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[Vile] Puppy-Kicking PCs at Work, part 2

Aligor comes to the realization that this is an antique shop; almost everything around him is valuable. There’s valuable looking furniture and rugs, vases from old civilizations, one case with old rare coins, another with a selection of knives, and still another with various pieces of jewelry. The place is small, but there are objects all over the place, including hanging from the walls like the urgrosh was, that are probably valuable. Aligor comes to a second realization: Boone must have a way of protecting this stuff. Some of it is small, like the stuff in the cases, that a pickpocket could easily try to make off with. How Boone protects himself from theft is a mystery. At the back of the store on a counter is a locked metal chest, presumably where he keeps money.

[Aligor rolled an Intelligence roll of 14+0=14 for that second realization.]

In the box Boone pulled out are 5 more potion vials that look similar to what he gave Aligor, as well as some scroll tubes, within which are scrolls with symbols Aligor doesn’t begin to understand. There’s also a short stick with more odd symbols on it, probably a magical wand.

[Be sure and mention if Aligor pockets anything.]

Peering out the window reveals it is late afternoon, and not much else. There’s no sign of the wizard, or anyone who looks threatening. Every once in a while, a person, mounted or on foot, passes by but none look threatening, until about an hour later (after a few times of moving away from the window for awhile, and then, bored, looking out again) Aligor sees a pair of mounted city guards. They are looking around, but don’t seem to take any particular note of Boone’s shop, and then they start to pass. Aligor is a bit jumpy with the guards around, so when he hears the door opening he leaps back, knocking over a table with a bunch of old metal gauntlets on it, making a huge racket. But looking at the door, he sees Boone coming in, carrying a large box, with some difficulty given his bad arm.

[Gave a Will save to see how jumpy Aligor was upon seeing the guards. Rolled a 1. Heh heh]

He says “Dwarf! What are knocking things over for?!? You know how much you’d owe me if those were breakable?” He sits the box down with a loud thump and says “Anyway, here’s what you asked for, plus 3 extra Cure Light Wound potions, 7 in all. And there’s quite a few guards out, just patrolling. More than usual. I don’t know if their looking for you or someone else. Heard some people talking; they’re calling last night the ‘Night of Bloody Terror’. Supposedly a dozen people got killed, maimed, or raped last night. You and Sunedilar didn’t kill 12 people last night, did you?”
 

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Accalon Darcanda: Human/Male (Unholy Warrior)

Accalon looks slightly awkward as Bea makes herself comfortable in his lap but slowly his awkwardness is replaced with pleasant smile, “I’m nothing to get impressive over, I’m probably the only cobbler’s son who can’t apply the trade even if he wanted too, I’ve simply decided to risk my life for money, it hardly caries the nobleness that you seem to imply it does.”

Accalon absently rubs the soft skin of Beatrice’s side as he laughs lightly, “Eloquent? I guess so… I looked at a few paths before I chose this one, and I guess I will need to be eloquent as it would be shameful to see your flawless skin marred as… Well I don’t know. Well I guess I see you overcoming your lot in life, you’re a natural leader and friend to all the other girls. I think you will make a great…”

His words end abruptly as he hears what can only be the breaking of glass below him. Lifting Bea from his lap he lightly deposits her on the floor before he drops to his knees to pull out the armor from under the bed, “What was that? Glass breaking?”

As he waits for her reply he dons his armor hastily with her help, and when done he draws his blade and head for the door, “Loni could be in danger, if you have a blade and know how to handle it I could use your help, but don’t do anything foolish… Leave that to me.”

OOC: Accalon’s AC is lowered by one, armor check is up one, and it would have took 30 seconds to don.
 

Beatrice looks confused at Accalon’s suddenly being distracted. She says, “I didn’t hear anything. If you’re sure you heard something, than we should check it out. Or maybe I should alone, if you need to hide.” She helps Accalon on with his armor regardless how he responds to that, and then reaches under her mattress, pulling out a dagger. She looks very worried, and says “I really don’t have experience using this. I just keep it… in case, you know?”

[The DM assumes Accalon won’t take her suggestion of letting her go alone. If I’m wrong, I’ll edit this. BTW, don hastily on breastplate is 1 minute, not 30 seconds]

Accalon, with Beatrice following, exits the bedroom and heads downstairs. On the second floor, the warrior stops in the hallway and listens. He very clearly discerns Loni’s voice coming from downstairs on the first floor, probably from the foyer. He can’t make out what she’s saying at this distance, but her voice seems calm, if a bit loud. He also hears something else; a popping-crackling noise coming from beyond a particular door on this level. The door probably leads to a bedroom, as most doors on the second and third stories do, but he hasn’t been in this one before so he doesn’t know for sure. Beatrice is clearly looking concerned at that door, so she presumably hears it too.

[Accalon rolled Listen 17]
 

Isida Kep'Tukari said:
"Alicia, you stay here. I don't want people recognizing you, and Brie said to keep out of harm's way. If you must come with us, you should wait outside the city walls and keep a low profile. Come on then, let's get going," Lydia says, mounting up, a bit on edge from the silence of the woods.

Alicia stays behind, looking worriedly at the forest for any sign of the return of the stick creature.
 

Accalon Darcanda: Human/Male (Unholy Warrior)

Leaving the room with Bea in tow Accalon address her combat skills quickly, “Then Bea please be careful and keep behind me. Don’t threaten anyone one with that unless they threaten you.”

On the second floor Accalon’s heart starts beating as he hears the pain free voice of his dear Loni, but his heart quickly skips again as he hears the pop crackling noise.

Not moving but leaning slightly to bring his ear to Bea’s lip and hers to his he whispers softly to her, “Anything special about that room?”

OOC: If Bea doesn’t have any obvious warning about the room Accalon will slow move up upon it while keeping Bea behind him. Actually if the stairs going down is between him and the door he will tell Bea to stop advancing and wait at the top of the stairs. If the stairs are beyond the door, he will wait till he’s “contained” whatever is in the room and then order her to run pass him and have her wait at the top of the stairs. (In case he needs assistance. Hopefuly an adventuring John/Jane is downstairs or maybe Modrin is.

[The DM assumes Accalon won’t take her suggestion of letting her go alone. If I’m wrong, I’ll edit this.]

You assumed right, Accalon will not allow Bea to doing anything like that. He’s not even sure he wants her with him now and he’ll ask her to run if he feels like he is over matched by anyone other than Brie. If its Brie he’ll make no such suggestion, as her punishment will probably be very severe. (Death wouldn’t be a surprise.)

[BTW, don hastily on breastplate is 1 minute, not 30 seconds]

Oops your right I looked in the wrong column it’s the removal that one gets the time slashed for having assistance.
 

At Brie’s, Beatrice whispers back “It’s just one of the client rooms. Nothing special about it that I’m aware of.” The stairs down are at the other end of the hall, so Accalon tells Bea to wait as he advances to the door. The crackling noise is still coming from within as his gauntleted hand grabs the doorknob and turns. Once the door is open, even just a little, Accalon can guess what’s making the noise as he smells smoke and feels heat coming from the room. Within, he sees one wall of the room on fire, flames crackling and licking over what was once a painting of some kind. There are some smaller fires on the carpet, probably having spread there, but the center of the flames definitely appears to be the wall. No one seems to be here, but Accalon does notice a broken window. The room contains a large sofa, a small bar with a number of liquor bottles on shelves behind it, and a doubled bed. The flames are spreading, and if they reach any of the furniture or the bar, it’s likely to spread much faster.


The next morning in the forest, Lydia and Sunedilar leave to meet with Aligor, leaving Gwyn and Alev dozing in their tent, and Alicia relatively alone and bored.

[I’m saying Gwyn and Alev are dozing to explain why they never responded to Lydia. Both are sleeping lightly enough that what happens next could be heard by them, if/when either can post]

Just a few minutes after her two companions have left, Alicia thinks she hears something above her. Looking up, she sees a short, very hairy figure standing on a tree limb about thirty feet up. As Alicia looks at it, it speaks saying “Damn it, your ears are apparently way too big. So you can kill any dwarf, can you?” The voice is scraggly but somewhat soft, apparently a female, and focusing on it, Alicia thinks it could be a very hairy female dwarf. “That’s not very nice. Especially since your camped in my forest. But I’ll still be a gracious host.” She reaches into the mass of wild hair that seems to run from head to toe, and pulls out a bright red apple. She drops it down at Alicia’s feet and says “Here, you look hungry” It’s absolutely impossible to gauge facial expression on the dwarf at this distance, and with all that hair.


At the edge of town, Lydia and Sunedilar see something that wasn’t there the day before: various banners and stands and platforms, being put up by a couple dozen people. The banners indicate it’s for a Festival of Fharlanghn, the god of travel and roads, that is supposed to start in a few days. Which makes sense, since the Day of Fharlanghn, a generally recognized holiday, is coming up in about a week. At one of the stands, Lydia and Sunedilar sees someone they recognize, although only Lydia knows his name; Algernon, still dressed rather fancily, seems to be discussing something with a man hammering nails into one side of the stand. Algernon doesn't notice them yet. The place Lydia and Sunedilar are to meet Aligor, at his ‘home’, is closer to the center of the city and so is still a half-hour ride away or so.
 

Accalon Darcanda: Human/Male (Unholy Warrior)

Accalon curses silently as he walks in on the fire, he had wasted valuable time putting on armor that he didn’t need and that could now very much hinder him.

Not taking his eyes from the room he calls for Bea as he continues to study the broken window and the cause of it in the room, “Bea! Come here I’m going to need your help after all…”

As she draws near his gauntleted hand quickly and roughly grabs one of her own hands as he uses the pain to draw her wide green eyes to his intense green eyes, “Alert those downstairs and your sister, recruit anyone you can find and send some to help me with the fire! Don’t forget about your sisters the floors above us. Now go!”

Turning back towards the fire Accalon sizes up the fire, and quickly moves to the bar. Seeing no way to remove all the alcohol at once Accalon pick the liquor up a bottle at a time and begins to quickly, but carefully as being accurate is more important, toss the bottles out of the room via the already broken window.

Once the combustibility of the alcohol is removed Accalon begins to start to remove the furniture that is closest to the fire.
 

Bea yelps in pain as Accalon roughly grabs her hand, both due to the force of it, and the heat his gauntlet has absorbed from the room and presumably the doorknob. She looks at him, seeming to not understand at first, but then nods, and runs towards the stairs leading down.

Accalon is finding the room extremely uncomfortable in his armor, and there’s a lot of smoke in the room, obscuring his vision from any obvious cause of the fire. Accalon stops for a moment, coughing and choking on the smoke, but then manages to start carefully throwing the liquor bottles out the window, skillfully (and fortunately) never missing, hearing them shatter on the ground below. After the last bottle is gone, the warrior again finds it hard to breathe, gasping for air, but then he notices the flames are getting very close to the bed. The bed with lots of loose, flammable bedding. Accalon grabs the edge of the bed and pulls it away from the wall, as flames lick around him. He realizes his armor is getting very hot to the touch.

[Accalon failed a Spot check. He rolled 6+7=13 on a Fortitude save against the smoke, choking for 1 round. Second round rolled 10+7=17, success. Made three general ranged attack rolls for throwing the bottles out the window, rolled 8, 12, and 8, all +6 (+4 base, +2 for taking his time and doing it carefully) vs. AC 10. All successful. Also made 3 choking fortitude rolls, failed the last. Getting the bed required a Reflex save to avoid catching fire himself, rolled 12+4=16, success. General effect of the heat in the room required a Fortitude save too, rolled 12+7-4(for armor)=15, just made, so took no nonlethal damage. Yet]

As Accalon is removing the bed from the room, he gasps for the clean air once he’s in the hallway. He sees Lieutenant Modrin running up to him. The guard takes no time to speak to him, instead looking in the room, deciding cautiously what he can do. Beatrice and Loni, followed slowly by Brie, come up as well, and Modrin tells the girls to get all the buckets in the house filled with water, or sand if there’s any available. Then he heads inside the room, grabbing the edge of the sofa and pulling it towards the door, managing to not be bothered by the smoke, for the moment.

Loni looks toward Accalon, looking very much like she wants to go to him, but Beatrice grabs her arm and says to her “Loni, go upstairs and tell everyone! Right now!” Then Beatrice starts banging on the doors on this floor, alerting everyone to the danger, as Loni heads for the stairs leading up.
 

Accalon Darcanda: Human/Male (Unholy Warrior)

Safe for the moment in the hallway Accalon does little except lean against the wall as he continues choking from the thick smoke. If anyone seems interested in helping him he shakes his head emphatically at them to leave him alone and after a moment of two of concentrated breathing Accalon carefully peels the extremely hot armor from his body.

Feeling slightly better Accalon quickly starts to back orders to the flow of girls, “Soak some blankets in water and bring them dripping wet to us!”

Seeing that Modrin has the room under as much control as can be Accalon heads to the next room, the room that shared the wall that was so engulfed in fire. He feels for heat and listens at the door before he decides rather to open it.

OOC: It the door isn’t to hot he’ll open it and proceed in, if there is a fire then I’m not sure what he will do let. If there is no fire in the room Accalon’s goals will be to move anything flammable from the shared wall, or stuff close to it.

He’ll do this until the water/sand starts to show up to fight the fire, at which point he have a few of the girls do it, and the room on the other side of the room on fire, if there is no chance of them being seriously hurt. (aka no fire or source of thick smoke.)
 

Telsar said:
The next morning in the forest, Lydia and Sunedilar leave to meet with Aligor, leaving Gwyn and Alev dozing in their tent, and Alicia relatively alone and bored.

Just a few minutes after her two companions have left, Alicia thinks she hears something above her. Looking up, she sees a short, very hairy figure standing on a tree limb about thirty feet up. As Alicia looks at it, it speaks saying “Damn it, your ears are apparently way too big. So you can kill any dwarf, can you?” The voice is scraggly but somewhat soft, apparently a female, and focusing on it, Alicia thinks it could be a very hairy female dwarf. “That’s not very nice. Especially since your camped in my forest. But I’ll still be a gracious host.” She reaches into the mass of wild hair that seems to run from head to toe, and pulls out a bright red apple. She drops it down at Alicia’s feet and says “Here, you look hungry” It’s absolutely impossible to gauge facial expression on the dwarf at this distance, and with all that hair.

Alicia picks up the apple and looks at it sceptically, turning it around in one of her large hands. "I like meat," she says, looking up at the dwarf and smiling a toothy grin. "But I don't like climbing. Why not you join me by the fire? Come, little dwarf-woman, and I be nice. If you are nice I not kill you."


ooc: She hasn't yet decided wether or not she'll attack the dwarf, considering her wounded state she'll probably only attack if she's angered or if she perceives an obvious weakness. She may just as well decide that she's just met her new best friend. (re. a possible bluff-roll)
 

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