I love a Parade: The Night of the Parade
Just as the sun started to set and evening began, an excited crowd gathered around a seemingly unimportant turn in the middle of the parade route. As expected, they cheered the city’s various heroes and the treasures on display until a float approached that, unlike all the others, didn’t seem to be slowing down for the next turn. In fact, it wasn’t turning at all! Panicking, the crowd fled in every direction to get away from the barricade the float was about to crash into. With a deafening smash, the float burst through the barricade without even slowing down. As it did so, one of the two watch guards on the float was knocked screaming from the float. He landed in a heap in the middle of the float’s path, and was apparently knocked unconscious by the fall.
From the float right behind it, Luke and Ik looked on in shock. They knew about an attack, but despite the research the rest of his team were doing, they didn’t know that such an elaborate plan to separate the target float was underway. They had little time to ponder this, however, for they soon realized that both their float and the one right behind it, which held the unbreakable column, also were going into the dark alleyway behind the barricade. Fortunately, since the first float smashed into it so hard, the barricade was mostly destroyed before the other floats reached it, ensuring no more accidents like the one that was about to claim the life of one of the watch guards.
From the shadows of the alleyway, Anastacia, Enrique, Elvis, Lorren, and Grim emerged. None of them were too pleased with what they saw. “I thought Treafilel said only one float would go this way,” Anastacia muttered.
Enrique shrugged. “Maybe we can’t trust our patron as much as he claimed. I’m not surprised.”
They soon realized they would have bigger problems, however. From above, the howls of countless humanoids monsters could be heard. Luke, who had a better view from the top of the second float, looked up with worry. Why were so many creatures attacking one treasure, no matter how valuable it is?
Before the floats reached the first humanoids, however, they had to worry about the more traditional thieves. From the ground, Lorren fired on the last surviving guard on the Jewel’s float with a bolt of magic, and Elvis followed it up with an arrow, sending the inexperienced warrior to the ground in a bleeding heap. Meanwhile, Enrique, Anastacia, and Grim made their way onto the catwalks of the float itself, with the swift-footed barbarian Grim easily taking the lead. He already was at the gem’s pedestal and trying to pry it out when the first threats appeared.
From the second float, Ik made a risky leap onto the lead float, and she managed to successfully land on one of the twisting catwalks leading to the top of the float and the pedestal. Meanwhile, three goblins made the equally daring leap from nearby rooftops. One made it as far as the top of the float, a second made it to one of the side catwalks, and a third severely mistimed a jump and ended up dangling on one of the float’s railings.
Elvis boarded one side of the float and began to swing at the goblin on the lower catwalks, while Enrique and Anastacia moved to block the top goblin from distracting Grim as he continued to work on removing the Jewel of Success. When Enrique reached the top of the float, however, Ik looked at him with recognition. “Hey, I know you!” she shouted accusatorily. “You were hired to help guard the float. You were supposed to work for us!”
His co-conspirators looked at Enrique angrily, but he just shrugged. “I just wanted to get more information. Don’t worry; I’m here to protect you. I want in on this Jewel as much as you do.”
Meanwhile, Lorren fired another blast of magic at the dangling goblin, and when that didn’t finish him off, he picked him off with a crossbow shot. With the goblin dead, he quickly ran to catch up to the lead float and leapt onto the lower catwalk before he got left behind.
Back at the top of the float, Anastacia and Enrique were trading blows with the goblin, but Anastacia appeared to be doubtful about the whole thing. She looked at Ik, who had a similar hesitation about current events, “Hey, you?” Anastacia muttered. “What do you say that we work together on this one? Whichever side wins, the other will vouch for the loser?”
Ik thought about it, and shrugged. “Fair enough. I’ve only been with the watch for a day anyway.”
Back on the second float, Luke blessed his dwindling side, and then began to fire at his enemies with his own crossbow. For now, his main concern were the humanoid monsters, since he knew firsthand how brutal they could be and how many were in the city. One shot struck the lower goblin, which Elvis finished off. The final goblin was killed by Anastacia and Enrique just as Grim managed to finally pry the Jewel from its pedestal! The heist was already almost a success!
But there was no time to celebrate. As the floats proceeded forward, the lead one drew parallel to a wooden mechanism on a nearby roof. Suddenly, the device lowered, creating a bridge from the roof to the float! Four kobolds carefully navigated the bridge, mindful of the difficulty of reaching the still moving float before it got past the bridge. Seeing how crowded it was on top of the float, only two of the kobolds reached that point, where they swarmed on Enrique to reach Grim and his treasure. The other two jumped to the lower catwalks to engage Ik and Elvis. One scored a lucky shot on the confused bard, knocking her unconscious. It was rewarded, however, by a crossbow bolt between the eyes by an increasingly frustrated Luke.
Despite the element of surprise, however, the kobolds had a very short-lived success. As Grim pocketed the gem and moved away from the upper layers to escape with the reward, Anastacia, Enrique, and Elvis converged on the three surviving kobolds. Anastacia, enraged at losing her new ally, drove her rapier right through one of the tiny reptile’s heads, while Elvis struck another one down with his longsword. Enrique wounded the third, and it was brought down with more magic by Lorren.
The next wave of humanoids struck immediately, but it was underwhelming at best. Four more goblin leapers dove at the float, but the roofs were farther from the road at this point and the jump was much more difficult. One missed the float entirely and landed on the ground. A loud, audible snap could be heard from somewhere inside its body, and it collapsed immediately from the pain. A second suffered an even worse fate, as it mistimed the jump completely and fell between the first two floats! It couldn’t move out of the way in time, and with one last anguished cry, it was crushed by the wheels of the massive float.
As the party moved to engage the final two, they saw that another barricade was set up just a few dozen feet down the road! Unlike the last one, this one didn’t appear to be set up by the city, as it looked like it was made hastily and with little effort. Most likely, it was done by the humanoids, the thief’s guild, or whatever forces rigged the floats and hired much of the party in the first place. With the risk of falling off the float now the priority, the party moved to duck behind railings and defenses and only swung at the goblins after it was safe. Nonetheless, another goblin was killed by Grim. When the lead float hit the barricade, some of the part was knocked off their feet, but the only once knocked off the float entirely was the final goblin, which apparently didn’t see the barricade in time.
But while it appeared that the assault of the humanoids was starting to slow down, some of its most powerful allies still remained. Two orcs charged out of the next houses passed, where they quickly got onto the float and targeted Elvis and Lorren, who were still on the lower levels of the catwalk. Elvis nimbly dodged the attack, but Lorren was surprised by the sudden threat. The orc effortlessly stabbed the young mage in the chest, leaving him dying. Before he could climb farther up the catwalk, however, the orc was nearly sliced in half by the suddenly enraged Grim!
As Enrique and Elvis teamed up on the remaining orc, Grim used his limited training as a healer to stop the bleeding on his ally. Unlike his efforts on the wounded rogue earlier, he was successful here. Meanwhile, Anastacia and Luke noticed that more kobolds were waiting on the next few roofs. Unlike the earlier kobolds, they didn’t have bridges, and they didn’t seem the type to leap onto the float. Instead, they were armed with slings, suggesting that they were archers. Both sides fired a volley of arrows, bolts, and rocks at each other until the party noticed the next obstacle. A small trench was dug into the road, and while it wasn’t likely to cause a float to crash completely, they did look deep enough to shake up the floats again! The party dove behind more barricades just in time.
When they got up again, most of the party turned their attention on the archer kobolds, but a few noticed that they were under attack by less obvious threats. Luke chanced a look behind him and noticed a strange figure was boarding the last float, which contained nothing but the supposedly useless gem column. The man was fully clad in a strange black armor, and while he couldn’t see the details due to the obstruction of the column and the poor light, it almost looked like the armor was shifting and moving, as if it was alive. Meanwhile, Enrique noticed a cloaked figure was sneaking onto his float. He carefully moved behind the hiding threat, and noticed with a shock that it was Treafilel!
Enrique tried to shout a warning while attacking their treasonous employer, but while he gave the rogue a vicious cut across his back, it wasn’t enough. He plunged his sword into the unaware Grim, leaving the unconscious barbarian grasping onto the last inch of his life. He noticed Enrique was staring at him with hatred and smiled. “You fools,” he gloated. “You were nothing but a diversion to our real target.” Enrique silenced him with one swing of his sword.
As Treafilel crumpled over dying, though, the mysterious black armored man reached the column. He drew a tiny, seemingly useless hammer and swung it at the column with all of his might. Despite being supposedly unbreakable, the column shattered with one blow! The man casually tossed away the hammer and took his apparently target; a strange rod that was apparently contained inside the column. Luke desperately fired at the man, but he walked on without seeming to care about the attacks. He leapt off of the float and then jumped down an open sewer entrance that was right next to the float when he got off. If this was what Treafilel gave his life to distract the party from, it apparently went off perfectly.
But the rogues of the party had bigger concerns than that. They had allies to heal and heist to finish. Elvis quickly took Grim’s pouch containing the Jewel of Success and then tried to heal the dying Grim. When that failed, Anastacia and Enrique desperately tried to help, even though they weren’t as trained at the art of healing as Elvis was. Nonetheless, they managed to stabilize their friend just before he would have died from blood loss. Anastacia and Elvis grabbed the unconscious Grim and Lorren, respectively, and dashed towards the nearest open building. As they fled, a loud sound could be heard from the other side of the alleyway, and hundreds of guards and soldiers began to rush in to secure the area!
Luke, grateful to finally get reinforcements, shouted, “Over here. They went this way!” He then began to follow the fleeing thieves, unaware that Enrique was sneaking up on Luke himself. With the heist successful, Enrique didn’t want to further endanger his reputation by killing another guard of the city, and attacking a priest of a notably good god just struck him as wrong anyway. He instead swung at him with his sap, hoping to simply knock the cleric unconscious. He narrowly missed, but Elvis noticed the attack and moved to help Enrique. He decided to follow Enrique’s lead and simply struck Luke in the head with the blunt edge of his sword. Already wounded from the kobold’s earlier rock barrage, Luke collapsed, and as he watched the rogues flee, everything went black…
“Are you alright?” someone shouted, much louder than he appreciated at the moment, as Luke regained consciousness. He found himself in the same alleyway, and it looked much darker out, suggesting that several hours had passed. He looked around, and he noticed both Ik and the guard that Lorren and Elvis brought down were similarly recovering from their wounds.
“I’m fine,” he groaned. “Look, we have to go after the thieves!”
“Don’t worry about that,” the militia officer questioning him ordered. “Just tell me what happened.”
Luke explained the entire story, and as he neared the end of it, he saw Operative Vel approaching him. He pulled the officer aside, exchanged a few quick words too quietly for Luke to hear, and then looked at both Luke and Ik. “Both of you, come with me,” he tersely addressed them. Nervously, the two began to follow him.
They quickly made their way through the crowds witnessing the investigation and noticed a half-orc in an Operative uniform addressing the people. He was trying to placate the situation as well as he could. “Let me explain what happened. It nothing important. There was crash, a big fight, some guard casualties, but nothing go wrong. Investigation ongoing. We find anything serious, we let you know.”
“Who is that? I can’t believe he’s an Operative,” Ik comments with disbelief.
“That’s Operative Grok,” Luke explained. “He’s the Operative’s public relations man. They always bring him out when something goes wrong. He’s supposed to be relaxing to the public. I think the general assumption is that people think that if anything really horrible happened, they wouldn’t let somebody like Grok talk about it, which makes it easy to convince people that nothing really horrible happens.”
Vel led the worried duo to a hastily assembled tent, where they had at least some privacy. As soon as he was away from the crowd, Vel’s voice turned softer and more serious. “As you are aware of, we have a situation we must deal with.”
Luke gulped. “Yes, about the Jewel of Success…”
Vel interrupted him, however. “Forget about the Jewel of Success! We already have contingencies in place for that. The destruction of the gem column, however, and the mysterious rod that was inside it are much bigger issues. We already had magic used to divine its purpose, and the gods have been silent. We haven’t seen them be this quiet since the Bladestill and their unwillingness to discuss its cause. This situation may be urgent.”
“What are we going to do about it?”
“Well, we’ll do as little as possible in public. If it gets out that we let a major magic item disappear during the Parade, public confidence in our government will shatter. An investigation will be needed, however, so preferably information about this event will involve as few people as necessary. That’s where you two come in. As eye witnesses, you already are aware of the event, and as you are the only ones who saw both the rod and its thief, you are ideally suited to lead this investigation.”
Ik looked worried about this. “Just the two of us? What about that third guard?”
Vel shook his head. “He was knocked unconscious before he saw anything, making him strictly outside of the “need to know” classification. However, we have some other investigators that could prove useful to you.” He slid a bag full of papers to Luke. “This contains information on where to find them, means to help you persuade your other investigators to join you, initial funds to finance any starting equipment, some leads to help you start your investigation, and a location outside of the city where you will meet with another Operative, who will give you additional funds equal to 1,000 gold.” He then tossed ten gold each at Luke and Ik. “And this is your pay for last night’s work. Given the success of your ‘guarding,’ I’m sure you can understand if we don’t give you any further bonus. However, if you can assist us in this investigation, your rewards will be much greater”
“I’m in!” Ik eagerly said after hearing about how hefty their initial reward was. She left to make preparations, but Luke waited behind. He seemed conflicted about the mission and its scope still.
Sensing that hesitation, Vel leaned in. “We are also prepared to offer further rewards based on a successful performance. We are well aware of your concern about High Priest Infernis of the Ehlonna church. We agree that he may have some disturbing positions, but a response to it is not our priority. However, if you work for us in ending this incident, we may be more inclined to alter our priorities. Do I make myself clear?”
Luke sighed. He couldn’t refuse if working for Vel meant his church could be saved. “Very well. I’ll work with you, but I still don’t think the Jewel of Success can be ignored.
Vel just smiled. “As I said, we already have preparations for that made…”
“Well, at least I owe you one thing,” the old man said as he examined the Jewel of Success. “You finally proved something I always suspected. The city fakes at least some of the treasures on display in the Prosperity Parade.”
Anastacia looked crestfallen. “You mean it’s a fake? How do you know that?”
The old man shrugged. “You don’t work as a fence and live to be 92 years old without learning the real value of goods. The gem itself is pretty expensive, but the only magical aura on it is there to make the thing only look magical.”
“So how much is it really worth?” Lorren, who along with Grim was brought back to consciousness with rest and a little healing, asked.
“Well, you could probably get three thousand gold or so in the right market. If you’re willing to travel a bit, the city of Ciudadbonita has a well-respected curio shop. But good luck getting anything near that here. I’ll give you five hundred gold for it, and I’m being generous. I’ll never find a buyer for it here until things quiet down.”
Enrique glowered at Lorren. “Are you sure we can trust this guy? I still think we shouldn’t have shown this to anyone until we got out of the city.”
“I know him, he can be trusted!” Lorren protested. “Besides, what makes you think we’ll get out of the city any time soon? We’ll get caught if we even try.”
“In a city this big? That’s ridiculous. They’ll never find us,” Enrique argued.
“Maybe not if we just go into hiding here, but they’re bound to stop us if we try to leave, at least through the main gates. Remember that there were eyewitnesses. Those guards at least know what we look like.”
“Actually, I have a plan to help all of us,” a voice announced from outside. All eyes turned to see Luke and Ik standing outside. Several hands went to weapons, but Luke shook his head and held up his own unarmed hands in a gesture of peace. “No, I only want to talk!” he quickly said before violence can erupt. “Look, I don’t like this any more than you do, but I learned that the Fra Dane government is willing to make a deal. You remember that black-armored warrior that shattered the pillar and stole a rod? The city doesn’t care about the Jewel of Success. They just want to know about this guy and the rod, and they’re willing to offer you full pardons and a share of a thousand gold in exchange, with more money available if we find anything.”
The five rogues pondered this, and after some negotiations, they agreed. “But that doesn’t help us out of the city, does it?” Elvis asked.
Luke pulled out the first of several documents from the satchel and showed it to his new party members. “They Operatives even took care of that. There’s an inn known as the Dane’s Edge, which leans slightly over the wall. The watch patrols the area with extra care, but there are gaps in the patrol which the Operatives gave us. All we need to do is order the ‘special’ room extends past the wall, and we can escape from there.”
Later that night at the Dane’s Edge, the party was examining the materials in the satchel to plan their next move and what lead to follow. “According to this file, they tracked the humanoids we killed to three tribes. The good news is that the three tribes are more or less in the same area. The bad news, though, is that all three reside in the Gate of Madness,” Lorren read.
Grim groaned. “Well, that’s out. I’m not going in that place. I heard that since the Bladestill, the whole dungeon’s gone insane!”
“That’s not entirely true,” Ik retorted. “The first few levels are supposed to be more or less normal. It gets weirder when you get deeper in, but it’s not uninhabitable.”
“Well, I’d prefer to wait on that until we’re better prepared,” Enrique said. “What else do we have?”
“The city’s convinced somebody smuggled the humanoids into the city. They suspect some performing group called Henna and Hecubine’s Otherworldly Wonders. The group already has some suspicions about using performers as a cover for smuggling and even slavery, or possibly the reverse and they harbored escaped slaves. Either way, they want us to infiltrate them and find out what they know,” Elvis said as he reviewed another file.
Ik looked excited at this possibility, but Anastacia was dismissive. “Forget it. How are must of us supposed to convince them that we’re performers? Besides, I’d like a mission with a little more action.”
“Well, this is the last one,” Luke muttered as he examined another file. “The city thinks some sort of secret society must have created a plan this complex. They want us to find a man they believe belongs to a local secret society. His name is Guillermo Del Grande…”
Enrique recognized the name instantly. “That’s it! He’s my uncle; we have to find out what’s happening to him.”
Luke shrugged as he read the rest of the file. “Well, his last known location is Ciudadbonita. You said that there’s a good place to sell your so-called Jewel of Success, right?”
“I still don’t think it’s a fake…” Enrique began, but Grim, who was still nursing his injuries that almost killed him, nodded eagerly, as he needed no convincing the item didn’t help at all.
“We can kill two birds with one stone if we take this lead, right?” Luke asked. The others soon agreed, and a plan for tomorrow was made. The party looked at the other items in the satchel, including the disposed and seemingly innocent hammer used to the destroy the pillar, a flute that Vel insisted could be used to contact the Operatives in most civilized lands, and a tiny sculpture of an arrow that the files suggest might be related to Guillermo. This would be the beginning of their adventure together, but the ending was far less obvious and its consequences could change the face of Mesion itself.
OOC Notes: And so the first adventure ends after a third session. The party is now working together, so the party’s options expand. From hereon, there will be several leads or alternate adventure paths the party can consider, and I intend to railroad this game as little as possible.
Grok deserves a special mention. He was originally my character in another game. He started out as a generic half-orc fighter, but when I noticed how cheap a hat of disguise is, I couldn’t resist giving him one. His gimmick was that he’s a generic stupid orc, but he refuses to act like one. He would always wear disguises, try tricking people, and even provide exposition, and that legacy lives on in Mesion.
