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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Capellan" data-source="post: 622728" data-attributes="member: 6294">"Hooberan's Stockade" by Wicht  - Part 9The adventurers cautiously move upstairs and begin to investigate the bedrooms they find there.  There are four in all, plus a linen closet.  The first room appears to be unused; the wardrobe is empty and the chest at the foot of the bed contains only a slightly dusty chamber pot.  The second and third rooms appear to be those of the children, and contain nothing of interest to the financially-minded company.The fourth room, however, is obviously the master suite.  It contains a large dresser, an enormous four poster bed, and an ornately carved teak wardrobe.  Also in the room is a sturdy iron safe, and a mannequin dressed in half-plate armour.  The mannequin has a greatsword strapped to its back."Anyone use one of these things?" the Padre immediately walks over and draws the sword.  He whistles softly as the steel whispers out of its scabbard, "Nice work."Sirdros shakes his head,"I have no need for the blade, but the armour is of a type I have been trained to use.""Fine by me for you to have it." The Padre shrugs, "I don't like to be that weighed down."Quite what the others think of that comment, given the enormously bloated pack on the Padre's back, is anyone's guess, but they prove no more interested in the armour than he: Stormstrider scowls at the mere suggestion of trapping himself inside all that lifeless metal, while the others each shake their heads in turn, being more comfortable in the lighter armour they are already wearing.As Sirdros fumbles to get into the armour, finally appealing for the Padre's assistance, Mantreus and Twinkle examine the safe with a professional eye."Doesn't look trapped." Mantreus opines.  Twinkle snickers,"You were expecting them to have a cloud of poison gas on a safe that’s in their bedroom?" she asks, with evident amusement, "Or maybe a fireball?""It could have had a poison needle." Mantreus offers defensively, his tone sulky."Or maybe a huge axe will swing down the ceiling to decapitate us." Twinkle has warmed to her subject, "Or spears will be launched across the room to skewer us." She snaps her fingers, "Or best of all, the mannequin will come to life, walk over here and beat us to death with its puffy, wool stuffed hands."Mantreus suddenly moves from looking irritated to smug."Well, since you're so confident it's safe." He smirks, "I'll leave you to open it."  Then he walks over to the other side of the room, hands in his pockets and whistling jauntily.Twinkle stares after him, mouth half agape, then turns to look at the safe.  Finally, she settles down in front of the safe and gets out her tools.The first thing she does is to check for traps.Meanwhile, the others have begun to discuss their next course of action."A household this rich, they must have had servants." The Padre reasons, "So where did they sleep?""Maybe in another building?" Elspeth suggests."Servants quarters are often in the attic." Mantreus offers, inspecting the items on the dresser to see if anything is valuable, "The idea is that it'll make it hard for thieves to come in that way." He grins, "Doesn't work very often.  Most servants find that a couple of silvers make them sleep very deeply."The Padre frowns at the larcenous remarks of the rogue, but does not remark on them, instead keeping his mind on the matter at hand,"Did anyone see a way to get into the attic?""Nope." Mantreus shrugs."There was a trapdoor in the ceiling in the hallway." Twinkle offers over her shoulder, as the safe door swings open.  "Ooh.  Goodies.""Nicely spotted." The Padre snarks at Mantreus.  The human rogue shrugs in reply,"She has an unfair advantage.  She's a gnome, so she's used to looking up all the time."Ignoring her companions' remarks, Twinkle has been busily emptying the contents of the safe onto the floor.  They are several leather bags with silver coins spilling out of them, and a similar number of much smaller cloth pouches."Those have gold coins." She gestures at the smaller bags, "I'd say we've got about two hundred gold, by weight.  Maybe eight times that, in silver."The party are well-pleased with their haul - and even better pleased when they clamber up into the servants' attic and find another small pouch of gold.  All of the money is loaded onto Stormstrider, as the powerfully built elf has little trouble handling the weight.  Even after he straps the greatsword to his back, he continues to move without any sign of difficulty."Now where?" Sirdros wants to know, as the group leaves the building.  Both he and the Padre have finally removed their makeshift masks, and the elf looks a lot more relaxed now that he has about fifty pounds of steel between himself and anything dangerous."Where else?" Twinkle jerks her finger at the next house along and does an appalling impression of the Padre, "We have to do this methodically, after all."</blockquote>

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