Adv: A Night at the Opera; Judge TwoHeadsBarking

The warforged said nothing. He was a spirit of smoke and flame, an apparition in robes the color of blood. The menace around him was palpable, almost as if something slightly unheard could be caught. As he came into the sight of the guardsman, these intensified. It all pointed to one need, one desire: To leave this warforged and the others be, let them do as the Gods will... to be somewhere else.[sblock=OOC]Quards want to be like that. fine. Incarnation will come out, kick in Beguiling Tongue, and Intimidate: 31[/sblock]

Qynn slowly moves towards the alley.

Sheng insists, closing to the bugbear. “Glad you come o talk, you partner doesn’t seem to be the communicative type. We need to check the lighting system inside, but we need those boxes, either inside or at least guarded. There are all kind of thieves around, ya know?” he says.

[sblock=ooc]There are no bugbears, thus far, just to be clear. There is a young hobgoblin who has his sword out, and a second who is just making his way over.[/sblock]

"Yeah alright." Says the second guard. As he comes closer into the light, you can see he looks older than the other. A long scar running across his face. His complacent annoyance tells you that this is not the first request he hasn't desired to do. "Which boxes?"

The warforged said nothing. He was a spirit of smoke and flame, an apparition in robes the color of blood. The menace around him was palpable, almost as if something slightly unheard could be caught. As he came into the sight of the guardsman, these intensified. It all pointed to one need, one desire: To leave this warforged and the others be, let them do as the Gods will... to be somewhere else.

"By the, g-g-gods. . ." Uttered the younger guard, though it was barely audible. He lowered his sword a bit, clearly frightened. He begins quickly shuffling back towards the main street. The scared guard hasn't seemed to notice yet, too busy with actual work too notice the jumpiness of his partner.

"Those boxe...What?! Where are the crates?! God damnit! I turn and my things are gone!" Sheng pretends, looking from side to side, hoping he is buying enough time for the others to sneak in.

Incarnation eyes Dane to get him to hurry, while he disappears back into the alley with Rurdev. Our entrance. Where is it?

OOC: Try to move back to a more darkened spot out of eyeshot first so we can Stealth again.

Dane will follow Incarnation the best he can down the alley.

OOC: I'm getting confused as to what is happening.

Rurdev stumbles back down the alleyway, doing his best to portray a drunk. Once around the corner where the stairs were, the shifter gets rid of his act, if no more people are around. Moving quickly up the stairs, he listens at the door.

[sblock=rolls]Perception: 26; Stealth 14. perception, stealth (1d20+9=26, 1d20+7=14) [/sblock]

[sblock=review of what's happening]
I'll dig the map out first chance this afternoon.

Hadrak and Sheng are dressed like lamp installers trying to distract the guards. They are currently pretending to have lost their boxes. The second guard (G2) is quite distracted.

Rurdev went sneaking along the alley but made too much noise. When the first guard (G1) went investigating he pretended to be drunk. Incarnation snuck over, was also discovered and is now scaring the first guard who slowly backed down the alley.

Rurdev took the opportunity to sneak up the back stairs, now empty, and listen at the door.

You and Qynn are near the start of the alley but have hardly been noticed due to not doing much in comparrison to the drunk, monster, and annoying laborers.

The front door is now unguarded, but there is a ticket window there, with someone in it. THere is also another alley to the right of Theatre which has not been investigated. It is possible to circle round the back to get there.

It is dark.

The most apparent immediate options: Kill the guards, try and sneak over to Rurdev and Incarnation, try to go through the front, check out the other alley, help intimidate the other guard.

You're roughly in a skill challenge right now, (I say roughly because its a bit too complex to just count successes and failures) so almost everything needs a skill check.

So Dane, if you want to get to Incarnation, you either need to get the younger guard (G1) further away (perhaps Intimidate) or you need to stealth. I suppose you could just walk down the alley, but he might be confused at why you're walking into what he beleives to be certain danger.

Everyone, if you want to sneak, stealth. Trick or encourage a guard to do something, Diplomacy, Bluff of Intimidate. Check things out, Perception or Insight. Hide a weapon, Thievery.

Or be creative! There is XP on the line for this. Remember, encounter XP was recently doubled. I'm just saying.[/sblock]

[sblock=Rurdev]You can hear people inside, but they don't seem to close to the door. There is some kind of mild disagreement.[/sblock]

Scarred Guard (G2): "How did you loose them?" He says with annoyance. "Where did you put them? I didn't see anyone walking around with crates, except the other lamp guys."

"What other lamp guys? We are the only damn lamp guys! Where did those morons went? I'll gona breake their ankles fer this!" says the irated false lamp guy. "Or why don't you teach them a lesson? You sure seem strong and capable of delivering a good amount of pain. Besides I bet you enjoy it."
Sheng tries to convince the guard to purse the real lamp instalers, and give them a good smack down, in order to get into the building.
Bluff:27, Diplomacy:22

Hadrak nods emphatically at everything Sheng is saying. Now, what could he say in support of his colleague? Uh... Hadrak draws a blank and resumes nodding.

Aid to bluff DC 10 (1d20+2=5)

OOC: Oh, send me an image for your token if you'd like.

Rurdev is at G5
Incarantion is at A6
Dane is at D20
Qinn is at A23
Sheng is at E20
Hadrak is at F21
Hobgoblin 1 (intimidated) is at C16
Hobgoblin 2 (Fooled) is at F20

Everything above 1, and to the left of A 1-20 is solid buildings. Everything dark (the theatre and other alley) is yet to be explored.