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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LordVyreth" data-source="post: 2859447" data-attributes="member: 9626">I love a Parade: First BloodElvis looked over their three adversaries, saw that the rogue who apparently was in charge of this ambush was closest to him, shrugged, and went after the obvious target.  The rogue was caught off guard by how quickly his target shrugged off his threat and was unprepared for the sudden attack.  Before he could even say another word, Elvis’ sword struck true, leaving the rogue as a bleeding, dying mess on the alley floor.    The rogue’s two brutes prepared to avenge the death of their leader, but before either one could get the chance, Lorren and Anastacia were on the nearest of the two warriors.  A ray of fire projected from the studious Lorren, leaving the warrior reeling, and in only an instant, Anastacia was there.  She sunk her rapier deep into his chest, and the man collapsed as well.    Finally, the third Guild enforcer burst out of the alleyway.  However, the shock of the situation turning against him and anger at the death of his friends made him swing blindly, and his nearest target, Anastacia, easily sidestepped him.  Lorren wounded the man with a bolt of magic, and Elvis and Anastacia quickly surrounded him.  Well aware that the situation turned against him, the enforcer surrendered, putting the party in the awkward situation of how to handle a prisoner.      For starters, they decided to do an old-fashioned interrogation.  “All right, what do you know?” Elvis asked.    “About what, exactly?” the prisoner asked.    “Well, umm,” Elvis hesitated.  He didn’t actually expect the prisoner to talk.  “Well, how did you find out about us?”    “We have an informant at the tavern.  He let us know all about your plan.  Normally we overlook that sort of thing, as anything going on in the Leaky Bucket is too minor for us to worry about.  But the Parade is another story.”    “Heh, I guess now we know why they call it the Leaky Bucket,” Lorren chuckled.    “Do you mind, I’m interrogating here,” Elvis snapped.  “Who’s the informant?  Is it Treafilel?”    The prisoner stammered, “I don’t know!  I’m not even an official member of the Guild!  I’m just hired muscle.  They won’t tell us anything important.”    “Well, who would know?”    “Well, our immediate superior is Jarred Cutter.”    “And where can we find him?”    Wordlessly, the prisoner pointed to the bleeding body of the rogue.    Elvis sighed.  “Never mind.  Why does the Guild care so much about the parade?”    “Like he said, the Guild needs the Parade.  The city bribes us, err, them every year to only attack at the right time and place.  Prime Minister Preston would prefer if the traditional raid on the Parade made the city looked good but didn’t actually threaten any city treasures.  If something unplanned happens, the city blames the Guild for not controlling its own members and unpaid criminals like you lot.  But this year has been especially bad about this sort of thing.”    “What do you mean?” Anastacia asked suspiciously.    “Well, you’re not the only ones going after the Jewel of Success.  The Guild’s been trying to control some other groups who are planning on stealing it.  That’s why they had to use a low-level member and a few non-guided bandits like us to try and stop you.”    “Other groups are going after this treasure.  This keeps getting better and better,” Anastacia complained.    “What other groups?  Who are we up against?” Elvis said to continue the interrogation.    “I wouldn’t know!  It wasn’t something we were supposed to be concerned with.”    “Well, who would be concerned about it?”    Once again, the prisoner pointed at Jarred’s bleeding form.    Finally, Grim could not wait any longer.  He realized that Jarred was still alive, and after hearing so much of the conversation, he realized the motives behind this attack.  He was sympathetic to the victorious group, and after hearing about the fact they have a plan of some sort that is enough to make the Thief’s Guild upset, he decided he wanted in.  He moved towards Jarred’s dying body in a desperate attempt to save his life before it was too late.  The party was shocked to see another figure enter the alleyway, but before they could draw weapons on the stranger, Grim quickly called out, “Don’t worry, I want to help you!  I’m interested in working with you after hearing your plans.  I wanted to find some excitement in this city.”    However, the limited vetinary skills he gained as an animal handler just didn’t translate well to a human body, and Jarred soon passed away.  Undeterred, Grim offered his services to the group, and though suspicious of this new figure, they decided that some extra muscle could be helpful given what they learned about potential rival groups looking to steal what they want to steal.    At this point, all that remained to discuss was what to do with the prisoner.  “I think we should just kill him,” Lorren suggested.    Elvis appeared disturbed at the suggestions, and offered a more peaceful alternative.  “We could just tie them up or dump them somewhere, at least until after the Parade.  There’s no sense in making us bigger targets to the Guild, after all.”    This plan, however, soon fell apart when everyone admitted they didn’t have any rope.  “Well, I suppose we could just knock them unconscious and dump them in a ditch or something…” Elvis reluctantly thought.    “And have the city guard or the Guild discover them?” Anastacia asked incredulously.    Lorren sighed and drew his crossbow.  “Let’s not make this any more complicated than it has to be.  They did try to kill us, after all.”  After a few seconds without any protests (except from the one conscious prisoner, of course,) he fired a bolt right into the thug’s chest, causing him to slump over and quickly begin to bleed to death.  The others quickly looted and then disposed of the bodies in the first abandoned building they could find, and then split up for now to avoid drawing further attention to the group.    After they left, Lorren patted his backpack, and then chuckled to himself.  “Well, what do you know; I did have some rope,” he muttered, and he laughed all the way home.    Meanwhile, a far more brutal and less one-sided fight was continuing elsewhere.  A number of kobolds rushed to the door and cut at Luke with their swords.  Shocked by the sudden attack and change of plans, in pain from the attack, and highly embarrassed from his near-death experience at the hands of kobolds, he wisely retreated while the two militia men that supported him at the front door stood up and began to swing at the kobolds.  Luke quickly healed himself and then worked to heal his allies whenever they got injured, while Ik, who rarely experienced combat before, at least in a more formal situation like this, watched the events with horror and confusion.  She was even more confused when a strange man slowly approached the group from behind.  He was stealthy enough to avoid attracting attention from the other militia men on lookout, but not so stealthy that the more streetwise Ik was taken unaware.  However, he seemed harmless enough and was more interested in watching the fight, so she merely kept a close eye on him for now.    The situation changed again when one of the doors in the house burst open.  An armored but currently unarmed man was on the other side, and he was still screaming “I surrender!” in absolute terror.  This terror got even worse when he saw the battle unfolding in the next room, and even more so when a goblin saw the sudden arrival of another potential threat and broke of to attack him.    Finally, this prompted Enrique to act.  Shouting, “Jose, I will have revenge,” he entered the house, ignoring the looks of the surprised militia forces, and did battle with the goblin blocking him from the target of his vengeance.  Instead of dealing with these new factors, the militia forces focused on the surviving kobolds and goblins, who they were making headway with at last, while Ik, who had trouble with combat still but more than understood the concept of getting money where you can, started to steal anything she could from the downed bodies of the enemy!      After a brief battle, Enrique downed the goblin and descended on his foe.  As Jose looked at Enrique in fear, Enrique shouted, “We had a deal, Jose!  And now I intend to keep it!”  So saying, he promptly punched Jose in the stomach.  “Now where are the twenty gold pieces I lent you?”    Jose, now at the edge of his wits, babbled, “I’m sorry!  I meant to pay you back!  Let me explain!”    Enrique briefly let up on his incredibly excessive response to his underwhelming motive for vengeance so he could listen.  At the same time, with all the kobolds and goblins dead, surrendered, or fled, Luke, Ik, and the watch listened in as well.    “Well, it’s about your uncle,” Jose began.  “You know, Guillermo, the weird one who always goes on long trips?  Well, he told me he was looking for bodyguards and offered top money for the job.  I decided to do it, but I didn’t have enough money to buy a decent weapon and armor, so I asked you if I could borrow some.”    “Yes, and I agreed to give it to you, and you agreed that if you don’t return the money in time I get to demand it back and punch you in the stomach for my troubles.  So what?”    “Well, things went horribly.  We left home, and we barely traveled for more than a day or two before we were attacked!  We were outmatched from the start.  The other bodyguards were killed in a matter of seconds.  Guillermo looked at me sadly and said that there was nothing I could do for him at this point, and I was better off leaving before I got killed.  He then rode away so fast to escape his attackers that I knew he had to be using magic of some kind.  I wanted to pay you back, not to mention getting away from those killers, so I decided to go to the nearest big city I could find and look for work.”    Enrique, upon learning about the troubles of his uncle, was shocked beyond thoughts of Vengeance.  “Guillermo,” he sadly said to himself.    “Look,” Jose said, “I’ll give you what I have for now, and I’ll pay you back when I can, okay?”  He pulled out a money pouch and tossed it at Enrique.  “There’s 93 silver.  That’s all I have, okay?”    Jose then tried to leave, but found Luke and the rest of the watch in his way.  “Just a minute.  What were you even doing here?  I heard you surrendering before we even got in the building.”    Jose quickly explained, “Well, I got a job as a guard for Achieve.  They needed to guard some monsters that they were escorting into the city.  We have one chained up down there until we can get it moved.  I don’t know when these creatures got here.  We were down there for a while.”    Suddenly, the sound of footsteps could be heard on the stairs.  Jose, who was barely conscious after the initial pummeling Enrique gave him, was quickly dragged out of the room, and most of the rest of the party fled the immediate vicinity in an attempt to clean out the signs of battle before too many questions could be asked.  The man who reached the top of the stairs was better armed and armored than Joe, suggesting that he was in charge of this holding cell.  He looked at Luke, noticed he had a badge that indicated his role in the watch, and put down his sword slightly.  However, he still looked very hostile.  “What is the meaning of this?”    Luke tried to explain the situation.  “I’m with the city militia, as you seem to be aware of.  We heard reports of potential threats to tomorrow’s Parade located here, and we quickly moved to deal with the danger.  It seems that you inadvertently placed a holding cell in the same building that these criminals chose as their hideout, presumably without them knowing you are here.  We have to finish clearing the scene of the battle.”    The leader nodded, but he still didn’t look friendly.  “Well, see that you do, and then be off.  We are paying citizens and within our legal rights to set up a cell here, and we do not need any further interruptions with the Parade tomorrow.  You know how much Achieve relies on the post-parade entertainment for its revenue.”    Inwardly, Luke hated being ordered around by Achieve employees.  He never really believed in the company’s cruel policies towards other races.  On the other hand, he was right; they did have the law on their side, and he knew this was a battle he couldn’t win.  If the incident with his high priest taught him anything, it was that there was a time and a place for even the most worthy and righteous of battles.  For now, he accepted he could do nothing with the situation, and he left the room to finish cleaning the mess.    Enrique and Ik, however, were still curious about the situation.  Enrique ducked into a corner of the room before the cell commander arrived and managed to avoid detection.  As for Ik, she decided that she could go downstairs herself by appearing as Jose.  Once everyone else left the room, she changed her form to resemble the cowardly guard and Enrique’s quasi-friend, and then entered the basement.  There, she saw the commander Luke just spoke to and another guard armored like Jose was.  She also saw the monster they were guarding.  It appeared to be a giant, vaguely humanoid ant.  She remembered some of the stories she heard from other bards about extra-planar monsters known as Formians, and she thinks this creature was one of them.    As soon as he saw “Jose,” the commander suddenly shouted.  “And Jose, what happened to you?”    Realizing that “Jose” might be in trouble with the commander as well after his cowardly actions, Ik tried to bluff.  “I went upstairs to…umm…investigate the noise!”    “While shouting ‘I surrender’ and dropping your weapon?”    “Well, I’ll do a really good job from now on?”    The commander angrily advanced on Ik at this point, and Ik began to nervously think, “This is it, he’s discovered I’m lying.  He’ll soon figure out I’m a changeling, and I’ll be arrested or fined and then arrested or something…”    Instead, the commander simply glared at her and said, “That’s it, you’re fired!”    Shocked by this change of events and more hurt than she expected given she wasn’t even the man the commander thought he was chewing out, Ik/Jose angrily replied, “You can’t fire me; I quit!  You don’t know what you’re missing!”  She stamped out of the room, disappointed that she never got the chance to speak to the ant-creature.  With his chance passed, Enrique left as well, only to find Luke outside waiting for him.    “You know, you proved to be a competent warrior in there,” Luke said.  “I’m looking for people to assist the watch with guard duty during the Parade tomorrow.  Are you interested?”    Barely able to keep a straight face, Enrique happily said, “Sure.”  As he went back to the warehouse with Luke, he realized this would be a great way to learn more about the actual site of the heist for tomorrow!    Finally, as everyone left the building, Urr fled back to the House for the Wretched.  He realized early in the fight that he stood no chance of getting near the holding cell with so many other people around, but he gave his report about what he did learn about it based on what he heard from Jose and the cell commander.  Hopefully that would be enough for the resistance group to take some action, or at least reward Urr for his help.    And so, the night drew to a close, and the various factions prepared for what would soon be possibly the most important days of their lives; the day of the Parade.      OOC: This takes us about midway through the second session.  The second half of that session plus the next should end this adventure and finally get the party together as a single force.  Unfortunately, because of Memorial Day weekend plans for most of the players, we didn’t game this weekend, so the next game will be on Saturday in two weeks, and the next update of this Story Hour will be in about two weeks from today.  I’ll add a couple more excerpts in the meantime to keep things current.</blockquote>

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