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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Trench" data-source="post: 4132790" data-attributes="member: 40464">Felix soon finds himself heading toward St. Daris's Church, although he corrects himself soon enough to angle back toward the watchtower where the noise emanates from. The wiry man has whipped himself into a frenzy of oratory."He knew a revolution was at hand! A revolution to found a Free Republic founded by the people! The Empire is dead!""Mocharum's Teeth give it a rest!" a dwarf yells. Most of the crowd seems to agree. Nonetheless, the relentless speech seems to have the unintended effect of increasing the annoyance each of the small groups continue to feel toward each other.Felix watches the spectacle long enough to notice an elven woman trying to peer around the crowd. As the cleric does so, he's almost run down by a pair of whooping and red-faced City Watchmen, followed by a yodelling gnome who skids on the wet stones straight into Felix's thigh.Felix leans down to steady Baeril."Are you okay, sir? Is everything all right?"Without seeming to take a breath, the gnome begins to jabber.    "What an interesting helmet you have! What sort of dragon is that supposed to be? You know, Ptolus is supposed to have dragons, but I've never seen one. Do you suppose they only come out at night, like bats? Bats and swallows are active at dusk to eat insects, but I don't imagine that dragons eat insects. They'd have to eat an awful lot of them! Do you know if that pastry shop is any good? Can I try on your helmet? You're very tall, I bet you are good at getting things down from tall shelves. Let's go to that pastry shop, I'm hungry."Elissa looks back to see the collision. Farther down the street, she also sees two more watchmen walking toward the tower, as Kinkade and Benson come to the end of their long hike.    "Great, another crackpot," Benson grumbles as he walks past the ranting man, just restraining himself from bumping into the man, hard. He does, however, accept the paper the man thrusts at him, giving it a quick read to see what it says.Kinkade watches his companion trod off, a little disappointed at something. He then searches nearby the wiry man to see if there are any other empty crates.    Felix looks over to the gathering crowd, a little non-plussed by Baeril's enthusiasm."Unfortunately, I have a prior engagement. There should be someone to help you at the pasty shop, however. I'm sure that they'd be happy to help a paying customer. Tell me, do you happen to know if that's the Guardsman Tower?"    "I don't know, I think so," Baeril says. "These are guardsmen. I always just follow people who are going where I want to go, although sometimes they go different places, but that's really interesting, too."Still talking, Baeril walks off across the street to the pastry shop, his thrush perched on his cap.Benson snorts at the copy of the Ptolus Herald. The headline screams that "VISONARY SCRIBE CADDERLY FRICKARD MURDERED BY WATCH!"    "Hey, look at this - apparently we killed someone. A scribe."Benson stops the wiry man mid-rant. "Hey, buddy, I have a few questions for you. Did you print this story?"Kinkade ends his search prematurely, watching the situation intently.'Why?" The wiry man looks disdainfully at Benson. "So you could silence ME as well? SILENCE THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE?!?""Easy, Benson," Kinkade says. "Tensions are high enough.""We don't want to silence you, sir," he says to the ranting man, trying to use an easy manner to calm the man. "In fact, I'd love to talk to you more about a free society. One where we're all equals. But we can't be equal if you're up there shouting at me."Cipke rushes up panting... he needs to work out more. "What's... what's going on?"A burly man with red hair and and wearing a Guild badge on his dusty clothes turns toward Cipke and notices his Watch clothes. "Damnable metalworkers causing it all, sir. You know what's good for you, I'd arrest the lot of them.""That's easy to say wearing THAT!" the orator points accusingly at Kinkade's uniform."Would you SHUT IT already!" the burly redhead by Cipke shouts. "You're worse than they are!""What?" the dwarf in the crowd snarls.The redhead smirks, as do some of the men around him. "Oh, you heard me," he says."Everyone, please calm down. This is Ptolus. This is the greatest city in the known world. Ideas can't hurt us, nor can civility." Deevolly smiles warmly. "Let's talk like civilized folks."Meanwhile, the pastry shop Baeril walks to has seen better days, its door boarded up from being broken in earlier. Baeril can see a face peeking out from the window, but as the gnome approaches the curtain is closed quickly.    "Hello, hello? Not open for business? Perhaps you have a bit of pastry left over that you could sell me? My mother makes a nice one filled with plum jam and covered in powdered sugar. I haven't had a bite to eat in several hours and I'm just famished. Hello? I won't hurt you. I'm just looking for ein Bissen zum zu essen."    Quietly observing the mob, Elissa winds her way around the back of the group and makes her way to the tower entrance.    One of the guards nearly jumps out of his skin to see Elissa threading her way through the angry bodies. He nearly draws his longsword."AH.... Stay... stay back. We can't allow anyone in! It's, it's...""Lothian's balls," the other guard swears. "Listen lady, every other Watchman in the district is breaking up fights. We need men."In the crowd many things happen at once. The wiry man raises himself up to his full (not very tall) height in front of Kinkade and Benson. "YOU PREVENT EGALITARIANISIM BY THAT VERY ATTITUDE!""Wow they're letting little girls in the Watch?" the redhead snarls at Deevolly. "They must be taking their cues from your boys Theurin." The man reaches around and grabs at Deevoly "Tell you what though, I can civilize you right quick you give me a few minutes...""You trying to disprove that saying Russell?" the dwarf laughs. "What is it now? 'You don't try to break a brick'. Course we all know the rest of it is 'Unless it's their limp-"And that's when the dwarf gets a club to the back of his head from a group that had snuck up behind him. At that same moment, the orator seems to be overwhelmed with disgust for the Empire and takes a weak swing at Kinkade. The crowd surges forward toward each other, screaming for blood. And the new arrivals find themselves right in the thick of it.</blockquote>

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