And now, for something completely different!
While our main tale takes a brief hiatus, we shall examine the story of another individual, whose actions shall change events in Holstean as well…
Shaun Dice – Male human Bard/Rogue 3/2
Shaun Dice is a mysterious, handsome, well-spoken young man. His grin is bright, but so is his rapier’s edge. Intelligent with a taste for the show, Shaun can glib his way through situations easily, sneak his way through others, and meld in and out of most crowds with ease. His Hat of Disguise, Boots of Elven Kind and Cloak of elvenkind make him silent and potentially deadly, though Shaun prefers ruses and tricks to outright force it seems. The best way to describe him is something like the medieval James Bond…
[My roommate decided to play!
And he rolled damn lucky for his abilities… 10 Strength, 18 Dex, 15 Con, 18 Intl, 15 Wis, and 18 Cha…]
A few days earlier, before the Battle of Mephys…
Dirty Dealings in Kulloden
Shaun Dice grinned, and checked his bearings again, as he looked around the city of Kulloden. It’d been a while since he had last been in genuine civilization as he saw it, and he intended to take in as much as possible. As it was still mid-morning, there was still plenty of time left for that.
After he found some work.
A few questions here and there got him the name of a good bar and in, the “Drunken Pony” (I was running out of ideas, sorry) owned by a dwarf and servicer of many of the miners of the surrounding hills. It supposedly had the best tankard in the city, so he went there, in hopes of finding some openings.
The bar was crowded, and Shaun went up to the barkeep, who looked a little surprised that a human was wandering in. After sitting at the rather low stool, Shaun quietly asked the keep how well he knew the city, and where, if any place, work for a human “with skills,” could be found. The keep motioned to a woman (the only other human in the bar) sitting in one of the corners, saying she was Ilia, and that according to rumor, she worked for a cousin of the Baron. She always had odd jobs that needed getting done. Shaun thanked the dwarf, and headed over to the table.
The woman sitting there had a tunic covering what looked to be a chain shirt, and her face, which would have otherwise been rather beautiful, was marred by a large scar that ran from above her right eye to below her right cheek. Her right eye was covered in a velvet eye patch.
A surprised Ilia quickly hid the items she had been perusing under the table, and rather testily asked the stranger what his business was. Shaun replied that he was told she had work available, and immediately began putting his golden tongue to work. After listening for a few moments, Ilia asked him to sit, and demanded to know what “abilities,” he had. Shaun began in glorious terms telling his qualities with people, his gifts with his tongue, etc. until she interrupted and asked if he was a thief.
Shaun stopped in mid sentence, a little stunned, before admitted he had pick-pocketed items in the past. Ilia immediately hired him.
She detailed that she had a minor job on the side that needed to be done, but she didn’t have time to see it through. Her employer (who she refused to name) had several items stolen from a trade caravan of his by a band of kobolds in the forest nearby. The man had evidently been breathing down her back to get the money back, but Ilia had, “bigger fish to fry.” In return for getting the stolen items, Ilia was ready to pay Shaun 250 gold, more if the mission was accomplished sooner, just to get the, ”joker off my back about this crap.”
Shaun then asked her where she got the eye patch after making some joking remarks to her. She dryly commented that the eye patch came from the last man that misjudged her; she won an eye patch, he won an early grave. A little troubled after that, Shaun weighed her offer.
After he agreed, Ilia sent him off, stating she would be here at the bar tomorrow and the next day for two hours, starting just after dusk. He was to bring
all the stolen items to her, and if any were found to be expropriated by Shaun, she would kill him.
Shaun then walked back up to the bartender, and thanked him for his help. A plan was brewing in his head, and he asked for the largest container available filled with dwarven ale. The barkeep laughed, assuming that the man was being a fool, until Shaun asked again. The barkeep reached down and pulled out a large stein that even had a cover, about three times the size of a standard mug. He filled it with dwarven ale, and announced that if Shaun could drink the whole thing without getting drunk, it would be on the house.
Shaun quickly blurts out an excuse that he can only consume, “such fine spirits,” in privacy, and inquires about the rooms upstairs (bluff, which he easily beat the bartender). The bartender looks at him oddly, and agrees, asking him if he will pay on a nightly basis or if he wants to put up front now. Shaun pays the one gold for a night’s stay, and asks for the ale to be delivered to his room.
After arriving upstairs, he checked out his furnishings… a small room, but with a rather nice bed and dresser, and a small mirror in the corner… a true treat. He was busying himself with looking like setting things up, one of the human barmaids comes up with his stein, wishing him the best of luck with drinking it. He gives her a wink, grins, and closes the door.
Then his mischief begins. First, Shaun changes into his entertainer’s outfit (one of four he owns, the others being a traveling outfit, a noble’s outfit, and finally a royal outfit).
Second, he checks the window of his room, which overlooks a back alleyway. He tosses his pillow out the window, closes up the stein, and then tosses it onto the pillow. His toss is dead on, and the stein comes safely to rest on the earth. Shaun then attempts to climb out the window… and here his James Bond luck runs out. He falls, landing badly on his ankle, which is now sore (3 points damage). He gets his horse, and rides out the city, towards the forest in question.
Following the trail where the latest robbery took place, Shaun proceeds to sing outlandishly loudly, and plays his flute in, “the most obnoxious ways possible.” After about 20 minutes of this chaotic ruckus, he notices movement off to his left. A few seconds later, a crossbow bolt zings past his head while another glances off his arm. HE stops, as three kobolds come out of the woods, two armed with crossbows and the third with a half spear.
Shaun immediately puts on his full shtick, trying to tell him he is here to merely spread joy, all the while hoping for a gap to hand them the large stein of dwarven ale. The kobolds are rather dim witted, and don’t understand a word he is saying, and they continue to approach, crossbows trained on him. Running out of ideas, he finally holds out the stein to one of the kobolds, who greedily grabs it and runs with it over to the kobold with the half spear. The other kobold is barely five feet away, his crossbow still trained on Shaun, and he is still chittering angrily. Shaun tries to keep him occupied and quiet for a few minutes, while the ale does its work.
Shaun gingerly holds out a bag of gold coins for the would-be thief, who reaches to snatch them. Shaun tosses the bag over the kobolds head, and the enraged creature then fires his crossbow… amazingly missing Shaun from only six or seven feet away. Shaun’s rapier flashes through the air, and the kobold lands on the ground, blood gurgling from its severed throat.
His two comrades see his fall, and start to rush to his aid, dropping and shattering the stein. The kobold with the crossbow manages to start to run towards Shaun, but doesn’t reach him before Shaun has dropped his rapier and produced his composite longbow. An arrow flashes through the air, and hits the kobold in the chest. The husk of the dead creature bursts into flames as it hits the ground (yes, boys and girls, it’s a
+1 flaming composite longbow ).
The other kobold tries to rise and stumbles, falling to the ground as the ale has already begun to take effect. Shaun takes his time, and places the next flaming arrow directly between this creatures eyes. A search of the bodies after the relevant flames have been doused reveal some 300 silver pieces.
Shaun then finds their trail, which leads to the northeast. After slinking along the trail for an hour, he comes across a large burrow in a low mound in the forest. Outside the mound sit two kobolds chattering quietly, while the noises of more come from inside. Shaun sets up his bow again, and one of the two kobolds drops dead in a flaming hulk in apparent mid sentence. His comrade, in shock, begins screeching in alarm, and three others run out from within the burrow. An arrow immediately finds the shrieker, and drops him as well.
Before they can organize themselves, Shaun pulls his next trick out of the bag… a few bardic incantations later, and two of the three remaining kobolds fall to the ground, sleeping as dead. Another arrow finds the third as Shaun’s voice continues its haunting song, and he walks to the two sleeping ones. A rapier stab ends one in his sleep, while Shaun’s blow glances off the seconds armor, and it begins to awake. A timely blow ensures that it never fully rouses.
Cautiously, Shaun waited outside the cave for several minutes, expecting more of the creatures to come out. He starts playing his flue obnoxiously again, hoping to lure more. After hearing and seeing nothing, he does spot something deep inside the burrow… the glint of gold perhaps? Remembering Ilias’ warning and knowing if he missed anything she would assume he’d pilfered it, Shaun ventured into the burrow boldly.
His boldness ended after an arrow trap wounded his shoulder.
Searching carefully, he managed to avoid a giant spear slicing into him, and finally noticed a discoloration in the ground in front of him as he walked. He felt around, and saw it was a trap door. As he attempted to find its arming device, he accidentally set it off, and fell some twenty feet down.
Fortunately, some rudimentary handholds existed, doubtlessly added by one of the more inept kobolds who probably fell in here. Shaun rather painfully climbs his way out, only to then barely dodge a jet of flame from some unseen device just a little deeper in the barrel.
His curiosity and pain are rewarded, though, as he finds over 1,000 silver pieces and 210 gold pieces in the main room of the burrow. Heading back out with little problem, a rather beat up Shaun returns to the city by dusk, and heads to the Drunken Pony.
A rather surprised Ilia was already there, and is quite impressed with the young man’s promptness. She sees that he has much possibility as a fighter, as she assumes he took on all ten kobolds at once.
She hands him 500 gold, doubling his payment due to the promptness of his actions. She confesses she’s losing money in the end, but the fact that her employer will be happy that these kobolds are no longer harassing his supplies will be worth it. She then offers him another proposition, this one a little more sinister… and personal.
A band of thieves, led by a red haired woman named Kamisystra, has been… annoying the powers that be for too long. The woman has a penchant for robbing the biggest targets she can find… including the Baron at one point. The local magistrates have basically issued a carte blanche for her “removal,” and the person that takes her down will get to keep whatever property he finds on the body.
Ilias intends to collect on this, but she is, at present, alone… while Kamisystra has a group of thugs in her gang that would undoubtedly be with her. So Ilias needs backup, and a fighting personality such as Shaun’s would help a lot in that regard. Ilia’s “prior engagement,” that day was attempting to locate Kamisystra’s base, and she plans to spend tomorrow casing it out. She offers Shaun half of Kamisystra’s loot in return for his assistance. He agrees, and she recommends he spend the day tonight and tomorrow getting prepared. Shaun then asks if she can send someone to show him the important places for a traveler to know in the city, so he can get acquainted. She agrees to send one of her… servants to check up on him late in the morning.
After Ilias leaves, Shaun heads over to the barmaid who brought up his ale earlier in the day, and begins to turn on the charm. Never wanting to lose a bet (and even less wanting the bartender to find out one of his big steins has been broken), he sweetly asks her to get him one of the dirty large steins from a nearby table of well-gone dwarves. She does, and takes it back to get it cleaned. She then comes back, and seeing his face at the clean mug (he wanted a dirty one as evidence of drinking), she winks and says she’ll tell the barkeep that she’d taken it from him and cleaned it for him. She also tells him not to worry about the broken stein… the particular band of dwarves she borrowed the stein from have been loud and rowdy, and already broken several.
His charming effects, however, went a little beyond what he intended, and the barmaid keeps staring dreamily into his eyes. A little perturbed, Shaun thanks her hurriedly, and begins to head upstairs before the barkeeps loud voice calls him back. True to her star struck word, the barmaid volunteers that she cleaned the mug and vouches that he drank it.
The barkeep looks surprised, and then bursts into laughter. He shouts that there needs to be a toast to the human that could hold down dwarven ale, and goes to fetch a set of mugs. Thoroughly concerned, Shaun shifts his position so he’s closer to the edge of the bar, and a set of dirty mugs he sees there. The barkeep comes back with full mugs for himself, Shaun, and the barmaid (whose told him her name is Elenya), and he loudly calls for Shaun to make the toast.
Shaun, ever quick thinking, begins a long and wordy toast to the barkeep, who happens to have the same name as an intelligent cousin, sparking a long soliloquy about the intelligence and industry of dwarves. As he speaks, he attracts everyone rapt attention to his face, and no one sees his sleight of hand as he switches his full mug for an empty one. The barkeep merely gruffs at the flowery words, and jokingly accuses Shaun of wanting a free drink. Bottoms go up, and while others chug fine dwarven ale into their bellies, a laughing Shaun only adds empty air to his. He then steals himself away from the affectations of Elenya and the shouts from the loud dwarven group for him to join them for sleep.
He awakes the next day to a knock… its Elenya, and she’s brought him breakfast. It turns out his “challenge” to dwarven-kind was accepted by the large, rowdy group, and their resultant drinking spree brought the house an extra 30-40 gold on the night. The barkeep sent the breakfast as thanks, though Elena’s rather red faced and giddy to be there. The meal consists of bacon and eggs, two foods that confuse Shaun, as he’s never had that kind of breakfast before (which confuses Elenya). Realizing that it’s still early in the morning and that he has plenty of time, Shaun spends some quality time to with Elenya before heading downstairs to find the messenger waiting.
The messenger, a small halfling about 40 years old, shows Shaun the important parts of the city, ranging from the Guild Street buildings, to the locations of the major temples, the money changers, several of the major marketplaces, and the brothel. Shaun does not know what a brothel is, and once its explained to him he angrily harangues the halfling in the street that he has, “no need of those services whatsoever!” His angry shouts cause a small crowd to form and watch, and the small halfling to cower. Shaun then apologizes to the poor creature, and tells him to go to the Drunken Pony and have a dwarven ale on him. The halfling scurries off, and Shaun wanders the city for the rest of the day until dusk, and his next meeting with Ilia.
HE arrives at the Drunken Pony, and Ilia is already waiting. She’s scouted out the place, and found that Kamisystra and her gang are using a house in the more rundown area of the city as their base of operations. She then looks at Shaun, and asks him if he has a plan.
Noticing the house in question was on a corner, Shaun’s mind quickly devised an idea. Shaun would don his royal robes, mount his horse, and be proceeded by the now quite besotted halfling, who would announce he was the “King of…”
There was a pause, until a general agreement was reached that the name of the place didn’t matter, so Shaun’s mythical kingdom become the “Kingdom of Um.” They would generally be loud and rude about it, as many drunken nobles are, and would hopefully attract Kamisystra’s attention (her house
was along the way to one of the chief temples to Tarantor in the city), and the prospect of an easy hit on a noble in front of her house would prove too tempting for her to resist. Ilia would hide behind the corner of the house and wait.
Shaun would try and time his “less than sober” waves so that as Kamisystra emerged, his back would be turned, presenting her a tempting target. The drunken halfling would undoubtedly notice her, and likely run away screaming as she drew her blade… Ilia’s signal to step from the shadows, and with her large crossbow, end Kamisystra’s career once and for all.
Ilia found the plan brilliant, and commented that Shaun had some real guts presenting his back to an experienced thief. Shaun merely grinned, and added that if she didn’t get the fatal blow, he could always turn around and administer it himself. The slight bit of charm didn’t break the ice that was Ilia, who merely gave a small grin and shook her head.
An hour or so later, the drunken parade made its way towards the thieves den, the small halfling (whose name was Geoffrey) loudly announcing to all around that his majesty, “King Shaun of Um,” was, “rich and powerful,” and loudly cautioning all to, “make way for his royal pompishness, the man who breathes money up his nose!” Mothers quickly scuttled what few children were out inside to get away from the horror.
As expected, Kamisystra came out of her den, grinning and laughing at the poor fool she thought she was about to rob. However, neither Shaun nor Ilia had planned for her four thugs to be with her. As the halfling, true to their expectations, screamed and ran from the thugs, Ilia stepped out and took aim at the one nearest to Shaun.
Her crossbow bolt neatly found the back of his head, shattering it. And all hell broke loose.
The thug next to the victim sprung towards Ilia, a pick raised over his head, while his two comrades (armed with a club and dagger respectively) lunged with Kamisystra at the offending nobleman. All of their swings missed, though Shaun yanked out his rapier and slashed at Kamisystra, lightly wounding her.
As the thug armed with the pick charged Ilia, she dropped her crossbow, and pulled out her axe that had been hanging from her belt, delivering a fierce blow. Yet the thug remained standing, his own swing thrown off by her attack. Shaun, in desperation, began to call in song again. While Kamisystra resisted the influence of his singing, her two thugs attack Shaun failed, and fell fast asleep. Thinking she could take him on, Kamisystra slashed at him, and the two began a rapid duel.
Ilia in the meantime cut into her opponent’s chest, felling him, before charging towards Kamisystra herself. A ringing blow was delivered by Shaun to Kamisystra’s shoulder, and her arm began to hang limp. Desperate, Kamisystra attempted to jump onto Shaun’s horse to pull him to the ground, but she failed. Nonetheless, she dodged the following blows long enough to shake one of her thugs, who began to stir.
Shaun then stabbed Kamisystra through the shoulder, just before Ilia cut off her arm, and whipped her body around to bring her axe onto the thief’s neck if full force, sending her head flying. The awake thug, meanwhile, was waking his buddy as Shaun turned on them. Calling for aid, Shaun only saw Ilia stooping to begin rifling through Kamisystra’s pockets.
He called for her again, as a club barely missed him as the two thugs concentrated their attacks on him. HE managed to stab one through the chest before cursing at Ilia aloud. The other woman merely grinned as she held up ever increasing baubles from the body of her fallen foe.
Shaun then finished the last thug with a thrust through the neck, before dismounting and growling at his erstwhile partner. The two also search the house in question, and find a treasure trove hidden within. In addition to 100 platinum pieces, they also find a small carnite gem worth 40 gp, a piece of alexandrite worth 500 gp, and a large, perfect emerald worth 1,100 gp. They also found a small silver and moonstone comb worth 500 gp, an opal and gold necklace worth 1,300 gp, a gold circlet crown with sapphires worth 5,000 gp, and a platinum tiara worth an estimated 6,000 gp.
Shaun was giddy with excitement as Ilia continued to hand him items over his shoulder to appraise. He attempted to lie to her about their worth, but she promptly called him on it, commenting that she thought maybe it was just because he was a poor appraiser.
She finally handed him the emerald, commenting on its beauty and lines. As Shaun looked into it to see what she was talking about, he suddenly felt a great blow fall on the back of his head, along with a burning feeling there. He fell to the ground, and within a second, could not move.
Ilia’s face popped into his view, with a big grin. She told him not to worry, the special poison she’d used to paralyze him would wear off after a while… long enough that she’d be long gone. She’d had her use with him, and commented that she would appropriate his share of the earnings to herself. She then laughed, promised to see him in Hades, and walked off.
It was nearly two hours later before Shaun could move, and it was the dead of night. The scene of the dead thugs had kept other looters away… Kamisystra had been well known, and all knew whoever knocked her off was powerful. Once he rose, he saw the halfling sitting alone in the corner, holding his head. Filled with anger and vengeance, Shaun offered the halfling 300 gold if he would set up Ilia so that Shaun could get even.
The halfling commented that Ilia had no use for him anymore either, and had left him here in a drunken mess, laughing about his stupidity. She evidently didn’t know he was still conscious enough he could hear her whistle about leaving from the East Gate and going to Mephys, a town about a day and half’s ride east. Shaun once again brings out his persuasive abilities, and convinces Geoffrey that he should go with, and attempt to hook him up with any of her former servants in an attempt to get vengeance on her en masse.
Shaun promises to meet Geoffrey the next day, and stumbles back to the Drunken Pony. Elenya evidently wasn’t on duty this night, but nonetheless the other barmaids show him great interest, especially as his eyes aren’t fully back to normal from the poison (still slightly unfocused). They grab some local herbs and “medicines” and feed them to him… as they aren't healers most of these "patent medicines," most only taste bitter or foul and do little, though one leaf of a treatment given by one of the barmaids does seem to have some effect (3 HP healed). Very tired and still quite grumpy at being duped, Shaun heads up to bed to ride out on the morrow, looking for his rightful earnings.
The next day rises, and even as 50 of the Baron’s riders leave towards Mephys on a different mission, Shaun and Geoffrey head east on one of their own…
