Deuce Traveler's Sewer Rats

[Deuce Traveler]

Since sewer workers had already retrieved and burned the bodies, Gunzuul only spends 25gp to put up a bunch of colored rocks and an engraved sign post to serve as a memorial in a cemetery in the slums.

The two rounds of large drinks for his new friends cost him another 4gp and 8sp over at Abe's Pub. The patrons, fellow sewer rats, thieves, and other never-do-wells ask why your clothes are dirty with sludge and blood and why you smell like the sewers. When you tell proudly tell them your tale of adventure, one of them rings a hanging cowbell and says something to the bartender.

The terrifyingly muscular Maggot, the half-orc owner-bartender-bouncer smiles (or part-smiles, part-grimaces because of the scar along her face) of the joint shouts out "Oy! Everyone, we have a new group of Sewer Rats who just got the cherries busted! The next round of drinks are on the house, and someone be sure to bring another round to the broken-in rookies!"

A third, free round is brought to you and people demand that you share your stories. Gunzuul meets one of the administrators who asks him several brief personal questions about things like the proper way to spell his name and age, and then promises that he'll find himself on the rosters by the afternoon. The rest of the party is familiar to most at the pub, and there is much backslapping and swapping of stories. It seems last night was a busy night for a lot of the Rats, and some had their own encounters with mutated beasts, though not so many as you had.

After a fun night with the fellows, the team agrees to meet up at the pub again after a couple of days of rest and shopping for new equipment. During that time, Pickwick makes some house calls, ensuring each of his companions is fully healed from injuries they sustain. (Everyone restored to full hit points, spells prepared and make any purchases you want with the gold you have left for any item in the 3.5 PHB).

Hardnose spends 5gp on a local halfling flower girl in the main market, who hands him a bouquet of white flowers. He brings them to Miss Artemesia in her office while she was furiously filling out paperwork. She said in surprise, "Thank you. It's been quite some time since someone has gotten me flowers. I passed on your report to Sir Silvershield, our boss and Sherriff of the Sewers. He was very impressed and I believe he may have a special assignment for you soon." She put the white flowers in a brown, clay vase and placed them in the corner of her desk, which brightened up the otherwise busied workspace. Before he left, Hardnose noticed that both the black and the red chess boards look to have advanced by a couple moves on each.

When the team meets once more in front of the pub right before the start of the evening, the men look ready and rested. Before they can walk in, Needles feels a slight tug on his belt pouch. Looking down he finds a dwarven hand on his money pouch. The hand itself is connected to a red-faced dwarf. "Oy! Ok, you caught me!"

A rare miracle happens as a human city guard just happened to pass by this certain ill-reputed neighborhood and this ill-time. "And what do we have here? 'Happy' Fingerfilcher? Up to no good again, I see!"

The dwarf sighs in frustration, takes out a badge and a piece of paper with a stamp, and says, "Look, I've got my thieving license and badge right here. I've got permission to work this part of the city, as you can see if you read the darn thing, and so it's all legit."

"Yes, but this is the second time you've been caught this week and third time you've been caught in a month. One more time this month and you'll lose your thieving license. One more this week, and the guild won't put you on probation, but instead will kick you out. Let's go to the station so I can take a statement and then escort you to the Guild."

"Ack! It's just my luck, it is. I'm cursed. It'll be a tightening of the belt for a little while and my lady is going to be in a fierce temper, I reckon. Hey! Sewer Rats! No hard feelings or anything, right? I couldn't help myself, but I was supposed to pass you a message. Sir Silvershield told me to go to the pub and find you. He wants to see you right away for a sewer job involving me guild." After passing his message, the dwarf is led away.

OOC: Sir Silvershield's office is in a government building near the city center. I'll give players a chance to adjust their gold and make purchases and then we'll continue with Chapter 2: The Goblin Auction.

 

[ghostcat]

Hardnose can't help himself and bursts out laughing. Getting him self back under control, he addresses the dwarf "Sorry master dwarf. I am not laughing at you. It just that the though that the city council has actually gone to the trouble of licensing thieves is hilarious."

Once the dwarf has been lead away, he turns to the others and says "Come on, lets go see what the boss wants. Better not keep him waiting" Putting words into actions he heads off to Sir Silvershield's office.

 

[Fenris]

Hardnose can't help himself and bursts out laughing. Getting him self back under control, he addresses the dwarf "Sorry master dwarf. I am not laughing at you. It just that the though that the city council has actually gone to the trouble of licensing thieves is hilarious."

Once the dwarf has been lead away, he turns to the others and says "Come on, lets go see what the boss wants. Better not keep him waiting" Putting words into actions he heads off to Sir Silvershield's office.

"While I can not condone thievery, it does deem to be a good way to make sure it does not become onerous to the population" adds Fergus to Hardnose.

ooc:Some give DT some EXP for his post, I need to spread some around before giving him more.

 

[Fangor the Fierce]

Needles was simply dumbfounded when the thief was caught, red handed. He didn't understand why he simply didn't keel the dwarf and was interrupted in thought by a wandering patrol.

"Wait. You mean you were here to alert us to a job, yet decided to pick our pockets while at it? What's the stance on someone working for both the Sewer Rats and the Guild?"

Needles thinks on it, as the others decide that they should meet with the boss, which he doesn't deny.

"Fine. Let's go see what's up. But if I find that thief again, I'll be sure to see if I can lighten his own load..."

 

[Deuce Traveler]

The party eventually makes their way to Sir Silvershield's office, which is inside one of the larger government buildings near the town center. You've seen Silvershield a number of times, but have never spoken with him until now. He greets you politely and asks that you take your seats in front of his desk. A set of highly polished mail and boots rests in a corner of the room, though the Sherriff himself is dressed in the clothing of a minor nobleman. Something about both him and his clothes disturbs you. His hair is neat and oiled without a hair out of place. His mustache is perfectly trimmed, and even his clothing is so wrinkle-free it commands your attention. The legal books on his nearby bookshelf are pressed with book ends that keep them perfectly straight, and they are organized according to height, width, and even color. Even the papers and writing utensils on his desk are laid out in a rectangular and square pattern. You begin to wonder what kind of madness lies within this paladin's mind when he mercifully breaks your increasingly paranoid thoughts by saying, "Thank you for coming on such short notice. I hope your trip here was uneventful."

You explain that his messenger tried to pick one of your pockets and was caught by a city guardsman. He sighs heavily, "I apologize. He was sent to me by the thieves guild with a proposition, and although I do not like working with the Guild, it is a recognized occupation by the City's law and therefore a situation I must tolerate. If I had my way we'd change the law and make thieving illegal, with or without a license. All we would need to do is triple the city guard and hand out severe punishments to the first ones to break the law and we could have this city theft free!"

"Unfortunately, we can't go after licensed thieves, but we can make the unlicensed ones regret their choice of careers. City officials have been trying to track down the location of unlicensed thief and mob boss 'Jimmy the Fish' Sabatini for the last two years. The City has offered a 1,200gp reward to any brave group of men who have the courage to hand to Jimmy a summons. He is suspected of operating a thieving operation without a license and the Guild has word that Jimmy will be conducting a special auction tomorrow night underneath the goblin section of the City slums. That's where you come in. Using the maps of the sewer system, I've laid out a map of the crawl spaces you will need to traverse in order to navigate past Jimmy's guards, and hand deliver him his summons. If you are detected by the guards before handing over the summons, the operation will likely be cancelled and the participants disband. Of course, when you undoubtedly witness the criminal activities unfold at the auction, you will further be risking your lives as criminals do not like men who tell tales. If you can last long enough to use a magical device I will give you, it will alert myself and the city guard and we will descend down to arrest Jimmy the Fish, but we cannot do so until we know for sure that he has been handed the summons. I envy you and wish it was me taking up this honorable suicide mission instead, but I will not be able to fit through the crawl spaces, so it is not meant to be." He does genuinely look saddened by this.

 

[Fenris]

Fergus listens carefully to the job proposal. Technically since this is not a Rats job he had no duty to accept it as he would if Artemesia had proposed it. Still it sounded like a challenge, and those were hard to pass up. "I am in" said Fergus.

 

[[OMENRPG]Ben]

Chernguk seems disturbed by the blatant overabundance of cleanliness, and feels entirely out of place. The efficiency of everything having its correct intrigues him, but everything that he can understand about this man in such a short span clearly disturbs him.

He raises a notched and bald eyebrow at Fergus as he quickly agrees to the summons, and makes a slight contemplative grumble in his throat as he weighs his options. He regards the recently dried sledge on his boots, chips of it falling onto the ground and into this compulsively clean man's office, and squints his eyes at him with a look of hesistant curiosity.

His narrowed eyes flick from Rat to Rat, waiting dutifully for the rest of their responses.

 

[Herobizkit]

Pickwick digs a glob of wax from his ears, then starts scratching them. A lot. He continues until he draws blood, then appears satisfied. He looks around, then wipes the glob on a nearby wall.

As Silvershield prattles on, he sighs heavily, leans on his spear, and promptly falls asleep... until his center of weight shifts and he rights himself in the nick of time.

If you can last long enough to use a magical device I will give you...

"Me! ME!" Pickwick suddenly shouts, waving his arms up and down. "If there's magic involved, I want in!"

 

[Boddynock]

Gunzuul looks increasingly sceptical as Mr Squeaky-Clean describes the mission. He is about to reject it out of hand when two of his team leap in enthusiastically. He growls then, and says gruffly, "All right. I'm in."

He's not happy about it but the memory of what happened when he left Tania to her fate is still raw. Not that these are friends like she was ... but he hasn't got anybody else.

"How long's it going to take the cavalry to arrive?" he asks. "Because despite your enthusiasm for a suicide mission, I intend to come back alive."

 

[Fangor the Fierce]

Needles had heard enough about this man to know what to expect. When the cleanliness is seen, he simply wonders what the man would do if things were suddenly to be in the wrong place; a little shuffling of papers here, a misplaced book there, and even a few misplaced items. When the evidence of this being a suicidal mission is stated, he simply thinks about what he could pilfer from this place they were asked to infiltrate.

Then Pickwick shows why he's named Pickwick, as he digs into his ear canal with satisfaction. When the mention on something magical is stated, Needles has to move away from the over eager Sewer Rat.

"Not one to take this lightly, there are some things to consider. Namely, what penalties we might be looking at that would reduce our compensation. I don't like that our previous employer decided to try and swindle us out of our pay, and walking away with only 100 gold pieces for what we had to endure is not what I would have hoped for."

Needles shifts his weight, narrowing his eyes and continues. "Namely, if we are to infiltrate this guy's place and put our lives on the line, are there penalties for things being misplaced and not accounted for? I need to know what can and can't be done so that we aren't penalized as before."