** Part I: Fire and Ash **

[spike]

Giant Ghar: eating (guardsman #2)

Black Guard Officer: : look in my left boot, and in my right boot-heel he said calmly, almost smugly.

He said 'I have a list of sleeper agents working throughout Harby, and the location of a secret base on the outskirts of town. It's where we take special prisoners for interrogation, but really most of them end up being taken to the bone citadel for experimentation by our magic-users' he smirked in a self congradulatory smugness, 'i can also tell you a bit about Draxcon, since the files have some connection to those fell ruins. There is a pair of swords there your late father left for you to find. I know this because I have sought these blades myself, though they've eluded me. One is called 'Ebonblade' and the other 'blueblade', forged out of raw adamantium on an arcane smith's forge. Why he left such a magnificent heirloom to the likes of you two worthless brats is beyond me, but I have it on good authority they lie on the second level beneath Draxcon, a place few have actually made it to successfully'

[Chris1234]

"Go on. You're higher up the ladder, so I expect more from you," responds Karlane, who then looks to her brother to take over the questioning..

{OOC: @Tristen - I've played it that this was while we were in the boat. I pushed it in retrospectively as we'd sortof otherwise zoomed past it. Sorry if it's confusing, but the opportunity to question them just couldn't be missed.}

[spike]

The black guard laughed at Karlene, 'I just revealed a list of black imperials working in secret throughout this insignificant hamlet, a location, names, AND two possible weapons your foolish father left for you, which few others know of. I even outlined the possible whereabouts of said items and traps, wards, and guardians throughout and THAT is insufficient? Do not be so quick to judge until you've analyzed what's been given with a more discerning critical eye, girl!"

He suddenly looked crestfallen, 'I knew I was in close proximity to one of the blades, it spoke to me when I was near it. I was a young Lieutenant Commander then, could feel its power while my men were busy fending off a group of orcs. The sword has a strong personality, I could feel it trying to dominate me, yet I wanted that, somehow. If my squad was not pressed, and those blasted orcs hadn't any poison weapons I might have finally found them. Imagine, such weaponry is nearly extinct now! And it was just within my grasp!'

The party has two options to enter into Harby undetected:

get smuggled in via the river pilot's suggestion (basically enter into very largish crates and be transported to either 1 of 4 Inn's in the hamlet.

kill the magic-user informant watching out for you from the tower.

[Chris1234]

Karlene schecks for traps and then extracts the things the officer referred to and examines them.
{OOC: What was found on the Guard #2?}

***
Happy to go with consensus but prefer Plan A (largish crates).
Assumes we've one way or another allwe the reaming guard & officer off the boat somewhere previously.

[TristenC]

[Would going in wearing a disguise be an option for Idrys? he'd rather that thsn be in a crate. He could keep watch for betrayal from the outside while the others are thusly conveyed.]

[spike]

absolutely.

you could prob knock out or kill the mage while party hides then when the coast is clear walk into town.

[spike]

MAP KEY TO HARBY

1. Docks (Snake River)
1A: Harbormaster
2. Harby Fighter's school (swordsmanship + archery)
3.Sweet Succubus bordello (upscale whorehouse)
4. Copper Dragon Inn
5. Temple of Wrath (CG, Greater God of Swords + Storms)
6. Sylph's spice shoppe (spice merchant)
7. Arcane's Arcana (magic shoppe)
8. Theater des vampires
9. Jail, medium size
10. Harbor
11. Watch tower (garrison fortress, large tower fortress with 4 heavy billistae and catapult)
12. Toy maker
13. Gildath's brewery
14. Haunted House
15. Fish monger
16. Vulgar Unicorn inn
17. Bellydancer Tavern
18. poets battleground park
20, Medusae's (nightclub)
21. House of Healing (spa)
22. Tenement
23. Dargon's arms (weaponmaker)
24. granary
25. Harby house of coin (bank)
26. Blood Raven's mercenary guild
26. tanner
27. Sea Serpent Inn
28. Mansion
29. knight's shrine
30. water mill
31. Shrine of Lor

[spike]

Karlene:

From officer:
several documents, a map, the documents appear to be encrypted with some type of cypher and is written in invisible ink.

Guardsman #2: pouch of 3 gp, 25 silver., dagger, boot dagger, cloak, black chainmail

NEW: (vs. INT: 3 succeeded) while searching the officer and looking for traps, and patting him down you noticed he was deliberately trying to hide his left hand. When you yank his hand to examine it you see a ring made of glass, with a flame burning within the glass (now looking closer appears to be glassteel.) The ring has two runes engraved on its surface.

[Chris1234]

{OOC1: @Spike I think you're answered this already, but I can't see the post and have to go out shorty for tabletop RP, but what was found on guardsman #1?}

At Harby:
"If we kill or interfere with the mage it probably announces we're here and might hasten any hew & cry. Better if we can enter the town undetected; probably gives us longer to serach for what we're looking for. I think some of us in the crate and possibly some enter wearing the two sets of blackcloak uniforms. What do you think?" suggests Karlene.
{OOC2: @PCs: I haven't had enough time this week to get my head round all the info and stuff Spike's presented to us, i.e. haven't got a grip on it yet to be able to join up the dots. Hope to be able to do that this weekend. The two blackcloak uniforms referred to in Karlene's above comment we've got in my head but haven't played that out yet, but am still doing the retrospective back fill on the interrogations, see below.}

{OOC3: @Spike: Please, please don't take this the wrong way - my personal view - you generate some excellent scenes, rather superior in many respects, but often the scenes seem to move to another scene too quickly for them to be fully explored/interacted with. Might be less stressful (for me anyway) and even more satisfying if you slow the pace a bit. Maybe only advance group posts on Mon/Wed/Thurs, (unless everyone's already posted in which case fine to advance.) As a thought NPC to single PC conversation could perhaps be handled in "char sheet" folders and 'post at will'?}
{OOC3: @Players: Am I alone in my thoughts (offered to Spike above)? If I'm out of line, please tell me politely and I'll shut up.}

Retrofit interrogation on boat, i.e. prior to Harby:
Karlane examines the documents & map and tries to get a sense of the cypher. Does Karlene recognise anything about the ring or it's runes? {OOC4: possibly relevant - Demonology (18), Obscure Knowledge (16), Photographic Memory (18), Spellcraft (16)}
To black cloak officer, "Holding out on me, hmm? Ok. Remove your uniform and boots and I'm done with you. You too, guardsman."
If they comply, we collect their kit and stow it as possible future disguise.
If they don't comply, then it's done by force. Up to the party whether it's by subdual or a mace to the back of the head, but no pointy/slashy weapons as we don't want blood on the uniforms.
If & when the two prisoners are stood in their stockinged feet & underwear, Karlane adds, "I've given my word, these two are safe from me. Any futher questions for them, Idyys? Delilah? Ash? Anyone?"
{OOC5: I think one more round of posts should allow us to close out the prisoner questioning retrofit scene}

[spike]

Okay Duelly noted on pace.

Guard 1: dirk, longswords, mace, pouch 3gp, a tny black leather bound journal.

The two guardsmen saunter away, freed. They run fast into town and disappear.


The ring runes: first rune is Dethek for power (dwarven) and second is elf for fire+Arrow

obscure knowledge: (4: succeeded)

you recall such a ring in some obscure books, particularly 'Rings of the Elder Highlords' about a ring once forged by a Dwarf and Elf who once fell in love aeons ago during the age of kings. You do not recall any more regarding properties or dweomers, only the story behind its creation.

Idrys, Delilah, and Karlene are disguised as black guardsmen, Ash as well. The rest are in cargo crates.

Some burly bearded men board, say 'Well if it aint captain Smock, the hardest working river man in Nyr. We'll grab the shipments sure your cargo hold is heavily laden!'

The pilot smiled, 'Henry, you'd better not touch a drip of that brandy, don't want to be blamed if you get the shit kicked out of you again. You know your boss doesn't like backsliding boozers!'

The disguised clamber aboard the pier and are halted by two soldiers, one which says in a nice calm tone 'with me, the mage wishes to speak with you'

You're escorted by two of the hamlet guard up a spiraling staircase to a door on the third floor of the harbor's watch-tower, and shown into a spacious chamber serving as an office ready room. There, seated at a desk was a mage in azure blue arcane robes. His face was definitely human and contorted into a permanent sneer, as if angry at all the world and his eyes spoke of cunning and paranoia, secrecy, and lust for power.

Magic-user: "So, what news? Hadn't anticipated you returning so quickly. No sign of them, yet. My familiar is scouring the area keeping vigil, if they come this way I'll find them. An impressive force, pair of Dhampir assassins, an Elven archer, Dwemer warrior, clearly skilled by what I've gathered. They managed to give your auxilaries the slip out of that disgusting bog village. Always knew those bog folk were too rebellious for their own good, they needed to be destroyed, learn a little humility' he poured several cups of brandy on his desk, 'I would be interested, commander if you would permit me an audience before you do whatever it is you wish with the dhampirs. I've never actually encountered any before in all my five years as an accomplished mage of no equal, it will help tremendously with my ongoing efforts.. Indeed, even keeping one as a pet would be of...considerable value to me. It's been many years since I last came close to finding one. Call it a friendly gesture on your part, for tolerating your presence in my fair little hamlet. Meanwhile you and the rest of your black clad brutes can continue enjoying the current freedoms that you now have in Harby"

[Chris1234]

Retrofit interrogation on boat, i.e. prior to Harby:
{OOC1: @Spike- Think you jumped the gun in releasing the prisoners at Harby as they were still in the process of being retro-questioned on the way to Harby. I did say that we'd (ok me) want 1 more round of posts... As no one else in the party has indicated that they want to question the prisoners, Karlane had one more card to play (which for plot reasons you may choose to make this an automatic success for the save, but she'd still try as follows..}

After a short pause for anyone to take up the questioning, Karlane turns away from the prisoners and stealth casts Charm Person on the officer, then asking, "It would be really helpful if you could tell me the cypher and how it works.."
If the officer comes across with the answer, "Ok, thanks. We'll let you off here. Unless anyone feels strongly otherwise? It'll give us a head start on what we want to do."
If the officer does not come across with the answer, "Ok, never mind. Idrys, I may not now harm these guys. What do you choose to do with them?"

{OOC2: End of questioning retrofit so far as I'm concerned.}

***

[spike]

The officer is now charmed.

He says 'I don't know, we receive coded orders and then a key to unlock them usually follows, but hadn't gotten one strangely. The spies courier may have been compromised"

[TristenC]

Idrys runs his invisible longsword through the man's back assassination style. Thanks for all your cooperation. he says, flaly. He cleans his blade on the dead man and rolls him into the water to feed the fish.

[Ooc: was planning on killing him, not releasing him anyway b/c of the way he threatened Idrys sister. This jumping around is really confusing.]

[Nocturno]

Delilah doesn't really have a stomach for torture. She watches the scenery on the otherside of the river.
(Will post more on the town stuff when I read through it again)

[spike]

Idrys slips his sword into the man's back and dumps him overboard.

save vs. spell: 2 failure. You're now nuetral evil.

The other guardsman prisoner shoulder butts Idrys hard, knocking the Dhampir off his feet and leaps overboard headlong, taking his chances in the water than suffer the same fate as the officer.

Kessa departs, giving Idrys a cross look then sauntering away in a look of disapproval, 'I'm going to leave town after tonight, it's been good knowing you folk, but it's become far too perilous over some silly papers we do not know even the inherent worth. I'll be at the Copper Dragon Inn if you need me. Dwarf come have a drink before we part ways if you would'

Now, the party disguised is in the magic-user's office within the watch tower.