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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cafu" data-source="post: 5889813" data-attributes="member: 6692807">No one slept particularly well that night, least of all I. The attack on the city, the panic and distress of the people, the savagery of the Wyvern Knight, the attack of the strange group with red armbands all served to give me a restless night. I dozed fitfully, tossing and turning. Morning could not come quickly enough. As I rose, I saw that no one else looked particularly well rested so for a period of time there was silence as everyone performed their ablutions and prepared for the day by meditation and prayer or in my case, by losing myself in a book magic. Everyone else was lost in their thoughts, no doubt trying to grasp the true enormity of what had happened yesterday. Once ready, a meager breakfast was served. I observed the large groups of people in the church. Although they were dispossessed, in many ways they had been the lucky ones; at least they had found shelter from the bitter cold and safety during that dreadful night; and the priests had found a little food for them. I determined that when I had it, I would see if I could donate some funds to this Temple. They were doing good work. Over breakfast, we held a discussion about our next actions. Initially, there was an idea that we would make some additional purchases for our journey to the South; then we thought to send out a couple of individuals to make these purchases while others attempted to make contact with Erdan Menash, the council member who could potentially help us getting out of the city. However, these ideas were dismissed fairly swiftly as the urgency of our mission and our situation re-asserted itself. We decided to approach Councilman Menash as soon as possible. Considering the events of last night, there was no time to be lost.As we left the Temple, we were immediately assaulted by the smell of smoke. Although no buildings were burning any longer, there were still many traces of the fires of last night. At the entrance of the Temple, little knots of people gathered and talked in hushed voices. One or two had louder voices and we heard various snatches of conversations as we walked past: “……the Ragesians have called off the attack but we have to let the Inquisition into the city, or they will attack again…...”We were carrying all of our equipment so some people were giving us curious glances but nearly everyone was so busy speculating about the actions of the Council, the size of the Ragesian army, its location and as well as more trivial concerns such as what was going to happen to this year’s Festival of Dreams, that we managed to slip away unobtrusively. We made our way through the city without drawing any undue attention. As we walked by, we saw more small knots of people talking quietly, almost whispering in the morning air, as if afraid to draw attention to themselves. The conversations were much like those which we heard outside the Temple; here and there desperate parents were looking for lost children or family members were looking for each other. A few times we sent them to the Temple as that seemed to be one of the greater concentration of people of whom we were aware. We also walked by many buildings that had  suffered from fire and in a few cases, we could see disconsolate figures either rummaging through burnt out shells or just looking at the work of a lifetime which had been burnt down in one night. It was very, very quiet. A little time later, we reached the wealthy noble district. This part of the city was dominated by a huge statue of the Emperor Drakus Coaltongue, surveying the city in his majesty. While this was the salient feature from a distance, as we approached, we could see a mansion in the near vicinity which was painted in stripes of a vivid yellow, green and purple almost as if challenging the statue as to which architectural achievement was the most eye catching. It had three stories so it was almost as tall as the Emperor. To add to the whole picture, there was a pair of guards stationed outside the front door, both wearing uniforms which were colour co-ordinated with the mansion. Commendably, despite their rather unusual apparel, the guards looked very professional and their faces were expressionless.  We approached and asked for an audience with the Councilman. Longhelim must have been known to them as, after a brief scrutiny, we were allowed into the manor and told that the Councilman was at a Council meeting right now and we would have to wait. We were led into the strangest room. It was a huge drawing room, or salon as the servant who led us there, called it. The walls were decorated with all manner of weapons and armour, from the mundane to the truly exotic but each and everyone had been given some sort of unique twist. Here was a crossbow that seemed to be in the shape of a porcupine, with spines jutting out everywhere and some sort of complicated looking loading mechanism; a double sword, a double axe, an urgrosh, whips, swords of all types and sizes. The twist however was in the decoration; hilts in the shape of ducks and rabbits, there was decoration of quite an erotic nature on some of the blades, tassels which corresponded to the house colours, scabbards with the heads of mice at the end, pommels that looked like moles; every single weapon was unusual in this manner. Even our stoic warriors were stupefied. Victor and Longhelim were quietly talking to each other as they slowly surveyed the display. I sidled over and overheard a little of their conversation: “….he couldn’t have bought these on the open market”.Longhelim puffed on his pipe: “There is no such thing as an open market for things like these. Victor muttered: “These must have been all been custom made then. It will have cost a fortune”.Longhelim nodded: “Indeed.”I drifted away again. I wondered over to the crossbow that looked like a porcupine. I was fascinated by the mechanism. I didn’t dare touch it but I did look at it from all the angles I could to try and work out what it was. Drudge joined me then and looked at it. He whistled soundlessly and said quietly that he had heard of these but never actually seen one. “That’s repeating crossbow; a heavy one. It is difficult to tell with that animal carving on top of it but I can see the magazine and the crank. I wouldn’t use it but that thing really packs a punch.”“Expensive?” I asked.“Oh yes” was the answer.I looked at the other pieces on display but none of them held the fascination of the crossbow. Suddenly, I heard the servant enter and announce that his master had returned. We could hear him before we saw him. A high pitched voice from the corridor was clearly not happy about something, declaring: “ Incompetent……blind…….dangerous…..don’t understand…..” and then a figure came in. An older man with white hair, not particularly unusual and certainly one wouldn’t know he was the owner of this eccentric dwelling and its contents. He looked at us, puzzled and then asked: “You I know Longhelim, but the rest of you? Who might you be?”Longhelim introduced us and explained our situation and mission to the Councilman. As he spoke, I realised that Longhelim was being enormously charming and the explanation and narrative sounded eminently sensible and something that could genuinely help the city in the future. Erdan Menash was staring at him intently for quite a long time and then he laughed and said:“What you want to do is completely crazy, you know that don’t you? Going through the burning Forest? With a bunch of potions? Trying to get help from Seaquen? That crazy Simeon? You are willing to risk that for the City? I wish we had more like you! Of course, I will help you! In fact I will help you as much as I can. See the walls, I can spare many of the weapons and armour there. Let me know what you want and I will see if I can let you have it to aid your quest.I am sorry about being so abrupt. It has been a rather trying morning. First the unpleasantness of last night and then the even greater unpleasantness of this morning have made me forget my manners. You are obviously a group of patriots so let me tell you what has happened so far. There were various attacks against the city last night. An enormous earth elemental rose from the sewers and slew several of my colleagues from the Council while the soldiers were busy on the wall; then a huge red dragon began terrorizing the skies above the city and set a large chunk of it ablaze until defeated and driven off by the combined efforts of one our druid allies and the Griffin Riders; thank the Gods we managed to increase their budget despite the best efforts of some idiots. Two of the dragon’s riders were forced off and captured by the City Guard. The western wall was breached last night briefly and but for the courage of the citizens of the city, it could have been disastrous; thankfully, the breach was contained.  Finally, a Wyvern……a murderer fell off his beast and began slaughtering people including a young family until someone tracked him down and killed him. I would very much like to thank that someone. After all that, the Council received a message from the Ragesians this morning stating that the attacks last night were just a small probe with but a fraction of the forces at their disposal and unless they allowed the Inquisition into the city then the full might of their forces would be unleashed. Of course, a Council meeting took place at once and they agreed to let the Inquisition in; in other words, this is a conditional surrender. Leska’s thugs will sweep through the magical community, or the part they can catch and make sure that they won’t interfere in the defense of the city again. I am sure that driving off their pet dragon was a nasty surprise to this General Deneva. Anyway, it is too late now: the vote has taken place and the Inquisition is on its way.“Hearing this, we realised that the situation was even more dire than we thought. If the Inquisition was already on its way then our decision to get out of the city as quickly as possible had certainly been a wise one. Thanking the Councilman for his great generosity, we began looking at the wall and the warriors were soon in an intense discussion about the merits of the equipment on display. Several pieces were being taken down and inspected. After a little time, Drudge and Slippery John both received bows, Felix wanted some armour, Longhelim asked for an extremely well made long sword while both Torrent and Victor asked for well made falchions, those strange wide bladed swords which Victor wielded so effectively. After some thought, I asked for the repeating heavy crossbow. I couldn’t help it. I had no idea how to use it but I was fascinated. Equally importantly, on Drudge’s advice, I was also able to purchase several magazines full of bolts very inexpensively. Of course, each of these pieces of equipment was eccentric in the Menash way, with several of the swords having strangely shaped hilts, the bows had erotic carvings and the crossbow was shaped like a porcupine.Finally, Menash wrote out a letter and two sets of orders. He explained that we were to take these to Captain Herreman of the Guard; the letter introduced us; we were to accompany his patrol on the way out until we reached the fork on the trail which led to the Forest. The first set of orders explained our presence in this patrol going out and the other set of orders explained our absence when his patrol returned. Once the letter and the orders had been written, he turned to us and said:“Go with my blessings and don’t forget Gate Pass. I have a feeling that we will be needing everyone before all this is over.”With a final goodbye we left and decided to go to Captain Herreman’s barracks immediately. It was not too far away but as we strode through the snow, Drudge and Slippery John alerted everyone that there was a group of City Guards following us. They were not behaving like normal Guards; for a start they seemed to be more of a mob than a disciplined squad. They also followed us for some distance without issuing any challenges. They seemed to be satisfied with just shadowing our path; Victor, the guardsman, quickly told us that this was not how it was done in the Guard. When they wanted to stop someone they just called out and the person concerned normally stopped unless they had something to hide and that was when the matter usually escalated. Then, as we approached a crossroads, three of these guards approached us from the front leaving six behind us. The lead guard said: “I am sorry but we have orders to bring you in on suspicion of being magic-users. Please surrender your weapons and come quietly”. Now the two people at the front were Victor and Longhelim, both in their armour and bristling with swords, shields, bows and various other weapons. It would be difficult to imagine two people less likely to look like magicians. We stopped and then Victor demanded to see these orders. The guard spokesman looked a little put out and claimed that he did not need written orders. Whereupon, Victor said he did and the spokesman said nothing. Then Victor changed tack and asked the guard who trained him; at this point, the other guards began to shuffle slightly. As this stand-off was taking place, another group of guards was approaching. The first set noticed this and became even more nervous. Victor was still haranguing the lead guard with questions about details of his guard career, his training, his deployment and the name of his superior officer, which obviously flustered that individual as he kept silent either unwilling or unable to answer.As this was going on the other guard squad arrived and everyone could see that they were escorting two prisoners , orcs, with insignia on their chests showing a huge explosion of fire. One of them had an old burn scar which disfigured most of his face. One of the first guards gave a half hearted whoop of congratulations and earned himself a gobbet spittle in the face from one of the orcs. At this point, Slippery John took advantage of the distraction. In a commanding, nasal voice, with an accent I had never heard previously, he imperiously ordered the first set of guards to meet us at the City gate in a completely different part of Gate Pass and after that, we joined the prisoner escort and moved with them. I turned back briefly and was amazed to see the guard mob shuffling away in the direction where Slippery John had ordered them. Using the prisoner escort, the rest of the journey to Captain Herreman’s barracks was uneventful except for one incident:  Just as we were about to enter into the barracks, I was surprised to see Slippery John stop and wave at someone. I looked in that direction but couldn’t see anything. Then, as Slippery John waited, I saw a figure jumping and running with grace and speed over the rooftops. It was amazing; in no time at all, the figure jumped off acrobatically and after a few summersaults, landed next to the group and Slippery John introduced him as Rantle, a gentleman. I had never heard of him; he did cut quite a dashing figure, with his goatee and rakish hat. He also had a huge sword strapped to his back. It was quite the biggest sword I had ever seen. He nodded to John spoke to him: “Hullo John. I heard that you had hooked up with Torrent. That was your crew in the Poison Apple wasn’t it? There aren’t that many priestesses wearing a blue breastplate in Gate Pass you know and I know you, no matter how well you try to hide; anyway, it looks as if your latest partners can handle themselves. Look, I need a favour: I have a sister, Katrina. You can’t miss her; she is pretty and has the brightest red hair you have ever seen. She is a fairly good sorceress although she does have a habit of burning things, especially buildings. Well, she disappeared about a week ago; I was going to look for her but things have become a bit…..complicated here. So I heard you may be on your way South. She was going that way as well, to the Lyceum. If you see her, can you give her this scroll, there’s a good fellow.”John looked at him for a little time and then took the scroll case and just nodded. Satisfied, Rantle ran to the nearest building, climbed up to the roof and quickly disappeared. I found something very strange about this whole encounter although I couldn’t quite pin down what it was.  We had no trouble asking to see Captain Herreman and once in his office, standing in front of his desk, the good captain was an obvious half orc. He looked at us dubiously as he read the letter and the orders. He took a very long time over this, enough to make me a little nervous. Then he made an odd rumbling sound in his chest and I realised he was laughing. “That Menash! He is crazy! Trying to pull something like this in the middle of siege; in the snow, while surrounded by an army. He is going to owe me big time! Next time you see him, let him know he owes me; specifically another of these” he said, pulling out a dagger with a pommel shaped like a banana. I hoped those ridiculous things were not becoming collectable.Herreman called a lieutenant and gave him the orders. We were to join his patrol at sunset and to be equipped like his normal patrollers: longswords, studded leather, supplies and we were to be given light war horses. After that, he dismissed us, looking at his dagger and guffawing. We waited until sunset, not wanting to draw unnecessary attention and once the appointed time arrived, we joined the patrol and finally rode through the gate, leaving Gate Pass behind. Ominously, as we rode out, we heard the tolling of a bell and the lieutenant said in a low voice: “That’s the signal that the Inquisition are entering the city”. I shuddered; we had managed to leave just in time. Consulting our maps, we left the patrol at the indicated fork on the road and following their directions, found an abandoned watch tower where we set up camp. The night was undisturbed and the next morning we set out again, making sure we did not tire the horses. The trail was very twisted, with cliffs on one side, then the other, sometimes on both. It was still some distance to the Forest when Drudge told us to stop and pointed out a figure trying to hide on top of one of the cliffs overlooking the road. We saw that that it was an orc, wearing studded leather, and carrying a crossbow, a morning star and we could even see a sap; that sounded familiar. It looked as if the same gang from the Poison Apple pub had found us again. Just what did they want?</blockquote>

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