RPG Recap: Alar, 2011-12-10
Year 28 of the 7th Imperator, 3rd of Declarations.
After their failure to recover the stolen truncheon of Carus the Spiteful, the gang was back to menial jobs: standing around looking tough, protecting or tailing messengers, and other entirely unadventurous stuff. He paid half the fee, but not gladly. With Carus’ bitter complaints slowly spreading, and the party’s reputation slowly sinking, their chances of breaking into better jobs seemed slim.
Their luck seemed like it might be changing, though with the arrival of Aranaius, a priest of Lanas somewhat advanced in years and anxiety. He needed to find someone outside the “usual channels” available to him to help retrieve a lost artifact that belonged with the temple and would soon turn up missing. He explained that he’d briefly entrusted it to Mariava, a reputable antiquarian who was interested in the piece. (The artifact itself is an obsidian replica of the great statue of Lanas the Foresighted.) He said too many questions would be raised if the temple or magistrates were brought into this, and that he could pay 180sp plus reasonable expenses for the item’s return.
The deal was made, and the gang headed to the north shore and Mariava’s shop, where he and a few clerks were at work. Redorus stood in the door while Ayla and Calliope went in to negotiate the return of the figurine. Meanwhile, Ignatius waited nearby in the street.
Mariava was not receptive to demands that the figurine be returned. He said it had been pawned and subsequently sold, and that Aranaius therefore had no claim on it. When Ayla suggested that declining to return the item might lead to trouble, Mariava made it clear that he was not afraid, and that perhaps Ayla should be more afraid of him than he of her. He said that if they gave up the job right now, he’d be willing to throw some work their way in the future. Eventually, she left empty-handed.
During this conversation, Calliope left and circled behind the building to scout for a rear entrance. She found one, guarded by a sort of scrawny-looking slave. He seemed clearly feeble-minded, but couldn’t quite be convinced to leave his post. He was very intent on staying at the door, eventually declaring he’d better go ask his master what was going on. When he turned to enter the building, Calliope struck him several times with her staff, but the slave (Beechus) took the blows easily and just glowered. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
Calliope got out while the getting was good.
When the gang regrouped out front, they decided to make a second go at Beechus – all but Ignatius, who continued to wait outside, waiting for Mariava to leave. (It was coming up on closing time.)
Back in the alley, Redorus charged Beechus while Calliope took shots at him from yards away. Beechus took the punishment. He staggered and bent, but never seemed likely to go down, and when he retaliated against Redorus, it was brutal: he took two vicious bites into Redorus’s arms, each of which caused terrible and unnatural pain. Calliope kept up the attack while Ayla pulled Redorus out of the alley, but with her aim shaking and Beechus looking generally unphased, she fled, too. As she left, Beechus was sitting back down on his chair and sopping the blood from his mouth with a handkerchief.
Ayla and Calliope arranged Redorus’ cloak to cover his wounds and hauled him through the streets to the temple, where Tilton was tracked down and put to work calling upon the gods to heal Redorus. With Redorus back on his feet, everyone headed for the tavern – save Tilton, who headed right back to work, and Ignatius, who had begun tailing Mariava home.
Mariava’s place was a bit nicer than his neighbors’, but not by great lengths. Outside, a slave sat watch over the door. When Ignatius tried to chat with him and gather some information about Mariava, the slave seemed somewhat thick, and Ignatius gave up. He waited another hour, and was about to give up and head home when Mariava and his assistant emerged, headed south. Ignatius, seen, introduced himself to Mariava and said he was looking for work. Mariava said someone would be in touch.
Someone was in touch, and told Ignatius to show up for work the next day. He did, and was put to work sitting around the Forum of the Mad, waiting for the arrival of a speaker who someone wanted silenced. Rather than go through with an attack on the man, Ignatius took him aside and warned him of the attack and said he’d like to talk to him privately. The man hesitantly agreed to meet with the party that night and left peacefully.
That’s where we left things. Unfortunately, I didn’t save my little list of likely pending action items, but that’s okay, because I remember the meat of it:
- meet with the speaker
- consider casing Mariava’s house for a break-in