[Game Thread] Chapter A - Lost

[Lentil Sponge]

Yesterday "You probably don't know me, but I know you... milk if you have it, and don't give me that look... I've stood on the bloodied sands of far too many arenas... know a lot about fighting, right? I was a gladiator, I did... you simply reach out and touch anyone you meet on the street? I doubt it, so don't do it to me..." "And you know what you're doing? Get the Chest of Majab Ig Grun to the Eight Dragon Inn. Can't be that hard. I'm sending three of my bouncers with you. This doesn't speak Common, so don't bother talking to her. And I'll know if you decide to steal from me so don't try it!" "... declare any goods you are taking across this bridge! By order of Prince Undiara, declare any goods..." "... chest is full of contraband! Oi! Rush them! Now!" And the drumming of clubs and the stamping of feet on all of your heads. This is all you remember of your first day working in...

THE LAWLESS CITY



Chapter A - Lost

Location	Map	Season	Day	Time	Weather
The Dead Mermaid's Casino	J9	Harvest	102 of 120	4:11pm	Sunny

The Dead Mermaid's Casino "... and when they wake up, I wanna know! And make sure they..." "... change this bowl. Fletcher said fresh water..." "Hey! They're coming to!" And that's the first thing that is heard as the group return to consciousness. The small band find themselves in a small bedroom which has been improvised to be a ward. ARNI, SIGNE share a king-size bed, with RIBI by their feet. KOTRAM is laid across an ottoman. GARRIDAN & RASHIRR on the floor, upon several blankets. No one is armed with their usual equipment - no one's even in their regular clothes, but seemingly whatever gown fit them. The room itself is barely lit by a few candles, bathing the red walls, floor and the bedding with a dim light. The only window lets in only what gold sunlight the curtains allow in. The revelry of the casino operating at its fullest can be heard both from the walls and from outside as queues of drunks stumble about from bar to bar in the city's great port district. This is all much too confusing. Where's the daylight? Where are the city guards at the checkpoint of the bridge? Where is the chest that... ... and that's when realisation hits you all at once. The Chest is long gone, and has been for hours. All thanks to those city guards, if that's who they really were. Aside from the small group of would-be box-escorts, there are not many people in this room. There is a dwarven man who, despite holding aloft several bandages, looks more like a carpenter, with both his grey beard and his leather apron covered in wood shavings. Some handsome men in scarlet loincloths and pretty women in equally skimpy outfits stand by the walls - with the way they watch with fascination, their necks almost look like they're made of rubber. By the door is a beautiful elven woman. Something about her suggests maturity and age. It's in her gorgeous profile, with a slight love-heart shape to her head emphasised by blonde hair that falls to her shoulders like waves of butter. It's in her heavier-set, more sure stance than her peers. It just shouts of leadership. Her curvaceous form is barely covered by her uniform, which is only different to the other workers by the gold trim around the edges. Her rank is shown by her demeanour. And at the moment, that demeanour is a mixture of concern and irritation. "Well, I did what I could," the carpenter says, kneading his heavy palms together. He looks to the elf. "Is that all, Sandraminae?" "You've done... adequately, Mister Fletcher," she grumbles, before tossing a light bag of coin to the carpenter. The carpenter immediately leaves in a hurry. Her eyes shift to the rest of the workers. "Well, boys and girls, if you've got nothing better to do, get them cleaned and get some water! And someone tell Tilly they're awake!" Everyone dives for a cupboard near the bed - it seems no one wants to be the one to talk to Tilly. Sandraminae has to grab someone by their hair just to stop them, before throwing them out of the room. You can spy your own equipment and clothes neatly tucked in said cupboard, but those aren't what's drawn. Instead it's bowls of wood and amphoras of wine and water. In moments, each of you has at least one or two scantily-clad attendants cleaning your wounds and redressing your bandages. At least the damage is mostly cosmetic by now - light bruising, some cuts, a dreadful headache and a wasted day in bed. The leader is yet to move. She doesn't seem to know where to look. Finally, she just says, "Good work, everyone. You'd all better get out of here before Tilly gets in. She's going to be loud." There is a muffled shout from the other side of the door. "Bloody right she will be!" The elf stiffens, and then she regards all of you with, oddly enough, sympathy. The same, however, cannot be said of the people tending to your wounds. They back away. Everyone holds their breath, which just makes the jangling of keys all the louder and it gets closer and closer. One heavy boot-stomp at a time. Then the door swings open. In it, as wide as the frame, is a short, stocky orc. The only thing that gives away her age is the tumbling silver and grey locks that fall messily about her thick head - she clearly has not lost any of vigour from her youth. Each of her muscles is strong, with biceps almost the size of her head and legs like tree-trunks. She wears a simple orange cotton shirt and trousers under her thick leather apron. She doesn't need fancy clothes to show her power - it's in the scars that are all over her, from head to toe, worn proudly, and the eyepatch that instantly tells you who she is. Tilly One-eye Gansog. Matriarch of the Dead Mermaid's Casino. With a snarl that bares both of her huge tusks. She doesn't say anything at first. She just stomps into the room, commanding it silently. Every step is accompanied by the jingle-jangle of a set of keys, and the huff of her nostrils expanding, releasing, hot breath after hot breath. Then, quietly, she explains, "The Chest of Majab Ig Grun both is and contains a very precious... family heirloom. Not a family anyone's heard of, mind, but still. It's important. I paid a hefty price for it. Thousands of gold pieces. The owners of the Eight Dragon Inn were going to pay me an even heftier price for it." One of the exotically dressed men steps forward. A young thing, boyish and beautiful. Sandraminae notices him moving forward and lowly growls, "Raul, don't..." He does. "Umm... Ma-Madam... what's actually in the..." BAM! He can't even finish the sentence before Tilly's fist has smashed his face open. She hits him hard enough to take him off of his feet, and he smacks in the wall. Sandraminae is on him immediately, concerned though tutting at him for being an idiot. Tilly doesn't even notice, and wheels back around to all of you. "ALL I NEED TO KNOW!" Tilly bellows, barely comprehensible. She then takes a pause to wipe her glove free of blood, and starts again. "All I need to know right now is - what did you idiots do with it, and how are you going to pay me for it?! Sandraminae's taken your measurements already, unless you've got better ideas!"

Out Of Character Welcome to The Lawless City! I have ensured that none of you have lost your initial items or anything. It is just The Chest that is missing. There are plenty of specifics about the robbery - each of you should have them in Secret Texts. But any other details, such as party order, or how the box was taken to the bridge, etc, you are free to go wild so long as you don't massively contradict each other. If you want to discuss something in OOC, feel free. Oh, and you may choose to make retroactive Perception rolls to see if you noticed anything odd when escorting the Chest of Majab Ig Grun, Knowledge History rolls to see if you know what the Chest actually is, and Knowledge Local for any suspicious characters or events you may have seen yesterday.

[DoubleL1987]

Garridan allowed the two Dead Mermaid workers to tend to him for a few moments, just long enough for him to self-diagnose exactly what had been bruised, clubbed, stamped on and kicked at and thankfully, nothing seemed to be broken, before politely waving the young man and woman away. The worst of his current ailments was that dull, throbbing headache that reminded him uncomfortably of the last three years, a matter not helped by a particularly dry mouth and he moved past the offered wine, instead to a pitcher of water, which he was in the middle of drinking when Tilly made her entrance.

He expected the anger and the roaring. Even before presenting himself at the Dead Mermaid after his arrival from Breenland, he had asked around about the woman who had said she could help him in exchange for this own assistance with the sale of the chest. Now he was wondering if he was going to get that help at all. The human swallowed a second glass as one of Tilly’s unfortunate workers bore the initial brunt of her anger and he noted that, as painful as it might have been for Raul, it would at least blunt some small measure of her anger before she turned to them, and gave him the few precious moments it took to collect his memories of the incident, both before and during, and as she demanded to know what they had done with the chest, he shook his head and turned for the box containing their equipment.

”Calm down, Tilly – there’s no point in taking it out on us. Your operation was scuppered from the beginning,” Garridan replied simply as he fished in the box and finally extracted the two most important items from it. A battered black Trilby hat was placed back on his brown head of hair, and as he turned to face the half-orc who stood almost a foot taller than him, he slid a pair of black-rimmed glasses back up the bridge of his nose. ”The guards had setup a checkpoint on the bridge where everyone passing had to declare whether they had something to declare – not sure how regularly that happens these days, but it definitely wasn’t the norm when I still lived here. We didn’t even get a chance to spin any kind of story or bribe them, because the minute they saw your chest, they dogpiled us, and without putting too fine a point to it, beat seven shades of shite out of us.”

Garridan’s hands slid into the pockets of his robe as he regarded Tilly evenly, trying to read her expression in turn as he told her of what had happened. ”Before that happened, I’m sure we were being followed – I saw a kobold trail past us twice in the time it took us to get from the casino to the bridge, big scar across his face, seemed pretty old,” The human dragged his index finger across his own face to demonstrate the identifying mark. ”He was also there on the bridge when the guards jumped us, watching – not doing anything else, not using the chaos to get across or snake something, just watching.”

Turning back towards the box, Garridan shrugged out of the robe, either having no modesty, or seemingly too preoccupied with the pieces he was busy assembling in his mind to care that he was simply down to his underwear, scarred back on display as he changed back into his old clothes, finally throwing on the aged military greatcoat over his wiry frame before picking up his black umbrella and gave a satisfied nod after a quick check to make sure it wasn’t damaged in the scuffle.

”I think someone supposedly on your side here gave up information regarding the chest. Speaking of which…” Garridan’s green eyes swept the room before returning to their erstwhile employer. ”…Where are the three guards you sent with us? Were they not as lucky as us to survive the ambush? Or have they not turned up yet?”

[Exhibit A]

Kotram Deepiron "Huh," Kotram grunted loudly, a scowl on his face as he picked himself up from the footrest. "Ya wanna know what happened te th' guards, I'll tell ya! The bleedin' idiots wandered off! Chasin' after some trollop by the' sound of it. Y'got some nerve, Tilly, blowin' up at us after that mess of a job ye sent us on. Ye hire us for a 'simple' job, give us contraband to carry acorss the city without even the decency t' let us know, an then your brilliant employees leave us high an' dry before the trouble starts!"

 

Dice Perception:

d20+7

(4)+7

Total = 11

Dice Know (History):

d20+6

(7)+6

Total = 13

Dice Know (Local):

d20+6

(18)+6

Total = 24

STATBLOCK Kotram Deepiron HP: 9/9 Senses: Initiative: +1; Perception: +7; Darkvision 60 ft AC (Normal, Touch, Flat): 16; 12; 14 Saves (Fort, Ref, Will): +0; +3; +5 Languages: Common, Dwarf, Orc

[Fyre2387]

Rashirr Rashir groaned. Everything hurt. He wasn’t a stranger to pain, but it hurt worse when he’d lost. And today he’d lost. A champion gladiator losing to a bunch of city guards…it was pathetic. "City guards fought us. Lots of them. Beat us up. Didn’t know they would do that." His eyes glazed over as he picked a bit of dried blood matted in his fur. Was that his blood? Didn’t matter. The events of day played in his mind. Wait…"I saw something. Before guards fought us, somebody gave one of them money. Maybe we should find that person?"

[Lentil Sponge]

Location	Map	Season	Day	Time	Weather
The Dead Mermaid's Casino	J9	Harvest	102 of 120	4:11pm	Sunny

The Dead Mermaid's Casino Tilly didn't say a word while Garridan, Kotram and Rashirr said their piece. It didn't seem like she was listening, however - it was more that she wasn't used to being talked back to. Whether it was with casual irreverence, such as Garridan, or with snapping bites, such as Kotram. Only Rashirr didn't get an ugly glare from her. "You're blaming me for this?" she slowly said, every single word divided up to emphasise her anger. Everyone but Sandraminae backed away. "You have some nerve! I'll use your skull as a drinking horn!" The short but wide orc began to barrel forward with all of the power of a bull. It took a very hasty hand meeting her shoulder to stop her. "I think they make an excellent point!" Tilly stopped. Her one-eye now fixed on Sandraminae, who didn't so much as bristle - apparently, redirecting her boss' rage was the elf's main job around here. "About the ambush. These guys were attacked, right? Maybe they know by whom?" Time slowed. Tilly's one eye looked ready to bulge out of her skull and dive for Sandraminae to punch her. Then she moved, one slow step at a time. Bootsteps reverbated in the silent room. Her keys jingled excitedly. She suddenly snatched Sandraminae's arm and pulled her out of the door. They had left the room in an uneasy quiet. Without their masters to stop them, the casino workers fully peered at each of their potential new colleagues in turn. Every one of you was looked at as if they were seeing criminals lined up on the gallows. Little titterings from the group, gossip and pity about each of you. They immediately stopped when the door was thrown open once again. Tilly was immediately back in, shouldering over two of the gossiping workers. "Say thank you to Sandraminae for saving your worthless skins!" she bellowed, making everyone else flinch. She gestured vaguely to Sandraminae's direction as the elf stepped back into the room. "You lot live here now! I want you all close, so I can make sure you don't bugger anything else up! You work when Sandraminae tells you to! What she tells you to! And in your off hours, you can go out into the city and get my money!" Tilly stormed out, only briefly stopping at the door. "I dare all of you to piss me off again! I'll have you on your backs! Whether it's in that bed, or in a shallow bloody grave!" And with that she slammed the door shut. It was hard enough to knock one of the screws loose. Sandraminae's whole body was tense for a few moments more. Then, in a single gasp, she relaxed. Her blue eyes met all of yours in turn quickly, and her full lips crooked just a little. "I think she likes you - after all, no one's dead." Then she looked back to her sub-ordinates. "Remind me, do you get paid for gossiping? Water, wine, bandages!" The attendants began to scurry all over you again with slender fingers and wooden cups being held towards your lips. "Just so you know, you owe me too," Sandraminae pointed out cooly, folding her arms across her ample chest. "And tonight is going to be a busy shift. Though before that, I think I should hear what else you have for me. Any guards you recognise? And just who the hell is the kobold?"

Out Of Character No roll results here, shusssssssh

[Fyre2387]

Rashirr Rashirr took a cup of water with a muttered thanks. "Don’t know the guards," he said between sips, "But I know the sort, used to see them ‘round the arena. Dirty, stupid. Get in debt, gambling maybe, and need coin. One that checked us on the bridge was that kind. He’s the one that told the other guards to attack us. Also saw another guard, a lady, take money from somebody. She looked strange." He stopped and took another drink while he thought it over, the process apparently strenuous for him. "Her armor, it didn’t fit right. I think. Maybe cheap armor, don’t know, but it didn’t seem right."

[Exhibit A]

Kotram Deepiron Always the same. Job goes belly-up because of bad intel and bad planning, and who takes the fall? The lowly merc, naturally. Certainly not the bloody fools who buggered up the thing from the start. Not even her worthless employees, who it seemed had demonstrated their unreliability in the past. No, the folk with the money make the rules, even moreso in a place like Julianople, it seemed. Well, Kotram was nothing if not pragmatic, and it's not like he had any plans to leave the city anytime soon anyhow. If he had to ride some time out working for the witch, so be it. "Aye, the so called 'guards' had some poorly-fitted armor, that's for sure. Either the watch is as cheap as it is corrupt, or those weren't really guards. Likely someone hired them to stop us. Question is, who'd want to?" He looked up at Sandraminae, "Any thoughts on that? Or anything else you'd like to share? It's obvious ye've left a lot out, if ye want us to fix this mess of yers, now would be time to speak up."

STATBLOCK Kotram Deepiron HP: 9/9 Senses: Initiative: +1; Perception: +7; Darkvision 60 ft AC (Normal, Touch, Flat): 16; 12; 14 Saves (Fort, Ref, Will): +0; +3; +5 Languages: Common, Dwarf, Orc