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| Jason Seeley |
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Joined: 6/29/2007
Posts: 97
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Oct 30, 2009
Shortly after I saw the puddle of goo come out of the cell, I saw it go into the next room and a moment later the door was opened by a naked woman, one of our cellmates, Bridgette. She came back into the prison, and opened a couple of cells. A man in one said something about letting the rest of us out, and she complied. We rushed through the complex, finding dead soldiers scattered about. We managed to equip ourselves and make a run for it.
Our bedraggled group made it to the entrance of the prisons when a force of Celestines came in, led by an opposing man standing nearly 7 feet tall, armored head to toe and wielding the nastiest two-handed axe I’ve ever seen in a single hand, followed by a troop of smallish grey-skinned creatures. We took them back down into the bowels of the dungeon where they had a look around. Satisfied, we went back to the surface and their mages created a portal for us to escape. Wasting no time, we jumped through.
Sadly, we were followed by some Suul soldiers, and a short fight later, we finally managed to have our freedom.
Gregor, one of our fellow prisoners recruited those of us who wanted to go with him in a little mercenary troop. He promised to get me out of my enlistment with the army, and said I was free to go once I did a job for him, so I figured that was a good enough offer for me.
Our job was nab an ex-princess or some such, and we were sent to the city where she resides. Bridgette and I were assigned to get some information and we decided to nab a kitchen worker. We followed her back to her house and I snuck inside while Bridgette watched the door.
I quietly worked my way through the house to where the woman lay sleeping, and stuffed some rags into her mouth to keep her from screaming. She must work in a militant kitchen, because I no sooner did so than she bolted full awake, grabbed a nearby candlestick, and broke several of my ribs. Bridgette came to my rescue, though, and she subdued the woman with a single blow to the head.
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| Jason Seeley |
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Joined: 6/29/2007
Posts: 97
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11/13/2009
Bridgette and I took the monstrous kitchen lady back to where Gregor and the rest of the company were waiting. We acted like she had had too much to drink, and we were helping her out to the passersby that saw us.
We interrogated her when we got her back to the camp. She let us know where the princess's room was, and a couple of different ways we could get to her. Neither of the two approaches seemed like a good idea - we could go through the front way, possibly having issues with guards all along the way, or we enter through the kitchens which would go through the barracks.
We opted to enter through the kitchens. The first hurdle was getting past the guards outside. It was decided that we could ambush the outside guard and then work our way inside. The rough wall construction in this town lends itself to climbing, with interior beams sticking out occasionally through the plaster walls, but no one else seemed to like the idea of perching up on a wall until a guard passed to ambush them. Mal decided to take a direct approach, while I wended my way along the side. The architecture of the place was a bit frustrating, though, as I didn't have a good place to hide while I waited for the guard I was supposed to take out to round a bend.
While I backed up against the wall behind Bridgette, though, a peculiar thing happened... she told me to back up more, and I swear I did.. right up the wall! I looked down and one foot was off the ground by a couple inches while I felt the other take full purchase on the vertical wall. I was so astonished by this, that I didn't notice that it was right then that the guard decided to come around the corner. These are crack troops! He didn't even seem surprised as he fluidly dealt a good blow to Bridgette. While she stumbled, I leaped past to strike him solidly in return, the fine scimitar I found slicing clean through his frail armor. Cursing, Bridgette got back up and dealt the final blow.
We met the others by the kitchen entrance and worked our way inside. We entered the barracks quietly enough, and I managed to take out several of the soldiers in the room I was assigned to without event, but someone else messed up because soon enough there was an alarm called and soldiers hustling from their beds and arming themselves. I managed to quickly finish taking out the soldiers in my room, and quickly rushed past Mal into the next room. I engaged a few of the soldiers in there, who had already gotten themselves armed. Mal shouted for me to move, and I dodged just in time to see a flaming ball burst into the chest of one of the soldiers I was fighting, leaving a pile of dust in its wake. A few seconds later, that room was clear, and we moved on. We managed to take out most of the soldiers over the next minute, but some of them escaped to raise an alarm. I had been hoping to loot the place while we were here, but the escaping guards put an end to that hope.
We hurried through the palace to where the captives were being held, only to discover that the female prisoners had been breeding stock for the last several years. The princess wouldn't leave without her children, which were, of course, held elsewhere.
We managed to get her and her children, but Fisher was determined to free anyone that would come. The rest of us left, and hit the road immediately, but he stayed behind to see if he could free additional people.
We moved for a couple of days back to our insertion city, where our agents in the city hid us and then gated us back to where we started. Fisher came back a day or two later with several more women and children.
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| Jason Seeley |
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Joined: 6/29/2007
Posts: 97
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Our next job was quick in arriving - we were to head to a city some 4 weeks travel away and assassinate a political figure, with a couple of secondary targets should it prove possible.
Along the way, I entertained myself by scooping up some dirt and trying to get it to stick to my hand, then willing it to let go, or doing the other things by sticking them to my forehead or at odd angles from my body. It took a while, but I was really getting the hang of this new ability I seem to have to stick to things or have them stick to me. During my last battle, I noticed that sometimes when I hit things, it comes with an extra bang - and I tried to figure out how to do that at will, too. I didn't meet with as much success on that, although I did demolish a few plants on our way down.
When we finally arrived, Gregor asked Kirpu and Cyrus to find a cheap place to stay. They definitely rose up to the challenge, because I'm pretty sure it was the worst place to stay in the city. It was called the Crusty Jugs, and lived up to its name. The bedding was lice-infested straw, and we had to clean up before any of us dared sleep in there.
The irony is that we were tasked with attending a high-profile party and mix in with the crowd. Staying at the Crusty Jugs didn't help me feel too much like mixing in with the wealthy. I did scout out a couple of costume stores and found out what kind of costumes and clothing that people would be wearing to the party. I found a particularly fetching costume pair for Bridgette and I that resembled some kind of peacock affair. There was some story about that costume, but I didn't know the story. I did pick up that it was a tragic story, so I went ahead and picked them up.
When I showed the costume to Bridgette, she was not very impressed. But after pointing out that it will keep peoples' eyes on her assets and not her face, thus making her harder to pick out later, she agreed.
The plan was straightforward enough... some of our troop would impersonate servants, others would be guests. Mal had managed to cart off a bunch of invitations somehow, and we decided to use them. As all plans seem to go, though, once it started, things didn't quite work out. For one, I was left in my ambush room waiting for Bridgette to arrive with a mark. After quite a long wait, I finally left my spot and headed back out into the main room. I came out in time to see our mark running across the floor above behind the balcony, a dagger protruding from his gut, and fall down. No sign of Bridgette aside from what I presumed was her dagger, and I didn't quite dare risk myself to check out if she'd made it out okay. After all, she can turn to water, and would have the easiest time of any of us with escape.
I headed back to our rooms a little bit dazed. A few hours later, Bridgette still didn't show. We decided to wait a couple of days in order to see if we could find anything out about her. Rumors were going that the assassins had all been caught. We obviously knew that to not be true, and some rumors were about that the marks were recovering nicely. From what I got from the others, only my mark had any chance of recovering - the others were way beyond any hope of recovery.
Bridgette finally returned the night before the day we were likely to leave, and she was pretty worse for wear. She'd escaped the dungeon by turning into water and working her way through the sewers. Not a glorious escape, but better than any of the rest probably could have managed. We ended up having to stick around because our contact was missing. When we contacted Darkwater, a mage group here, they said they could get our contact free, who was in custody, and get us out of the city (something that appeared to be downright difficult due to the assassinations) in exchange for doing a job to retrieve some documents for them and then burn out the office containing them.
We agreed to do so. That evening, we went to do the job. The office ended up being a few stories above the ground. I managed to just climb up the outside of the building and slip inside via a window. The others wanted to go up ropes instead of just using the stairs inside the building - I had unlocked the building for them, so they must have wanted to just make it hard on themselves.
After getting into the office, Mal suggested that we retrieve the required documents, but also look around for other items of interest. He and Fisher found a whole pile of interesting documents, which they stowed away. Mal set flame to the office, and I scurried down the outer wall. Cyrus and Fisher must have been caught up in the excitement, because they followed me out the window in a hurry. Both seemed to grab the rope as an afterthought, and Cyrus never quite got a grip. He fell past me, thudding on the ground below. Fisher was just a few moments behind.
Fisher got back up and I could see his arms bent at weird angles. Then his eyes glowed red, and when I looked again, his arms were fine. Cyrus wasn't so lucky. It took him a while to get back up. We moved off just in time, as the fire brigade appeared to be mobilizing.
The next day, our contact came and met us, and we were told to congregate at a given spot near the outer wall at the end of the day. We went, and there was a gaping hole in the wall for us to walk through.
By the time we got back home another four weeks later, I felt like I had pretty much full control of my new abilities and could use them without difficulty.
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| Jason Seeley |
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Joined: 6/29/2007
Posts: 97
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12/26/2009
Shortly after getting back, Gregor gathered us together and said that he bought a 3-story house that we would use as headquarters, and told us how we would divvy our contracts and pay going forward. The pay for the last job was pretty good, so I figured I would give it a shot. Gregor stated that he was going to form several different teams, some working close, some working farther away. The away team had an upcoming job, but Gregor was still working out the details. Cyrus and a couple of new scrubs were assigned to a few local jobs right off the bat.
While waiting for the new job to start, I got to work on our new headquarters. I used to do some odd building jobs when I was a kid to try to get by when finding things wasn't working out so well for me, and I enjoyed the change of pace. Plus, I created little stash holes all over the house. Never know when I might need a place to hide something I shouldn't be caught with for a later pickup.
These older homes are sure a tight fit. Gregor and I worked on it the most, with some of the others popping in from time to time. We managed to create a presentable entry room for potential clients and a nice place to relax between jobs, fixed up the kitchen area, and prepped rooms enough to get everyone to fit. Most of us will have to double up, but that shouldn't be too bad. There's a nice garden area on the roof, and a small common yard in the back that we may end up 'claiming' for training and such. I haven't seen any neighbors use it, so I don't think anyone will mind if we just start using it.
Our job finally came up, and Gregor sent most of the last troop, without himself, but he added a new guy to come with us. We were to contact some guy "Alatron" of the Darkwater mages in Riverton and help him out, in order to sway him to ally with the rebellion.
After arriving in Riverton, we found a suitable place to stay, and met a man named Baxter. He said he'd dreamed about "Malkus", which I picked up that he meant old Mal. At any rate, he kept going on about the rat being a danger to Malkus. Mal came up with a plan to try to get more dreaming out of Baxter, and in the meantime I figured I would head off and find Rellant. I figured out where he was living, and made my way out there, after a warning that travelers tend to disappear in Riverton lately.
As I traveled through the slummier parts of the city, one thing became obvious. It was quiet - much too quiet. When I realized this, I paid more attention to what was going on around me, and the thing was that there was nothing going on around me. No beggars, no urchins, no pickpockets. Nothing. It appears that more than just travelers are disappearing. I made my way more carefully through the streets until I arrived at where Rellant was supposed to live. Third floor of a little house.
I made my way up the thin stairs to his door, and knocked. A muffled voice came from the other side, telling me to go away. I got close to the door, and muttered that I was looking for Alatron, and was told that Rellant could put me in contact. A mousy man opened the door and motioned for me to come inside, peering nervously past me as I entered, and closed the door abruptly.
Rellant's home was piled high with precarious stacks of garbage mixed with a sharp contrast of trinkets and valuable objects. Tempting as it might be, I refrained from snatching anything, pretty certain that any shifting of the piles would cause the whole mess to collapse. I followed Rellant carefully as he navigated through the stacks, his eyes searching me suspiciously the entire time. He finally announced that for a mere 20 silver pieces, he would arrange a meeting with Alatron. I told him I could give him 10 now, and bring another 10 to him at the meeting. He agreed readily enough, and told me to be at Sir Bryant's Tavern the next day at 5. He then ushered me out the door and shut it quickly behind me.
Deciding to use a different route home than the one I took to get here, I clambered up to the rooftops and ran across the roofs of the houses all the way back to the Broken Stag Inn. On my way back, I was watching for anyone else on the rooftops or eaves of houses. At night, the rooftops are commonly called the thieves' highway in most towns, and this one seemed well traveled, with the houses fitting just right, and the rooftops in decent repair. The whole way back, I only ran into one guy, who was perched in the eves of a tower. I waved to him, and he waved back, and I reached the inn shortly after.
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| Jason Seeley |
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Joined: 6/29/2007
Posts: 97
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So, tonight, we decided to break out into two groups and see what each group could discover. Candace, Zakhar, and I took high vantage points to watch the other group. Zakhar kept trying to hover around me, until I was finally able to get it through that he might be attracting attention my direction by hanging out so close to me and calling out every once in a while. It is hard to be sneaky when someone is 'hiding' with you.
After a while, I noticed someone else hiding up on a rooftop as well - and he wasn't one of our companions. Bridgette pretended to fall unconscious on the street below, and I noticed this watcher throw some kind of magical dust and it floated down to her and floated around her for a bit. I snuck up on him, shot him with a bolt of energy that kept him pinned, and then proceeded to interrogate him. He worked for someone 'collecting' people. He told me that it was quite lucrative, and that he'd introduce me to his boss, saying that I'd be a useful addition to their team. I went ahead and let him set up a meeting.
Shortly after, a cart came and retrieved Bridgette. The party followed and demolished the guys driving the cart. We snuck down into some tunnels below the crypt that ended up going all over underneath the city. We explored and found several points of interest, including a circle of some great magical power. We also found a secret entrance to a brothel, where one of the members of the coven we were sent to recruit was ... making good use of his time at the brothel. We also came across some of the people that were taken, down in the tunnels.
We eventually discovered that several of the coven's women were directly involved in a plot with a powerful sorcerer to drain other people in order to keep themselves young and lithe. We were able to fight them to a surrender, and then we sent for Alatron, who executed the traitors.
We left Riverton to go to a nearby city to free the brother of one of the mages, Zafeer, who was being held by the Creator's Hand. Zafeer had been leaking information to the Creator's Hand about the coven in order to keep his brother alive, and we couldn't leave him behind or else we would be compromised - and none of us relished the idea of killing him, feeling bad for his situation. So we decided to see if we could free his brother so that he could return with the rest of us in returning with the coven.
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