The quartet arrive at the safehouse in short order. A half-dozen or so yards into Small Wood and the town seems to vanish. The heroes can hear the sounds of the town - wagonwheels creaking, dogs barking, people yelling - but can't see any of the activity. There is a narrow footpath snaking through the trees.
Heroes' Park is nearly devoid of structures. There's the safehouse, of course. There's a topiary maze surrounding Founders' Monument, a sort of museum honoring the town's founders. There's the Old Circle, a ring of megaliths considerably more ancient than the town itself. Finally, there's the Inquisitor's Tower.
The Inquisitor is the law-enforcement of the town, but only with regard to matters-of-state. Run-of-the-mill crime is handled by the militia. The Inquisitor, in contrast, deals with issues of treason, crimes against the nobility, disputes between guilds, and so forth. As a result, the nobility and guilds (and so forth) of the town are unusually trouble-free. No one idly provokes the Inquistor.
"Sure, we've not been followed. Takes a rogue to spot a rogue, I always say," Shoes remarks, which isn't much of an exaggeration. He repeated that phrase at least twenty times between the guildhouse and safehouse.
The safehouse's exterior doesn't inspire much confidence. It does, indeed, seem poorly defensible. As the quartet approaches from the east, the door opens halfway. Just inside, a guild-guard waves for everyone to enter.
"Hey oh," the guard says. "I'm Blake. Master Korbok had me minding the store 'til ya arrived. The Lady is her in chambers. Alain's in the kitchen. I was told to show ya around before I left."
And so Blake conducts a tour, leading the group first into the main courtyard.
"The exterior doors, as ya can see, are reinforced by iron bands and can be blocked by a crossbeam. Crossbeams lock into place. Makes 'em hard to jimmy from the outside," Blake points out as he leads the way from the guard post. "The interior doors leading into the courtyards have a drop-down iron pole." He points to above the lintel. A heavy iron bar is fixed into loops set into the wall. "Drop that pole by pulling this cord. It falls through the lintel, through the door, into a depression in the threshold. Nearly impossible to jimmy open, and it'd wake the dead to bash through."
The group enters the courtyard.
"We gots a basic courtyard here. Well for water. The kitchen's over there. Sleeping quarters over there. Ain't too comfortable, but it'll do. Windows are just arrow loops. Hard to squeeze through 'em, and they can all be shuttered and barred from the inside. Through there's the Lady's chambers. Two doors leading in from this side. Two from the other. Them doors have drop-down iron poles on the insides. Securest part of the house."
Blake points up to the open sky above the courtyard.
"Twenty foot drop. Edge around the top's set with blades and spikes. Also - and this is hush-hush - about fifteen feet up there's an invisible net set with hooks. Right nasty surprise. Same with the other courtyard south of the Lady's chambers. There's another guard room over there, also, and some storerooms."
He turns back toward the kitchen and yells, "Hey, Alain! Guards're here!"
To the party, "Well, that's it for me. Alain'll take over from here. Introduce ya to the Lady, and what not. I'll show myself out, but ya best be locking up after me."
OOC: I'm going out of town tomorrow evening. Be gone for about a week. I don't know if I'll have internet access during that time. For now, we'll not worry about losing Shoes's player. (Other than to wish him well.)
