the orc in the hallway and holds up his hands in a halting gesture. "This is a bad idea..." He then gets a good look at the anger in the orc's face and, despite everything, wilts a little. "... But I suppose if we grabbed a few of the boys..." This is clearly not what he was at first planning to say - being in the way of an orc in a foul mood is known to have that effect on ... people with less HD than the orc anyway.people. He points down the hall away from the structure's entrance. "That way first, okay?"

Moric picks himself up out of the corner after Grunk has stalked out. "Ow." He rubs the back of his head where it had hit a wall, as the others follow Grunk out the door. He looks about to stay put, but something visibly occurs to him, which makes him scurry to catch up, but he makes sure to stay well behind the orc, not wanting to be the projectile of choice when the group finds the cloaked figure who seems to be after them. "Bad idea." He can be heard to mutter, not that anyone's paying attention to him anymore.

[FoggyKnight]

"So what are we going to do then?" Brie asked, still feeling a bit lost. She wasn't used to hunting in a group still, even after she's been getting used to moving in a group over the last few days. "We're finding the --" What was her name? "--Jermay and rescuing her? How are we doing that?"

[Admin Chuck]

Grunk accedes to Vorn's request to go a particular route out of the building, the lawman knows his city better than the orc does and getting lost wouldn't help Jer'meae out any at all. His long legged pace slows slightly when Brie poses her question and he takes a moment to think about it before he answers. "She couldn't have gone far, and if burning holes in people and smoking them out is our attacker's preferred method, then I bet we'll just be able to follow the smoke."

[FoggyKnight]

"So the smoke is going to be made of burning people?" Brie asked, with a shocked and horrified look on her face. "I didn't see that earlier! Are they going to be already dead like Luthrin's?" She finished, referencing the pyre from the night they had captured Moric.

[Humble Athena]

[Aeternis]

The garrison is surprisingly quiet - there are a few men bustling about, cleaning the place, but there are few soldiers moving about. Vorn leads the small group to what appears to be a ready room designed for about fifty people, which is empty, but before Grunk can suggest anything he turns, with a decidedly not defeated look on his face, and takes them up a set of stairs and down a long corridor, stopping at a door marked with the common rune for the number three.

"Stand back, this will only take a second." Vorn waves Grunk to take a few steps back. The lieutenant cracks his knuckles, quietly eases the door latch open, then steps back suddenly and kicks the wooden door open with all the force of his frustration with the whole mess. The door swings around and hits the wall, then starts swinging back, until Vorn, striding in, stops it with his forearm - the impact looks pretty painful, but he doesn't let it show on his face or in his mannerisms. "All right, all of you up, get on your gear, move it, move it!" He orders loudly into the darkened room. There is a chorous of groans, as if of men just being woken, even though it's only about two hours after midday. "Let's go! Uniforms, armor, let's go let's go!" He claps his hands two times very loudly. From the poorly lit room, the sounds of men shuffling on outer clothing and armor can be heard, along with no small amount of grumbling.

Vorn pokes his head out and holds up one finger to Grunk, Moric, Brie, and Luthrin, indicating probably that the soldiers will only be a moment. Then he stomps into the middle of the room and shouts some more encouragement to the men to speed up.

In surprising time (about eighty seconds), he walks back out, and the men whose bunks were closest to the door follow. "Don't follow me! Go to the armory! Hustle!" He pushes the first man toward the stairs, and he stumbles before catching himself (right before he tumbles headlong down the stairs. "Ranks right out front! If I get there before you you're cleaning latrines for six weeks!" The drill-sergeant mannerisms are a good deal different than Vorn's usual demeanor, of course, and when he sees the reactions of his charges he offers a half-shrug, as if to say "it's what they expect."

As soon as all twenty-four men have filed out, and Vorn has yelled his instructions a few more times, he closes the door and beckons to his charges to follow. "Had to rouse one of the night shift groups." He explains in the stairs. "Looks like most everybody's out there already for some reason or other." It's clear he's taking them toward the entrance, where supposedly the soldiers should all be assembling.

OODM As it so happens the sound of a good solid door being kicked open is better than a bell or an alarm to wake two dozen sleeping mooks soldiers.

[FoggyKnight]

Brie looked curiously at Grunk as she caught the sound of a grunt, and a slight twitch that indicated he was holding a movement back, before looking at Luthrin and shrugging. A slow grin spreading over her face behind Grunk's back made it clear that her last comment was not as fully naive as he might have thought, though it took a moment for her to figure out why that comment was making Grunk twitch a bit.

Following dutifully behind the others, Brie jumped several inches into the air as the door was slammed open. "Do you think those were Vorn's "boys"?" Brie whispered to Grunk, a bit intimidated by the sudden door banging, which had made her jump, and the shouting. If "most everybody" was already out in the town so that he had to rouse a bunch of cranky, sleeping soldiers, she wondered what the other groups were doing, that this group was not. Does that mean there will be a lot of people within earshot if we get in trouble?

[Admin Chuck]

Grunk is still stunned from Brie's powers of deduction, but comes out of it when he sees that Vorn isn't leading them outside but deeper into the compound. Clearly irritated at having to delay the search the big orc stands with arms crossed and foot tapping while Vorn goes through his wake up routine. He barely hears Brie's more sensible question from behind him with all the ruckus going on in the barracks, but does turn his head back and respond. "I don't care if they are his boys or not, I wish he had let us onto the streets before this. Two or three minutes can mean the difference between Jer'meae's life and death." Grunk shoots another look made of pointy things at Moric, reminding the little rogue that his life might depend on how healthy the mermaid is when they find her.

[Humble Athena]

[Aeternis]

Despite Grunk's concerns, it's only about thirty seconds before Vorn leads the small group out the garrison's front doors. Waiting there is the group of men that were just roused - they don't look particularly happy to be conscious but they are wearing cheap-looking chainmail and armed with sturdy pikes and crossbows, and though their garb looks hastily thrown on (which it of course is), they seem ready enough. Vorn, upon surveying the two dozen guardsmen, doesn't comment on the slightly disheveled look of the men, probably because he caused it.

"Right." Vorn gestures to them. "Come on then." He turns to lead them down a street, then stops. "Wait." He points back to the garrison doors. "Where are the sentries?" He's right - unlike when Grunk, Moric, Luthrin, and Jer'meae were first brought in, there are no sentries at the main doors.

"Not here when we got here, sir." One of the men ventures.

"That'll have to wait. We've got to - " Vorn is, however, interrupted by the return of the sentries, who, leaning heavily on their pikes and seeming to have trouble keeping to a straight line, stagger back toward their posts from a side-street.

"Report! Where've you two louts been?" Vorn barks.

"Uhhmm..." One of them stammers as if he'd just been asked to do advanced mathematics in his head. "Chasin'... a murderer?" He says uncertainly, almost drunkenly. "Right?" The other nods solemnly to back up his cohort.

Vorn strides up to the man and sniffs his breath, probably trying to detect signs of alcohol. "What. Murderer?" He asks precisely and angrily.

"The fishy lady?" The second one replies, tone indicating that he is uncertain.

The first sentry shrugs. "That's what the nice man in that darned stylish black robe said." He sniffs. "Wonder who made him that."

Vorn puts a palm to his face with a smack. "You're relieved. Both of you." He gestures for two of the two dozen men he's just roused to take their places at the entrance. "Which way did the 'fish lady' go?" He asks.

The sentry points back the way he came, and Vorn waves the remaining men to head in that direction. "You two morons get out of my sight. The rest of you hurry up, before this gets any more out of control." Vorn waves Grunk and Brie to the front of the group. "Either of you good at tracking people?" He asks, pointing down the narrow street, and following his gesture it's clear why. The main street continues arrow-straight, but a pair of alleys lead off in either direction only a few dozen yards from the doors of the garrison, and not far beyond that a slightly larger street intersects it.

OODM Vorn's best day, this isn't.

[FoggyKnight]

Brie looked uncertain at Vorn's request. "I have more experience following animals, but I can try." She was uncertain of her track ability for good reason. Animals in the woods tended not to be smart enough to attempt to hide their tracks, nor head for water to stymie anyone following. Starting at the doors of the garrison, where even Brie could figure out that the mermaid would have started, she Survival:

Dice Roll:

1d20+5

(11)+5

Total = 16

attempted to follow the tracks slowly and carefully.

OOC It's been so long since we started, I keep forgetting they're only lvl 3.