After a brief stop at Blackwall Keep, we travelled on to the Free City, arriving there after a couple of days of peaceful travel. The huge walled city stood abreast of a massive slow-moving river, and as we closed in on it, we realised that each gate-point was the focus of a long queue of people. We neared, and realised that many scores of people were waiting patiently in line, some with carts and mules, others with simple bags and backpacks, but almost everybody carrying something. And every single person entering the town was being searched.
After two hours of waiting in line, my heavily armed, armoured and sweating friends and I were becoming fairly fractious by the stage we neared the front. We had learned that the guardsmen were searching for the ‘usual’ items – magic items which could significant damage to the city, poisons, or other illegal items. Flynne and I looked around for a short period, moving a few small items around in our packs before we straightened up for the last few people in front to move on.
I strolled up to the guardsmen as soon as the way was clear, smiling broadly and chatted with them, surreptitiously adjusting the flask of highly toxic spider venom tucked under my armpit as a small handful of silver coins changed hands. I was briefly patted down, before being granted entry into the city.
Flynne, having buried his toxic arrows at the bottom of his quiver, was allowed through in turn, as was Igmut (after a particularly thorough search revealed nothing which could be construed as illegal). Malachite was also allowed entry, by which time the guards were looking distinctly irritated. To nobody’s surprise, they spent a long time searching Endo’s pack, and demanded that he describe for them the effects of every spell which was in his spellbook. We all noticed he glossed over the particular effects of one or two which we had seen in action, before…
“Aha!” One of the guards sounded triumphant, as he heaved a sack out of Endo’s backpack. “What have we here?”
Tipping the bag, several carved rocks fell to the floor. The remaining thunderstones he had brought from the travelling gnomes a couple of weeks previously. The guard sergeant pointed at them.
“Dangerous,” he announced smugly.
Endo spluttered. “Dangerous? They’re just thunderstones – they make a loud bang, and -“
He was cut off. “A loud bang? Explosions, more like. Could dangerously undermine the fabric of the city. Banned.”
I cut in, draping my arm over the sergeant. Some gold changed hands, and the man’s eyes boggled before it vanished inside his tunic. I took advantage of his good mood to gesture to Endo, who swept up his thunderstones, and was soon chatting like an old friend with the sergeant. He told us where Eligos lived, and recommended a good inn for us before the loud grumblings from the people in the queue made him turn his attention back to his duties, and we turned ours to the Free City itself.
.oOo.
We strolled into the town, and were soon very thoroughly lost. We followed the pressure of many people who were all headed in the same direction, and found ourselves as part of a thronging mass of people lined along the sides of a wide cobbled street. We heard music and banging drums, before dancers, acrobats and jugglers passed us and the cheering crowd. They were followed by a series of rolling cages on wheels, pulled by strongmen or fabulously braided and painted horses. The cages themselves contained exotic creatures or monsters, each more fabulous than the one before it.
One cage, which was drawing more gasps from the crowd that any other was a heavy iron cage, with deep coloured glass between the metal bars. Within raged a massive beast; heavy set leonine shoulders topped by draconic wings which had been savagely torn with a weapon to ensure the creature could not fly. The beast had not one, but three different heads; a goat, a lion and a gaping draconic maw, which as I watched blasted forth a bolt of pure electricity. The lightning smashed against the glass, and then played up and down the iron bars, earthing itself without hurting the startled crowd.
I turned away to see what might be in the next cage, and therefore I didn’t see what caused the chimera’s wagon to tip. I heard the crash, however, as the creature’s cage tipped up and slid off the suddenly broken wagon. The glass shattered, and the door slammed wide open, the chimera springing out to wreak its terrible fury on the suddenly screaming crowd.
.oOo.
With dozens of people screaming and running in many directions, the savage beast fixated on one unmoving figure – a small girl who had lost her mother and was frozen in place with terror. As the beast sank to its haunches and readied a pounce, Flynne sprang into action. Backflipping over some heads and twisting nimbly between the onrushing crowd, he grabbed the child and pulled her to safety, shielding her slim body with his own.
I unslung my lute from its backpack and began a popular heroic song in a loud high voice which carried clearly over the crowd. Many people were reassured by the familiar sound, whilst others ceased screaming to look around. Reassured by the noise, the screaming abated, and the people around me began to more in a more orderly fashion, whilst at the same time, the more martial nature of the song lent strength to my comrades in a way that was now very familiar to them.
Igmut was then poised to swing into action, unfastening his longspear from its travelling ties and turning to face the monster, but Malachite yelled out “hang on”, and began chanting whilst working his way towards the half-orc. Well practiced, Endo was already chanting a spell to curse the creature, gesturing and sending a dark curse which struck at the beast’s eyes. It shook its head, and the gathering milky clouds suddenly left its many eyes as Endo’s spell failed. As part of a well-oiled clockwork device, Malachite released his spell of strengthening onto Igmut, who then bulled his way through the now more sensible crowd. He closed on the beast and thrust the head of the spear deeply into its shoulder.
Screaming in pain, the beast turned to face Igmut, unleashing a flurry of savage claws and bites at him, gashing his flesh in a couple of places but not causing any injury heavy enough to bother the massive half-orc.
Flynne dashed towards the other side of the beast, drawing a cosh from his belt as he ducked under a swinging tail, but his swing went wide of the mark, glancing off the maimed wing rather than stunning the creature as he had intended.
I took my hands off my lute and stopped singing, confident that the effects of my music would last for long enough to keep the crowd calm and my friends enthused. I instead picked out a couple of notes to help my memory I cast one of the spells which I had recently learned, speeding the reflexes all of my friends (as well as the little girl, one bystander and a rather confused nearby juggler) to aid them as the fight continued in the street.
Igmut reversed his spear, smashing repeatedly at the creature with the butt end, the power of the hastening spell meaning that he struck it more times, and with more accuracy than would ever have been the case normally. The creature responded by turning and belching electricity at him from the central draconic head. The creature was clearly greatly weakened by its time in captivity, as a feeble jolt of electricity played briefly over Igmut, causing him barely any pain before Flynne, also affected by the spell of speed, jumped onto the creature’s back, coshing each of the creature’s heads in turn. All three slumped, and the chimera crashed to the floor unconscious.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
