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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Brakkart" data-source="post: 1747072" data-attributes="member: 19617">DM's Log of Session OneParty arrives in Baldur's Gate on the 23rd Eleint 1372DR, having worked as mercenary guards for the Seven Seas Trading Coster for the past couple tendays, whilst guarding a caravan from Athkatla. They were hired as there have been several raids on caravans carrying gemstones, and whilst theirs was not carrying anything of great value like that, the Coster did not want to get hit anyway, so took on extra protection to be "better safe than sorry".On arrival they were paid the remainder of their retainer and offered future employment as guards, but the group turned this down, in favour of seeing what the city had to offer by way of employment. Waiting at the entrance to the Costers compound was a portly well dressed man who stopped them as they left and introduced himself as Morn Buckman, of Buckman, Brintle & Mite, a company that Aeron recognised by name as dealing in spell components.Taking the party to the back room of the nearby Leaping Leprechaun Inn, he paid for a round of drinks and a platter of food to be brought in and then got down to business. He stated that he wished to employ the party as guards for his warehouse in the city, which was the heart of his operation in the Sword Coast being as Baldur's Gate is in the middle of the coastline, and thus a useful nexus for his stores in Waterdeep, Scornubel, Baldur's Gate and Athkatla ("with another store opening soon in Neverwinter, and in Irieabor also, just as soon as they build the damn road"). He explained that he has suffered a run of strange thefts from his warehouse, of various goods (venoms, herbs, spices, powdered metals, but mostly amniotic fluid "some barrels of the stuff, not expensive at all, just time consuming to replace").He stated that he had hired a sorceress by the name of Rowan Mostana ("comes highly reccomended, spared no expense"), to set up a series of proper warding spells, only she had yet to turn up as she was travelling overland from Irieabor. He offered to pay the party 100gp each per tenday to guard the warehouse at night until she arrived. He also mentioned that while he had suffered a rash of thefts from the warehouse, the thieves had been very meticulous in their burglaries and had never broken in, nor had they made a mess in taking what they wanted.The party agreed to his offer, and he left to attend to business (including adding the PC's names to the company payroll roster, and he suggested that they come up with a name for their group, for convinience sake). The party paid for rooms at the Inn (1gp a night, which includes a cooked breakfast), and while most of them took the time until sundown (when they were due at the warehouse) to rest, Gylippus & Noob went and checked out the warehouse from the street (157 Reaching Way was the address they had been given, in the north part of the city).The warehouse turned out to be a 60'x80' converted two-storey barn, with a street to the front, and a narrow trash and rat filled alleyway at the rear, with other buildings along both sides. The only entrance being the double doors that opened onto Reaching Way itself. The only windows into the building were on the upper floor. Satisifed with thier assessment of the place, they rejoined the rest of the group and then waited till sundown.The party were met at the warehouse as they arrived for their shift on guard duty by James, a clerk employed by Buckman, Brintle & Mite to oversee the running of the warehouse inventory. He answered what questions they had about the building, adding that there was a small unused cellar ("too damp and cold to keep anything down there, and it always smells bad") as well as the two floors. He handed them the keys and then left, as he had no wish to get involved in any fracas, as while he carried a dagger, he really had no idea in how to use it, other than he was assuared that "the pointed end goes into the other person somehow". Before leaving, he emplored the PC's to be careful, as "many things in here do not react well to fire!". Aeron and Gylippus assured him that neither of them were packing fire magics.The group immediately set about exploring every inch of the warehouse, checking every external surface on every floor for hidden entranceways, finding none. When they were eventually satisfied that the only egress into the building was indeed the front doors, they set themselves up in ambush positions around the one item that they knew the thieves would make for, the three barrels of amniotic fluid on the upper floor. They went as far as to push these into the middle of the floor, and then arrange themselves around them, hidden amongst the crates (Ki, Aeron, Gylippus) and in the rafters above it (Elena, Noob). To keep an eye out on both floors, Zamtap positioned himself in the middle of the stairs. The group killed the lamps on the ground floor, and left the upper floor briefly lit, to leave the place with the impression that only the usual security guard was present (who according to James, usually spent the night asleep as nothing ever happened).The group waited for hours, with Elena eventually growing bored and dropping down out of the roofing to play cards with herself atop the barrels. It was in the early morning that Zamtap suddenly noticed that the front doors of the warehouse were open. This realisation was followed scant seconds later by arrows thudding off his armour, alerting him (and everyone else except Elena) that they were under attack! Three salvos of arrows were fired at the cleric, silhouetted as he was, standing on the stairwell with the light from above behind him, before one struck home and pierced his defences. By now the others had arranged themselves around the top of the stairs in hiding (even Elena who finally noticed something was amiss as her comrades began spellcasting, and reluctantly put her cards away), and Zamtap backed up the stairs to join them, followed by his unseen, unheard assailants.As the theives reached the top of the stairs, one spotted the lurking form of Gylippus and charged into him, greviously wounding the surprised wizard. whilst the other was quickly subdued by a well timed sleep spell from Aeron. Ki and Elena joined battle with Gylippus' attacker, the former scoring a hit, whilst the lady pirates arrow clattered off her allies mage armor. Realising that he was horribly outnumbered, the thief turned to run, Gylippus slashing him badly as he did, and he stumbled towards the stairs, screaming out to "Go, get out of here!!", before being abrubtly silenced by a bullet from Zamtap's pistol blowing his brains out. His body fell down a few stairs and lay there sprawled, blood pouring from the wound to make the stairs slippery......As Noob found out when he jumped down from his perch in the rafters and attempted to tumble down them, ending up in a bruised heap at the foot of the flight, the sound of a horse and cart escaping at speed reaching him from the street outside. Both he and Gylippus (who had run to a front window upstairs) saw the third thief make a get away with an empty cart.The group then turned their attention to their prisoner, with Ki and Aeron securing him in ropes and then waking him up. However despite Gylippus' attempts at "persuasion" he remained un-cooperative, simply stating that he was a dead man for failing in his mission, and so the partys threats were wasted on him. The group locked him (along with the dead thief) in the cellar for the night and then turned both over to James and Morn when they arrived in the morning. They did find (whilst looting the pair), a strange tattoo on each of them, that of a sabre-toothed snakes head. None of them knew what it meant, but Morn Buckman asked if they would take the matter to an associate of his, a sage who lived down by the docks ("blue house on the street behind the Bitch Queen's chapel, can't miss it") by the name of Tanthar.The group however, wanted sleep, so they adjourned back to the Leaping Leprechaun, ate breakfast, prayed/read for spells, and went to bed. All except Aeron, who then went on to the docks to consult with the sage, finding the house to be home to a very cantankerous halfling who agreed to look into the matter, stating that "it'll take me some days to find anything, so come back tomorrow". That done, Aeron returned to the Inn and went to sleep himself.DM Notes:Not a bad start, though the encounter with the thieves was a little under powered. Still one did manage to get away (mostly due to some bad rolls on listen checks by Zamtap when the thieves arrived, he didn't hear the sounds of a horse and cart pulling up in the street outside and was the only character near enough to the front doors to have a chance at hearing such). Might need to adust the money a little bit, in retrospect 100gp each per tenday is a bit high. Still it did prove to be too tempting to resist, and it's not like the party are going to be employed there for that long anyway!</blockquote>

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